Miscellanies 7.15.91

For this very reason, then, we need more care and forethought in examining how exactly one must live and what true piety is. For it is clear that, because the truth is difficult and hard to attain, inquiries have arisen; and from these come the self-loving and vainglorious heresies of those who have not truly learned or received the truth, but have taken up a conceit of knowledge. With greater care, then, we must search out the real truth, which alone is concerned with the God who truly is. And sweet discovery and remembrance follow toil. We must, then, strip for the labor of discovery because of the heresies, not give it up altogether. For when fruit is set before us, some real and ripe, and some made of wax to look as much like it as possible, we must not refuse both because they look alike, but distinguish the true from the apparent by comprehending contemplation and the most authoritative reasoning. And as, when there is one royal road and many others, some leading to a cliff, others to a rushing river or a sea that is deep close to shore, no one would hesitate to travel because the roads differ, but would take the safe, royal highway, so, when different people say different things about the truth, one must not give it up, but hunt more carefully for the most exact knowledge of it. For weeds grow up along with the vegetables in a garden; do farmers, then, give up tending their gardens? Having, then, many resources from nature for examining what is said, we ought to discover the consistency of the truth. That is why we are rightly condemned if we do not assent to what we ought to obey, and do not distinguish what is contradictory, unfitting, contrary to nature, and false from what is true, consistent, fitting, and according to nature; these resources must be used for full knowledge of the truth that truly is.