1. PAUL the blessed apostle, my beloved brethren, writing to the Corinthians who inhabit Laconian Greece, spake saying, "The wisdom of this world is folly in the sight of God" [1 Cor. iii, 19], and he said not amiss. For it seems to me to have taken its beginning from the rebellion of the angels ¹; for which cause the philosophers put forth their doctrines, saying things that neither sound the same, nor mean the same as one another. For some of them say that the soul is fire, like Democritus; air, like the Stoics; some say it is the mind; and some say it is motion, as Heraclitus ²; some say it is exhalation; some an influence flowing from the stars ; some say it is number in motion, as Pythagoras; some say it is generative water, as Hippo; some say an element from elements; some say it is harmony, as Dinarchus; some say the blood, as Critias; some the breath; some say unity, as Pythagoras; and so the ancients say contrary things. How many statements are there about these things ! how many attempts ! how many also of sophists who carry on a strife rather than seek the truth!