Edwin Abbott Abbott
Silanus the Christian
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066231644
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II EPICTETUS ON THE GODS
CHAPTER III ARRIAN ON THE OATH OF THE CHRISTIANS
CHAPTER IV SCAURUS ON EPICTETUS AND PAUL
CHAPTER V EPICTETUS ALLUDES TO JEWS
CHAPTER VI PAUL ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST
CHAPTER XII ISAIAH ON PROVIDENCE
CHAPTER XIII EPICTETUS ON PROVIDENCE
CHAPTER XVII EPICTETUS CONFESSES FAILURE
CHAPTER XVIII PAUL’S ONLY RECORD OF WORDS OF CHRIST
CHAPTER XIX HOW SCAURUS STUDIED THE THREE GOSPELS
CHAPTER XX SCAURUS ON FORGIVENESS
CHAPTER XXI SCAURUS ON THE CROSS
CHAPTER XXIII SCAURUS ON SOME OF THE MIRACLES
CHAPTER XXIV SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S BIRTH
CHAPTER XXV SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S DISCOURSES
CHAPTER XXVI SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (I)
CHAPTER XXVII SCAURUS ON CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (II)
CHAPTER XXVIII THE LAST LECTURE
CHAPTER XXIX SILANUS MEETS CLEMENS
CHAPTER XXX SILANUS CONVERSES WITH CLEMENS
CHAPTER XXXI CLEMENS ON THE FOURTH GOSPEL
CHAPTER XXXII CLEMENS LENDS SILANUS THE FOURTH GOSPEL
CHAPTER XXXIII SCAURUS ON THE FOURTH GOSPEL
CHAPTER XXXIV THE LAST WORDS OF SCAURUS
CHAPTER XXXV CLEMENS ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST
CHAPTER XXXVI SILANUS BECOMES A CHRISTIAN
PREFACE
Many years have elapsed since the author was constrained (not by a priori considerations but by historical and critical evidence) to disbelieve in the miraculous element of the Bible. Yet he retained the belief of his childhood and youth—rooted more firmly than before—in the eternal unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the supernatural but non-miraculous incarnation of the Son as Jesus Christ, and in Christ’s supernatural but non-miraculous resurrection after He had offered Himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
The belief is commonly supposed to be rendered impossible by the disbelief. This book is written to shew that there is no such impossibility.
The vast majority of the worshippers of Christ base their worship to a very large extent—as the author did in his early youth under the cloud of Paley’s Evidences—on their acceptance of His miracles as historical facts. In the author’s opinion this basis is already demonstrably unsafe, and may be at any moment, by some new demonstration, absolutely destroyed.
Nevertheless such worshippers, if their worship is really genuine—that is to say, if it includes love, trust, and awe, carried to their highest limits, and not merely that kind of awe which is inspired by “mighty works”—will do well to avoid this book. If doubt has not attacked them, why should they go to meet it? In pulling up falsehood by the roots there is always a danger of uprooting or loosening