Hristiyan Din Üzerine: Bilgelik ile Dinin Kadim Birliği

In all generations of men, the same individuals were both philosophers and priests, and this was not without reason. For since the soul can fly to the celestial Father and homeland with two wings, which are the intellect and the will, and since the philosopher proceeds chiefly with the intellect and the priest with the will, it is reasonable that those who first found divine things for themselves through intelligence should also be the first to venerate those divine things rightly, and to teach the correct veneration of them to others. Thus the prophets of the Hebrews devoted themselves to both wisdom and the priesthood together. The philosophers of the Persians, because they were appointed to sacred matters, were called Magi. The Indians consulted their Brahmins, the Egyptians their metaphysicians, the Ethiopians their Gymnosophists. The same custom existed in Greece under Orpheus and Musaeus, and in Gaul under the government of the Druids. O happy ages, which preserved this divine union of wisdom and religion whole! O ages, finally, too miserable, when the union of Pallas and Themis was dissolved, and holy things were given to dogs to tear apart.