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"When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their
faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, They have their
reward" (Matt. 6: 16).
The Apostle, in writing to the Colossians, speaks in a similar way of the
ineffectiveness of "neglecting the body" (Col. 2: 23).
It may be asked by some of our readers how it was possible that Cynicism could have
been the outcome of the teaching of Socrates. The answer is that Antisthenes, like
Socrates, taught that virtue was the only thing worthy of human effort, but he
misinterpreted his master by making virtue consists merely in the negation of desire--the
avoidance of evil, indifference to marriage, to one's family, to riches, to honour, and to
enjoyment. It was against this vain deceitful philosophy that the Apostle warned the
Colossian. He says in effect:
Beware of that specious sanctity, that is the result of mere negations, such as
Touch not, Taste not, Handle not.
Cynicism will be one of the characteristics of the close of the age, as well as
lawlessness and skepticism as we have already seen:
"Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath
created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth"
(I Tim. 4: 3).
In I Tim. 6: we read:
"The living God, Who giveth us all things richly to enjoy" (I Tim. 6: 17).
The words "richly to enjoy" would have been like a red rag to a bull in the sight of
Antisthenes, but he who "trusts in the living God" has no need to dress in rags to show
his crucifixion to the world.
Cynicism as it advanced expressed a greater contempt for propriety and decency. We
will not, however, deal with the unmannerly doings and sayings of Diogenes, but turn to
the second school, namely, the Cyrenaic.
Socrates had taught that virtue and happiness together constituted the highest human
end, but had not based this view upon any actual moral law, other than the teaching that
true happiness was to be found only in the path of virtue. Aristippus, the founder of the
Cyrenaic school, seized upon this loosely defined happiness, and made it the criterion of
what constituted virtue. Pronouncing pleasure as the ultimate good of life, and going
probably to an even greater extreme because of the attitude of the Cynics to innocent
pleasure, his teaching degenerated into the mere enjoyment of bodily pleasure and
sensation. Accordingly all moral limitations were to be disregarded, since they limited
pleasure; and nothing was wicked, shameful, or godless, if it procured it. He did
advocate justice, since injustice does not pay and so does not lead to happiness; and he