the first two decades of this century, are characterized by their direct engagement with the ancient philosophical sources, only now with a range wider than the Stoicism favored by Weiss, Bultmann, and Dibelius. It is now recognized that Platonists, Peripatetics, Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, and Pythagoreans must all come under consideration. They are all of interest to the topics pursued in this book, not for their different metaphysical systems, although these systems are not completely irrelevant,