Hortatory Address to the Greeks

But some people, unwilling to give up their long-held errors, claim they received the teachings of their religion not from those previously mentioned, but from those esteemed as the most renowned philosophers among them: Plato and Aristotle. They assert that these philosophers have discovered the perfect and true religion.

However, I would like to ask, first of all, from whom they claim these men learned this knowledge, because it’s impossible for men who haven’t learned such great and divine matters from others who knew them, to understand them or teach them correctly.

Secondly, I think we should examine the opinions of these philosophers. For we will see whether each of them doesn’t plainly contradict the other. If we find that even they don’t agree with each other, it’s easy to see they too are ignorant. For Plato, with the authority of one who claims to have descended from above and has seen all that is in heaven, states that the most high God exists in a fiery substance.

But Aristotle, in a book addressed to Alexander the Great, clearly contradicts Plato, saying that God does not exist in a fiery substance.

Instead, he invents a fifth substance, some kind of ethereal and unchangeable matter, claiming that God exists in it.

Thus, he wrote: "Not, as some of those who have erred regarding the Deity say, that God exists in a fiery substance." Then, as if dissatisfied with this rejection of Plato's view, he further attempts to prove his idea about the ethereal body by citing as a witness him whom Plato had banished from his republic as a liar and imitation of the truth three times removed, for that is how Plato refers to Homer.

Aristotle wrote, "Thus at least did Homer speak, ‘And Zeus obtained the wide heaven in the air and the clouds,’" trying to lend his own opinion more credibility with Homer's testimony, not realizing that if he used Homer to prove he spoke truthfully, many of his beliefs would be shown to be false. For Thales of Miletus, the founder of their philosophy, will contradict Aristotle's initial opinions about first principles. Aristotle himself, having said that God and matter are the first principles of all things, is contradicted by Thales, the eldest of their sages, who claims that water is the first principle of everything.

He argues that all things come from water and eventually return to it. Thales bases this on the fact that the seed of all living creatures, which is their first principle, is moist, and because all plants grow and bear fruit in moisture but wither without it.

Then, as if still unsatisfied with his reasoning, he cites Homer as a most trustworthy source, who said: “Ocean, who is the origin of everything.”