JUSTIN. God cannot be seen with the eye, but only comprehended by the
mind.
STRANGER. Has our mind, then, such and so great a power as to perceive
that which is not perceptible through the senses? Or can man’s mind
ever see God unless it is adorned with the holy spirit?
JUSTIN. To whom can, then, one apply for teaching, if there is no truth
in Plato and Pythagoras?
STRANGER. There have been men of old, older than any of these reputed
philosophers, saintly men and just, beloved of God, who spoke through
the divine spirit and predicted the things that were to be. These men
are called Prophets. They alone saw the truth and declared it unto men;
neither favouring nor fearing any one; not slaves to ambition; but only
speaking the things which they heard and saw when filled with holy
spirit. Their works are still extant, and the lover of wisdom may find
therein all about the beginning and end of things, and every thing that
he need know. They had not recourse to proof, for they were above all
proof, trustworthy witnesses of the truth. Pray thou above all things
that the gates of the light may be opened unto thee.[5]
This diversity of view reveals itself in every phase of Hebrew and
Hellenic life--political, social, religious and artistic. The Greeks
very early outgrew the primitive reverence for the tribal chief--the
belief that he derived his authority from Heaven, and that he was, on
that account, entitled to unlimited obedience on the part of man. Even
in the oldest form of the Greek state known to us--the Homeric--the
king, though wielding a sceptre “given unto him by Zeus,” is in
practice, if not in theory, controlled by the wisdom of a senate and by
the will of the people. Monarchy gradually developed into oligarchy,
and this gave way to democracy. Nor was the evolution effected until
the sacerdotal character, which formed one of the king’s principal
claims to reverence and obedience, lost its influence over the Greek
mind. In historic times the impersonal authority of human law stood
alone and paramount, quite distinct from any religious duty, which
was a matter of unwritten tradition and custom. The divorce of the
Church from the State in Greece was complete. Now, among the Jews the
opposite thing happened. Kingship remained hereditary and indissolubly
associated with sacerdotalism. The Semite could not, any more than
the Mongol, conceive of a separation between the spiritual and the
temporal Government. The King of Israel in the older days always was
of the house of David, always anointed, and always wore the double
crown of princely and priestly authority. And when, after the return
from Babylon, the house of David disappears from sight, its power
is bequeathed to the hereditary high-priest. To the Jew Church and
State, religion and morality, continued to be synonymous terms; the
distinction between the sacred and the secular sides of life was
never recognised; all law, political and social, emanated from one
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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