concerning the one true God, nevertheless thought that sacred
rites were to be performed in honour of many gods._
But we need not determine from what source he learned these
things,--whether it was from the books of the ancients who preceded
him, or, as is more likely, from the words of the apostle: "Because
that which is known of God has been manifested among them, for
God hath manifested it to them. For His invisible things from
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by
those things which have been made, also His eternal power and
Godhead."[306] From whatever source he may have derived this
knowledge, then, I think I have made it sufficiently plain that
I have not chosen the Platonic philosophers undeservedly as the
parties with whom to discuss; because the question we have just
taken up concerns the natural theology,--the question, namely,
whether sacred rites are to be performed to one God, or to many,
for the sake of the happiness which is to be after death. I have
specially chosen them because their juster thoughts concerning the
one God who made heaven and earth, have made them illustrious among
philosophers. This has given them such superiority to all others
in the judgment of posterity, that, though Aristotle, the disciple
of Plato, a man of eminent abilities, inferior in eloquence to
Plato, yet far superior to many in that respect, had founded the
Peripatetic sect,--so called because they were in the habit of
walking about during their disputations,--and though he had, through
the greatness of his fame, gathered very many disciples into his
school, even during the life of his master; and though Plato at his
death was succeeded in his school, which was called the Academy, by
Speusippus, his sister's son, and Xenocrates, his beloved disciple,
who, together with their successors, were called from this name of
the school, Academics; nevertheless the most illustrious recent
philosophers, who have chosen to follow Plato, have been unwilling to
be called Peripatetics, or Academics, but have preferred the name of
Platonists. Among these were the renowned Plotinus, Iamblichus, and
Porphyry, who were Greeks, and the African Apuleius, who was learned
both in the Greek and Latin tongues. All these, however, and the rest
who were of the same school, and also Plato himself, thought that
sacred rites ought to be performed in honour of many gods.