Miscellanies 1.19.92

“For this reason, then, I have sent you to the Gentiles,” it says, “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those sanctified by faith in me.” These opened eyes of the blind, then, are the knowledge of the Father through the Son, the grasp of what the Greeks expressed in a roundabout way; and to turn from the power of Satan is to change from sin, through which slavery had come about. We do not, however, simply accept all philosophy, but that of which Socrates too speaks in Plato: “For there are, as those concerned with the initiations say, many thyrsus-bearers, but few Bacchants,” hinting at many called and few chosen. At any rate he adds clearly: “And these, in my opinion, are none other than those who have philosophized rightly. Of whom I too, as far as possible, left nothing undone in my life, but in every way was eager to become one. Whether I was rightly eager and accomplished anything, we shall know clearly when we come there, if God wills, a little later.”