Lactantius, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Philosophy is false wisdom for the reason that the temples are false religion, and the two charges are one. Neither are sacred rites performed in philosophy, nor is philosophy treated of in sacred things; their religion is false because it does not possess wisdom, and their wisdom is false because it does not possess religion.1 The pagan priest performs a rite of the hands and fingers and cannot give an account of it; the philosopher gives an account of everything and has no one to offer it to.2
Even if some philosopher takes a priesthood of the gods, philosophy is not thereby joined with religion: it sits idle amid the sacred rites, and religion sits idle when philosophy is discussed.3 Where both are joined, there the truth must necessarily be, so that if you ask what truth is, it may rightly be called wise religion or religious wisdom.1
To be wise is to know the proper object and mode of worship, and to worship is to complete that knowledge by deed.4 Hence wisdom is nothing else but the worship of the true God with just and pious adoration.2 The proof that philosophy cannot reach it lies in what the philosophers confess. Anaxagoras says all things are overspread with darkness, Empedocles that the paths of the senses are narrow, Democritus that truth lies sunk in a deep well; and since they nowhere find it, they affirm that no wise man has yet existed.5
They are their own prosecutors. We need not wait until Socrates knows something, or until Carneades sees and feels and perceives; a voice from heaven teaches the truth and shows a light brighter than the sun.6 As to the Sibyls, Hermes and the poets: yes, I argue from them, and I say plainly why. They are witnesses called against their own side, not authorities for the faith.
Hermes says that the Son's name cannot be uttered by mortal mouth, and he writes of a second God, visible and sensible, made by the Lord and Maker of all things; the Sibyl calls him the guide of all, made by God, and says that God the Son of God must be known.7 Plato spoke of a first and second God, not altogether as a philosopher but as a seer, perhaps following Trismegistus.7
Truth extorted these confessions from men who did not hold it. The prophets said it with the Spirit's inspiration; the pagans said it by accident, and that is the better evidence to put before a pagan, who despises the plain speech of Scripture. The antipodes I will not discuss here beyond what these pages bear. My writings in this part concern the contradiction of the schools and the union of wisdom with religion; the method I would defend is this: judge a premise by what follows from it, and where the philosophers' own first principle leads them into absurdities, do not keep the absurdity and call it learning. That rule governs my laughter at them, and the same rule is open to anyone who wishes to turn it on my own witnesses.
The philosophers have wisdom without religion and the temples have religion without wisdom, so both are false: the one cannot be separated from the other, because it is the same God who is to be known, which is wisdom, and honoured, which is religion.89 Philosophy refutes itself, school by school, and has never found the chief good, which is immortality.
A Christian may therefore argue from the poets, the philosophers, the Sibyl and Hermes, since truth extorted these confessions from them, and may laugh at a philosophy that hangs men upside down beneath the earth.101112
Neither are sacred rites performed in philosophy, nor is philosophy treated of in sacred things; and on this account their religion is false, because it does not possess wisdom; and on this account their wisdom is false, because it does not possess religion.The Epitome of the Divine Institutes
For that system of religious rites is dumb, not only because it relates to gods who are dumb, but also because its observance is by the hand and the fingers, not by the heart and tongue... wisdom is nothing else but the worship of the true God with just and pious adoration.The Divine Institutes, Book IV, Of True Wisdom and Religion
when this happens, philosophy is not, however, joined with religion; but philosophy will both be unemployed amidst sacred rites, and religion will be unemployed when philosophy shall be treated of.The Divine Institutes, Book IV, Of True Wisdom and Religion
in our worship we ought to be wise, that is, to know the proper object and mode of worship, and in our wisdom to worship, that is, to complete our knowledge by deed and action.The Divine Institutes, Book IV, Of True Wisdom and Religion
Anaxagoras proclaims that all things are over-spread with darkness. Empedocles says that the paths for finding out the truth of the senses are narrow. Democritus asserts that truth lies sunk in a deep well; and because they nowhere find it, they therefore affirm that no wise man has as yet existed.The Epitome of the Divine Institutes
Lo, a voice from heaven teaching the truth, and displaying to us a light brighter than the sun itself.The Divine Institutes, Book III, Of the False Wisdom of Philosophers
The Sibyl also says that God the guide of all was made by God, and another, that 'God the Son of God must be known'... Hermes says that His name cannot be uttered by mortal mouth.The Epitome of the Divine Institutes
Neither are sacred rites performed in philosophy, nor is philosophy treated of in sacred things; and on this account their religion is false, because it does not possess wisdom; and on this account their wisdom is false, because it does not possess religion.The Epitome of the Divine Institutes
For God had determined, as the last time drew near, to send from heaven a great leader, who should reveal to foreign nations that which was taken away from a perfidious and ungrateful people. And I will endeavour to discuss the subject in this book, if I shall first have shown that wisdom is so closely united with religion, that the one cannot be separated from the other. Chap.The Divine Institutes, Book IV, Of True Wisdom and Religion
Therefore philosophy was not able to conceive the truth, nor was the religious system of the gods able to give an account of itself, since it is without it.The Divine Institutes, Book IV, Of True Wisdom and Religion
Therefore they are accursed and impious, whom I have mentioned above, who even taught what are the befitting reasons for voluntary death; so that it was not enough of guilt that they were self-murderers, unless they instructed others also to this wickedness. Chap. XL.--Of the Foolishness of the Philosophers. There are innumerable sayings and doings of the philosophers, by which their foolishness may be shown.The Epitome of the Divine Institutes
We must therefore devote ourselves to religion, and he who does not undertake this prostrates himself to the ground, and, imitating the life of the brutes, abdicates the office of man. Therefore the ignorant are more wise; for although they err in choosing religion, yet they remember their own nature and condition. Chap. XI.--Of Religion, Wisdom, and the Chief Good.The Divine Institutes, Book III, Of the False Wisdom of Philosophers
The architecture of the Institutes, praised as the founding of Christian humanism and mocked for its credulity toward the Sibylline oracles and for the chapter on the antipodes.