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melancholy with a morbid egotism and an intense despair. In their worst degeneracies
Stoicism became the apotheosis of suicide, and Epicureanism the glorification of lust."
Epicureanism.
The watch-word of the Epicureans was pleasure, and morals were all explained in this
light. The sailor who risked his life to save a stranger, the martyr who died for his faith,
the profligate whose sensuality ruined the lives of others, were all actuated, according to
Epicurus, solely by the "pleasure" they received. One can easily see how soon such a
philosophy would spread its blight over the community. The Apostle probably had the
Epicureans in mind when he spoke of those "whose god is their belly", for Metrodous
asserted that everything good has reference to the belly. To demand virtue for its own
sake they considered foolishness. According to the Epicurean view, only those who had
pleasure as their aim had a real object in life. The Stoics and the Epicureans may be
called the exponents of pride and pleasure, and each in their own way were necessarily
enemies of the faith.
The Epicureans were materialists. The gods, if they existed, dwelt apart in complete
indifference. The universe was but a thing of chance, and as there was no creator, there
could be no moral governor, and no day of judgment. The idea of a resurrection was to
them ridiculous; and, as the Apostle wrote: ". . . . . if the dead rise not? let us eat and
drink; for to-morrow we die"--which was exactly what the Epicurean philosophy led to.
To the Stoics also the idea of future reward or punishment was intolerable, so that we can
appreciate the way in which the Apostle led up to the day of judgment, and the
resurrection of the dead, when he spoke to these philosophers on Mars' Hill.
Paul could not have been ignorant of the fact that Socrates also had been arraigned
before the Athenian Council at Areopagus on the charge of introducing strange gods, and
had pleaded his own cause, as did the Apostle. The opening words of his defence were as
follows:
"Ye men of Athens (the same words as were used by the apostle Paul), I know not
how you yourselves have been affected by my accusers; but I have well-nigh forgotten
myself, so persuasively have they spoke. If you hear me defending myself in the same
language that I am wont to use in the market place, where and elsewhere most of you
have heard me, let me entreat you not to be surprised, or take it in ill part, for thus it is:
now for the first time, at the age of more than seventy years, I appear at the bar of the
court."
Socrates did not know the Saviour, or the blessed hope of resurrection, but he said to
his judges: "I must obey God rather than you", and died for his teaching and his
conscience. It certainly seems that the Apostle, who wrote of the Gentiles who have not
the law (Rom. 2:), and of the period of Gentile ignorance that God winked at (Acts 17:),
would not have entertained any harsh views concerning the old philosopher who had
stood years before in the same place.