It will be observed that Origen, and his predecessors also in large measure, made man’s salvation a part of a philosophy of the entire universe, each portion of which was to be fully understood only through a comprehension of the whole. That is to say, the scheme of salvation was an element in cosmological speculation. The earliest Greek philosophers had been concerned with a solution of the physical cosmos; soon thinkers began to search for the causes of change, without, however, troubling themselves with ethics or religion; but from the end of the fifth century B.C., the position of man, his obligations and his happiness, the nature of the Divine and the relation between God and the world, became dominant themes. In Plato we see first fully developed a religious philosophy of the cosmos of which man’s salvation is an inseparable part. The line from Plato to Origen, and we may add to the present day, is unbroken. Thus we find that Greek philosophy furnished the general plan for a statement of Christianity which should not only be intelligible, attractive, and convincing to the learned and the simple alike, but which should also prove triumphant over the Gnostics and other aberrant thinkers. This transformation of the rule of faith into an Hellenic philosophy was contemporaneous with the growth of the separate churches into one body politic with an organization fitted for present defense and for future aggression. * * * * * If space allowed, numerous illustrations might be adduced to show how pagan philosophy and mysticism had influenced Christian theologians in details. Many examples we have already seen in passing, such as the view held by both Clement and Origen, as well as by the Gnostics and perhaps by Paul, that the supreme Christian truth was to be obtained by direct revelation, by a vision of the Divine. This was a current belief not only in the later mystic philosophies, like Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism, but also in the mystic religions, and in the Greek mysteries likewise. Again it would be possible to show that Origen’s ethical system owed much more to Stoicism and to later Platonism than to the teachings of Christ, which, however, were easily brought into accord with the philosophers’ doctrines. Or once more we might enlarge on the development of the triune nature of God, whereby the transcendent God and the Logos of pagan theology were united with a varying concept of the spirit of God, also familiar in Hellenic thought, to produce the Trinity of Christian dogma. Thus in examining the ways in which Christianity accommodated itself to the intellectual world for purposes of defense and conquest, we have been seeing many examples of the influence which the pagan environment had on Christianity. Let us now examine a few further illustrations.