Chapter I. Preface Concerning the Subject of the Book

PREFACE CONCERNING THE SUBJECT OF THE BOOK.

HAVING described in the preceding Book all that there was to say and to hear about the philosophy of Plato and his agreement with the Hebrew oracles, for which we are struck with admiration of him, and on the other hand concerning his dissent from them, for which no man of good sense could approve him, I will now pass on to the remaining sects of those who have been famed for philosophy among the Greeks.

And in their case again I shall set their lapse from the truth before the eyes of my readers, not in. my own person nor of my own authority, but as before by the testimony of the very words of Greek authors: not indeed from dislike to any of them personally, since I confess that I have a great admiration for them, when I compare the persons with the rest of mankind as men.

But when I compare them with the sacred writers and prophets of the Hebrews, and with God who through them has both uttered predictions of things to come and exhibited marvellous works, nay more, has laid the foundations of instruction in religious learning and true doctrines, I no longer think that any one ought with reason to blame us, if we prefer God before men, and truth itself before human reasonings and conjectures.

All this I have striven to prove in the argument of this present Preparation,as at once an answer and a defence against those who shall inquire, what beauty or majesty we have seen in the writings of the Barbarians, that we have decided to prefer them to our ancestral and noble philosophy, that, I mean, of the Greeks. However, it is time now to let our proof proceed by way of facts.