colourless sentiments of an Epictetus or a Seneca with the warm, positive precepts of the Pauline epistles to see how far short the Stoic ideal comes of the Christian conception of brotherhood and charity-the unity of a perfect man in Christ.

In this chapter we have considered the nature and contents of Paul's ideal, and have discussed some of its more important characteristics, comparing it briefly with the ideals of antiquity; and we have seen that the key to all that Paul taught is summed up in that word so often upon his lips év Xpioтw, "in Christ." That expression at once determines the content and scope of his ethic, giving to it its distinctiveness, its absoluteness, and its universality. No bolder hope was ever cherished by man than that of the possibility of raising every individual to such a height that he shall become a moral law unto himself. If we ask where did the apostle obtain this splendid conception of life, we can only answer he learned it in the school of Christ. The risen Lord, who appeared to him on the way, transfigured his life and made all things new. There is henceforth but one thing needful for him who has heard the Father's call; he must walk worthy of this God who has called him to His kingdom and to His glory.1

11 Thess. ii. 12.

CHAPTER V

THE DYNAMIC OF THE NEW LIFE

FROM the very earliest days of ethical speculation, the need of some "virtue making power" has been recognized. Naturally the conception of the "power" has varied with the character of the ideal, and with the more or less adequate sense of the resistance to be overcome. With Socrates, who may be regarded as the earliest of the Greek moralists, virtue and knowledge were simply the two sides of an equation. Vice is ignorance, although it may be culpable ignorance-" the lie in the soul." This is in essence only a part of that overestimate of knowledge which has persisted not only in philosophical but even in religious thought down to our own day. To Socrates it is simply unthinkable that evil is wrought by want of will. Let man but see the good and he will seek it inevitably. Morality is only a question of instruction. Socrates thus defined the moral idea according to a eudaemonistic standard, failing to distinguish theoretic knowledge and practical conviction which determines the will.

Plato's conception of the highest good exalts him above all previous workers in the realm of ethics, and embodies an ideal which not only shaped Greek philosophy but determined the character of all subsequent

moral enquiry. For it was he who first lifted his eyes to that world of ideas which exists beyond and above this evanescent earthly life, and declared the destiny of the soul to be deliverance from the prison-house of sense through union with the eternal. But Plato's republic was an aristocracy only, a valhalla of moral heroes. Virtue was spiritual aesthetics, the contemplation of the morally beautiful. And, like Socrates before him, Plato has no answer to the question, how shall he who is without natural aptitude for the morally beautiful attain to the beatific vision? Plato came to call the righteous not sinners to repentance. No place could be found in his ideal state for the morally unfit, for the spiritually blind. And while the uneducated herd were left wholly outside, even for the candidates of the virtuous life no adequate provision was made against disastrous surprise or fall. It was tacitly assumed that theory and practice were equivalent, and that the mere knowledge of virtue guaranteed the actual acquirement and retention of it.

Aristotle finds the highest good in the contemplative life lived in a perfect environment. To reach the goal & of right thinking and right willing, suitable gifts of nature, favourable surroundings and proper instruction are indispensable conditions. Virtue is not virtuous until it is a habit. The only way to be virtuous is to practise virtue, and happiness is but another name for the outflowing of energy in this great endeavour. Dealing, towards the close of the Nicomachean ethics, with the question, how shall men become good?, Aristotle can only make the disappointing suggestion that the state must compel them. For him, as for Plato, there is no real hope for the bad, since the very presupposition of the moral life is already existent virtue.

"1

The result of all this is that the ethics of Greece, noble and imposing as it is, simply hangs in the air. There is no real point of contact with life, no lifting power. It must not be inferred that the work done by ancient moralists was in all respects a failure. They were the pioneers of moral philosophy. They broke new ground. They estimated the value of motives. They deduced the demand for virtue from the nature of man. But where they came short was in failing to supply an inspiration to their age, in bringing to bear upon the wills of men no adequate motive-force. They stood aloof from human nature, and viewed it from the outside as an object of natural history." And as a consequence of this, speculative ethics expressed itself chiefly "in the construction of ideal figures." Plato's ideal state remained a theory only: it was never meant to be realized. Aristotle's virtuous man existed, and could only exist, in the mind of his creator. The ideal figure always transcended the range of ordinary conditions. The harmonious life demanded a favourable society as its background. Nor was the Stoic more successful in making his philosophy of life a thing of actuality. His aim was to keep himself independent of the sordid pursuits of the unenlightened and to occupy himself solely with theoretic aspirations. His conception of true manhood was the life according to reason which gave up the riddle of the world, and his idea of the "wise man," except as supplying a regulative principle for an individual here and there, was impracticable and unrealizable.2

Beautiful as these old-time ideals were, they lacked impelling force, the power to change conceptions into inspirations, dreams into realities. Aristotle put his finger upon the weak spot, not of Plato's system only, 2 Strong, p. 10.

1Strong, Christian Ethics, p. 7.

but of his own as well, indeed of all pre-Christian theories, when he pointed out that its deficiency lay in its narrow intellectualism. The old question which the "master" raised, but was himself unable successfully to meet, was left without an answer in Greek philosophyhow to realize the ideal, how to translate theory into practice, how, in a word, to make the unjust just and the foolish wise?

The problem which baffled Greek philosophy, it is the glory of Christianity to have solved. The Christian ethic was no mere theory of truth, or vision of the good;

"A dream for life too high.

A bird that hath no feet for earth."

The word was made flesh. The good was manifested in a life, and He who lived the life claimed to be not merely a moral teacher but a Creator, not only a pattern but a Power. "I am," He said, "the way, the truth, and the life." The first Christians were known as those belonging to the "way," and the practical character of Christianity was thus indicated. It was not merely a philosophic dream of perfection floating in the air or existing only in the imagination of a few visionaries. It was a new creative-force-a spirit given and received, to be worked out and realized in the actual life and conduct of common men and women.

It was in this manner that Paul regarded the moral life: it was a thing conditioned and dominated by a new spiritual force. It was a life inspired by and lived in Christ. This is what we have to consider in the present chapter. How did Paul conceive the Dynamic of the Ethical Life: and what in his view are the means of its realization ?

1 Acts ix. 2.