STRUCTURE AND GROWTH OF PHILOSOPHIC SYSTEMS FROM PLATO TO SPINOZA III THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHURCH FATHERS VOLUME I FAITH, TRINITY, INCARNATION PREFACE IN Philo, published in 1947, we have tried to show how, starting with the assumption that the Greek philosophers discovered by reason certain truths which are presented in Scripture as divine revelations, Philo has recast the principles of Jewish religion in the form of a philosophy and thereby produced also what may be called a Jewish version of Greek philosophy, the nature of which we have described in a chapter entitled, "What Is New in Philo?" The work on Philo has also the subtitle "Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." In the Preface to that work, we have explained the meaning of the subtitle in the following paragraph: "Primarily this is a study of Philo, and as such it is an attempt to build up, out of suggestions, a systematic structure of his thought and also to piece together, out of allusions and implications, the story of its growth. But the work is also designed to serve as a general prolegomenon to the major problems of religious philosophy for the seventeen centuries following Philo. The structure of the problems as herein presented will provide a general framework for the same problems as they appear in the works of later philosophers. The texts from various sources brought together in the story of their growth will furnish the most fundamental texts which will come into play in the subsequent history of these problems. The section in each chapter of this book under the heading 'Conclusion, Influence, Anticipation' furnishes a brief forecast of the general lines of development of the essential points of the Philonic philosophy in later philosophies down to Spinoza. In the volumes to follow, the story of this development will receive a fuller and more formal treatment" (I, p. vi). In the present work, we try to show how a similar con |