To the preceding considerations we may add another, which, as Ivanhoe said of himself, "is of lesser renown and lower rank, and assumed into the honourable company less to aid their enterprise than to make up their number." Standing alone it may have small power, but as a link in a chain it is important. We refer to the abundant testimony which we possess of the strength of Grecian influence upon the tenets of Christianity. Without laying any stress upon the fact that the whole of the New Testament extant is written in Greek, we may advert to the current belief amongst thoughtful scholars, that the so-called Gospel of St. John was written by some Alexandrian Greek about 150 A.D., or by one who was imbued with the philosophy of Plato. Sharpe has distinctly shown that the doctrine of the trinity was held in Ancient Egypt, and first adopted, then promulgated, by the Egyptian or Alexandrian divines. The influence of Greek ideas upon Philo Judaeus is very conspicuous. We may now turn our attention to one statement about the Athenians, viz., "that they and the strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else than to tell and to hear some new thing," and that they were so particular--in this respect resembling the Ancient Peruvians--in adopting foreign gods, that they had an altar to the Unknown Deity (Acts xvii). To this we must add what Sozomen says of them (_Ecclesiastical History_, book ii. chap. 24)--that the most celebrated philosophers amongst the Greeks took pleasure in exploring unknown cities and regions. Plato, the friend of Socrates, dwelt for a time amongst the Egyptians, in order to acquaint himself with their manners and customs. He likewise sailed to Sicily, to examine its craters.... These craters were likewise explored by Empedocles. Democritus of Coos relates that he visited many cities, and countries, and nations, and that eighty years of his life were spent in travelling in foreign lands. Besides these philosophers, thousands of wise men amongst the Greeks, ancient and modern, habituated themselves to travel. Solon, it is well known, travelled to the court of Croesus, and it is affirmed that Pythagoras visited India. Sozomen makes the above statement to explain how it was that Merope of Tyre, with two young relatives, visited India, the two latter becoming its first two bishops.