Thomas Aquinas on Plato reading the Old Testament
“Plato autem dicitur multa conosvisse de divinis, legens in libris veteris legis, quos invenit in Aegypto.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, bk 1, dist. III, q. 1, a. 4, ad. 1)
“Moreover Plato is said to have known many divine things, having read the books of the Old Law, which he found in Egypt.” (my translation)
In other words, Thomas Aquinas believed that Plato got his philosophical insights from reading Moses!
This seems to be a common medieval assumption based on Justin Martyr’s conviction that Plato read the books of Moses at Alexandria (before the Septuagint was created?).
Does anyone else know about this tradition?
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