In Greek philosophy the words were used rather of intellectual conviction than of moral trust, and of the higher rather than of the lower forms of conviction. Aristotle distinguishes faith from impression—for a man, he says, may have an impression and not be sure of it. He uses it both of the convictions that come through the senses and of those that come through reason. There is in Philo a special application of this philosophical use, which led to even more important results. He blends the sense in which it is found in the Old Testament with that which is found in Greek philosophy. The mass of men, he says, trust their senses or their reason. The good man trusts God. Just as the mass of men believe that their senses and their reason do not deceive them, so the latter believes that God does not deceive him. To trust God was to trust His veracity. But the occasions on which God spoke directly to a man were rare, and what He said when He so spoke commanded an unquestioning acceptance. He more commonly spoke to men through the agency of messengers. His angels spoke to men, sometimes in visions of the night, sometimes in open manifestation by day. His prophets spoke to men. To believe God, implied a belief in what He said indirectly as well as directly. It implied the acceptance of what His prophets said, that is to say, of what they were recorded to have said in the Holy Writings. Belief in this sense is not a vague and mystical sentiment, the hazy state of mind which precedes knowledge, but the highest form of conviction. It transcends reason in certainty. It is the full assurance that certain things are so, because God has said that they are so.[669] In this connection we may note the way in which the Christian communities were helped by the current reaction against pure speculation—the longing for certainty. The mass of men were sick of theories. They wanted certainty. The current teaching of the Christian teachers gave them certainty. It appealed to definite facts of which their predecessors were eye-witnesses. Its simple tradition of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a necessary basis for the satisfaction of men’s needs. Philosophy and poetry might be built upon that tradition; but if the tradition were shown to be only cloudland, Christian philosophy was no more than Stoicism.