Parallels in Greek belief

The Sibyl and Hystaspes also said that corruptible things would be consumed by fire. The philosophers called Stoics teach that even God Himself is dissolved into fire, and they say that the world comes into being again through a cyclical change. But we understand God, the Creator of all, to be something greater than the things that undergo change. If, then, we say some things similar to the poets and philosophers honored among you, while in some things we speak more greatly and divinely, and if we alone offer proof, why are we hated unjustly more than everyone else? When we say that all things were ordered and brought into being by God, we will seem to be expressing Plato’s teaching. When we say that there will be a conflagration, that of the Stoics. When we say that the souls of the unjust remain conscious and are punished after death, while the souls of the virtuous, freed from punishments, live well, we will seem to say the same things as poets and philosophers. And when we say that one must not worship things made by human hands, we say the same as the comic poet Menander and others who have said similar things; for they declared that the maker is greater than what is made.