(33) Of Skepticism as propounded by Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 B.C.) and by Timon, Sextus Empiricus said that those who seek must find or deny they have found or can find, or persevere in the inquiry. Those who suppose they have found truth are called Dogmatists; those who think it incomprehensible are the Academics; those who still seek are the Skeptics. The attitude of Skepticism towards the knowable is summed up by Sextus Empiricus in the following words: "But the chief ground of Skepticism is that to every reason there is an opposite reason equivalent, which makes us forbear to dogmatize." The Skeptics were strongly opposed to the Dogmatists and were agnostic in that they held the accepted theories regarding Deity to be self-contradictory and undemonstrable. "How," asked the Skeptic, "can we have indubitate knowledge of God, knowing not His substance, form or place; for, while philosophers disagree irreconcilably on these points, their conclusions cannot be considered as undoubtedly true?" Since absolute knowledge was considered unattainable, the Skeptics declared the end of their discipline to be: "In opinionatives, indisturbance; in impulsives, moderation; and in disquietives, suspension."

(2) In the first place, therefore, we shall divide the genera of the proposed problems, in order that we may know the quantity and quality of them. And, in the next place, we shall show from what theologies the doubts are assumed, and according to what sciences they are investigated. For some things that are badly confused, require a certain distinction; others are conversant with the cause through which they subsist, and are apprehended; others, which we propose according to a certain contrariety, draw our decision on both sides; and some things require from us the whole development of mystic doctrines. Such, therefore, being the nature of the subjects of discussion, they are assumed from many places, and from different sciences. For some things introduce animadversions from what the wise men of the Chaldeans have delivered; others produce objections from what the prophets of the Egyptians teach; and there are some that, adhering to the theory of philosophers, make inquiries conformably to them. There are now likewise some, that from other opinions, which do not deserve to be mentioned, elicite a certain dubitation; and others originate from the common conceptions of mankind. These things, therefore, are of themselves variously disposed, and are multiformly connected with each other. Hence, through all these causes, a certain discussion is requisite for the management of them in a becoming manner.

(7) Therefore it is that whenever there is great confusion, love of knowledge is ever at the bottom of it. For all men strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know; and all strive to discredit what they do not excel in, while none strive to discredit what they do excel in. The result is overwhelming confusion. Thus, above, the splendour of the heavenly bodies is dimmed; below, the energy of land and water is disturbed; while midway the influence of the four seasons is destroyed. There is not one tiny creature which moves on earth or flies in air but becomes other than by nature it should be. So overwhelming is the confusion which desire for knowledge has brought upon the world ever since the time of the Three Dynasties downwards! The simple and the guileless have been set aside; the specious and the false have been exalted. Tranquil inaction has given place to a love of disputation; and by disputation has confusion come upon the world.

(10) These things should seem to thee, Asclepius, if thou dost understand them, true; but if thou dost not understand, things not to be believed. To understand is to believe, to not believe is not to understand. My word (logos) doth go before [thee] to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and when it hath been led by word up to a certain point, it hath the power to come before [thee] to the truth. And having thought o'er all these things, and found them consonant with those which have already been translated by the reason, it hath [e'en now] believed, and found its rest in that Fair Faith. To those, then, who by God['s good aid] do understand the things that have been said [by us] above, they're credible; but unto those who understand them not, incredible. Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and-sense.

(13) When we consider with ourselves the many Sects and Controversies in Religion, and from whence they come and take their Original, it is clear as the Sun, and it manifests itself indeed, and in Truth; for there are great Wars and Insurrections stirred up for the Cause of [Religion or] Faith; and there arise great Hatred and Envy about it, and they persecute one another for Opinions Sake; because another is not of his Opinion, he sticks not to say, he is of the Devil; and this is yet the greatest Misery of all, that this is done by the Learned in the high Schools [or Universities] of this World.

(2) The Reader should not make himself blind through his unbelief and dull apprehension; for here I bring in the whole or total nature, with all her children, for a witness and a demonstration. If thou art rational, then look round about thee, and view thyself; also consider thyself aright, and then thou wilt soon find from or out of what spirit I write.

(4) But the ignorant man, the faithless man, the doubting man goes to destruction. For the doubting self, there is no happiness either in this world or the next.

(42) For it lies not in thy unbelief [or ignorance] to hinder it; thy unbelief does not take away or make void the truth of God: but faith bloweth up the spirit of hope, and testifieth that we are God's children. The faith is generated in the flash, and wrestleth so long with God till it overcometh and gets the victory.

(1) 'When one believes, then one perceives. One who does not believe, does not perceive. Only he who believes, perceives. This belief, however, we must desire to understand.' 'Sir, I desire to understand it.'

(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.

(1) There are many other contentious innovations also, which may be the subject of wonder. But some one may justly be astonished at the contrariety of opinions produced by admitting either that the truth of divination is with enchanters, the whole of which subsists in mere appearances alone, but has no real existence; or that it is with those who are incited by passion or disease, since every thing which they have the boldness to utter is fraudulently asserted. For what principle of truth, or what auxiliary of intelligence, either smaller or greater, can there be in those who are thus insane? It is necessary, however, not to receive truth of such a kind as that which may be fortuitous; for this, it is said, may happen to those that are rashly borne along. Nor must such truth be admitted as that which subsists between agents and patients, when they are concordantly homologous with each other; for truth of this kind is present with the senses and imaginations of animals.

(1) Moreover, it is necessary to add the causes whence evils sometimes arise, and to show how many and of what kind they are. For the form of them is not simple; but, being various, is the leader of the generation of various evils. For if what we a little before said, concerning images and evil dæmons, who assume the appearance of Gods and good dæmons, is true, an abundant evil-producing tribe, about which a contrariety of this kind usually happens, will from hence appear to flow. For an evil dæmon requires that his worshipper should be just, because he assumes the appearance of one belonging to the divine genus; but he is subservient to what is unjust, because he is depraved. The same thing, likewise, that is said of good and evil may be asserted of the true and the false. As, therefore, in divinations we attribute true predictions to the Gods alone, but when we detect any falsehood in predictions we refer this to another genus of cause, viz. that of dæmons; thus, also, in things just and unjust, the beautiful and the just are to be alone ascribed to Gods and good dæmons; but such dæmons as are naturally depraved, perpetrate what is unjust and base. And that, indeed, which consents and accords with itself, and always subsists with invariable sameness, pertains to more excellent natures; but that which is hostile to itself, which is discordant, and never the same, is the peculiarity in the most eminent degree of dæmoniacal dissension, about which it is not at all wonderful that things of an opposing nature should subsist; but perhaps the very contrary, that this should not be the case, would be more wonderful.

(1) The "knowledge of certainty" and the "eye of certainty". Our body and substance are snow, doomed to perish, God is He who buys them, for "God hath bought them." You prefer this perishing snow to God's price Because you are in doubt and have not certainty; And, strange to say, opinion abides in you, O weak one, Every opinion is aiming at certainty, O son, When it reaches knowledge it stands erect, And its knowledge again hastes on towards certainty, Because in the approved road of the faith Knowledge is lower than certainty, but above opinion.

(511) they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul—reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last—and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement.

(3) For that, in order that a man should be complete in either part, observe that he hath been composed of elements of either part in sets of four;—with hands, and feet, both of them pairs, and with the other members of his body, by means of which he may do service to the lower (that is to say the terrene) world. And to these parts [are added other] four;—of sense, and soul, of memory, and foresight, by means of which he may become acquainted with the rest of things divine, and judge of them. Hence it is brought about that man investigates the differences and qualities, effects and quantities of things, with critical research; yet, as he is held back with the too heavy weight of body’s imperfection, he cannot properly descry the causes of the nature of [all] things which [really] are the true ones.

(47) But that in some things I write otherwise than they, I do it not out of selfwill or conceit and supposition, doubting whether it be so or no. I dare not make any doubt herein, neither can any man instruct me herein.

(1) Hence you in vain doubt, “ that it is not proper to look to human opinions .” For what leisure can he have whose intellect is directed to the Gods to look downward to the praises of men? Nor do you rightly doubt in what follows, viz. “ that the soul devises great things from casual circumstances .” For what principle of fictions can there be in truly existing beings? Is it not the phantastic power in us which is the maker of images? But the phantasy is never excited when the intellectual life energizes perfectly. And is not truth essentially coexistent with the Gods? Is it not, likewise, concordantly established in intelligibles? It is in vain, therefore, that things of this kind are disseminated by you and others. But neither do those things for which certain futile and arrogant men calumniate the worshipers of the Gods, the like to which have been asserted by you, at all pertain to true theology and theurgy. And if certain things of this kind germinate in the sciences of divine concerns, as in other arts evil arts blossom forth; these are doubtless more contrary to such sciences than to any thing else. For evil is more hostile to good than to that which is not good.

(13) But seeing men are gods, and have the knowledge of God the only Father, from whom they are proceeded or descended, and in whom they live, therefore I despise not the canons, rules and formulae of their philosophy, astrology, and theology: For I find, that for the most part they [the philosophers, etc.] stand upon a right ground, and I will diligently endeavour to go according to their rules and formulae.

(1) If both the orders, those on the right and those on the left, are brought together with one another by the thought which is set between them, which gives them their organization with each other, it happens that they both act with the same emulation of their deeds, with those of the right resembling those of the left, and those of the left resembling those of the right. And if at times the evil order begins to do evil in a foolish way, the order emulates, in the form of a man of violence, also doing what is evil, as if it were a power of a man of violence. At other times the foolish order attempts to do good, making itself like it, since the hidden order, too, is zealous to do it. Just as it is in the things which are established, so (it is) in the things which have come to be. Since they bring things unlike one another, those who were not instructed were unable to know the cause of the things which exist. Therefore, they have introduced other types (of explanation), some saying that it is according to providence that the things which exist have their being. These are the people who observe the stability and the conformity of the movement of creation. Others say that it is something alien. These are people who observe the diversity and the lawlessness and the evil of the powers. Others say that the things which exist are what is destined to happen. These are the people who were occupied with this matter. Others say that it is something in accordance with nature. Others say that it is a self-existent. The majority, however, all who have reached as far as the visible elements, do not know anything more than them.

(2) Nor, if there are certain other false and deceitful resemblances, which are still more remote from reality, is it fit to adduce these in forming a judgment of it. But the divine form or species of divination is to be apprehended according to one intelligible and immutable truth; and the mutation which subsists differently at different times is to be rejected as unstable and unadapted to the Gods. If, therefore, that which is truly divination is a thing of this kind, i. e. is a divine work, who would not blush to ascribe it to nature, which produces its effects without reason and intellect, as if nature elaborated in us a certain prophetic apparatus, and inserted this aptitude in some things in a greater but in others in a less degree? For in those things in which men receive auxiliaries from nature in the attainment of their proper perfection, in these, also, certain aptitudes of nature precede; but in things in which no human work is proposed [to be effected], in these neither does the end pertain to us.