taphysics as Abbidharma found an acknowledged place in the
Sacred Canon of the Buddhists.

Christianity presents a parallel case. In the beginning it sought only to
call sinners to repentance. The strong, as Jesus himself said, do not
require a physician, but the sick. He therefore looked upon himself as a
physician, just as Buddha had done in an earlier day. He declared that he
was not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. The truth of his
teaching should be known by its fruits, and there is scarcely a trace in
the Gospels of philosophical discussions, or even of attacks on the
schools of Greek philosophy. But even here it was soon apparent that, for
a practical reformation of conduct, a higher consecration is essential. It
was admitted, as an Indian philosopher is reputed long since to have said
to Socrates, that no one could understand the human element who had not
first understood the divine. Men of Greek culture who felt themselves
attracted by the moral principles of the little Christian congregations
soon, however, wanted more. They had to defend the step which they had
taken, and the Christianity which they wished to profess, or had
professed, against their former friends and co-believers, and this soon
produced the so-called apologies for Christianity, and expositions of the
philosophical and theological views which constituted the foundation of
the new teaching. A religion which was recruited only from poor sinners
and tax-gatherers could scarcely have found entry into the higher circles
of society, or maintained itself in lecture-rooms and palaces against the
cultivated members of refined circles, if its defenders, like Buddha, had
simply ignored all philosophical, especially all metaphysical, questions.

How came it, then, that cultured men in high stations, entirely
independent, professed Christianity? How did they make their friends and
former co-believers understand that such a step was _bona fide_? In
answering this question, we get help from Celsus, as well as his opponent,
Origen.

The bridge which led across from Greek philosophy to Christianity was the
Logos. It is remarkable how much this fundamental doctrine of Christianity
fell, later on, into the background; how little it is understood, even by
the educated of our own time, and how often, without giving it any
consideration, they have cast it aside. In early Christian days this was
probably a consequence of the practical and political devel