Note (return) — Chapter XV

Paul, then, found, even in that focus of Paganism, the city of Athens, religious aspirations tending towards Jesus Christ. A true philosophic method, notwithstanding its shortcomings and imperfections, concluded by desiring and seeking "the Unknown God," by demanding him from all forms of worship, from all schools of philosophy. The great work of preparation in the heathen world consisted in the developing of the desire for salvation. It proved that God is the great want of every human soul; that there is a profound affinity between conscience and the living God; and that Tertullian was right when he wrote the "Testimonium Animæ naturaliter Christianæ." 969 And when it was sufficiently demonstrated that "the world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming God and Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of divine providence, which was determined by, or "in, the wisdom of God." 970