ruling spirit of each was alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty _pride_ of the Stoic, the Epicurean abandonment to _pleasure_, placed them in direct antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen Christ to be "_the wisdom_ of God." [Footnote 382: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 61.] [Footnote 383: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi. vii.] [Footnote 384: Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 362.] [Footnote 385: Wheedon on "The Will," p. 352; also Butler's "Lectures," vol. ii. p. 252] If, however, we would justly appreciate the relation of pagan philosophy to Christian truth, we must note that, when Paul arrived in Athens, the age of Athenian glory had passed away. Not only had her national greatness waned, and her national spirit degenerated, but her intellectual power exhibited unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and weakness, and decay. If philosophy had borne any fruit, of course that fruit remained. If, in the palmy days of Athenian greatness, any field of human inquiry had been successfully explored; if human reason had achieved any conquests; if any thing true and good had been obtained, that must endure as an heir-loom for all coming time; and if those centuries of agonizing wrestlings with nature, and of ceaseless questioning of the human heart, had yielded no results, then, at least, the _lesson_ of their failure and defeat remained for the instruction of future generations. Either the problems they sought to solve were proved to be insoluble, or their methods of solution were found to be inadequate; for here the mightiest minds had grappled with the great problems of being and of destiny. Here vigorous intellects had struggled to pierce the darkness which hangs alike over the beginning and the end of human existence. Here profoundly earnest men had questioned nature, reason, antiquity, oracles, in the hope they might learn something of that invisible world of _real_ being which they instinctively felt must lie beneath the world of fleeting forms and ever-changing appearances. Here philosophy had directed her course towards every point in the compass of thought, and touched every _accessible_ point. The sun of human reason had reached its zenith, and illuminated every field that lay within the reach of human ken. And this sublime era of Greek philosophy is of inestimable value to us who live in Christian times, because _it is an exhaustive effort of human reason to solve the problem of being_, and in its history we have a record of the power and weakness of the human mind, at once on the grandest scale and in the fairest characters.[386] [Footnote 386: See article "Philosophy," in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible."] These preliminary considerations will have prepared the way for, and awakened in our minds a profound interest in, the inquiry--1st. What permanent _results_ has Greek philosophy bequeathed to the world? 2d. In what manner did Greek philosophy fulfill for Christianity a _propœdeutic_ office?