The idea of a common humanity, which underlies all the distinctions of race, society and education, began to dawn in the heathen mind, and found expression in the famous line of Terentius, which was received with applause in the theatre:
"Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto."
This spirit of humanity breathes in Cicero and Virgil. Hence the veneration paid to the poet of the Aeneid by the fathers and throughout the middle ages. Augustine calls him the noblest of poets, and Dante, "the glory and light of other poets," and "his master," who guided him through the regions of hell and purgatory to the very gates of Paradise. It was believed that in his fourth Eclogue he had prophesied the advent of Christ. This interpretation is erroneous; but "there is in Virgil," says an accomplished scholar, [85] "a vein of thought and sentiment more devout, more humane, more akin to the Christian than is to be found in any other ancient poet, whether Greek or Roman. He was a spirit prepared and waiting, though he knew it not, for some better thing to be revealed."
The civil laws and institutions, also, and the great administrative wisdom of Rome did much for the outward organization of the Christian church. As the Greek church rose on the basis of the Grecian nationality, so the Latin church rose on that of ancient Rome, and reproduced in higher forms both its virtues and its defects. Roman Catholicism is pagan Rome baptized, a Christian reproduction of the universal empire seated of old in the city of the seven hills.
[74] Compare C. Ackermann, The Christian Element in Plato and the Platonic Philosophy, 1835, transl. from the German by S. R. Asbury, with an introductory note by Dr. Shedd. Edinburgh, 1861.
[75] As in his excellent trestise: De sera numinis vindicta. It is strange that this philosopher, whose moral sentiments come nearest to Christianity, never alludes to it. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius do mention it, but only once.
[76] On the relation of Paul and Seneca comp. an elaborate dissertation of Bishop Lightfoot in his Commentary on the Philippians, pp. 268-331 (3d ed. 1873).
[77] Charles Marivale, in his History of the Romans under the Empire (Lond. 1856), Vol. iv. p. 450 and 451, estimates the population of the Roman empire in the age of Augustus at 85 millions, namely, 40 millions for Europe, 28 millions for Asia, and 17 millions for Africa, but he does not include Palestine. Greswell and others raise the estimate of the whole population to 120 millions.
[78] Hare Guesses at Truth, p. 432 (Lond. ed. 1867).
[79] Raptores orbis, quos non oriens, non occidens satiaverit."
[80] So the nephew of the modern Caesar transformed Parisinto a city of straight and broad streets and magnificent palaces.
[81] Rev. 18:11-14.
[82] "Unbelief and superstition, different hues of the same historical phenomenon, went in the Roman world of that day hand in hand, and there was no lack of individuals who in themselves combined both-who denied the gods with Epicurus, and yet prayed and sacrificed before every shrine." Theod. Mommsen, History of Rome. transl. by Dickson, Lond. 1867, vol. iv. p. 560.
[83] "In the excess of their adoration, the Roman Senate desired even to place his image in the Temple of Quirinus himself, with an inscription to him as theos aniktos, the invincible God. Golden chairs, gilt chariots, triumphal robes, were piled one upon another, with laurelled fasces and laurelled wreaths. His birthday was made a perpetual holiday, and the mouth Quinctilis was renamed, in honor of him, July. A temple to Concord was to be erected in commemoration of his clemency. His person was declared sacred and to injure him by word or deed was to be counted sacrilege. The Fortune of Caesar was introduced into the constitutional oath, and the Senate took a solemn pledge to maintain his acts inviolate. Finally, they arrived at a conclusion that he was not a man at all; no longer Caius Julius, but Divus Julius, a God or the Son of God. A temple was to be built to Caesar as another Quirinus, and Antony was to be his priest." J. A. Froude, Caesar (1879), Ch. XXVI. p. 491. The insincerity of these adulations shortly before the senatorial conspiracy makes them all the worse. "One obsequious senator proposed that every woman in Rome should be at the disposition of Caesar." Ibid., p 492.
[84] De Ira, II. 8.
[85] Principal Shairp, in an article on "Virgil as a Precursor of Christianity," in the "Princeton Review" for Sept., 1879, pp. 403-420. Comp. the learned essay of Professor Piper, in Berlin, on "Virgil als Theologe und Prophet," in his "Evang. Kalender" for 1862.