The Legacy of Greece: Essays By: Gilbert Murray, W. R. Inge, J. Burnet, Sir T. L. Heath, D'arcy W. Thompson, Charles Singer, R. W. Livingston, A. Toynbee, A. E. Zimmern, Percy Gardner, Sir Reginald Blomfield
Philosophy
The Legacy of Greece: Essays By: Gilbert Murray, W. R. Inge, J. Burnet, Sir T. L. Heath, D'arcy W. Thompson, Charles Singer, R. W. Livingston, A. Toynbee, A. E. Zimmern, Percy Gardner, Sir Reginald Blomfield
Greece -- Civilization
Does any one suppose that 'the table
of demons' which is contrasted with the 'table of the Lord' is the table
at which demons are eaten? Demons had no bodies, as we learn from the
ουκ ειμι δαιμονιον ασωματον {ouk eimi daimonion asômaton} of a
well-known passage in a New Testament manuscript.
Crude sacramentalism certainly came in later. Its parentage may be
traced, if we will, to those mystery-mongers whom Plato mentions with
disapproval. If Hellenism is the name of a way of thinking, this form of
religion is not healthy Hellenism; that it was held by many Hellenes
cannot be denied.
The biblical doctrine of the Fall of Man, which the Hebrews would never
have evolved for themselves, remained an otiose dogma in Jewish
religion. It was revivified in Christianity under Greek influence. Man,
as Empedocles and others had taught, was 'an exile and vagabond from
God'; his body was his tomb; he is clothed in 'an alien garment of
flesh'. He is in a fallen state and needs redemption. Hellenism had
become a religion of redemption; the empire was quite ready to accept
this part of Christian doctrine. The sin of Adam became the first scene
in the great drama of humanity, which led up to the Atonement. At the
same time the whole process was never mere history; its deepest meaning
was enacted in the life-story of each individual. Greek thought gave
this turn to dogmas which for a Jew would have been a flat historical
recital. In modern times the earlier scenes in the story, at any rate,
are looked upon as little more than the dramatization of the normal
experience of a human soul. But Greek thought, while it remained true to
type, never took sin so tragically as Christianity has done. The
struggle against evil has become sterner than it ever was for the
Greeks. It must, however, be remembered that the large majority of
professing Christians do not trouble themselves much about their sins,
and that the best of the Greeks were thoroughly in earnest in seeking to
amend their lives.
Redemption was brought to earth by a Redeemer who was both God and Man.
This again was in accordance with Greek ideas. The Mediator between God
and Man must be fully divine, since an intermediate Being would be in
touch with neither side. The victory of Athanasius was in no sense a
defeat for Hellenism. The only difficulty for a Greek thinker was that
an Incarnate God ought to be impassible. This was a puzzle only for
philosophers; popular religion saw no difficulty in a _Christus
patiens_. The doctrine of the Logos brought Christianity into direct
affinity with both Platonism and Stoicism, and the Second Person of the
Trinity was invested with the same attributes as the Nous of the
Neoplatonists. But the attempts to equate the Trinity with the three
divine hypostases of Plotinus was no more successful than the later
attempt of Hegel to set the Trinity in the framework of his philosophy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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