poor, for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that the LORD thy God may bless thee in every work of thine hands. And if thou gather thine olives, thou shalt not turn back to p. 714 glean what is left behind thee: it shall be for the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow. And if thou gather the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean over again what is left behind thee this shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless and for the widow.' These then are the enactments found in Moses. And Plato's are well known, in which you may find thousands irreproachable, whereof we most gladly welcome all that is noble and excellent in him, and bid a long leave to what is not of such a character. But since we have travelled so far through these matters, and have shown cause why we have not chosen to follow Plato in philosophy, it is time to bring the rest of our promise to completion, and to review the other sects of Greek philosophy. VIII. of Carneades, the founder of the third Academy. From X. That among the Greek philosophers there are con- XII. Concerning the professors of Natural Science. From XIII. On gymnastic and music. From Plato's Republic XIV. Opinions of philosophers on First Principles. XVII. Against the School of Xenophanes and Parmenides, who XVIII. Against the followers of Pyrrhon, called Sceptics or XIX. Against the philosophers of the School of Aristippus, who say that only feelings can be apprehended, and CHAP. XX. Against the School of Metrodorus and Protagoras, who say that the senses alone are to be trusted. From the same XXI. Against the Epicureans,who define the good as pleasure. From the same • p. 766 b XXII. Further against those who define the good as pleasure. XXIII. Against the Epicureans, who deny a Providence, and refer the universe to corporeal atoms. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, On Nature p. 768 d. · P. 770 b From P. 772 d P. 773 d XXIV. From human examples. From the same same • p. 778 e From the p. 781 a CHAPTER I PREFACE CONCERNING THE SUBJECT OF THE BOOK. P. 717 HAVING described in the preceding Book all that there was to say and to hear about the philosophy of Plato and his agreement with the Hebrew oracles, for which we are struck with admiration of him, and on the other hand concerning his dissent from them, for which no man of b good sense could approve him, I will now pass on to the remaining sects of those who have been famed for philosophy among the Greeks. And in their case again I shall set their lapse from the truth before the eyes of my readers, not in my own person nor of my own authority, but as before by the testimony of the very words of Greek authors: not indeed from dislike to any of them personally, since I confess that I have a great admiration for them, when I compare the persons with the rest of mankind as men. But when I compare them with the sacred writers and prophets of the Hebrews, and with God who through c them has both uttered predictions of things to come and exhibited marvellous works, nay more, has laid the foundations of instruction in religious learning and true doctrines, I no longer think that any one ought with reason to blame us, if we prefer God before men, and truth itself before human reasonings and conjectures. All this I have striven to prove in the argument of this present Preparation, as at once an answer and a defence against those who shall inquire, what beauty or majesty we have seen in the writings of the Barbarians, d that we have decided to prefer them to our ancestral and noble philosophy, that, I mean, of the Greeks. However, it is time now to let our proof proceed by way of facts. CHAPTER II Now, I think, we ought before all things to begin from p. 718 the first foundation of philosophy among the Greeks, and to learn concerning the so-called physical philosophers before the time of Plato, who they were, and what sort of men their philosophy found as champions of its system; then we must pass on to the successors of Plato, and learn who they also were, and survey their mutual disputations, and review also the dissensions of the other sects, and the oppositions of their opinions, wherein I shall exhibit the noble combatants like boxers eagerly exchanging blows as on a stage before the spectators. b Let us, for instance, at once observe how, on the one hand, Plato used to scoff at the earliest philosophers who preceded him, and how others scoffed at Plato's friends and successors: and again in turn how Plato's disciples used to criticize the wise doctrines of Aristotle's fertile thought and how those who boasted of Aristotle and the Peripatetic School used to prove that the views of those who preferred the opposite sect were nonsense. You will also see the clever and precise doctrines of the subtlety of the Stoics ridiculed in turn by others, and all the philosophers on all sides struggling against their c neighbours, and most bravely joining in battle and wrestling, so that even with hands and tongue, or rather with pen and ink, they raise strongholds of war against each other, striking, as it were, and being struck by the spears and various weapons of their wordy war. And in this strife of athletes our arena will include, in addition to those already mentioned, men stripped of. all truth, who have taken up arms in opposition to all the dogmatic philosophers alike; I mean the Pyrrhonists, who declared that in man's world there is nothing comprehensible; and those who said with Aristippus that the feelings were the sole objects of perception; and then d again those who with Metrodorus and Protagoras said that we ought to believe only the sensations of the body. Over against these we shall at the same time strip for the combat the schools of Xenophanes and Parmenides, who arrayed themselves on the opposite side and annihilated the senses. Neither shall we omit the champions of pleasure, but shall enroll their leader Epicurus also with those already mentioned. But against all alike we shall use their own weapons to set forth their confutation. Also of all the so-called physicists alike I shall drag p. 719 out to light both the discrepancies of their doctrines and the futility of their eager studies; not at all as a hater of the Greeks or of reason, far from it, but to remove all cause of slanderous accusation, that we have preferred the Hebrew oracles from having forsooth been very little acquainted with Hellenic culture. CHAPTER III THE Hebrews on their part from long time of old and, b so to say, from the very first origin of man, having found the true and religious philosophy have carefully preserved this undefiled to succeeding generations, son from sire having received and guarded a treasure of true doctrines, |