Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XXXVI.—True knowledge not held by the philosophers. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
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 feigned 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.2587
2587 This
is now supposed to be fable. | 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.2588 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|