Αἵρεσις

[A school]¹ [is a system] that, in accordance with appearance, follows or seems to follow a certain type of account.² Hippobotus³ says that there are 9 philosophical schools and ways of life: Megaric,⁴ Eretrian,⁵ Cyrenaic,⁶ Epicurean,⁷ Annicerian,⁸ Theodorean,⁹ Zenonian (the one also [called] Stoic),¹⁰ Academic,¹¹ Peripatetic.¹² [He does] not [include] Cynic,¹³ or the one from Elis,¹⁴ or Dialectical.¹⁵ As to the Pyrrhonian, most people do not include it because of its obscurity. For if we understood an adherence to doctrines as a school, the Pyrrhonian would not be named a school any more, for it does not maintain doctrines.¹⁶ Furthermore, a certain Eclectic [school] was introduced by Potamo(n) of Alexandria,¹⁷ who picked out what pleased him from each school. He says that criteria are the true things. [A criterion is] that because of which a judgment is effected, that is, the ruling [principle]. [A criterion] understood in terms of "that because of which" is, for example, the most accurate presentation.¹⁸ Both matter and the active are principles of everything, [the latter being] the production and [the former] the place, for it is "that out of which," "that because of which," "that of what kind," that "where something is."¹⁹ An end is that to which all the things are referred,²⁰ the life according to the whole and perfect virtue, both with natural bodily [goods] and external [goods].²¹