To employ the actual words of that discipline with which we
ourselves are all of us most familiar, and the words of which,
therefore, come most home to us, that final end and aim is "that we
might be partakers of the divine nature."[432] These are the words of a
Hebrew apostle, but of Hellenism and Hebraism alike this is, I say, the
aim. When the two are confronted, as they very often are confronted, it
is nearly always with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; the
speaker's whole design is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and he
uses the other only as a foil and to enable him the better to give
effect to his purpose. Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism which
is thus reduced to minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is a
sermon on Greece and the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentioned
without interest and respect, Frederick Robertson,[433] in which this
rhetorical use of Greece and the Greek spirit, and the inadequate
exhibition of them necessarily consequent upon this, is almost
ludicrous, and would be censurable if it were not to be explained by the
exigencies of a sermon.
Pages:
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462