(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


JUSTIN MARTYR

HORTATORY ADDRESS TO THE GREEKS

[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. M. DODS, M.A.]

CHAP.  I.-- REASONS FOR ADDRESSING THE GREEKS.

   As I begin this hortatory address to you, ye men of Greece, I pray God
that I may know what I ought to say to you, and that you, shaking off your
habitual(1) love of disputing, and being livered from the error of your
fathers, may how choose what is profitable; not fancying that you  commit
any offence against your forefathers, though the things which you formerly
considered by no means salutary should now seem useful to you. For accurate
investigation of matters, putting truth to the question with a more
searching scrutiny, often reveals that things which have passed for
excellent are of quite another sort. Since, then, we propose to discourse
of the true religion(than which, I think, there is nothing which is counted
more valuable by those who desire to pass through life without danger, on
account of the judgment which is to be after the termination of this life,
and which is announced not only by our forefathers according to God, to wit
the prophets and lawgivers, but also by those among yourselves who have
been esteemed wise, not poets alone, but also philosophers, who professed
among you that they had attained the true and divine knowledge), I think it
well first of all to examine the teachers of religion, both our own and
yours, who they were, and how great, and in what times they lived; in order
that those who have formerly received from their fathers the false
religion, may now, when they perceive this, be extricated from that
inveterate error;  and that we may clearly and manifestly show that we
ourselves follow the religion of our forefathers according to God.

CHAP. II--THE POETS ARE UNFIT TO BE RELIGIOUS TEACHERS.

   Whom, then, ye men of Greece, do ye call your teachers of religion? The
poets? It will do your cause no good to say so to men who know the poets;
for they know how very ridicu-

lous a theogony they have composed,--as we can learn from Homer, your most
distinguished and prince of poets. For he says, first, that the gods were
in the beginning generated from water; for he has written thus:(2) --

"Both ocean, the origin of the gods, and their mother Tethys"

And then we must also remind you of what he further says of him whom ye
consider the first of the gods, and whom he often calls "the father of gods
and men;" for he said:(3)--

   "Zeus, who is the dispenser of war to men."

Indeed, he says that he was not only the dispenser of war to the army, but
also the cause of perjury to the Trojans, by means of his daughter;(4) and
Homer introduces him in love, and bitterly complaining, and bewailing
himself, and plotted against by the other gods, and at one time exclaiming
concerning his own son:(5)--

"Alas! he falls, my most beloved of men!
Sarpedon, vanquished by Patroclus, falls.
So will the fates."

And at another time concerning Hector:(6)

"Ah!  I behold a warrior dear to me
Around the walls of Ilium driven, and grieve
For Hector."

And what he says of the conspiracy of the other gods against Zeus, they
know who read these words:(7) "When the other Olympians--Juno, and Neptune,
and Minerva--wished to bind him." And unless the blessed gods had feared
him whom gods call Briareus, Zeus would have been bound by them. And what
Homer says of his intemperate loves, we must remind you in  the very words
he used.For he said that Zeus spake thus to Juno:(8)-"For never goddess
pour'd, nor woman yet,

So full a tide of love into my breast;
I never loved Ixion's consort thus,
Nor sweet Acrisian Danae, from whom
Sprang Perseus, noblest of the race of man;
Nor Phoenix' daughter fair, of whom were born
Minos, unmatch'd but by the powers above,
And Rhadamanthus; nor yet Semele,
Nor yet Alcmene, who in Thebes produced
The valiant Hercules; and though my son
By Semele were Bacchus, joy of man;
Nor Ceres golden-hair'd, nor high-enthron'd
Latona in the skies; no--nor thyself
As now I love thee, and my soul perceive
O'erwhelm'd with sweetness of intense desire."

  It is fit that we now mention what one can learn from the work of Homer
of the other gods, and what they suffered at the hands of men. For he says
that Mars and Venus were wounded by Diomed, and of many others of the gods
he relates the sufferings. For thus we can gather from the case of Dione
consoling her daughter; for she said to her:(1)--

"Have patience, dearest child; though much enforc'd
Restrain thine anger: we, in heav'n who dwell,
Have much to bear from mortals; and ourselves
Too oft upon each other suff'rings lay:
Mars had his suff'rings; by Aloeus sons,
Otus and Ephialtes, strongly bound,
He thirteen months in brazen fetters lay:
Juno, too, suffer'd, when Amphitryon's son
Thro'her right breast a three-barb'd arrow sent:
Dire, and unheard of, were the pangs she bore,
Great Pluto's self the stinging arrow felt,
When that same son of Aegis-bearing Jove
Assail'd him in the very gates of hell,
And wrought him keenest anguish; pierced with pain,
To high Olympus, to the courts of Jove,
Groaning, he came; the bitter shaft remain'd
Deep in his shoulder fix'd, and griev'd his soul."

But if it is right to remind you of the battle of the gods, opposed to one
another, your own poet himself will recount it, saying:(2)--

"Such was the shock when gods in battle met;
For there to royal Neptune stood oppos'd
Phoebus Apollo with his arrows keen;
The blue-eyed Pallas to the god of war;
To Juno, Dian, heav'nly archeress,
Sister of Phoebus, golden-shafted queen.
Stout Hermes, helpful god, Latona fac'd."

These and such like things did Homer teach you; and not Homer only, but
also Hesiod. So-that if you believe your most distinguished poets, who have
given the genealogies of your gods, you must of necessity either suppose
that the gods are such beings as these, or believe that there are no gods
at all.

CHAP. III.--OPINIONS OF THE SCHOOL OF THALES.

   And if you decline citing the poets, because you say it is allowable
for them to frame myths, and to relate in a mythical way many things about
the gods which are far from true, do you suppose you have some others for
your religious

teachers, or how do you say that they themselves(3) have learned this
religion of yours? For it is impossible that any should know matters so
great and divine, who have not themselves learned them first from the
initiated.(4) You will no doubt say, "The sages and philosophers." For to
them, as to a fortified wall, you are wont to flee, when any one quotes the
opinions of your poets about the gods. Therefore, since it is fit that we
commence with the ancients and the earliest, beginning thence I will
produce the opinion of each, much more ridiculous as it is than the
theology of the poets. For Thales of Miletus, who took the lead in the
study of natural philosophy, declared that water was the first principle of
all things; for from water he says that all things are, and that into water
all are resolved. And after him Anaximander, who came from the same
Miletus, said that the infinite was the first principle of all things; for
that from this indeed all things are produced, and into this do all decay.
Thirdly, Anaximenes--and he too was from Miletus--says that air is the
first principle of all things; for he says that from this all things are
produced, and into this all are resolved. Heraclitus and Hippasus, from
Metapontus, say that fire is the first principle of all things; for from
fire all things proceed, and in fire do all things terminate. Anaxagoras of
Clazomenae said that the homogeneous parts are the first principles of all
things. Archelaus, the son of Apollodorus, an Athenian, says that the
infinite air and its density and rarity are the first principle of all
things. All these, forming a succession from Thales, followed the
philosophy called by themselves physical.

CHAP. IV.--OPINIONS OF PYTHAGORAS AND EPICURUS.

   Then, in regular succession from another starting-point, Pythagoras the
Samian, son of Mnesarchus, calls numbers, with their proportions and
harmonies, and the elements composed of both, the first principles; and he
includes also unity and the indefinite binary.(5) Epicurus, an Athenian,
the son of Neocles, says that the first principles of the things that exist
are bodies perceptible by reason, admitting no vacuity,(6) unbegotten,
indestructible, which can neither be broken, nor admit of any formation of
their parts, nor alteration, and are therefore perceptible by reason.
Empedocles of Agrigentum, son of Meton, maintained that there were four
elements--fire, air, water, earth; and two elementary powers--love and
hate,(1) of which the former is a power of union, the latter of separation.
You see, then, the confusion of those who are considered by you to have
been wise men, whom you assert to be your teachers of religion: some of
them declaring that water is the first principle of all things; others, air
others, fire; and others, some other of these forementioned elements; and
all of them employing persuasive arguments for the establishment of their
own errors, and attempting to prove their own peculiar dogma to be the most
valuable. These things were said by them. How then, ye men of Greece, can
it be safe for those who desire to be saved, to fancy that they can learn
the true religion from these philosophers, who were neither able so to
convince themselves as to prevent sectarian wrangling with one another, and
not to appear definitely opposed to one another's opinions?

CHAP. V.--OPINIONS OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE.

   But possibly those who are unwilling to give up the ancient and
inveterate error, maintain that they have received the doctrine of their
religion not from those who have now been mentioned, but from those who are
esteemed among them as the most renowned and finished philosophers, Plato
and Aristotle. For these, they say, have learned the perfect and true
religion. But I would be glad to ask, first of all, from those who say so,
from whom they say that these men have learned this knowledge; for it is
impossible that men who have not learned these so great and divine matters
from some who knew them, should either themselves know them, or be able
correctly to teach others; and, in the second place, I think we ought to
examine the opinions even of these sages. For we shall see whether each of
these does not manifestly contradict the other. But if we find that even
they do not agree with each other, I think it is easy to see clearly that
they too are ignorant. For Plato, with the air of one that has descended
from above, and has accurately ascertained and seen all that is in heaven,
says that the most high God exists in a fiery substance.(2) But Aristotle,
in a book addressed to Alexander of Macedon, giving a compendious
explanation of his own philosophy, clearly and manifestly overthrows the
opinion of Plato, saying that God does not exist in a fiery substance: but
inventing, as a fifth substance, some kind of aetherial and unchangeable
body,  says that God exists in it. Thus, at least, he wrote: "Not, as some
of those who have erred regarding the Deity say, that God exists in a fiery
substance." Then, as if he were not satisfied with this blasphemy against
Plato, he further, for the sake of proving what he says about the aetherial
body, cites as a witness him whom Plato had banished from his republic as a
liar, and as being an imitator of the images of truth at three removes,(3)
for so Plato calls Homer; for he wrote: "Thus at least did Homer speak,(4)
'And Zeus obtained the wide heaven in the air and the clouds,'" wishing to
make his own opinion appear more worthy of credit by the testimony of
Homer; not being aware that if he used Homer as a witness to prove that he
spoke truth, many of his tenets would be proved untrue. For Thales of
Miletus, who was the founder of philosophy among them, taking occasion from
him,(5) will contradict his first opinions about first principles. For
Aristotle himself, having said that God and matter are the first principles
of all things, Thales, the eldest of all their sages, says that water is
the first principle of the things that exist; for he says that all things
are from water, and that all things are resolved into water. And he
conjectures this, first, from the fact that the seed of all living
creatures, which is their first principle, is moist; and secondly, because
all plants grow and bear fruit in moisture, but when deprived of moisture,
wither. Then, as if not satisfied with his conjectures, he cites Homer as a
most trustworthy testimony, who speaks thus:--

"Ocean, who is the origin of all."(6)

May not Thales, then, very fairly say to him, "What is the reason,
Aristotle, why you give heed to Homer, as if he spoke truth, when you wish
to demolish the opinions of Plato; but when you promulgate an opinion
contrary to ours, you think Homer untruthful?"

CHAP. VI.--FURTHER DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE.

   And that these very wonderful sages of yours do not even agree in other
respects, can be easily learned from this. For while Plato says that there
are three first principles of all things, God, and matter, and form,--God,
the maker of all; and matter, which is the subject of the first production
of all that is produced, and affords to God opportunity for His
workmanship; and form, which is the type of each of the things produced,--
Aristotle makes no mention at all of form as a first principle, but says
that there are two, God and matter. And again, while Plato says that the
highest God and the ideas exist in the first place of the highest heavens,
and in fixed sphere, Aristotle says that, next to the most high God, there
are, not ideas, but certain gods, who can be perceived by the mind. Thus,
then, do they differ concerning things heavenly. So that one can see that
they not only are unable to understand our earthly matters, but also, being
at variance among themselves regarding these things, they will appear
unworthy of credit when they treat of things heavenly. And that even their
doctrine regarding the human soul as it now is does not harmonize, is
manifest  from what has been said by each of them concerning it. For Plato
says that it is of three parts, having the faculty of reason, of affection,
and of appetite.(1) But Aristotle says that the soul is not so
comprehensive as to include also corruptible parts, but only reason. And
Plato loudly maintains that "the whole soul is immortal." But Aristotle,
naming it "the actuality,"(2) would have it to be mortal, not immortal. And
the former says it is always in motion; but Aristotle says that it is
immoveable, since it must itself precede all motion.

CHAP. VII.--INCONSISTENCIES OF PLATO'S DOCTRINE.

   But in these things they are convicted of thinking in contradiction to
each other. And if any one will accurately criticise their writings, they
have chosen to abide in harmony not even with their own opinions. Plato, at
any rate, at one time says that there are three first principles of the
universe--God, and matter, and form; but at another time four, for he adds
the universal soul. And again, when he has already said that matter is
eternal,(3) he afterwards says that it is produced; and when he has first
given to form its peculiar rank as a first principle, and has asserted for
its self-subsistence, he afterwards says that this same thing is among the
things perceived by the understanding. Moreover, having first declared that
everything that is made is mortal? he afterwards states that some of the
things that are made are indestructible and immortal. What, then, is the
cause why those who have been esteemed wise among you disagree not only
with one another but also with themselves? Manifestly, their unwillingness
to learn from those who know, and their desire to attain accurate knowledge
of things heavenly by their own human excess of wisdom though they were
able to understand not even earthly matters. Certainly some of your
philosophers say that the human soul is in us; others, that it is around
us. For not even in this did they choose to agree with one another, but,
distributing, as it were, ignorance in various ways among themselves, they
thought fit to wrangle and dispute with one another even about the soul.
For some of them say that the soul is fire, and some that it is the air;
and others, the mind; and others, motion; and others, an exhalation; and
certain others say that it is a power flowing from the stars; and others,
number capable of motion; and others, a generating water. And a wholly
confused and inharmonious opinion has prevailed among them, which only in
this one respect appears praiseworthy to those who can form a right
judgment, that they have been anxious to convict one another of error and
falsehood.

CHAP. VIII.--ANTIQUITY, INSPIRATION, AND HARMONY OF CHRISTIAN TEACHERS.

   Since therefore it is impossible to learn anything true concerning
religion from your teachers, who by their mutual disagreement have
furnished you with sufficient proof of their own ignorance, I consider it
reasonable to recur to our progenitors, who both in point of time have by a
great way the precedence of your teachers, and who have taught us nothing
from their own private fancy, nor differed with one another, nor attempted
to overturn one another's positions, but without wrangling and contention
received from God the knowledge which also they taught to us. For neither
by nature nor by human conception is it possible for men to know things so
great and divine, but by the gift which then descended from above upon the
holy men, who had no need of rhetorical art,(5) nor of uttering anything in
a contentious or quarrelsome manner, but to present themselves pure(6) to
the energy of the Divine Spirit, in order that the divine plectrum itself,
descending from heaven, and using righteous men as an instrument like a
harp or lyre, might reveal to us the knowledge of things divine and
heavenly. Wherefore, as if with one mouth and one tongue, they have in
succession, and in harmony with one another, taught us both concerning God,
and the creation of the world, and the formation of man, and concerning the
immortality of the human soul, and the judgment which is to be after this
life, and concerning all things which it is needful for us to know, and
thus in divers times and places have afforded us the divine instruction.(7)

CHAP. IX.--THE ANTIQUITY OF MOSES PROVED BY GREEK WRITERS.

   I will begin, then, with our first prophet and lawgiver, Moses; first
explaining the times in which he lived, on authorities which among you are
worthy of all credit. For I do not propose to prove these things only from
our own divine histories, which as yet you are unwilling to credit on
account of the inveterate error of your forefathers, but also from your own
histories, and such, too, as have no reference to our worship, that you may
know that, of all your teachers, whether sages, poets, historians,
philosophers, or lawgivers, by far the oldest, as the Greek histories show
us, was Moses, who was our first religious teacher.(1) For in the times of
Ogyges and Inachus, whom some of your poets suppose to have been earth-
born,(2) Moses is mentioned as the leader and ruler of the Jewish nation.
For in this way he is mentioned both by Polemon in the first book of his
Hellenics, and by Apion son of Posidonius in his book against the Jews, and
in the fourth book of his history, where he says that during the reign of
Inachus over Argos the Jews revolted from Amasis king of the Egyptians, and
that Moses led them. And Ptolemaeus the Mendesian, in relating the history
of Egypt, concurs in all this. And those who write the Athenian history,
Hellanicus and Philochorus(the author of The Attic History), Castor and
Thallus and Alexander Polyhistor, and also the very well informed writers
on Jewish affairs, Philo and Josephus, have mentioned Moses as a very
ancient and time-honoured prince of the Jews. Josephus, certainly, desiring
to signify even by the title of his work the antiquity and age of the
history, wrote thus at the commencement of the history: "The jewish
antiquities(3) of Flavius Josephus,"--signifying the oldness of the history
by the word "antiquities." And your most renowned historian Diodorus, who
employed thirty whole years in epitomizing the libraries, and who, as he
himself wrote, travelled over both Asia and Europe for the sake of great
accuracy, and thus became an eye-witness of very many things, wrote forty
entire books of his own history. And he in the first book, having said that
he bad learned from the Egyptian priests that Moses was an ancient
lawgiver, and even the first, wrote of him in these very words: "For
subsequent to the ancient manner" of living in Egypt which gods and heroes
are fabled to have regulated, they say that Moses(4) first persuaded the
people to use written laws, and to live by them; and he is recorded to have
been a man both great of soul and of great faculty in social matters."
Then, having proceeded a little further, and wishing to mention the ancient
lawgivers, he mentions Moses first. For he spoke in these words: "Among the
Jews they say that Moses ascribed his laws s to that God who is called
Jehovah, whether because they judged it a marvellous and quite divine
conception which promised to benefit a multitude of men, or because they
were of opinion that the people would be the more obedient when they
contemplated the majesty and power of those who were said to have invented
the laws. And they say that Sasunchis was the second Egyptian legislator, a
man of excellent understanding. And the third, they say, was Sesonchosis
the king, who not only performed the most brilliant military exploits of
any in Egypt, but also consolidated that warlike race by legislation. And
the fourth lawgiver, they say, was Bocchoris the king, a wise and
surpassingly skilful man. And after him it is said that Amasis the king
acceded to the government, whom they relate to have regulated all that
pertains to the rulers of provinces, and to the general administration of
the government of Egypt. And they say that Darius, the father of Xerxes,
was the sixth who legislated for the Egyptians."

CHAP. X--TRAINING AND INSPIRATION OF MOSES.(6)

   These things, ye men of Greece, have been recorded in writing
concerning the antiquity of Moses by those who were not of our religion;
and they said that they learned all these things from the Egyptian priests,
among whom Moses was not only born, but also was thought worthy of
partaking of all the education of the Egyptians, on account of his being
adopted by the king's daughter as her son; and for the same reason was
thought worthy of great attention, as the wisest of the historians relate,
who have chosen to record his life and actions, and the rank of his
descent,--I speak of Philo and Josephus. For these, in their narration of
the history of the Jews, say that Moses was sprung from the race of the
Chaldaeans, and that he was born in Egypt when his forefathers had migrated
on account of famine from Phoenicia to that country; and him God chose to
honour on account of his exceeding virtue, and judged him worthy to become
the leader and lawgiver of his own race, when He thought it fight that the
people of the Hebrews should return out of Egypt into their own land. To
him first did God communicate that divine and prophetic gift which in those
days descended upon the holy men, and him also did He first furnish that he
might be our teacher in religion, and then after him the rest of the
prophets, who both obtained the same gift as he, and taught us the same
doctrines concerning the same subjects. These we assert to have been our
teachers, who taught us nothing from their own human conception, but from
the gift vouchsafed to them by God from above.

CHAP. XI.--HEATHEN ORACLES TESTIFY OF MOSES.

   But as you do not see the necessity of giving up the ancient error of
your forefathers in obedience to these teachers[of ours], what teachers of
your own do you maintain to have lived worthy of credit in the matter of
religion? For, as I have frequently said, it is impossible that those who
have not themselves learned these so great and divine things from such
persons as are acquainted with them, should either themselves know them, or
be able rightly to teach others. Since, therefore, it has been sufficiently
proved that the opinions of your philosophers are obviously full of all
ignorance and deceit, having now perhaps wholly abandoned the philosophers
as formerly you abandoned the poets, you will turn to the deceit of the
oracles; for in this style I have heard some speaking. Therefore I think it
fit to tell you at this step in our discourse what I formerly heard among
you concerning their utterances. For when one inquired at your oracle--it
is your own story--what religious men had at any time happened to live, you
say that the oracle answered thus: "Only the Chaldaeans have obtained
wisdom, and the Hebrews, who worship God Himself, the self-begotten King."

   Since, therefore, you think that the truth can be learned from your
oracles, when you read the histories and what has been written regarding
the life of Moses by those who do not belong to our religion, and when you
know that Moses and the rest of the prophets were descended from the race
of the Chaldaeans and Hebrews, do not think that anything incredible has
taken place if a man sprung from a godly line, and who lived worthily of
the godliness of his fathers, was chosen by God to be honoured with this
great gift and to be set forth as the first of all the prophets.

CHAP. XII.--ANTIQUITY OF MOSES PROVED.

   And I think it necessary also to consider the times in which your
philosophers lived, that you may see that the time which produced them for
you is very recent, and also short. For thus you will be able easily to
recognise also the antiquity of Moses. But lest, by a complete survey of
the periods, and by the use of a greater number of proofs, I should seem to
be prolix, I thing it may be sufficiently demonstrated from the following.
For Socrates was the teacher of Plato, and Plato of Aristotle. Now these
men flourished in the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, in which
time also the Athenian orators flourished, as the Philippics of Demosthenes
plainly show us. And those who have narrated the deeds of Alexander
sufficiently prove that during his reign Aristotle associated with him.
From all manner of proofs, then, it is easy to see that the history of
Moses is by far more ancient than all profane(1) histories. And, besides,
it is fit that you recognise this fact also, that nothing has been
accurately recorded by Greeks before the era of the Olympiads, and that
there is no ancient work which makes known any action of the Greeks or
Barbarians. But before that period existed only the history of the prophet
Moses, which he wrote in the Hebrew character by the divine inspiration.
For the Greek character was not yet in use, as the teachers of language
themselves prove, telling us that Cadmus first brought the letters from
Phoenicia, and communicated them to the Greeks. And your first of
philosophers, Plato, testifies that they were a recent discovery. For in
the Timaeus(2) he wrote that Solon, the wisest of the wise men, on his
return from Egypt, said to Critias that he had heard this from a very aged
Egyptian priest, who said to him, "0 Solon, Solon, you Greeks are ever
children, and aged Greek there is none."  Then again he said, "You are all
youths in soul, for you hold no ancient opinion derived through remote
tradition, nor any system of instruction hoary with time; but all these
things escape your knowledge, because for many generations the posterity of
these ancient ages died mute, not having the use of letters." It is fit,
therefore, that you understand that it is the fact that every history has
been written in these recently-discovered Greek letters; and if any one
would make mention of old poets, or legislators, or historians, or
philosophers, or orators, he will find that they wrote their own works in
the Greek character.

CHAP. XIII.--HISTORY OF THE SEPTUAGINT.

   But if any one says that the writings of Moses and of the rest of the
prophets were also written in the Greek character, let him read profane
histories, and know that Ptolemy, king of Egypt, when he had built the
library in Alexandria, and by gathering books from every quarter had filled
it, then learnt that very ancient histories written in Hebrew happened to
be carefully preserved; and wishing to know their contents, he sent for
seventy wise men from Jerusalem, who were acquainted with both the Greek
and Hebrew language, and appointed them to translate the books; and that in
freedom from all disturbance they might the more speedily complete the
translation, he ordered that there should be constructed, not in the city
itself, but seven stadia off(where the Pharos was built), as many little
cots as there were translators, so that each by himself might complete his
own translation; and enjoined upon those officers who were appointed to
this duty, to afford them all attendance, but to prevent communication with
one another, in order that the accuracy of the translation might be
discernible even by their agreement. And when he ascertained that the
seventy men had not only given the same meaning, but had employed the same
words, and had failed in agreement with one another not even to the extent
of one word; but had written the same things, and concerning the same
things, he was struck with amazement, and believed that the translation had
been written by divine power, and perceived that the men were worthy of all
honour, as beloved of God; and with many gifts ordered them to return to
their own country. And having, as was natural, marvelled at the books, and
concluded them to be divine, he consecrated them in that library. These
things, ye men of Greece, are no fable, nor do we narrate fictions; but we
ourselves having been in Alexandria, saw the remains of the little cots at
the Pharos still preserved, and having heard these things from the
inhabitants, who had received them as part of their country's tradition, we
now tell to you what you can also learn from others, and specially from
those wise and esteemed men who have written of these things, Philo and
Josephus, and many others. But if any of those who are wont to be forward
in contradiction should say that these books do not belong to us, but to
the Jews, and should assert that we in vain profess to have learnt our
religion froth them, let him know, as he may from those very things which
are written in these books, that not to them, but to us, does the doctrine
of them refer. That the books relating to our religion are to this day
preserved among the Jews, has been a work of Divine Providence on our
behalf; for lest, by producing them out of the Church, we should give
occasion to those who wish to slander us to charge us with fraud, we demand
that they be produced from the synagogue of the Jews, that from the very
books still preserved among them it might clearly and evidently appear,
that the laws which were written by holy men. for instruction pertain to
us.

CHAP. XIV.--A WARNING APPEAL TO THE GREEKS.

   It is therefore necessary, ye Greeks, that you contemplate the things
that are to be, and consider the judgment which is predicted by all, not
only by the godly, but also by those who are irreligious, that ye do not
without investigation commit yourselves to the error of your fathers, nor
suppose that if they themselves have been in error, and have transmitted it
to you, that this which they have taught you is true; but looking to the
danger of so terrible a mistake, inquire and investigate carefully into
those things which are, as you say, spoken of even by your own teachers.
For even unwillingly they were on your account forced to say many things by
the Divine regard for mankind, especially those of them who were in Egypt,
and profited by the godliness of Moses and his ancestry. For I think that
some of you, when you read even carelessly the history of Diodorus, and of
those others who wrote of these things, cannot fail to see that both
Orpheus, and Homer, and Solon, who wrote the laws of the Athenians, and
Pythagoras, and Plato, and some others, when they had been in Egypt, and
had taken advantage of the history of Moses, afterwards published doctrines
concerning the gods quite contrary to those which formerly they had
erroneously promulgated.

CHAP. XV.--TESTIMONY OF ORPHEUS TO MONOTHEISM.

   At all events, we must remind you what Orpheus, who was, as one might
say, your first teacher of polytheism, latterly addressed to his son
Musaeus, and to the other legitimate auditors, concerning the one and only
God.And he spoke thus:--

"I speak to those who lawfully may hear:
All others, ye profane, now close the doors,
And, O Musaeus! hearken thou to me,
Who offspring art of the light-bringing moon:
The words I utter now are true indeed;
And if thou former thoughts of mine hast seen,
Let them not rob thee of the blessed life,
But rather turn the depths of thine own heart
Unto the place where light and knowledge dwell.
Take thou the word divine to guide thy steps,
And walking well in the straight certain path,
Look to the one and universal King--
One, self-begotten, and the only One,
Of whom all things and we ourselves are sprung.
All things are open to His piercing gaze,
While He Himself is still invisible.
Present in all His works, though still unseen,
He gives to mortals evil out of good,
Sending both chilling wars and tearful griefs;
And other than the great King there is none.
The clouds for ever settle round His throne,
And mortal eyeballs in mere mortal eyes
Are weak, to see Jove reigning over all.
He sits established in the brazen heavens
Upon His golden throne; under His feet
He treads the earth, and stretches His right hand
To all the ends of ocean, and around
Tremble the mountain ranges and the streams,
The depths, too, of the blue and hoary sea." And again, in some other place
he says:--
"There is one Zeus alone, one sun, one hell,
One Bacchus; and in all things but one God;
Nor of all these as diverse let me speak."
And when he swears he says:--
"Now I adjure thee by the highest heaven,
The work of the great God, the only wise;
And I adjure thee by the Father's voice.
Which first He uttered when He stablished
The whole world by His counsel."

What does he mean by "I adjure thee by the Father's voice, which first He
uttered?" It is the Word of God which he here names "the voice," by whom
heaven and earth and the whole creation were made, as the divine prophecies
of the holy men teach us; and these he himself also paid some attention to
in Egypt, and understood that all creation was made by the Word of God; and
therefore, after he says," I adjure thee by the Father's voice, which first
He uttered," he adds this besides, "when by His counsel He established the
whole world." Here he calls the Word "voice," for the sake of the poetical
metre. And that this is so, is manifest from the fact, that a little
further on, where the metre permits him, he names it "Word." For he said:--

"Take thou the Word divine to guide thy steps."

CHAP. XVI.--TESTIMONY OF THE SIBYL.

   We must also mention what the ancient and exceedingly remote Sibyl,
whom Plato and Aristophanes, and others besides, mention as a prophetess,
taught you in her oracular verses concerning one only God. And she speaks
thus:--

"There is one only unbegotten God,
Omnipotent, invisible, most high,
All-seeing, but Himself seen by no flesh."
Then elsewhere thus:--
"But we have strayed from the Immortal's ways,
And worship with a dull and senseless mind
Idols, the workmanship of our own hands,
And images and figures of dead men."
And again somewhere else:--
"Blessed shall be those men upon the earth
Who shall love the great God before all else,
Blessing Him when they eat and when they drink;
Trusting it, this their piety alone.
Who shall abjure all shrines which they may see,
All altars and vain figures of dumb stones,
Worthless and stained with blood of animals,
And sacrifice of the four-fooled tribes,
Beholding the great glory of One God."
These are the Sibyl's words.

CHAP. XVII--TESTIMONY OF HOMER.

And  the poet Homer, using the license of poetry, and rivalling the
original opinion of Orpheus  regarding the  plurality of the gods,
mentions, indeed, several gods  in a mythical  style, lest he should seem
to sing in a different strain from the poem of Orpheus, which he so
distinctly proposed to rival, that even in the first line of his poem he
indicated the relation he held to him. For as Orpheus in the beginning of
his poem had said, "O goddess, sing the wrath of Demeter, who brings the
goodly fruit," Homer began thus, "0 goddess, sing the wrath of Achilles,
son of Peleus," preferring, as it seems to me, even to violate the poetical
metre in his first line, than that he should seem not to have remembered
before all else the names of the gods. But shortly after he also clearly
and explicitly presents his own opinion regarding one God only, somewhere,
saying to Achilles by the mouth of Phoenix, "Not though God Himself were to
promise that He would peel off my old age, and give me the rigour of my
youth," where he indicates by the pronoun the real and true God. And
somewhere(2) he makes Ulysses address the host of the Greeks thus: "The
rule of many is not a good thing; let there be one ruler." And that the
rule of many is not a good thing, but on the contrary an evil, he proposed
to evince by fact, recounting the wars which took place on account of the
multitude of rulers, and the fights and factions, and their mutual
counterplots. For monarchy is free from contention. So far the poet Homer.

CHAP. XVIII.--TESTIMONY OF SOPHOCLES.

   And if it is needful that we add testimonies concerning one God, even
from the dramatists, hear even Sophocles speaking thus:--

"There is one God, in truth there is but one,
Who made the heavens and the broad earth beneath,
The glancing waves of ocean and the winds
But many of us mortals err in heart,
And set up for a solace in our woes
Images of the gods in stone and wood,
Or figures carved in brass or ivory,
And, furnishing for these our handiworks,
Both sacrifice and rite magnificent,
We think that thus we do a pious work."

Thus, then, Sophocles.

CHAP. XIX.--TESTIMONY OF PYTHAGORAS.

   And Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, who expounded the doctrines of his
own philosophy, mystically by means of symbols, as those who have written
his life show, himself seems to have entertained thoughts about the unity
of God not unworthy of his foreign residence in Egypt. For when he says
that unity is the first principle of all things, and that it is the cause
of all good, he teaches by an allegory that God is one, and alone.(3) And
that this is so, is evident from his saying that unity and one differ
widely from one another. For he says that unity belongs to the class of
things perceived by the mind, but that one belongs to numbers. And if you
desire to see a clearer proof of the opinion of Pythagoras concerning one
God, hear his own opinion, for he spoke as follows: "God is one; and He
Himself does not, as some suppose, exist outside the world, but in it, He
being wholly present in the whole circle, and beholding all generations;
being the regulating ingredient of all the ages, and the administrator of
His own powers and works, the first principle of all things, the light of
heaven, and Father of all, the intelligence and animating soul of the
universe, the movement of all orbits." Thus, then, Pythagoras.

CHAP. XX.--TESTIMONY OF PLATO.

   But Plato, though he accepted, as is likely, the doctrine of Moses and
the other prophets regarding one only God, which he learned while in Egypt,
yet fearing, on account of what had befallen Socrates, lest he also should
raise up some Anytus or Meletus against himself, who should accuse him
before the Athenians, and say, "Plato is doing harm, and making himself
mischievously busy, not acknowledging the gods  recognised by the state;
"in fear of the hemlockjuice, contrives an elaborate and ambiguous
discourse concerning the gods, furnishing by his treatise gods to those who
wish them, and none for those who are differently disposed, as may readily
be seen from his own statements. For when he has laid down that everything
that is made is mortal, he afterwards says that the gods were made. If,
then, he would have God and matter to be the origin of all things,
manifestly it is inevitably necessary to say that the gods were made of
matter; but if of matter, out of which he said that evil also had its
origin, he leaves right-thinking persons to consider what kind of beings
the gods should be thought who are produced out of matter. For, for this
very reason did he say that matter was eternal,(1) that he might not seem
to say that God is the creator of evil. And regarding the gods who were
made by God, there is no doubt he said this: "Gods of gods, of whom I am
the creator." And he manifestly held the correct opinion concerning the
really existing God. For having heard in Egypt that God had said to Moses,
when He was about to send him to the Hebrews, "I am that I am,"(2) he
understood that God had not mentioned to him His own proper name.

CHAP. XXI.--THE NAMELESSNESS OF GOD.

   For God cannot be called by any proper name, for names are given to
mark out and distinguish their subject-matters, because these are many and
diverse; but neither did any one exist before God who could give Him a
name, nor did He Himself think it fight to name Himself, seeing that He is
one and unique, as He Himself also by His own prophets testifies, when He
says, "I God am the first," and after this, "And beside me there is no
other God."(3) On this account, then, as I before said, God did not, when
He sent Moses to the Hebrews, mention any name, but by a participle He
mystically teaches them that He is the one and only God. "For," says He; "I
am the Being;" manifestly contrasting Himself, "the Being," with those who
are not,(4) that those who had hitherto been deceived might see that they
were attaching themselves, not to beings, but to those who had no being.
Since, therefore, God knew that the first men remembered the old delusion
of their forefathers, whereby the misanthropic demon contrived to deceive
them when he said to them, "If ye obey me in transgressing the commandment
of God, ye shall be as gods," calling those gods which had no being, in
order that men, supposing that there were other gods in existence, might
believe that they themselves could become gods. On this account He said to
Moses, "I am the Being," that by the participle "being" He might teach the
difference between God who is and those who are not.(5) Men, therefore,
having been duped by the deceiving demon, and having dared to disobey God,
were cast out of Paradise, remembering the name of gods, but no longer
being taught by God that there are no other gods. For it was not just that
they who did not keep the first commandment, which it was easy to keep,
should any longer be taught, but should rather be driven to just
punishment. Being therefore banished from Paradise, and thinking that they
were expelled on account of their disobedience only, not knowing that it
was also because they had believed in the existence of gods which did not
exist, they gave the name of gods even to the men who were afterwards born
of themselves. This first false fancy, therefore, concerning gods, had its
origin with the father of lies. God, therefore, knowing that the false
opinion about the plurality of gods was burdening the soul of man like some
disease, and wishing to remove and eradicate it, appeared first to Moses,
and said to him, "I am He who is." For it was necessary, I think, that he
who was to be the ruler and leader of the Hebrew people should first of all
know the living God. Wherefore, having appeared to him first, as it was
possible for God to appear to a man, He said to him, "I am He who is;"
then, being about to send him to the Hebrews, He further orders him to say,
"He who is hath sent me to you."

CHAP. XXII.--STUDIED AMBIGUITY PLATO.

   Plato accordingly having learned this in Egypt, and being greatly taken
with what was said about one God, did indeed consider it unsafe to mention
the name of Moses, on account of his teaching the doctrine of one only God,
for he dreaded the Areopagus; but what is very well expressed by him in his
elaborate treatise, the Timaeus, he has written in exact correspondence
with what Moses said regarding God, though he has done so, not as if he had
learned it from him, but as if he were expressing his own opinion. For he
said, "In my opinion, then, we must first define what that is which exists
eternally, and has no generation,(1) and what that is which is always being
generated, but never really is." Does not this, ye men of Greece, seem to
those who are able to understand the matter to be one and the same thing,
saving only the difference of the article? For Moses said, "He who is," and
Plato, "That which is." But either of the expressions seems to apply to the
ever-existent God. For He is the only one who eternally exists, and has no
generation. What, then, that other thing is which is contrasted with the
ever-existent, and of which he said, "And what that is which is always
being generated, but never really is," we must attentively consider. For we
shall find him clearly and evidently saying that He who is unbegotten is
eternal, but that those that are begotten and made are generated and
perish(2)--as he said of the same class, "gods of gods, of whom I am
maker"--for he speaks in the following words: "In my opinion, then, we must
first define what that is which is always existent and has no birth, and
what that is which is always being generated but never really is. The
former, indeed, which is apprehended by reflection combined with reason,
always exists in the same way;(3) while the latter, on the other hand, is
conjectured by opinion formed by the perception of the senses unaided by
reason, since it never really is, but is coming into being and perishing."
These expressions declare to those who can rightly understand them the
death and destruction of the gods that have been brought into being. And I
think it necessary to attend to this also, that Plato never names him the
creator, but the fashioner(4) of the gods, although, in the opinion of
Plato, there is considerable difference between these two. For the creator
creates the creature by his own capability and power, being in need of
nothing else; but the fashioner frames his production when he has received
from matter the capability for his work.

CHAP. XXIII.--PLATO'S SELF-CONTRADICTION.

   But, perhaps, some who are unwilling to abandon the doctrines of
polytheism, will say that to these fashioned gods the maker said, "Since ye
have been produced, ye are not immortal, nor at all, imperishable; yet
shall ye not perish nor succumb to the fatality of death, because  you have
obtained my will,(5) which is a still greater and mightier bond." Here
Plato, through fear of the adherents of polytheism, introduces his "maker"
uttering words which contradict himself. For having formerly stated that he
said that everything which is produced is perishable, he now introduces him
saying the very opposite; and he does not see that it is thus absolutely
impossible for him to escape the charge of falsehood. For he either at
first uttered what is false when he said that everything which is produced
is perishable, or now, when he propounds the very opposite to what he had
formerly said. For if, according to his former definition, it is absolutely
necessary that every created thing be perishable, how can he consistently
make that possible which is absolutely impossible? So that Plato seems to
grant an empty and impossible prerogative to his "maker," when he propounds
that those who were once perishable because made from matter should again,
by his intervention, become imperishable and enduring. For it is quite
natural that the power of matter, which, according to Plato's opinion, is
uncreated, and contemporary and coaeval with the maker, should resist his
will. For he who has not created has no power, in respect of that which is
uncreated, so that it is not possible that it(matter), being free, can be
controlled by any external necessity. Wherefore Plato himself, in
consideration of this, has written thus: "It is necessary to affirm that
God cannot suffer violence."

CHAP. XXIV.--AGREEMENT OF PLATO AND HOMER.

   How, then, does Plato banish Homer from his republic, since, in the
embassy to Achilles, he represents Phoenix as saying to Achilles, "Even the
gods themselves are not inflexible,"(6) though Homer said this not of the
king and Platonic maker of the gods, but of some of the multitude whom the
Greeks esteem as gods, as one can gather from Plato's saying, "gods of
gods?" For Homer, by that golden chain,(7) refers all power and might to
the one highest God. And the rest of the gods, he said, were so far distant
from his divinity, that he thought fit to name them even along with men. At
least he introduces Ulysses saying of Hector to Achilles, "He is raging
terribly, trusting in Zeus, and values neither men nor gods."(1) In this
passage Homer seems to me without doubt to have learnt in Egypt, like
Plato, concerning the one God, and plainly and openly to declare this, that
he who trusts in the really existent God makes no account of those that do
not exist. For thus the poet, in another passage, and employing another but
equivalent word, to wit, a pronoun, made use of the same participle
employed by Plato to designate the really existent God, concerning whom
Plato said, "What that is which always exists, and has no birth." For not
without a double sense does this expression of Phoenix seem to have been
used: "Not even if God Himself were to promise me, that, having burnished
off my old age, He should set me forth in the flower of youth." For the
pronoun "Himself" signifies the really existing God. For thus, too, the
oracle which was given to you concerning the Chaldaeans and Hebrews
signifies. For when some one inquired what men had ever lived godly, you
say the answer was:--

"Only the Chaldaeans and the Hebrews found wisdom,
Worshipping God Himself, the unbegotten King."

CHAP. XXV.--PLATO'S KNOWLEDGE OF GOD'S ETERNITY.

   How, then, does Plato blame Homer for saying that the gods are not
inflexible, although, as is obvious from the expressions used, Homer said
this for a useful purpose? For it is the property of those who expect to
obtain mercy by prayer and sacrifices, to cease from and repent of their
sins. For those who think that the Deity is inflexible, are by no means
moved to abandon their sins, since they suppose that they will derive no
benefit from repentance. How, then, does Plato the philosopher condemn the
poet Homer for saying, "Even the gods themselves are not inflexible," and
yet himself represent the maker of the gods as so easily turned, that he
sometimes declares the gods to be mortal, and at other times declares the
same to be immortal? And not only concerning them, but also concerning
matter, from which, as he says, it is necessary that the created gods have
been produced, he sometimes says that it is uncreated, and at other times
that it is created; and yet he does not see that he himself, when he says
that the maker of the gods is so easily turned, is convicted of having
fallen into the very errors for which he blames Homer, though Homer said
the very opposite concerning the maker of the gods. For he said that he
spoke thus of himself:--

"For ne'er my promise shall deceive,
or fail, Or be recall'd, if with a nod confirm'd."(2)

But Plato, as it seems, unwillingly entered not these strange dissertations
concerning the gods, for he feared those who were attached to polytheism.
And whatever he thinks fit to tell of all that he had learned from Moses
and the prophets concerning one God, he preferred delivering in a mystical
style, so that those who desired to be worshippers of God might have an
inkling of his own opinion. For being charmed with that saying of God to
Moses, "I am the really existing," and accepting with a great deal of
thought the brief participial expression, he understood that God desired to
signify to Moses His eternity, and therefore said, "I am the really
existing;" for this word "existing" expresses not one time only, but the
three--the past, the present, and the future. For when Plato says, "and
which never really is," he uses the verb "is" of time indefinite. For the
word "never" is not spoken, as some suppose, of the past, but of the future
time. And this has been accurately understood even by profane writers. And
therefore, when Plato wished, as it were, to interpret to the uninitiated
what had been mystically expressed by the participle concerning the
eternity of God, he employed the following language: "God indeed, as the
old tradition runs, includes the beginning, and end, and middle of all
things." In this sentence he plainly and obviously names the law of Moses
"the old tradition," fearing, through dread of the hemlockcup, to mention
the name of Moses; for he understood that the teaching of the man was
hateful to the Greeks; and he clearly enough indicates Moses by the
antiquity of the tradition. And we have sufficiently proved from Diodorus
and the rest of the historians, in the foregoing chapters, that the law of
Moses is not only old, but even the first. For Diodorus says that he was
the first of all lawgivers; the letters which belong to the Greeks, and
which they employed in the writing of their histories, having not yet been
discovered.

CHAP. XXVI.--PLATO INDEBTED TO THE PROPHETS.

   And let no one wonder that Plato should believe Moses regarding the
eternity of God. For you will find him mystically referring the true
knowledge of realities to the prophets, next in order after the really
existent God. For, discoursing in the Timaeus. us about certain first
principles, he wrote thus: "This we lay down as the first principle of fire
and the other bodies, proceeding according to probability and necessity.
But the first principles of these again God above knows, and whosoever
among men is beloved of Him."(1) And what men does he think beloved of God,
but Moses and the rest of the prophets? For their prophecies he read, and,
having learned from them the doctrine of the judgment, he thus proclaims it
in the first book of the Republic: "When a man begins to think he is soon
to die, fear invades him, and concern about things which had never before
entered his head. And those stories about what goes on in Hades, which tell
us that the man who has here been unjust must there be punished, though
formerly ridiculed, now torment his soul with apprehensions that they may
be true. And he, either through the feebleness of age, or even because he
is now nearer to the things of the other world, views them more
attentively. He becomes, therefore, full of apprehension and dread, and
begins to call himself to account and to consider whether he has done any
one an injury. And that man who finds in his life many iniquities, and who
continually starts from his sleep as children do, lives in terror, and with
a forlorn prospect. But to him who is conscious of no wrong-doing, sweet
hope is the constant companion and good nurse of old age, as Pindar
says.(2) For this, Socrates, he has elegantly expressed, that 'whoever
leads a life of holiness and justice, him sweet hope, the nurse of age,
accompanies, cheering his heart, for she powerfully sways the changeful
mind of mortals.'"(3) This Plato wrote in the first book of the Republic.

CHAP. XXVII.--PLATO'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE JUDGEMENT.

And in the tenth book he plainly and mani festly wrote what he  had learned
from the prophets about the judgement, not as if  he had learned it  from
them, but, on account of his fear of the Greeks, as if he had heard it from
a  man  who has been slain in  battle--for this story he thought fit to
invent--and  who,when he was about to be buried on the twelfth day, and was
lying on t he funeral pile,came to life again, and described the other
world. The  following are his every  words:(4) "For he said that he was
present when  one was asked by another person where the great Ardiaeus
was. This Ardiaeus had been prince in a certain city of Pamphylia, and had
killed his aged  father and his elder brother, and done many other
unhallowed deeds, as was reported. He said, then that the person  who was
asked said: He neither comes nor ever will  come hither. For we saw,  among
other terrible sights, this also. When we were dose to the mouth[of the
pit], and were about to return to the upper air, and had suffered
everything else, we suddenly beheld both him and others likewise, most of
whom were tyrants. But there were also some private sinners who had
committed great crimes. And these, when they thought they were to ascend,
the mouth would not permit, but bellowed when any of those who were so
incurably wicked attempted to ascend, unless they had paid the full
penalty. Then fierce men, fiery to look at, stood close by, and hearing the
din,s took some and led them away; but Ardiaeus and the rest, having bound
hand and foot, and striking their heads down, and flaying, they dragged to
the road outside, tearing them with thorns, and signifying to those who
were present the cause of their suffering these things, and that they were
leading them away to cast them into Tartams. Hence, he said, that amidst
all their various fears, this one was the greatest, lest the mouth should
bellow when they ascended, since if it were silent each one would most
gladly ascend; and that the punishments and torments were such as these,
and that, on the other hand, the rewards were the reverse of these." Here
Plato seems to me to have learnt from the prophets not only the doctrine of
the judgment, but also of the resurrection, which the Greeks refuse to
believe. For his saying that the soul is judged along with the body, proves
nothing more clearly than that he believed the doctrine of the
resurrection. Since how could Ardiaeus and the rest have undergone such
punishment in Hades, had they left on earth the body, with its head, hands,
feet, and skin? For certainly they will never say that the soul has a head
and hands, and feet and skin. But Plato, having fallen in with the
testimonies of the prophets in Egypt, and having accepted what they teach
concerning the resurrection of the body, teaches that the soul is judged in
company with the body.

CHAP. XXVIII.--HOMER'S OBLIGATIONS TO THE SACRED WRITERS.

   And not only Plato, but Homer also, having received similar
enlightenment in Egypt, said that Tityus was in like manner punished. For
Ulysses speaks thus to Alcinous when he is recounting his divination by the
shades of the dead:(6)--

"There Tityus, large and long, in fetters bound,
O'erspread nine acres of infernal ground;
Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food,
Scream o'er the fiend, and riot in his blood,
Incessant gore the liver in his breast,
Th' immortal liver grows, and gives th' immortal feast."

  For it is plain that it is not the soul, but the body, which has a
liver. And in the same manner he has described both Sisyphus and Tantalus
as enduring punishment with the body. And that Homer had been in Egypt, and
introduced into his own poem much of what he there learnt, Diodorus, the
most esteemed of historians, plainly enough teaches us. For he said that
when he was in Egypt he had learnt that Helen, having received from Theon's
wife, Polydamna, a drug, "lulling all sorrow and melancholy, and causing
forgetfulness of all ills,"(1) brought it to Sparta. And Homer said that by
making use of that drug Helen put an end to the lamentation of Menelaus,
caused by the presence of Telemachus. And he also called Venus "golden,"
from what he had seen in Egypt. For he had seen the temple which in Egypt
is called "the temple of golden Venus," and the plain which is named "the
plain of golden Venus." And why do I now make mention of this? To show that
the poet transferred to his own poem much of what is contained in the
divine writings of the prophets. And first he transferred what Moses had
related as the beginning of the creation of the world. For Moses wrote
thus: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"(2) then the
sun, and the moon, and the stars. For having learned this in Egypt, and
having been much taken with what Moses had written in the Genesis of the
world, he fabled that Vulcan had made in the shield of Achilles a kind of
representation of the creation of the world. For he wrote thus:(3)--

   "There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea,
   The sun that rests not, and the moon full-orb'd;
   There also, all the stars which round about,
   As with a radiant frontlet, bind the skies."

And he contrived also that the garden of Alcinous should preserve the
likeness of Paradise, and through this likeness he represented it as ever-
blooming and full of all fruits. For thus he wrote:(4)--

   "Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould;
   The reddening apple ripens here to gold.
   Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
   With deeper red the full pomegranate glows;
   The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
   And verdant olives flourish round the year.
   The balmy spirit of the western gale
   Eternal breathes on fruits, untaught to fail;
   Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
   On apples, figs on figs arise.
   The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
   The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.
   Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear,
   With all th' united labours of the year.
   Some to unload the fertile branches run,
   Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun,
   Others to tread the liquid harvest join.
   The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
   Here are the vines in early flower descry'd
   Here grapes discoloured on the sunny side,
   And there in autumn's richest purple dy'd."

Do not these words present a manifest and clear imitation of what the first
prophet Moses said about Paradise? And if any one wish to know something of
the building of the tower by which the men of that day fancied they would
obtain access to heaven, he will find a sufficiently exact allegorical
imitation of this in what the poet has ascribed to Otus and Ephialtes. For
of them he wrote thus:(5)--

   "Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size,
   The gods they challenge, and affect the skies.
   Heav'd on Olympus tottering Ossa stood;
   On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood."

And the same holds good regarding the enemy of mankind who was cast out of
heaven, whom the Sacred Scriptures call the Devil,(6) a name which he
obtained from his first devilry against man; and if any one would
attentively consider the matter, he would find that the poet, though he
certainly never mentions the name of "the devil," yet gives him a name from
his wickedest action. For the poet, calling him Ate,(7) says that he was
hurled from heaven by their god, just as if he had a distinct remembrance
of the expressions which Isaiah the prophet had uttered regarding him. He
wrote thus in his own poem:(8)--

   "And, seizing by her glossy locks
   The goddess Ate, in his wrath he swore
   That never to the starry skies again,
   And the Olympian heights, he would permit
   The universal mischief to return.
   Then, whirling her around, he cast her down
   To earth. She, mingling with all works of men,
   Caused many a pang to Jove."

CHAP. XXIX.--ORIGIN OF PLATO'S DOCTRINE OF FORM.

   And Plato, too, when he says that form is the third original principle
next to God and matter, has manifestly received this suggestion from no
other source than from Moses, having learned, indeed, from the words of
Moses the name of form, but not having at the same time been instructed by
the initiated, that without mystic insight it is impossible to have any
distinct knowledge of the writings of Moses. For Moses wrote that God had
spoken to him regarding the tabernacle in the following words: "And thou
shalt make for me according to all that I show thee in the mount, the
pattern of the tabernacle."(9) And again: "And thou shalt erect the
tabernacle according to the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so
shalt thou make it."(1) And again, a little afterwards: "Thus then thou
shalt make it according to the pattern which was showed to thee in the
mount."(2) Plato, then, reading these passages, and not receiving what was
written with the suitable insight, thought that form had some kind of
separate existence before that which the senses perceive, and he often
calls it the pattern of the things which are made, since the writing of
Moses spoke thus of the tabernacle: "According to the form showed to thee
in the mount, so shalt thou make it."

CHAP. XXX.--HOMER'S KNOWLEDGE OF MAN'S ORIGIN.

   And he was obviously deceived in the same way regarding the earth and
heaven and man; for he supposes that there are "ideas" of these. For as
Moses wrote thus, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"
and then subjoins this sentence, "And the earth was invisible and
unfashioned," he thought that it was the pre-existent earth which was
spoken of in the words, "The earth was," because Moses said, "And the earth
was invisible and unfashioned;" and he thought that the earth, concerning
which he says, "God created the heaven and the earth," was that earth which
we perceive by the senses, and which God made according to the pre-existent
form. And so also, of the heaven which was created, he thought that the
heaven which was created--and which he also called the firmament--was that
creation which the senses perceive; and that the heaven which the intellect
perceives is that other of which the prophet said, "The heaven of heavens
is the Lord's, but the earth hath He given to the children of men."(3) And
so also concerning man: Moses first mentions the name of man, and then
after many other creations he makes mention of the formation of man,
saying, "And God made man, taking dust from the earth."(4) He thought,
accordingly, that the man first so named existed before the man who was
made, and that he who was formed of the earth was afterwards made according
to the pre-existent form. And that man was formed of earth, Homer, too,
having discovered from the ancient and divine history which says, "Dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,"(5) calls the lifeless body of
Hector dumb clay. For in condemnation of Achilles dragging the corpse of
Hector after death, he says somewhere:(6)--

   "On the dumb clay he cast indignity,
   Blinded with rage."

And again, somewhere else,(7) he introduces Menelaus, thus addressing those
who were not accepting Hector's challenge to single combat with becoming
alacrity,--

   "To earth and water may you all return,"--

resolving them in his violent rage into their original and pristine
formation from earth. These things Homer and Plato, having learned in Egypt
from the ancient histories, wrote in their own words.

CHAP. XXXI.--FURTHER PROOF OF PLATO'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH SCRIPTURE.

   For from what other source, if not from his reading the writings of the
prophets, could Plato have derived the information he gives us, that
Jupiter drives a winged chariot in heaven? For he knew this from the
following expressions of the prophet about the cherubim: "And the glory of
the Lord went out from the house and rested on the cherubim; and the
cherubim lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of
the Lord God of Israel was over them above."(8) And borrowing this idea,
the magniloquent Plato shouts aloud with vast assurance, "The great Jove,
indeed, driving his winged chariot in heaven." For from what other source,
if not from Moses and the prophets, did he learn this and so write? And
whence did he receive the suggestion of his saying that God exists in a
fiery substance? Was it not from the third book of the history of the
Kings, where it is written, "The Lord was not in the wind; and after the
wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the
earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a
still small voice?"(9) But these things pious men must understand in a
higher sense with profound and meditative insight. But Plato, not attending
to the words with the suitable insight, said that God exists in a fiery
substance.

CHAP. XXXII.--PLATO'S DOCTRINE OF THE HEAVENLY GIFT.

   And if any one will attentively consider the gift that descends from
God on the holy men,--which gift the sacred prophets call the Holy Ghost,--
he shall find that this was announced under another name by Plato in the
dialogue with Meno. For, fearing to name the gift of God "the Holy Ghost,"
test he should seem, by following the teaching of the prophets, to be an
enemy to the Greeks, he acknowledges, indeed, that it comes down from God,
yet does not think fit to name it the Holy Ghost, but virtue.

For so in the dialogue with Meno, concerning reminiscence, after he had put
many questions regarding virtue, whether it could be taught or whether it
could not be taught, but must be gained by practice, or whether it could be
attained neither by practice nor by learning, but was a natural gift in
men, or whether it comes in some other way, he makes this declaration in
these very words: "But if now through this whole dialogue we have conducted
our inquiry and discussion aright, virtue must be neither a natural gift,
nor what one can receive by teaching, but comes to those to whom it does
come by divine destiny." These things, I think, Plato having learned from
the prophets regarding the Holy Ghost, he has manifestly transferred to
what he calls virtue. For as the sacred prophets say that one and the same
spirit is divided into seven spirits, so he also, naming it one and the
same virtue, says this is divided into four virtues; wishing by all means
to avoid mention of the Holy Spirit, but clearly declaring in a kind of
allegory what the prophets said of the Holy Spirit. For to this effect he
spoke in the dialogue with Meno towards the close: "From this reasoning,
Meno, it appears that virtue comes to those to whom it does come by a
divine destiny. But we shall know clearly about this, in what kind of way
virtue comes to men, when, as a first step, we shall have set ourselves to
investigate, as an independent inquiry, what virtue itself is." You see how
he calls only by the name of virtue, the gift that descends from above; and
yet he counts it worthy of inquiry, whether it is right that this [gift] be
called virtue or some other thing, fearing to name it openly the Holy
Spirit, lest he should seem to be following the teaching of the prophets.

CHAP. XXXIII.--PLATO'S IDEA OF THE BEGINNING OF TIME DRAWN FROM MOSES.

   And from what source did Plato draw the information that time was
created along with the heavens? For he wrote thus: "Time, accordingly, was
created along with the heavens; in order that, coming into being together,
they might also be together dissolved, if ever their dissolution should
take place." Had he not learned this from the divine history of Moses? For
he knew that the creation of time had received its original constitution
from days and months and years. Since, then, the first day which was
created along with the heavens constituted the beginning of all time (for
thus Moses wrote, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,"
and then immediately subjoins, "And one day was made," as if he would
designate the whole of time by one part of it), Plato names the day "time,"
lest, if he mentioned the "day," he should seem to lay himself open to the
accusation of the Athenians, that he was completely adopting the
expressions of Moses. And from what source did he derive what he has
written regarding the dissolution of the heavens? Had he not learned this,
too, from the sacred prophets, and did he not think that this was their
doctrine?

CHAP. XXXIV.--WHENCE MEN ATTRIBUTED TO GOD HUMAN FORM.

   And if any person investigates the subject of images, and inquires on
what ground those who first fashioned your gods conceived that they had the
forms of men, he will find that this also was derived from the divine
history. For seeing that Moses history, speaking in the person of God,
says, "Let Us make man in our image and likeness," these persons, under the
impression that this meant that men were like God in form, began thus to
fashion their gods, supposing they would make a likeness from a likeness.
But why, ye men of Greece, am I now induced to recount these things? That
ye may know that it is not possible to learn the true religion from those
who were unable, even on those subjects by which they won the admiration of
the heathen,(1) to write anything original, but merely propounded by some
allegorical device in their own writings what they had learned from Moses
and the other prophets.

CHAP. XXXV.--APPEAL TO THE GREEKS.

   The time, then, ye men of Greece, is now come, that ye, having been
persuaded by the secular histories that Moses and the rest of the prophets
were far more ancient than any of those who have been esteemed sages among
you, abandon the ancient delusion of your forefathers, and read the divine
histories of the prophets, and ascertain from them the true religion; for
they do not present to you artful discourses, nor speak speciously and
plausibly--for this is the property of those who wish to rob you of the
truth--but use with simplicity the words and expressions which offer
themselves, and declare to you whatever the Holy Ghost, who descended upon
them, chose to teach through them to those who are desirous to learn the
true religion. Having then laid aside all false shame, and the inveterate
error of mankind, with all its bombastic parade and empty noise, though by
means of it you fancy you are possessed of all advantages, do you give
yourselves to the things that profit you. For neither will you commit any
offence against your fathers, if you now show a desire to betake yourselves
to that which is quite opposed to their error, since it is likely enough
that they themselves are now lamenting in Hades, and repenting with a too
late repentance; and if it were possible for them to show you thence what
had befallen them after the termination of this life, ye would know from
what fearful ills they desired to deliver you. But now, since it is not
possible in this present life that ye either learn from them, or from those
who here profess to teach that philosophy which is falsely so called, it
follows as the one thing that remains for you to do, that, renouncing the
error of your fathers, ye read the prophecies of the sacred writers,(1) not
requiring from them unexceptionable diction (for the matters of our
religion lie in works,(2) not in words), and learn from them what will give
you life everlasting. For those who bootlessly disgrace the name of
philosophy are convicted of knowing nothing at all, as they are themselves
forced, though unwillingly, to confess, since not only do they disagree
with each other, but also expressed their own opinions sometimes in one
way, sometimes in another.

CHAP. XXXVI.--TRUE KNOWLEDGE NOT HELD BY THE PHILOSOPHERS.

   And if "the discovery of the truth" be given among them as one
definition of philosophy, how are they who are not in possession of the
true knowledge worthy of the name of philosophy? For if Socrates, the
wisest of your wise men, to whom even your oracle, as you yourselves say,
bears witness, saying, "Of all men Socrates is the wisest"--if he confesses
that he knows nothing, how did those who came after him profess to know
even things heavenly? For Socrates said that he was on this account called
wise, because, while other men pretended to know what they were ignorant
of, he himself did not shrink from confessing that he knew nothing. For he
said, "I seem to myself to be wisest by this little particular, that what I
do not know, I do not suppose I know." Let no one fancy that Socrates
ironically reigned ignorance, because he often used to do so in his
dialogues. For the last expression of his apology which he uttered as he
was being led away to the prison, proves that in seriousness and truth he
was confessing his ignorance: "But now it is time to go away, I indeed to
die, but you to live. And which of us goes to the better state, is hidden
to all but God." Socrates, indeed, having uttered this last sentence in the
Areopagus, departed to the prison, ascribing to God alone the knowledge of
those things which are hidden from us; but those who came after him, though
they are unable to comprehend even earthly things, profess to understand
things heavenly as if they had seen them. Aristotle at least--as if he had
seen things heavenly with greater accuracy than Plato--declared that God
did not exist, as Plato said, in the fiery substance (for this was Plato's
doctrine) but in the fifth element, air. And while he demanded that
concerning these matters he should be believed on account of the excellence
of his language, he yet departed this life because he was overwhelmed with
the infamy and disgrace of being unable to discover even the nature of the
Euripus in Chalcis.(3) Let not any one, therefore, of sound judgment prefer
the elegant diction of these men to his own salvation, but let him,
according to that old story, stop his ears with wax, and flee the sweet
hurt which these sirens would inflict upon him. For the above-mentioned
men, presenting their elegant language as a kind of bait, have sought to
seduce many from the right religion, in imitation of him who dared to teach
the first men polytheism. Be not persuaded by these persons, I entreat you,
but read the prophecies of the sacred writers.(4) And if any slothfulness
or old hereditary superstition prevents you from reading the prophecies of
the holy men through which you can be instructed regarding the one only
God, which is the first article of the true religion, yet believe him who,
though at first he taught you polytheism, yet afterwards preferred to sing
a useful and necessary recantation--I mean Orpheus, who said what I quoted
a little before; and believe the others who wrote the same things
concerning one God. For it was the work of Divine Providence on your
behalf, that they, though unwillingly, bore testimony that what the
prophets said regarding one God was true, in order that, the doctrine of a
plurality of gods being rejected by all, occasion might be afforded you of
knowing the truth.

CHAP. XXXVII.--OF THE SIBYL.(5)

   And you may in part easily learn the right religion from the ancient
Sibyl, who by some kind of potent inspiration teaches you, through her
oracular predictions, truths which seem to be much akin to the teaching of
the prophets. She, they say, was of Babylonian extraction, being the
daughter of Berosus, who wrote the Chaldaean History; and when she had
crossed over (how, I know not) into the region of Campania, she there
uttered her oracular sayings in a city called Cumae, six miles from Baiae,
where the hot springs of Campania are found. And being in that city, we saw
also a certain place, in which we were shown a very large basilica(6) cut
out of one stone; a vast affair, and worthy of all admiration. And they who
had heard it from their fathers as part of their country's tradition, told
us that it was here she used to publish her oracles. And in the middle of
the basilica they showed us three receptacles cut out of one stone, in
which, when filled with water, they said that she washed, and having put on
her robe again, retires into the inmost chamber of the basilica, which is
still a part of the one stone; and sitting in the middle of the chamber on
a high rostrum and throne, thus proclaims her oracles. And both by many
other writers has the Sibyl been mentioned as a prophetess, and also by
Plato in his Phaedrus. And Plato seems to me to have counted prophets
divinely inspired when he read her prophecies. For he saw that what she had
long ago predicted was accomplished; and on this account he expresses in
the Dialogue with Meno his wonder at and admiration of prophets in the
following terms: "Those whom we now call prophetic persons we should
rightly name divine. And not least would we say that they are divine, and
are raised to the prophetic ecstasy by the inspiration and possession of
God, when they correctly speak of many and important matters, and yet know
nothing of what they are saying,"--plainly and manifestly referring to the
prophecies of the Sibyl. For, unlike the poets who, after their poems are
penned, have power to correct and polish, specially in the way of
increasing the accuracy of their verse, she was filled indeed with prophecy
at the time of the inspiration, but as soon as the inspiration ceased,
there ceased also the remembrance of all she had said. And this indeed was
the cause why some only, and not all, the metres of the verses of the Sibyl
were preserved. For we ourselves, when in that city, ascertained from our
cicerone, who showed us the places in which she used to prophesy, that
there was a certain coffer made of brass in which they said that her
remains were preserved. And besides all else which they told us as they had
heard it from their fathers, they said also that they who then took down
her prophecies, being illiterate persons, often went quite astray from the
accuracy of the metres; and this, they said, was the cause of the want of
metre in some of the verses, the prophetess having no remembrance of what
she had said, after the possession and inspiration ceased, and the
reporters having, through their lack of education, failed to record the
metres with accuracy. And on this account, it is manifest that Plato had an
eye to the prophecies of the Sibyl when he said this about prophets, for he
said, "When they correctly speak of many and important matters, and yet
know nothing of what they are saying.

CHAP. XXXVIII.--CONCLUDING APPEAL.

   But since, ye men of Greece, the matters of the true religion lie not
in the metrical numbers of poetry, nor yet in that culture which is highly
esteemed among you, do ye henceforward pay less devotion to accuracy of
metres and of language; and giving heed without contentiousness to the
words of the Sibyl, recognise how great are the benefits which she will
confer upon you by predicting, as she does in a clear and patent manner,
the advent of our Saviour Jesus Christ;(1) who, being the Word of God,
inseparable from Him in power, having assumed man, who had been made in the
image and likeness of God, restored to us the knowledge of the religion of
our ancient forefathers, which the men who lived after them abandoned
through the bewitching counsel of the envious devil, and turned to the
worship of those who were no gods. And if you still hesitate and are
hindered from belief regarding the formation of man, believe those whom you
have hitherto thought it right to give heed to, and know that your own
oracle, when asked by some one to utter a hymn of praise to the Almighty
God, in the middle of the hymn spoke thus, "Who formed the first of men,
and called him Adam." And this hymn is preserved by many whom we know, for
the conviction of those who are unwilling to believe the truth which all
bear witness to. If therefore, ye men of Greece, ye do not esteem the false
fancy concerning those that are no gods at a higher rate than your own
salvation, believe, as I said, the most ancient and time-honoured Sibyl,
whose books are preserved in all the world, and who by some kind of potent
inspiration both teaches us in her oracular utterances concerning those
that are called gods, that have no existence; and also clearly and
manifestly prophesies concerning the predicted advent of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, and concerning all those things which were to be done by Him. For
the knowledge of these things will constitute your necessary preparatory
training for the study of the prophecies of the sacred writers. And if any
one supposes that he has learned the doctrine concerning God from the most
ancient of those whom you name philosophers, let him listen to Ammon and
Hermes:(2) to Ammon, who in his discourse concerning God calls Him wholly
hidden; and to Hermes, who says plainly and distinctly, "that it is
difficult to comprehend God, and that it is impossible even for the man who
can comprehend Him to declare Him to others." From every point of view,
therefore, it must be seen that in no other way than only from the prophets
who teach us by divine inspiration, is it at all possible to learn anything
concerning God and the true religion.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 1, Roberts and Donaldson.) The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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