This drew its life from another source, from the historical personality of Jesus, and not from the Alexandrian Logos. This distinction is very im

portant for the early history of Christianity, and we must never forget that the Greek philosophers who joined the Christian community, after they had once made their peace with their philosophical conscience, became true disciples of Christ and accepted with all their heart the moral law which He had preached, the law of love on which hang all His commandments. What that personality was they must have known far better than we can, for Clement, having been born in the middle of the second century, may possibly have known Papias or some of his friends, who knew the Apostles, and he certainly knew many Christian writings which are lost to us1. To restore the image of that personality must be left to each believer in Christ, according to the ideals of which his mind is capable, and according to his capacity of comprehending the deep significance of the few words of Christ that have been preserved to us by the Apostles and their disciples. What interests the historian is to understand how the belief of a small brotherhood of Galilean fishermen and their devotion to their Master could have influenced, as they did, the religious beliefs and the philosophical convictions of the whole of the ancient world. The key to that riddle should be sought for, I believe, at Alexandria rather than at Jerusalem. But if that riddle is ever to be solved, it is the duty of the historian to examine the facts and

1 1 Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 46.

the facts only, without any bias whether of orthodoxy, of rationalism, or of agnosticism. To the historian orthodoxy has no existence. He has to deal with facts only, and with deductions that can be justified by facts.

I cannot give here the names of all the books which have been of use to me in preparing these Lectures. Many of them are quoted in the notes. My earliest acquaintance with the subject treated in this volume goes back to the lectures of Weisse, Lotze, and Niedner at Leipzig, and of Schelling and Neander at Berlin, which I attended more than fifty years ago. Since then the additions to our knowledge of ancient religions, and of Christianity in its most ancient form, have been so enormous that even a bibliographical index would form a volume. I cannot, however, conclude this preface without acknowledging my obligations to the authors of some of the more recent works which have been of the greatest use to me. I feel deeply grateful to Professor Harnack, whose Dogmen-geschichte, 1888, is the most marvellous storehouse of well-authenticated facts in the history of the Christian Church, to Dr. Charles Bigg, whose learned Bampton Lectures on the Christian Platonists, 1888, make us regret that they were never continued, and to Dr. James Drummond, whose work on Philo Judaeus, 1888, has supplied me not only with most valuable evidence, but likewise with the most careful analysis of whatever evidence there exists in illustration of the epoch of Philo Judaeus. That epoch was an epoch in the true sense of the word, for it made both Greeks and Jews pause for a time before

they went on, each on their own way. It was a real epoch in the history of Christianity, for Philo's works were studied by St. Clement and the other Fathers of the Alexandrian Church, and opened their eyes to see the truth in the inspired writings of Moses and the Prophets, and likewise in the inspired writings of Plato and Aristotle. It was a real epoch in the history of the world, if we are right in supposing that we owe to the philosophical defenders of the Christian faith at Alexandria the final victory of Christian philosophy and Christian religion over the religion and philosophy of the whole Roman Empire.

I ought, perhaps, to explain why, to the title of Psychological Religion, originally chosen for this my final course of Gifford Lectures, I have added that of Theosophy. It seemed to me that this venerable name, so well known among early Christian thinkers, as expressing the highest conception of God within the reach of the human mind, has of late been so greatly misappropriated that it was high time to restore it to its proper function. It should be known once for all that one may call oneself a theosophist, without being suspected of believing in spirit-rappings, tableturnings, or any other occult sciences and black arts.

I am painfully aware that at seventy my eyes are not so keen as they were at seventeen, and I must not conclude this preface without craving the indulgence of my readers for any misprints or wrong references that may have escaped me.

OXFORD, February, 1893.

F. M. M.