SOURCE: “Arguments for Faith in Clement of Alexandria,” in Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 48, No. 1, 1994, pp. 1-24.

[In the following essay, Osborn examines in turn each of Clement's eight arguments for faith and the resulting philosophical problems.]

In the history of ideas, the defence of faith, which is offered by Clement of Alexandria, ranks beside that of Paul who, in Romans 4, sought to prove the primacy of the faith of Abraham over the law of Moses. Paul was supported by the Letter to the Hebrews, which claimed that not only Abraham, but all the notables of Jewish scripture were persons of faith. Yet faith found its first principle and perfection in Jesus. For Clement, just as the law was a paidagogos to the Jews, so philosophy was a paidagogos to the Greeks to bring them to Christ. In the second century, both paidagogoi were unhappy at their compulsory retirement, especially since they were required to leave their books behind for use by their younger replacement. Justin made it clear that the scriptures now belonged to Christians; Tertullian warned all that the scriptures were Christian property.

In philosophy, Justin and Clement used an identical formula to assert that whatever had been well said, belonged to Christians. Justin's logos spermatikos claimed Socrates and Heraclitus as Christians before Christ. Clement, in his Stromateis, claimed that the Greek schools had torn the limbs of truth apart; Christ brought them all together. The need for philosophical argument was self-evident for it would have to be used to prove itself unnecessary. The protest against the Christian acquisition of Greek philosophy was strong and found its centre exactly where Jewish protest against Paul was fixed—the inadequacy of faith. Clement's reply defended faith with philosophical arguments which he connected to the arguments which Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews had used against a different opponent.

The move from the New Testament to Christian theology through the joining of New Testament ideas to Greek philosophy was, I think, the beginning of European thought, and the argument about faith stands in the centre of that development. Faith became an object of attack from philosophers because it claimed too much and from Gnostics because it achieved too little. Clement of Alexandria's plea for the faith, which he had learned from his much-quoted Paul, is pervasive and of many strands. These strands have sometimes been separated between bible and philosophy¹ and subjected to limited scrutiny. My concern is to let the two sources speak together, to look at them in the light of recent discussion concerning Greek philosophy, and to solve a long-standing problem of false attribution, where Zeno is supplanted by Aristotle.

Christians were, according to the Platonist Celsus, always saying, ‘Only believe’, and never offering rational grounds for the acceptance of their creeds. Origen replied that not everyone could be a full-time philosopher, and that the scriptures were studied with logical rigour. Further, most people had neither time nor ability for rational inquiry and they must be helped (Cels. 1.9). Indeed, philosophers choose their school of philosophy on non-rational impulse, either because they have met a certain teacher or believe one school to be better than the rest (Cels. 1.10). Faith in the supreme God is a commendable thing, the writers of the Gospels were plainly honest men and Christian doctrines are coherent with the common notions of human reason (Cels. 3.39f.).

Clement's reply to the same criticism had been more complex. He needed more argument to meet the objections of Gnostics as well as philosophers to the high place which Christians gave to faith in their preaching, worship and discipline. He drew his account of faith from Paul (to whom he attributed the Epistle to the Hebrews), John, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Stoics, Epicurus and others. The philosophy of Clement's day, Middle Platonism, mixed Plato with Aristotle and the Stoics.

Faith was anticipation, assent, perception, hearing God in scripture, intuition of the unproved first-principle, discernment by criterion, dialectic and divine wisdom, unity with God.

Despite diversity of origin, all these moves in ancient epistemology had served a common end, that of finding a basis for knowledge and avoiding ‘infinite regress’.

Clement was a Stromatist, not simply to hide things from unthinking Sophists, but because he wanted his different readers to learn from the similarities between their own ideas and Christian faith. ‘To those who ask for the wisdom which is in us, we must present what is familiar to them so that, as easily as possible, through their own ideas… they may reasonably arrive at faith in the truth’ (str 5.3.18).

For Clement, as he begins the discussion in Stromateis 2 and takes it up again in Stromateis 5, argument and faith are necessary to one another. Argument for faith is still argument. His introduction indicates his approach. Philosophical proof is a benefit to minds rather than to tongues (str. 2.1.3). Just as fowls which scratch vigorously for their own food have the best flesh, so there is need for pain and effort by those who search for truth (str. 2.1.3). We need wisdom in all our ways (Prov. 3:5f.). Faith is the way and the fear of God is foremost (str. 2.2.4). The barbarian or biblical philosophy is perfect and true. Wisdom is the unerring knowledge of reality, of virtues and of the roots of things (Wisd. 7:17ff.; str. 2.2.5). Clement begins from the fear of the lord, as extolled in the Wisdom literature, which had already joined the faith of the Old Testament to Hellenistic philosophy (str. 2.2.4).

Divine wisdom is the universal guide. She requires rejection of earthly wisdom, conformity to reason, discriminating use of secular culture, departure from evil and, supremely, the fear of God (Prov. 3:5,6,7,12,23). Through wisdom God gives true understanding of existing things: ‘a knowledge of the structure of the world and the operation of the elements; the beginning and end of epochs and their middle course; the alternating solstices and the changing seasons; the cycles of the years and the constellations; the nature of living creatures and behaviour of wild beasts; the violent force of winds and the thoughts of men; the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots. I learnt it all, hidden or manifest, for I was taught by her whose skill made all things, wisdom’ (Wisd. 7:17-21). With these verses, Clement summarises ‘barbarian philosophy’ and the wisdom which leads to God who, although remote in essence, has come near to men (Jer. 23:23).² The riddles of divine utterance and the deep things of the spirit, he says, are secrets which exclude the unworthy. What is holy must be kept from the dogs. Heraclitus limited understanding to the few and seems to rebuke the many who do not believe; the prophets tell us that the righteous live by faith and without faith there can be no understanding. Without faith, said the writer to Hebrews, it is impossible to please God (str. 2.2.4-8).

Clement's eight arguments are the following:

First, faith is preconception, the substance of things hoped for.

Second, faith is assent or decision, and never a natural possession.

Third, faith is hearing and seeing, as the definition and narrative of Hebrews 11 make clear.

Fourth, faith is listening to God in the scriptures.

Fifth, a first principle is to be unproved and unprovable. To avoid infinite regress, there has to be a starting point which is grasped by faith.³

Sixth, faith is the criterion which judges that something was true or false.

Seventh, faith is always on the move, from faith to faith, moving up the ladder of dialectic. It is the grain of mustard seed which stimulates the soul to grow.

Eighth, faith is fixed on God and in some way divine, a source of power and stability. From the shifting sands of error, it moves to the firm ground of truth and there it remains.

All these arguments raise problems which show that they never were without ambiguity. In order to use them Clement had to decide what they meant; their close examination shows how many questions had to be faced in order to give an account of faith. The eight points also show how intricately scripture and philosophy are joined. Today it seems natural to divide the language of philosophy and the language of the bible.⁴ For Clement the bible was the barbarian philosophy and logos linked the text of scripture to human reason. It was not possible to pluck instant fruit from the vines; there had to be planting, weeding, watering and all sorts of farming. It is a mistake, in the elucidation of Clement's complex ideas, to isolate philosophical argument from evangelical exhortation. Clement quotes Plato 600 times and Paul 1200 times; frequently they are quoted together.

1. PRECONCEPTION AND HOPE

Faith, says Clement, is denigrated by the Greeks but it is what they recognise as a deliberate preconception or anticipation. Hebrews 11 has offered the same defence of faith: faith gives substance to our hopes (str. 2.2.8).

‘Epicurus supposes faith to be a preconception of the mind, He explains this preconception as attention directed to something clear and a clear concept of something. He declares that no one can make an inquiry, confront a problem, have an opinion and indeed make a refutation without a preconception’ (str. 2.4.16). Epicurus saw that without an anticipation one cannot inquire, doubt, judge. Isaiah insisted that there could be no understanding without faith (7:9) and Heraclitus wrote ‘Except one hopes for what is beyond hope, he will not find it, for it will remain impossible to examine and to understand’ (Diels 18). This means that the blessed and happy man must be from the beginning a partaker of truth, believing and trustworthy (Plato, Laws 730bc). The apistos is hopeless in the arena of truth and is a fool (str. 2.4.16).

Hope depends on faith. Even Basilides, the Gnostic, saw that faith is the assent of the soul to things which are not present to the senses (str. 2.6.17). Basilides went wrong when he denied the freedom of faith and the decision which it involved. Faith is a wise preconception prior to comprehension. It is an expectation and confidence in the only and all-sufficient God, whose beneficence and kindness are turned to us (str. 2.6.28).

The function of Epicurean preconceptions is to make knowledge possible, when the perceiver is confronted by a mass of sensations.⁵ Preconceptions are… distinguished from other mental visions by their generic content.’⁶ They claim to generate universals from streams of phenomena. By means of preconception we recognise different kinds of things. The mind selects from streams of atomic images to form the preconception which enlarges the act of perception.⁷ Preconceptions become indispensable starting points. ‘It is as a matter of fact, from Epicurus on, a philosophical commonplace that preconceptions are what make inquiry possible’.⁸ Regrettably, they were no more impregnable against Skeptics than were other starting points, for the Skeptic simply claimed that he had different preconceptions and could not choose between them.⁹

There are three different theories concerning the origin of preconceptions. In the first account they are due to repeated sensation, in the second they are innate, and in the third they are ingrained.

(i) Preconceptions come from what has frequently been evident to the sense (D.L. 10.33). Each word brings to the mind a clear delineation which is a self-evident starting point, and which removes the danger of infinite regress (cf. Ep.Hdt. 37f.). We do not inquire about anything of which we have no prior knowledge. Sensations are marked off from one another and classified by means of preconceptions, which have been gained through repeated experiences of particular objects (D.L. 10.33). Other concepts may also be derived from preconceptions; even the gods are objects of refined perception.¹⁰

(ii) The late Stoicizing Academy speaks of innate preconceptions. For example, every race of men possesses, in its untaught state, a preconception of the gods. ‘Epicurus’ word for this is prolepsis, that is what we may call a delineation of a thing, preconceived by the mind, without which understanding, inquiry and discussion are impossible' (Cicero, ND 1.44).¹¹ These preconceptions are insitae and innatae.

(iii) In between these positions is that of the Old Stoa. Chrysippus considered preconceptions to be ingrained rather than innate, and was credited with clearing up confusion between preconceptions and conceptions (Plutarch, Comm. not. 1059C). ‘There is no other “evidence” in the Old Stoic writers for a theory of any kind of “inborn” belief; their philosophy needs no such beliefs and should not be saddled with them.’¹²

Attempts to harmonise the different accounts of origin have been unsuccessful.¹³ The first belongs to Epicurus, the second to the late Stoicizing Academy and the third to the Old Stoa. For the Epicurean, the world is perceived as divided into natural kinds which we recognise, for the Stoic, definition is a prerequisite for any inquiry. The Stoic idea aims to represent the world. The Epicurean idea simply responds to a stimulus in the world. The scholarly consensus that Stoics merely took over Epicurean preconception is seriously wrong.¹⁴ We have no Epicurean text which sets out exactly the nature of preconception; but the empiricist, materialist position of the Epicureans should prevent them being assimilated by Stoicizing commentators. Prolepseis are concerned, not with mental states, but with states of affairs in the world.¹⁵Prolepseis organise phainomena either into natural kinds or into persistent conditions.¹⁶ Anything more must be a conceptual invention. There is a difference between recognizing something in the world and conceiving something which represents it.¹⁷

The ‘substance of things hoped for’ in Hebrews 11 is a simple development from Pauline theology. Just as Abraham was justified by faith, so all Old Testament notables are heroes of faith.¹⁸ The notion of anticipation (vorauseilen, vorangehen, vorausnehmen) is stressed by Bultmann in his sermons. ‘To be a Christian, to believe, means to have hurried on ahead of the time of this world. It means to stand already at the end of this world.’¹⁹ In this way faith becomes that victory which overcomes the world (1Jn 5:4).²⁰ As so often for Clement, Heraclitus, for whom hope is essential to understanding,²¹ provided the link between philosophy and the bible.

Clement's adoption of prolepsis is not a blind appropriation, because there are different theories between which he must choose. For his own reasons, Clement gives Epicurus a more Stoic doctrine than he had propounded; but he cannot (for anti-Gnostic reasons) concede that preconceptions are innate. Faith is hekousios and it is a clear vision of the future which links faith and hope. These claims lead on to the next two arguments.

2. ASSENT AND CHOICE

The preconception of faith is chosen. It is the assent of godliness, or saying ‘yes’ to God… (str. 2.2.8). Faith (str. 2.2.9). is an assent which unites²² the believer to God. Faith provides a foundation by rational anticipatory choice. The decision to follow what is better is the beginning of understanding. Unswerving anticipatory choice… provides the movement towards knowledge (str. 2.2.9). Choice and decision had been important for Plato and especially for Aristotle (Nic.Eth. 1139a 31ff.).²³ Here Clement is concerned both to attack Gnostics and to convince philosophers. For Basilides, faith is innate and, as for Valentinus, inferior to knowledge. Both deny that faith is a matter of free choice (str. 2.3.10). For Clement, faith must be voluntary (str. 2.3.11).

The scriptures tell of free choice, and the scriptural command to believe is an invitation to assent or choose. With a willing spirit we choose life and believe God through his voice (str. 2.4.12). Following Hebrews 11, the faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, is celebrated. Clement continues with Joseph and Moses who also chose God's way of faith. Faith is in our power and shows its effects in a repentance which is freely chosen (str. 2.6.27). Both Platonists and Stoics say that assent is in our power (Chrysippus frag.phys. 992) (str. 2.12.54). Indeed all opinion, judgement, conjecture and learning is assent, which is faith. Unbelief shows that its opposite (faith) is possible, while it remains a mere privation and has no real existence (str. 2.12.55). Faith as the voluntary assent of the soul produces good works and right action (str. 5.13.86). We may note, in contrast (str. 5.5.28), that David says ‘Be angry and sin not’ (Ps. 4:5). This means, says Clement, that we should not give our assent to the impression of anger or confirm it by action.

Confession (homologia) to God is martyrdom (marturia). The soul which has lived purely, known God and obeyed his commandments is a martus by life and word. It sheds blood all along the way of life until it goes from earth to be with God (str. 4.4.15). However, those (Marcionites or others) who choose martyrdom out of hatred for their creator, do not qualify as ‘believing martyrs’. They have not known the only true God and die in futility. Nor are words enough. The true confession of martyrs is not what their voice utters, but the deeds and actions which correspond to faith (str. 4.9.71).

Knowledge, for Zeno (SVF i 68), is a form of grasping or comprehension, a katalepsis which cannot be overthrown by any argument. External objects produce impressions, which reach the governing-principle of the perceiver (SVF ii 56), who assents or judges that his impression corresponds to fact. Then, he grasps the impression and finally he knows. Zeno described the four stages, by extending his open hand which received the impression, then partly closing his hand to show assent, then clenching his fist to show cognition and finally grasping his fist with his other hand to show what knowledge was like (Cic.Acad. 2.145). Many things may be grasped and known by the senses, but never without assent, which we may give or withhold. Yet the living mind must admit what is self-evident as surely as scales sink under weights (Cic.Acad. 2.37f.). Some impressions are immediately certain; these cognitive or recognizable impressions virtually take us by the hair and drag us to assent (Sextus, Adv.math., vii, 257).

Sense perceptions are like blows from outside to which the assent of the mind must be given from within (Cic.Acad. 1.40f.). The senses send their impressions to the mind which assesses their testimony. The wise man gives assent only to impressions which are cognitive and consequently he does not err. Ignorance is changeable and weak assent. While the wise man supposes nothing weakly, but securely and firmly…the inferior man is precipitate and gives assent without cognition.²⁴

Assent is given by the ruling faculty of the soul (Aetius 4.21) mediating between impressions and impulses. ‘Without assent there is neither action nor impulsion’.²⁵ Such assent means ‘going along with’ or ‘committing oneself to’ the truth of an impression. For the New Academy, assent was not an acceptable theory. Carneades had driven it as a wild and savage monster from their minds (Acad. 2.108). Arcesilaus denied the propriety of assent to any truth (Acad. 1.43-6). Assents are bad; suspension of judgement is good (Sext.Emp.Pyrr. 1.232-4). As well as assent, Clement gives an account of faith as choice, when reason fails. We do not inquire into questions which are obvious, opaque, ambivalent, or which have one irrefutable side. If the cause for inquiry is removed in any of these ways, then faith is established… (str. 5.1.5).

3. PERCEPTION, HEARING, SEEING AND BELIEVING

Faith needs to perceive that to which its assent may be given. Faith is the scrutiny of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). Moses endured as seeing him who is invisible (Heb. 11:27). He who hopes, as he who believes, says Clement, sees with his mind both mental objects and future things. What is just, good, true is seen with the mind and not with the eyes (str. 5.3.16). Faith is prior to argument, and may be considered as a form of perception. For Theophrastus, Clement tells us, aisthesis is the arche of faith. From perception the archai come to our logos and dianoia (str. 2.2.9). While truth is found in aisthesis, nous, episteme and hupolepsis, nous is first by nature, even if for us aisthesis is first in the order of our experience. Sensation and nous are the essence of knowledge, sharing what is enarges. Sensation is the ladder to knowledge. Faith advances through things which are perceived, leaves assumptions… behind and comes to rest in truth (str. 2.3.13). While materialists grasp rocks and oaks in their hands to argue with idealists (Sophist 246a), faith provides a new eye, new ear and new heart which apprehend what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has entered in to the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9; Is. 64:4). By faith comes the quick comprehension of the disciples of the lord. They discern the false from the genuine, like money changers, who tell others what is counterfeit but who do not try to explain why, because only they have learnt the difference (str. 2.4.15).²⁶ Those who have ears to hear should hear. Epicharmus explains further that it is mind which sees and hears, while all else is deaf and blind. Heraclitus describes unbelievers as ignorant of how to hear or to speak, while Solomon (Sir. 6:33) links hearing with comprehension and wisdom (str. 2.5.24).

Such hearing comes from the son of God through the word of the lord and the preaching of the apostles; it ends in faith (Is. 53:1; Rom. 10:17, 14, 15). Word and preaching need cooperation. As in a game of ball the thrower must have someone to catch, so faith catches what it hears and is a cooperating cause in the gaining of truth (str. 2.6.25).

Faith is the ear of the soul, whereby he who has ears to hear may hear, and comprehend what the lord says.²⁷ Faith of teacher and of hearer work together to the one end of salvation. Paul speaks of the mutual faith which he shares with the Romans (Rom. 1:11f.).

Faith directs the sight of the soul to discovery. Obstacles like jealousy and greed must be cleared away (str. 5.1.11). So there are to be no pearls cast before swine; the natural man does not receive the things of God (str. 1.12.56 also 5.4.25). All, both barbarians and Greeks, who have spoken of divine things, have veiled their account of first principles in riddles, symbols, allegories, and metaphors (str. 5.4.21). The common crowd will stay with their five senses; but we must go within the veil. Plato excluded the uninitiated who thought that all existence could be grasped by their hands. God cannot be known by those who are limited to their five senses. The son revealed the father in the flesh but he is known only in the spirit. We walk by faith, not by sight (str. 5.6.34).…

… In scripture the language of seeing and hearing is present on every side. Paul speaks of the new eye and ear, of looking to things unseen and eternal, even of visions in the third heaven. Hebrews 11 is full of the evidence of what is unseen. Blindness and deafness are the epistemological illnesses of the Gospels. At the last judgment, condemnation is pronounced on those who did not see, in the hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick and prisoner, the presence of their lord.²⁸

4. FAITH AND SCRIPTURE

Perception leaves us with the question: where is God to be seen and heard? God is the first object of faith and the arguments for faith only work because God has spoken in scripture. Here we receive the voice of God as irrefutable proof. The strength of scripture is, like the call of the Sirens, greater than human power; it disposes hearers, almost against their wills, to receive its words (str. 2.2.9).

Plato (Tim 40de), says Clement, claims that it is possible to learn the truth only from God or from the offspring of God. We are confident in the divine oracles which we possess and the truth we learn from the son of God, a truth which was first prophesied and then made clear (str. 6.15.123).

The disciples of Pythagoras found… a sufficient ground for faith. Therefore the lovers of truth will not refuse faith to a master worthy of faith, the only saviour and God (str. 2.5.24). From him come the word of the lord, the preaching of the apostles, and the hearing which turns to faith (Is. 53:1; Rom. 10:17,14,15) (str. 2.6.25).

In general, faith and proof may depend on either knowledge or opinion. From the scriptures we have proof based on knowledge in an obedience which is faith in God (str. 2.11.48). Even the simplest faith has this knowledge or rationality. The highest proof produces episteme through scriptures and leads on to gnosis (str. 2.11.49). Faith cannot be overthrown because God comes to our help in scripture (str. 5.1.5). It would be wrong further to disbelieve God and ask for proofs from him (str. 5.1.6).

Clement's strong claims for scripture might be assisted in two ways. First, it was common in the ancient world to look to literature as a source of all knowledge.²⁹ Secondly, Christians (notably Justin) took over Jewish scriptures which were studied as the oracles of God, a complex totality of truth. These had ceased to belong to the Jews and had become Christian property. Irenaeus, Clement and Tertullian saw them as crowned by the writings of the New Testament. The central problem, which Clement raises with striking clarity, is the relation between divine oracle and the philosophy, which for him means argument. Plato, he shows, had established the conjunction. In Philo, oracle almost swallows philosophy, and in the Gnostics there is nothing but oracle. Clement stays close to Plato and insists that we should follow the wind of the argument wherever it leads. Philosophical argument is never optional: we should have to argue in order to show it to be unnecessary (str. 6.18.162).

For Clement the divine oracles are alive. His enthusiasm for scripture is enhanced by its novelty. He writes with the wonder of the poet John Keats, ‘On first looking into Chapman's Homer’. Faith, says Clement, is active through love in writing or speaking the word (str. 1.1.4). The prophets and disciples of the spirit knew by faith (str. 1.9.45). We are taught by God, instructed by the son of God in the truly ‘sacred letters which are the scriptures’ (str. 1.20.98). Faith in Christ and the knowledge of the gospel provide explanation and fulfilment of the law. As Isaiah says, unless we believe, we do not understand. We must believe what the law prophesies and delivers in oracles in order to understand the Old Testament, which Christ, by his coming, expounded. Indeed faith in Christ and the knowledge of the gospel are the exegesis of the law and its fulfilment (str. 4.21.134).

At the same time philosophy is at least as important as oracle. The scriptures provide the real philosophy and true theology if we read them often, put them to the test by faith and practise them in the whole of our lives (str. 5.9.56). He who believes scripture and the voice of the lord may be trusted. Scripture is the criterion and first principle, and not subject to criticism. It is reasonable to grasp by faith the unprovable first principle and to receive from it demonstrations about the first principle. In this way we are trained to know truth by the voice of the lord (str. 7.16.95). We have already arrived at the next argument.³⁰

5. FAITH AND PROOF

Scripture makes claims about God and salvation. How can these be rationally accepted? The faith of Abraham points to one cause and principle of all things, to the self-existent God, who justifies the ungodly, raises the dead and creates out of nothing. God, says Clement, who is remote in his being, has come near to us (Jer. 23:23f.). Moses, on the mountain, entered into the darkness, into the inaccessible ideas about existence (str. 2.2.6). Hiddent truth may now be learnt (Prov. 1:2-6; str. 2.2.6). With the Holy Spirit, it is possible to search the deep things of God (1 Cor 2:10). That which is holy is not for dogs (str. 2.2.7). Understanding follows faith (Is. 7:9).³¹

For the first-principles of things are not proved or provable. They are not known by practical techne or by phronesis which handles changeable things: the first principle or cause of all things is known by faith alone.³² All knowledge may be taught, and what is taught is based on previous knowledge. The first principle was not known to Greeks like Thales or Anaxagoras. Since no one can know and teach first principles, we must call no man our master on earth (str. 2.3.13). Wisdom, which begins from the fear of the Lord, the grace and word of God, is faith.

God, we are told later, in Stromateis 5, gave us life and reason; he wished that our life be both reasonable and good. From Justin's logos spermatikos onwards, this was the dominant theme of early Christian thought: reason and goodness stand together. The logos of the father of all things is not just a spoken word but his wisdom and transparent goodness, his divine and sovereign power, his almighty will, conceivable even for those who do not confess him (str. 5.1.6). Man's own rational power is limited. Paul declared God's judgement on the fragile wisdom of the disputers of this world. In similar vein Numa, king of the Romans, rightly built a temple to faith and peace, which are the opposites of the worldly debate. Abram was justified by faith, recognised God as superior to creation and scored an extra Alpha to be called Abraham. He had always been interested in the heavens; when he grasped the simplicity and unity of God, he received a second Alpha and a new name. The link of justification and the indemonstrable first principle is an important clue to the meaning of faith (str. 5.1.8). While Empedocles claimed truth in his myths, he declared that the inclination to faith… is resisted by the mind (str. 5.1.9). So Paul put his faith not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, which alone and without proofs can save.

In his logic note-book of Stromateis 8, Clement expands his claim that first principles cannot be proved or else they would not be first principles but dependent on something prior to them. This is the simplest argument for faith. It is not a proof of God's existence, but a proof that God, because he is God and ultimate first principle, is only accessible to faith (str. 8.3.6f.). An account of unprovable firstprinciples had been central to the logic of Aristotle, as stated in the Metaphysics. ‘There cannot be demonstration of everything alike: the process would go on to infinity so that there would still be no demonstration’(Met 1006a6), and elaborated in Posterior Analytics 2.19.100a,³³ where it is insisted that there must be unproved first-principles. These are of two kinds: principles on which reasoning works (non-contradiction and excluded middle) and axioms (mathematical and ethical).

The final chapter of Posterior Analytics bases all knowledge on sensation, which is an ‘innate discriminatory capacity’, distinguishing one thing from another. From memory and experience, we come to know the ‘whole universal that has come to rest in the soul (the one apart from the many, whatever is one and the same in all those things)’(Post. an. 2.19.100a); beginning from particulars, we perceive universals, then categories which are ‘the ultimate first principles of all that exists, qua existing’(Met 1005b10). In the end ‘Now besides episteme only nous infallibly gives truth, therefore nous is the source of all knowledge, the arche of the archai’.³⁴

Aristotle's account of dialectic and first principles has been explored in a recent study.³⁵ Dialectic cannot find the first principles of science, which must be self-evident, and be grasped as true and necessary in themselves. First principles are grasped by nous (Post.An. 100b5-17). The self-evident will not seem self-evident to us before we grasp it. Empirical inquiry, induction, dialectic are ways to first principles; but they do not make a first principle self-evident. They may serve as stimuli or occasions for intuition. For Plato, dialectic, through its coherence, could justify first principles;³⁶ Aristotle denies this because dialectic is shaped by the common beliefs from which it starts and these beliefs are always open to challenge. ‘Aristotle's assumptions about knowledge and justification do not seem to yield a solution to the problems he has raised for himself; either the sort of intuition he advocates is indefensible or (if the right defence is found) it is superfluous’.³⁷

However Aristotle seems to take a new direction in Metaphysics 4. In his account of first philosophy he uses a new method, which may be described as ‘strong dialectic’ and ‘which differs from pure dialectic in so far as it selects only some of the premisses that pure dialectic allows’.³⁸ Strong dialectic considers that the right kind of coherence can justify the truth of a belief and will explain the kind of argument which Aristotle assigns to first philosophy. While Aristotle never explicitly renounces his early foundationalism (which is inconsistent with strong dialectic), ‘the anti-sceptical arguments in Metaphysics IV show that at any rate he does not consistently adhere to the foundationalism of the Analytics’.³⁹ His practice of strong dialectic may be defended on the ground that his first principles and methods provide a basis for the criticism of his own conclusions. However the problem remains for us today: if we have no alternative to dialectic as a method, we face his difficulties about first principles.⁴⁰ Clement is close to the central puzzle, since together with faith and dialectic, he states the need for ‘true dialectic, which is philosophy mixed with truth's(str. 1.27.177).

By argument and faith, Clement continues, we reach the first principle of all things (str. 2.4.14); the errors of Thales show that there is no other way. Faith is a grace which goes beyond the indemonstrable principle to what is entirely simple, and in no way material. The point of Clement's argument is that it shows how faith and God are correlative. For Paul, faith depends on the God who justifies the ungodly (Rom 4:5), raises the dead and creates out of nothing (Rom 4:17). Such a God is the ultimate first principle and not accessible except by faith.

6. JUDGEMENT AND CRITERION

The first principles which faith grasps are the elements of truth. They may therefore be used to test other claims to truth. The faith which holds them becomes the criterion for which Hellenistic philosophy sought.⁴¹

Aristotle, according to Clement, says⁴² that the krima which follows the knowledge of a thing and affirms it to be true is faith. Faith, then, is the criterion of knowledge and greater than knowledge because it determines whether knowledge is true or false (str. 2.4.15). The only possible reference in Aristotle seems to be in Top. 4.5,126b: ‘Similarly also the belief will be present in the opinion since it is the intensification of the opinion; so the opinion will believe. Further the result of making an assertion of this kind will be to call intensification intensified and excess excessive. For the belief is intensified; if therefore, belief is intensification, intensification would be intensified’.⁴³ This is an unlikely source for Clement's simple claim.

There remain four possibilities behind Clement's account. First, it may refer to a lost text of Aristotle. Secondly, it may be a development from what Aristotle said about the importance of a canon. When speaking of the construction of the soul, he talks of the carpenter's straight rule which can test both straight and curved lines, while a curved rule can test nothing (anima 1.5,411a). Thirdly, the claim may come from a rhetorical source. When an orator offers an argument, we call it a pistis, because we are intended to pisteuein the conclusion after being convinced by the argument. It is from our pistis that we judge the strength of the argument and the episteme of its author.⁴⁴ Finally, because the argument is strongly Stoic, it is probable that a Stoic argument has simply been attributed to Aristotle in error. Inaccurate citation was common in Clement's day.⁴⁵

The Stoic origin of the argument can now be asserted with confidence.⁴⁶ The same argument, in an extended form, is attributed by Cicero to Zeno (Acad. 1.41f.) and set out in these terms:

1. Assent is a voluntary act.

2. Not all sensible presentations are worthy of faith (fides).

3. Only those, which possess clarity and are recognisable presentations, are worthy of faith.

4. Sensation, firmly grasped or recognisable, is knowledge (scientia), irremoveable by reasoning. All other sensation is ignorance (inscientia).

5. The stage between knowledge and ignorance is comprehensio, and it alone is credible ‘sed solum ei credendum esse credebat’ (Acad. 1.42).

6. Hence Zeno granted fides also to the senses, because it let go nothing which was capable of being its object, and because nature had given a canon (or criterion) and a first principle of itself from which the first principle of a thing might be impressed on the mind.

Finally, Cicero, following Antiochus, remarks that ‘the Stoic system should be considered a correction of the Old Academy rather than another new teaching’ (Acad. 1.43). This makes the attribution to Aristotle easy to understand.

Clement's summary of this argument, which he would have learnt from a Greek source similar to that of Cicero, is brief: the judgement concerning the truth of a presentation judges whether it is faithful and this verdict is reached by faith, using its own criterion. Here the argument from assent seems to be repeated.…

Canon and criterion dominated Hellenistic philosophy, for they indicated the way in which objective truth might be tested.⁴⁷ The canon of Epicurus set out criteria to test truth and falsity. Clement speaks similarly of the canon of the church which is the confession of the essential articles of faith (str. 7.15.90). For example, the criterion of faith works at scripture to present a coherent account which follows from faith's first principle. The lover of truth must exercise strength of soul, strict adherence to faith's rule, critical discrimination between true and false, and a sense of what is essential. Heretics do not follow logical rules and plain argument. The believer will not abandon the truth to which the Word has appointed him, but stands firm, grows old in the scriptures, lives by the gospel and finds proofs in the law and the prophets. He must never defile the truth or canon of the church. Heretics do not enter by the main door of the church, the tradition of Christ, but cut a side door through the wall (str. 7.17.106). The pious forger of the ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’ took this reference to a hole in the wall literally and one modern writer has tumbled in after him.⁴⁸ The failure of the heretic is a twofold logical error, through failure to use a true criterion and failure to observe simple rules of argument.⁴⁹

7. FAITH, KNOWLEDGE AND LOVE

Faith as criterion could have a negative function. For Clement, its use was primarily positive. Faith was needed as the beginning of exuberant growth, strenuous thought and virtuous living. Clement attacks those who want bare faith alone, who are not prepared to cultivate and farm the vines they plant, but wish to harvest fruit immediately (str. 1.9.43). In contrast, the true dialectic, which is philosophy mixed with truth, ascends and descends (str. 1.28.177).

(i) Faith and dialectic

Faith becomes knowledge (gnosis) for which it has provided a good foundation. It moves on towards knowledge by a process of dialectic. Clement has been well known for his account of the way in which faith grows to knowledge in his Christian savant, the true gnostic. Intellectual progress comes through dialectic and scripture. For Justin and Clement, scripture is the mind and will of God (dial. 68); it replaces the Platonic forms.

We have noted differences between Plato and Aristotle on the use of dialectic. Plato believed that dialectic could reach the highest first principle; Aristotle did not. Yet for both, intuition was needed at the top of the logical ladder, so Clement used both Plato and Aristotle. Plato took him to the unknown and ineffable God who, according to Acts 17, was declared in Jesus Christ (str. 5.12.81f.); in another place the via negativa is taken to the monad, then to the dimension of Christ, then to the void, and then to a perception of the Almighty (str. 5.11.71).

For later Platonism, dialectic is concerned with the upward movement of the Republic, where hypotheses are destroyed to be replaced by more ultimate principles.⁵⁰ This is what Clement means when he speaks of the true dialectic, which is applied to scripture: universal principles like the Sermon on the Mount and the love commandment would stand at the top, while particular injunctions would stand at the bottom. Yet at the same time there is downward movement to particular points, as in the demolition of Gnostic koinonia (str. 3.5.42). In Phaedrus, Politicus, Sophist, and elsewhere, dialectic is also concerned with dividing and joining specific kinds. Definitions are ladders which proceed downwards to these kinds.

(ii) Faith as a virtue

As indicated earlier, the theme of early Christian thought was that God required both reason and goodness. Faith is the royal wisdom described by Plato.⁵¹ Those who have believed in Christ are chrestoi, as those cared for by the true king are kingly. What is right is lawful because the law is right reason. Law is the king of all (Pindar, fr. 169). For Plato and the Stoics, only the wise man is king and ruler (str. 2.4.18).

Plato (Laws 630bc and Rep 475bc) commends faithfulness. Faith is the mother of virtues (str. 2.5.23). Faith is divine and cannot be eroded by worldly friendship or fear. Love makes men believers, and faith is the foundation of love (str. 2.6.30). Faith is the first movement to salvation. It is followed by fear, hope, repentance, temperance, patience and finally love and knowledge (str. 2.6.31). The sequence of the virtues may also be seen as faith hoping through repentance, fear through faith: patience and practice lead on to love (str. 2.9.45). Both faith and gnosis look to the past in memory and to the future in hope (str. 2.12.53).

Hermas (Vis. 3.8.roughly), Clement continues, describes faith as the virtue by which the elect are saved; it is followed by continence, simplicity, knowledge, innocence, modesty, love, all of which are the daughters of faith (str. 2.12.55).

God (str. 5.1.13) is love, and known to those who love; he is faithful and known to those who are faithful. We are joined to him by divine love, so that by like we may see like. God's temple is built on the threefold foundation of faith, hope and love (str. 5.1.13).

After having presented testimonies from the Greeks about faith Clement adds only a few about hope and love. Plato speaks of hope about life after death in several places: Crito 48b, Phaedrus 248f, Symp. 206c-208b; Theaet. 150bc (str. 5.2.14).

(iii) Faith to faith

Faith and knowledge are inseparable, as are the father and the son (str. 5.1.1). Faith is twofold, for Paul speaks of righteousness which is revealed from faith to faith (Rom. 1:17). A common faith, says Clement, is the foundation; this is indeed what Paul is saying. Paul is concerned with unbroken continuity and the dimensions of a new world,⁵² rather than with two separate stages of development. The perfection of faith comes from instruction and logos. Faith saves men and removes mountains (str. 5.2.1). Faith stimulates the soul like a grain of mustard and grows to greatness in it, so that the words about things above rest on it (str. 5.2.1). Faith (str. 5.1.11) is not inactive and alone. It seeks and finds. Sophocles says that what is sought may be captured but what is neglected escapes. The sight of the soul must be directed towards discovery and freed from the obstacles in its way (str. 2.2.9).

The just live by faith. We must not hold back, but believe so that our souls are saved (Heb. 10:32-9). The endurance of faith (Heb. 11:36-40; 12:1,2) looks to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of faith (str. 4.16.103). The faith which by love ascends to knowledge is desirable for its own sake. If we had to choose between the knowledge of God and eternal salvation we should choose knowledge. The soul never sleeps. The constant exertion of the intelligence is the essence of an intelligent being (str. 4.22.136); this is the divine perfection to which we are called.

(iv) Perfection of faith (paid. 1.6.25-52)

Faith brings life and is perfect in itself. For the believer after death there is no waiting, since, through the pledge of life eternal, he has anticipated the future by faith. Faith goes from promise to enlightened knowledge to final rest. Instruction leads to faith, which goes on to baptism, and then to the training of the holy spirit. Faith is the one salvation of all men and guarantees equality in communion with God. As Paul says, we had the law as our paidagogos until faith came; now as God's children through faith, we are all one in Christ. There is no distinction between those who are enlightened and those who are at an animal or psychic level. All who have abandoned carnal desires are equal and spiritual in the presence of their lord. They have been baptised by one spirit into one body (1 Cor. 12:13). Paul explained Christian maturity when he told us to be children in wickedness, but men in understanding (1 Cor. 14:20). The childish things which he has put away (1 Cor. 13:11) are not smallness of stature or age. Because he is no longer under the law (Gal. 4:1-5), he has lost the fear of childish phantoms of the mind. To be a grown man is to be obedient to the word, master of oneself, to believe and be saved by voluntary choice, to be free from irrational fear, to be a son and not a servant (Gal. 4:7). Childhood in Christ is full maturity, instead of infancy under the law. The infant milk of children in Christ (1 Cor 3:2) is difficult to relate to the perfection of milk and honey (paid. 1.6.24f.). Clement finally goes into physiology to explain the link. The Christian life in which we are being trained is a system of rational⁵³ actions and an unceasing energy which is faith.

Greek philosophy cleanses and prepares the soul for faith. Then truth builds knowledge on the foundation of faith (str. 7.3.20). Faith does not search for God, but confesses and glorifies him. Knowledge starts from faith and goes on to love, the inheritance and the endless end (str. 7.10.55). Faith is a comprehensive knowledge of the essentials; knowledge proves what it receives from faith and goes on to certainty (str. 7.10.57). Yet faith remains supreme, although some have deviated from the truth in their zeal to surpass common faith (str. 7.16.97).

8. STRENGTH AND STABILITY

For critics like Celsus, faith was a weaker thing and the affliction of feeble minds.

(i) Power of God.

Faith is the power of God (cf. 1 Cor. 2:5) and the strength of truth. It moves mountains and determines what we receive. According to our faith, we receive (str. 2.11.48). Paul, says Clement, pointed faith away from the wisdom of men to the power of God, which alone and without proofs, can save (str. 5.1.9).

(ii) Stability and blood.

The mature Christian (the true ‘gnostic’) is fixed firmly by faith… (str. 2.11.51) while the man who thinks that he is wise and does not willingly attach himself to truth, is moved by uncertain and capricious impulses (str. 2.11.51). While faith and knowledge make the soul constant and uniform, error brings instability and change. Knowledge brings tranquillity, rest and peace (str. 2.11.52). ‘Therefore also to believe in him and through him is to become a unit, being indivisibly made one in him; but to disbelieve means separation, estrangement, and division’ (str. 4.25.157). Here the drive to unity with the One has clear Platonic overtones. To those who believe and obey, grace will overflow and abound (prot. 9.85). ‘Your faith has saved you’ was said to Jews who had kept the law; those who lived blamelessly needed only faith in the lord (str. 6.14.108). Faith is the stasis of the soul concerning what is (str. 4.22.143). Yet it is a strange stability. The crown of thorns which the lord wore is a type of our faith, of life because of the tree, of joy because it is a crown, of danger because of thorns. No one can approach the word without blood (paed. 2.8.73).

(iii) God in us

The aim of faith is assimilation to God, as required by Plato, and the end is the restitution of the promise effected by faith (str. 2.22.136). Faith grants divinity to the believer. Those, who are taught by the son of God, possess the truth, for he is the person of truth (str. 6.15.122). On the believer rests the head of the universe (we have the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. 2:16), the kind and gentle word who subverts the craftiness and empty thoughts of the wise (str. 1.3.23; 1 Cor. 3:19f.).

CONCLUSION

The concept of faith aims at simplicity. Hope, assent, perception, hearing, testing, and the mustard seed which grows—all these seem straightforward ideas. Yet the concept is tied at every point to interesting philosophical problems and there is always a variety of interpretations between which Clement has made a rational choice. To these Clement adds his own contemporary controversy with Basilides, who wants faith to be a natural endowment, and Gnostics, who divide faith from knowledge. It is not the case, as some Quellenforschung has suggested, that Clement has collected unambiguous arguments from different sources. Clement's arguments make at least one good point. Preconception is a proper part of epistemology. Assent or choice is essential to Christian faith, which is always a matter of confession. Perception of God is a part of faith. There is a tension between the claim that faith is concerned with what is not seem but anticipated and the claim that God is indeed heard and perceived; this is inescapable if the Christian message of both present and future eschatology be understood. Scripture stands as the rational link with God; yet as divine oracle it has symbolic content. The argument to an unproved arche does not prove God, but shows why Pauline faith and God go together. Faith serves as a criterion to discern true from false. The growth of faith follows the word where it leads. The final link of faith and God guards against triumphalism and preserves the dialectic of Christian existence which lives by dying. Clement has no trouble joining the faith of the scriptures with the faith of philosophers. A unity had already been achieved within the Wisdom literature; he added, to the concept of the bible as the barbarian philosophy, the theology of Paul, the wisdom of Christ crucified. Like all second century theologians, Clement thought that a God, who had become incarnate in Jesus, was more credible than a creator who had not cared enough to redeem the world he had made. Hellenistic philosophers were concerned to find arguable alternatives to the negative arguments which Skeptics produced and the rivers of words which flowed from Sophists. Epistemology had a continuing urgency in their studies. Their several proposals were taken up by Clement, fortified by Plato and Aristotle, linked with scripture and turned into arguments for faith. Faith remained central to Clement in his deep dependence on Paul. ‘Faith is strength to salvation and power to eternal life’ (str. 2.12.53). Abraham's faith, as Paul indicated, was in the only God who showed his absolute sovereignty in the justification of the ungodly, creation out of nothing and the resurrection of the dead. This God is the first cause of all that exists, the ultimate first principle. Faith is not inferior to other ways of knowing, but the only way to know the sovereign God.⁵⁴

Notes

1. As in my The philosophy of Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge, 1957) and S.R.C. Lilla's Clement of Alexandria, A study of Christian Platonism and Gnosticism (Oxford, 1971).

2. While drawing on Philo, his main point (on the coming near of the unapproachable God) is not from Philo.

3. Much ancient theory of knowledge was deductive and took geometry as its model. There had to be axioms.

4. Herein lies the limitation of K. Prümm's useful study, Glaube und Erkenntnis im zweiten Buch der Stromata des Klemens von Alexandrien, Scholastik 12 (1937), 17-57. The same weakness in other work has already been noted above.

5. A. Manuwald, Die Prolepsislehre Epikurs (Bonn, 1972), 103.

6. D.K. Glidden, Epicurean prolepsis, Oxford studies in ancient philosophy, III, (Oxford, 1985), 194.

7. Ibid., 205.

8. Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic philosophers, 1, 89.

9. Sextus Empiricus, adv. math., 8.331f. See Long and Sedley, 1, 249.

10. A.A. Long, Hellenistic philosophy (London, 1974), 25.

11. Translation, Long and Sedley, Hellenistic philosophers, 1, 141.

12. J.M. Rist, Stoic philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), 139.…

13. A. Manuwald, Die Prolepsislehre Epikurs (Bonn, 1972), 39.

14. D.K. Glidden, Epicurean prolepsis, 179f.

15. Ibid., 201.

16. Ibid., 210.

17. Ibid., 212.

18. They were not made perfect, nor did they receive the promise. The new situation of Christian hope is set out in 2 Cor. 3.1-18. Paul's hope belongs to a minister of the new covenant which is marked by freedom, boldness and boasting. See R. Bultmann, TWNT, 2, 528.

19. R. Bultmann, Marburger Predigten (Tübingen, 1956), 170f.

20. Anticipation is also the theme of J. Moltmann, Theologie der Hoffnung (München, 1964), 9-30.

21. The influence of Heraclitus on Clement is strong. See for an introductory statement P. Valentin, Héraclite et Clément d'Alexandrie, RSR, 46 (1958). Heraclitus was important for, and transmitted by, the Stoics.

22. ενωτιηχ sνγχατάθεsιs. Declining Stählin's emendation εννοητιχη, as do Mondésert and Prümm.

23. Prümm, Glaube 23.

24. Stob. 2.111f., Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic philosophers, 1, 256.

25. Plutarch, Stoic. Repug. 1057A, Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic philosophers 1, 317.

26. ‘The artist makes us see what is, in a sense manifestly and edifyingly there (real), but unseen before, and the metaphysician does this too’. I. Murdoch, Metaphysics as a guide to morals (London, 1992), 433.

27. Homer, says Clement, uses ‘hear’ instead of ‘perceive’, a specific form of perception instead of the generic concept.

28. A useful philosophical treatment of this kind of perception is found in, William P. Alston, Perceiving God, the epistemology of religious experience (Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1991).

29. Poetry was ‘a massive repository of useful knowledge, a sort of encyclopedia of ethics, politics, history and technology’. E.A. Havelock, Preface to Plato (Oxford, 1963), 27, cited by R. Bambrough, Reason, truth and God, 122. While this might not help strict followers of Plato, who banished poets from his city, Clement quotes poets incessantly.

30. Before moving on, we should note that the distinction between divine oracle and true philosophy was and remains central to the Christian use of scripture.

31. Clement turns the virtue of faith into a necessity for knowledge. God is not to be found except by abstraction from earthly things and by entering the abyss of faith and the dimension of Christ (str. 5.11.71).

32. For Aristotle, a first principle is also a cause. See Guthrie, History, 6, 178. Prümm does not see why for Clement, as a Platonist, the ground of knowledge has to be the ground of being. See Prümm, Glaube, 28.

33. ‘The last chapter of the Posterior Analytics is… a confession of his epistemological faith, a statement of the source from which in the last resort all knowledge springs.’ W.K.C. Guthrie, A history of Greek philosophy, 6, Aristotle, an encounter (Cambridge, 1981), 179.

34. Guthrie, Aristotle, 184.

35. T.H. Irwin, Aristotle's first principles (Oxford, 1988).

36. Plato's dialectic had gone on to the form of the good; but Aristotle would not do this (EN 1095 a 26-28).

37. Irwin, First principles, 149.

38. Ibid., 476. Aristotle, says Irwin, gives an inversely proportional amount of space to problems which he regards as important.

39. Ibid., 482.

40. Ibid., 484.

41. See Sext. Emp. 7.29 and J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), 133-51.

42. Theodoret attributes this formula to Aristotle (Graec.affect.cur. 1, 90). Stählin points out that it cannot be found in the text. Mondésert suggests Top., IV, 5, 126b.

43. Loeb translation.

44. I owe this comment to Prof. H.A.S. Tarrant. See on this point Frances Young, The art of performance (London, 1990), 123ff., and 131; also see J.L. Kinneavy, Greek rhetorical origins and Christian faith (Oxford, 1987), 26-53.

45. See C. Collard, Athenaeus, the Epitome, Eustathius and quotations from tragedy, RFIC (1969), 157; also E. Osborn, Philo and Clement: Citation and influence, in Lebendige Überlieferung (Beirut and Ostfildern, 1992), FS H.-J. Vogt, ed. N. El-Khoury et al., 231.

46. For the place of the criterion in Stoic epistemology see J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), 138-42.

47. See Osborn, Reason and the rule of faith, in the second century AD, in The Making of Orthodoxy, FS H. Chadwick (Cambridge, 1989), 40-61.

48. Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass., 1973). See my rejection of this hypothesis in an article, Clement of Alexandria: a review of research, 1958-1982, The Second Century, 1985, 219-24, especially pages 223-5.

49. Osborn, Reason and the rule of faith, 51-53.

50. Albinus (Did. 5) describes three types of analysis: (i) the upward movement from sensible things to ‘primary intelligibles’ (as in Symp. 210a ff.), (ii) the upward move from demonstrable to indemonstrable propositions (as in Phaedrus 245c ff.), (iii) the move from hypothetical to non-hypothetical principles (as in Rep. 6, 510b ff.). We cannot be sure when this organisation of Plato's ideas took place; but it probably occurred in the Old Academy and was taken over by Albinus. See John Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), 277f.

51. In Euthydemus 291D and Politicus 259AB.

52. E. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids, 1980), 31.

53. Taught by the logos.

54. I wish to thank Dr. Robin Jackson of Ormond College and the University of Melbourne for discussion and help at several points of ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy.