lead men toward truth and goodness; and, as truth and goodness are always the same, the way to them must also be the same, and the first steps on this way must inevitably be the same for the Christian as for the heathen.
The difference between the Christian and pagan teaching of goodness lies in this: that the heathen teaching is one of final perfection, while the Christian teaching is one of infinite perfecting. Plato, for instance, makes justice the model of perfection, whereas Christ's model is the infinite perfecting of love. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect."
In this lies the difference. And hence the different relations of the pagan and Christian teachings toward different grades of virtue. According to the former the attainment of the highest virtue was possible, and each step toward this attainment had its comparative merit; the higher the step the greater the merit; so that from the pagan point of view men may be divided into moral and immoral—into more or less virtuous; whereas, according to the Christian teaching, which sets up the ideal of infinite perfection, this division is impossible. There can be neither higher nor lower grades—all steps are equal in relation to the infinite ideal.
Among the heathen the stage of virtue attained by a man constituted his merit; in Christianity merit consists only in the process of attainment, in the greater or lesser speed of attainment. From the heathen point of view a man who possessed the virtue of reasonableness stood morally higher than one deficient in that virtue; a man who in addition to reasonableness possessed manliness stood higher still; a man who to reasonableness and manliness added justice stood still higher. Whereas one Christian cannot be regarded as morally either higher or lower than another. A man is more or less of a Christian only in proportion to the speed with which he advances toward infinite perfection, irrespective of the stage he may have reached at a given moment. Hence the stationary righteousness of the Pharisee is lower than the advance of the repentant thief on the cross.
