Miscellanies 1.17.87

There is, then, in philosophy too, stolen as if by Prometheus, a little fire usefully kindled into light, a trace of wisdom and a movement toward God. In this way the philosophers among the Greeks would be thieves and robbers, since, before the Lord's coming, they took portions of the truth from the Hebrew prophets, not with full knowledge, but appropriating them as their own doctrines; some they falsified, some they cleverly elaborated out of curiosity but without understanding, and some they discovered; for perhaps they too had “the spirit of perception.” Aristotle too agreed with Scripture, calling sophistry a thievery of wisdom, as we showed before. And the apostle says, “which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit.” For of the prophets he says, “We have all received from his fullness,” that is, from Christ's. So the prophets are not thieves. “And my teaching is not mine,” says the Lord, “but the Father's who sent me.” But of those who steal he says, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory.” Such are the Greeks, self-loving and boastful. And Scripture, calling them “wise,” does not disparage the truly wise, but those who think themselves wise.