Scythia, which existed from the days of Noah, and after that, until the building of the pillar and Babylon, and after the pandemonium, a few years, that is, until Peleg and Ragau (Gen. 11:18 ff.). Having deviated into the country of Europe, the Scythians settled in the Scythian region among the tribes there, from the time of Terah (v. 26), from whom the Thracians were descended, and later.

The Egyptians, and with them the Babylonians, Phrygians, and Phoenicians, became the first founders of this worship of God, the making of idols, and the celebration of the sacraments; from them the greater part of the institutions passed to the Greeks from the time of Cecrops and after him. And later, and much later, they proclaimed Kronos, Rhea, Zeus, Apollo and others gods. The Greeks received their name from a certain Greek, one of the inhabitants of Hellas, who gave the name to the country itself; and others say from the olive tree (ἐλαία) that grew in Athens. The leaders of the Greeks, as true history shows, were the Ionians, named after Jonah [8], the son of one of those who built the pillar. Because of the division (μεμερισμένη) of the languages, they are also called meropes. Subsequently, much later times, Hellenism passed into heresies, I mean the Pythagoreans, the Stoics, the Platonists, the Epicuraeans, and others. But at the same time, among these peoples there existed a worship of God, and a natural law, from the foundation of the world to the end of times, preserved in a special separate form among barbarism, Scythianism, and Hellenism, until they entered into unity with the godliness of Abraham. After this, Judaism, from the time of Abraham, having acquired a special character and having spread through Moses, seven from Abraham, by means of the law given to it by God, from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, called Israel, through David, the first king of the tribe of the same Judah, inherited its full name.

The various sects among the Greeks are as follows:

Pythagoreans or Peripatetics. They taught about the monad and providence, forbade sacrificing to the gods, eating animate creatures and drinking wine. It was asserted that from the moon upwards everything is immortal, and that which is below is mortal. They taught about the transmigration of souls from one body to another, even into the bodies of animals and wild beasts. Their teacher Pythagoras, who remained silent, called himself a god.

The Platonists believed that there is a God, a substance, and a species; that the world is produced and subject to corruption, and the soul is unborn, immortal and divine; that it has three parts: reasonable, irritable, and lustful. They taught that wives should be common among all, and that no one should have one wife of his own, but that those who wished should enter into an alliance with those who would do so. They also taught about the transmigration of souls into different bodies, even into the bodies of wild beasts, as well as about the fact that many gods descended from one.

The Stoics teach that everything is a body, and this sensible world is recognized as God. Some assert that His nature consists of a fiery essence. They teach that God is the mind and, as it were, the soul of all existing space, heaven and earth; that His body, as I have said, is the universe, and His eyes are the luminaries; that the flesh of every one perishes, and the soul of every one passes from body to body.

The Epicureans asserted about atoms and indivisible bodies consisting of such an indefinite number of parts, that they are the beginning of all things; taught that the highest bliss is in pleasure, and that neither God nor Providence governs the universe.

Samaritanism, and from it the Samaritans. This heresy originated from Judaism before heresies appeared among the Greeks, and before their teachings were formed, but after the establishment of the worship of God among the Greeks, namely, from the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the Jewish captivity. Being exiles from Assyria to Judea, the Samaritans received one of the Pentateuches of Moses, when the king sent it to them from Babylon through a priest called Ezra. They have everything in common with the Jews, except that they abhor the Gentiles and touch no other things, and except the denial of the resurrection of the dead and other prophecies that took place after Moses.

Some of them preserve virginity, and others abstinence. They also believe in the resurrection of the dead, which is alien to the Samaritans.

The Jews have seven heresies:

The scribes, who were lawyers and guardians of the secondary laws or traditions of the so-called elders, who with excessive zeal observed the arbitrarily accepted liturgical rites, which they did not learn from the law, but composed for themselves rites, as it were, lawful and righteous.

The Pharisees, which means set apart, who led the highest life and seemed righteous more than others. They, like the scribes, recognize the resurrection of the dead, and the existence of angels and the Holy Spirit. Their life is special: they observe abstinence until a certain time, as well as celibacy, fasting twice a week, purification of mugs, dishes and cups, as well as, as with the scribes, decimate, first-fruits, continuous prayer, prescribed by arbitrary superstition, the external appearance of the garment, consisting of a robe similar to a sticharion and a dalmatic, or a garment without sleeves, with an enlargement of the storehouses (Matt. 23:5), that is, stripes of scarlet, and buttons on the criments of the robe, which served as a sign of what they kept until the time of abstinence. They introduced the doctrine of birth and fate.

The Sadducees, which means the most truthful, descended from the Samaritans, and together from the priest Zadok. They denied the resurrection of the dead, did not recognize either angel or spirit; In all other things, there were Jews.

The Imerobapti, who were Jews in all respects, but maintained that no one would receive eternal life unless he performed ablutions every day.