{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>In the time of our prophets, then, whose writings had\r\nalready come to the knowledge of almost all nations, the\r\nphilosophers of the nations had not yet arisen,—at least, not\r\nthose who were called by that name, which originated with\r\nPythagoras the Samian, who was becoming famous at the\r\ntime when the Jewish captivity ended. Much more, then,\r\nare the other philosophers found to be later than the prophets.\r\nFor even Socrates the Athenian, the master of all who were\r\nthen most famous, holding the pre-eminence in that department\r\nthat is called the moral or active, is found after Esdras\r\nin the chronicles. Plato also was born not much later, who\r\nfar outwent the other disciples of Socrates. If, besides these,\r\nwe take their predecessors, who had not yet been styled\r\nphilosophers, to wit, the seven sages, and then the physicists,\r\nwho succeeded Thales, and imitated his studious search into\r\nthe nature of things, namely, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and\r\nAnaxagoras, and some others, before Pythagoras first professed\r\nhimself a philosopher, even these did not precede the\r\nwhole of our prophets in antiquity of time, since Thales,\r\nwhom the others succeeded, is said to have flourished in the\r\nreign of Romulus, when the stream of prophecy burst forth\r\nfrom the fountains of Israel in those writings which spread\r\nover the whole world. So that only those theological poets,\r\nOrpheus, Linus, and Musæus, and, it may be, some others<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_264\">[Pg 264]</a></span>\r\namong the Greeks, are found earlier in date than the Hebrew\r\nprophets whose writings we hold as authoritative. But not\r\neven these preceded in time our true divine, Moses, who\r\nauthentically preached the one true God, and whose writings\r\nare first in the authoritative canon; and therefore the Greeks,\r\nin whose tongue the literature of this age chiefly appears, have\r\nno ground for boasting of their wisdom, in which our religion,\r\nwherein is true wisdom, is not evidently more ancient at\r\nleast, if not superior. Yet it must be confessed that before\r\nMoses there had already been, not indeed among the Greeks,\r\nbut among barbarous nations, as in Egypt, some doctrine\r\nwhich might be called their wisdom, else it would not have\r\nbeen written in the holy books that Moses was learned in all\r\nthe wisdom of the Egyptians,<a id=\"FNanchor_573_573\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_573_573\">[573]</a> as he was, when, being born\r\nthere, and adopted and nursed by Pharaoh's daughter, he was\r\nalso liberally educated. Yet not even the wisdom of the\r\nEgyptians could be antecedent in time to the wisdom of our\r\nprophets, because even Abraham was a prophet. And what\r\nwisdom could there be in Egypt before Isis had given them\r\nletters, whom they thought fit to worship as a goddess after\r\nher death? Now Isis is declared to have been the daughter\r\nof Inachus, who first began to reign in Argos when the grandsons\r\nof Abraham are known to have been already born.</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK EIGHTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-443"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"852ca31219bfa8c2b46466ccbb3e51402b4eb5ae3c84221861225d6b8141a37b","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"ACT","chapter":7,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Acts vii. 22","verse":22,"verse_end":22}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_573_573","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_573_573","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_573_573\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_573_573\"><span class=\"label\">[573]</span></a> Acts vii. 22.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_573_573","text_sha256":"73486197190323851b191647c0dfaeb90db7b1af1dc7671f3c81ad91ebb99c85","verified":false,"work_id":null}