Miscellanies 6.8.62

For Paul too, in his letters, plainly does not disparage philosophy, but thinks it right that one who has shared in the height of the one who knows should no longer run back to Greek philosophy, which he calls allegorically “the elements of the world,” since it is a kind of elementary teaching and preparatory training for the truth. That is why, writing also to the Hebrews, who were turning back from faith to the law, he says: “Or do you again need someone to teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God? And you have come to need milk, not solid food.” In the same way, then, he writes to the Colossians, who had turned from among the Greeks: “See that no one will be the one who carries you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ,” enticing them to run back again to philosophy, the elementary teaching. And if someone says that philosophy was discovered by the Greeks through human understanding, still I find the Scriptures saying that understanding is sent by God.