  This view of Numenius is part of a general view about the history of philosophy that we can reconstruct from his fragments.  Numenius believes that the truths given to us by philosophy have a status like that claimed for the scriptures by revealed religions: they are the revelation of logos (reason) in which all nations have a share (frs. 1a, 1b) but which only certain inspired geniuses could articulate properly and explain for the first time. Numenius appears to believe that the religious practices of the various nations are philosophically significant, because they contain some lore or “wisdom” that reflects philosophical truth. We find a similar view first in Posidonius (1st c. BCE) (in Seneca, Epist. 90.5-13, 20-25, 30-32; fr. 284 Edelstein-Kidd) and then it appears in variations in several authors of the first two centuries CE. The Platonist Celsus, for instance, who must have been Numenius' contemporary, wrote a work entitled True Account, in which he criticizes Christianity for deviating from the fundamental original wisdom that he takes to lie behind the religions of many nations (Origen, Against Celsus I.14, 16; see Frede 1994, 5193–5198). A similar view is maintained by Plutarch (fr. 157.16–25 Sandbach; cf. his On Isis and Osiris) but also by the 1st c. CE Stoic Cornutus in his Introduction to Greek Theology (see Boys-Stones 2001, 49–59, 105–114). 