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But we need not determine from what source he learned these things,
whether it was from the books of the ancients who preceded him, or, as
is more likely, from the words of the apostle: "Because that which
is known of God, has been manifested among them, for God hath
manifested it to them. For His invisible things from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood by those things which have
been made, also His eternal power and Godhead." From whatever
source he may have derived this knowledge, then, I think I have made
it sufficiently plain that I have not chosen the Platonic philosophers
undeservedly as the parties with whom to discuss; because the question
we have just taken up concerns the natural theology, the question,
namely, whether sacred rites are to be performed to one God, or to
many, for the sake of the happiness which is to be after death. I
have specially chosen them because their juster thoughts concerning the
one God who made heaven and earth, have made them illustrious among
philosophers. This has given them such superiority to all others in
the judgment of posterity, that, though Aristotle, the disciple of
Plato, a man of eminent abilities, inferior in eloquence to Plato,
yet far superior to many in that respect, had rounded the Peripatetic
sect, so called because they were in the habit of walking about during
their disputations, and though he had, through the greatness of his
fame, gathered very many disciples into his school, even during the
life of his master; and though Plato at his death was succeeded in his
school, which was called the Academy, by Speusippus, his sister's
son, and Xenocrates, his beloved disciple, who, together with their
successors, were called from this name of the school, Academics;
nevertheless the most illustrious recent philosophers, who have chosen
to follow Plato, have been unwilling to be called Peripatetics, or
Academics, but have preferred the name of Platonists. Among these
were the renowned Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Porphyry, who were
Greeks, and the African Apuleius, who was learned both in the
Greek and Latin tongues. All these, however, and the rest who were
of the same school, and also Plato himself, thought that sacred rites
ought to be performed in honor of many gods.
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