Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

62 STOICISM.and knew far better than ourselves the needs to whichHe would minister in His own time. But the religiousconvictions of the people, however erring and onesidedin details, were too important to be lightlydealt with, for on them depended much of the respectfor law and order, and the most familiar sanctions ofmorality.Attempts were made, therefore, to reconcile thepopular and the philosophic creed. The Zeus of theGreek Pantheon was identified with the all-pervadingspirit of Divinity, of which the minds of men wereonly partial moods or emanations, and as such thereforesupernatural (^at'/xovec) ;while the universe contained,perhaps, still higher forms, on which thebounded fancy of the masses rested without mountingto their common source.As for the strange myths in the people's Bible, thefanciful descriptions of the poets, these were, perhaps,only the sensuous disguises of a picture language inwhich the thoughts of manhood had been bodiedforth for childish fancy there were; surely deepertruths below, though the symbols might seem coarseor grotesque, and a little patient study might ascertaintheir hidden meaning. By the method of allegoricalinterpretation the Stoics were enabled to explainthe follies or indecencies that shocked theirmoral sense in the old religious creed, and find belowthem a substratum of physical and spiritual truthsuch as could content the intellectual aspirations oftheir age.in ingenious ways, butIt was a method largely used by them andthey were not long allowed to