{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/001/0010646.htm","path":"chr/ecf/001/0010646.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/001/0010646.htm","text":"And if \u201cthe discovery of the truth\u201d 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, \u201cOf all men Socrates is the wisest\u201d\u2014if 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, \u201cI seem to myself to be wisest by this little particular, that what I do not know, I do not suppose I know.\u201d 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: \u201cBut 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.\u201d 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\u2014as if he had seen things heavenly with greater accuracy than Plato\u2014declared that God did not exist, as Plato said, in the fiery substance (for this was Plato\u2019s 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 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\u2014I 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.\nThis is now supposed to be fable.\n288:2588","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I: JUSTIN MARTYR: Chapter XXXVI.\u2014True knowledge not...","type":"page"}