blutto said:
...well said...
...funny how the quote you were responding to referenced Augustine, who in my humble opinion, was the most destructive person in history, because in large part of the role he played in stifling philosophical debate within the broad movement which, under Augustine's leadership became the corporate entity known as the Catholic Church...( which became the great millstone around the neck of the Western philosophy for millenia)
Cheers
blutto
I think to get a grip on the historical background to this debate, the following is useful.
It was during the reign of Hadrian that Quadratus, a bishop of the Christians, sent the emperor a defense of his faith, for which he is thus considered the first of their apologists. Hadrian had made it a principle to maintain towards that sect the strictly equitable line of conduct which had been Trajan's in his better days: he had just reminded the provincial governers that the protection of the law extends to all citizens, and that defamers of Christians would be punished if they leveled accusations against that group without proof. But any tollerance shown to fanatics was immediately mistaken by them for sympathy for thier cause; though it is hardly imaginable that Quadratus was hoping to make a Christian of Hadrian, he assuredly strove to convince the emperor of the excellence of his doctrine, and to prove, above all, that it offered no harm to the State. Hadrian read his work, and was even enough interested to have Phlegon assemble some information about the life of the young prophet named Jesus who had founded the sect, but who died the victim of Jewish intolerance about a hundred years before. This young sage seems to have left behind him some teachings not unlike those of Orpheus, to whom at times his disciples compared him. In spite of Quadratus' singularly flat prose Hadrian could discern through it the appealing charm of virtues of simple folk, their kindness, their ingenuousness, and their devotion to each other. All of that strongly resembled the fraternities of slaves or poor citizens found almost everywhere in honor of the Roman gods in the crowed quarters of the cities of the empire. Within a world which remains, despite all our efforts, hard and indifferent to men's hopes and trials, these small societies of mutual aid offered the unfortunate a source of comfort and support.
But Hadrian was also aware, too, of certain dangers. Such glorification of virtues befitting children and slaves was made at the expense of more virile and more intellectual qualities; under that narrow, vapid innocence he could detect the fierce intransigence of the sectarian in presence of forms of life and thought which are above other men, and his voluntarily circumscribed vision. Hadrian no doubt speedily tired of Quadratus' captious arguments, and of those scraps of wisdom ineptly borrowed from the writings of the pagan philosophers. Chabrias, ever preoccupied to offer the gods the worship due them, was disturbed by the progress of sects of this kind among the people of large cities; he feared for the welfare of the Romans’ ancient religions, which yoked men to no dogma whatsoever, but to the contrary lent themselves to interpretations as varied as nature itself; they allowed austere spirits who wished to do so invent for themselves a higher morality, but they did not bind the masses to precepts so strict as to engender immediate constraint and hypocrisy. Arrian shared these views. It is possible that the two even encountered one and other to plausibly discuss the injunction which consists of loving another as one's self; it is too foreign to man's nature to be followed with sincerity by the average person, and it is not at all suited to the philosopher, who is little given to self-love.
Sources: Eusebius of Caesarea's
Chronicle, the
Historiae Augustae, Photios'
Myriobiblon and the
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, from which the following philosophical quotes have come:
The first rule is, to keep an untroubled spirit; for all things must bow to Nature's law, and soon enough you must vanish into nothingness, like Hadrian and Augustus. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are, remembering that it is your duty to be a good man. Do without flinching what man's nature demands; say what seems to you most just--though with courtesy, modesty, and sincerity.
If the choice is yours, why do the thing? If another's, where are you to lay the blame for it? On gods? On atoms? Either would be insanity. All thoughts of blame are out of place. If you can, correct the offender; if not, correct the offence; if that too is impossible, what is the point of recriminations? Nothing is worth doing pointlessly.
Death robbed Lucilla of Verus and later claimed Lucilla too. Death took Maximus from Secunda, then Secunda herself; Diotimus from Epitynchanus, and Epitynchanus after him; Faustina from Antoninus, and Antoninus in his turn. So it is ever. Celer buries Hadrian, and is buried himself. Those noble minds of old, those men of prescience, those men of pride, where are they now? Keen wits like Charax, Demetrius the Platonist, Eudaemon, and others like them; all enduring but for a day, all now long since dead and gone; some forgotten as soon as dead, some passed into legend, some faded even out of legend itself. Bethink you then how either this complex body of your own must also one day be broken up in dispersion, or else the breath that animates it must be extinguished, or removed and translated elsewhere.
A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for. He was made to show goodwill to his kind, to rise above the promptings of his senses, to distinguish appearances from realities, and to pursue the study of universal Nature and her works.