Religion is a life, philosophy is thought; religion looks up, philosophy looks in.  We need both thought and life, and we need that the two shall be in harmony.  The moment they come in conflict, both suffer.  Philosophy had destroyed the ancient simple faith of the Hellenic race in their deities, and had given them instead only the abstractions of thought.  Then came the Apostles of Christianity, teaching a religion in harmony with the highest thought of the age, and yet preaching it out of a living faith.  Christianity did not come as a speculation about the universe, but as a testimony.  Its heralds bore witness to the facts of God’s presence and providence, of his fatherly love, of the brotherhood of man, of a rising to a higher life, of a universal judgment hereafter on all good and evil, and of Jesus as the inspired and ascended revealer of these truths.  These facts were accepted as realities; and once more the human mind had something above itself solid enough to support it.

Some of the early Christian Fathers called on the heathen poets and philosophers to bear witness to the truth.  Clement of Alexandria[266] after quoting this passage of Plato, “around the king of all are all things, and he is the cause of all good things,” says that others, through God’s inspiration, have declared the only true God to be God.  He quotes Antisthenes to this effect:  “God is not like to any; wherefore no one can know him from an image.”  He quotes Cleanthes the Stoic:—­

    “If you ask me what is the nature of the good, listen: 
    That which is regular, just, holy, pious,
    Self-governing, useful, fair, fitting,
    Grave, independent, always beneficial,
    That feels no fear or grief; profitable, painless,
    Helpful, pleasant, safe, friendly.”

“Nor,” says Clement, “must we keep the Pythagoreans in the background, who say, ’God is one; and he is not, as some suppose, outside of this frame of things, but within it; in all the entireness of his being he pervades the whole circle of existence, surveying all nature, and blending in harmonious union the whole; the author of his own forces and works, the giver of light in heaven, and father of all; the mind and vital power of the whole world, the mover of all things.’”

Clement quotes Aratus the poet:—­

    “That all may be secure
    Him ever they propitiate first and last. 
    Hail, Father! great marvel, great gain to man.”

“Thus also,” says Clement, “the Ascraean Hesiod dimly speaks of God:—­

    ’For he is the king of all, and monarch
    Of the immortals, and there is none that can vie with him in power.’

“And Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, says:—­

    ’One, in truth, one is God,
    Who made both heaven and the far-stretching earth;
    And ocean’s blue wave, and the mighty winds;
    But many of us mortals, deceived in heart,
    Have set up for ourselves, as a consolation in our afflictions,
    Images of the gods, of stone, or wood, or brass,
    Or gold, or ivory;
    And, appointing to these sacrifices and vain festivals,
    Are accustomed thus to practise religion.’