The motto from Seneca, prefixed to the Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion, is from the fourty-first Epistle of that writer.
The question from Tertullian in the Comment on the eight of those Aphorisms,
"Certum est quia impossibile est."—p. 199.
is from the De Carne Christi, cap. v.
Aphorism iv., p. 227.:
"In wonder all philosophy began."
See Plato's Theætetus § 32., p. 155. Gataker on Antonin, i. 15. Plutarch de EI Delph. cap. 2. p. 385 B. Sympos, v. 7., p. 680 C. Aristot. Metaph. 1. 2. 9.
In the "Sequelæ" annexed to this Aphorism, it is said of Simonides (p. 230.), that
"In the fortieth day of his mediation the sage and philosophic poet abandoned the problem [of the nature of God] in despair."
Cicero (de nat. Deor. i. 22. § 60.) and Minucius Felix (Octav. 13.) do not specify the number of days during which Simonides deferred his answer to Hiero.