Philosophy however fell short of the Law. Those, who were righteous by the Law, still lacked Faith; while the others, whose righteousness was by Philosophy, not only lacked Faith but failed to break with idolatry.[64] (This was in many quarters the capital charge against contemporary philosophy.) It was for this reason that the Saviour preached the Gospel in Hades, just as after him, according to Hermas, "the apostles and teachers, when they fell asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God, preached to those who had fallen asleep before them."[65] It is curious that Clement not only cites Philosophy as a gift of God to the Gentiles before Faith came, that God's judgments might be just, but he also says, on the authority of the Law (quoting inaccurately and perhaps from memory), that God gave them the sun, the moon and stars to worship, which God made for the Gentiles that they might not become utterly atheistic and so utterly perish. "It was a road given to them, that in worshipping the stars they might look up to God."[66] That they fell into idolatry was however only too patent a fact. {281} The exact means, by which the Greeks received the truths contained in their philosophy, is not certain. A favourite explanation with Christian writers, and one to which Clement gives a good deal of thought, is that Greek thinkers borrowed at large from the Old Testament, for Moses lived some six hundred years before the deification of Dionysos, the Sibyl long before Orpheus.[67] Clement's illustrations are not very convincing. "The idea of bringing Providence as far down as the moon came to Aristotle from this _Psalm_: 'Lord, in heaven is thy mercy and thy truth as far as (_heos_) the clouds.'" Epicurus took his conception of Chance from "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity;" while the Sabbath is found in several lines of Homer--unfortunately spurious. An attempt to convict Euripides of plagiarism from Plato's _Republic_ shows the worth of these suggestions, and the whole scheme wakes doubts as to the value of Clement's judgment.[68] Another theory was angelic mediation. God might have communicated with the Greeks by inferior angels;[69] or those angels who fell into pleasure might have told their human wives what they knew of divine secrets, "and so the doctrine of Providence got about."[70] Or else by happy guess or accident the Greeks found parts of the truth for themselves--or in virtue of some naturally implanted notion (_ennoia_) or common mind, and then "we know who is the author of nature."[71]