/lit/ - Literature

Why have we no churches in the name of Plato, or Seneca, or Plotinus? The case of Plato deserves special consideration. If ever a philosopher could have succeeded in establishing a divine authority in the world, it was he. Among them that are born of women, there has been no greater philosopher, seldom a more perfect man. Why have we no church, embracing half the earth, in the name of Plato? It is not for want of systematic efforts, on the part of his disciples, to secure the prevalence of his doctrine. As soon as the Christian sect began to look formidable, the attempt was made by the most cultivated and powerful of the earth, to run Platonism against Christianity and to secure to the Pagan religion, seconded and interpretated by that philosophy, the ascendancy over the new and growing faith. All the genius, all the wit, and no small part of the virtue and piety of that time were devoted to the cause. The Emperor Julian gave to it all his learning as a philosopher, all his patronage as Emperor, and all his influence as a man. A Christian by birth, and still, after his conversion to Paganism, a better Christian in his practice than the Christian Emperors who preceded and who came after him; a man of singular abstinence and sobriety, who lived as frugally and as industriously on the throne of the world as the poorest Christian in his dominions; he devoted himself, with all the weight which such a character and such a position could give, to the work of building up Platonic Paganism at the expense of Christianity. History has shown us with what result.