Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

478 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDto Sextus Empiricus two hundred years after theChristian era. One of its historians stamps it as"a collection of dissenters, small sects each with itsown following, each springing from a special individualas authority, each knowing itself to be onlone among many."63 It is therefore no wonderthat if Plato's grand conception of an immortalline of the living word thus came to nought, philosophyproved itself much more incapable of foundinga society impregnated with its " principles thanit had even been of constructing a coherent doctrinewhich should obtain general reception. Andto judge of the actual impotence of philosophy inthe century ending with the principate of Claudius,we must rest a moment on this second fact. Philosopherscalling themselves Platonic, Peripatetic,Sceptic, Stoic, Epicurean, or these in various mix-tures, were to be found at the various seats oflearning, Athens, Rhodes, Alexandria, for instance,or at Rome as the seat of empire, or travelling likewandering stars over her vast territory, but thesescattered, nebular, and disjoined luminaries shonewith a varying as well as a feeble light, which ratherconfused than satisfied human reason. Theywere utterly powerless to transfer their doctrineinto anv mi number of human hearts living O in accordancetherein. The only exception to this statementseems to prove its real truth. By far the mostunited of the sects was that of the Epicureans, who63 Grote, Plato, vol. i, p. 87.