CHAPTER II

THE PHILOSOPHIC MISSIONARY

Seneca the director of an aristocratic class—The masses needed a gospel—Their moral condition—The Antonine age produced a great movement for their moral elevation—Lucian’s attitude to the Cynics—His kindred with them—Detached view of human life and its vanity—Gloomy view of the moral state of the masses—The call for popular evangelism—Can philosophy furnish the gospel?—Lucian’s Hermotimus—The quarrels of the schools—Yet they show real agreement on the rule of life—The fashionable sophist—Rhetorical philosophy despised by more earnest minds—Serious preaching—The sermons of Apollonius of Tyana—Sudden conversions—The preaching of Musonius, Plutarch, and Maximus of Tyre—The mystic fervour of Maximus—Dion’s view of the Cynic preacher—The “mendicant monks of paganism”—Lucian’s caricature of their vices—Many vulgar impostors adopt the profession—It offered a tempting field—Why the charges against the Cynics must be taken with reserve—S. Augustine’s testimony—Causes of the prejudice against Cynicism—Lucian’s treatment of Peregrinus—The history of Peregrinus—The credibility of the charges which Lucian makes against him—He is about to immolate himself at Olympia when Lucian arrives—Lucian treats the self-martyrdom as a piece of theatrical display—Yet Peregrinus may have honestly desired to teach contempt for death—Stoic suicide—The scene at the pyre—The last words of Peregrinus—Lucian creates a myth and sees it grow—Testimony of A. Gellius as to Peregrinus—The power of the later Cynicism—The ideal Cynic in Epictetus—An ambassador of God—Kindred of Cynicism and Monasticism—Cultivated Cynics—The character of Demetrius, a leader of the philosophic opposition—Cynic attitude to popular religion—Oenomaus a pronounced rationalist—Disbelief in oracles—The character of Demonax—His great popular influence—Prosecuted for neglect of religious observances—His sharp sayings—Demonstrations of reverence for him at his death—The career of Dion Chrysostom—His conversion during his exile—Becomes a preacher with a mission to the Roman world—The character of his eighty orations—He is the rhetorical apostle of a few great truths—His idea of philosophy—His pessimism about the moral state of the world—A materialised civilisation—Warning to the people of Tarsus—Rebukes the feuds of the Bithynian cities—A sermon at Olbia on the Black Sea—The jealousies of the Asiatic towns—Prusa and Apamea—Sermon on civic harmony—He assails the vices and frivolity of the Alexandrians—His prose idyll—Simple pastoral life in Euboea—The problems and vices of city life exposed—Dion on true kingship—The vision of the Two Peaks—The ideal king—The sermon at Olympia inspired by the Zeus of Pheidias—Its majesty and benignity—Sources of the idea of God—The place of art in religion—Relative power of poetry and sculpture to express religious truth—Pheidias defends his anthropomorphism—His Zeus a God of mercy and peace

Pages 334-383

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