Silanus the Christian by

IX. — ARRIAN'S DEPARTURE

WHEN we came out from the crowded room, as Arrian was nowhere to be seen, I went at once to his lodging. To my surprise, he was busy packing, amid books and papers, and a student's other belongings. "Thanks, many thanks," he said, "for this timely visit. This is my last day in Nicopolis. I was just coming round to wish you good-bye. You know I had to go to Corinth. Well, when I got there, I found a letter from my &ther bidding me wait a few days for further news from him; and on the fourth day came a message that I was to conclude my studies at once and return to Bith}aiia, as his health had quite given way and his affairs required all my attention. I had intended to start to-day at the fifth hour; but I have just learned that the vessel will not sail till the eighth. So sit down. Epictetus there is not time to call upon. When I write to you I shall ask you to deliver him a letter from me. Sit down, and begin by telling me about the lecture I have just missed, while it is fresh in your memory."

When I had finished, he said, turning over the papers he was sorting, "I remember another of his lectures in which he warned us against a licentious and effeminate life. Here it is, and these are his exact words: 'Do not, in the name of the Gods, do not you, young man, fall back again! Nay, rather go back to your home and say, now that you have once heard this warning. It is not Epictetus that has said this. How should he? It is some God wishing well to me and speaking through him. It would never have corns into the mind of Epictetus to say this, for it is never his custom to make personal appeals. Come, then, let its obey the voice of God, lest we fall under God's wrath!' I have never forgotten these words, and I trust I never shall. I think a God speaks through Epictetus. Do you not agree with me?"

"I do indeed," said I, "but I am not convinced that God speaks all that Epictetus says, and that there is not more to be spoken. For example, he says, 'You have but to will and it is done.' Is that a common experience? Is it yours? He says, 'Take from yourself the help you need.' Do you find in yourself all the help you need? When you fall, he says, 'Get up,' as though we were boys in the wrestling-ring. But what if we have been'stunned? What if one's ankle is sprained or a leg broken? Do you remember what you said to me at the end of my first lecture,'Will itlast?' You also said that Epictetus could make us feel just what he wished us to feel—as long as he was speaking. Well, while I was sitting on the bench in the lecture-room, I felt that getting up from vice was as easy as sitting on that bench. When I walked out, it began to seem less easy. Now that I am quite away from the enchanter, talking the matter quietly over with you, the feeling has almost vanished; and I am obliged to repeat your question about this, and about much more of our Master's doctrine, VWill it last?'"

"Some of it will last," said Arrian, "We must not expect impossibilities. I have heard him admit that it is impossible to be sinless already, but he bade us remember that it is possible to be always intent on not sinning."

"Did he mean," asked I, "by 'already,' that we could not be sinless in this life, but that we might be sinless at what he calls the feast of the Gods, after death?"

Arrian did not at once reply. Presently he said, "I do not think so. I believe he meant that we must not expect to be sinless as soon as we have reached the intermediate stage of what he calls 'the half-educated man.' We must wait till we have reached the further stage, that of complete education, where, as you said just now, a man never blames himself, because he does not find in himself any fault that he could blame."

Here Arrian made a still longer pause. Then he continued, in his usual slow, deliberate way, but with a touch of hesitation that was not usual with him, "I have here a few duplicates of my notes. Among them are some on the subject on which your remarks bear, and about which (I gather) you would like to question me—the immortality of the soul. In my hearing, he has seldom used that precise phrase. And, when he has used the epithet 'immortal,' it has generally applied to life like that of Tithonus—I mean, a deathless life in this present world. To desire such a life, deathless and free from disease, he thinks unreasonable. But I remember his saying once, that he was prepared for death, 'whether it were the death of the whole or of a certain part'—that was his expression. And I think he may possibly believe that the Logos within us is reabsorbed, after death, into some kind of quintessential or divine fire from which it sprang. But I cannot say that this satisfies me."

Neither did it satisfy me. But I said nothing. Arrian, too, was silent, turning over some of his papers and marking passages for my perusal. But presently, rousing himself, "Did you agree with me," he said, "about the passage you transcribed, when we last met, concerning that sect of the Jews which he called the Galilaeans?" I could see that Arrian wished to divert the conversation to "the Galilaeans," as being a subject of a less serious character than the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But the subject of the Galilaeans or Jews had become much more serious for me now than it had been when we last conversed together. How much more, I shrank from telling him, in the few minutes at our disposal. He was good, just, a truthful scholar, a gentleman, and a kind friend. Given a few days more—even a few hours—in one another's company, and I should not have kept my secret from him. But how could I hope, in so brief an interval, and amid so many preoccupations, to make him understand what a vast continent of new history, religion, literature—and, above all, "feeling" as opposed to "logic"—had emerged before my mind's eye, during my recent voyages of exploration in the scriptures and in Paul's epistles? So I replied briefly that I agreed with his view.

"Epictetus," I said, "seemed to me to be speaking, not of the [...] 'feeling' (?) as also in the case of the Jews. "And, indeed, I added, "the force of this 'feeling'(?)[...] appears to me most remarkable."

"Well," said he, "I feel we shall hardly meet again in Nicopolis. But I shall always cherish the recollection of the hours we have spent together here, and of our common respect of our common Master whom you already love, and whom, if you were to know him as I do—in his home, and in his kindness to those who need kindness—you will (I trust) love still more." "I do love him," said I, "But tell me, do you Iove a11 his teaching about indifference to what is happening? You know how our Master scoffs as the agony of Priam looking on the ruin of Troy. Well, suppose you were a Roman citizen, as I am sure you will be before long. Or, rather, suppose you were our new Emperor Hadrian, and saw the northern barbarians not only at our gates but inside our walls, and the City in flame, and the Dacians doing in Rome what the Greeks did in Troy to the Trojan men and women, would you, our Elmperor Hadrian, feel it right to say, 'All this is nothing to me'?" "By the immortal Gods," exclaimed Arrian, "I should not." "And if Epictetus were in Hadrian's place, or Priam's place, do you think he could say it?"

I had to wait for an answer. "What I am going to say," he replied at last. "may seem to you monstrous. But I really cannot reply No. I cannot tell what he would say. I am not able to judge him as I should judge others." Then he proceeded, with an animation quite imusual in him, "Of any other Hadrian or Priam I should say that such an utterance stamped him as either liar, or beast, or stone. But Epictetus—absorbed in Zeus, devoted to His will, resolved to believe that His will is good, and seeing no way out of the belief that all things happen in accordance with His will—might not Epictetus conceivably feel, in moments of ecstasy, that all these fires and furies, massacres and outrages, cannot prevent him from believing in Zeus and being one with Zeus, so that he himself, Epictetus, might be, nay, must be, in the bosom of Zeus (so to speak) at the very moment when not only Rome, but all the cities, villages, and hamlets of the world—nay, when the universe itself was being cast into destruction? Well, I am out of my depth. I confess it. But will you not agree with me thus far, that if Epictetus said that he felt thus, he would really feel thus?"

"Yes," replied I, "I am sure that he would not say it unless he felt it. But I am not sure that he might not feel it merely because he had forced himself to feel it. However, let us say no more now on such subtle matters. It is no small help to have been lifted up by such a teacher above the mere life of the flesh. We part, do we not, in fiill agreement that Epictetus has been, for both of us, a guide to that which is good? " And thus we did part. I accompanied him to the quay. "May we meet again," were my last words. "May it be soon," were his. But we never met. The death of his father plunged him almost immediately into domestic cares and matters of business. When the pressure of private affairs relaxed, it was soon followed by affairs of state. This was due in part perhaps to his having been a pupil of Epictetus. The new emperor, long before he became emperor, had always admired our Master; whose recommendation (I am inclined to think) had something to do with Arrian s subsequent promotions. At all events, when I was on service in the north, I heard without any surprise, and with a great deal of pleasure, that my former fellow-student—known now to literary circles as Flavianus, a Roman citizen, and author of the Memoirs of Epictetus—had been appointed governor of Cappadocia.

From time to time we corresponded. But it was not upon the topics that used to engross us in old days. He took a great interest in geography. Military service, at one time in the north and then in the east, gave me some knowledge of this subject, which I was glad to place at his disposal. He also studied military affairs with a view to writing on Alexander. Here again I was of use to him. But we never resumed in our letters that subject about which he had once said to me, "More of this to-morrow." Our paths had branched off, leading us far away from each other in everything except mutual good will and respect. He had become a Roman magistrate. Subsequently he was a priest of Demeter. I had become a Roman soldier, but—a Christian. Many of my fiiends knew this and I have little doubt that Arrian guessed it. Privately I feel sure he always loved me. OflScially he must have been forced to disapprove. Hadrian, it is true, discouraged informations against the Christians, and I had been hitherto connived at: but could I condemn my old friend if he shrank from opening up old speculations that might lead him into unofficial, suspected, and dangerous results? Much more might I myself rather feel condemned for keeping silence. Sometimes I have felt thus. But not often. More often I feel that it was better for him not to know what I know, than to know it, in a sense, and to reject it. Presented in mere writing, I felt sure that it would have been rejected. Writings and books brought me on the way to Christ, but something more was needed to make me receive Christ.

Arrian, I think, avoided such opportunities as presented themselves for meeting. I am sure I did. If we had met, surely I should have been constrained to open my mind to him. Once, at least, I touched (in a letter) on our old conversation about "logos" and "pathos." He replied that, in his new career, both "logos" and "pathos" had to give place to pragmata, "business," which, he thought, was likely to take up all his energies during the rest of his life.

Even if I had opened my mind, I cannot help thinking that his would have remained unchanged. One thing, however, I do not think about, but know—namely, that, if we had met, Arrian and I would still have had common ground, as of old, in our love of truth and justice, and that we should still have esteemed, respected, and loved each other. For myself, love him I always shall, not for his own sake alone, but also because he helped me directly and immediately to understand Epictetus, and indirectly and ultimately to perceive the existence of something beyond any truth that Epictetus could teach.

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X. — EPICTETUS ON DEATH

RETURNING to my rooms, I sat down to think out my problems alone. Presently, on taking up the lecture-notes Arrian had given me, I found that the title of the first was, "What is meant by being in desolation or deserted? And who can call himself deserted?" The subject suited my mood, and I began to read it, as follows; "Desolation is the condition of a man unhelped. To be alone is not necessarily to be deserted. To be in the midst of a multitude is not always to be undeserted. A man may be in the centre of a crowd of his own slaves. But still, if he has just lost a brother, he may be deserted. We may travel alone, yet never feel deserted till we fall into the midst of a band of robbers. It is not the face of a man that delivers us from desolation; it is the presence of someone faithful and trustworthy, thoughtful and kind, good and helpful."

I liked this. But afterwards the lecture strayed into what seemed to me controversial theology or metaphysics, "If being alone suffices to make you deserted, then say that Zeus Himself is deserted when the final fire comes round in its cycle, consuming the universe. Say that He bewails His loneliness exclaiming 'Alas, me miserable! I have no Hera now! No Athene! No Apollo! Not a single brother, son, or relation! 'Some people actually do assert that Zeus behaves like this in the final fire!" I gathered that he was attacking some philosophic tenet. But it did not interest me any more than his subsequent assertion—or rather assumption—that "Zeus associates with Himself, reposes on Himself, and contemplates the nature of His own administration." I have never felt drawn towards the conception of a self-admiring, or a solitary God.

Arrian's next note bore on the peace of the universe, a peace proclaimed by the Logos, a peace resembling, but far surpassing, the peace proclaimed by the Emperor, such a peace that every man can say, even when he is alone, "Henceforth no evil can befall me. For me, robbers and earthquakes have no existence. All things are full of peace, full of tranquillity. Whether I am travelling on the high road, or living in the city, whether in public assemblies or among private friends and neighbours, nothing can harm me. There is Another, not myself, who makes it His care to supply me with food. He it is that clothes me. He, not myself, gave me the perceptions of my body. He, not myself, bestowed on me the conceptions of my mind."

Then followed a passage about death, which Arrian, during our last conversation, had marked for my special attention: "But if at any moment He ceases to supply you with the things needful for your existence, then take heed! In that moment He is sounding the bugle for you to cease the conflict. He is saying to you: 'Come!' And whither? Into no land of terrors. Simply into that same region from which you entered into being. Into the company of such eadstences as are friendly and akin to you. Into the elements. Such part as was fire in you will depart into fire; such part of earth as was in you, into earth; such part of air or wind as was in you, into air or wind; of water, into water. No Hades! No Acheron! No Cocytus! No Pyriphlegethon! All things are full of Gods and daemons!" By this I think he meant "good Gods and guardian angels." He concluded thus, "Having such thoughts as these in his heart, looking up to the sun, the moon, and the stars, and enjoying the earth and the sea, man has no more right to call himself deserted than to call himself unhelped."

It was not clear to me how I could continue to call myself "helped" when I was on the point of being dissolved into the four elements. If I were a criminal, successful in escaping punishment on earth, I might deem it "help" (after a fashion) to know that I should be equally successful after quitting the earth, because I need not fear Hades and its three rivers as enemies. But where were the "friends"? The four elements promised but cold friendship! Arrian's comment rose to my mind, and a second time I assented to it, "I cannot say that this satisfies me." Epictetus was so averse from anything like cant or insincerity of expression that I was amazed—as I still am —that he could use, in such a context, the words "friendly and akin." Surely Sappho's cry was truer, when she wandered alone through the woods where she had once been loved by Phaon—

"This place is now dead dust. He was its life."

What would it profit that my "fiery part" should return to fire? It might as well go astray into water, or earth, or into extinction, as far as I cared. To be still loved would have been to be still in some kind of home. But who would love my four elements? I should be "not I," but only four severed portions of what had once been "I," fragments incapable even of mourning, wandering among "dead dust," no better than "dead dust " themselves! How infinitely should I have preferred that Epictetus—if he could not honestly accept the confident hope of Socrates concerning a life after death,—should have said simply this, "As to what Zeus does with our souls after death, others think they know much. I know nothing, except that He does what is best."

Reviewing passages in which Epictetus had mentioned the "soul," I was more perplexed than ever. For in those he distinctly recognised the "soul" as "better than the flesh" or "better than the body" and as using the body as its instrument. When, therefore, he spoke of God as saying to man, "Come!" he ought to have supposed God to be addressing the whole man, soul as well as body, or perhaps the soul alone, (using the body, or the flesh, as its instrument). But if God said to the human soul "Come!" how could He go on to say "Such part as was fire in you" and so on, just as though we knew, without proof, that the soui was composed of nothing but fire, earth, air and water? We knew no such thing. On the contrary, Epictetus continually assumed that we have within ourselves "mind" and "logos." He also said that "The being of God" is "mind, knowledge, right logos." Now he could hardly suppose that "mind" and "logos" were composed of fire, earth, air, and water. For my part, I did not feel that I knew anything certain about the distinctions between "mind," "soul," "logos" and "I." But those who made distinctions appeared to me under an obligation to say what they meant by them.

It appeared to me that our Master had been inconsistent. As a rule, he dealt with each of us as having a soul that was our real self, and a body that was the tool of the soul. "Tyrants," he would say, "can hurt your body but they cannot hurt you!" Might not a pupil of his go on consistently to say: "Death can kill your body but it cannot kill you"? This, at all events, was what Socrates meant, when he said, "As for me, Meletus could not hurt me... He might kill, or banish, or degrade," for he certainly meant "kill" the body, not "kill" the soul.

Subsequently, when I came to read the Christian gospels,, I found two of them making this distinction in the words, "Be not afraid of them that kill the body." One of them added: "but cannot kill the soul," the other added "but cannot do anything more." Then I understood more clearly why Epictetua said nothing about what became of the soul after death. For these two Christian writers spoke of a possibility that the soul might be "destroyed in hell" or "cast into hell." Now this was. just what Epictetus did not himself believe, and wished to make others disbelieve. He preferred to give up the belief of Socrates that the good "go to the islands of the blessed" after death,, rather than believe also that the bad go to a place of the accursed. Hence he dropped all thought of the essential part, or parts, of man, namely, the soul, mind, and logos, as soon as he came to speak of man's death.

The consequence was that Epictetus confused us by an ambiguous use of "you." As long as we were alive he said to us, "You must regard your body as a mere tool," where by "you" he meant the incorporeal part of man. As soon as we were on the point of death, he said to us, "Do not be alarmed. You are going into the four elements," where by "you" he apparently meant our corporeal part. I felt sure then (as I do now) that he did not intend to confuse us. He seemed to me to have been confused by his own intense desire to persuade himself that men must do good without hope of any reward at all except the consciousness of doing good in this present life. I had not at that time read the Christian gospels; but several passages in Paul's epistles occurred to me as contrary to this doctrine of Epictetus, and I thought that our Master might have been biassed in part by Paul (as Scaurus had suggested)—only not, in this instance, imitating Paul, but contradicting him. So I took up the epistle to the Romans intending to read what Paul said there about Christ's death and resurrection.

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XI. — ISAIAH ON DEATH

I TOOK up the epistle to the Romans, but I did not read it long. Another subject stepped in to claim immediate attention in the first words on which I lighted. They were these, "Isaiah cries aloud on behalf of Israel, Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant [alone] shall be saved," and then, "Even as Isaiah has foretold, If the Lord of Sabaoth had not left seed to us, we should have become as Sodom and should have been made like unto Gomorrah." Previously when I had read these words I could neither understand them nor see the way to understand them, not knowing the meaning of "Sodom" and "Gomorrah," nor even "Isaiah." But now, knowing that Isaiah was one of the principal Hebrew prophets, I began to see that many obscure passages of Paul might become clearer to me if I first studied this prophet. This view was confirmed when I found Paul, later on, quoting him again, "But Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found by them that sought me not, I became manifest to them that consulted me not; but with reference to Israel he says, All the day long, I stretched out my hands to a people disobedient and gainsaying." The name also occurred toward the close of the epistle thus, "Isaiah says: There shall be the root of Jesse, and he that is raised up to rule over the nations; on him shall the nations set their hope." These last words reminded me of the doctrine of Epictetus about Diogenes "to whom are entrusted the peoples of the earth and countless cares in their behalf."

But I did not know what "root of Jesse" meant. The name, "Jesse," I faintly remembered reading in the poems of David; but where it was I could not recall. Hence the phrase was obscure. I determined to put off the further study of Paul for the present, and to glance through the book of Isaiah in the hope of meeting this and other passages quoted above. Accordingly I unrolled the prophecy and began to read it from the beginning.

At first, the language was clear—though the Greek was as bad as in the poems of David. The "children" of God, said the prophet (meaning the ancient Jews or Hebrews, whom he often spoke of as "Israel") had rebelled against their Father and were being punished with fire and sword by hostile nations executing God's vengeance on their impiety. Then came the sentence I quoted above, from Paul, about the "remnant." After this, the prophet introduced "the Lord"—that is the God of the Jews—as saying that He cared no longer for their incense or their offerings because they came from hands stained with blood. This was somewhat like the saying of Horace about Phidyle mentioned above. But what followed was not like anything in Horace: "Wash you, make you clean ; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fetherless, plead for the widow." If they would act thus, then, said God, "though your sins be red as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." As though the nation were molten metal in a crucible, and He Himself were refining them with fire, the Lord said to the whole people of Israel, "I will purge away thy dross... afterwards thou shalt be called the city of righteousness."

I had begun to hope that I should be able to understand this author as easily as Euripides and much more easily than iEschylus. But now came obscurities. First I read of a golden age. People were to "beat their swords into ploughshares," and not to "learn war any more." Then I found a mention of general destruction as by a universal earthquake. Then came, without any chronological or other order apparent to me, the following pictures, or predictions:—a land without a ruler governed by children and women; a picture of luxurious ladies of rank, a list of their dresses, ornaments, jewels and cosmetics; a "branch of the Lord, beautiful and glorious"; a purifying with a "spirit of burning"; "a song of my beloved touching his vineyard"—all confused together (so it seemed to me at the time like the prophecies of the Sibyl.

As far as I could see, most of these prophecies dealt with the internal corruption of the nation. The "vineyard" of the Lord was the people of Israel. When He visited the vineyard, looking for fruit, said the prophet, "He looked for judgment but behold oppression." After this, came a vision of the Lord's glory, and then predictions of external calamities, and invasions of foreign nations. But yet there was a promise of the birth of a Deliverer, a Prince of Peace, to sit "upon the throne of David." Following this, at some interval, were the words for which I was searching, about "the root of Jesse." And now I could understand them, for they were preceded by this prediction, "There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit." Just before that, 'there had been a description of an invading army, coming as the instrument of the Lord's wrath and "lopping the boughs with terror" and hewing down "the high ones of stature."

Then all was clear to me. I perceived the connexion between the "child" that was to sit on "the throne of David," and the "shoot out of the stock of Jesse." The two together brought back to my mind that passage which I could not before recall from the Psalms, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." The words of Isaiah were like those of Sophocles where he is speaking of the destruction of the royal house of Laius. Sophocles calls the surviving child the "root," and laments because the axe of Fate was destroying it just when a branch was on the point of "shooting up" from the "stock" so as to produce fruit. So now, but in an opposite mood of hope and joy, Isaiah said that the royal house of David the son of Jesse would not be exterminated, though many of its scions would be cut off. A "branch" would "shoot up" and the succession to the kingdom would be maintained.

In the same way, I perceived, the great Julius, or the Emperor Augustus, being descended from lulus, the son of Aeneas, might be called "the shoot out of the stock of Anchises," transported from Asia to Europe so as to "shoot up" into a new kingdom more glorious than the old. This, too, explained the word "remnant" used by Paul. As the Trojan followers of Aeneas were a "remnant," so too must be the Jewish followers of this " child," a remnant left from defeat, disaster, and captivity, after a great "lopping of the boughs with terror." Virgil sang about the empire of the house of lulus not as a prophet, but as a poet, prophesying, so to speak, after the event. Isaiah appeared merely to predict empire as a prophet, and a false prophet, prophesying what had not been, and never would be, an "event." The tree of the empire of Rome was erect for all the world to look on. The tree of the kingdom of Jesse appeared to me as extinct as the house of Laius. So I thought then.

Yet I knew that Paul looked at the matter differently and regarded these prophecies as having been, or as about to be, fulfilled. And when I looked more closely into the sayings of Isaiah about the future kingdom, I saw that many of them were capable of two meanings. Sometimes the prophet appeared to be contemplating a kingdom established in the ordinary way by force of arms—a conquest achieved, or at all events preceded, by fire, sword, and desolation. But, for the most part, it seemed to be an empire of peace to be brought about by some kind of persuasion, or feeling. A sudden conviction was to take hold of all the nations of the earth, so that they were to exclaim, with one consent, as at the sound of a trumpet, "Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord," meaning the Temple in Jerusalem.

In this kingdom, however brought about, the Lord was to be King, and there was to be a "covenant" between Him and all the citizens or subjects, a covenant of righteousness. The subjects were to obey the King and the King would give them a righteous spirit. In some respects the covenant of obedience was to resemble that philosophic oath which Epictetus had enjoined on us, namely, to consult our own interests, to be true to ourselves (meaning, to the spirit of righteousness within us).

But the prophet regarded righteousness as loyalty, or truth, not to ourselves, but to our King.

That seemed to me one great difference between the Greeks and the Hebrews in their notions of worship. The Greeks, when they lifted their thoughts above themselves, looked, in the first place, each man to his several city, and in the next place, to the Gods. They did not think in the first place of the Gods. For the Gods were many, while the City was one. But the ancient Jews, the men of Israel, or at least their prophets, looked to their Lord God as their King—the Father, or sometimes the Husband, of Israel. Although they were many tribes, they had but one God, the Lord God, who had delivered them from the land of Egypt. This Lord God was a God of justice and truth, hating oppression, a defender of the widow and the fiitherless. To be loyal to Him was righteousness.

And herein—as I soon began to perceive—was the great difference between the view of righteousness or justice taken by Isaiah and that taken by our Roman lawyers, or any lawyers bound to a written law. The lawyer's righteousness was legality; the prophet's was loyalty. Epictetus and Isaiah agreed together in aiming at loyalty, not legality. Both disliked obedience paid to mere rules and commandments of men. But the former for the most part inculcated loyalty that seemed like loyalty to oneself; the latter, loyalty to God. This precept of Isaiah agreed with the fundamental law prescribed in the code of Moses that the men of Israel were to "love" the Lord their God.

After searching carefully to see what the prophet said concerning the immortality of the soul (about which Moses seemed to be silent) I could find little of a definite kind. In one passage I read "The dead shall arise and they that are in the tombs shall be roused up." But the preceding lines said "The dead shall assuredly not see life"; so that it was not clear whether the words meant that one nation should be destroyed for ever and another nation should be raised up from destruction to life. The prophet appeared to be thinking of the nation collectively, more often than of separate citizens. The metaphor of the Vine of Israel seemed to be almost always in his thoughts. And his hope seemed to be, not concerning separate branches, that every branch should remain; but that, in spite of being cruelly pruned and cut down almost to the ground, the tree, as a whole, would yet grow up and bear fruit. I noticed also that a certain king ccdled Hezekiah, when praying to be delivered from a disease likely to prove ioXaX, spoke as though there were no life after death.

But there was one passage, of very mysterious import, which seemed to point to a different conclusion. It spoke about a "servant of God," of mean aspect but destined to be a great Deliverer—such as Epictetus had described—"bearing upon him the cares" of multitudes. He was to grow up "as a root in the thirsty ground," which suggested that he was to be "the root of Jesse" above mentioned. But he was not to be like Aeneas, "the root" of Anchises. For Aeneas divided the spoils in Italy as the prize of his sword. But this Deliverer—so the prophet declared—was "despised and reckoned as naught." He was "delivered over" to the enemies of his nation as a ransom to save his fellow-countrymen, and it was by their wickedness that "he was led to death." Yet in the end, said the prophet, "He will inherit many men, and will divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was delivered over to death, and he was reckoned among criminals, and he carried the sins of many and he was delivered over on account of their crimes."

This was altogether beyond my comprehension at the time. But I saw that I should have to return to this prophecy hereafter; for I recognised its last words as having been quoted by Paul in writing to the Romans. I found afterwards that the passage in Paul spoke about "believing in Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered over for the sake of our transgressions, and was raised up for the sake of our being made righteous." For the present, however, the passage in Isaiah about the "servant" of God seemed to me important, for this reason mainly, because it indicated a belief in a life after death. And so did another difficult passage—if Paul had interpreted it rightly. My copy of the prophecy said, "Death by its strength hath swallowed up"; but the margin said: "Death is swallowed up in victory," and these latter words, too, I recognised as being quoted by Paul; and this, or some similar, sense appeared to be required by the context.

It was growing late and I was obliged to break oflF. But I resolved to return to the book next morning before lecture. So far as I had read, it appeared to me that the prophet did not formally recognise the immortality of the soul in general. But in the case of the Suffering Servant he did seem to recognise it. Having the Servant in my mind, I unrolled the book of Isaiah to other passages using the same word, such as, "for my servant David's sake," "But thou, Israel, art my servant." "My servant whom I have chosen." At last I came to "the seed of Abraham my friend." In all these passages, God was supposed to be speaking. Then it occurred to me, "Did the prophet make an exception for the Suffering Servant only? Did he not also believe that Abraham's soul was immortal?" It seemed to me impossible that if the God of the Jews were asked, "Where is Abraham thy friend?" He would reply—or that the prophet would regard Him as replying—"Resolved into the four elements." On the whole, I was led to the conclusion that Isaiah implied, though he did not express, some kind of doctrine of human immortality dependent on the relation between man and God.

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