SOURCE: St. Augustine, "Book VIII," in The City of God against the Pagans, translated by David S. Wiesen, Harvard University Press, 1968, pp. 1-146.

In the following excerpt from Book VIII of The City of God, St. Augustine includes Epicureanism in his castigation of philosophies that value materialism above religious faith.

Thus not only the doctrines of both theologies, mythical and political alike, must give way to the philosophy of the Platonists, for they have said that the true God is the author of all things, the illuminator of truth, and the bestower of happiness, but so must the other philosophers too who have adopted a belief in the material elements of nature because their own minds are subservient to the body give way to these great men who recognize so great a God. Such were Thales with his moisture, Anaximenes with his air, the Stoics with their fire...