The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire. Glover Terrot Reaveley

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a thousand years; they borrowed and adapted; but they were not Stoics. Stoicism had passed away as a system first and then as a religion; and for this we have to find some reason or reasons.

      It may well be true that the environment of the Stoics was not fit for so high and pure a philosophy. The broad gulf between the common Roman life and Stoic teaching is evident enough. The intellectual force of the Roman world moreover was ebbing, and Stoicism required more strength of mind and character than was easily to be found. That a religion or a philosophy fails to hold its own is not a sure sign that it is unfit or untrue; it may only be premature, and it may be held that at another stage of the world's history Stoicism or some similar scheme of thought, – or, better perhaps, some central idea round which a system and a life develop – may yet command the assent of better men in a better age. At the same time, it is clear that when Stoicism re-emerges, – if it does, – it will be another thing. Already we have seen in Wordsworth, and (so far as I understand him) in Hegel, a great informing conception which seems to have clear affinity with the Spermaticos Logos of the Stoics. The passage from the "Lines written above Tintern Abbey" (quoted in the previous chapter) may be supplemented by many from the "Prelude" and other poems to illustrate at once the likeness and the difference between the forms the thought has taken. It is, however, a certain condemnation of a philosophic school when we have to admit that, whatever its apprehension of truth, it failed to capture its own generation, either because of some error of presentment, or of some fundamental misconception. When we find, moreover, that there is not only a refusal of Stoicism but a reaction from it, conscious or unconscious, we are forced to inquire into the cause.

      The individual will

      We shall perhaps be right in saying, to begin with, that the doctrine of the Generative Reason, the Spermaticos Logos, is not carried far enough. The immense practical need, which the Stoic felt, of fortifying himself against the world, is not unintelligible, but it led him into error. He employed his doctrine of the Spermaticos Logos to give grandeur and sufficiency to the individual, and then, for practical purposes, cut him off from the world. He manned and provisioned the fortress, and then shut it off from supplies and from relief. It was a necessary thing to assert the value and dignity of the mere individual man against the despotisms, but to isolate the man from mankind and from the world of nature was a fatal mistake. Of course, the Stoic did not do this in theory, for he insisted on the polity of gods and men, the "one city,"[212] and the duty of the "citizen of the universe" (kósmios) – a man is not an independent object; like the foot in the body he is essentially a "part."[213] In practice, too, Stoics were human. Seneca tells us to show clemency but not to feel pity, but we may be sure that the human heart in him was far from observing the distinction – he "talked more boldly than he lived," he says – he was "among those whom grief conquered,"[214] and, though he goes on to show why he failed in this way, he is endeared to us by his failure to be his own ideal Stoic. Yet it remains that the chapters, with which his book on Clemency ends, are a Stoic protest against pity, and they can be re-inforced by a good deal in Epictetus. If your friend is unhappy, "remember that his unhappiness is his own fault, for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations."[215] Your friend has the remedy in his own hands; let him "purify his dogmata."[216] Epictetus would try to heal a friend's sorrow "but not by every means, for that would be to fight against God (theomacheîn)," and would involve daily and nightly punishment to himself[217] – and "no one is nearer me than myself."[218] In the Manual the same thought is accentuated. "Say to yourself 'It is the opinion about this thing that afflicts the man.' So far as words go, do not hesitate to show sympathy, and even, if it so happen, to lament with him. Take care, though, that you do not lament internally also (mè kaì ésôthen stenáxês)."[219] We have seen what he has to say of a lost child. In spite of all his fine words, the Stoic really knows of nothing between the individual and the cosmos, for his practical teaching deadens, if it does not kill, friendship and family love.

      Everything with the Stoic turns on the individual. tà epí soi, "the things in your own power," is the refrain of Epictetus' teaching. All is thrown upon the individual will, upon "the universal" working in the individual, according to Stoic theory, "upon me" the plain man would say. If the gods, as Seneca says, lend a hand to such as climb, the climber has to make his own way by temperance and fortitude. The "holy spirit within us" is after all hardly to be distinguished from conscience, intellect and will.[220] God, says Epictetus, ordains "if you wish good, get it from yourself."[221] Once the will (proaíresis) is right, all is achieved.[222] "You must exercise the will (thelêsai) – and the thing is done, it is set right; as on the other hand, only fall a nodding and the thing is lost. For from within (ésôthen) comes ruin, and from within comes help."[223] "What do you want with prayers?" asks Seneca, "make yourself happy."[224] The old Stoic paradox about the "folly" of mankind, and the worthlessness of the efforts of all save the sage, was by now chiefly remembered by their enemies.[225]

      All this is due to the Stoic glorification of reason, as the embodiment in man of the Spermaticos Logos. Though Nous with the Stoics is not the pure dry light of reason, they tended in practice to distinguish reason from the emotions or passions (páthê), in which they saw chiefly "perturbations," and they held up the ideal of freedom from them in consequence (apátheia).[226] To be godlike, a man had to suppress his affections just as he suppressed his own sensations of pain or hunger. Every human instinct of paternal or conjugal love, of friendship, of sympathy, of pity, was thus brought to the test of a Reason, which had two catch-words by which to try them – the "Universe" and "the things in your own power" – and the sentence was swift and summary enough. They did not realize that for most men – and probably it is truest of the best men – Life moves onward with all its tender and gracious instincts, while Analysis limps behind. The experiment of testing affection and instinct by reason has often been tried, and it succeeds only where the reason is willing to be a constitutional monarch, so to say, instead of the despot responsible only to the vague concept of the Universe, whom the Stoics wished to enthrone. They talked of living according to Nature, but they were a great deal too quick in deciding what was Nature. If the centuries have taught us anything, it is to give Nature more time, more study and more respect than even yet we do. There are words at the beginning of the thirteenth book of the "Prelude" wiser and truer than anything the Stoics had to say of her with their "excessive zeal" and their "quick turns of intellect." Carried away by their theories (none, we must remember as we criticize them, without some ground in experience and observation), the Stoics made solitude in the heart and called it peace. The price was too high; mankind would not pay it, and sought a religion elsewhere that had a place for a man's children.

      Sin and salvation

      Again, in their contempt for the passions the Stoics underestimated their strength. How strong the passions are, no man can guess for another, even if he can be sure how strong his own are. Perhaps the Stoics could subordinate their passions to their reason; – ancient critics kept sharp eyes on them and said they were not always successful.[227] But there is no question that for the mass of men, the Stoic account of reason is absurd. "I see another law in my members," said a contemporary of Seneca's, "warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity." Other men felt the same and sought deliverance in the sacraments of all the religions. That Salvation was not from within, was the testimony of every man who underwent the taurobolium. So far as such things can be, it is established by the witness of every religious mind that, whether the feeling is just or not the feeling is invincible that the will is inadequate and that religion begins

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