26. XXIV. The Pagan World of the Roman Empire

XXIV. The Pagan World of the Roman Empire The picture which Paul draws in Romans 1:24 f. of the results of idolatry in the deterioration of moral character in the society of the Graeco-Roman world is not exaggerated, provided one remembers that it was not true of every individual member of the race. There were noble characters in pagan, especially Roman society. There were philosophers, whose life in many respects corresponded to their philosophy. But the general standard of conduct and of judgment was extremely low, and (what was worse) had been deteriorating through recent centuries. The force of sin in the form of idolatry was in a marked degree one which worked on a race through the generations, and caused a steadily progressive deterioration in the social standards of conduct for the individual and of moral judgment generally. Paul had seen this progressive deterioration in the Graeco-Roman world, and traced it to its cause. The pagans themselves were fully alive to it, and described it in almost equally strong terms; but they did not trace it to the same cause as Paul did, though they saw something of the truth. Lucretius ascribes this deterioration and unhappiness to religion: “Human life lay foully prostrate upon earth crushed down under the weight of religion”: the “victory over religion brings man level with heaven”: and therefore “we must well grasp the principle of things above” in order to see the world aright, and to realise how “great are the evils to which religion could prompt”. (Lucretius, i. 65-126.)

All this Paul could and might have said in almost the same words (Naturally, Paul would use the term “superstition,” where Lucretius speaks of “religion”: but all religion was superstition to Lucretius, and he would not have objected to the use of the more opprobrious term.) as Lucretius; yet the meaning which he put in them would be totally different. Lucretius would eliminate all religion, and relegate all gods to “the lucid interspace ot world and world “where they live at ease and neither care nor think about men; and he would substitute for belief in a personal God the study of “the principle of things above, the force by which everything on earth proceeds”. Considering that, to a certain extent, Paul might have adopted the philosopher’s most typical words, we must recognise that (as was stated in II and XIX) he was not so diametrically opposed to philosophy as he was to idolatry, and that in suitable circumstances he would have felt himself free (as at Athens) to rest his argument to certain minds on the philosophical basis, and show that this basis was only a stage on the way to the fuller truth.