Summary. — The Metanoia of « Cebes » is not indeed a religious one; it remains rather within the confines of logic and psychology. It is philosophical inasmuch as it is presented as a deliberate change of direction, which reaches its « terminus ad quem » in purification, « salvation» and happiness. Thanks to its ethical intellectualism, this type of Metanoia is the equivalent of leaving behind one ignorance and error to acquire knowledge and truth. The Metanoia of « Cebes » remains imprisoned within an ex­clusively earthly — «this worldly» — horizon, while the «con­version » of 1 Pt is man's becoming — and henceforward being — open to God in Christ. With « Cebes » Metanoia is an autarchical return of the individual to his own authentic being, a return that permits him to gain possession for himself of knowledge-virtue. Virtue thus consists for man not in a vital relationship with God, and in obedience to God's will, but in the endeavour to realise by oneself one's own rational nature.