And
thus it continually befell, that the new thought must weave a new
garment for itself, those which it found ready made being narrower than
that it could wrap itself in them; that the new wine must fashion new
vessels for itself, if both should be preserved, the old being neither
strong enough, nor expansive enough, to hold it. [ Footnote: Renan,
speaking on this matter, says of the early Christians: La langue leur
faisait defaut. Le Grec et le Semitique les trahissaient egalement. De
la cette enorme violence que le Christianisme naissant fit au langage
(_Les Apotres_, p. 71)] Thus, not to speak of mere technical matters,
which would claim an utterance, how could the Greek language possess a
word for 'idolatry,' so long as the sense of the awful contrast between
the worship of the living God and of dead things had not risen up in
their minds that spoke it? But when Greek began to be the native
language of men, to whom this distinction between the Creator and the
creature was the most earnest and deepest conviction of their souls,
words such as 'idolatry,' 'idolater,' of necessity appeared. The
heathen did not claim for their deities to be 'searchers of hearts,'
did not disclaim for them the being 'accepters of persons'; such
attributes of power and righteousness entered not into their minds as
pertaining to the objects of their worship. The Greek language,
therefore, so long as they only employed it, had not the words
corresponding. [Footnote: [Greek: Prosopolaeptaes, kardiognostaes.
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