The New Gospel

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.&nbsp; Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">... had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been uttered.&nbsp; By now the sight of day and night, and the months and revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a conception of time; and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to mortal man.&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The lovers of knowledge … perceive that when philosophy first takes possession of the their soul it is entirely fastened and welded to the body and is compelled to regard realities through the body as through prison bars, not with its own unhindered vision, and is wallowing in utter ignorance.&nbsp; And philosophy sees that the most dreadful thing about the imprisonment is the fact that it is caused by the lusts of the flesh, so that the prisoner is the chief assistant in his own imprisonment.&nbsp; The lovers of knowledge, then, I say, perceive that philosophy, taking possession of the soul when it is in this state, encourages it gently and tries to set it free, pointing out that the eyes and the ears and the other senses are full of deceit, and urging it to withdraw from these, except in so far as their use is unavoidable, and exhorting it to collect and concentrate itself within itself, and to trust to nothing except itself and its own abstract thought of abstract existence …&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">But nothing is more delightful than to possess lofty sanctuaries serene, well fortified by the teachings of the wise, whence you may look down upon others and behold them all astray, wandering abroad and seeking the path of life [though not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy]: —the strife of wits, the fight for precedence, all laboring night and day with surpassing toil to mount upon the pinnacle of riches and to lay hold on power.&nbsp; O pitiable minds of men, O blind intelligences!&nbsp; In what gloom of life, in how great perils is passed all your poor span of time!&nbsp; not to see that all nature barks for is this, that pain be removed away out of the body, and that the mind, kept away from care and fear, enjoy a feeling of delight!</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Philosophy has lain neglected to this day, and </em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;"><strong>Latin literature</strong></em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;"> has thrown no light upon it: it must be illuminated and exalted by us … Now it is possible for an author to hold right views and yet be unable to express them in polished style; but to commit one’s reflections to writing, without being able to arrange or express them clearly or attract the reader by some sort of charm, indicates a man who makes an unpardonable misuse of leisure and his pen … For this reason, if by my assiduity I have won for our countrymen some measure or oratorical renown, I shall with far greater enthusiasm lay bare the springs of philosophy …&nbsp; But just as Aristotle, a man of supreme genius, knowledge and fertility of speech … began … to teach the young to speak and combine wisdom with eloquence, similarly it is my design not to lay aside my early devotion to the art of expression, but to employ it in this grander and more fruitful art …&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">So also we ... entered upon this life, and some were slaves of ambition, some of money; there were a special few who, counting all else as nothing, closely scanned the nature of things; these men gave themselves the names of lovers of wisdom (for that is the meaning of the word philosopher); and just as at the games the men of truest breeding looked on without any self-seeking, so in the life the contemplation and discovery of nature far surpassed all other pursuits.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">O philosophy, thou guide of life, o thou explorer of virtue and expeller of vice!&nbsp; Without thee what could have become not only of me but of the life of man altogether?&nbsp; Thou hast given to cities, thou hast called scattered human beings into the bond of social life, thou hast united them first of all in joint habitations, next in wedlock, then in the ties of common literature and speech, thou has discovered law, thou hast been the teacher of morality and order: to thee I fly for refuge, from thee I look for aid, to thee I entrust myself, at once in ample measure, so now wholly and entirely ... Whose help then are we to use rather than thine?&nbsp; Thou that hast freely granted us peacefulness of life and destroyed the dread of death.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Cease, therefore, forbidding to philosophers the possession of money; no one has condemned wisdom to poverty.&nbsp; The philosopher shall own ample wealth, but it will have been wrested from no man, nor will it be stained with another’s blood — wealth acquired without harm to any man, without base dealing, and the outlay of it will be not less honorable than was its acquisition; it will make no man groan except the spiteful.&nbsp; Pile up that wealth as high as you like.&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">For philosophy was a “schoolmaster” to bring the Greek mind to Christ, as the law brought the Hebrews.&nbsp; Thus philosophy was a preparation, paving the way towards perfection in Christ.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">But what then have philosopher and Christian in common — the disciple of Greece and the disciple of heaven — the business of the one with reputation, of the other with salvation … the man who corrupts the truth, and the man who restores it and proclaims it — the thief of truth and its guardian?&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">This, therefore, is the cause why we should prefer these [Platonists] to all others, because, whilst other philosophers have worn out their minds and powers in seeking the causes of things [Pre-Socratics, Aristotle?], and endeavoring to discover the right mode of learning and of living [Socrates?], these, by knowing God, have found where resides the cause by which the universe has been constituted, and the light by which the truth is to be discovered, and the fountain at which felicity is to be drunk.</em></p>