Note (return) — Chapter IV

Moreover, it is not to be denied that Athenagoras views the revelation in the prophets and in Christ as completely identical. But in one very essential point he agrees with Justin; and he has even expressed himself still more plainly than the latter, inasmuch as he does not introduce the assumption of a "seed of the Logos implanted by nature" σπερμα λογου εμφυτον. The philosophers, he says, were incapable of knowing the full truth, since it was not from God, but rather from themselves, that they wished to learn about God. True wisdom, however, can only be learned from God, that is, from his prophets; it depends solely on revelation.379 Here also then we have a repetition of the thought that the truly reasonable is of supernatural origin. Such is the importance attached by Athenagoras to this proposition, that he declares any demonstration of the "reasonable" to be insufficient, no matter how luminous it may appear. Even that which is most evidently true—e.g., monotheism—is not raised from the domain of mere human opinion into the sphere of undoubted certainty till it can be confirmed by revelation.380 This can be done by Christians alone. Hence they are very different from the philosophers, just as they are also distinguished from these by their manner of life.381 All the praises which Athenagoras from time to time bestows on philosophers, particularly Plato,382 are consequently to be understood in a merely relative sense. Their ultimate object is only to establish the claim made by the Apologist with regard to the treatment of Christians by the state; but they are not really meant to bring the former into closer relationship to philosophers. Athenagoras also holds the theory that Christians are philosophers, in so far as the "philosophers" are not such in any true sense. It is only the problems they set that connect the two. He exhibits less clearness than Justin in tracing the necessity of revelation to the fact that the demon sovereignty, which, above all, reveals itself in polytheism,383 can only be overthrown by revelation; he rather emphasises the other thought (cc. 7, 9) that the necessary attestation of the truth can only be given in this way.384