How truly did Jesus prophesy that the conditions of mortal mind should be the same at the second coming of Christ, as when the great demonstrator of Christian Science came to solve the problem,—to overcome the world, so that to all future generations he should be the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
St. Paul, in preaching to the Greeks, followed in the wake of a long line of philosophers; to the greatest of whom, says Emerson, Omar's compliment to the Koran applies,— "Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book."
In all his researches, but "a feather from the wing of Truth" had floated down to Plato, in the realization that God is the Supreme Idea or Essence of the Universe, and is the cause of all things, celestial and terrestrial. But his deductions are purely pantheistic, coming as they do through the human intellect, for "Canst thou by searching find out God?" And Emerson, after crediting Plato with all that human wisdom has discerned, says, "No power of genius has ever yet had the smallest success in explaining existence." St. Paul, on entering Athens, found this inscription, "To the Unknown God."
