ning God and the true religion."[50]

But the chief source from which the Fathers drew that certainty which
they could not find in the demonstrations of philosophy was in the
teaching of the Word, Jesus Christ. God, indeed, as we have seen, is not
an object of science, "but the Son is wisdom and knowledge and truth,
and all else that has affinity thereto. _He is also susceptible of
demonstration and of description._"[51] It is in the incarnate Word of
God that the patristic writers find expressed all that man is able to
comprehend, and all that he needs to know in this present world, of the
Divine Nature, and it is His words that confirm their confidence in that
"innate opinion" of the existence of God, of the presence of which in
every man they were so sure.

The subject of the "demonstration" of the existence of God is spoken of
at some length in several places by St. Clement of Alexandria, and with
his position most of the Fathers agree in the main. He regards the
subject largely from an Aristotelian point of view. All knowledge is
derived from Sensation and Understanding. "Intellectual apprehension is
first in the order of nature; but in our case, and in relation to
ourselves, Sensation is first, and of Sensation and Understanding the
essence of knowledge is formed, and evidence is common to Understanding
and Sensation."[52] But "should any one say that knowledge is founded on
demonstration" (which "depends on primary and better known
principles,"[53] being "discourse agreeable to reason, producing belief
in points disputed, from points admitted"[54]) "_by a process of
reasoning_, let him hear that first principles are incapable of
demonstration, for they are neither by art" ({techne}), which is "practical
solely, and not theoretical," "nor by sagacity" ({phronesis} = practical
wisdom), which is "conversant about objects which are susceptible of
change,"[55] but are "primary," "self-evident," and
"indemonstrable."[56] Thus this "demonstration by a process of
reasoning," apart from Sensation _and_ Understanding, is only "to
syllogize;" "for to draw the proper conclusion from the premisses is
merely to syllogize. But to have also each of the premisses true is not
merely to have syllogized, but also to have demonstrated," "so that if
there is demonstration at all, there is an absolute necessity that there
be something that is self-evident, which is called primary and
indemonstrable."[57] On the basis of this theory of