Miscellanies 1.5.32

That is why Abraham too, when Sarah was jealous because Hagar was preferred to her, as one who chose only what is useful in worldly philosophy, said, “Behold, the maidservant is in your hands; use her as is pleasing to you,” showing: I welcome worldly education as younger and as your handmaid, but your knowledge I honor and revere as the perfect mistress. “And Sarah afflicted her,” which is equivalent to “chastened and admonished her.” It is well said, then: “My son, do not despise the instruction of God, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” In other places, however, the passages of Scripture just quoted, when examined, appear to show other mysteries. We say, then, from this plainly, that philosophy is an inquiry into truth and the nature of things (and this is the truth of which the Lord himself said, “I am the truth”); and that the preliminary training for the rest in Christ exercises the mind and rouses the understanding, producing an inquiring sharpness through true philosophy. Having found it, or rather having received it from the Truth itself, the initiated possess it.