Glorious as was the wisdom of ancient thought, its knowledge respecting
the indwelling of the Spirit, the resurrection of the body, and the
forgiveness of sins, was but fragmentary and vague. Bishop Butler has
justly remarked that "The great doctrines of a future state, the dangers
of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance are not only
_confirmed_ in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with
a degree of light to which that of nature is darkness."

[Footnote 70: Xen. Mem. 1, iv. 14; Plato, Alcib. ii.]

The morality of Paganism was, on its own confession, _insufficient_. It
was tentative, where Christianity is authoritative: it was dim and
partial, where Christianity is bright and complete; it was inadequate to
rouse the sluggish carelessness of mankind, where Christianity came in
with an imperial and awakening power; it gives only a _rule_, where
Christianity supplies a _principle_. And even where its teachings were
absolutely coincident with those of Scripture, it failed to ratify them
with a sufficient sanction; it failed to announce them with the same
powerful and contagious ardour; it failed to furnish an absolutely
faultless and vivid example of their practice; it failed to inspire them
with an irresistible motive; it failed to support them with a powerful
comfort under the difficulties which were sure to be encountered in the
aim after a consistent and holy life.

The attempts of the Christian Fathers to show that the truths of ancient
philosophy were borrowed from Scripture are due in some cases to
ignorance and in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial
dealing. That Gideon (Jerubbaal) is identical with the priest
Hierombalos who supplied information to Sanchoniathon, the Berytian;
that Thales pieced together a philosophy from fragments of Jewish truth
learned in Phoenicia; that Pythagoras and Democritus availed themselves
of Hebraic traditions, collected during their travels; that Plato is a
mere "Atticising Moses;" that Aristotle picked up his ethical system
from a Jew whom he met in Asia; that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul:
are assertions every bit as unhistorical and false as that Homer was
thinking of Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as
Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle
of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say
that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel ligh