Chapter III. On the Doctrines of Aristotle, Who Was at Variance With the Hebrews and Plato Concerning the Final Good

WHEREAS Moses and the Hebrew prophets laid it down that the perfection of a happy life is the knowledge of the God of all the world and friendship with Him accomplished by piety, and taught that true piety is the pleasing God by every virtue (because this is the source of blessings, for all things depend on God only, and all are procured from Him for the friends of God), and whereas Plato gives definitions agreeing with these, and declares virtue to be the perfection of happiness, Aristotle took the other path, and says that no one can be happy otherwise than through bodily pleasure and abundance of outward means, without which even virtue cannot profit. How the friends of Plato opposed him and refuted the falseness of his opinion, we may learn from what follows: [1]