But if at any point it should be necessary, for the sake of giving clearness to his thought, I shall also make use of the testimony of those who have studied his philosophy, and shall set forth their own words for the settlement of the question before us.

Let me, however, make this reservation, that not every c matter has been successfully stated by the master, although he has expressed most things in accordance with truth. And this very point also we shall prove at the proper season, not in order to disparage him, but in defence of the reason for which we confess that we have welcomed the Barbarian philosophy in preference to the Greek.

CHAPTER I

WHEREAS Plato divided the whole subject of philosophy d into three branches, Physics, Ethics, Logic, and then again divided his Physics into the examination of sensibles, and the contemplation of incorporeals, you will find this tripartite form of teaching among the Hebrews also, seeing that they had dealt with the like matters of philosophy before Plato was born.

It will be right then to hear Plato first, and so afterwards to examine the doctrines of the Hebrews. And p. 509 I shall quote the opinions of Plato from those who give the highest honour to his system; of whom Atticus, a man of distinction among the Platonic philosophers, in the work wherein he withstands those who profess to support the doctrines of Plato by those of Aristotle, recounts the opinions of his master in the following

manner:

CHAPTER II

'SINCE therefore the entire system of philosophy is divided b into three parts, the so-called Ethical topic, and the Physical, ATTICUS

500 b Atticus, Fragment preserved by Eusebius. Cf. Mullach, . Phil. Gr. iii. 185

ATTICUS and also the Logical; and whereas the aim of the first is to make each one of us honourable and virtuous, and to bring entire households to the highest state of improvement, and finally c to furnish the whole commonalty with the most excellent civil polity and the most exact laws; while the second pertains to the knowledge of things divine, and the actual first principles and causes, and all the other things that result from them, which part Plato has named Natural Science; the third is adopted to help in determining and discovering what concerns both the former. Now that Plato before and beyond all others collected into one body all the parts of philosophy, which had till then been scattered and dispersed, like the limbs of Pentheus, as some one d said, and exhibited philosophy as an organized body and a living thing complete in all its members, is manifestly asserted by every one.

'For it is not unknown that Thales, and Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras, and as many as were contemporary with them spent their time solely on the inquiry concerning the nature of existing things. Nor moreover is any one unaware that Pittacus, and Periander, and Solon, and Lycurgus, and those like them, applied their philosophy to statemanship. Zeno too, and all this Eleatic School, are also well known to have studied especially the diaP. 510 lectic art. But after these came Plato, a man newly initiated in the mysteries of nature and of surpassing excellence, as one verily sent down from heaven in order that the philosophy taught by him might be seen in its full proportions; for he omitted nothing, and perfected everything, neither falling short in regard to what was necessary, nor carried away to what was useless. 'Since therefore we asserted that the Platonist partakes of all three, as studying Nature, and discussing Morals, and practising Dialectic, let us now examine each point separately.'

So speaks Atticus. And the Peripatetic Aristocles also adds his testimony to the same effect, in the seventh Book of the treatise which he composed Of Philosophy, b speaking thus word for word:

CHAPTER III

TOCLES

'If any man ever yet taught a genuine and complete system ARISof philosophy, it was Plato. For the followers of Thales were constantly engaged in the study of Nature: and the school of Pythagoras wrapped all things in mystery: and Xenophanes C and his followers, by stirring contentious discussions, caused the philosophers much dizziness, but yet gave them no help.

'And not least did Socrates, exactly according to the proverb, add fire to fire, as Plato himself said. For being a man of great genius, and clever in raising questions upon any and every matter, he brought moral and political speculations into philosophy, and moreover was the first who attempted to define the theory of the Ideas: but while still stirring up every kind of discussion, and inquiring about all subjects, he died too early a death.

'Others took certain separate parts and spent their time upon d these, some on Medicine, others on the Mathematical Sciences, and some on the poets and Music. Most of them, however, were charmed with the powers of language, and of these some called themselves rhetoricians and others dialecticians.

'In fact the successors of Socrates were of all different kinds, and opposed to each other in their opinions. For some sang the praises of cynical habits, and humility, and insensibility; but others, on the contrary, of pleasures. And some used to boast of knowing all things, and others of knowing absolutely nothing.

'Further some used to roll themselves about in public and p. 511 in the sight of all men, associating with the common people, while others on the contrary could never be approached nor accosted.

'Plato however, though he perceived that the science of things divine and human was one and the same, was the first to make a distinction, asserting that there was one kind of study concerned with the nature of the universe, and another concerned with human affairs, and a third with dialectic.

'But he maintained that we could not take, a clear view of human affairs, unless the divine were previously discerned:

610 b a Aristocles, De Philosophia; ef. Mullach, iii. p. 206

ARIS- b for just as physicians, when treating any parts of the body, attend TOCLES first to the state of the whole, so the man who is to take a clear

view of things here on earth must first know the nature of the universe; and man, he said, was a part of the world; and good was of two kinds, our own good and that of the whole, and the good of the whole was the more important, because the other was for its sake.

'Now Aristoxenus the Musician says that this argument comes from the Indians: for a certain man of that nation fell in with Socrates at Athens, and presently asked him, what he was doing in philosophy: and when he said, that he was studying human c life, the Indian laughed at him, and said that no one could comprehend things human, if he were ignorant of things divine.

'Whether this, however, is true no one could assert positively : but Plato at all events distinguished the philosophy of the universe, and that of civil polity, and also that of dialectic.'

Such being the philosophy of Plato, it is time to examine also that of the Hebrews, who had studied philosophy in the like manner long before Plato was born. Accordingly you will find among them also this d corresponding tripartite division of Ethical, and Dialectical, and Physical studies, by setting yourself to observe in the following manner:

CHAPTER IV

As to Ethics then, if you thoroughly examine what the Hebrews taught, you will find that this subject before all others was zealously studied among them in deeds much earlier than in words. Since as the end of all good, and the final term of a happy life, they both admired and p. 51 pursued religion and that friendship with God which is secured by the right direction of moral habits; but not bodily pleasure, like Epicurus; nor again the threefold kinds of good, according to Aristotle, who esteems the good of the body, and external good on an equality with the good of the soul; no, nor yet the utter void of know

ledge and instruction, which some have announced by a more respectable name as 'suspension of judgement'; nay, nor even the virtue of the soul; for how much is there of this in men, and what can it contribute by itself without God to the life that knows no sorrow?

For the sake of that life they fastened their all on hope b in God, as a cable that could not break, and declared that the friend of God was the only happy man: because God the dispenser of all good, the purveyor of life and fountain of virtue itself, being the provider of all good things for the body, and of outward fortune, must be alone sufficient for the happy life to the man who by thoroughly true religion has secured His friendship.

Hence Moses, the wisest of men and the first of all to commit to writing the life of the godly Hebrews before his time, has described in an historical narrative their mode of life both political and practical. In beginning c that narrative he drew his teaching from universal principles, assuming God as the cause of the universe, and describing the creation of the world and of man.

Thus from universal principles he next advanced in his argument to particulars, and by the memory of the men of old urged his disciples on to emulation of their virtue and piety; and moreover being himself declared the author of the holy laws enacted by him, it must be manifest that on all points he was careful to promote the d love of God by his attention to moral habits, a point which in fact our argument anticipated and made clear in what has gone before.

It would be too long to set down in this place the prophets who came in succession after Moses, and their arguments to encourage virtue, and dissuade from all kinds of vice. But what if I were to bring before you the moral precepts of the all-wise Solomon, to which he devoted a special treatise and called it a book of Proverbs, including in one subject many concise judgements of the nature of apophthegms?