it grow, and there is no place where it is not, then I affirm that Faith, whether founded in love or (as its disparagers assert) in fear, is something divine. Love, by its alliance with Faith, makes men believers; and Faith, which is the foundation of Love, in its turn introduces the doing of good. Faith is the first movement towards salvation; after which fear and hope and repentance, in company with temperance and patience, lead us on to love and knowledge.' Knowledge (ch. xi.) is founded on Faith. But Faith is also founded on knowledge, which may be defined as 'reason, producing Faith in what is disputed [by arguing] from what is admitted.' There are two kinds of Faith, one resting on science, the other on opinion. (Therefore, it would seem, Faith is the condition of attaining knowledge, and knowledge, so far from superseding Faith, gives it back transmuted into a higher form.) Obedience to the commandments, which implies Faith or trust in God (ő éσti mioTevelV TO 0e),1 is a mode of learning: and 'Faith is a power of God, being the strength of truth.' (That is to say, Faith is essentially progressive and dynamic; it has its proper activity in a certain energy of thought, will, and action, which issues in an assurance of the truth, based on knowledge and experience.)

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'Fear is the beginning of love (ch. xii.). Fear develops into Faith, and Faith into love.' (This is a remarkable echo of the well-known ' Primus in orbe deos fecit timor' of Statius and Petronius.) But I do not fear my Father as I fear a wild beast; I fear and love Him at once. Blessed, therefore, is he who has Faith, being compounded of love and fear.'

In the fifth book of the Stromateis he returns to the subject of Faith. What follows is an abridgment of his argument. It is incorrect to say that Faith has reference to the Son, and knowledge to the Spirit. We cannot so

1 So Clement of Rome makes the faith of Abraham consist in obedience (ch. 10).

separate either the Persons of the Trinity, or Faith and Knowledge.

'Faith is the ear of the soul.' It admits of growth, as is shown by Rom. i. 11, 17; Luke, xvii. 5. We must not, with Basilides, regard it as 'a natural endowment, dispensing with the rational assent of the self-determining soul,' for then we should not have needed a Saviour. But we do need revelation, and Faith accepts it. Nevertheless, Faith always goes hand in hand with inquiry.

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In the seventh book he speaks of Faith as a short cut to perfection, by which the unlearned and ignorant may outdistance him who is learned in the philosophy of the Greeks. Faith is a compendious knowledge of essentials, while knowledge is a sure and firm demonstration of the things received through Faith, carrying us on to unshaken conviction and scientific certainty. There is a first kind of saving change from heathenism to Faith, a second from Faith to knowledge; and knowledge, as it passes on into love, begins at once to establish a mutual friendship between the knower and the known. Perhaps he who has reached this stage is equal to the angels' (iσáyyeдos, Luke xx. 36.) Faith is preceded by admiration (ch. xi. § 60), which is thus the beginning of Faith, as Plato says it is the beginning of philosophy. Compare the words attributed to Christ: 'He who wonders shall reign, and he who reigns shall rest,' and Wordsworth's, We live by admiration, hope, and love.'

I have dwelt on Clement's doctrine of Faith at what may seem disproportionate length, because I believe that he is the one of the Christian Fathers who deals with the relations of Faith and knowledge in the most enlightened and illuminating way. We at any rate feel that we can understand and sympathise with his point of view, because the problems with which he had to deal were in many ways very similar to our problems. Clement had to steer between the unqualified intellectualism of the Greek Gnostics, and the

obscurantism of the simpliciores, with their watchword of 'Faith only' (iλn íσris). When Clement speaks of Faith, he has often in view the Faith of these simple Christians. And his main object is to show what are the true relations of this simple belief to the Gnosis of which cultivated Christians were so proud. Faith, he maintains all through, is the foundation, Gnosis the superstructure. There is no generic difference between them. The true Gnostic is merely the man of Faith come to maturity, a Christian who has drawn out of his faith all that it virtually contained from the first. Faith is an immanent, implicit good (evdiάleros), which Gnosis renders explicit. It is the condition of all knowledge of God; there is no royal road for the philosopher, through the intellect alone, to divine knowledge. All alike must begin with Faith, which demands a θεοσεβείας συγκατάθεσις, a personal assent to an attitude of adoration, an act of piety. But since it is the nature of Faith to develop into knowledge, the door cannot be shut upon inquiry. The way is open for a Christian philosophy. So Clement refutes the obscurantism of Tertullian, who wishes to break altogether with Greek philosophy and science.

But Faith is not only the condition of knowledge. It is the condition of the moral life of the Christian, even at the highest stage. All the virtues are daughters of Faith.' Faith and knowledge, as concurrent activities of the soul, are the principles of its growth, and also of its consistency and stability. 'Faith and knowledge prepare the soul which chooses to live by them, making it self-consistent and stable.'

Clement goes still further, making Faith the foundation of knowledge in general. I will not trouble you with his theory of knowledge, which has no great philosophical value, being a mixture of Platonism and Stoicism; but by putting Faith in the place of the Stoic #póλns, and knowledge in the place of their Kaтáλnfis, he has hit upon a

profounder truth than he knew. He half sees that at the origin of thought itself, as of will, there is an unconscious act of Faith.1

Clement was not a great philosopher, and does not altogether escape the inconsistencies which beset the eclectic thinker; but he makes out a good case for his main thesis, which he thus sums up: TLσTη TOíVVV ý γνῶσις, γνωστὴ δὲ ἡ πίστις. In fact I know no other author, ancient or modern, who has written so well upon our subject.

Of the obscurantism of Tertullian I have already spoken. For him Faith is a sacred deposit, to be accepted and handed on intact. Faith is practically identified with the regula fidei. I need not give you any quotations to illustrate this familiar attitude, except the characteristic 'adversus regulam nil scire omnia scire est.' The famous 'credo quia absurdum' (not an exact quotation) does Tertullian and his disciples injustice. They do not believe a thing because it is absurd; but its absurdity is no reason, to them, for not believing it. Authority for them is a primary principle of Faith. It is accountable to no other tribunal; it reigns supreme and alone. Such was the immediate result of translating #ioris into Latin. The language of the Roman people,' says Heine, 'can never belie its origin. It is a language of command for generals; a language of decree for administrators; an attorney language for usurers; a lapidary speech for the stone-hard Roman people. Though Christianity with a true Christian patience tormented itself for more than a thousand years with the attempt to spiritualise this tongue, its efforts remained fruitless; and when Tauler sought to fathom the awful abysses of thought, and his heart overflowed with religious emotion, he was compelled to speak German.' 2 My object in this lecture is to illustrate the meanings of

1 De Faye, Clément d'Alexandrie, p. 198.

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• Quoted by Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 249.

Faith, as a theological concept, in the Church. I need not, I think, quote at length from other Fathers, with whom the meaning and scope of Faith is a less prominent part of their teaching than it was with Clement. Tertullian's conception grew in favour. We hear more and more of the regula fidei, though it is admitted that grace, which is only the divine side of Faith, is fettered by no rules.

St. Augustine's writings contain some noteworthy sayings about Faith. Faith is not only knowledge in the intellect but also assurance (fiducia) in the will.' He recognises three elements in Faith-notitia, assensus, fiducia (Confessions, iii. 183). There are three classes of things credible : those which are always believed and never understood, sicut est omnis historia, temporalia et humana gesta percurrens : those which are understood as they are believed, sicut sunt omnes rationes humanæ : and those which are first believed and afterwards understood, such as those about divine matters, which cannot be understood except by the pure in heart; and this condition comes from keeping the moral law' (De Div. Quæst., lxxxiii. qu. 48). Fides quærit, intellectus invenit' (De Trin., xv. 2).

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Anselm's famous credo ut intelligam' was changed by Abelard into intelligo ut credam; and henceforth Faith and knowledge appear, in the Schoolmen, as principles which may not always work together harmoniously.1

A very brief summary of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas about Faith must suffice, as a specimen of the doctrine of the Schoolmen. Divine truth, he says, is divided, not in itself, but in its relation to our knowledge. Part of it can be known by human reason, part only by revelation.2 Revelation is necessary for some truths

1 Bernard's most characteristic utterance about Faith is rhetorical and anti-rationalist: Fides attingit inaccessa, deprehendit ignota, comprehendit immensa, apprehendit novissima, ipsam denique aeternitatem suo illo sinu vastissimo quodam modo circumcludit. Beatam trinitatem quam non intelligo credo, et fide teneo quam non capio mente.'-Serm. in Cant., 76. • Contra Gentiles, i. 3.