the broken stones on which they are written, and at the same time convinces him how vain is mere law to

produce any healthy education. It is pathetic to think how poor was the result of all those wise and beautiful

The literature of the age has almost utterly perished; but the extremely scanty remains, along with the

Roman imitations of it, do not suggest that there was anything really great in it, though much cleverness,

brilliance, and sentimentality. Perhaps Theocritus, who comes at the beginning of the age, might rank

higher; but the great master of bucolic poetry, the least natural form of poetic art, can hardly escape the

charge of artificiality and sentimentality. In the realm of creative literature, the spirit of the age is to be

compared with that of the Restoration in England, and partakes of the same deep-seated immorality.

The age was devoted to learning: it investigated antiquities, studied the works of older Greek writers,

commented on texts; and the character of the time, in its poorness of fibre and shallowness of method, is

most clearly revealed in this department. It is hardly possible to find any trace of insight or true knowledge

in the fragments of this branch of literature that have come down to us. Athenodorus of Tarsus was in many

respects a man of ability, courage, education, high ideas and practical sense; but take a specimen of his

history of his own city: "Anchiale, daughter of Japetos, founded Anchiale (a city near Tarsus): her son was

Cydnus, who gave his name to the river at Tarsus: the son of Cydnus was Parthenius, from whom the city

was called Parthenia: afterwards the name was changed to Tarsus." This habit of substitutin g irrational

"fables and endless genealogies" (1 Tim 1:4) for the attempt really to understand nature and history was

engrained in the spirit of the time, and shows how superficial and unintelligent its learning was. Out of it

could come no real advance in knowledge, but only frivolous argumentation and "questionings" (1 Tim 1:4).

Only in the department of moral philosophy did the age sometimes reach a lofty level. A touch of Oriental

sympathy with the Divine nature enabled Athenodorus and others to expres s themselves with singular

dignity and beauty on the duty of man and his relation to God. But the "endless genealogies" frequently

obtruded themselves in their finest speculations.

The Christian letters need to be constantly illustrated from the life of those cities, and to be always read in

the light of a careful study of the society in them. It was, above all, the philosophical speculation in which

they excelled and delighted that Paul detested. He saw serious danger in it. Not only was it useless and

resultless in itself, mere "empty deceit" (Col 2:8), but, far worse, it led directly to superstition. Vain

speculation, unable to support itself in its lofty flight, unable to comprehend the real unity of the world in

God, invented for itself silly genealogies (1 Tim 1:4), in which nature and creation were explained under the

empty fiction of sonship, and a chain of divine beings in successive generations was made and worshipped;

and human nature was humbly made subservient to these fictitious beings, who were described as "angels"

(Col 2:18ff).

This philosophical speculation cannot be properly conceived in its historical development without bearing

in mind the mixed population and the collision of Jewish and Greek thought which belonged to those great

Graeco-Asiatic cities. It united Greek and Jewish elements in arbitrary eclectic systems. The mixture of Greek

and Jewish thought is far more conspicuous in Asia Minor than in Europe. Hence there is not much trace of

it in the Corinthian letters (though some writers try to discover it, and lay exaggerated stress on it): the

Corinthian philosophers were of a different kind. But in the cities of Asia, Phrygia, South Galatia, and Cilicia -

-all along the great roads leading east and west across Asia Minor--the minds of men were filled with crude

attempts at harmonising and mingling Oriental (especially Jewish) and Greek ideas. Their attempts took

many shapes, from mere vulgar magical formulae and arts to the serious and lofty morality of Athenodorus

the Tarsian in his highest moments of philosophy.

When we think of the intellectual skill, the philosophic interest, and the extreme cleverness of the age, we

feel the inadequacy of those arguments --or rather those unargued assertions--according to which the

Epistle to the Colossians reveals a stage of philosophic speculation, as applied to Christian doctrines, so

advanced that it could not have been reached earlier than the second century. How long would it take those