Stromata

Clement’s of the Stromata, according to the true philosophy, of the Gnostic commentaries, first book. ** ** so that you may read them at hand and be able to preserve them. But whether one should leave writings at all or to some persons? And if the former, what is the use of writings? But if the latter, either to the serious or to the not? It would be ridiculous, I think, to reject the writing of the serious while accepting those who are not such as composing, but rather to allow Theopompus and Timaeus to compose myths and blasphemies, and also Epicurus who begins atheism, and further to permit Hipponax and Archilochus to write so shamefully, but to prevent the one who proclaims the truth from leaving benefit to later men? I think it is good to leave good children to those after us. For children are of bodies, but words are offspring of the soul. Indeed, we call those who catechized us fathers, and wisdom is communal and philanthropic. At any rate, Solomon says: Son, if you receive a saying of my commandment and hide it with yourself, your ear will obey wisdom. He indicates that the sown word is hidden as in the earth of the learner’s soul, and this is a spiritual planting. Therefore he adds: And you will apply your heart to understanding, and you will apply it to admonition for your son. For soul, I think, joined to soul and spirit to spirit according to the sowing of the word causes what is deposited to grow and gives it life; and every one who is educated in obedience to the teacher is a son. Son, he says, do not forget my ordinances. But if knowledge is not for all, an ass to a lyre, as the proverb says, writings are for the many.

Pigs, at any rate, delight in filth more than in clean water. For this reason, the Lord says, I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, and they do not understand, since the Lord does not provide ignorance to them (for it is not lawful to think thus), but rather he prophetically exposes their existing ignorance and indicates that they will be without understanding of what is said. Already the savior himself is clearly shown, from abundance, distributing his possessions to the servants according to the capacity of the receiver, which must be increased through training. Returning again, he sets forth to discourse with them. When he had approved those who had increased his money, the faithful in a small matter, and promised to set them over many for the Lord’s joy, he commanded them to enter. But to the one who had hidden the entrusted money in order to lend it out and returned the principal itself idle, he said, Wicked and lazy servant, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and when I came I would have recovered my own; upon this the worthless servant will be cast into the outer darkness. Therefore, strengthen yourself, and Paul says, in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me through many witnesses. Entrust these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And again: Strive to present yourself as approved to God, a blameless worker, cutting straight the word of truth. If, then, both proclaim the word, one by writing, the other by voice, how are not both to be accepted, having made faith effective through love?

God is not responsible for the cause of one who does not choose the best. For instance, it is the work of some to lend out the word, of others to test it and either choose or reject it, and the judgment is made within themselves. But the heraldic art is in some way angelic, however it operates, whether through the hand or through the tongue, benefiting; for he who sows into the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit. And let us not grow weary in doing good; for it contributes greatly to the one who encounters it according to divine providence, giving a beginning of faith, eagerness for a way of life, an impulse toward truth, a searching movement, a trace of knowledge, in short, providing starting points for salvation. And those who are genuinely nurtured in the words of truth, having received provisions for eternal life, are winged into heaven. Most wonderfully, then, the apostle says in everything, presenting themselves as servants of God, as poor, yet enriching many, as having nothing and possessing all things; our mouth has been opened to you. And I testify, he says writing to Timothy, before God and Christ Jesus and the chosen angels, that you guard these things without prejudice, doing nothing according to partiality. Therefore it is necessary that both of these test themselves, the one whether he is worthy to speak and to leave behind commentaries, and the other whether he is just to listen and to read; and for this reason some, having distributed the eucharist according to custom, allow each one of the people to take their portion.

The best thing for accurate choice and avoidance is conscience, and its firm foundation is a right life together with appropriate learning. Following others who have already been tested and have succeeded is best for understanding the truth and for carrying out the commandments. Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself and thus eat from the bread and drink from the cup. It is fitting, then, for one who has taken on the benefit of his neighbors to consider whether he has not rashly and out of rivalry with some others rushed into teaching, whether the sharing of the word is not motivated by love of glory, whether he reaps only this reward, the salvation of those who hear, and whether he speaks not for favor and has escaped the slander of bribery, he who speaks through notes. For we were never in flattering speech, as the apostle says, as you know, nor under pretext of greed, God is witness, nor seeking glory from men, neither from you nor from others. Though we could be held in weight as apostles of Christ, we became gentle among you, as a nurse cherishes her own children. In the same way, those who partake of divine words must be watched, to see if they come not for the sake of idle curiosity, as if to view the buildings of cities, or if they approach for the sake of partaking of worldly things, having learned that those devoted to Christ are sharers of what is suitable. But as for hypocrites, let them be left aside. But if someone wishes not to seem just, but to be just, it is fitting for him to be conscious of the best things within himself.

If indeed the harvest is great but the laborers are few, it is fitting that we should be in need, so that we may have an abundance of as many laborers as possible. Agriculture is twofold: one part is unwritten, the other written. In whichever way the Lord's laborer sows the noble wheat and causes the ears to grow and reaps them, he will truly appear a divine farmer. Work, says the Lord, not for the perishable food, but for that which endures to eternal life; nourishment is received both through food and through words. And truly blessed are the peacemakers, who teach anew those who are warred upon here in life and error by ignorance, and lead them into peace in word and life according to God, and who feed those hungering for righteousness by the distribution of bread. For souls also have their own foods, some growing by knowledge and science, others grazing on Greek philosophy, of which, as with nuts, not everything is edible. The planter and the waterer, being servants of the one who causes growth, are one in their service, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are co-workers of God; you are God's field, God's building, according to the Apostle. Therefore, it is not permitted for the hearers to make a test by comparison, nor to subject it to examination.

The word must be handed over as a written record to those who have been reared in the arts of all kinds of words and in the powers of swollen arguments, to those whose soul is already preoccupied and not emptied. But when someone chooses to be feasted from faith, that person is steadfast for the reception of divine words, having acquired faith as a reasonable judgment. From this follows persuasion from abundance. And that was indeed the prophetic saying: Unless you believe, you will not understand. Therefore, since we have the opportunity, let us work the good toward all, but especially toward those who belong to the faith. And each of these, according to the blessed David, let him sing in thanksgiving: You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I will be purified, you will wash me and I will be whitened beyond snow. You will make me hear joy and exultation; my humbled bones will exult. Turn your face away from my sins, and blot out my lawless deeds. Create a pure heart in me, O God, and renew a straight spirit in my inward parts. Do not cast me away from your face, and do not take your holy spirit away from me. Give me back the exultation of your salvation, and strengthen me with a governing spirit. Now the one who speaks to those present tests by time and judges by judgment and distinguishes from others the one who is fit to hear, observing the words, the ways, the characters, the life, the movements, the dispositions, the glance, the utterance, the three-way path, the rock, the trodden road, the fruitful land, the wood-mad country, the fertile and good and cultivated land, the one able to multiply the seed.

The one who speaks through notes makes these things his devotion to God, crying out in writing, not for the sake of gain, not for the sake of vainglory to write, not to be overcome by partiality, not to be enslaved by fear, not to be elated by pleasure. But only for the enjoyment of the salvation of those who encounter it, of which he does not even partake in the present, but awaits in hope the reward that will certainly be given by the one who promised to pay the workers according to their worth. But one who is enrolled among men must not even desire a recompense. For it is not the case that the one who boasts of a good deed has received the reward through good repute, while the one who does something proper for a recompense, either hastening to receive it as a benefactor or avoiding the reward as a malefactor, is not entangled in worldly custom; but one must imitate the Lord as much as possible. This would be the one who serves the will of God, having received freely, giving freely. Receiving as a worthy reward the very way of life; but he will not enter the holy places, it says, for the hire of a harlot. It is forbidden, then, to offer to the altar the exchange of a dog; but whoever has had the eye of his soul blunted by evil food and teaching toward its own light, let him go to the truth that reveals the unwritten things in writing. The thirsty, go to the water, says Isaiah, and drink the water from your own vessels, Solomon exhorts. In the Laws, at any rate, the philosopher from the Hebrews, Plato, commands farmers not to irrigate nor take water from others, unless they first dig on their own land as far as the so-called virgin soil and find the earth dry. For it is not just to supply in need, but it is not good to equip idleness.

It is reasonable to add a burden to it, but not to take it away, as Pythagoras said. Writing kindles the living spark of the soul and directs its own eye toward contemplation, perhaps even implanting something, like a grafting farmer, but more so stirring up what is already present. For many among us, according to the divine apostle, are weak and sick, and many are asleep. If we were to separate ourselves, we would not be cast out. This treatise is not a writing artfully composed for display, but notes stored up for my old age, a remedy for forgetfulness, a mere image and outline of those vivid and living things which I was deemed worthy to hear—words and men blessed and truly worthy of note. Of these, one was in Greece, the Ionian; others in Magna Graecia (one of them was from Hollow Syria, another from Egypt); others throughout the East—and of this, one was from Assyria, another a Hebrew from Palestine from of old; and finally, encountering the last (who in power was first), I rested, having hunted him out unnoticed in Egypt. He was truly a Sicilian bee, culling the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, and engendered in the souls of his hearers an undefiled treasure of knowledge. But those who preserve the true tradition of the blessed teaching, directly from the holy apostles Peter and James, John and Paul, receiving it as child from father (though few are like their fathers), have come, with God, to deposit in us those ancestral and apostolic seeds.

And I know well that they will rejoice, not, I say, because they are pleased with this particular exposition, but solely because of the preservation according to the annotation. For I think that the soul, longing to guard the blessed tradition undefiled, such a sketch serves; and a father who loves wisdom will be delighted. Wells, when drawn from, give forth clearer water, and none of those who partake of them turns to corruption. Use keeps iron cleaner, while disuse generates rust on it. To speak concisely, joint exercise produces a healthy condition in both spirits and bodies. No one lights a lamp and places it under a bushel, but sets it on the lampstand to shine for those deemed worthy of the same feast. For what use is wisdom if it does not make wise the one who can understand? Moreover, the Savior always saves and always works, as he sees the Father. One who teaches learns more, and one who speaks often hears along with his listeners; for the teacher of both the speaker and the hearer is one, who illuminates both mind and speech, by which the Lord has not forbidden resting from good, but has permitted sharing the divine mysteries and that holy light with those able to receive it. Indeed, he did not reveal to many what was not for many, but to a few, to those he knew were suitable, those able to receive and be formed by them; but the secret things, like God, are entrusted to speech, not to writing.

And if someone says that it is written, "Nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nor concealed that will not be uncovered," let him also hear from us that the hidden thing will be revealed to the one who hears secretly, as this oracle foretold, and that the concealed thing will be disclosed to the one who receives the transmitted teachings in a veiled manner, as the truth, and that which is hidden from the many will become manifest to the few. For why do not all know the truth? And why was justice not loved, if justice belongs to all? But indeed, the mysteries are transmitted mystically, so that they may be in the mouth of the speaker and of the one to whom he speaks, or rather not in speech, but in being understood. And God has given to the church the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. Now the writing of these commentaries of mine is weak, I well know, when compared to that inspired spirit which we were deemed worthy to hear, yet it would be an image reminding the one struck by the thyrsus of the archetype. For it is said, "Speak to the wise man, and he will become wiser," and it will be added to the one who already has. And it promises not to interpret the ineffable things adequately—far from it—but only to remind, whether when we might forget or so that we may not forget. And I well know that many things have slipped away from us, falling unrecorded through the length of time.

Therefore, to relieve the weakness of my memory, providing myself with a systematic exposition of topics as a saving memorandum, I have necessarily employed this outline. Now, some things have not been remembered by me (for the power among the blessed men was great), and there are also things that have remained unmarked by time, which now have escaped; and as many as were extinguished, withering in the very mind, since such service is not easy for those not tested. Reviving these with notes, I deliberately pass over some, selecting knowledgeably, fearing to write what I refrained from saying, not from any envy (for that is not lawful), but fearing for those who may encounter them, lest they be misled in some other way and we be found offering a sword to a child, as the proverb says. For what is written cannot fail to be divulged, even if it has remained unpublished by me, but always circulating, using only the written word, it answers nothing more to the inquirer than what is written; for it necessarily needs a helper, either the author or someone else who has followed the same track. There are things that my writing will hint at, and some it will set forth, others it will only mention, and it will attempt to speak while hiding, to reveal while concealing, and to show while silent.

the doctrines of the notable heresies will be set forth, and against these will be argued all that it is fitting to have prearranged for the knowledge according to the epoptic theory, which will proceed for us according to the glorious and august rule of tradition, advancing from the generation of the world, prefacing the things that necessarily require prior treatment of natural theory, and resolving beforehand the obstacles that stand in the way of the sequence, so that the ears may be ready for the reception of the gnostic tradition, the ground having been cleared beforehand of thorns and all grass, agriculturally, for the planting of a vineyard. For there is a contest and a pre-contest, and mysteries before the mysteries, nor will it hesitate to make use of the best of philosophy and other preparatory education for our notes. For it is reasonable not only to become a Jew for the Hebrews and those under the law, according to the apostle, but also a Greek for the Greeks, that we may win all. And in the Epistle to the Colossians, admonishing, he writes to teach every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ. And otherwise, the elegance of the theory is fitting for the outline of the notes. Indeed, the abundance of useful learning is like a seasoning mixed with an athlete's food, not of one who is self-indulgent, but who acquires a good appetite through ambition. At any rate, when we sing, we relax the excessive tension of solemnity in a measured way.

Just as those who wish to address a public assembly often do so through a herald, so that what is said may be more audible, so too here (for our discourse before the tradition itself is addressed to many) we must set forth the customary opinions and sayings that cry out to them on each point, through which the hearers will be more readily turned. And to speak concisely (for among many small pearls there is one, and among a great catch of fish there is the finest fish), in time and with labor the truth will shine forth when a good helper happens along; for most benefactions are supplied from God through human beings. Now all of us who use our eyes behold what falls upon them, but different people for different reasons. For instance, the butcher and the shepherd do not look upon the sheep in the same way: the one inquires whether it is fat, the other watches for good breeding. Let someone milk the sheep if he needs nourishment, let him shear the fleece if he requires covering. So too for me let the fruit of Greek learning proceed. For I do not think any writing is so fortunate that no one will contradict it, but that one is to be considered reasonable to which no one reasonably objects. And so an action and a choice are to be accepted not as blameless, but as that which no one will reasonably censure. Nor does it follow that if someone does not do something primarily, but does it according to circumstance, he is not managing something in a godly wise and accommodatingly acting. For neither does the one who possesses virtue still need the path to virtue, nor does the one who is strong need restoration. And just as farmers first irrigate the land, so we

We first irrigate their earthy part with the drinkable water of Greek learning, so that they may receive the spiritual seed that is to be sown and be able to nourish it easily. The Stromata will contain the truth mixed with the doctrines of philosophy, or rather veiled and concealed, just as the edible part of the nut is within its shell; for it is fitting, I think, that the seeds of truth be preserved only for the farmers of faith. I am not unaware of the common talk of some who ignorantly and timidly say that one ought to occupy oneself with the most necessary things that sustain the faith, and that we vainly waste time and linger over external and superfluous matters that contribute nothing to the end. Some even think that philosophy has entered life for evil, to the ruin of men, by some wicked inventor. But I will show throughout the entire Stromata that evil has an evil nature and could never become a farmer of anything good, hinting in some way that philosophy too is the work of divine providence.

Regarding the treatises that have encompassed Greek opinion at the necessary times, I say this to those fond of fault-finding: first, even if philosophy were useless, if the confirmation of its uselessness is useful, then it is useful. Next, it is not possible to condemn the Greeks by using only the bare expression of their doctrines, without entering into the partial disclosure up to the point of knowledge. For the refutation that comes with experience is truly trustworthy, because the knowledge of what has been condemned is found to be the most perfect demonstration. Many things that do not contribute to the end nevertheless adorn the craftsman, and besides, polymathy serves to commend the one who sets forth the most important doctrines for the persuasion of the hearers, generating wonder in the catechumens and establishing them in the truth. Such soul-leading is credible, through which the lovers of learning receive the hidden truth, so that they may not think that philosophy corrupts life, being the creator of false things and base works, as some have slandered it, though it is a clear image of truth, a divine gift given to the Greeks, nor that we are drawn away from the faith, as if bewitched by some deceptive art, but, so to speak, using a greater covering, we somehow procure a certain demonstrative exercise of faith. Indeed, the conjunction of doctrines through juxtaposition woos the truth, through which knowledge has followed, philosophy having entered not as a primary principle, but because of the fruit from knowledge.

confirmation of our own conviction of true comprehension through knowledge of what is intimated. For I pass over the fact that the Stromata, being composed of manifold learning, artfully intend to conceal the seeds of knowledge. Just as the lover of the hunt, after seeking, searching, tracking, and coursing, captures the beast, so too does the truth appear sweet when sought and procured with toil. Why then has it seemed good to arrange the memoranda in this way? Because the danger is great of divulging the truly secret word of real philosophy to those who wish to contradict everything recklessly and without justice, who cast aside all names and utterances without any decorum, deceiving themselves and bewitching those who adhere to them. For the Hebrews ask for signs, as the apostle says, while the Greeks seek wisdom. And the crowd of such people is large: some of them, enslaved to pleasures and wishing to disbelieve, laugh at the truth worthy of all reverence, considering the barbarian as a plaything; while others, exalting themselves, force themselves to invent slanders against the discourses, devising contentious inquiries and petty verbal quibbles.

Hunters, zealots of petty crafts, quarrelsome and word-twisters, as that Abderite says: "For the tongue of mortals is pliable," he says, "and there are many tales; and there is a broad pasture of words of all kinds here and there." And: "Whatever word you speak, such you will hear." At any rate, puffed up by this art, the wretched sophists, chattering with their own idle talk, laboring their whole life over the distinction of names and the particular composition and interweaving of phrases, show themselves more loquacious than turtle-doves; tickling and titillating, not manfully, as it seems to me, the ears of those who itch to be scratched, they are verily a river of words, but a drop of thought. Indeed, just as with old shoes, the rest is weak and perishes, only the tongue remains. The Athenian speaks excellently and writes Solon: "For you look to the tongue and the words of a wily man; but each one of you walks in the tracks of a fox, and in all of you together there is a hollow mind." That saving voice hints at something: "The foxes have holes, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head"; for only, I think, to the believer, who is completely separated from the others called beasts by Scripture, does the chief of beings rest, the good and gentle Word, who seizes the wise in their craftiness; for the Lord alone knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain, Scripture calling the sophists wise, those who are excessive about words and arts.

Hence the Greeks themselves have called those who are meddlesome about anything wise men and sophists, using the name in a derived sense. Cratinus at any rate, in his Archilochi, after listing poets, said: "You have searched out a swarm of sophists." And Ion similarly, as the comic poet says in his Aulodic Satyrs, speaking of rhapsodes and certain others: "For a crowd of many sophists has entered, well equipped." Concerning these and those akin to them who have practiced empty words, divine Scripture says very well: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the understanding." Homer calls even a craftsman wise, and concerning Margites, if indeed it is his, he writes somewhat as follows: "The gods made him neither a digger nor a plowman, nor wise in any other way, but he failed at every craft." For Hesiod, having said that the citharist Linus was skilled in all kinds of wisdom, does not hesitate to call a sailor wise, writing: "nor one skilled in seamanship." And the prophet Daniel says: "The mystery which the king asks is not the power of wise men, magi, enchanters, Gazarenes to reveal to the king, but there is a God in heaven who reveals it." And indeed he addresses the wise men of Babylon. And that Scripture calls by the name wisdom all worldly knowledge or art—and there are many devised by human reasoning through combination—and that technical and wise thought comes from God, will be clear when we set forth this passage: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

Behold, I have summoned Besaleel the son of Ouri, the son of Or, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with a divine spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge in every work, to conceive and to architect. To work gold and silver and bronze, and hyacinth and purple and scarlet, and the arts of stoneworking and carpentry of wood, to work until all works are complete. Then he adds a universal statement: "And to every one with an intelligent heart I have given understanding," that is, to him who is able to receive it through toil and training. Again, it is written explicitly in the name of the Lord: "And you shall speak to all who are wise in mind, whom I have filled with a spirit of perception." The wise in mind have some natural property of their own, but they receive a spirit of perception from the highest wisdom, a twofold one, having presented themselves as suitable. For those who pursue the base arts enjoy an excess concerning the senses: the one commonly called a musician, of hearing; the sculptor, of touch; the singer, of voice; the perfumer, of smell; the engraver of impressions in seals, of sight. But those who occupy themselves with education are furnished with co-perception, by which poets of meters, sophists of diction, dialecticians of syllogisms, and philosophers of their own contemplation apprehend. For co-perception is inventive and resourceful, persuasively urging one to apply oneself, and training in knowledge increases this application.

Thus the apostle has fittingly spoken of the wisdom of God as manifold, displaying its power in many ways and through many modes—through art, through knowledge, through faith, through prophecy—for our benefit, because all wisdom is from the Lord and is with him forever, as the Wisdom of Jesus says. For if you summon understanding and perception with a loud voice and seek them like treasures of silver and eagerly track them down, you will apprehend piety and find divine perception. The prophet spoke this in contradistinction to perception according to philosophy, which he teaches us to investigate with magnanimity and magnificence for the advancement toward piety. He therefore set against it perception in piety, hinting at knowledge and saying this: for God gives wisdom from his own mouth, together with perception and understanding, and stores up help for the righteous; for help is stored up for those who have been justified by philosophy, and also the co-perception toward piety. Now philosophy was necessary for justice among the Greeks before the Lord's coming, but now it becomes useful for piety, being a kind of preliminary education for those who enjoy faith through demonstration, so that your foot, it says, will not stumble, when you refer good things to providence, whether they be Greek or our own. For God is the cause of all good things, but of some as primary—such as the old and new covenant—and of others as consequent—such as philosophy. And perhaps it was given to the Greeks primarily at that time, before the Lord called both the Greeks and

For it also educated the Greek people, just as the law educated the Hebrews, toward Christ. Thus philosophy prepares the way, paving the road for the one who is perfected by Christ. For instance, Solomon says: "Fence in wisdom, and it will exalt you; with a crown of delight it will shield you, since you, by fortifying it with a rampart through philosophy and right education, will keep it inaccessible to the sophists." Now the way of truth is one, but into it, as into a perennial river, flow streams from different sources. Therefore it has been divinely said: "Listen, my son, and receive my words," it says, "so that many paths of life may be yours; for I teach you the ways of wisdom, that the springs which gush from the same earth may not fail you." Indeed, it has enumerated not only the many saving ways of one righteous man, but it also adds many other ways of many righteous men, indicating something like this: "And the ways of the righteous shine like light." These would be both the commandments and the preliminary teachings, ways and starting points of life. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I wished to gather your children together, as a bird gathers its chicks." Now "Jerusalem" is interpreted as "vision of peace." Thus it prophetically indicates that those who have peacefully contemplated have been educated in many ways toward the calling. What then? It wished, but was it unable? How often, or where? Twice: through the prophets and through the advent. The word "how often" indicates that wisdom is manifold, and according to each individual mode of quality and quantity, it certainly preserves some in time and in eternity, because the spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world. And if someone insists, saying:

Do not attend to a base woman, for honey drips from the lips of a harlot, meaning Greek education; let him listen to what follows: "For a time it anoints your throat," it says, "but philosophy does not flatter." Whom then does it hint at as the one who has played the harlot? It adds explicitly: "For the feet of folly lead those who practice it after death into Hades, and her tracks do not hold firm. Therefore make your path far from foolish pleasure; do not stand at the doors of her houses, lest you give over your life to others." And it bears witness: "Then you will repent in old age, when the flesh of your body is worn away. For this is the end of foolish pleasure." And these things to that effect. But when it says: "Do not be much with a foreign woman," it advises to use, not to tarry and remain in, worldly education; for it prepares the way for the Lord's word, the things given opportunely to each generation for their benefit. For already some, enticed by the charms of handmaidens, have neglected the mistress, philosophy, and have grown old, some of them in music, some in geometry, others in grammar, and most in rhetoric. But just as the encyclical studies contribute to philosophy, their mistress, so philosophy itself cooperates in the acquisition of wisdom. For philosophy is a pursuit of wisdom, and wisdom is knowledge of divine and human matters and of their causes. Therefore wisdom is the mistress of philosophy, as that is of preparatory education.

For if philosophy promises self-control of tongue and belly and the parts beneath the belly, and is choiceworthy for its own sake, it will appear more august and more authoritative if it were practiced for the sake of honor and knowledge of God. Scripture will provide testimony for what has been said through the following: Sarah was barren long ago, the wife of Abraham. Not bearing children, Sarah entrusts her own handmaid named Hagar the Egyptian to Abraham for childbearing. Wisdom, then, which dwells with the faithful (for Abraham was accounted faithful and righteous), was still barren and childless in that generation, having not yet brought forth anything virtuous for Abraham; and she fittingly deemed that he, who already had the opportunity for advancement, should first consort with worldly education (for Egypt is allegorized as the world), and later, approaching her as well according to divine providence, beget Isaac. Philo interprets Hagar as sojourning (for it is said here: "Do not be much with a foreign woman"), and Sarah as "my rule." It is possible, then, to have been educated beforehand and then to come to the most sovereign wisdom, from which the Israelite race increases. From these things it is shown that wisdom is teachable. Abraham pursued this wisdom, passing from the contemplation of heavenly things to faith and righteousness according to God. Isaac indicates self-learning; therefore he is found to be a type of Christ. He is the husband of one woman, Rebecca, whom they translate as "endurance." Jacob is said to have consorted with more, as he is interpreted as an athlete (for the exercises of doctrines are through many and diverse things), whence he is renamed Israel, the truly visionary, as one who is both experienced and athletic.

There might also be something else indicated through the three forefathers: that the seal of knowledge is authoritative, consisting of nature, learning, and practice. You might also have another image of what has been said: Thamar sitting at the crossroads and giving the impression of a prostitute, whom the lover of learning Judas (which means "strong"), who left nothing unexamined and uninvestigated, visited and turned aside to her, preserving his confession to God. For this reason also Abraham, when Sarah was jealous because Hagar was outshining her, as if choosing only the useful from worldly philosophy, says, "Behold, the maidservant is in your hands; use her as you wish," indicating that I welcome worldly education as younger and as your handmaid, but I honor and revere your knowledge as a perfect mistress. And Sarah afflicted her, which is equivalent to disciplining and admonishing her. Well, then, it is said, "Do not neglect the discipline of God, my son, nor be unstrung when reproved by it; for he whom

The Lord loves to educate, and he scourges every son whom he receives. According to others, however, when examined in other places, the aforementioned scriptures stand forth revealing other mysteries. We say, therefore, from this point, in plain language, that philosophy has an inquiry concerning truth and the nature of beings (and this truth is that concerning which the Lord himself said, "I am the truth"), and that the preliminary education for the rest in Christ exercises the mind and awakens the understanding, generating a keenness for inquiry through true philosophy. Having found this, or rather having received it from truth itself, the initiates possess it. Much does readiness contribute to seeing what is necessary through preliminary training. And the training for the mind would be in intelligible things. The nature of these is threefold, being contemplated in quantities, magnitudes, and statements. For the argument from proofs instills exact faith in the soul of the one who follows, so that he does not think the demonstrated thing could be otherwise, and it does not allow us to fall into deceptions that creep in. In these disciplines, therefore, the soul is purified from sensible things and rekindled, so that it may at some time be able to discern truth. For good nurture and education, when preserved, produce good natures, and good natures, when they receive such education, become even better than before, both in other respects and in generating, just as also in other animals. Hence it says:

Be like the ant, O lazy one, and become wiser than that creature which, during the harvest, lays up a great and varied store of food against the threat of winter, or go to the bee and learn how industrious she is; for she too, though she ranges over the whole meadow, produces one honeycomb. But if you pray in the storeroom, as the Lord taught, worshipping in spirit, then the economy would no longer be concerned only with the house, but also with the soul—what is to be administered to it, and how, and how much, and what is to be set aside and stored up in it, and when these things are to be brought forth, and for whom. For men become good and noble not by nature, but by learning, just as physicians and pilots do. We all see, for example, the vine and the horse, but the farmer will know whether the vine is good for fruit-bearing or bad, and the horseman will easily distinguish a sluggish horse from a swift one. That some are better disposed than others towards virtue indicates certain aptitudes in those so disposed as compared with others, but it does not predicate perfection in virtue of any, even of those who are better born, since even those ill-disposed towards virtue, when they receive the appropriate education, have generally achieved excellence, and conversely, those who are naturally apt have become evil through neglect. But by nature God created us social and just. Hence one must not say that justice appears from mere convention, but must understand that the good of creation is rekindled by the commandment, the soul, through learning, being trained to choose the noblest.

But just as we say that it is possible to be faithful even without letters, so we affirm that it is not possible to understand what is said in faith without learning. For it is not faith simply that accepts what is well said and rejects what is foreign, but faith in conjunction with learning that produces this. If ignorance is both lack of education and lack of knowledge, then teaching instills the knowledge of divine and human things. But just as it is possible to live rightly in poverty, so also in abundance, and we affirm that virtue is more easily and quickly attained with preliminary education, though it is not unattainable without it, yet even then only for those who have learned and have trained their senses together. For hatred stirs up strife, says Solomon, but education preserves the ways of life, so as not to be deceived, so as not to be stolen from by those who have practiced malicious craft to the harm of their hearers. But unexamined education goes astray, he says, and one must pursue the refutative form for the sake of beating back the deceptive opinions of the sophists. Well indeed does Anaxarchus the Eudaimonic write in his work On Kingship: Much learning greatly benefits, but also greatly harms the one who has it; it benefits the one who is right-minded, but harms the one who readily utters every word in every assembly. One must know the measures of occasion; for this is the limit of wisdom. But those who sing a speech outside the occasion, even if they sing something prudent, not placing judgment in wisdom, incur the charge of folly. And Hesiod: The Muses, who make a man of many words divinely inspired, eloquent.

It is easy, then, to speak of the man of many words as eloquent, but the man of good speech as clever, and the experienced, philosophical, and knowledgeable of truth as divine. So it is evident that Greek preparatory education, together with philosophy itself, came to men from God not in a primary sense, but in the way that rains pour down upon good earth, upon dung, and upon roofs. Grass and wheat sprout alike, and a fig tree grows even on tombs, as do some of the more shameless trees; and the things that grow in a type emerge as semblances of the true, because they have enjoyed the same power of the rain, but they have not had the same grace as those growing in rich soil, withering or being plucked away. And indeed here the parable of the sower, which the Lord interpreted, is useful. For the farmer of the earth among men is one, the one who from above sows the nourishing seeds from the foundation of the world, the one who has poured down the Word, the Lord, at each season; and the seasons and the receptive places have produced the differences. Moreover, the farmer sows not only wheat (though even of this there are many varieties), but also the other seeds—barley, beans, peas, vetch, and garden seeds, and flowering seeds; and of the same farming is the planting, to cultivate all that pertains to nurseries, to parks, to fruits, and generally to the nature and nurture of all kinds of trees.

Likewise, it is not only the art of shepherding, but also that of cattle-herding, horse-breeding, dog-breeding, and beekeeping—all arts, in short, of tending herds and rearing animals—differ from one another by degree, yet all are beneficial for life. By philosophy I do not mean the Stoic, nor the Platonic, nor the Epicurean, nor the Aristotelian, but whatever has been well said in each of these schools, teaching righteousness together with pious knowledge—this entire eclectic body I call philosophy. But whatever they have cut off from human reasonings and counterfeited, I would never call divine. Now let us also consider this: that if ever those who lack knowledge live well, they have fallen into well-doing; some even hit the mark through intelligence concerning the discourse on truth. But Abraham was not justified by works, but by faith. So there is no benefit to them after the end of life, even if they are beneficent now, unless they have faith. For this reason the Scriptures were translated into the Greek language, so that they might never be able to plead ignorance as an excuse, being such as to hear even our teachings, if only they are willing. One speaks about truth in one way, truth interprets itself in another. Conjecture about truth is one thing, truth itself another; likeness is one thing, being itself another. The former is acquired by learning and practice, the latter by power and faith. For the teaching of piety is a gift, and faith is a grace. For by doing the will of God we come to know the will. "Open," then, says Scripture, "the gates of righteousness, that entering into them I may confess to the Lord.

But the ways that lead to righteousness are many and varied, since God saves in many ways (for He is good), and they lead to the royal road and gate. If you seek the kingly and authentic entrance, you will hear: "This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous will enter through it." So, of the many gates that are opened, this one in righteousness was in Christ, through which all who enter are blessed, directing their journey in gnostic holiness. Immediately, Clement, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, says word for word, setting forth the distinctions among those approved in the Church: "Let one be faithful, let one be capable of expounding knowledge, let one be wise in discerning arguments, let one be vigorous in deeds." But the sophistic art, which the Greeks have emulated, is a power of imagination, producing through words false opinions as if true; for it provides rhetoric for persuasion, and eristic for contentiousness. Now these arts, if they are not accompanied by philosophy, would be more harmful in every way. Indeed, Plato outright called sophistry a "bad craft," and Aristotle, following him, declares it to be a kind of thievery, since it plausibly steals the whole work of wisdom while professing a wisdom it never practiced. To put it briefly, just as the starting point of rhetoric is the plausible, its work is the argument, and its end is persuasion, so the starting point of eristic is opinion, its work is the contest, and its end is victory.

In the same way, the beginning of sophistry is what appears, and its work is twofold: one part is the discursive from rhetoric, which appears, and the other is the interrogative from dialectic; its end is astonishment. And the much-talked-about dialectic in the schools is shown to be an exercise of the philosopher concerning what is plausible, for the sake of the power of contradiction; but truth is nowhere in these things. Naturally, then, the noble apostle, disparaging these superfluous arts of words, says: "If someone does not approach with healthy words, but is puffed up by some teaching, knowing nothing, but sick over inquiries and word-battles, from which come strife, envy, blasphemy, evil suspicions, and mutual frictions of corrupted men whose mind is perverted and who are deprived of the truth." You see how he is moved against them, calling their art of logic a disease, at which those who love this talkative malpractice pride themselves, whether they be Greeks or barbarian sophists. Very well, then, the tragic Euripides says in the Phoenissae: "The unjust word, being sick in itself, needs wise remedies." For the healthy word is called the saving word, being itself truth, and what is healthy always remains immortal, while separation from the healthy and divine is atheism and a death-bringing passion. These are wolves, rapacious, hidden in sheep's clothing, and enslavers and soul-leaders, eloquent, stealing secretly, but when refuted, robbers, striving to seize both by deceit and by force us, the simple, so to speak, the weaker. And often a man speaking just things, when caught by lack of eloquence, fares worse than the eloquent.

Now, with fluent mouths they steal the most true things, so that they seem not to think what they ought to think, says tragedy. Such are these eristics, whether they pursue heresies or practice petty dialectical arts, these who pull down the rigging and weave nothing, as scripture says, having emulated vain labor, which the apostle called a game of dice and a cunning craft, suited to the method of deception. For there are many, he says, who are unruly, vain talkers, deceivers of the mind. Therefore it is not said to all: You are the salt of the earth. For there are some, even among those who have heard the Word, who are like sea fish, which, though nourished in brine from birth, still need salt for their preparation. I, at any rate, fully accept the tragedy that says: O child, false words might be well spoken, and by the beauty of verses they might overcome the truth; but this is not the most exact thing, but nature and what is right; and he who conquers by eloquence is wise, but I consider things always stronger than words. Therefore one must never seek to please the many. For what pleases them, we do not practice; and what we know, is far.

This is the character of their disposition. "Let us not become vainglorious," says the apostle, "challenging one another, envying one another." Thus the truth-loving Plato, as if inspired, says, "I am such a man as to be persuaded by nothing else than the reason which appears best to me upon consideration." He therefore censures those who trust in opinions without mind and knowledge, as it is not fitting to abandon right and sound reason to trust in that which partakes of falsehood. For to be deceived of the truth is an evil, but to speak truth and to opine what is real is a good. Now men are involuntarily deprived of goods, yet they are deprived either by being stolen from, or by being bewitched, or by being forced, and by believing at random. He who has believed willingly is already consumed; but he who is persuaded over and he who forgets are stolen, because time in some cases and reason in others secretly take away; and often pain and grief, and again contentiousness and anger, force a change of opinion; and above all, those are bewitched who are either charmed by pleasure or terrified by fear. All these changes are involuntary, and none of them could ever expel knowledge.

Some, thinking themselves naturally gifted, demand that they neither touch philosophy nor dialectic, nor even learn natural science thoroughly, but require only and solely faith, just as if they expected to get grapes immediately from the vine from the beginning without taking any care of it. The vine is allegorically the Lord, from whom the fruit must be gathered with care and the agricultural skill that accords with reason. One must prune, dig, tie up, and do the rest; and a pruning knife, I think, a mattock, and the other agricultural tools are needed for the care of the vine, so that it may produce for us the edible fruit. Just as in agriculture, so also in medicine, that man is well-learned who has taken up more varied studies, so as to be able to farm better and heal better; so here too I call well-learned the one who refers everything to the truth, so as to glean what is useful from geometry, music, grammar, and philosophy itself, and to keep faith inviolate. The athlete is also overlooked, as was said before, but contributes to the whole arrangement. Likewise, we praise the experienced helmsman who has seen the cities of many men, and the physician who has had experience with many cases; some even construct the empiricist in this way.

He who refers each thing to the right life, bringing examples from both Greek and barbarian sources, is a much-experienced tracker of the truth and truly resourceful, like the touchstone (which is Lydian and entrusted with distinguishing counterfeit from genuine gold), and being capable of separating sophistry from philosophy, cosmetics from gymnastics, cookery from medicine, rhetoric from dialectic, and, after the others, the heresies in barbarian philosophy from the truth itself. How is it not necessary for one who longs to become partaker of the power of God to philosophize about intelligible things and to distinguish them? How is it not useful also to resolve ambiguous expressions and those uttered homonymously in the covenants? For by means of ambiguity the Lord outwits the devil at the time of temptation, and I no longer see how the inventor of philosophy and dialectic, as some suppose, is led astray, being deceived by the mode of ambiguity. But if the prophets and apostles were not acquainted with the arts through which the exercises of philosophy are manifested, yet the mind of the prophetic and teaching spirit, speaking hiddenly because not all have an understanding ear, requires skilled instruction for clarity. For the prophets and the disciples of the spirit knew that mind securely; for it is said that from faith and as it is not easy to know the spirit,

But not in such a way as to be received by those who have not learned. The commandments, he says, are to be written down in two ways, by will and by knowledge, for the purpose of discerning words of truth in response to those who put questions to you. What, then, is the knowledge of answering? It is also that of asking; and this would be dialectic. What? Is not speaking a work, and does not doing come from speech? For if we did not act by speech, we would act irrationally. The rational work is accomplished according to God; and nothing came into being without it, he says, without the Word of God. Or did not the Lord do everything by speech? Even beasts act when driven by compelling fear. And are not those called orthodox also engaged in good works, not knowing what they do? For this reason, then, the Savior first took bread, spoke, and gave thanks; then, breaking the bread, he set it forth, so that we might eat rationally, and, recognizing the scriptures, conduct our lives in obedience. Just as those who use evil speech differ in no way from those who use evil action (for if slander is a servant of the sword and causes grief through blasphemy, from which come the upheavals of life, these would be works of evil speech), so also those who use good speech approach those who accomplish good deeds. Indeed, speech restores the soul and urges it toward nobility; blessed is the ambidextrous one. Therefore, the one capable of doing good is not to be blasphemed by the one capable of speaking well, nor is the one capable of speaking well to be reviled by the one suited to doing good, when each acts according to his nature.

What the work shows, the other speaks, as if preparing the way for well-doing and leading the hearers to beneficence. For there is both a saving word and a saving work. Righteousness, at any rate, is not constituted without reason. And just as well-being is removed if we take away well-doing, so obedience and faith are destroyed if neither the commandment nor the one who clarifies the commandment is included. But as it is, we are well supplied with both words and works for each other's sake, and the eristic and sophistic art must be entirely dismissed, since even the very phrases of the sophists not only bewitch and steal away the many, but when forced, they sometimes carry off a Cadmean victory. For more than anything, that psalm is true: the righteous man will live to the end, because he will not see destruction, when he sees the wise dying. Whom does he call wise? Hear from the Wisdom of Jesus: there is no wisdom that is knowledge of wickedness. This, then, is what he means, which the verbal and dialectical arts have devised. You will seek wisdom among the evil and not find it. And if you ask again: what wisdom is this? The mouth of a righteous man will drop wisdom for you. Wisdom is said homonymously with truth, the sophistic art. For me, reasonably, I think, it is set before me to live according to reason and to understand the meanings, but never to emulate glibness, being content only to hint at what is thought. By what name this which I wish to set forth is indicated, I care nothing. For I know well that to be saved and to help those eager to be saved is best, not to compose little phrases like ornaments.

If you guard, says the Pythagorean in Plato’s *Statesman*, against being zealous about names, you will appear richer in wisdom in old age. And again in the *Theaetetus* you would find: “The easygoing use of names and phrases, not examined with precision, is for the most part not ignoble, but rather the opposite of this is illiberal, though sometimes necessary.” These things Scripture has set forth as briefly as possible, saying, “Do not be wordy in speech”; for speech is like a garment on the body, while deeds are flesh and sinews. One must not, therefore, care for the garment before the safety of the body. For not only a simple diet but also a simple and unadorned speech must be practiced by one who has undertaken the true life, if indeed we reject luxury as deceitful and dissolute, just as the ancient Lacedaemonians rejected perfume and purple, rightly considering and naming garments and ointments as deceitful, since neither is that preparation of food beautiful which has more seasonings than nourishing elements, nor is the use of speech refined which is able to please rather than benefit the hearers. Pythagoras advises that the Muses be considered more pleasant than the Sirens, teaching that one should practice wisdom not with pleasure, and refuting other soul-leading as deceptive. One man suffices to have sailed past the Sirens, and another one to have answered the Sphinx—or, if you wish, not even one. Therefore, one must never expand the phylacteries out of zeal for vainglory, but it suffices for the Gnostic even if only one hearer is found. Indeed, one may hear even Pindar the Boeotian writing: “Do not reveal the ancient word to all.

Sometimes the most trustworthy paths are those of silence, while the word that prevails in battle is the sharpest. So the blessed apostle strongly insists, urging us not to engage in wordy disputes for no useful purpose, to the ruin of those who hear, and to avoid profane empty talk. For such things advance further into impiety, and their speech will spread like gangrene. Thus the wisdom of this world is folly in the sight of God, and the Lord knows that the thoughts of these wise men are vain. Therefore let no one boast, relying on human intellect. For it is well written in Jeremiah: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man boast in his strength, nor the rich man boast in his wealth; but let him who boasts boast in this: to understand and know that I am the Lord who works mercy and judgment and righteousness on earth, for in these things is my will," says the Lord. So that we may not be confident in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, the apostle says, who rescued us from such a death, so that our faith may not be in human wisdom, but in the power of God. For the spiritual man examines everything, but is himself examined by no one. And I also hear these words of his: "I say these things so that no one may deceive you with plausible reasoning, nor that the plunderer may slip in." And again:

See therefore that no one leads you astray through philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ, not all philosophy, but the Epicurean, which Paul also mentions in the Acts of the Apostles, denouncing it as abolishing providence and deifying pleasure, and if any other has honored the elements without referring the efficient cause to them, nor conceived of the creator. But also the Stoics, whom he also mentions, say that God, being body, has permeated the most dishonorable matter, not rightly. Human tradition he calls logical nonsense. Therefore he also writes these things: flee the newer inquiries; for such contentions are puerile. Virtue is not fond of youth, says the philosopher Plato; and our contest, according to Gorgias of Leontini, requires two virtues, boldness and wisdom: boldness to endure the danger, wisdom to understand the riddle. For the word, like the proclamation at Olympia, calls the willing, but crowns the able. The word does not wish the believer to be immovable towards truth and truly idle; for it says, seek and you will find, but it brings the search to a finding, having driven out empty nonsense, while admitting the contemplation that strengthens our faith. I say this, says the apostle, so that no one may deceive you with plausible reasoning, obviously to those who have learned to distinguish what is said by him and have been taught to answer the objections brought forward. Therefore, as you have received, Jesus Christ the Lord.

walk in him, rooted and built up in him and confirmed in the faith, for persuasion is the confirmation of faith. See that no one leads you away from faith in Christ through philosophy and empty deceit, which denies providence, according to human tradition. For philosophy according to divine tradition establishes providence and confirms it; if providence is denied, the economy concerning the Saviour appears a myth, when we are carried along by the elements of the world and not according to Christ. For teaching that follows Christ both deifies the creator and extends providence even to particulars, and knows the nature of the elements as changeable and created, and teaches to live as far as possible in assimilation to God, and to accept the economy as the governing principle of all education. Now Diogenes worships the air as an element, Thales water, Hippasus fire, and those who posit atoms as first principles, though they assume the name of philosophy, are godless little men and pleasure-lovers. For this reason, he says, I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in every perception, so that you may discern what is superior. For when we were infants, says the same apostle, we were enslaved under the elements of the world. But an infant, even if he is an heir, differs in no way from a slave until the father's appointed time. Therefore philosophers also are infants, unless they are brought to manhood by Christ.

For if the son of the slave woman will not inherit together with the son of the free woman, yet at least he is seed of Abraham, not from a promise, having received his own as a gift. Solid food is for the perfect, for those who through habit have their senses trained for distinguishing good and evil. For everyone who partakes of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness, being an infant and not yet knowing the word according to which he has believed and acts, nor able to give the account within himself. But test everything, the apostle says, and keep the good, speaking to the spiritual who examine everything, whether what is said according to truth seems or truly holds to the truth. Discipline without examination goes astray, and blows and reproofs give discipline of wisdom, reproofs with love, clearly; for an upright heart seeks knowledge, because he who seeks God will find knowledge with righteousness, and those who have sought him rightly have found peace. And I will know, he says, not the word of the puffed up, but the power, writing to rebuke the conceited wise and those who think they are, but are not, wise. For the kingdom of God is not in word, not in what is false but plausible in opinion, but in power, he said; for only truth is powerful. And again: if someone thinks he has known something, he has not yet known as he ought to know; for truth is never opinion, but opinion of knowledge puffs up and fills with pride, while love builds up, not revolving around opinion but around truth. Hence if someone loves, he says, this one is known.

Since the tradition is not common and public to one who has perceived the greatness of the Word, one must therefore conceal the wisdom spoken in the mystery, which the Son of God taught. Indeed, even the prophet Isaiah purifies his tongue with fire, so as to be able to speak the vision, and it is fitting for us to purify not only the tongue but also the ears, if we attempt to partake of the truth. These things were an obstacle to my writing, and even now I am cautious, as the saying goes, about casting pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and, turning, rend you. For it is difficult to display the truly pure and transparent words concerning the true light to hearers who are swinish and uneducated; for there are scarcely any hearings more laughable to the multitude than these, nor, on the other hand, more wonderful and inspiring to the well-born. The psychic man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. The wise do not utter from the mouth what

They deliberate in council. But what you hear in the ear, says the Lord, proclaim on the housetops, commanding that the hidden traditions of true knowledge be received as interpreted loftily and exceptionally, and that just as we heard in the ear, so also we should transmit them to those who ought to receive them, and not divulge indiscriminately to all what was spoken to them in parables. But the outline of the commentaries is truly such that they have the truth scattered and dispersed, sown in such a way as to escape the notice of those who are like jackdaws picking up seeds. But when it meets a good farmer, each of them will grow and reveal the wheat. Since truth is one (for falsehood has countless deviations), just as the Bacchae tore apart the limbs of Pentheus, so the sects of both barbarian and Greek philosophy, each having obtained a part, boast that they possess the whole truth; but with the rising of the sun, I think, everything is illuminated. Therefore, all Greeks and barbarians who have sought the truth, some having not a little, others a certain part, if indeed they have any, would be shown to possess a portion of the word of truth. Now the age of time constitutes the future and the present, and also the past, in a moment; but truth is much more powerful than time in gathering its own seeds, even if they fall into foreign soil. For we would find very many of the opinions held by the sects (those that are not completely deafened nor have had their natural continuity cut off, like women's quarters that have cut off the man, the word), even if they seem dissimilar to each other, yet in kind and in the whole truth they agree.

For either as a member or as a part or as a form or as a genus it is joined into one. And already the highest note, being opposite to the lowest, yet both are one harmony; in numbers the even differs from the odd, yet both agree with arithmetic, as in shape the circle and the triangle and the square and all such figures differ from one another. And in the whole cosmos all the parts, even if they differ from each other, preserve their affinity to the whole. Thus then both barbarian and Greek philosophy have made a kind of rending, not of the mythology of Dionysus, but of the theology of the Logos that always is, of the eternal truth. And he who again composes and unifies the divided parts will safely, you may be sure, behold the truth, the perfect Logos. For it is written in Ecclesiastes: And I added wisdom to all things that were before me in Jerusalem; and my heart saw many things, I knew wisdom and knowledge, parables and science. For this too is a choice of spirit, that in a multitude of wisdom there is a multitude of knowledge. And he who is experienced in manifold wisdom would properly be a gnostic. For it is written: Abundance of knowledge of wisdom will give life to him who possesses it. And again this saying confirms more clearly what has been said: All things are manifest to those who understand (and all things are Greek and barbarian, but the one without the other is no longer all things), but right to those who wish to derive perception. Choose education instead of silver, and knowledge above tested gold, and choose also perception above pure gold.

For wisdom is better than precious stones, and everything valuable is not worth it. The Greeks say that after Orpheus and Linus and the most ancient poets among them, the first to be admired for wisdom were the seven called the wise men, of whom four were from Asia: Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Cleobulus of Lindus; two from Europe: Solon of Athens and Chilon of Lacedaemon; and the seventh, some say is Periander of Corinth, others Anacharsis the Scythian, others Epimenides the Cretan—whom the Greek knows as a prophet, whom the apostle Paul mentions in the Epistle to Titus, speaking thus: "One of their own prophets said this: 'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.' And this testimony is true." Do you see how even among the Greek prophets he grants some truth and is not ashamed, for the sake of edification and reproach, to use Greek poems in conversing with some? For instance, to the Corinthians—for not only here—when discussing the resurrection of the dead, he uses a tragic iambic line, saying, "What benefit is it to me? If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." Others have included Acusilaus of Argos among the seven wise men, others Pherecydes of Syros. Plato, instead of Periander, as unworthy of wisdom because he had been a tyrant, substitutes Myson of Chen. That the wise men among the Greeks were far below the age of Moses will be shown a little later.

The manner of their philosophy, being Hebrew and enigmatic, must now be examined. They cultivated brevity of speech, the hortatory kind, which is most beneficial. For instance, Plato says that this manner was long ago produced with care, common to all Greeks, but especially to the Lacedaemonians and Cretans, who are the best governed. Now the saying "Know thyself" some have supposed to be Chilon's, but Chamaeleon in his work On the Gods attributes it to Thales, and Aristotle to the Pythia. It may enjoin the pursuit of knowledge; for it is impossible to know the parts without knowledge of the whole substance; one must therefore investigate the origin of the world, through which it will be possible to learn the nature of man. Again, they attribute "Nothing in excess" to Chilon the Lacedaemonian; but Strato in his work On Discoveries assigns the saying to Sodamus of Tegea, and Didymus ascribes it to Solon, just as Cleobulus is credited with "Moderation is best." As for "Give a pledge, and trouble is at hand," Cleomenes in his work On Hesiod says it was spoken beforehand by Homer in these words: "Wretched, wretched indeed are pledges to pledge." Those around Aristotle think it is Chilon's, but Didymus says the exhortation is Thales'. Next, the saying "All men are bad" or "Most men are bad" (for the same saying is expressed in two ways) those around Sotades of Byzantium say is Bias', and they wish "Practice conquers all" to be Periander's, and similarly the exhortation "Know the right moment" to be established as Pittacus'. Now Solon legislated for the Athenians, and Pittacus for the Mytileneans. Later, Pythagoras, the disciple of Pherecydes, first proclaimed himself a philosopher.

After the aforementioned men, then, there have been three successions of philosophy named after the places where they spent their time: the Italian, from Pythagoras; the Ionian, from Thales; and the Eleatic, from Xenophanes. Now Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, was a Samian, according to Hippobotus; but according to Aristoxenus in his Life of Pythagoras, and †Aristarchus and Theopompus, he was a Tyrrhenian; and according to Neanthes, a Syrian or a Tyrian, so that by the majority Pythagoras was of barbarian race. Moreover, Thales, as Leander and Herodotus record, was a Phoenician, though some have supposed him to be a Milesian. He alone seems to have associated with the prophets of the Egyptians, and no teacher is recorded for him, just as none is recorded for Pherecydes of Syros, whom Pythagoras attended. But the philosophy according to Pythagoras, the Italian, grew old in Metapontum in Italy. Anaximander, son of Praxiades, a Milesian, succeeds Thales; and Anaximenes, son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, succeeds him; after whom comes Anaxagoras, son of Hegesibulus, a Clazomenian. He transferred the school from Ionia to Athens. He is succeeded by Archelaus, whom Socrates attended. But then, as Timon says in his Silloi, "the stonecutter turned aside, a chatterer of laws, an enchanter of the Greeks," because he turned away from natural philosophy to ethics. And of those who heard Socrates, Antisthenes played the Cynic, while Plato withdrew to the Academy. From

Plato’s student Aristotle, after philosophizing with him, moved to the Lyceum and founded the Peripatetic school. He was succeeded by Theophrastus, then Strato, then Lyco, then Critolaus, then Diodorus. Speusippus succeeded Plato, then Xenocrates, then Polemo. Polemo’s students were Crates and Crantor, with whom the ancient Academy from Plato ended. Arcesilaus shared in Crantor’s teaching, and from him until Hegesinus the Middle Academy flourished. Then Carneades succeeded Hegesinus, and those after him. Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school, became a student of Crates. He was succeeded by Cleanthes, then Chrysippus and those after him. Xenophanes of Colophon begins the Eleatic tradition, whom Timaeus says lived in the time of Hieron, the ruler of Sicily, and the poet Epicharmus, while Apollodorus says he was born around the fortieth Olympiad and lived on until the times of Darius and Cyrus. Parmenides, then, became a student of Xenophanes, then Zeno, then Leucippus, then Democritus. Democritus’s students were Protagoras of Abdera and Metrodorus of Chios, then Diogenes of Smyrna, then Anaxarchus, then Pyrrho, then Nausiphanes. Some say Epicurus became his student. This, then, is the succession of philosophers among the Greeks in summary; the dates of those who began their philosophy must be stated next, so that by comparison we may demonstrate that the philosophy according to the Hebrews is older by many generations.

Concerning Xenophanes, who founded the Eleatic philosophy, it has been spoken. Eudemus, in his Astronomical Histories, says that Thales predicted the solar eclipse that occurred at the time when the Medes and Lydians joined battle against each other, when Cyaxares, father of Astyages, was king of the Medes, and Alyattes, father of Croesus, of the Lydians. Herodotus in his first book agrees with him. The time is about the fiftieth Olympiad. Pythagoras is found to have lived in the time of Polycrates the tyrant, around the sixty-second Olympiad. Mnesiphilus is recorded as an emulator of Solon, with whom Themistocles associated. Solon therefore flourished around the forty-sixth Olympiad. For Heraclitus, son of Blyson, persuaded Melagcomas the tyrant to lay down his office. This Heraclitus disdained King Darius when he invited him to come to Persia. These are the times of the oldest wise men and philosophers among the Greeks. But as for the fact that most of them were barbarian by race and educated among barbarians, why need one even speak, since Pythagoras was shown to be either Tyrrhenian or Tyrian, Antisthenes was a Phrygian, and Orpheus an Odrysian or a Thracian? For most declare Homer to be an Egyptian. Thales, being a Phoenician by race, is said to have associated with the prophets of the Egyptians, just as Pythagoras also did with these very men, on account of which he even had himself circumcised, so that, having entered the inner sanctuaries, he might learn the mystic philosophy from the Egyptians; and he associated with the best of the Chaldeans and Magi, and the assembly now so called he hints at in his own term "homakoion.

Plato does not deny that the finest things in philosophy are imported from the barbarians, and he admits that he traveled to Egypt. At any rate, in the Phaedo he says that the philosopher can benefit from everywhere, writing: "Broad is Hellas, Cebes, he said, wherein there are altogether good men, and many are the races of the barbarians as well." Thus Plato thinks that some barbarians are philosophers, whereas Epicurus, on the contrary, supposes that only Greeks are able to philosophize. In the Symposium, praising the barbarians as having practiced with distinction, he says truly that "others elsewhere, in many places, both among Greeks and barbarians, for whom many shrines have already been established because of such children." It is clear that the barbarians, having honored their own lawgivers and teachers in an exceptional way, addressed them as gods. For according to Plato, they suppose that good souls, having left the supercelestial place, deign to come down into this Tartarus and, taking on a body, partake of all the evils of generation, caring for the human race; these souls established laws and proclaimed philosophy—than which no greater good has ever come from the gods to the human race, nor will come. And it seems to me that, perceiving the great beneficence through the wise, they revered these men and philosophized publicly: all the Brahmans, the Odrysians, the Getae, the race of the Egyptians, and they theologically expounded their teachings accurately; also the Chaldeans, the Arabs called the Happy, and all who inhabited Palestine, and not the least part of the Persian race, and countless other races besides these.

Plato is clearly found always exalting the barbarians, remembering that he himself and Pythagoras learned most and noblest of their doctrines among barbarians. For this reason he also spoke of barbarian races, knowing races of barbarian wise men; and in the Phaedrus he shows us the Egyptian king and Thoth as wiser than him, whom he knows to be Hermes. Moreover, in the Charmides he appears acquainted with certain Thracians, who are said to hold the soul immortal. It is recorded that Pythagoras studied under Sonchis the Egyptian chief prophet, Plato under Sechnuphis of Heliopolis, and Eudoxus of Cnidus under Konuphis, also an Egyptian. In the dialogue On the Soul, Plato again appears to recognize prophecy, introducing a prophet who proclaims the speech of Lachesis to the souls being allotted and foretells their lots. And in the Timaeus he introduces the very wise Solon learning from the barbarian. The text runs thus: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is no Greek who is old; for you possess no learning that is hoary with time." For Democritus, having taken up the Babylonian discourses, composed his ethical works; for it is said that he arranged the pillar of Akikaros, once interpreted, into his own writings, and that he marked what was from him, writing "Democritus says this." Indeed, he also, boasting of his own wide learning, says somewhere:

I, for my part, have wandered over more land than any man of my time, investigating the greatest matters, and have seen the most climates and lands, and have heard the most learned men, and in the composition of writings with demonstration no one has surpassed me, not even those called the Harpedonaptae of the Egyptians, and in addition to all this I spent eighty years abroad. For I went to Babylon and Persia and Egypt, studying with the Magi and the priests. Pythagoras emulated Zoroaster the Persian Magus, and those who follow the school of Prodicus boast of possessing secret books of that man. Alexander, in his work On Pythagorean Symbols, records that Pythagoras studied with Zaratas the Assyrian (some think this is Ezekiel, but it is not, as will be shown later), and he also wishes that Pythagoras heard the Galatians and the Brahmans in addition. Clearchus the Peripatetic says that he knows of a certain Jew who associated with Aristotle. For Heraclitus says, not in a human manner, but with divine inspiration, that the future was revealed to the Sibyl. At any rate, they say that in Delphi near the council chamber a certain rock is shown, upon which the first Sibyl is said to have sat, having come from Helicon and been nurtured by the Muses. Some say she came from the Maliac region, being the daughter of Lamia, daughter of Poseidon.

Serapion in his poems says that the Sibyl did not cease from prophecy even after death, and that the part of her that went into the air after her death is what gives oracles in rumors and omens, while from her body, which turned into earth, grasses naturally sprang up, and whatever animals graze on that spot, their entrails, he writes, provide men with an accurate revelation of the future; and he thinks that her soul is the face seen in the moon. So much concerning the Sibyl. Numa, the king of the Romans, was a Pythagorean, and having been benefited by the writings of Moses, he prevented the Romans from making anthropomorphic or zoomorphic images of God. Indeed, for the first one hundred and seventy years, though they built temples, they made no statue, either sculpted or painted. For Numa showed them, by concealment, that it is impossible to grasp the Best otherwise than by the mind alone. Philosophy, then, is a thing of great utility; it flourished long ago among the barbarians, shining forth among the various nations, and later came also to the Greeks. Its leaders were the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans of the Assyrians, the Druids of the Galatians, the Samanaeans of the Bactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, and the Magi of the Persians (who by their magic foretold the birth of the Savior, coming to the land of Judea guided by a star), and the Gymnosophists of the Indians, and other barbarian philosophers. And these are of two kinds: some are called Sarmanae, others Brachmanae.

And the Hylobii, as the Sarmatians call them, inhabit no cities nor have roofs, but clothe themselves in tree bark and eat tree fruits and drink water with their hands, knowing neither marriage nor procreation, just like those now called Encratites. There are also among the Indians those who obey the precepts of Boutta, whom they have honored as a god on account of his excessive sanctity. Anacharsis too was a Scythian, and he is recorded as surpassing many of the philosophers among the Greeks. Hellanicus records that the Hyperboreans dwell beyond the Rhipaean mountains, and that they are taught justice by not eating meat, but using tree fruits. These people take those who are sixty years old outside the gates and make them disappear. There are also among the Germans the so-called holy women, who by gazing at the eddies of rivers and the twists and sounds of streams divine and prophesy the future. These women, at any rate, did not allow them to join battle against Caesar before the new moon shone. Of all these, the race of the Jews is by far the oldest, and the Pythagorean Philo shows through many proofs that their philosophy, having been committed to writing, preceded the philosophy among the Greeks; and so too does Aristobulus the Peripatetic and many others, that I may not waste time going through them by name. Most clearly, Megasthenes, the writer who lived with Seleucus Nicator, writes as follows in the third book of his Indica: "All the things said about nature among the ancients are also said among those who philosophize outside of Greece, some among the Indians by the Brahmans, and some in Syria by those called Jews.

Some more mythically inclined say that certain wise men first came to be among the so-called Idaean Dactyls, to whom the invention of the so-called Ephesian letters and of musical rhythms is attributed; for this reason the dactyls among musicians have taken their name. The Idaean Dactyls were Phrygians and barbarians. Herodorus records that Heracles, having become a seer and a natural philosopher, received from Atlas the barbarian Phrygian the pillars of the cosmos, the myth hinting that knowledge of heavenly things is received through learning. Hermippus of Berytus calls Cheiron the Centaur wise, and the author of the Titanomachy says of him that he first led the race of mortals to justice, revealing oaths, propitiatory sacrifices, and the figures of Olympus. Achilles, who campaigned against Ilium, was educated by him; and Hippo, the daughter of the Centaur, having married Aeolus, taught him natural philosophy, the ancestral science. Euripides also bears witness concerning Hippo somewhat as follows: "She first prophesied divine things by oracles

clear signs of stars at their risings. Odysseus, after the sack of Troy, is entertained by this Aeolus. Observe the times for comparison of the age of Moses and the most ancient philosophy associated with him. Not only philosophy, but nearly every art was invented by barbarians. Egyptians, for instance, first brought astrology to men, and likewise the Chaldeans. Egyptians also first showed how to kindle lamps, divided the year into twelve months, and forbade intercourse with women in temples and entering temples after being with a woman. They also became inventors of geometry. Some say that the Carians devised prognostication through stars. The Phrygians first observed the flights of birds, and the Tuscans, neighbors of Italy, perfected divination from sacrifices. The Isaurians and Arabs developed augury, and the Telmissians, as it happens, divination through dreams. The Tyrrhenians invented the trumpet, and the Phrygians the flute; for the Phrygians were Olympus and Marsyas. Cadmus, a Phoenician, was the discoverer of letters for the Greeks, as Ephorus says, whence Herodotus writes that the letters were called Phoenician; but some say that Phoenicians and Syrians first devised letters. Medicine, they say, was discovered by Epis, an Egyptian native, before Io came to Egypt, and after that Asclepius advanced the art. Atlas the Libyan first built a ship and sailed the sea. Celmis and Damnameneus, the Idaean Dactyls, first discovered iron in Cyprus, and Delas, another Idaean, discovered the mixing of copper; but according to Hesiod, a Scythian.

Indeed, the Thracians first invented the so-called harpe (which is a curved sword) and first used shields on horses. Similarly, the Illyrians invented the so-called parma. Furthermore, they say the Etruscans devised sculpture, and that Itanus (a Samnite) first constructed the thyreos. For Cadmus the Phoenician discovered stone-cutting and conceived of gold mines around Mount Pangaeum. Already another people, the Cappadocians, first invented the so-called nablas, just as the Assyrians invented the dichord. For the Carthaginians first constructed a quadrireme, and Bosporus built it extemporaneously. Medea, daughter of Aeëtes the Colchian, first devised hair dye. Moreover, the Noropes (a Paeonian people, now called Noricans) worked bronze and first purified iron. Amycus, king of the Bebryces, first invented boxing thongs. Concerning music, Olympus the Mysian crafted the Lydian harmony; the so-called Troglodytes invented the sambuca, a musical instrument. They say that the transverse syrinx was invented by Satyrus the Phrygian; the trichord and the diatonic harmony likewise by Agnis, also a Phrygian; and rhythms by Olympus, likewise the Phrygian, just as Marsyas, from the same region as those previously mentioned, invented the Phrygian, Mixophrygian, and Mixolydian harmonies, and Thamyris the Thracian devised the Dorian. We have heard that the Persians first made the carriage, bed, and footstool, and that the Sidonians constructed the trireme. The Sicels, near Italy, first invented the phorminx, not much inferior to the cithara, and devised castanets.

They also record that linen garments were invented under King Semiramis of Egypt. And Hellanicus says that Atossa, who reigned over the Persians, was the first to compose letters. Now Scamon of Mytilene and Theophrastus of Eresus, as well as Cydippus of Mantinea, and further Antiphanes and Aristodemus and Aristotle, and in addition Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic in his work On Discoveries, have recorded these things. I have set forth only a few of them to demonstrate the inventive and life-benefiting nature among the barbarians, from whom the Greeks have derived their practices. And if someone disparages the barbarian tongue, yet to me, as Anacharsis says, all Greeks speak Scythian. This was the man admired among the Greeks, who said: "My covering is a cloak, my dinner milk and cheese." You see a barbarian philosophy that proclaims deeds, not words. And the apostle speaks thus: "And if you do not give a clear word through your tongue, how will what is spoken be understood? For you will be speaking into the air." There are, if it so happens, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none is speechless; therefore, if I do not know the power of the voice, I will be a barbarian to the speaker, and the speaker a barbarian to me. And let the one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. Indeed, only late did the teaching and writing of words come to the Greeks. At any rate, Alcmaeon of Croton, son of Perithus, was the first to compose a physical discourse. But some record that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, son of Hegesibulus, was the first to publish a book in writing.

was the first to set melody to poems and to set the laws of the Lacedaemonians to music, Terpander of Antissa; the dithyramb was invented by Lasus of Hermione, the hymn by Stesichorus of Himera, the choral dance by Alcman of Lacedaemon, love poetry by Anacreon of Teos, the hyporcheme by Pindar of Thebes; and Timotheus of Miletus was the first to sing laws in a chorus and to the cithara. Indeed, the iambus was invented by Archilochus of Paros, the choliambus by Hipponax of Ephesus, tragedy by Thespis of Athens, and comedy by Susarion of Icaria. The dates of these men the children of the grammarians transmit, but it would be long to set them forth in detail, since Dionysus is shown to be much later than Moses, for whose sake the Dionysiac festivals are held. They also say that Antiphon of Rhamnus, son of Sophilus, was the first to discover arguments for discussion and rhetorical idioms, and to write a forensic speech for publication for a fee, as Diodorus says; and Apollodorus of Cumae was the first to introduce the name "grammarian" instead of "critic" and to be called a grammarian, though some say Eratosthenes of Cyrene, since he published two books entitled "Grammatical." The name "grammarian" as we now use it was first applied to Praxiphanes of Mytilene, son of Dionysophanes. Zaleucus of Locri is recorded as the first to establish laws, though some say Minos, son of Zeus, in the time of Lynceus. This Lynceus is the eleventh generation from Danaus and from Moses, as we shall show a little later. Lycurgus, born many years after the capture of Troy, legislates for the Lacedaemonians one hundred and fifty years before the Olympiads.

We have already stated the times of Solon. Draco, also a lawgiver, is found to have lived around the thirty-ninth Olympiad. Antilochus, who compiled the histories from the age of Pythagoras to the death of Epicurus, which occurred on the tenth of the waning month of Gamelion, gives a total of three hundred and twelve years. Some say that the heroic hexameter was invented by Phanothea, the wife of Icarius, others by Themis, one of the Titanides. Didymus, in his work on Pythagorean philosophy, records that Theano of Croton was the first woman to philosophize and to write poems. Greek philosophy, then, as some hold, by a kind of chance attains to the truth, albeit dimly and not in its entirety; as others maintain, it derives its impulse from the devil. Some have supposed that certain inferior powers inspired the whole of philosophy. But even if Greek philosophy does not grasp the magnitude of the truth, and moreover fails to accomplish the Lord's commandments, yet it prepares the way for the most royal teaching, in some measure disciplining the character, forming the disposition, and training for the reception of the truth one who believes in providence.

They say it has been written: all those before the coming of the Lord are thieves and robbers. All those, then, who are in the Word, these before the incarnation of the Word, are understood more universally. But the prophets, since they were sent and inspired by the Lord, are not thieves, but servants. For Scripture says: Wisdom sent her own servants, summoning with a lofty proclamation to a mixing-bowl of wine. Philosophy, however, was not sent by the Lord, but came, they say, stolen or given by a thief, whether a power or an angel having learned something of the truth and not abiding in it, inspired these things and taught them after stealing, not that the Lord was ignorant, who knew the ends of future things before the foundation of the world and knew each thing that exists, but because he did not prevent it; for the theft that came to men had some benefit at that time, not that the thief considered his own advantage, but Providence directed the outcome of the daring deed to what was beneficial. I know many who incessantly attack us, saying that that which does not prevent is a cause; for they say that the one who did not guard or the one who did not prevent is a cause of theft, as the one who did not extinguish the beginning of a fire is a cause of the conflagration, and the helmsman who did not furl the sail is a cause of the shipwreck. Indeed, those who are causes of these things are punished by the law. For to whom the power to prevent belonged, to him also the cause of what happens is attributed. We say, then, to them that the cause is conceived in doing and acting and performing, but that which does not prevent is, according to this, inactive.

Further, the cause is present with the activity, just as the shipbuilder is present with the building of the vessel, and the builder with the construction of the house; but that which does not hinder is separate from that which comes to be. For this reason, indeed, it is accomplished, because that which is able to hinder neither acts nor hinders. For what does the one who does not hinder do? And already their argument proceeds to an absurdity, if indeed they will blame for the wound not the arrow, but the shield which did not hinder the arrow from passing through; nor will they censure the thief, but the one who did not hinder the theft. And so they say that the ships of the Greeks were not set on fire by Hector, but by Achilles, because he, being able to hinder Hector, did not hinder him; but the one acted through wrath (and it was in his power both to be wrathful and not), and indeed he did not keep away the fire, and is perhaps an accessory; but the devil, being self-determined and able both to repent and to steal, is himself the cause of the theft, not the Lord who did not hinder. But neither was the giving harmful, so that hindrance might be omitted. But if it is necessary to be precise with them, let them know that that which is not hindering, which we say has occurred in the case of the theft, is not at all a cause, but that which is hindering is involved in the charge of being a cause. For the one who shields is a cause for the one shielded of not being wounded, by hindering him from being wounded, and for Socrates the daimonion was a cause not by not hindering, but by turning away, even if it did not urge forward. Neither praises nor blames nor honors nor punishments are just, unless the soul has the authority over impulse and aversion, but wickedness is involuntary.

Hence the one who hinders is responsible, while the one who does not hinder justly judges the choice of the soul, so that God may remain as far as possible blameless of evil for us. Since choice and impulse initiate sins, and a mistaken assumption sometimes prevails, which, being ignorance and lack of learning, we are negligent in abandoning, it would be reasonable for him to punish (for fever is involuntary; but when someone suffers fever through his own fault and due to intemperance, we hold him responsible), just as evil is involuntary; for no one chooses evil as evil, but, being carried away by the pleasure in it, supposing it to be good, considers it desirable. Things being so, it lies in our power to be freed from both ignorance and the choice of what is base and pleasant, and, before these, not to assent to those deceptive impressions. The devil is called a robber and a thief, having mixed false prophets among the prophets, just as tares are mixed with wheat. Therefore all before the Lord are thieves and robbers—not simply all men, but all the false prophets and all those not sent by him in the proper sense. The false prophets also had the stolen thing, the prophetic name, being prophets, not of the Lord, but of the liar. The Lord says: You are from your father the devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks falsehood, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar, and so is his father.

Among falsehoods, the false prophets also spoke some truths, and indeed these prophesied in ecstasy as servants of the apostate. And the Shepherd, the angel of repentance, says to Hermas concerning the false prophet: "For he speaks some true words; for the devil fills him with his own spirit, if he is able to break forth any of the righteous." Now all things are administered from above for good, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God may be made known, according to the foreknowledge of the ages which he wrought in Christ. Nothing is opposed to God, nor does anything oppose him, since he is Lord and Pantocrator. But even the plans and activities of those who have apostatized, being partial, arise from a base disposition, just as bodily diseases do; yet they are governed by universal providence toward a healthy end, even if the cause is productive of disease. Indeed, the greatest work of divine providence is not to allow the evil that springs from voluntary apostasy to remain useless and unprofitable, nor to become entirely harmful; for it is the work of divine wisdom, virtue, and power not only to do good (for this is, so to speak, the nature of God, as heating is of fire and illuminating of light), but especially to accomplish through evils devised by some a good and useful end, and to employ profitably what seem to be base things, just as with martyrdom arising from trial. Therefore, even in philosophy, stolen as by Prometheus, a small fire is kindled usefully into a suitable light, some trace of wisdom and a movement concerning God.

Perhaps the philosophers among the Greeks and those before the coming of the Lord who took portions of the truth from the Hebrew prophets without knowledge, but as their own doctrines, appropriating some, altering others, and some they ignorantly sophistical through excessive curiosity, and some they even invented; for perhaps they also had a spirit of perception. And Aristotle himself agreed with Scripture, calling sophistry a thievish pursuit of wisdom, as we indicated earlier. The apostle says that what we speak is not in teachable words of human wisdom, but in teachable words of the spirit. For concerning the prophets, he says, we all took from his fullness, clearly meaning Christ's. So the prophets are not thieves. And my teaching is not mine, the Lord says, but belongs to the father who sent me. But concerning those who steal, he says, the one speaking from himself seeks his own glory. Such are the Greeks, who are self-loving and boastful. And when Scripture calls them wise, it does not slander the truly wise, but those who are conceited in wisdom.

And of these, he says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the intelligent. The apostle then adds: Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? In contrast to the scribes, he has placed the seekers of this age, the philosophers from the nations. Did not God make foolish the wisdom of the world? Equally, he showed it to be foolish and not true, as they supposed. And if you ask the cause of their vaunted wisdom, he will say it is because of the hardness of their heart. Since in the wisdom of God, that is, announced through the prophets, the world did not know through wisdom—which speaks through the prophets—him, that is God, this God was pleased through the proclamation of folly, which seems folly to the Greeks, to save those who believe. For, he says, Jews ask for signs for faith, Greeks seek wisdom, that is, the so-called necessary arguments and the other syllogisms, but we proclaim Jesus Christ crucified, a scandal to Jews because they know the prophecy and do not believe its fulfillment, and folly to Greeks; for the would-be wise consider it mythical, both that the son of a man is called son of God and that God has a son, and indeed that he suffered; hence their preconception of conceit persuades them to disbelieve. For the coming of the Savior did not make men foolish and hard-hearted and unbelieving, but intelligent and obedient and faithful besides. And those who were unwilling to obey were shown, by the voluntary inclination of those who hearkened, to be separated as unintelligent, unbelieving, and foolish.

For the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Is it not, then, better to take the phrase "God did not make foolish the wisdom of the world" as a negation, equivalent to "he did not make foolish," so that the cause of their hardness of heart might not appear to come from God, who made wisdom foolish? On the contrary, although they were wise, they became liable to greater blame for not believing the proclamation; for both the choice and the turning away from the truth are voluntary. But also, by the phrase "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise," he means to say that it is eclipsed by the contrast with the despised and overlooked barbarian philosophy, just as a lamp is said to be destroyed when it is outshone by the sun, because it no longer performs an equal function. Therefore, of all men who are called, those who have chosen to obey are named the called. For there is no injustice on the part of God. Accordingly, from each race, those who believed are the chosen people. And in the Acts of the Apostles you would find, word for word: "So those who accepted his word were baptized, while those who were unwilling to be persuaded withdrew themselves," evidently. To these the prophecy says: "If you are willing and listen to me, you will eat the good things of the earth," showing that both the choice and the turning away lie with us. The apostle has called the teaching according to the Lord "the wisdom of God," using "wisdom" to indicate the true philosophy transmitted through the Son. But indeed, even the would-be wise man has certain exhortations from the apostle, which command him to put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Therefore, put aside falsehood and speak truth; give no place to the devil. Let the thief steal no more, but rather labor working the good. To work is to toil diligently seeking truth, together with rational beneficence, so that you may have something to share with the one in need, both of worldly substance and of divine wisdom. For he wishes the word to be taught thoroughly and the silver to be placed on the tables, accurately tested, to be lent out. Hence he adds: Let no rotten word go out of your mouth; this rotten word is that which comes from conceit, but if any word is good for the edification of need, so that it may give grace to the hearers. And of a good God, the word must necessarily be good. How is the one who saves not good? That the Greeks also are attested to hold some true doctrines is possible to see even from this. Paul is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles saying to the Areopagites: I see that you are rather superstitious. For passing through and examining your objects of worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed: To an unknown god. The one whom you worship in ignorance, this one I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, this one is lord of heaven and earth.

He does not dwell in hand-made temples nor is he served by human hands as though in need of anything, himself giving to all life and breath and all things; and he made from one every race of men to dwell on every face of the earth, having appointed prescribed seasons and the boundaries of their dwelling, to seek the divine, if perhaps they might touch or find it, although it is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and are, as even some of your poets have said; for we are of his race. From these things it is clear that, using poetic examples from Aratus' Phaenomena, he tests what has been well said among the Greeks and, through the unknown god, he intimated that the creator god is honored by the Greeks by way of periphrasis, but that by way of knowledge it is necessary to receive and learn through the Son. I therefore sent you to the nations, he says, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they might receive remission of sins and a lot among those sanctified by faith in me. These opened eyes of the blind are the knowledge through the Son of the Father, the comprehension of the Greek periphrasis, and the turning from the power of Satan is the change from sin, through which slavery had come. We do not accept every philosophy without distinction, but that one about which Socrates says in Plato: For there are, as they say concerning the mysteries, many thyrsus-bearers but few Bacchants, hinting that many are called but few are chosen.

He then clearly adds: "These, in my opinion, are none other than those who have philosophized correctly. And I, as far as possible, left nothing undone in life, but eagerly strove in every way to become such. And if I strove rightly and accomplished something, we shall know the truth when we go there, if God wills, a little later." Does it not seem to you that he clarifies from the Hebrew scriptures the hope of the righteous after death? And in the *Demodocus*, if indeed that work is by Plato, he says that this is not to philosophize: to live bent over the arts, nor to be a polymath, but something else, since I for my part thought it was even a reproach. For he knew, I think, that, as Heraclitus says, "polymathy does not teach one to have intelligence." And in the fifth book of the *Republic*: "Shall we then set down all these and others of such a kind as mathematicians and philosophers of the petty crafts?" "By no means," I said, "but as similar to philosophers." "And the true ones," he said, "whom do you mean?" "Those," I said, "who are lovers of the vision of truth." For philosophy is not in geometry, which has its postulates and hypotheses, nor in music, which is conjectural, nor in astronomy, which is stuffed with accounts of natural, flowing, and probable things, but it is the science of the good itself and of truth, those other things being different from the good, yet like roads leading to the good. So that he himself does not grant that general education contributes to the good, but that it cooperates in arousing and exercising the soul towards intelligible things.

If, then, they say that the Greeks uttered some things of true philosophy by chance, the chance is of divine economy (for no one will deify the spontaneous out of ambition toward us); or if by coincidence, the coincidence is not without providence; or if they say the Greeks had a natural concept, we know the creator of nature to be one, according to which we have also called justice natural; or if they had a common intellect, let us consider who is the father of this and of the justice according to the distribution of intellect. For if one speaks of a pre-announcement and charges a co-utterance, he speaks of forms of prophecy. Indeed, others wish that some things were said to the philosophers according to an impression of truth. Now the divine apostle writes concerning us: "For we now see as through a mirror, knowing ourselves by reflection upon it and, from the divine in us, contemplating the creative cause as far as possible; for you have seen your brother, you have seen your God." I think the Savior is called God for us at present; but after the laying aside of the flesh, face to face, then already definitively and comprehensively, when the heart becomes pure. And by impression and transparency, those who have philosophized accurately among the Greeks discern God; for such are the phantasies of truth due to inability, as a phantasy sees things seen in water and things through transparent and translucent bodies. Well then, Solomon says: "He who sows righteousness works faith." And there are those who sow their own things, who produce more. And again:

Take care of the green plants in the plain, and cut grass, and gather ripe hay, so that you may have sheep for clothing. You see how one must also attend to external covering and protection. You will know the souls of your flock with understanding. For when nations that do not have the law by nature do the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, the foreskin keeping the ordinances of the law according to the apostle, both before the law and before the advent. And as if making a comparison, the discourse says of those from philosophy compared with those called heretics, clearly much better: a friend nearby is better than a brother living far away; but he who relies on falsehoods shepherds the winds and pursues winged birds. I do not think the discourse now means philosophy, although in many things philosophy attempts what is plausible and persuasive, but it rebukes the heresies. For it adds: for he left the paths of his own vineyard, and has wandered the tracks of his own field. And these are the ones that abandon the church from the beginning. Immediately, one who falls into heresy traverses a waterless desert, having abandoned the truly existing God, deserted by God, seeking water without water, traversing the uninhabitable and thirsty land, gathering barrenness with his hands.

And to those who are deficient in understanding, I command, she says—Wisdom—plainly meaning those involved in the heresies: "Gladly touch secret loaves and sweet stolen water." Bread and water not in any other sense, but with reference to those heresies that use bread and water in the offering, not according to the rule of the Church, the Scripture clearly placing them. For there are those who even consecrate plain water. But "leap away, do not linger in her place." She called the place "the synagogue," not the church, using the term homonymously. Then she adds: "For thus you will cross alien water," considering heretical baptism not as proper and genuine water, "and you will cross an alien river," the one that sweeps away and drags down into the sea, into which is discharged he who has deviated from true steadfastness, having been swept away again into the ethnic and disorderly waves of life. Just as the many men who haul down a ship would not be called many causes, but one cause from many (for each individual is not the cause of the ship being hauled down, but together with the others), so also philosophy, with a view to the apprehension of truth—being a search for truth—is taken along, not being the cause of apprehension, but together with other things a cause and a co-worker. Perhaps even the co-cause is a cause. And just as, there being one thing, namely to be happy, the virtues, though many, happen to be causes, and as for being heated, both the sun and fire and a bath and clothing are causes, so too, truth being one, many things are taken along for its search, but the discovery is through the Son.

If, then, we were to consider, virtue is one according to capacity, and it happens that when it is present in these matters it is called prudence, in these temperance, in these courage or justice. By the same reasoning, truth being one, in geometry there is the truth of geometry, in music the truth of music, and in right philosophy there would be Greek truth. But only this principal truth is unassailable, which we are taught by the Son of God. We say that in this manner one and the same drachma, when given to a shipowner, is called fare, to a tax-collector tax, to a landlord rent, to a teacher wages, and to a seller earnest money. Each virtue or truth, called synonymously, is the cause only of its own proper result. By a combination of these, living happily comes about (for we do not live happily in relation to names), when we call right living happiness and the one whose soul is adorned with virtue happy. And if philosophy contributes from afar to the discovery of truth, extending through various approaches to the knowledge that directly touches our truth, it does contribute to the one who earnestly and logically strives to grasp knowledge. But Greek truth is separated from our truth, even if it shares the same name, by the magnitude of knowledge, by more authoritative demonstration, by divine power, and by similar things; for we are taught by God, truly sacred writings being taught by the Son of God.

Hence they do not move the souls in the same way, but by a different teaching. And if we must distinguish for the sake of those fond of censure, calling philosophy a co-cause and co-worker of true apprehension, since it is a search for truth, we will acknowledge it as a preliminary education for the gnostic, not positing the co-cause as a cause, nor the co-worker as a sustaining cause, nor philosophy as that without which not, since nearly all, without the encyclical education and Greek philosophy, and some even without letters, moved by the divine and barbarian philosophy, have received by faith the account concerning God, educated by self-working wisdom. That which acts through another, being incomplete in itself to act, we call a co-worker and co-cause, named from being a cause together with a cause or from coming together with another to become a cause, but by itself unable to provide the result truly. Yet philosophy once did justice even by itself for the Greeks, but not toward universal justice (toward which it is found to be a co-worker, just as the first and second step for one ascending to the upper room, and the grammar teacher for one who will philosophize), nor as if by its removal the universal account either falls short or truth is abolished, since sight and hearing and voice contribute to truth, but it is the mind that knows it fittingly. But among co-workers, some contribute greater, others lesser power. Clarity, at any rate, co-works toward the transmission of truth, and dialectic toward not falling prey to the heresies that assail.

The teaching according to the Saviour is self-sufficient and lacks nothing, being the power and wisdom of God; but Greek philosophy, when it approaches, does not make the truth more powerful, but, providing the impossibility of a sophistical attack against it and warding off the treacherous plots against the truth, has been fittingly called a fence and a coping-stone of the vineyard. And the truth according to faith is necessary for life, like bread; but preliminary education resembles a relish and a dessert, a sweet after-dinner treat, as the Theban Pindar says. The Scripture plainly declares: "The guileless man who understands will be more crafty, and the wise man will receive knowledge." And the Lord says: "He who speaks from himself seeks his own opinion, but he who seeks the opinion of him who sent him is truthful, and there is no injustice in him." On the contrary, then, he who appropriates the works of the barbarians and boasts of them as his own does injustice, increasing his own opinion and falsifying the truth. Such a one is called a thief by Scripture. For it says: "Son, do not become a liar; for falsehood leads to theft." And the thief truly possesses what he has taken, whether it be gold or silver or a word or a doctrine. Therefore, in part, what they have stolen,

They know the truth, but conjecturally and by the necessity of arguments. Having been taught, therefore, they will know it with comprehension. Concerning the fact that the doctrines of the philosophers have been derived from the Hebrews, we will discuss a little later; but first, as was fitting, we must now speak about the chronology according to Moses, through which it will be shown without dispute that the philosophy according to the Hebrews is the most ancient of all wisdom. Now, Tatian has spoken accurately about these matters in his *Against the Greeks*, and Cassian has also spoken in the first of his *Exegetical Works*; nevertheless, the commentary requires that we too run through what has been said on the subject. Apion the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth of his *Egyptian Histories*, although he was ill-disposed toward the Hebrews, being an Egyptian by race, so that he even composed a book against the Jews, mentions Amosis, the king of the Egyptians, and the events of his time, and cites as a witness Ptolemy of Mendes. And his text runs thus: "Amosis destroyed Avaris in the time of Inachus the Argive, as Ptolemy of Mendes recorded in his *Chronologies*." This Ptolemy was a priest, and having set forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three whole books, he says concerning Amosis, king of Egypt, that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt took place under the leadership of Moses, from which it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus. The most ancient of Greek histories are the Argolic, I mean those from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his *Chronologies*.

Of these, the Attic events from Cecrops—who was indeed of double nature and autochthonous, as Tatian says verbatim—are forty generations younger, and the Arcadian events from Pelasgus—who is also said to be autochthonous—are nine generations younger. Of these, the Phthiotic events from Deucalion are two generations younger than the other two. From Inachus to the time of the Trojan events, twenty generations or one more are counted, and years, so to speak, four hundred and beyond. If the Assyrian events are many years older than the Greek events, according to what Ctesias says, it will appear that in the four hundred and second year of the Assyrian rule, and in the thirty-second year of the dynasty of Belochus the eighth, the movement of Moses from Egypt occurred, corresponding to Amosis the Egyptian and Inachus the Argive. In Greece, during the time of Phoroneus after Inachus, there was the flood under Ogyges and the kingdom in Sicyon, first of Aegialeus, then of Europs, then of Telchis, and the kingdom of Cres in Crete. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man; hence the poet of the Phoronis said that he was the father of mortal men. Hence Plato in the Timaeus, following Acusilaus, writes: "And wishing at some time to lead them into discourse about ancient matters, he attempts to speak of the most ancient things of this city, concerning Phoroneus, who is said to be the first, and Niobe, and the events after the flood." In the time of Phorbas, Actaeus, from whom Attica is called Actaea. In the time of Triopas, Prometheus, Atlas, Epimetheus, the double-natured Cecrops, and Io. In the time of Crotopus, the conflagration under Phaethon and the deluge under Deucalion.

Under Sthenelus occurred the reign of Amphictyon, the arrival of Danaus in the Peloponnese, the founding of Dardania by Dardanus—whom Homer says was first born of cloud-gathering Zeus—and the conveyance of Europa from Phoenicia to Crete. Under Lynceus occurred the abduction of Kore, the establishment of the precinct at Eleusis, the agriculture of Triptolemus, the arrival of Cadmus in Thebes, and the reign of Minos. Under Proetus occurred the war of Eumolpus against the Athenians. Under Acrisius occurred the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, the arrival of Ion in Athens, the second Cecrops, the deeds of Perseus and Dionysus, and Orpheus and Musaeus. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Agamemnon, Ilium was captured, when Demophon son of Theseus was king in Athens in his first year, on the twelfth of the month Thargelion, as Dionysius of Argos says; but Agias and Dercylus say on the eighth of the waning of the month Panemus; for Hellanicus says on the twelfth of the month Thargelion; and some of those who have written on Attic affairs say on the eighth of the waning, when Menestheus was king in his last year, at the full moon. "It was night," says the author of the Little Iliad, "at the midpoint, and the bright moon was rising." Others say on the same day of the month Scirophorion. Theseus, being an emulator of Heracles, is older than the Trojan events by one generation. For Homer mentions Tlepolemus, who was a son of Heracles, as having campaigned against Ilium. Therefore Moses is shown to be earlier than the deification of Dionysus by six hundred and four years, if indeed he was deified in the thirty-second year of the reign of Perseus, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles.

From Dionysus to Heracles and the heroes around Jason who sailed on the Argo, sixty-three years are collected; Asclepius and the Dioscuri sailed with them, as Apollonius of Rhodes testifies in the Argonautica. From the reign of Heracles in Argos to the apotheosis of Heracles himself and Asclepius, thirty-eight years are collected according to the chronographer Apollodorus. From there to the apotheosis of Castor and Polydeuces, fifty-three years. Somewhere around this time also occurred the capture of Ilium. But if we must also believe Hesiod the poet, let us hear him: "To Zeus, then, the Atlantid Maia bore glorious Hermes, herald of the immortals, having entered the sacred bed; and Cadmeian Semele bore him a splendid son, mingled in love, Dionysus full of joy." Cadmus, the father of Semele, comes to Thebes in the time of Lynceus and becomes the discoverer of Greek letters; Triopas is contemporary with Isis in the seventh generation from Inachus (they say that Isis is also Io, because she went through the whole earth wandering); and Istros in his work On the Colonization of the Egyptians calls her the daughter of Prometheus. Prometheus is in the seventh generation after Moses, so that Moses appears to have flourished even before the generation of men among the Greeks. Leon, who wrote the treatise on the gods of Egypt, says that Isis is called Demeter by the Greeks, and she comes in the eleventh generation after Moses, in the time of Lynceus. Epis, the king of Argos, founds Memphis, as Aristippus says in the first book of the Arcadica.

Aristeas of Argos says that this one was named Sarapis and that this is the one whom the Egyptians worship. Nymphodorus of Amphipolis, in the third book of his Customs of Asia, says that Apis, the bull, after dying and being embalmed, was placed in a coffin in the temple of the honored deity, and from this he was called Sorapis and later Sarapis by some local custom. Apis is third from Inachus. Moreover, Leto is born in the time of Tityus—for Leto drew the glorious bedmate of Zeus—and Tityus was contemporary with Tantalus. Reasonably, then, Pindar of Boeotia writes: "In time Apollo was born," and it is no wonder, since he is even found serving Admetus together with Heracles for a great year. Zethus and Amphion, the inventors of music, lived around the time of Cadmus. And if someone tells us that Phemonoe was the first to deliver oracles to Acrisius, let him know that after Phemonoe, twenty-seven years later, came those around Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus, the teacher of Heracles. Homer and Hesiod are much later than the Trojan War, and after them, much later, are the lawgivers among the Greeks, Lycurgus and Solon, and the seven sages, and those around Pherecydes of Syros and the great Pythagoras, who lived somewhere around the Olympiads, as we have shown. Therefore, of the majority of gods among the Greeks, not only of the so-called sages and poets, Moses is shown to be older than them. And not only that.

this one, but also the Sibyl is older than Orpheus; for there are said to be more accounts concerning her name and the oracles attributed to her, and that she was a Phrygian called Artemis, and that she came to Delphi and sang: "O Delphians, servants of far-shooting Apollo, I have come to prophesy the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus, angered at my own brother Apollo." There is also another, an Erythraean called Herophile; Heraclides of Pontus mentions these in his work On Oracles. I pass over the Egyptian and the Italian, who dwelt in the Carmalus at Rome, whose son was Evander, who founded the sanctuary of Pan at Rome called the Lupercal. It is fitting, having come to this point, to investigate also the times of the other prophets among the Hebrews after Moses. After the end of Moses' life, Joshua succeeds to the leadership of the people, waging war for † 65 years, and resting in the good land for another twenty-five. As the book of Joshua contains, the aforementioned man succeeded Moses for 27 years. Then the Hebrews, having sinned, are handed over to Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, for eight years, as the book of Judges records; later, having besought God, they receive as leader Othniel, the younger brother of Caleb, from the tribe of Judah, who, after killing the king of Mesopotamia, ruled the people for fifty consecutive years. And again, having sinned, they were handed over to Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years; when they turned back again, Ehud, a ambidextrous man from the tribe of Ephraim, led them for eighty years.

This is the one who killed Aiglom. After the death of Aod, the people sinned again and were delivered to the king of Canaan, Jabin, for twenty years. In his time, Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth, of the tribe of Ephraim, prophesied, and the high priest was Ozias, son of Rhesus. Through her, Barak, son of Abinoam, of the tribe of Naphtali, leading the army, arrayed for battle against Sisera, the commander-in-chief of Jabin, and conquered; and from then on Deborah judged the people for forty years. After her death, the people sinned again and were delivered to the Midianites for seven years. In these times, Gideon, of the tribe of Manasseh, son of Joash, having marched out with three hundred and destroyed one hundred and twenty thousand of them, ruled for forty years, after whom his son Abimelech ruled for three years. He was succeeded by Boleas, son of Bedan, son of Charran, of the tribe of Ephraim, who ruled for twenty-three years. After him, the people sinned again and were delivered to the Ammonites for eighteen years. When they repented, Jephthah the Gileadite, of the tribe of Manasseh, led them and ruled for six years, after whom Abathan of Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, ruled for seven years, then Hebron the Zebulonite for eight years, then Eglom of Ephraim for eight years. Some join the seven years of Abathan with the eight years of Hebron. And after him, the people sinned again and came under the foreign rule of the Philistines for forty years. When they turned back, Samson, of the tribe of Dan, led them, having conquered the foreigners in war. He ruled for twenty years. And after him, there being anarchy, Eli the priest judged the people for forty years.

He is succeeded by the prophet Samuel, together with whom Saul reigned, holding power for twenty-seven years. He also anointed David. Samuel died two years before Saul, during the high priesthood of Abimelech. He anointed Saul as king, who was the first to reign over Israel after the judges, the total number of whom up to Samuel amounts to four hundred sixty-three years and seven months. Then, according to the first book of Kings, Saul reigned for twenty years, since he reigned after being renewed. After the death of Saul, David, the son of Jesse of the tribe of Judah, reigned a second time in Hebron for forty years, as the second book of Kings contains, and the high priest was Abiathar, the son of Abimelech, of the family of Eli, while Gad and Nathan prophesied during his time. Thus, from Joshua the son of Nun until David took the kingdom, according to some, there are four hundred fifty years, but as the present chronology shows, five hundred twenty-three years and seven months are counted up to the death of David. And after this, Solomon, the son of David, reigned for forty years. During his time, Nathan continued to prophesy, who also urged him concerning the building of the temple; likewise, Ahijah of Shiloh prophesied, and both kings, David and Solomon, were prophets. Zadok the high priest was the first to serve in the temple that Solomon built, being the eighth from Aaron, the first high priest. Thus, from Moses to the time of Solomon, according to some, there are five hundred ninety-five years, and according to others, five hundred seventy-six.

If someone were to add together the four hundred fifty years from Joshua to David, the forty years of Moses’ generalship, and the other eighty years which Moses lived before the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, and then add to these the forty years of David’s reign, the total number of years would be six hundred ten. But our chronology proceeds more precisely if, to the five hundred twenty-three years and seven months up to David’s death, one adds the one hundred twenty years of Moses and the forty years of Solomon; for the total up to Solomon’s death will be six hundred eighty-three years and seven months. Hiram gives his daughter to Solomon at the time when, after the capture of Troy, Menelaus arrived in Phoenicia, as Menander of Pergamum and Laetus say in their Phoenician Histories. After Solomon, his son Rehoboam reigns for seventeen years, and Abimelech son of Zadok is high priest. Under him, the kingdom is divided, and Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim, Solomon’s servant, reigns in Samaria; Ahijah the Shilonite and Shemaiah son of Elam still prophesy, as does the man from Judah who went to Jeroboam and prophesied at the altar. After him, his son Abijam reigns for twenty-three years, and likewise his son Asa for forty years; he suffered from gout in old age, and under him Jehu son of Ananiah prophesies. After him, his son Jehoshaphat reigns for twenty-five years; under him, Elijah the Tishbite, Micaiah son of Imlah, and Obadiah son of Ananiah prophesy.

Under Micah, there was also a false prophet, Zedekiah son of Canaan. Following these, the reign of Joram son of Jehoshaphat lasted eight years, during which Elijah prophesied, and after Elijah, Elisha son of Shaphat. Under him, those in Samaria ate pigeon dung and their own children. The time of Jehoshaphat extends from the end of the third book of Kings to the fourth. Under Joram, Elijah was taken up, and Elisha son of Shaphat began to prophesy for six years, being forty years old. Then Ahaziah reigned for one year; under him, Elisha still prophesied, and with him Abdadonai. After him, the mother of Uzziah, Athaliah, reigned for eight years, having killed the children of her brother; for she was of the lineage of Ahab. The sister of Uzziah, Jehosheba, stole the son of Uzziah, Joash, and later placed the kingdom upon him. Under this Athaliah, Elisha still prophesied; after her, as I said, Joash, who was saved by Jehosheba, the wife of the high priest Jehoiada, reigned, and the whole amounts to forty years. Therefore, from Solomon to the death of the prophet Elisha, the years are, as some say, one hundred five, as others say, one hundred two, as the present chronology shows, from the reign of Solomon one hundred eighty-one years. From the Trojan War to the birth of Homer, according to Philochorus, one hundred eighty years occur after the Ionian colony; Aristarchus, in his commentaries on Archilochus, according to

He says that he was carried off in the Ionian migration, which occurred one hundred and forty years after the Trojan War. Apollodorus says that one hundred years after the Ionian migration, when Agesilaus son of Doryssaeus was king of the Lacedaemonians, Lycurgus the lawgiver, while still young, encountered him. Euthymenes in his Chronicles says that he flourished with Hesiod in the time of Acastus in Chios, about two hundred years after the fall of Ilium. Archemachus in the third book of his Euboica holds the same opinion, that he and Hesiod are younger than Elisha the prophet. And if one wishes to follow the grammarian Crates and say that Homer lived around the return of the Heracleidae, eighty years after the fall of Ilium, he will again be found to be later than Solomon, in whose time Menelaus' arrival in Phoenicia occurred, as has been stated earlier. Eratosthenes places Homer's age after the hundredth year from the fall of Ilium. Indeed, Theopompus in the forty-third book of his Philippica records that Homer lived five hundred years after those who campaigned against Ilium. Euphorion in his work On the Aleuadae places him in the time of Gyges, who began to reign from the eighteenth Olympiad, and whom he says was first called tyrant. Sosibius the Laconian in his chronological record places Homer in the eighth year of the reign of Charillus son of Polydeuces. Now Charillus reigned sixty-four years, and after him his son Nicander reigned thirty-nine years; in the thirty-fourth year of this latter, he says the first Olympiad was established.

so that Homer is about ninety years before the establishment of the Olympic games. After Joash, his son Amaziah succeeds to the kingdom for thirty-nine years, and his son Uzziah likewise for fifty-two years, and he died a leper; under him prophesy Amos and Isaiah his son and Hosea son of Beeri and Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher, who proclaimed to the Ninevites, who came forth from the whale. Then Jotham son of Uzziah reigns for sixteen years; under him still Isaiah prophesies, and Hosea, and Micah the Morasthite, and Joel son of Pethuel. His son Ahaz succeeds him for sixteen years; in the fifteenth year of this one, Israel was carried off to Babylon, and Shalmaneser the king of the Assyrians resettled those in Samaria among the Medes and Babylonians. Again, Ahaz is succeeded by Hoshea for eight years, then Hezekiah for twenty-nine years. To him, because of his piety near the end of his life, through Isaiah God grants another fifteen years to live by a backward movement of the sun. Up to this point Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah continue prophesying. These are said to have lived after the time of Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian lawgiver; for Dieuchidas in the fourth book of Megarica places the acme of Lycurgus about the two hundred and ninetieth year after the capture of Troy. And Isaiah, from the reign of Solomon, under whom Menelaus was shown to have been in Phoenicia, appears still prophesying in the three hundredth year, and Micah with him, and Hosea, and Joel son of Pethuel.

After Hezekiah, his son Manasseh reigned fifty-five years, then his son Amos two years, after whom Josiah his son, the most lawful, reigned thirty-one years. This man placed the limbs of men upon the limbs of idols, as is written in Leviticus. In his eighteenth year the Passover was held, which had not been completed in the intervening time since Samuel. Then Chelkias the priest, the father of the prophet Jeremiah, having come upon the book of the law deposited in the temple, read it and died. In his time Olda and Sophonias and Jeremiah prophesied. In the time of Jeremiah, Ananias became a false prophet. This Josiah, having disobeyed the prophet Jeremiah, was slain by Nechao king of Egypt by the river Euphrates, when he met him advancing against the Assyrians. Jeconiah, also called Joachaz, his son, succeeded Josiah for three months and ten days. Nechao king of Egypt bound him and led him away to Egypt, setting up in his place his brother Joachim for a tribute of the land for eleven years. After him his namesake Joachim reigned three months, then Zedekiah eleven years. And up to this time Jeremiah continues prophesying, and Buzi and Urias the son of Samaias and Ambacum also prophesy with him, and the line of the Hebrew kings ends. So from the birth of Moses until this deportation there are, according to some, nine hundred seventy-two years, but according to accurate chronology, one thousand eighty-five years, six months, ten days.

From the reign of David until the captivity that occurred under the Chaldeans, there are four hundred fifty-two years and six months, but as our precise reckoning of the times gathers, four hundred eighty-two years, six months, and ten days. In the twelfth year of the reign of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, seventy years before the hegemony of the Persians, campaigned against the Phoenicians and the Jews, as Berossus says in his Chaldean Histories. Juba, writing about the Assyrians, acknowledges that he took his history from Berossus, bearing witness to the truth of that man. So Nebuchadnezzar, having blinded Zedekiah, leads him away to Babylon and resettles the entire people (and the captivity lasts for seventy years), except for a few who fled to Egypt. Jeremiah and Habakkuk still prophesy during the reign of Zedekiah, and in the fifth year of his reign Ezekiel prophesies in Babylon, after him the prophet Nahum, then Daniel, and again after him Haggai and Zechariah prophesy under Darius the First for two years, after whom the Angel among the Twelve. After Haggai and Zechariah, Nehemiah the cupbearer of Artaxerxes, son of Achel the Israelite, builds the city of Jerusalem and repairs the temple. During this captivity occur Esther and Mordecai, whose book is preserved, as is that of the Maccabees. During this captivity, Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah, not willing to worship the image, are thrown into a fiery furnace but are saved through the appearance of an angel.

Then Daniel, thrown into the lions' den because of the dragon, was fed by Habakkuk through the providence of God and was saved on the seventh day. Here also the sign of Jonah occurred, and Tobias took Sarah as wife through the angel Raphael, after the demon had slain her first seven suitors, and after the marriage of Tobias, his father Tobit regained his sight. Here Zerubbabel, having defeated his opponents by wisdom, obtained from Darius, by purchase, the renewal of Jerusalem, and with Ezra he returned to the ancestral land; through him came the redemption of the people, the recognition and renewal of the divinely inspired writings, the saving Passover was instituted, and the dissolution of foreign intermarriage. Cyrus had also previously proclaimed the restoration of the Hebrews, and when the promise was fulfilled under Darius, the feast of the Encenia was instituted, just as in the case of the Tabernacle. And the total years, including those of the captivity, until the restoration of the people, from the birth of Moses are one thousand one hundred fifty-five years, six months, and ten days; from the reign of David, as some reckon, five hundred fifty-two years, but more precisely, five hundred seventy-two years, six months, and ten days. Thus, from the captivity that occurred under the prophet Jeremiah in Babylon, the words spoken by the prophet Daniel have been fulfilled, which run as follows: "Seventy weeks were shortened for your people and for the holy city, for the completion of sin, and for the sealing of sins and the blotting out of injustices, and for expiation and the bringing of eternal righteousness.

and of sealing a vision and a prophet, and of anointing a holy one of holy ones. And you will know and understand from the departure of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem until the anointed leader, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, and it will return and a square and a wall will be built, and the times will be emptied. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointing will be destroyed, and there is no judgment for it. And it will destroy the city and the holy place together with the coming leader; they will be cut off in a flood; and until the end of a shortened war with desolations. And it will strengthen a covenant for many for one week; and half of the week my sacrifice and libation will be taken away; and upon the temple an abomination of desolations, and until the completion of time a completion will be given for the desolation. And half of the week will cease the incense of sacrifice and of the wing of desolation until the completion and the order of haste of desolation. That the temple was built in seven weeks is evident; for it is written in Ezra, and thus it happened that Christ was king of the Jews, leader, when the seven weeks were fulfilled in Jerusalem, and in the sixty-two weeks all Judea was at peace and without wars, and our Lord Christ, holy of holies, coming and fulfilling the vision and the prophet, was anointed in the flesh with the spirit of his father in these sixty-two weeks, as the prophet said.

and in the one week, half of which Nero held while reigning, and in the holy city of Jerusalem he set up the abomination, and in the half of the week he himself was slain, as were Otho, Galba, and Vitellius, while Vespasian prevailed and destroyed Jerusalem and laid waste the holy place. And since these things are so, it is clear to one who can understand, according to what the prophet also said. When the eleventh year was being completed, at the beginning of the following year of the reign of Jehoiakim, the captivity to Babylon occurred under King Nebuchadnezzar in the seventh year of his reign over the Assyrians, in the second year of the reign of Uaphris over the Egyptians, in the first year of the archonship of Philip at Athens, in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, and the captivity lasted seventy years, ending in the second year of Darius son of Hystaspes, who had become king of the Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, in whose time, as I said before, Haggai, Zechariah, and Angelus, one of the twelve, prophesied, and Joshua son of Josedek was high priest. And in the second year of the reign of Darius, whom Herodotus says overthrew the rule of the Magi, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel was sent to raise and adorn the temple in Jerusalem. The times of the Persians are thus summed up: Cyrus thirty years, Cambyses nineteen, Darius forty-six, Xerxes twenty-six, Artaxerxes forty-one, Darius eight, Artaxerxes forty-two, Ochus eight, Arses three. The total of the Persian years comes to two hundred thirty-five.

Having deposed this Darius, Alexander the Macedonian began to reign according to the stated years. Similarly, then, the times of the Macedonian kings are traced as follows: Alexander, eighteen years; Ptolemy son of Lagus, forty years; Ptolemy Philadelphus, twenty-seven years; then Euergetes, twenty-five years; then Philopator, seventeen years; after him Epiphanes, twenty-four years; Philometor succeeds him and reigns thirty-five years; after him Physcon, twenty-nine years; then Lathurus, thirty-six years; then the one called Dionysus, twenty-nine years. Finally, Cleopatra reigned twenty-two years, after which the reign of Cleopatra's children lasted eighteen days. Therefore, the total years of the Macedonian kings amount to three hundred twelve years and eighteen days. Thus it is demonstrated that those who prophesied under Darius son of Hystaspes—Haggai and Zechariah in the second year of his reign, and Angelus from among the twelve in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad—are older than Pythagoras, who is dated to the sixty-second Olympiad, and than Thales, the oldest of the Greek sages, who lived around the fiftieth Olympiad. The sages counted together were contemporaries of Thales, as Andron says in the Tripod. For Heraclitus, being later, mentions Pythagoras in his writing.

Hence, indisputably, the first Olympiad would be earlier than the age of the aforementioned prophets, together with the so-called seven sages, and it is shown to be later than the Trojan War by four hundred and seven years. It is therefore easy to see that Solomon, who lived in the time of Menelaus (and Menelaus was contemporary with the Trojan War), is many years older than the sages among the Greeks. And by how many years Moses precedes him has been shown by us earlier. Alexander, surnamed Polyhistor, in his work on the Jews recorded some letters of Solomon to Vaphres, king of Egypt, and to the king of Phoenicia, the Tyrians, and their replies to Solomon, according to which it is shown that Vaphres sent eighty thousand Egyptian men to him for the building of the temple, and the other sent an equal number, together with an architect from Tyre, whose mother was a Jewess from the tribe of David, as is written there, Hyperon by name. Indeed, Onomacritus the Athenian, whose poems attributed to Orpheus are said to be, is found to have lived around the fiftieth Olympiad, during the rule of the Peisistratids; and Orpheus, who sailed with Heracles, was the teacher of Musaeus. For Amphion precedes the Trojan War by two generations, while Demodocus and Phemius were renowned for their cithara playing after the fall of Troy—the one among the Phaeacians, the other among the Suitors. And the oracles attributed to Musaeus are said to be by Onomacritus, the Krater of Orpheus by Zopyrus of Heraclea, and the Descent into Hades by Prodicus of Samos. Ion of Chios, in his Triagmoi, records that Pythagoras also attributed some things to Orpheus.

Epigenes, in his work On the Poetry Attributed to Orpheus, says that the Descent to Hades and the Sacred Discourse belong to Cercops the Pythagorean, and that the Robe and the Physical Doctrines are by Brontinus. Moreover, some make Terpander ancient; at any rate, Hellanicus records that he lived in the time of Midas, while Phanias, placing Lesches of Lesbos before Terpander, brings Terpander down as younger than Archilochus, and says that Lesches competed with Arctinus and was victorious. Xanthus the Lydian says that Thasos was founded around the eighteenth Olympiad (but Dionysius says around the fifteenth), so that it is evident that Archilochus was already known after the twentieth Olympiad. He mentions, indeed, the destruction of the Magnesians as having recently occurred. Simonides, then, is dated after Archilochus, and Callinus is not much older; for Archilochus mentions the Magnesians as having perished, while Callinus mentions them as flourishing. Eumelus of Corinth, being older, is said to have been contemporary with Archias, the founder of Syracuse. And we have been led to say these things because the poets of the Epic Cycle are placed among the very ancient. Moreover, among the Greeks there are said to have been many oracle-mongers, such as the Bacides (one Boeotian, the other Arcadian), who foretold many things to many people. By the advice of Amphilytus of Athens, Peisistratus also strengthened his tyranny, when Amphilytus revealed the opportune moment for the attack. For let us pass over in silence Cometes the Cretan, Cinyras the Cyprian, Admetus the Thessalian, Aristaeus the Cyrenaean, Amphiaraus the Athenian, Timoxenus the Corcyraean, Demaenetus the Phocaean, Epigenes the Thespian,

Nicias of Carystus, Ariston of Thessaly, Dionysius of Carthage, Cleophon of Corinth, and Hippo the daughter of Cheiron, and Boio, and Manto, and the multitude of Sibyls—the Samian, the Colophonian, the Cumaean, the Erythraean, the Phyto, the Taraxandra, the Macedonian, the Thessalian, the Thesprotian—and Calchas and Mopsus, who lived at the time of the Trojan War, Mopsus being the elder, as he sailed with the Argonauts. They say that the so-called Mantic of Mopsus was composed by Battus of Cyrene, and Dorotheus in the first book of his Pandect records that Mopsus listened to the halcyon and the crow. And Pythagoras the Great always applied himself to foreknowledge, as did Abaris the Hyperborean, and Aristeas of Proconnesus, and Epimenides the Cretan, who came to Sparta, and Zoroaster the Mede, and Empedocles of Acragas, and Phormion the Laconian, and indeed Polyaratus of Thasos, and Empedotimus of Syracuse, and above all Socrates the Athenian; for he says in the Theages, "From childhood a divine sign has come to me, a daemonic sign, which is a voice; when it occurs, it restrains me from what I am about to do, but never urges me on." And Exechestus, the tyrant of the Phocians, wearing two enchanted rings, perceived by their sound against each other the opportune moments for his actions; yet he died by assassination, although the sound had given a warning, as Aristotle says in his Constitution of the Phocians.

But also among the Egyptians, men who once were, but by human opinion became gods: Hermes the Theban and Asclepius the Memphite, Teiresias and Manto in Thebes, as Euripides says, Helenus and Laocoön and Oenone, Cebren in Ilium; for Crenus, one of the Heracleidae, is recorded as a notable seer, and Iamus another in Elis, from whom the Iamidae are descended, and Polyidus in Argos and in Megara, whom tragedy mentions. Why should I recount Telemus, who, being a seer of the Cyclopes, prophesies to Polyphemus concerning the wanderings of Odysseus, or Onomacritus at Athens, or Amphiaraus, who is represented as older by one generation than the seven who marched against Thebes at the time of the capture of Troy, or Theoclymenus in Cephallenia, or Telmessus in Caria, or Galeon in Sicily? And there would be others besides these: Idmon, who was with the Argonauts; Phemonoe the Delphian; Mopsus, son of Apollo and Manto, in Pamphylia and Cilicia; Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, in Cilicia; Alcmaeon among the Acarnanians; Anius in Delos; and Aristander the Telmessian, who was with Alexander. And Philochorus records that Orpheus was a seer in the first book of his On Divination. Theopompus, Ephorus, and Timaeus record a certain Orthagoras as a seer, just as the Samian Pythocles in the fourth book of his Italica records Gaius Julius Nepos. But all of them are thieves and robbers, as Scripture says, having foretold most things from observation and from probabilities, like physiognomists, physicians, and seers; while some were moved by daemons, or were disturbed by waters, incense, and a certain quality of air.

Among the Hebrews, the prophets by the power and inspiration of God: before the law, Adam, who prophesied concerning his wife and the naming of the animals, and Noah, who proclaimed repentance; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who plainly revealed not a few things of the future and of the present. With the law, Moses and Aaron; after them, Joshua the son of Nun, Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Ahijah, Shemaiah, Jehu, Elijah, Micah, Obadiah, Elisha, Abdadonai, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Buzi, Ezekiel, Urijah, Habakkuk, Nahum, Daniel, Mishael (the one of the syllogisms), Haggai, Zechariah, and among the twelve, Angel. All the prophets number thirty-five. And of the women (for these also prophesied): Sarah, Rebecca, Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah. Then about the same times, John prophesies until the saving baptism; after the birth of Christ, Anna and Simeon. For Zacharias