At the same time a vast number of writings appeared as historical revelations. It was necessary to separate the true from the false, but this could not be done by the individual without injuring the very principle upon which revelation was supposed to rest. Consequently all knowledge was generally regarded as revelation. For example, Plutarch and the Stoics divided revelation into three classes: poetry, law, and philosophy. Although Plutarch disclaimed open superstitions, he nevertheless accepted as true all sorts of miracles and prophecies. The later neo-Platonists are also examples of the great body of those who made no discrimination as to what revelation is true. The Christian church may be said to have been alone in making a criticism of the records, and in setting up as criteria tradition and historically accredited authority. As a result of its criticism the Christian canon was finally decided upon, and the Old and New Testaments were accepted as alone inspired. The rivals of the church――the Alexandrian philosophies, especially neo-Platonism――had no organization that could decide upon a canon. They were consequently at a disadvantage, but they felt no need of an infallible historical authority or of historical criticism. Revelation to them was any immediate illumination of the individual. The individual man who comes in contact with the Deity has possession of the divine truth. Although only few attain the truth, and these only at rare moments, there is nevertheless no way of determining what is fictitious and what is true. This difference in the conception of inspiration between the neo-Platonists and the Christians is important to note, for it marks an important difference in the two greatest intellectual movements of the next thousand years. The church fixed revelation on the basis of historical authority, and this revelation became the source of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages; neo-Platonism left the individual man free to get revelation from any source through his own personal contact with the divine, and this was the basis of the mysticism of the Middle Ages. =The Rise of the Conception of Spirituality.= We have seen that out of the widespread cry for spiritual help came the demand for spiritual authority. There is also another result,――the increased importance in history of the spiritual personality. The men of the past became heroes, the great men sanctified and surrounded with myths. Hero worship, ancestor worship, the worship of the genius of the emperor inaugurated by Augustus, were part of this movement. Disciples began to have unconditional trust in their masters, and in neo-Platonism this worship culminated in veneration for the leaders of the School. This movement appears in the grandest form in history in the impression of the wonderful personality of Jesus Christ.