(1) The prudent [i. e. the wise] man will especially become so as follows: In the first place, being naturally sagacious, possessing a good memory, and being a lover of labor, he should exercise his dianoetic power immediately from his youth in reasonings and disciplines, and in accurate theories, and adhere to genuine philosophy. But after this he should acquire knowledge and experience in what pertains to the Gods, the laws, and human lives. For there are two things from which the disposition of prudence is produced; one of which consists in obtaining a mathematical and gnostic habit; but the other, in a man perceiving by himself many theorems and things, and understanding other things through a certain different mode. For neither is he sufficient to the possession of prudence, who immediately from his youth has exercised his dianoetic power in reasonings and disciplines; nor he who being destitute of these, has heard and has been conversant with a multitude of things.

But the latter will have his dianoetic power blind, through judging of particulars; and the former through always surveying universals. For as in computations the amount of the whole is obtained by the addition of the parts, thus also in things, reason is able to delineate the theory of universals; but experience has the power of forming a judgment of particulars.

(1) Every virtue is perfected, as was shown by us in the beginning, from reason, deliberate choice, and power. Each of these, however, is not by itself a part of virtue, but the cause of it. Such therefore, as have the intellective and gnostic part of virtue , are denominated skilful and intelligent; but such as have the ethical and pre-elective part of it, are denominated useful and equitable. Since however, man is naturally adapted to act unjustly from exciting causes; and these are three, the love of pleasure in corporeal enjoyments; avarice, in the accumulation of wealth; and ambition, in surpassing those that are equal and similar to him;—this being the case, it is necessary to know, that it is possible to oppose to these such things as procure fear, shame, and desire in men; viz. fear through the laws, shame through the Gods, and desire through the energies of reason. Hence, it is necessary that youth should be taught from the first to honor the Gods and the laws. For from these, it will be manifest, that every human work, and every kind of human life, by the participation of sanctity and piety, will sail prosperously [over the sea of generation].

(9) ’Tis mind that all things sees and hears;

What else exists is deaf and blind.

But the precept which is next to this in efficacy is that which exhorts to be beyond measure studious of purifying the intellect, and by various methods adapting it through mathematical orgies to receive something divinely beneficial, so as neither to fear a separation from body, nor, when led to incorporeal natures, to be forced to turn away the eyes, through their most refulgent splendor, nor to be converted to those passions which nail and fasten the soul to the body. And, in short, which urges the soul to be untamed by all those passions which are the progeny of the realms of generation, and which draw it to an inferior condition of being. For the exercise and ascent through all these, is the study of the most perfect fortitude. And such are the instances adduced by us of the fortitude of Pythagoras, and the Pythagoreans.

(2) But if any one should say that we introduce in so doing a confusion, in disparagement of the distinction which befits God, we do not think that such a statement as this is itself sufficient to convince that it is true. For, if there is any one who has placed himself entirely in opposition to the Oracles, he will be also entirely apart from our. philosophy; and, if he has no care for the divine Wisdom of the Oracles, how shall we care for his guidance to the theological science? But, if he regards the truth of the Oracles, we also, using this canon and illumination, will advance unwaveringly to the answer, as best we can, by affirming that theology transmits some things as common, but others as distinctive; and neither is it meet to divide the common, nor to confuse the distinctive; but that following It according to our ability, we ought to rise to the Divine splendours; for, by taking thence the Divine revelations, as a most excellent canon of truth, we strive to guard the things lying there, in their native simplicity and integrity and identity--being ourselves guarded in our guard of the Oracles, and from these receiving strength to guard those who guard them.

(2) For it is by these things alone whereby we stand above the rest of animals, that we are able to avoid the snares and crimes of ill. For he who shall on sight have turned from them, before he hath become immeshed in them,—he is a man protected by divine intelligence and [godly] prudence. For that the ground-work of [true] science doth consist of the top-stones of virtue.

(1) COME then, if you please, let us sing the good and eternal Life, both as wise, and as wisdom's self; yea, rather, as sustaining all wisdom, and being superior to all wisdom and understanding. For, not only is Almighty God superfull of wisdom, and of His understanding there is no number, but He is fixed above all reason and mind and wisdom. And, when the truly divine man, the common sun of us, and of our leader, had thought this out, in a sense above nature, he says, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men," (meaning) not only that all human intelligence is a sort of error, when tried by the stability and durability of the Divine and most perfect conceptions, but that it is even usual with the theologians to deny, with respect to God, things of privation, in an opposite sense. Thus, the Oracles declare, the All-luminous Light, invisible, and Him, Who is often sung, and of many names, to be unutterable and without name, and Him, Who is present to all, and is found of all, to be incomprehensible and past finding out. In this very way, even now, the Divine Apostle is said to have celebrated as "foolishness of God," that which appears unexpected and absurd in it, (but) which leads to the truth which is unutterable and before all reason. But, as I elsewhere said, by taking the things above us, in a sense familiar to ourselves, and by being entangled by what is congenial to sensible perceptions, and by comparing things Divine with our own conditions, we are led astray through following the Divine and mystical reason after a mere appearance. We ought to know that our mind has the power for thought, through which it views things intellectual, but that the union through which it is brought into contact with things beyond itself surpasses the nature of the mind. We must then contemplate things Divine, after this Union, not after ourselves, but by our whole selves, standing out of our whole selves, and becoming wholly of God. For it is better to be of God, and not of ourselves. For thus things Divine will, be given to those who become dear to God. Celebrating then, in a superlative sense, this, the irrational and mindless and foolish Wisdom, we affirm that It is Cause of all mind and reason, and all wisdom and understanding; and of It is every counsel, and from It every knowledge and understanding; and in It all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. For, agreeably to the things already spoken, the super-wise, and all-wise Cause is a mainstay even of the self-existing Wisdom, both the universal and the individual.

(1) In what follows, in which you think that ignorance and deception about these things are impiety and impurity, and in which you exhort us to the true developement of these particulars, is not, indeed, attended with any ambiguity, but is acknowledged by all men. For who will not grant that the science which apprehends real being, is most adapted to a divine cause, but that ignorance which is hurried along to nonbeing, since it is most remote from a divine cause, falls off from truly existing forms? Since, however, what is said by you is not sufficient, I will add what is wanting; and because what you assert is rather philosophical and logical, than conformable to the efficacious art of priests, on this account I think it is necessary to say something more theurgical about these particulars.

(3) “Archytas therefore, in the beginning of his Treatise on Wisdom, exhorts to the possession of it as follows:

1. “Wisdom as much excels in all human affairs as the sight does the [other] corporeal senses, intellect the soul, and the sun the stars. For the sight is the most far-darting, and the most multiform of all the senses; intellect is the supreme part of the soul, judging by reason and dianoïa what is fit, and existing as the sight and power of the most honorable things; and the sun is the eye and soul of things which have a natural subsistence. For through it all things become visible, are generated, and rise into existence. Deriving also their roots, and being generated from thence, they are nourished, increased and excited by it in conjunction with sense.