On the Philosophers Who Flourished in or About the Time of Alexander the Great
Aristotle, Alexander’s Teacher
First, concerning Aristotle, who was Alexander’s teacher. As Eusebius says in the Chronicles, Aristotle became Plato’s pupil at the age of eighteen. Augustine testifies in book 8 of The City of God: “This Aristotle, a disciple of Plato, was a man of excellent intellect. Although inferior to Plato in eloquence, he easily surpassed many others. He founded the Peripatetic school, so called because he was accustomed to dispute while walking. While his teacher was still alive, his eminent fame gathered very many disciples into his own school.”
Seneca says of him in Letter 65: “Aristotle thinks that ‘cause’ is spoken of in three ways: matter, maker, and the form imposed upon each thing, that is, its idea. He adds a fourth cause, the purpose of the artisan—that which invited the artisan to make the work, such as money, glory, or religion.”
Valerius says that Aristotle taught that a man ought to speak about himself on neither side, since to praise oneself belongs to the vain and to condemn oneself to the foolish.
Aristotle also said: “It is a most useful precept to consider pleasures as they are when departing, for it presents them to our minds exhausted and full of repentance, so that they may be sought again less eagerly.”
According to Vincent, Aristotle also said that poverty suffered only one disadvantage: it could not come to the aid of the needy. When Alexander asked under whose teaching he professed himself learned, he answered, “Under the things themselves, which do not know how to lie.”
These sayings also belong to him:
“We should never be more reverent than when the gods are under discussion.”
“It belongs to a good man neither to know how to suffer an injury nor to commit one. An injury unjustly inflicted is the disgrace of the one who does it.”
“If people had the eyes of lynxes, so that their sight penetrated obstructions, would not even the most beautiful body appear most ugly when its inward organs were inspected?”
To this saying Boethius adds in book 3 of The Consolation of Philosophy: “Therefore it is not your nature but the weakness of the beholders’ eyes that makes you appear beautiful.”
Likewise Aristotle said: “Victory against our enemies is to be sought within our own walls.”
Valerius says concerning him: “Aristotle, scarcely preserving the last remains of life in aged and wrinkled limbs amid the most complete leisure of literary study, applied himself so vigorously to the preservation of his homeland that, while lying upon his bed in Athens, he snatched it from the hands of the Macedonians to whom it had been subjected, though hostile arms had leveled it to the ground. Thus the city is known not so much as the work of Alexander, by whom it was cast down and overturned, as of Aristotle, by whom it was restored.”
Augustine says in book 9 of The City of God: “Some say that disturbances of the soul fall upon the wise, that is, the virtuous man, but are moderated and subjected to reason, so that the rule of the mind imposes laws upon them and reduces them to the necessary measure. This is the opinion of the Platonists or Aristotelians, that is, the Peripatetics. The Stoics, however, think that no disturbances at all fall upon the wise man.”
Cicero says that in this matter the Stoics contend with the Peripatetics more in words than in substance. Hence Aulus Gellius says that he read in a book of Zeno and Chrysippus, the leaders of the Stoics, that the Stoics held the following opinion: impressions of the soul, which they call appearances, are not within our power as to whether or when they fall upon the mind. When they arise from terrible and fearsome things, they necessarily move even the wise man’s mind, so that for a little while he either trembles or contracts through fear or sadness, as though those passions anticipated the office of mind and reason.
Nevertheless, an opinion that the thing is evil is not thereby formed in his mind; it is neither approved by him nor assented to. This, they maintain, is within his power. They wish the difference between the mind of the wise man and that of the fool to be this: the fool’s mind yields to those passions and accommodates the mind’s assent to them, whereas the wise man, although he suffers them by necessity, nevertheless preserves with an unshaken mind a true and stable judgment about what should rationally be sought or avoided. Thus Augustine.
These matters have been introduced at such length because Aristotle was the leader of the Peripatetic school.
Aristotle wrote a very great number of books in the art of logic, which are in common use: the Categories, On Interpretation, the Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics, the Sophistical Refutations, and the Topics. In physics, that is, natural science, he published the books of the Physics, On Generation and Corruption, On the Soul, On Sense and What Is Sensed, On Memory and Recollection, On Sleep and Waking, On Death and Life, On Plants, and On Animals. According to some, he also wrote On the Four Elements, as well as the Meteorology and the Metaphysics. There also survives another book called Aristotle’s Perspective, and his book of Rhetoric.
His books and teaching are used more than those of other philosophers because he wrote in a more orderly and concise fashion than the rest. He also appears to have erred less than others and to disagree less with matters of faith. Nevertheless, the ancient holy doctors were more deeply imbued with Platonic teachings.
He also wrote books on moral philosophy: the Ethics, Politics, and Economics. These do not disagree with the morals of Christian life, although they do not contain them fully. Nothing there treats the faith, hope, and charity of believers, or penance, or grace.
Some notable sayings from book 1 of his Ethics follow:
“The good is what all things seek, and every act of knowledge and every deliberate intention desires some good.”
“We call that which is sought for its own sake more perfect than that which is chosen for the sake of something else. Happiness appears above all to be such a thing, for we choose it for itself and not for something else.”
“Activities in accordance with virtue possess a certain pleasure within themselves.”
Likewise: “Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue.”
Likewise: “All honorable things accord with reason.”
From book 2 of the Ethics:
“Virtues arise neither from nature nor contrary to nature. Rather, the capacity to receive them is innate in us, and we are perfected through habit.”
“From similar acts similar acts [read: habits] arise, and differences in habits follow differences in acts.”
Likewise: “Discourse concerning particulars does not possess certainty, for they fall under neither art nor rule. The things with which virtue is concerned are naturally corrupted by excess and deficiency. A person who takes every pleasure and withdraws from none is incontinent; one who flees every pleasure is insensible. Chastity and courage are therefore destroyed by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.”
“Pleasure or sadness in one’s works ought to be taken as the sign of a habit. Whoever withdraws from bodily pleasures and rejoices in that very thing is chaste; but whoever is saddened by it is incontinent.”
Likewise: “It is exceedingly difficult to repel the passion of pleasure, which, as Heraclitus says, is coeval with life. Art and virtue are always concerned with what is most difficult.”
“In things done according to virtue, one must ask in what condition the agent acts. First, whether he acts knowingly; second, whether willingly; and third, whether firmly and immutably. For possessing the other arts, these things are not reckoned except knowledge. To possess the virtues, however, knowing profits little or nothing; for the other arts it profits not a little but everything.”
Likewise: “There are three things in the soul: passions, powers, and habits. Virtue will be one of these. Passions are neither virtues nor vices, for we are not called good or evil according to our passions, nor are we praised or blamed according to them. But according to virtues or vices we are called good or evil and are praised or blamed. Passions such as anger and fear are involuntary, whereas virtues are voluntary or at least not without will.
“For the same reason, virtues are not powers. We are not called good or evil simply because we are capable of suffering passions, nor are we praised or blamed for that. We possess these powers by nature, but are not good by nature. It remains, therefore, that every virtue is a habit. Whatever possesses its virtue well is thereby perfected and renders its work good.”
Likewise: “There are many ways to sin but one way to act rightly; therefore the former is easy and the latter difficult. It is easy to miss the mark but difficult to hit it. Vice therefore belongs to excess and deficiency, but virtue to the mean. The good is simple, but evil takes every form.
“Virtue, then, is a voluntary habit that consists immediately [read: in a mean] relative to us, determined by reason as the wise man would determine it. It is the mean between two vices, one through excess and the other through deficiency. For virtue concerns passions and actions in which excess is blamed and defect condemned, but the mean is praised and loved.”
Likewise: “It is difficult to be good; indeed, to find the mean is difficult. For example, not everyone but only one who knows can find the center of a circle. In the same way anyone can become angry and give money, but not everyone can determine to whom, when, how much, for what reason, and in what manner. Nor is this easy. Yet this is good, rare, and praiseworthy.
“Therefore one who aims at the mean ought first to separate himself from the more contrary extreme and ought to pull in the opposite direction. By withdrawing far from sin we come to the mean, as those who straighten bent wood do. In everything, however, what is pleasing and pleasure itself must especially be guarded against.”
In book 3: “The good man judges particulars correctly because he sees the truth in each. He exists as their rule and measure. Deception comes to the evil through pleasure.”
Likewise, in the Topics: “What is more lasting or more certain is more eligible than what possesses these qualities less.”
“What the prudent man, the good man, a right law, or those recognized as diligent in particular matters choose is more eligible, insofar as such persons seek the good.”
“What is such for its own sake is more eligible than what is such for the sake of another. What is nearer the end is likewise more eligible, and in every case what pertains to the end of life is more desirable; the possible is more desirable than the impossible.”
“That whose consequence is a greater good or a lesser evil is preferable, as are more goods to fewer. Where one thing is for the sake of the other, neither both together nor the one is thereby more eligible.”
“Each thing is more eligible at the time when it has greater force—for example, prudence in old age. No one chooses youths as leaders, because it is not established that they are prudent. Temperance, however, is more eligible in youth, for youths are troubled by desires more than old men.”
“What is nearer to the good is better and more eligible. What is more like the good and the better is also more eligible, provided that it resembles it in that which is better.”
Likewise: “What is more difficult is more eligible, for when we possess it we love more what is not easily acquired.”
“Sometimes even better things are not to be chosen. Philosophizing is better than becoming rich, but it is not more eligible for a needy person.”
“What is useful for all things or for more things is more eligible than what is not.”
§ I. The Philosopher Apuleius
According to Hugh of Fleury in his History, Apuleius succeeded Plato, and the Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Trismegistus, succeeded Apuleius.
In the book that he wrote On the God of Socrates, Apuleius says: “Among prudent men, judgment is commonly stricter concerning carefully wrought works, but pardon more generous concerning sudden things. Nothing can be both hastened and examined, nor is there anything that can possess both the praise of diligence and the favor of speed.”
Describing human beings, he says: “Human beings rejoice in reason and are powerful in speech, but possess immortal souls and dying limbs, flighty and anxious minds, dull and vulnerable bodies, dissimilar customs and similar errors, obstinate boldness, persistent hope, fruitless labor, fleeting fortune; individually mortal, swift in time, slow in wisdom, and quick in death. Association breeds contempt, while silence wins admiration.”
Concerning demons he says: “Demons are animals in kind, rational in intellect, subject to passions in soul, airy in body, and eternal in time. Certain of them creep through alleys and gather counsels not from their own heart but from the words of others. If I may say so, they think not with their mind but with their ears.”
“Nothing is more pleasing and more like God than a man perfectly good in mind, who excels the rest. In certain people it is astonishing that they neglect to learn the very things they least wish to appear not to know. They disparage both the teaching and the ignorance of the same art.”
“We commonly examine rich men in the same way that we purchase horses. In buying horses, we do not consider the trappings but the horse itself, naked and alone: whether it is comely in appearance, vigorous in running, and strong in carrying. So too in examining human beings, do not esteem those things that belong to another; consider the man himself. Look upon him as you would upon my poor Socrates. I call those things alien that parents beget and fortune bestows, such as lineage and riches that provoke envy.” Thus Apuleius.
What he says about demons being animals with airy bodies is false, unless it is understood of those times when they appear in bodies formed from air and afterward dismiss them. By their nature they have no bodies.
§ II. The Philosopher Hermes Trismegistus, or Mercury
Hermes the philosopher, who is called Trismegistus and Mercury, wrote a book On the Perfect Word. Vincent extracted these passages from it in book 5 of the Historical Mirror:
“The Lord and maker of all things made a second Lord of the gods. He made this one first, only, true, and good; he appeared to him full of every good thing, and he rejoiced. This is the Son of the blessed God and of good will, whose name cannot be uttered by a human mouth. From the one God comes the Lord of all things, while God rules mortals. He whom no one can completely discover is above all. God loved this one as his only-begotten Son.” Thus Hermes.
Vincent adds: “These words of Mercury, who is also Hermes, appear in part to agree with our faith concerning the Father and Son. But they disagree in saying that God made God; he ought to have said ‘begot.’ This does not cause a great obstacle, however, because in Scripture also the Son of God is called ‘made,’ and this is explained as ‘begotten.’ Thus in John 1 the Baptist says of Christ, ‘After me comes one who was made before me,’ that is, begotten by the Father.
“His statement that the Son is second to the Father does not mean that the Son is later in time or dignity, but only that he is under the Father’s authority, since the Father is the source of the Son. That the Son is the source of the Holy Spirit and of all things, he possesses from the Father.”
Hermes also wrote two books on astrology, in which he attempts to affirm a fated configuration of the stars and to answer those who deny and reject it. According to Augustine in book 5 of The City of God, this must be understood as follows: it is not altogether absurd to say that certain sidereal influences have power only over differences of times. The wills of souls, however, are not subject to the positions of the stars.
Although the constellations under which a person is born can incline the sensitive faculty, which is attached to a bodily organ, toward vicious passions, the will always remains free to assent or dissent. Hence Ptolemy says: “A wise man will rule the stars.”
Another book of Mercury addressed to Asclepius also survives. Vincent extracted the following passages from it:
“If through understanding God you see him, your whole mind will be filled with every good, provided that goods are many and not one in which they all exist, for one is recognized as agreeing with another. That all things are one, or that the one is all things, is philosophy alone—frequent contemplation in knowing divinity and holy religion.
“To worship divinity with a simple mind, to venerate his works, and to give thanks to the will of God, which alone is the fullest goodness: this is philosophy, violated by no troublesome curiosity of the soul.
“Man alone among animals is twofold. One part of him is simple, which we call the form of divine likeness; his humanity is always mindful of its nature and origin and perseveres in imitation of divinity.
“Eternity is immovable, and within it the motion of all times takes its beginning. Whatever belongs to movable time is always called back into eternity, and thus eternity remains stable under a fixed law of motion.
“God is Lord of all; all things are from him, in him, and through him. We therefore worship him by giving thanks. These are the highest intentions of God: that thanks be rendered by mortal human beings in adoration, praise, and obedience. Heavenly beings delight in heaven. We ask with most pious prayers, if it pleases the Lord’s goodness, that he free us from worldly custody and restore us to the nature of the higher part.”
From this comes the reward for those who live piously with the world under God. Thus Hermes. Although this man was an unbeliever, he nevertheless spoke these things faithfully and truthfully, just as the Lord spoke true things through the ass of the diviner Balaam.
§ III. The Platonist Philosopher Plotinus
There was also another Platonist philosopher named Plotinus, according to Vincent in book 5, chapter 8 of the Historical Mirror. Augustine reports in The City of God that this notable saying was his: “We must flee to our most radiant homeland; there all things will lie open to you.”
Mercury says concerning him: “What parts of philosophy did Plotinus, that singular philosopher, not reach? The distinctions of his life followed his teaching, since he demonstrated what he taught by an example of virtue not another’s but his own.
“That man was composed for every ornament of the virtues and strengthened by zeal for every divine disputation: just, courageous, prudent, temperate, and one who believed that by reasoned foresight he could overcome the assaults of fortune. He therefore chose a place for a quiet abode so that, separated from every noise of human society, he might free himself from fortune’s envy. He would devote himself only to the distinctions of divine instruction and arm himself against every threat of fortune with virtue as an intact and uncorrupted defense.
“Raised up by this confidence of mind, he also undertook the care and preservation of his body. For the location of his pleasing residence he chose the soil of a city in Campania, where the air’s always tranquil moderation sustained all the inhabitants in wholesome vigor. There was neither the force of winter nor the burning of the sun, but a temperate climate composed and moderated from both. There also, for people laboring under some illness, health was restored by the wholesome comfort of immense hot springs and boiling waters.
“Once settled there, he first despised distinguished honors, thinking the true honors to be those that the divine governance of providence had conferred upon him. No desires for riches took possession of him; rather, he thought those the true riches with which an adorned mind could discover the authority of its own origin.
“In one part of his discourse he attacked the power of fatal necessity and severely chastised those who feared the decrees of fortune. He attributed nothing to the power of the stars, reserved nothing to the necessities of fate, but said that everything was placed within our power.
“At last, although he had been established in such secure confidence, the power of fate laid hold of him. First his limbs grew cold as the blood stiffened in his body, and the keenness of his eyes gradually lost the diminished splendor of its light. Afterward a plague nourished by fluids erupted throughout his skin, so that as his limbs failed, his putrid body wasted toward death through the corruption of his blood.” Thus Mercury.
Augustine says in The City of God: “If anyone calls divine providence ‘fate,’ let him preserve his meaning but correct his language.” This is understood as follows: if “fate” means divine providence, everything is infallibly subject to it. Nevertheless, the language should be corrected so that we do not use the word “fate,” because the gentiles took it otherwise and wrongly: namely, as the influence of the constellations or some other thing necessitating free will toward what it does. This is false.
Accordingly Gregory says: “Far be it from the hearts of the faithful that they should believe fate to be anything.”
Likewise, if that effect whose proximate cause is unknown is said to happen by fortune, it is not meant that some things happen by fortune. Thus someone digging the earth to cultivate a field may find a treasure. But if something is said to happen by fortune in the sense that it escapes divine providence, it is false that anything happens by fortune. Certain gentiles understood it in this way.
Plotinus perhaps erred in this respect, because he trusted too greatly in the power of his own will, thinking that by his own virtue he could remain healthy and good.
Macrobius says concerning him in his book On the Dream of Scipio: “Plotinus, who wrote on the virtues, said that there are four kinds of virtues.
“He calls the first political virtues. It belongs to their prudence to direct, according to the standard of reason, everything one thinks and does and to will or do nothing except what is right. It belongs to courage to raise the mind above fear of danger, to fear no shameful things [read: to fear nothing except shameful things], and bravely to endure adversity and prosperity. It belongs to temperance to seek nothing that must be regretted, never to exceed the law of moderation, and to tame desire beneath the yoke of reason. It belongs to justice to preserve for each person what is his. A man possessing such virtues is made first ruler of himself and then of the commonwealth.
“The second virtues, which he calls purgative, belong to a man capable of divine things and prepare his soul alone. He has resolved to cleanse himself from bodily contagion and, through a certain flight from human affairs, to insert himself into divine things alone. These are the virtues of those devoted to duty who separate themselves from the activities of commonwealths. What each of these virtues intends we expressed elsewhere when speaking of the virtues of philosophers, which they indeed considered the only virtues.
“The third virtues belong to the soul already purified and cleansed, thoroughly and purely wiped clean of every stain of this world. There it belongs to prudence not to prefer divine things as though choosing them, but to know them alone and to look upon this as though nothing else existed. It belongs to temperance not merely to repress earthly desires but entirely to forget them. It belongs to courage not to conquer the passions but to be ignorant of them, so that one does not know how to become angry and desires nothing. It belongs to justice to be so associated with the supreme and divine mind that by imitating it the soul maintains an everlasting covenant with it.
“The fourth virtues are those that exist in the divine mind itself, which are called nous. From their exemplar all the others flow down in order. If ideas of other things are believed to exist in the divine mind, much more must the ideas of the virtues be believed to exist there. There prudence is the divine mind itself. Temperance is that the mind is turned toward itself in perpetual intention. Courage is that it is always the same and is never imitated [read: never changes]. Justice is that it does not bend from the everlasting law and perpetual continuation of its work.
“These four kinds, each containing four virtues, differ greatly in relation to the passions by which human beings fear and desire, grieve and rejoice. The first soften them; the second remove them; the third forget them; in the fourth it is impious even to name them.” Thus Macrobius.
Concerning these virtues and others, however, you have material above in the fourth part of the Summa, in the first title generally and afterward concerning each one specifically.
§ IV. Anaximenes and Epicurus
In those same times of Alexander the Great, Epicurus and Anaximenes were considered illustrious. Vincent says in book 5, chapter 39, that this Anaximenes was not the philosopher who was the disciple of Anaximander, but the orator who was Alexander the Great’s teacher in the art of rhetoric. Some believe that he wrote the anonymous History of Alexander.
Valerius relates this story about him. When Alexander was moving violently to destroy the city of Lampsacus, his teacher Anaximenes advanced beyond the walls and met him. Knowing that Anaximenes would oppose his prayers to him, Alexander swore that he would not do anything that he requested. “I ask, then,” Anaximenes said, “that you destroy Lampsacus.” Thus the salvation of one city was obtained through the beneficial use of a shipwrecked oath.
Although Epicurus himself, as Jerome says, had not learned letters and, according to Boethius, did not know the art of disputation, many excellent sayings are nevertheless reported from him, as are other most evil errors, as will appear.
Tertullian says concerning him: “Epicurus despises every torment and pain, declaring a slight one contemptible and a great one not long-lasting.”
Jerome says against Jovinian concerning him: “Epicurus, the advocate of pleasure, although his disciple Metrodorus had Leontion as wife, nevertheless says that a wise man should rarely enter marriage, because many disadvantages are mingled with matrimony. Just as riches, honors, bodily health, and the other things that we call indifferent are neither good nor evil but, being placed as it were in the middle, become good or evil by use and outcome, so too wives stand on the border of good and evil. It is a serious thing for a wise man to enter into doubt whether he is going to marry a good or evil wife.”
The same Jerome says in book 2 against Jovinian that what is astonishing is that Epicurus, the advocate of pleasure, filled all his children with vegetables and fruits, saying that one should live on cheap foods. Meat and elaborate banquets, prepared with immense care and misery, have greater pain in their acquisition than pleasure in their consumption. Our bodies require only food and drink, such as water and bread and things similar to these, so that nature may be satisfied. Whatever exceeds these things pertains not to the necessity of life but to the vice of pleasure. Nor can we devote ourselves to wisdom if we think about abundance at table, which requires excessive labor and care.
Seneca also extracted the following from the more elegant sayings of Epicurus in his books:
“Cheerful poverty is an honorable thing; but if it is cheerful, it is not poverty.”
“We are a sufficiently great theater for one another.”
“No one departs from life except as though he had just entered it.”
“He to whom his possessions do not appear most abundant is nevertheless wretched, even if he is lord of the whole world.”
“We ought to choose some good man and keep him always before our eyes, so that we may live as though he were watching and do everything as though he saw it.”
“If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to opinion, you will never be rich. Nature desires little; opinion, an immeasurable amount.”
“For many, the acquisition of riches was not the end of miseries but an imitation of them [read: a change of them].”
“We should consider with whom we eat and drink before considering what we eat and drink. For without a friend, feasting is the life of a lion or wolf.”
“If you wish to make someone rich, you must not add to his money but subtract from his desire.”
“It is ridiculous to run toward death from weariness of life.”
“Knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.”
“Meditate upon death.”
“Immoderate anger begets madness.”
“Neither eating together, drinking parties, intercourse with women, nor an abundance of fish and other things of this kind prepared for splendid use makes the life of a banquet pleasant, but sober conversation.”
“Those who do not seek banquet provisions immoderately use them with moderation, for many troubles arise from luxurious feasts.”
These are among the sayings of Epicurus.
But he erred in many things more than all other philosophers. Lactantius says in his Institutes that he thought and said there was no providence of God, for he believed that God did not care about human affairs but remained idle and did nothing. He said that pleasure was the highest good and that souls perished with bodies.
He had, and still has, many followers, because fools—whose number is infinite, as Ecclesiastes 1 says—are devoted to sensible things and are more inclined to follow the impulse of sensuality than the reason of intellect, and bodily delights more than those of the soul.
Speaking in their person, Solomon says that there is nothing better than to eat and drink and display the good things of one’s life, and similar things. Such people say in Wisdom 2: “The time of our life is short and full of weariness, and no one is known to have returned from the lower regions. After this we shall be as though we had not been,” and so forth. “Let us therefore enjoy good things and swiftly use the creature in our youth. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. Let there be no meadow through which our luxury does not pass,” and so forth.
But afterward it is added: “These things they thought, and they were mistaken, for their wickedness blinded them.” As it is written in the same place, when set in hell and groaning they say, “What has profited us?” and so forth.
Seneca answers Epicurus’s first error in book 4 of On Benefits, especially where Epicurus denies that the world is ruled by divine providence. He says: “You, Epicurus, make God defenseless. You have stripped him of all weapons and every power and, so that he might be feared by no one, you have cast him beyond fear. Therefore you have no reason to fear this god, enclosed by a vast and impenetrable wall and separated from the contact and sight of mortals. There is no material there for either giving or harming. Abandoned in the middle interval between this heaven and another, without animal or human being, why do you worship him?
“‘Because,’ you say, ‘of his majesty and his excellent and singular nature.’ Granting this to you, you plainly do it induced by no price and no hope. Therefore there is something to be sought for its own sake, to which its own dignity leads you.” Thus Seneca.
Lactantius likewise answers in his book On the Workmanship of the Human Body. Cicero answers Epicurus’s second error in On Duties. The same author answers the third in On the Republic and On Old Age, but Augustine does so much more fully and perfectly in The City of God, as does Thomas in the book Against the Gentiles.
From these thorny thickets of the gentiles, therefore, learn to pluck the rose of truth and leave the thorns of falsehood. Observe also what the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 9, following Jeremiah: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this: to understand and know me.”
Neither broad dominion profited Alexander the Great, nor power and riches Darius, nor their wisdom the philosophers. They were destroyed and descended to the lower regions because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God but became foolish.