belief which to him would have been, I fear, simply ludicrous, from its
strange analogy with the belief of John, the Christian Apostle. What is
Marcus Aurelius's cardinal doctrine? That there is a God within him, a
Word, a Logos, which "has hold of him," and who is his teacher and
guardian; that over and above his body and his soul, he has a Reason
which is capable of "hearing that Divine Word, and obeying the monitions
of that God." What is Plutarch's cardinal doctrine? That the same
Word, the Daemon who spoke to the heart of Socrates, is speaking to him
and to every philosopher; "coming into contact," he says, "with him in
some wonderful manner; addressing the reason of those who, like
Socrates, keep their reason pure, not under the dominion of passion, nor
mixing itself greatly with the body, and therefore quick and sensitive
in responding to that which encountered it.

You see from these two extracts what questions were arising in the minds
of men, and how they touched on ethical and theological questions. I
say arising in their minds: I believe that I ought to say rather,
stirred up in their minds by One greater than they. At all events,
there they appeared, utterly independent of any Christian teaching. The
belief in this Logos or Daemon speaking to the Reason of man, was one
which neither Plutarch nor Marcus, neither Numenius nor Ammonius, as far
as we can see, learnt from the Christians; it was the common ground
which they held with them; the common battlefield which they disputed
with them.

Neither have we any reason to suppose that they learnt it from the
Hindoos. That much Hindoo thought mixed with Neoplatonist speculation
we cannot doubt; but there is not a jot more evidence to prove that
Alexandrians borrowed this conception from the Mahabharavata, than that
George Fox the Quaker, or the author of the "Deutsche Theologie," did