Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

...many living creatures. That the Sun and Moon are gods, and that the one is called Osiris and the other Isis. Manetho, in his Epitome of Natural Things, and Hecataeus, in the first book of his Philosophy of the Egyptians, are the authorities that they express these through the scarab, the dragon, the hawk, and other animals. Furthermore, 11. they say that statues and temples were fabricated by them because they are ignorant of the image of God. That the world was created, is mortal, and is round like a sphere. That the stars are fire, and from their temperate mixture everything upon the earth is born. That the Moon wanes when it falls into the shadow of the earth. That the soul both endures and migrates from time to time. That rains are caused by the conversions of the air. Hecataeus and Aristagoras report that they discuss these and similar things regarding the nature of things. They also established laws concerning justice, which they attribute to Mercury. They followed those living creatures that are useful and suited to human needs with divine honor. They also assert that they were the first to discover Geometry, Astrology, and Arithmetic. 12. But so much for discovery. Pythagoras was the first to call it philosophy, and himself a philosopher, when he met Leon, the tyrant of the Sicyonians or the Phliasians, at Sicyon, as Heraclides Ponticus says in the book he titled On the Breath [περὶ τῆς ἄπνυ?]. For he said that no man is wise, but only God. For previously it was called sophia, that is, wisdom, which is now called philosophy, and those who professed this were called sophoi, that is, wise men. Those who grew to the highest virtue of the mind, we now call by the more honorable term, with Pythagoras as the author, Philosophers, that is, students of wisdom. The wise men themselves, however, were also called sophists. And not only they, but poets also are honored with the title of sophist. For Cratinus, in his Archilochus, admiring Homer and Hesiod, calls them so. Those considered wise were Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus...