ch oppose themselves to man's pursuit or
attainment of that perfection of which Socrates talks so hopefully, and,
as from this point of view one might almost say, so glibly. It is all
very well to talk of getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things in
their reality, seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be done
when there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts?

This something is _sin_; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, as
compared with Hellenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle to
perfection fills the whole scene, and perfection appears remote and
rising away from earth, in the background. Under the name of sin, the
difficulties of knowing oneself and conquering oneself which impede
man's passage to perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, active
entity hostile to man, a mysterious power which I heard Dr. Pusey[450]
the other day, in one of his impressive sermons, compare to a hideous
hunchback seated on our shoulders, and which it is the main business of
our lives to hate and oppose. The discipline of the Old Testament may be
summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the
discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to
it. As Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly, seeing things in their
essence and beauty, as a grand and precious feat for man to achieve, so
Hebraism speaks of becoming conscious of sin, of awakening to a sense of
sin, as a feat of this kind. It is obvious to what wide divergence these
differing tendencies, actively followed, must lead. As one passes and
repasses from Hellenism to Hebraism, from Plato to St. Paul, one feels
inclined to rub one's eyes and ask oneself whether man is indeed a
gentle and simple being, showing the traces of a noble and divine
nature; or an unhappy chained captive, laboring with groanings that
cannot be uttered to free himself from the body of this death.

Apparently it was the Hellenic conception of human nature which was
unsound, for the world could not live by it. Absolutely to call it
unsound, however, is to fall into the common error of its Hebraizing
enemies; but it was unsound at that particular moment of man's
development, it was premature. The indispensable basis of conduct and
self-control, the platform upon which alone the perfection aimed at by
Greece can come into bloom, was not to be reached by our race so easily;
centuries of probation and discipline were needed to brin