All
the great heathen thinkers henceforth are theologians. In the times of
Nero, for instance, Epictetus the slave, the regenerator of Stoicism, is
no mere speculator concerning entities and quiddities, correct or
incorrect. He is a slave searching for the secret of freedom, and
finding that it consists in escaping not from a master, but from self:
not to wealth and power, but to Jove. He discovers that Jove is, in
some most mysterious, but most real sense, the Father of men; he learns
to look up to that Father as his guide and friend.
Numenius, again, in the second century, was a man who had evidently
studied Philo. He perceived so deeply, I may say so exaggeratedly, the
analogy between the Jewish and the Platonic assertions of an Absolute
and Eternal Being, side by side with the assertion of a Divine Teacher
of man, that he is said to have uttered the startling saying: "What is
Plato but Moses talking Attic?" Doubtless Plato is not that: but the
expression is remarkable, as showing the tendency of the age. He too
looks up to God with prayers for the guidance of his reason. He too
enters into speculation concerning God in His absoluteness, and in His
connection with the universe.
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