Mr. Lowes Dickinson, the most pregnant and provocative of recent
writers on this and similar subjects, is far too solid a man to
have fallen into this old error of the mere anarchy of Paganism.
In order to make hay of that Hellenic enthusiasm which has
as its ideal mere appetite and egotism, it is not necessary
to know much philosophy, but merely to know a little Greek.
Mr. Lowes Dickinson knows a great deal of philosophy,
and also a great deal of Greek, and his error, if error he has,
is not that of the crude hedonist. But the contrast which he offers
between Christianity and Paganism in the matter of moral ideals--
a contrast which he states very ably in a paper called "How long
halt ye?" which appeared in the Independent Review--does, I think,
contain an error of a deeper kind. According to him, the ideal
of Paganism was not, indeed, a mere frenzy of lust and liberty
and caprice, but was an ideal of full and satisfied humanity.
According to him, the ideal of Christianity was the ideal of asceticism.
When I say that I think this idea wholly wrong as a matter of
philosophy and history, I am not talking for the moment about any
ideal Christianity of my own, or even of any primitive Christianity
undefiled by after events. I am not, like so many modern Christian
idealists, basing my case upon certain things which Christ said.
Neither am I, like so many other Christian idealists,
basing my case upon certain things that Christ forgot to say.
I take historic Christianity with all its sins upon its head;
I take it, as I would take Jacobinism, or Mormonism, or any other
mixed or unpleasing human product, and I say that the meaning of its
action was not to be found in asceticism. I say that its point
of departure from Paganism was not asceticism. I say that its
point of difference with the modern world was not asceticism.
I say that St. Simeon Stylites had not his main inspiration in asceticism.