science' sake, but of some few a double portion remains the peculiar possession. "Such souls Whose sudden visitations daze the world, Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind A voice that in the distance far away Wakens the slumbering ages." From this point of view, the old opposition between the so-called sacred and the secular is not only hurtful but impossible. The two spheres overlap, or the one is complementary to the other. The recognition that everyday existence possesses a depth usually associated with religion, and that spiritual life has a usefulness reserved, as some are apt to suppose, for profession or occupation, is sure to lend added significance to individual effort. When, in some such way, the secular is transformed by the sacred, when the finer perceptions are permitted to qualify the grosser continually, and not at stated times only, then the growing identification of creed with conduct is an undeniable benefit. Sometimes, however, this higher aspect seems to be forgotten; and of late years a false direction has on several occasions been given to the doctrine of spiritual continuity. It is not impossible to find a reputation for liberality in questions of faith based on a species of special pleading. Ingenious parallels between Greek and barbarian, striking coincidences in the lives of great teachers, learned disquisitions on Christianity before Christ, and the like, serve to invest their inventors or authors with a superiority based on their presumed freedom from dogmatic prejudice. Now it is possible to be wholly in sympathy with those who desire to see in all religion a uniform manifestation of the higher life, and in all sincere searching after God a pathetic confession of finitude that cannot be too tenderly treated, and at the same time to pervert their views by an undue identification of ideas or individuals seemingly alike. The truth that natura non facit saltus has, as its reverse side, the fact that nature never stands still. The life of the Greek protomartyr invites compassion, misleading in its completeness, with that of Christ. Yet there is no immediate connection between the two. History and the ascertained course of religious development are arrayed against the parallelism. Nevertheless, some who take their stand upon these very principles-who well know how to use the historical and comparative methods-are prone to forget that a due sense of perspective is the one faculty with which their favourite study is unable to dispense. Wherein do we detract from the sublimity of Socrates' life and death when we say that he only originated, or perhaps only gave new direction to a growth which more than four centuries of half-hidden progress, and the influence of several civilisations, were at length to make perfect in weakness? There is little essential similarity between Socrates and Christ, for the simple reason that the work which was given them to do has value in that it was different for each. It need hardly be said that one by no means intends to dispute the many literary and other references to the likeness between Socrates and Christ. When, for example, Justin Martyr claims inspiration for Socrates, and almost classes him as a Christian;1 when Shelley calls him "the Jesus Christ of Greece"; when, in the preface to Lamartine's 'La Mort de Socrate,' it 1 Cf. Apol., ii. 8, 12, 13. is written, “Il avait combattu toute sa vie cet empire des sens que le Christ venait renverser; sa philosophie était toute religieuse;" when Hugo exclaims— "Dieu que cherchait Socrate, et que Jésus trouva," or cries "Oui, c'est un prêtre que Socrate !" no one need question the appropriateness of the parallel. Nor, again, is it possible to complain when Professor Mayor1 and Mr Benn, following Schleiermacher,—who speaks of "the too prosaic Xenophon, and the idealising Plato," write that "there is, curiously enough, much the same inner discrepancy between Xenophon's 'Memorabilia' and those Platonic dialogues where Socrates is the principal spokesman, as that which distinguishes the Synoptic from the Johannine Gospels."2 Rhetorical licence and legitimate illustration lend little aid in the creation of illegitimate identities. But another and widely different kind of comparison merits attention, even if it do not excite immediate opposition. In the introduction to his large work on 'Le Christianisme et ses Origines,' M. Ernest Havet, writing of the general relation between Greek philosophy and Christianity, makes the following remarkable statement: J'étudie le Christianisme dans ses origines, non pas seulement dans ses origines immédiates, c'està-dire la prédication de celui qu'on nomme le Christ et de ses apôtres, mais dans ses sources premières et plus profondes, celles de l'antiquité hellénique, dont il est sorti presque tout entier;"3 and again, "C'est précisé 1 Cf. Sketch of Ancient Philosophy, pp. 31, 32. 2 The Greek Philosophers, A. W. Benn, vol. i. pp. 110, 111. " 1 ment ce que je me propose d'établir, que le Christianisme est beaucoup plus hellénique qu'il n'est juif.” Further, coming now more particularly to the connection between Socrates and Christ, another author has committed himself to a somewhat extreme opinion. "The Christian movement was, in many respects, analogous to the philosophic movement begun with Socrates. Ideal righteousness, the search for divine perfection, the endeavour to be as good and wise as possible,' these were the true and only means of escape,' or salvation contemplated both by Socrates and Jesus. To the truths already uttered in the Athenian prison, Christianity added little or nothing, except a few symbols, which, though perhaps well calculated for popular acceptance, are more likely to perplex than to instruct, and offer the best opportunity for priestly mystification."2 Comparisons of this sort are doubtless instituted sincerely in the name of scientific inquiry. Yet, although they have an element of truth, they are in many ways misleading. For, having assumed the fact of development in religion, their authors proceed to forget its chief characteristic. In religious as in other progress, growth is from the less to the greater, from the half to the whole truth. Christianity is a historical religion in the strictest sense only because, as Novalis said, "the spirit leads an eternal self-demonstration." It may possibly be profitable to consider some of the phases of this "self-demonstration " now in question. 1 Vol. I., Introduction, p. vi. (The italics are mine.) 2 The Rise and Progress of Christianity, R. W. Mackay, pp. 19, 20. (The italics are mine.) 3 Cf. Bruno Bauer's 'Christus und die Cæsaren,' see below, p. 204, n. 2. 4 I willingly acknowledge the value of M. Havet's work as a study of Greek monotheism. At the outset, it must be admitted with F. C. Baur that "the well-known parallel drawn by so many writers between Socrates and Christ . . . is certainly not without justice."1 Yet, as we hope to see in the sequel, for the very reason that "Christianity closes a movement which arose upon the soil of pagan religion and philosophy, and the seed of which was sown by Socrates," that " each of the principal forms assumed by Greek philosophy during this interval must have been a step in the preparation for Christianity," the comparison is, in what may fairly be termed essentials, of external interest only. It is easy to show that the life of Socrates, like that of Christ, was remarkable for its consistency. Neither the one nor the other found a kingdom in this world; gain and loss were not meted out to them in terms of drachma or shekel, notwithstanding the mina of silver and the reward of Judas. We know, again, that the personality of each was endowed with a wonderful magnetic charm, a faculty of drawing men to it.、 Both were inspired, not only in their ability to rise superior to their age, but because they were quite conscious of this power. An unseen spiritual force,—the Dæmon of Socrates, the Father in heaven of Christ,ruled them alike. Both were faithful unto death that they might in no wise deviate from their obedience to this strange self-consciousness. For this reason, if for none other, "Christians deem it no irreverence to compare" Socrates "with the Founder of their religion." Continuing the parallel, one might further show that the aims of both were not unlike. Socrates continually insisted upon man's ignorance of himself, and pled for 1 Church History of the First Three Centuries, vol. i. pp. 11, 12. 2 Ibid., p. 12. |