History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2)Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
Philosophy
History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2)
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
Ethics; Europe -- Moral conditions
of the generative or “seminal Logos,” which from the earliest times had
existed in the world, had inspired teachers like Socrates and Musonius,
who had been persecuted by the dæmons, and had received in Christianity
its final and perfect manifestation.(647) The same generous and expansive
appreciation may be traced in the writings of several later Fathers,
although the school was speedily disfigured by some grotesque
extravagances. Clement of Alexandria—a writer of wide sympathies,
considerable originality, very extensive learning, but of a feeble and
fantastic judgment—who immediately succeeded Justin Martyr, attributed all
the wisdom of antiquity to two sources. The first source was tradition;
for the angels, who had been fascinated by the antediluvian ladies, had
endeavoured to ingratiate themselves with their fair companions by giving
them an abstract of the metaphysical and other learning which was then
current in heaven, and the substance of these conversations, being
transmitted by tradition, supplied the Pagan philosophers with their
leading notions. The angels did not know everything, and therefore the
Greek philosophy was imperfect; but this event formed the first great
epoch in literary history. The second and most important source of Pagan
wisdom was the Old Testament,(648) the influence of which many of the
early Christians traced in every department of ancient wisdom. Plato had
borrowed from it all his philosophy, Homer the noblest conceptions of his
poetry, Demosthenes the finest touches of his eloquence. Even Miltiades
owed his military skill to an assiduous study of the Pentateuch, and the
ambuscade by which he won the battle of Marathon was imitated from the
strategy of Moses.(649) Pythagoras, moreover, had been himself a
circumcised Jew.(650) Plato had been instructed in Egypt by the prophet
Jeremiah. The god Serapis was no other than the patriarch Joseph, his
Egyptian name being manifestly derived from his great-grandmother
Sarah.(651)
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