for afterwards it will be a source of joy, just like an athlete obtaining with much toil the crown, or a merchant after a huge swell of sea compassing gain, or a husbandman after sweat of brow enjoying the fruits, or a prophet after reproaches and insults seeing his predictions turning out true. In the commencement, therefore, we shall declare who first, among the Greeks, pointed out [the principles of] natural philosophy. For from these especially have they furtively taken their views who have first propounded these heresies,[1] as we shall subsequently prove when we come to compare them one wath another. Assigning to each of those who- take the lead among philosophers their own peculiar tenets, we shall publicly exhibit these heresiarchs as naked and unseemly.
Chapter i.
Thales—his Physics and Theology—Founder of Greek Astronomy.
It is said that Thales of Miletus, one of the seven wise men, first attempted to frame a system of natural philosophy. This person said that some such thing as water is the generative principle of the universe, and its end;—for that out of this, solidified and again dissolved, all things consist, and that all things are supported on it; from wdiich also arise both earthquakes and changes of the wands and atmospheric movements,[2] and that all things are both produced[3] and are in a state of flux corresponding wath the nature of the primary author of generation;—and that the Deity[4]
- ↑ The chief writers on the early heresies are: Irenæus, of the second century; Hippolytus, his pupil, of the third; Philastrius, Epiphanius, and St. Augustine, of the fourth century. The learned need scarcely be reminded of the comprehensive digest furnished by Ittigius in the preface to his dissertation on the heresies of the apostohc and post-apostolic ages. A book more within the reach of the general reader is Dr. Burton's Inquiry into the Heresies of the Apostolic Age.
- ↑ Or, "motions of the stars" (Roeper).
- ↑ Or, "carried along" (Roeper).
- ↑ Or, "that which is divine." See Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. v. p. 494 (Heinsius and Sylburgius' ed.). Thales, on being asked, "What is God?" "That," replied he, "which has neither beginning nor end."
