Hortatory Address to the Greeks 1–13

As I begin my exhortation to you, men of Greece, I pray to God that it may be granted to me to say to you what I ought, and to you, putting aside your former contentiousness and freed from the error of your ancestors, to choose now what is profitable; not supposing that you will be committing any offence against your ancestors if the opposite of what they formerly wrongly thought should now appear useful to you. For an exact examination of matters often shows that even things that seemed to be right are otherwise, testing the truth by a more exact trial. Since, then, the subject before us is the true worship of God (than which nothing, I think, is held more precious by those who have chosen to live without danger, because of the judgment that is to come after the end of this life; a judgment proclaimed not only by our ancestors according to God, prophets and lawgivers, but also by those among you who were thought to be wise, not only poets but also philosophers, who profess among you to know the true and divine knowledge), it seemed good to me first to examine the teachers of religion, both ours and yours: who and how many they were, and at what times they lived; so that those who formerly received from their ancestors a falsely named religion may now at least perceive it and be freed from that old error, while we may show clearly and plainly that we follow the religion of our ancestors according to God.

Whom, then, men of Greece, do you claim as the teachers of your religion? The poets? It will not help you with men who know the writings of the poets; for they know the most ridiculous theogony of the gods told by them, as we can learn from Homer, the foremost and first of your poets. For he says, first, that the generation of the gods had its beginning from water; for he wrote thus: "Ocean, the origin of the gods, and mother Tethys." Then it is necessary to recall what he says about the one considered among them the first god, whom he often calls "father of men and gods"; for he said: "Zeus, who is the steward of war for men." He says that this god was not only the steward of war for the army, but also the cause of perjury to the Trojans through his own daughter; and Homer brings him on stage as in love, complaining, lamenting, and plotted against by the other gods; at one time saying over his own son: "Ah me, that it is fated that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, be subdued by Patroclus son of Menoetius"; and at another over Hector: "Alas, I see with my eyes a man dear to me chased around the wall, and my heart laments." What he says also about the plot of the other gods against Zeus, those who read these verses know: "when the other Olympians wished to bind him, Hera and Poseidon and Pallas Athena"; … and if the blessed gods had not feared him whom the gods call Briareus, Zeus would have been bound by them. And what Homer says about the amorous licentiousness of Zeus it is necessary to recall through the very words he spoke. For he represents him as speaking thus to Hera: "For never yet did love of goddess or of woman so flood the heart in my breast and overcome it, not when I loved the wife of Ixion, nor Danaë of the fair ankles, daughter of Acrisius, nor the daughter of far-famed Phoenix, nor Semele, nor Alcmene in Thebes, nor Demeter, the fair-tressed queen, nor glorious Leto, nor yet yourself." And what we may learn from Homer's poetry about the other gods too, and all they suffered at the hands of men, it is fitting to recall now. For he says that Ares and Aphrodite were wounded by Diomedes, and he recounts (the sufferings) of many other gods. For we can learn it from (Dione) consoling her daughter; for she said to her: "Endure, my child, and bear up, though grieved; for many of us who have dwellings on Olympus have endured things from men, laying grievous pains on one another. Ares endured it, when Otus and mighty Ephialtes, sons of Aloeus, bound him in a strong bond, and he lay in a bronze jar for thirteen months. Hera endured it, when the mighty son of Amphitryon struck her on the right breast with a three-barbed arrow; then incurable pain seized her. Huge Hades too endured a swift arrow among them, when the same man, son of aegis-bearing Zeus, struck him at Pylos among the dead and gave him over to pains; but he went to the house of Zeus and to high Olympus, grieving at heart, pierced through with pains, for the arrow had been driven into his strong shoulder and was distressing his spirit." And if it is fitting to recall also the battle of the rest of the gods against one another, your own poet reminds you, saying: "So great a din arose as the gods came together in strife. For against lord Poseidon stood Phoebus Apollo with his winged arrows, and against Enyalius the goddess grey-eyed Athena; against Hera stood the huntress of the golden distaff, Artemis of the loud cry, sister of the Far-Shooter; against Leto stood the strong helper Hermes." Such things about the gods Homer has taught you, and not Homer only, but also Hesiod. So if you believe your foremost poets, who drew up the genealogies of your gods, you must either believe them to be such, or not believe them to be gods at all.

And if you excuse the poets, saying that they are permitted to invent myths and to relate in myth many things about the gods that are contrary to the truth, whom else do you think you have as teachers of your religion, or how do you say they learned it? For it is impossible for those who have not first learned from those who know to know matters so great and divine. You will surely say: the wise men and philosophers. For to them, as to a strong wall, you are accustomed to flee whenever anyone reports to you the opinions of the poets about the gods. Since it is fitting to begin from the ancient and first ones, beginning there I will set out the opinion of each, which is much more ridiculous than the theology of the poets. Thales of Miletus, who first began natural philosophy, declared that water is the first principle of all beings; for he says that all things are from water and all are dissolved into water. Anaximander after him, setting out from the same Miletus, said that the infinite is the principle of all things; for from it all things come to be, and into it all things perish. Third, Anaximenes, also from Miletus, says that air is the principle of the universe; for he says that from it all things come to be, and into it all are again dissolved. Heraclitus and Hippasus of Metapontum (say) that fire is the principle of all things; for from fire all things come to be, and in fire all things end. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae said that the principles of all things are the homoeomeries (parts like the whole). Archelaus son of Apollodorus …

Then in turn, from another starting point, Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus, of Samos, calls the numbers the principles, with their symmetries and the harmonies in them, and the elements compounded of both; and further the monad and the indefinite dyad. Epicurus son of Neocles, an Athenian, says that the principles of beings are bodies perceptible by reason, having no share of void, unbegotten, imperishable, unable to be broken, to take on shaping from parts, or to be altered; and therefore perceptible by reason. Empedocles son of Meton, of Acragas, (holds) four elements, fire, air, water, earth, and two original powers, love and strife, of which the one unites and the other divides. See, then, the disorder of those who were thought among you to be wise, whom you claim as the teachers of your religion: some declaring water to be the principle of all things, others air, others fire, others something else of those mentioned; and all of them using certain plausible arguments to establish their mistaken opinions, and trying to show their own doctrine to be superior. These things were said by them. How, then, is it safe, men of Greece, for those who wish to be saved to think that they can learn the true religion from these men, who could not even persuade themselves not to quarrel with one another, nor to appear opposed to one another's opinions?

But perhaps those who do not wish to depart from that ancient and old error say that they have received the doctrine of religion not from those mentioned, but from the philosophers who are thought among them the most renowned and most perfect in virtue, Plato and Aristotle; for these, they say, learned the perfect and true religion. But I would gladly first ask those who say this from whom they say these men learned it; for it is impossible for those who have not learned matters so great and divine from some who know either to know them themselves or to be able to teach others rightly. Second, I think we must examine their opinions too; for we shall see whether each of them too does not appear to say the opposite of the other. And if we find that these too do not agree with each other, it is easy, I think, to recognize their ignorance clearly. For Plato, as if he had come down from above and had accurately learned and seen everything in heaven, says that the highest God is in the fiery substance. But Aristotle, setting out a short definition of his own philosophy in his discourse to Alexander the Macedonian, clearly and plainly overthrows Plato's opinion, saying that God is not in the fiery substance; but fashioning a fifth, ethereal and unchangeable body, he says that God is in it. At any rate he wrote thus: "Not, as some of those who err about the divine say, that God is in a fiery substance." Then, as if not content with his blasphemy against Plato, he also calls as witness, in proof of what he says about the ethereal body, Homer, whom Plato expelled from his republic as a liar and, as he himself said, an imitator third from the truth; for he wrote: "Thus Homer too said: Zeus obtained the broad heaven in the ether and the clouds"; wishing to make his own opinion credible from Homer's testimony, not knowing that if he used Homer as a witness to prove that he speaks the truth, many of his own opinions will appear untrue. For Thales of Miletus, the first among them to begin philosophy, taking his pretext from him, will overturn Aristotle's first opinions about principles. For whereas Aristotle has said that God and matter are the principles of all things, Thales, the oldest of all of them, says that water is the principle of beings; for he says that all things are from water and all are dissolved into water. He conjectures this, first, from the fact that the seed of all living things, which is their beginning, is moist; second, that all plants are nourished by moisture and bear fruit, but wither when they have no share of moisture. Then, as if not content with what he conjectures, he (calls) Homer as a credible witness, who says: "Ocean, which is the origin of all." Will not Thales, then, rightly say to him: "For what reason, Aristotle, when you wish to overthrow Plato's opinions, do you heed Homer as speaking the truth, but when we have declared an opinion opposite to yours, you think that Homer does not speak the truth?"

That your exceedingly admired sages do not agree even in other matters is easy to recognize from these points too. For whereas Plato says there are three principles of the universe, God, matter, and form (God, the maker of all things; matter, which underlies the first coming-to-be of the things that come to be and furnishes him the occasion for his craftsmanship; and form, the pattern of each of the things that come to be), Aristotle makes no mention at all of form as a principle, but says that there are two principles, God and matter. And whereas Plato says that the first God and the ideas are in the first, unwandering sphere of the highest heaven, Aristotle says that after the first God there are not ideas but certain intelligible gods. So they differ from one another about the things in heaven; so that one should know that those who could not even know the things here among us, but differed from one another about these too, will not appear trustworthy when they tell of the things in heaven. That their account of the human soul within us does not agree either is plain from what each of them said about it. For Plato says it is threefold, calling one part rational, another spirited, and another appetitive; but Aristotle says that the soul is not the common (whole), in which the perishable parts are also included, but only the rational part. And Plato cries out, saying, "Every soul is immortal"; but Aristotle, calling it an entelechy, holds it to be not immortal but mortal. And the one says that it is ever-moving; but Aristotle says that it is unmoved, preceding all motion.

But in these matters they are convicted of thinking the opposite of each other. And if one wished to examine their teachings carefully, (it would be seen that) they do not even abide by their own opinions. (For Plato at one time) says that there are three principles of the universe, God and matter and form; at another, four, for he adds the universal soul. And again, having first said that matter is unbegotten, he later says that it is begotten; and having first given form a principle of its own and declared that it subsists by itself, later he says that it is among the objects of thought. And having first declared that everything that has come to be is perishable, he later says that some of the things that have come to be can be indissoluble and imperishable. What, then, is the cause of those who were thought to be wise among you being at odds not only with one another but also with themselves? Clearly, that they were unwilling to learn from those who know, but thought that by human cleverness they could know clearly the things in heaven, though they could not even know the things on earth. At any rate, some of your philosophers say that the human soul is in us, others that it is around us. For they have chosen not to agree with one another even in this, but, as if they had divided ignorance among themselves in different shares, they have chosen to quarrel and be at odds with one another about the soul too. For some of them say the soul is fire, others air, others mind, others motion, others an exhalation, others a power flowing from the stars, others a self-moving number, others generative water. And altogether a disordered and discordant (teaching) prevails among them, appearing worthy of praise to those able to judge rightly in one thing only: that they have chosen to convict one another of error and of not speaking the truth.

Since, then, it is impossible to learn anything true about religion from your teachers, who by their discord with one another have furnished you sufficient proof of their own ignorance, I think it follows to go back to our ancestors, who far preceded the times of your teachers, and who taught us nothing from their own fancy, nor differed with one another, nor tried to overturn one another's teachings, but without contention and discord received the knowledge from God and taught it to us. For neither by nature nor by human thought is it possible for men to know things so great and divine, but by the gift that then came down from above upon the holy men, who had no need of skill in words …, but to present themselves pure to the working of the divine Spirit, so that the divine (plectrum) itself, coming down from heaven and using righteous men … a lyre …, might reveal to us the knowledge of things divine and heavenly. Therefore, as if from one mouth and one tongue, they taught us consistently and in agreement with one another about God, about the creation of the world, about the formation of man, about the immortality of the human soul and the judgment that is to come after this life, and about all things we need to know; and that although they gave us the divine teaching in different places and times.

I will begin, then, with the first of our prophets and lawgivers, Moses, first setting out the times in which he lived, with every testimony that is credible among you. For I do not try to show this only from the divine histories among us, which you do not yet wish to believe because of the old error of your ancestors, but from your own histories, which have nothing to do with our worship; so that you may know that by far the oldest of all those among you, whether sages, poets, historians, philosophers, or lawgivers, was Moses, who became the first teacher of our religion, as the histories of the Greeks show us. For in the times of Ogyges and Inachus, whom some among you have supposed to be earth-born, Moses is mentioned as the leader and ruler of the race of the Jews. Thus Polemon mentions him in the first book of his Greek Histories, and Apion son of Posidonius in his book against the Jews and in the fourth book of his histories, saying that in the time of Inachus king of Argos, when Amasis reigned over the Egyptians, the Jews revolted, and Moses led them. And Ptolemy of Mendes, writing the history of Egypt, concurs with all these. And those who write the history of Athens, Hellanicus and Philochorus the author of the Atthis, Castor and Thallus and Alexander Polyhistor, and further the very wise Philo and Josephus, who wrote the history of the Jews, mention Moses as a very ancient and old ruler of the Jews. Josephus, at any rate, wishing to indicate the antiquity and age of his history also by the title of his books, wrote thus at the beginning of his history: "The Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus," calling the old history "antiquities." And the most renowned of your historians, Diodorus, who spent thirty whole years epitomizing the libraries, and travelled through Asia and …, as he himself wrote, …, and became an eyewitness of most things, wrote forty whole books of his history. In the first book, saying that he learned from the priests in Egypt that Moses was an ancient and the first lawgiver, he writes about him in these very words: "After the ancient settlement of life in Egypt, which is told in myth to have taken place under gods and heroes, they say that Moses first persuaded the multitudes to use written laws, a man both great in soul and recorded as most capable in his life." Then, going on a little, and wishing to mention the ancient lawgivers, he mentions Moses first. For he said, in these words: "Among the Jews (they say) that Moses (referred his laws) to the one called God, either judging it a wonderful and wholly divine conception that would benefit a multitude of people, or looking to the superiority and power of those said to have found the laws, judging that the crowd would obey them more. Second … lawgiver …, excelling in understanding. Third they say was Sesonchosis the king, who not only accomplished the most illustrious warlike deeds of those in Egypt, but also organized the warrior class by legislation. Fourth they say became lawgiver Bocchoris the king, a wise man excelling in shrewdness. After him Amasis the king is said to have applied himself to the laws, whom they record …; … Darius the father … to have attended to the laws of the Egyptians."

These things, men of Greece, those outside our religion have written in their histories about the antiquity of Moses; and they say they learned all these things from the Egyptian priests, among whom Moses was not only born but was also thought worthy to share in all the education of the Egyptians, because he was adopted by the king's daughter as a son, and for that reason was thought worthy of much care, as the wisest of the historians relate, who chose to record his life and deeds and the dignity of his race, Philo and Josephus. For these, narrating the deeds of the Jews, say that Moses was of the race of the Chaldeans, and that, his ancestors having moved from Phoenicia to Egypt because of famine, the man was born there; and that God, because of his surpassing virtue, chose to honour him, and thought him worthy to become ruler and lawgiver of his own race, when he decided that the multitude of the Hebrews should return from Egypt to their own land. To him first God granted the divine and prophetic gift that then came down from above upon holy men, and prepared him to become the first teacher of our religion; and then, after him, the other prophets, who received the same gift as he and taught the same things about the same matters. These we (hold to be the teachers) of our religion, … (who taught from the) gift given by God.

But you, since because of the former error of your fathers you do not think you should give it up in favour of these, whom do you say have been trustworthy teachers of your religion? For it is impossible, as I have often said, for those who have not first learned such great and divine things from those who know either to know them themselves or to be able to teach others rightly. Since, then, the teachings of your philosophers have been sufficiently refuted by what has been said, having appeared full of all ignorance and deceit, perhaps, having now altogether given up the philosophers as earlier the poets, you will turn to the deceit of the oracles; for so I have heard some say. I think it follows, then, to tell you now, at the right moment, what I formerly heard among you said about them. For when someone, as you yourselves say, asked your oracle what men had ever been godly, you say the oracle said thus: "Only the Chaldeans obtained wisdom, and the Hebrews, worshipping the self-begotten King, God himself." Since, then, you think you can learn the truth from your oracles, read the histories and what was written about the life of Moses by those outside our religion; and knowing that Moses and the other prophets sprang from the race of the Chaldeans and Hebrews, do not think it strange if God chose to honour with this great gift, and to show forth as the first of all the prophets, a man of a godly race who had lived worthily of the godliness of his ancestors.

I think it necessary also to consider the times in which your philosophers lived, so that you may know that the time that produced them for you is very recent and short. For in this way you will also be able easily to know the antiquity of Moses. But lest, in going through the times, I seem to drag out (the discourse) by using many proofs, I think I can show it sufficiently from these. Socrates was the teacher of Plato, and Plato of Aristotle. These flourished in the times of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, in which also the orators of Athens (flourished), as the speeches of Demosthenes written against Philip clearly show us. And that Aristotle was with Alexander during the time of his reign, those who wrote the history of Alexander's deeds sufficiently show. From every side, then, it is easy to know that the history of Moses is by far the most ancient of all the histories outside (ours). Besides, you ought not to be ignorant of this either: that nothing accurate was recorded by the Greeks before the Olympiads, nor is there any ancient writing indicating any deed of Greeks or barbarians. Only the history of the prophet Moses existed before, which Moses wrote by divine inspiration in the letters of the Hebrews. For the letters of the Greeks did not yet exist, as even the teachers of letters themselves show, saying that Cadmus first brought them from Phoenicia and gave them to the Greeks. And Plato, the first of your philosophers, bears witness that they were found later. For he wrote in the Timaeus that Solon, the wisest of the wise, on his return from Egypt, told Critias that he had heard these things from a very old Egyptian priest, who said to him: "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children; there is no old Greek." Then again he said: "You are all young in soul; for you have in them no ancient opinion through old tradition, nor any learning grey with time; but it has escaped you, because those who survived through many generations died without letters." One should know, then, that all history happens to have been written in the Greek letters that were found later; and if anyone wished to mention any of the ancient poets, lawgivers, historians, philosophers, or orators, he will find that they wrote their works in the letters of the Greeks. And if anyone should say that the writings of Moses and the other prophets were written in the letters of the Greeks, let him learn, by reading the histories of those outside, that Ptolemy king of Egypt, having built a library in Alexandria, collected books from everywhere and filled it; then, learning that ancient histories written in the letters of the Hebrews happened to be carefully preserved, and wishing to know what was written, he sent for seventy wise men from Jerusalem who knew both the Greek and the Hebrew language, and ordered them to translate the books for him. And so that, free from all disturbance, they might translate more quickly, he ordered that, not in the city itself but seven stades away, where the Pharos has been built, small cells equal in number to the translators should be made, so that each might complete the translation by himself; and he instructed the attendants set over them to give them every care but to keep them from talking with one another, so that the accuracy of the translation might be known also through their agreement. And when he learned that the seventy men had used not only the same sense but the same words, and had not missed agreement with one another even in a single word, but had written the same things about the same matters, he was amazed; and believing that the translation had been written by divine power, he judged them worthy of every honour as men dear to God, and ordered them to return to their own country with many gifts; and the books, admiring them, as was fitting, and regarding them as divine, he deposited there. These things, men of Greece, we do not report to you as myths or invented histories; but we ourselves, having been in Alexandria and seen the remains of the cells on the Pharos still preserved, and having heard it from those there who had received it as an ancestral tradition, report these things, which you may also learn from others, and especially from those wise and esteemed men who wrote about them, Philo and Josephus, and many others.

And if any of those who are accustomed to contradict rashly should say that these books belong not to us but to the Jews, because they are still preserved even now in their synagogues, and should say that we claim in vain to have learned religion from them, let him know, from the very things written in the books, that the teaching from them concerns not them but us. That the books relating to our religion are still preserved even now among the Jews has been a work of divine providence on our behalf. For lest, by producing them from the church, we should give those who wish to slander us a pretext for (charging us with) tampering, we ask that they be produced from the synagogue of the Jews, so that from the very books still preserved among them it may appear clearly and plainly that the righteous (teachings) written by the holy men for instruction belong to us.