It seems even some pagans realized that man's inclinations were not toward the good.
PROVERBS 16:32.—“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”"
This is indeed a wonderful temper to be attained by so ill-governed, so passionate, impulsive, and unbalanced a creature as man. It is no wonder that such a well-poised and symmetrical character as this floated as an unattainable ideal before the minds of the better pagan philosophers. This is the famous “temperance” which meets the scholar so continually in the writings of Plato and Aristotle—that golden mean between the extremes of passion and apathy which the philosopher strives to reach.
“Quietly reflecting”—says Plato—“on the madness and ungovernable passions of the multitude, and attending to his own affairs, like a man sheltered under a wall in a storm of dust and foam borne along on the wind, by which he sees all about him overwhelmed in disorder, such an one is content to pass his life free from violence and passion, and to effect his exit hence with good hopes, cheerful and serene.” This is his description of the moderation, the equanimity, the temperance of the philosophic mind.
But in other places this thoughtful pagan confesses that this golden mean is never reached here upon earth, either by the philosopher or the common man. He compares the soul to a pair of horses—one of them erect, finely formed, with high neck, aquiline nose, white-colored, black-eyed, a lover of honor and temperance and true glory, driven without the whip, by word of command and voice only; the other crooked, thick set, clumsily put together, with strong neck, short throat, flat face, black color, gray-eyed, addicted to insolence and swaggering, scarcely obedient to whip and spur together.
These two opposing creatures, according to him, represent the present condition of the human soul. There are aspirations that would lead it upward, but there are appetites that drag it downward. The white horse would pursue the path of honor and excellence; but the black horse draws away from the path, and plunges madly downward. And the black horse is the strongest. The appetite is too mighty for the resolution. There is an infinite aspiration, and an infinitesimal performance.
Such is the mournful confession of the greatest thinker outside of the pale of revelation; and if a Plato could discover and teach to future generations the corruption and helplessness of human nature, what shall we say of those teachers under the full light of revelation, who would have us believe that there is no corruption in man but such as can be eradicated by man himself, and who would dispense with the evangelical means and methods of healing and salvation."
William G. T. Shedd, Sermons to the Spiritual Man, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884), 23–24.
PROVERBS 16:32.—“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”"
This is indeed a wonderful temper to be attained by so ill-governed, so passionate, impulsive, and unbalanced a creature as man. It is no wonder that such a well-poised and symmetrical character as this floated as an unattainable ideal before the minds of the better pagan philosophers. This is the famous “temperance” which meets the scholar so continually in the writings of Plato and Aristotle—that golden mean between the extremes of passion and apathy which the philosopher strives to reach.
“Quietly reflecting”—says Plato—“on the madness and ungovernable passions of the multitude, and attending to his own affairs, like a man sheltered under a wall in a storm of dust and foam borne along on the wind, by which he sees all about him overwhelmed in disorder, such an one is content to pass his life free from violence and passion, and to effect his exit hence with good hopes, cheerful and serene.” This is his description of the moderation, the equanimity, the temperance of the philosophic mind.
But in other places this thoughtful pagan confesses that this golden mean is never reached here upon earth, either by the philosopher or the common man. He compares the soul to a pair of horses—one of them erect, finely formed, with high neck, aquiline nose, white-colored, black-eyed, a lover of honor and temperance and true glory, driven without the whip, by word of command and voice only; the other crooked, thick set, clumsily put together, with strong neck, short throat, flat face, black color, gray-eyed, addicted to insolence and swaggering, scarcely obedient to whip and spur together.
These two opposing creatures, according to him, represent the present condition of the human soul. There are aspirations that would lead it upward, but there are appetites that drag it downward. The white horse would pursue the path of honor and excellence; but the black horse draws away from the path, and plunges madly downward. And the black horse is the strongest. The appetite is too mighty for the resolution. There is an infinite aspiration, and an infinitesimal performance.
Such is the mournful confession of the greatest thinker outside of the pale of revelation; and if a Plato could discover and teach to future generations the corruption and helplessness of human nature, what shall we say of those teachers under the full light of revelation, who would have us believe that there is no corruption in man but such as can be eradicated by man himself, and who would dispense with the evangelical means and methods of healing and salvation."
William G. T. Shedd, Sermons to the Spiritual Man, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884), 23–24.
It seems even some pagans realized that man's inclinations were not toward the good.
PROVERBS 16:32.—“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”"
This is indeed a wonderful temper to be attained by so ill-governed, so passionate, impulsive, and unbalanced a creature as man. It is no wonder that such a well-poised and symmetrical character as this floated as an unattainable ideal before the minds of the better pagan philosophers. This is the famous “temperance” which meets the scholar so continually in the writings of Plato and Aristotle—that golden mean between the extremes of passion and apathy which the philosopher strives to reach.
“Quietly reflecting”—says Plato—“on the madness and ungovernable passions of the multitude, and attending to his own affairs, like a man sheltered under a wall in a storm of dust and foam borne along on the wind, by which he sees all about him overwhelmed in disorder, such an one is content to pass his life free from violence and passion, and to effect his exit hence with good hopes, cheerful and serene.” This is his description of the moderation, the equanimity, the temperance of the philosophic mind.
But in other places this thoughtful pagan confesses that this golden mean is never reached here upon earth, either by the philosopher or the common man. He compares the soul to a pair of horses—one of them erect, finely formed, with high neck, aquiline nose, white-colored, black-eyed, a lover of honor and temperance and true glory, driven without the whip, by word of command and voice only; the other crooked, thick set, clumsily put together, with strong neck, short throat, flat face, black color, gray-eyed, addicted to insolence and swaggering, scarcely obedient to whip and spur together.
These two opposing creatures, according to him, represent the present condition of the human soul. There are aspirations that would lead it upward, but there are appetites that drag it downward. The white horse would pursue the path of honor and excellence; but the black horse draws away from the path, and plunges madly downward. And the black horse is the strongest. The appetite is too mighty for the resolution. There is an infinite aspiration, and an infinitesimal performance.
Such is the mournful confession of the greatest thinker outside of the pale of revelation; and if a Plato could discover and teach to future generations the corruption and helplessness of human nature, what shall we say of those teachers under the full light of revelation, who would have us believe that there is no corruption in man but such as can be eradicated by man himself, and who would dispense with the evangelical means and methods of healing and salvation."
William G. T. Shedd, Sermons to the Spiritual Man, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884), 23–24.
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