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Hortatory Address to the Greeks
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Chapter 4: Views of Pythagoras and Epicurus.
THEN: in regular succession from another starting point, Pythagoras the Samian, son of Mnesarchus, calls numbers, with their proportions and harmonies, and the elements composed of both, the first principles; and he includes also unity and the indefinite binary. Epicurus, an Athenian, the son of Neocles, says that the first principles of the things that exist are bodies perceptible by reason, admitting no vacuity, unbegotten, indestructible, which can neither be broken, nor admit of any formation of their parts, nor alteration, and are therefore perceptible by reason.
Empedocles of Agrigentum, son of Meton, maintained that there were four elements—fire, air, water, earth; and two elementary powers—love and hate, of which the former is a power of union, the latter of separation. You see, then, the confusion of those who are considered by you to have been wise men, whom you claim to be your teachers of religion: some of them declaring that water is the first principle of all things; others, air; others, fire; and others, some other of these aforementioned elements; and all of them using persuasive arguments to establish their own errors and attempting to prove their own peculiar beliefs to be the most valuable.
These things were said by them. How then, people of Greece, can it be safe for those who wish to be saved to think that they can learn the true religion from these philosophers, who were neither able so to convince themselves as to prevent sectarian wrangling with one another, and not to appear definitely opposed to each other’s opinions?