Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
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"<br />
"<br />
"<br />
An<br />
"<br />
The Delay <strong>of</strong> the Deity<br />
seems to have regarded both the soul <strong>and</strong> the body as eternal<br />
<strong>and</strong> uncreated, but the latter without form until it was united<br />
with the soul. Or we may put the case otherwise by saying<br />
that the soul, upon entering into a conscious existence, shapes<br />
the hitherto formless body into an abode for itself. He also<br />
holds that the soul consists <strong>of</strong> two parts: The one part seeks<br />
after truth <strong>and</strong> has an affection for the beautiful: the other<br />
subject to the passions <strong>and</strong> under the dominion <strong>of</strong> error.<br />
For which reason," the author here assumes that the words<br />
s0o$ <strong>and</strong> YjOos are from the same root. The former means, use<br />
<strong>and</strong> wont; the latter was originally applied! to the haunts or<br />
abodes <strong>of</strong> animals; then the manners, habits, <strong>and</strong> dispositions<br />
<strong>of</strong> men. Aristotle says, r<br />
t<br />
ff fjfl .xij ^ e0ou$ xeptybeTat,<br />
is<br />
oBev xa&gt;.<br />
T0ov<strong>of</strong>j.a ff%i)xe [itxpov -zfux/Jvov a/ro ron ijOous. (Ethical is<br />
from e0o?, for which reason the word differs but slightly from<br />
rjffos.) Plutarch himself says that custom is second nature.<br />
It is easy to trace the connection between a man s acts <strong>and</strong> the<br />
psychical forces, the character, that produces them.<br />
8. ill-omened deed." It was a prevalent belief in<br />
antiquity that misfortunes fell upon those who were concerned<br />
in disturbing a swallow s nest.<br />
10. Near the end. The Greeks ventured to consult oracles<br />
<strong>of</strong> the dead only on rare <strong>and</strong> extraodinary occasions. They<br />
probably borrowed the custom from the East.<br />
11. The story <strong>of</strong> Glaucus is told at length by Herodotus in<br />
the third book <strong>of</strong> his history <strong>and</strong> is <strong>of</strong>ten alluded toby later<br />
writers. The ethical import <strong>of</strong> the anecdote is far=reaching.<br />
17. Gardens <strong>of</strong> Adonis." Shakespeare probably had these<br />
in mind when he wrote (King Henry VI. Part 1, scene sixth):<br />
Thy promises are like Adonis gardens, That one day bloomed<br />
<strong>and</strong> fruitful were the next." At Taenarus, the most southern<br />
point <strong>of</strong> the Peloponnesus, there was believed to bean entrance<br />
to the lower world.<br />
22. "None more dreaded by his enemies." To return good<br />
for good <strong>and</strong> evil for evil was a fundamental article <strong>of</strong> Greek<br />
ethics. It is more than once alluded to in the Anabasis, <strong>and</strong> is<br />
found in nearly all Greek writers. Socrates, however, takes a<br />
firm st<strong>and</strong> against the principle <strong>and</strong> maintains that whatever<br />
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