Philosophy

 ATHAN. says, speaking of [ agenneton ], "I am told the word has different senses." Decr. § 28.

 And so de Syn. § 46, "we have on careful inquiry ascertained," etc. Again, "I have acquainted myself on their account [the Arians'] with the meaning of [ ageneton ]." Orat. i. § 30. This is remarkable, for Athan. was a man of liberal education. In the same way S. Basil, whose cultivation of mind none can doubt, speaks slightingly of his own philosophical knowledge. He writes of his "neglecting his own weakness, and being utterly unexercised in such disquisitions;" contr. Eunom. init. And so in de Sp. S. n. 5, he says, that "they who have given time" to vain philosophy, "divide causes into principal, cooperative," etc. Elsewhere he speaks of having "expended much time on vanity, and wasted nearly all his youth in the vain labour of pursuing the studies of that wisdom which God has made foolishness." Ep. 223, 2. In truth Christianity has a philosophy of its own. Thus at the commencement of his Viæ Dux, Anastasius says, "It is a first point to be understood that the tradition of the Catholic Church does not proceed upon, or follow, the philosophical definitions in all respects of the Greeks, and especially as regards the mystery of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, but a certain rule of its own, evangelical and apostolical;" p. 20. In like manner, Damascene, speaking of the Jacobite use of [ physis ] and [ hypostasis ], says, "Who of holy men ever thus spoke? unless ye introduce to us your St. Aristotle as a thirteenth Apostle, and prefer the idolater to the divinely inspired." contr. Jacob. 10, p. 399; and so again Leontius, speaking of Philoponus, who from the Monophysite confusion of nature and hypostasis was led into Tritheism. "He thus argued, taking his start from Aristotelic principles; for Aristotle says that there are of individuals particular substances as well as one common." de Sect. v. fin.

 "What our Fathers have delivered," says Athan., "this is truly doctrine; and this is truly the token of doctors, to confess the same thing with each other, and to vary neither from themselves nor from their fathers; whereas they who have not this character, are not to be called true doctors but evil. Thus the Greeks, as not witnessing to the same doctrines, but quarrelling one with another, have no truth of teaching; but the holy and veritable heralds of the truth agree together, not differ. For though they lived in different times, yet they one and all tend the same way, being prophets of the one God, and preaching the same Word harmoniously." Decr. § 4.

 S. Basil says the same of the Grecian Sects: "We have not the task of refuting their tenets, for they suffice for the overthrow of each other." Hexaem. i. 2. vid. also Theod. Græc. Affect. i. p. 707, etc. August. Civ. Dei. xviii. 41, and Vincentius's celebrated Commonitorium passim .