Chapter XVIII.—Plato

Suggested Certain Errors to the Gnostics.  Functions of the

Soul.

I turn now to the department of our intellectual

faculties, such as Plato has handed it over to the heretics, distinct

from our bodily functions, having obtained the knowledge of them before

death. He asks in the

Phædo, What, then, (do you think) concerning the actual

possession of knowledge? Will the body be a hindrance to it or

not, if one shall admit it as an associate in the search after

knowledge? I have a similar question to ask: Have the faculties of

their sight and hearing any truth and reality for human beings or

not?  Is it not the case, that even the poets are always muttering

against us, that we can never hear or see anything for certain? He

Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Apologetic/A Treatise on the Soul/Chapter XVIII