ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIAN LIBRARY:
TRANSLATIONS OF THE WRITINGS OF THE FATHERS
DOWN TO A.D. 325.
EDITED BY THE
REV. ALEXANDER ROBERTS, D.D.
AND
JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D.
VOL. XIX.
THE SEVEN BOOKS OF AKNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES,
EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
1895.
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND OIBB,
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK : CHARLES 8CRIBXER S SONS. TORONTO : THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORV.
THE SEVEN BOOKS
c?
ARNOBIDS ADYERSUS GENTES,
br» ARCIP HAMILTON BRYCE, LL.D. D.C.L.
AND
HUGH CAMPBELL, M.A.
EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLAHK, 38, GEOEGE STEEET.
1895.
BT 1130
CONTENTS.
PACB
PREFACE, .... . . . vii
INTRODUCTION, ....... ix
§ 1. Account of Arnobius given by Jerome, . . . ix
§ 2. Facts derived from Arnobius himself, . . . x
§ 3. Result, xii
§ 4. His Work : its Style and Character, . . . xiv § 5. Knowledge of Scriptures, and References to other Writ- ings, ....... xv
§ 6. MS. and Editions of the Seven Books ailrersus Gentes, . xvii
§ 7. Title, xviii
BOOK I., ...... .1
H., 58
HI., • . 148
IV., ... . 183
V., . . 221
VI., . . . . . . . .269
VII., . . 304
APPENDIX, .... . 365
INDEX OF AUTHORS QUOTED, . . . . .369
INDEX OF SUBJECTS, . . . . . . . 370
PREFACE.
I HE translation of Arnobius was begun in the hope that it would be possible to adhere through- out to the text of Orelli, and that very little attention to the various readings would be found neces- sary. This was, however, found to be impossible, not merely because Hildebrand's collation of the Paris MS. showed how frequently liberties had been taken with the text, but on account of the corrupt state of the text itself.
It has therefore been thought advisable to lay before the reader a close translation founded on the MS., so far as known. A conjectural reading has in no case been adopted without notice.
Throughout the Work use has been made of four editions, — Oehler's, Orelli's, Hildebrand's, and that of Leyden ; other editions being consulted only for special reasons.
It is to be regretted that our knowledge of the single MS. of Arnobius is still incomplete ; but it is hoped that this will soon be remedied, by the publication of a revised text, based upon a fresh collation of the MS., with a com- plete apparatus and a carefully digested body of notes.
INTRODUCTION.
JIRNOBIUS has been most unjustly neglected in modern times ; but some excuse for this may be found in the fact that even less attention seems to have been paid to him in the ages immediately succeeding his own. We find no men- tion of him in any author except Jerome ; and even Jerome has left only a few lines about him, which convey very little information.
In his list of ecclesiastical writers he says,1 " During the reign of Diocletian, Arnobius taught rhetoric with the great- est success, at Sicca, in Africa, and wrote against the heathen the books extant ;" and again speaks of this work more par- ticularly when he says,2 " Arnobius published seven books against the heathen." In his Chronicon, however, he writes under the year 2342 (i.e. A.D. 326), " Arnobius is considered a distinguished rhetorician in Africa, who, while engaged at Sicca in teaching young men rhetoric, was led by visions to the faith ; and not being received by the bishop as hitherto a persistent enemy to Christ, composed very excellent books against his former belief." It must at once be seen that there is here a mistake, for Arnobius is put some twenty-three years later than in the former passage. Jerome himself shows us that the former date is the one he meant, for else- where3 he speaks of Lactantius as the disciple of Arnobius. Lactantius, in extreme old age,4 was appointed tutor of Con-
1 Cat. Script. Eccl. Ixxix. f. 121, Bened. ed. toin. iv.
2 Ep. Ixxxiii. f. 656.
8 Cat. Script. Eccl. Ixxx. f. 121, ep. Ixxxiii. * Cat. Script. Eccl. Ixxx.
x INTRODUCTION.
stantine's son Crispus; and this, we are told in the Chronicon,1 was in the year 317. No one will suppose that if the dis- ciple was a very old man in 317, his master could have been in his prime in 326. It is certain, therefore, that this date is not correct ; and it seems very probable that Oehler's con- jecture is true, who supposes that Jerome accidentally trans- posed his words from the year 303 to the place where we find them, misled by noticing the vicenalia of Constantino when he was looking for those of Diocletian.
It is with some difficulty that we can believe that Arnobius was led to embrace Christianity by dreams, as he speaks of these with little respect as " vain," — which he could hardly have done if by them the whole course of his life had been changed; but in our utter ignorance we cannot say that this may not have been to some extent the case. The further statement, that his apology for Christianity was submitted as a proof of his sincerity to the bishop of Sicca, is even less credible, — for these two reasons, that it is evidently the fruit not of a few weeks' but of protracted labour, and that it is hardly likely that any bishop would have allowed some parts of it to pass into circulation. It is just possible that the first or third books may have been so presented ; but it is not credible that any pledge would be required of a man seek- ing to cast in his lot with the persecuted and terrified Church referred to in the fourth.
§ 2. If we learn but little from external sources as to the life of Arnobius, we are not more fortunate when we turn to his own writings. One or two facts, however, are made clear ; and these are of some importance. " But lately," he says, " O blindness, I worshipped images just brought from the furnaces, gods made on anvils and forged with hammers : now, led by so great a teacher into the ways of truth, I know what all these things are." 2 We have thus his own assur- ance of his conversion from heathenism. He speaks of him- self, however, as actually a Christian, — not as a waverer, not as one purposing to forsake the ancient superstitious and 1 Anno 2333. 2 i. 39, p. 31.
INTRODUCTION. xi
embrace the new religion, but as a firm believer, whose faith is already established, and whose side has been taken and stedfastly maintained. In a word, he refers to himself as once lost in error, but now a true Christian.
Again, in different passages he marks pretty accurately the time or times at which he wrote. Thus, in the first book l he speaks of about three hundred years as the time during which Christianity had existed ; and in the second,'2 of a thousand and fifty, or not many less, having elapsed since the foundation of Home. There has been much dis- cussion as to what era is here referred to ; and it has been pretty generally assumed that the Fabian must be intended, — in which case 303 would be the year meant. If it is ob- served, however, that Arnobius shows an intimate acquaint- ance with Varro, and great admiration for him, it will pro- bably be admitted that it is most likely that the Varronian, or common, era was adopted by him ; and in this case the year referred to will be 297 A.D. This coincides sufficiently with the passage in the first book, and is in harmony with the idea which is there predominant, — the thought, that is, of the accusation so frequently on the lips of the heathen, that Christianity was the cause of the many and terrible afflictions with which the empire was visited. These accusa- tions, ever becoming more bitter and threatening, would naturally be observed with care and attention by thoughtful Christians towards the close of the third century ; and accordingly we find that the words with which Arnobius begins his apology, express the feeling of awakening anxiety with which he viewed the growth of this fear and hatred in the minds of the heathen. He declares, in effect, that one great object — indeed the main object — which he had proposed to himself, was to show that it was not because of the Christians that fresh evils and terrible calamities were continually assailing the state. And it must be remembered that we cannot refer such a proposal to a later period than that assigned. It would certainly net have occurred to a Christian in the midst of persecution, with death overhang- 1 i. 13, p. 13. 2 ii. 71, p. 111.
xii INTRODUCTION.
ing him, and danger on every side, to come forward and attempt calmly to show the heathen that there was no reason for their complaints against the Christians. In the later books there is a change in tone, upon which we cannot now dwell, although it is marked. In one passage he asks indignantly,1 " Why should our writings be given to the flames, our meetings be cruelly broken up, in which prayer is offered to the supreme God, peace and pardon are asked for all in authority, for soldiers, kings, friends, enemies?" In the calm tranquillity of the last half of the third century these words could hardly have been written, but they are a striking testimony to the terms of the imperial edict issued in the year 303 A.D. So, too, the expression of anger and disgust at the anti-pagan character of some of Cicero's works, noticed in iii. 7, belongs to the incipient stages of persecution.
Nor must it be supposed that the whole work may be referred to the era which ensued after the abdication of Diocletian, in 305. From this time an apology for Chris- tianity with such a design would have been an anachronism, for it was no longer necessary to disarm the fears of the heathen by showing that the gods could not be enraged at the Christians. It has further to be noticed, that although it is perfectly clear that Arnobius spent much time on his apology, it has never been thoroughly revised, and does not seem to have been ever finished.2
We surely have in all this sufficient reason to assign the composition of these books adversus Gentes to the end of the third and beginning of the fourth centuries. Beyond this we cannot go, for we have no data from which to derive further inferences.
§ 3. We have seen that the facts transmitted to us are very few and scanty indeed ; but, few as they are, they sug- gest an interesting picture. Arnobius comes before us in Sicca; we are made spectators of two scenes of his life there, and the rest — the beginning and the end — are shrouded in 1 iv. 36, p. 218. 2 Cf> pp- 347> Di 3j and 364> n g>
INTRODUCTION. xiii
darkness. Sicca Veneria was an important town, lying on the Numiclian border, to the south-west of Carthage. As its name signifies, it was a seat of that vile worship of the goddess of lust, which was dear to the Phoenician race. The same cultus was found there which disgraced Corinth ; and in the temple of the goddess the maidens of the town were wont to procure for themselves, by the sacrifice of their chastity, the dowries which the poverty of their parents could not provide.
In the midst of traditions of such bestial foulness Arno- bius found himself, — whether as a native, or as one who had been led to settle there. He has told us himself how true an idolater he was, how thoroughly he complied with the ceremonial demands of superstition ; but the frequency and the vehemence of language with which his abhorrence of the sensuality of heathenism is expressed, tell us as plainly that practices so horrible had much to do in preparing his mind to receive another faith.
In strong contrast to the filthy indulgences with which paganism gratified its adherents, must have appeared the strict purity of life which was enjoined by Christianity and aimed at by its followers ; and perhaps it was in such a place as Sicca that considerations of this nature would have most influence. There, too, the story of Cyprian's martyrdom must have been well known, — may indeed have been told in the nursery of the young Arnobius, — and many traditions must have been handed down about the persistency with which those of the new religion had held fast their faith, in spite of exile, torture, and death. However distorted such tales might be, there would always remain in them the evi- dence of so exalted nobility of spirit, that every disclosure of the meanness and baseness of the old superstition must have induced an uneasy feeling as to whether that could be impiety which ennobled men, — that piety which degraded them lower than the brutes.
For some time all went well with Arnobius. He was not too pure for the world, and his learning and eloquence won him fame and success in his profession. But in some way,
xiv INTRODUCTION.
we know not how, a higher learning was communicated to him, and the admired rhetorician became first a suspected, then a persecuted Christian. He has left us in no doubt as to the reason of the change. Upon his darkness, he says, there shone out a heavenly light, a great teacher appeared to him and pointed out the way of truth ; and he who had been an earnest worshipper of images, of stones, of unknown gods, was now as earnest, as zealous in his service of the true God. Of the trials which he must have endured we know nothing. A terrible persecution swept over the world, and many a Christian perished in it. Such a man as Arnobius must have been among the first to be assailed, but we hear of him no more. With his learning and talents he could not have failed to make himself a name in the church, or outside its pale, if he had lived. The conclusion seems inevitable, that he was one of the victims of that last fiery trial to which Christians under the Roman empire were exposed.
§ 4. The vast range of learning shown in this apology has been admitted on all sides. Even Jerome says that it should at times be read on account of the learning displayed in it.1 In another passage Jerome says,2 " Arnobius is unequal and prolix, confused from want of arrangement." This may be admitted to a certain extent ; but although such defects are to be found in his work, they are certainly not character- istic of Arnobius. So, too, many passages may be found strangely involved and mystical, and it is at times hard to understand what is really meant. Solecisms and barbarisms are also met with, as Nourry has objected, so that it cannot be said that Arnobius writes pure Latin. Still we must not be misled into supposing that by enumerating these defects we have a fair idea of his style.
If we remember that no man can wholly escape the influ- ences of his age, and that Arnobius was so warm an admirer of Varro and Lucretius that he imitated their style and adopted their vocabulary, we shall be able to understand in what way he may be fairly spoken of as a good writer, 1 Ep. Ixii. ad Tranquill. 2 Ep. xlix. ad Paulimtm.
INTRODUCTION. xv
although not free from defects. His style is, in point of fact, clear and lucid, rising at times into genuine eloquence ; and its obscurity and harshness are generally caused by an attempt to express a vague and indefinite idea. Indeed very considerable power of expression is manifested in the philosophical reasonings of the second book, the keen satire of the fourth and fifth, and the vigorous argument of the sixth and seventh.
Jerome's last stricture is scarcely applicable. Arnobius wrote adversus Gentes ; he addressed himself to meet the taunts and accusations of the heathen, and in so doing he retorts upon them the charges which they preferred against the Christians. His work must therefore be criticised from this standpoint, not as a systematic exposition or vindication of Christianity. Christianity is indeed defended, but it is by attacking heathenism. We must consider, also, that evi- dently the work was not revised as a whole, and that the last book would have been considerably altered had Arnobius lived or found opportunity to correct it.1 If we remember these things, we shall find little to object to in the arrange- ment.
After making all deductions, it may be said fairly that in Arnobius the African church found no unfitting champion. Living amidst impurity and corruption, and seeing on every side the effects of a superstitious and sensual faith, he stands forward to proclaim that man has a nobler ideal set before him than the worship of the foul imaginations of his de- praved fancy, to call his fellows to a purer life, and to point out that the Leader who claims that men should follow Him is both worthy and able to guide. This he does with enthu- siasm, vigour, and effect ; and in doing this he accomplishes his end.
§ 5. Various opinions have been entertained as to the posi- tion which Arnobius occupied with regard to the Bible. We cannot here enter into a discussion of these, and shall merely present a brief statement of facts.
1 Cf. pp. 347, n. 3, and 364, n. 3, with the Appendix.
xvi INTRODUCTION.
It is evident that with regard to the Jews and the Old Testament Arnobius was in a state of perfect ignorance ; for he confounds the Sadducees with the Pharisees,1 makes no allusion to the history of the Israelites, and shows that he was not acquainted with their forms of sacrifice.2
He was evidently well acquainted with the life of Christ and the history of the church, and alludes at times to well- known Christian sayings ; but how far in so doing he quotes the Gospels and Epistles, is not easily determined. Thus it has been supposed, and with some probability, that in referring to the miracles of Christ he must allude to the Gospels as recording them. But it must be observed that he ascribes to Christ a miracle of which the New Testament makes no mention, — of being understood by men of different nations, as though He spoke in several languages at the same moment.3 So, too, his account4 of the passion differs from that of the New Testament. On the other hand, we find that he speaks of Christ as having taught men " not to return evil for evil," 5 as " the way of salvation, the door of life, by whom alone there is access to the light," 6 and as having been seen by " countless numbers of men " after His resurrection.7 Still further, he makes frequent references to accounts of Christ written by the apostles and handed down to their followers,8 and asks why their writings should be burned.9 In one place,10 also, he asks, " Have the well- known words never rung in your ears, that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God?" where the reference seems to be very distinct ;n but he nowhere says that he is quoting, or mentions any books.
This is, however, less remarkable when we take into account his mode of dealing with Clemens Alexandrinus and
1 P. 158, n. 2. 2 Cf. B. vii., on sacrifices generally.
3 P. 37, n. 2. 4 P. 45, n. 1.
5 P. 9, n. 1. « P. 135, n. 6.
7 P. 37 ; cf. 1 Cor. xv. 6.
8 i. 55, p. 45 ; 56, p. 46 ; 58, p. 47 ; 59, p. 48.
9 iv. 36, p. 218. 10 ii. 6, p. 68, n. 5. 11 Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 19.
INTRODUCTION. xvii
Cicero. The fourth, fifth, and sixth books are based on these two authors, and from Clement, in particular, whole sentences are taken unchanged. Yet the only reference made to either is the very general allusion in the third and fourth books.1
On the other hand, he quotes frequently and refers dis- tinctly to many authors, and is especially careful to show that he has good authority for his statements, as will be seen by observing the number of books to which he refers on the mysteries and temples. If we bear this in mind, the prin- ciple which guided him seems to have been, mat when he has occasion to quote an author once or twice, he does so by name, but that he takes it for granted that every one knows what are the great sources of information, and that it is therefore unnecessary to specify in each case what is the particular authority.
There are many interesting questions connected with this subject, but these we must for the present leave untouched.
§ 6. No other works by Arnobius have been preserved, and only two MSS. are known to exist. Of these, the one in Brussels is merely a transcript of that preserved in the public library at Paris, on which all editions have been based. This is a MS. of the ninth or tenth century, and contains the Octavius of Minucius Felix immediately after the seventh book adcersus Gentes, in consequence of which that treatise was at first printed as the eighth book of Arnobius. Although it has been collated several times, we are still in doubt as to its true readings, — Hildebrand, who last examined it, having done so with too little care.
The first 2 edition was printed at Rome in 1542, and was followed by that of Gelenius,3 in which much was done for the emendation of the text; but arbitrary con- jectures were too frequently admitted. Next in order follow those of Canterus,4 who did especial service by
1 Pp. 154 and 195, n. 3.
2 Arnobii Disputationum adversus Gentes, libri octo, nunc pritnum in lucem editi Romse, apud Franc. Prisciauum Florentirmm.
3 Basilcse 1546. « Autverpiaj 1582. ARNOB. b
xviii INTRODUCTION.
pointing out what use Arnobius has made of Clement, Ursinus,1 Elmenhorst,2 Stewechius,3 Heraldus,4 and the Leyden 5 variorum edition, based on a recension of the text by Salmasius.6 The later editions are those of Oberthur,7 whose text is adopted by Orelli,8 Hildebrand,9 and Oehler.10 Oberthur's edition is of little importance, and that of Orelli is valuable solely as a collection of notes gathered from many sources into a crude and undigested mass. Hildebrand seems to have taken too little pains with his work ; and Oehler, whose critical sagacity and industry might have given us a most satisfactory edition, was unfortunately ham- pered by want of space,
No edition of Arnobius has been published in England ; and the one Englishman who has taken any pains with this author seerns to be John Jones, who, under the pseudonym of Leander de St. Martino, prepared summaries, which were added to a reprint of Stewechius at Douay 1G34. As this edition has not come into our hands, we are unable to speak of it more particularly.
§ 7. It will be observed that adverms Gentcs is the title of this work in all editions except those of Hildebrand and Oehler, in which it is <xdversm Nationes. The difference is very slight, but it may be well to men.tion that neither can be said with certainty to be correct. The first is the form used by Jerome in two passages of his writings ;u and as he
1 Ronree 1583, This is the second Roman €d., and restores the Octavius to Minucius Felix.
2 Hanovise 1603 ; dedicated to Joseph Scaliger. 3 Antwerpise 1604.
4 Paris 1605. This edition, which is of great value, and shows great learning and ability, was completed ia two months, as Heraldus him- self teils us.
5 Lugduni Batavoram 1C51, containing the notes of Canterus, Elmenhorst, Stewechius, and Heraldus.
6 Salmasius purposed writing commentaries for this edition, but died without doing more than beginning them.
1 Wirceburgi 1783, 8vo, preceded by a rambling introductory epistle. 8 Lipsise 1816-17, 8vo. » Halis Saxonum 1844, 8vo.
J0 Lipsise 1846, 8vo. " Cf. § 1, notes 1 and 2.
INTRODUCTION. xix
must have seen earlier MSS. than that now extant, he is supposed to give the title which he found in them. In the Paris MS., however, at the end of the second book, the subscription is, " The second book of Arnobius adcersus Nationes ends ;" and it has been argued that, as the copyist would hardly have gone so far astray, while it is quite pos- sible that Jerome did not attempt to do more than indicate generally the purpose of the book without quoting its title- page, this must be the true title. The first page of the existing MS. is torn away, and the question remains there- fore undecided : fortunately its decision is not of the slightest importance.
ERRATA.
Page 7, n. 1, for Hist. Nat. xx. 24, read ii. 38. 28, 1. 5, for Opis, read Ops. 141, 1. 24, for 1500, readWSQ. 173, n. 2, /or i. 7, raid i. 5.
THE SEVEN BOOKS OF
ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES.
BOOK I.
ARGUMENT.
THE enemies of Christianity were wont to say that, since its appearance on earth, the gods had shown their hatred of it by sending upon men all manner of calamities, and that, owing to the neglect of sacred rites, the divine care no longer guarded the world. Arnobius begins by showing how baseless this opinion is (1), for the laws and course of nature re- main unchanged (2) ; and though the heathen said that since Chris- tianity came into the world there had been wars, famines, pestilences, and many other similar calamities, these were not new evils, for history tells of terrible misery and destruction resulting from such causes in past ages (3-5) ; while it should also be noticed, that through the gentle and peaceful spirit of Christianity, the world is already relieved in part, aud that war would be unknown, and men live peacefully together, if it prevailed universally (6). If asked, "What are, then, the causes of human misery ? Arnobius answers that this is no part of his subject (7), but suggests that all evil results necessarily from the very nature of things, — is, indeed, perhaps not evil at all, but, however opposed to the plea- sures or even interests of individuals, tends to general good (8-11) ; and that it is therefore somewhat presumptuous in man, a creature so igno- rant of himself, to seek to impose conditions on the superior powers (12). He further shows the futility of blaming the Christians for all these ills, by reminding his opponents that there had been no unvarying series of calamities since Christianity came to earth, but that success had counter- balanced defeat, and abundance scarcity; so that arguments such as these would prove that the gods were angry at times, at times forgot their anger (13-16). But, Arnobius asks, if the gods can be enraged, does not this argue mortality and imperfection in them (17, 18), and even injustice (19), or weakness, if they need the aid of men in punishing their ARNOB. A
2 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [Boon i.
enemies (20) ? As, however, all alike suffer, it is absurd to say that Christians are specially aimed at; and, indeed, this is a cry raised by those interested in upholding the superstitious rites of antiquity (21-24). But assuming that the gods could be enraged, why should they be angry at Christians more than others? Because, the heathen said, Christianity introduced new and impious forms of religion. In reply to this, Arnobius points out that Christians are nothing but worshippers of the supreme God, under Christ's teaching and guidance (25-27) ; and shows how ab- surd it is to accuse those of impiety who worship the Creator and supreme Euler, while those who serve the lesser gods — even foul and loathsome
deities are called religious (28-30) ; and then turns to God Himself,
beseeching pardon for these ignorant worshippers of His creatures, who had neglected Himself (31). He merely notices but refuses to discuss the position of those who deny that God exists, holding it impious even to reason about this, as though it were questionable, while there is an instinctive belief and reverence implanted in our breasts (31-33). But, his opponents said, we worship Jupiter as the supreme God. Jupiter, however, Arnobius points out, cannot claim this rank, for he is ad- mittedly not self -existent (34) ; or if, as some said, Jupiter is only another name for the Supreme Being, then, as all alike worship Him, all must be regarded by Hun alike (35). But, his opponents urged, you are guilty not in worshipping God, but in worshipping a mere man who died on the cross ; to which Arnobius replies, in the first place, by retorting the charge as bearing much more forcibly on the heathen them- selves (36, 37) ; and then argues that Christ has sufficiently vindicated his claims to divinity by leading the blind and erring and lost into the ways of truth and salvation, and by his revelation of things previously unknown (38, 39) ; while, again, his death on the cross does not affect his teaching and miracles, any more than the loss of life deprived of fame Pythagoras, Socrates, Aquilius, Trebonius, or Eegulus (40), and contrasts favourably with the stories told about Bacchus, ^Esculapius, Hercules, Attis, and Romulus (41) ; and, finally, asserts Christ's divinity as proved by his miracles (42), which are compared with those of the Magi both as to their end and the manner in which they were wrought (43, 44) ; and the chief features of the miracles of his life on earth and his resurrection, of the power of his name, and the spread of his church are summarily noticed (45-47). Arnobius next remarks that the heathen did not even pretend that their gods had healed the sick without using medicines, merely by a word or touch, as Christ did (48) ; and, recalling the thousands who had in vain sought divine aid at temple or shrine, says that Christ sent none away unhelped (49), and that he gave this same power to his followers also (50), which neither priest nor magian is found to possess (51, 52). His divinity was shown also by the won- ders which attended his death (53). Eye-witnesses— and these most trustworthy— testified to Christ's miracles (54) ; aud the acceptance by
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 3
the whole world, in so short a time, of his religion attests its truth (55). It might be said, however, that the Christian writers were not trustworthy, and exaggerated the number and importance of Christ's miracles (56) : in reply to which, Arnobius shows that their writings rest on as good authority as those of the heathen (57), and that their greater novelty and literary rudeness are in their favour rather than otherwise, and are certainly of no weight against them (57-59). But, said the heathen, if Christ was God, why did he live and die as a man ? Be- cause, it is replied, God's own nature could not be made manifest to men (60), and His reasons for choosing so to manifest Himself, and not otherwise, though they may be within our reach, are certainly coucealed in much obscurity (61) ; while as to Christ's death, that was but the dis- solution of his human frame (62). Hurrying, it would seem, to con- clude this part of the discussion, Arnobius hastily points out the great powers which Christ might have wielded in his own defence, if he had refused to submit to the violence offered him, which however were un- used, because he rather chose to do for his disciples all that he had led them to look for (63). If, then, kings and tyrants and others who lived most wickedly, are honoured and deified, why should Christ, even if he asserted falsely that he was a heaven-sent Saviour, be so hated and as- sailed (64) ? If one came from distant and unknown regions, promising to deliver all from bodily sickness, how gladly would men flock to do him honour, and strive for his favour ! How extraordinary, then, is the conduct of those who revile and abuse, and would destroy, if they could, him who has come to deliver us from spiritual evils, and work out our salvation (65) !
JINCE I have found some who deem them- selves very wise in their opinions, acting as if they were inspired,1 and announcing with all the authority of an oracle,2 that from the time when the Christian people began to exist in the world the universe has gone to ruin, that the human race has been visited with ills of many kinds, that even the very gods, abandoning their accustomed charge, in virtue of which they
1 The words insanire, baccJiari, refer to the appearance of the ancient seers when under the influence of the deity. So Virgil says, Imanam vatem aspicies (jEn. iii. 443), and, BaccJiatur votes (SEn. vi. 78). The meaning is, that they make their asseverations with all the confidence of a seer when filled, as he pretended, with the influence of the god.
8 Et velut quiddam promptum ex oraculo dicere, i.e. to declare a matter with boldness and majesty, as if most certain and undoubted.
4 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
were wont in former days to regard with interest our affairs, have been driven from the regions of earth, — I have resolved, so far as my capacity and my humble power of language will allow, to oppose public prejudice, and to refute calumnious accusations ; lest, on the one hand, those persons should ima- gine that they are declaring some weighty matter, when they are merely retailing vulgar rumours ;x and on the other, lest, if we refrain from such a contest, they should suppose that they have gained a cause, lost by its own inherent demerits, not abandoned by the silence of its advocates. For I should not deny that that charge is a most serious one, and that we fully deserve the hatred attaching to public enemies,2 if it should appear that to us are attributable causes by reason of which the universe has deviated from its laws, the gods have been driven far away, and such swarms of miseries have been inflicted on the generations of men.
2. Let us therefore examine carefully the real significance of that opinion, and what is the nature of the allegation ; and laying aside all desire for wrangling,3 by which the calm view of subjects is wont to be dimmed, and [even] inter- cepted, let us test, by fairly balancing the considerations on both sides, whether that which is alleged be true. For it will assuredly be proved by an array of convincing arguments, not that we are discovered to be more impious, but that they themselves are convicted of that charge who profess to be worshippers of the deities, and devotees of an antiquated superstition. And, in the first place, we ask this of them in friendly and calm language : Since the name of the Christian religion began to be used on the earth, what phenomenon, unseen before,4 unheard of before, what event contrary to the laws established in the beginning, has the so-called " Nature of Things" felt or suffered I Have these first elements, from which it is agreed that all things were compacted, been
1 Popularia t-eria, i.e. rumours arising from the ignorance of the common people.
2 The Christians were regarded as " public enemies," and were so called. 8 Or, " all party zeal."
4 So Meursius, — the MS. reading is inusitatum, " extraordinary."
BOOK i.] AENOBIUS ADVEESUS GENTES. 5
altered into elements of an opposite character? Has the fabric of this machine and mass [of the universe], by which we are all covered, and in which we are held enclosed, re- laxed in any part, or broken up ? Has the revolution of the globe, to which we are accustomed, departing from the rate of its primal motion, begun either to move too slowly, or to be hurried onward in headlong rotation ? Have the stars begun to rise in the west, and the setting of the constellations to take place in the east ? Has the sun himself, the chief of the heavenly bodies, with whose light all things are clothed, and by whose heat all things are vivified, blazed forth with increased vehemence? has he become less warm, and has he altered for the worse into opposite conditions that well-regulated temperature by which he is wont to act upon the earth ? Has the moon ceased to shape herself anew, and to change into former phases by the constant recurrence of fresh ones ? Has the cold of winter, has the heat of summer, has the moderate warmth of spring and autumn, been modi- fied by reason of the intermixture of ill-assorted seasons? Has the winter begun to have long days ? has the night begun to recall the very tardy twilights of summer ? Have the winds at all exhausted their violence? Is the sky not collected1 into clouds by reason of the blasts having lost their force, and do the fields when moistened by the showers not prosper? Does the earth refuse to receive the seed committed to it, or will not the trees assume their foliage ? Has the flavour of excellent fruits altered, or has the vine changed in its juice ? Is foul blood pressed forth from the olive berries, and is [oil] no longer supplied to the lamp, now extinguished ? Have animals of the land and of the sea no sexual desires, and do they not conceive young ? Do they not guard, according to their own habits and their own instinct, the offspring gene- rated in their wombs ? In fine, do men themselves, whom an active energy with its first impulses has scattered over habit- able lands, not form marriages with due rites ? Do they not beget dear children? do they not attend to public, to individual, and to family concerns ? Do they not apply their talents, as 1 So Gelenius ; MS., coartatur, " pressed together."
8 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
each one pleases, to varied occupations, to different kinds of learning ? and do they not reap the fruit of diligent applica- tion ? Do those to whom it has been so allotted, not exercise kingly power or military authority? Are men not every day advanced in posts of honour, in offices of power? Do they not preside in the discussions of the law courts ? Do they not explain the code of law ? do they not expound the principles of equity ? All other things with which the life of man is surrounded, in which it consists, do not all men in their own tribes practise, according to the established order of their country's manners ?
3. Since this is so, and since no strange influence has suddenly manifested itself to break the continuous course of events by interrupting their succession, what is the ground of the allegation, that a plague was brought upon the earth after the Christian religion came into the world, and after it revealed the mysteries of hidden truth ? But pestilences, say my opponents, and droughts, wars, famines, locusts, mice, and hailstones, and other hurtful things, by which the pro- perty of men is assailed, the gods bring upon us, incensed as they are by your wrong-doings and by your transgressions. If it were not a mark of stupidity to linger on matters which are already clear, and which require no defence, I should certainly show, by unfolding the history of past ages, that those ills which you speak of were not unknown, were not sudden in their visitation ; and that the plagues did not burst upon us, and the affairs of men begin to be attacked by a variety of dangers, from the time that our sect1 won the honour 2 of this appellation. For if we are to blame, and if these plagues have been devised against our sin, whence did antiquity know these names for misfortunes ? Whence did she give a designation to wars ? By what conception
1 Or, " race," gens, i.e. the Christian people.
2 The verb mereri, used in this passage, has in Koman writers the idea of merit or excellence of some kind in a person, in virtue of which he is deemed worthy of some favour or advantage ; but in ecclesiastical Latin it means, as here, to gain something by the mere favour of God, without any merit of one's own.
BOOK i.] AENOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 7
could she indicate pestilence and hailstorms, or how could she introduce these terms among her words, by which speecli was rendered plain ? For if these ills are entirely new, and if they derive their origin from recent transgressions, how could it be that the ancients coined terms for these things, which, on the one hand, they knew that they themselves had never experienced, and which, on the other, they had not heard of as occurring in the time of their ancestors ? Scarcity of produce, say my opponents, and short supplies of grain, press more heavily on us. For [I would ask] were the former gene- rations, even the most ancient, at any period wholly free from such an inevitable calamity? Do not the very words by which these ills are characterized bear evidence and proclaim loudly that no mortal ever escaped from them with entire immu- nity? But if the matter were difficult of belief, we might urge, on the testimony of authors, how great nations, and what individual nations, and how often [such nations] expe- rienced dreadful famine, and perished by accumulated devas- tation. Very many hailstorms fall upon and assail all things. For do we not find it contained and deliberately stated in ancient literature, that even showers of stones1 often ruined entire districts ? Violent rains cause the crops to perish, and proclaim barrenness to countries: — were the ancients, in- deed, free from these ills, when we have known of2 mighty rivers even being dried up, and the mud of their channels parched ? The contagious influences of pestilence consume the human race : — ransack the records of history written in various languages, and you will find that all countries have often been desolated and deprived of their inhabitants. Every kind of crop is consumed, and devoured by locusts and by mice : — go through your own annals, and you will be taught by these plagues how often former ages were visited by them, and how often they were brought to the wretched- ness of poverty. Cities shaken by powerful earthquakes totter to their destruction : — what ! did not bygone days wit-
1 See Livy, i. 31, etc. ; and Pliny, Nat. Hist. xx. 24.
2 The MS. reads, flumina cognoverimus ingentia lim-in-is ingentia sic- catis, " that mighty rivers shrunk up, leaving the mud," etc.
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ness cities with their populations engulphed by huge rents of the earth?1 or did they enjoy a condition exempt from such disasters?
4. When was the human race destroyed by a flood ? was it not before us 1 When was the world set on fire,2 and re- duced to coals and ashes? was it not before us? When were the greatest cities engulphed in the billows of the sea ? was it not before us ? When were wars waged with wild beasts, and battles fought with lions ? 3 was it not before us ? When was ruin brought on whole communities by poisonous serpents ? 4 was it not before us ? For, inasmuch as you are wont to lay to our blame the cause of frequent wars, the devastation of cities, the irruptions of the Germans and the Scythians, allow me, with your leave, to say, — In your eagerness to calumniate us, you do not perceive the real nature of that which is alleged.
5. Did we bring it about, that ten thousand years ago a vast number of men burst forth from the island which is called the Atlantis of Neptune,6 as Plato tells us, and utterly ruined and blotted out countless tribes ? Did this form a prejudice against us, that between the Assyrians and Bactrians, under the leadership of Ninus and Zoroaster of old, a struggle was maintained not only by the sword and by physical power, but also by magicians, and by the mysterious learning of the Chaldeans ? Is it to be laid to the charge of our religion,
1 So Tertullian, Apologet. 40, says, — "We have read that the islands Hiera, Anaphe, Delos, Ehodes, and Cos were destroyed, together with many human beings."
2 Arnobius, no doubt, speaks of the story of Phaethon, as told by Ovid ; on which, cf. Plato, Tim. st. p. 22.
8 Nourry thinks that reference is here made to the contests of gladiators and athletes with lions and other beasts in the circus. But it is more likely that the author is thinking of African tribes who were harassed by lions. Thus .ZElian (de Nat. Anim. xvii. 24) tells of a Libyan people, the Nomsei, who were entirely destroyed by lions.
4 The city of Amycte in Italy is referred to, which was destroyed by serpents.
6 In the Timseiis of Plato, c. vi. st. p. 24, an old priest of Sais, in Egypt, is represented as telling Solon that in times long gone by the Athenians were a very peaceful and very brave people, and that 9000
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 9
that Helen was carried off under the guidance and at the instigation of the gods, and that she became a direful destiny to her own and to after times ? Was it because of our name, that that mad-cap Xerxes let the ocean in upon the land, and that he marched over the sea on foot? Did we pro- duce and stir into action the causes, by reason of which one youth, starting from Macedonia, subjected the kingdoms and peoples of the East to captivity and to bondage? Did we, forsooth, urge the deities into frenzy, so that the Romans lately, like some swollen torrent, overthrew all nations, and swept them beneath the flood ? But if there is no man who would dare to attribute to our times those things which took place long ago, how can we be the causes of the present misfortunes, when nothing new is occurring, but all things are old, and were unknown to none of the ancients'?
6. Although you allege that those wars which you speak of were excited through hatred of our religion, it would not be difficult to prove, that after the name of Christ was heard in the world, not only were they not increased, but they were even in great measure diminished by the restrain- ing of furious passions. For since we, a numerous band of men as we are, have learned from his teaching and his laws that evil ought not to be requited with evil,1 that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with
years before that time they had overcome a mighty host which came rushing from the Atlantic Sea, and which threatened to subjugate all Europe and Asia. The sea was then navigable, and in front of the pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) lay an island larger than Africa and Asia together : from it travellers could pass to other islands, and from these again to the opposite continent. In this island great kings arose, who made themselves masters of the whole island, as well as of other islands, and parts of the continent. Having already possessions in Libya and Europe, which they wished to increase, they gathered an im- mense host ; but it was repelled by the Athenians. Great earthquakes and storms ensued, in which the island of Atlantis was submerged, and the sea ever after rendered impassable by shoals of mud produced by the sunken island. For other forms of this legend, and explanations of it, see Smith's Dictionary of Geography, under Atlantis. i Cf. Matt. v. 39.
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that of another, an ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying a benefit from Christ, inasmuch as by his means the rage of savage ferocity has been softened, and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of a fellow-creature. But if all without exception, who feel that they are men not in form of body but in power of reason, would lend an ear for a little to his salutary and peaceful rules, and would not, in the pride and arrogance of enlightenment, trust to their own senses rather than to his admonitions, the whole world, having turned the use of steel into more peaceful occupations, would now be living in the most placid tranquillity, and would unite in blessed harmony, maintaining inviolate the sanctity of treaties.
7. But if, say my opponents, no damage is done to human affairs by you, whence arise those evils by which wretched mortals are now oppressed and overwhelmed ? You ask of me a decided statement,1 which is by no means necessary to this cause. For no immediate and prepared discussion regarding it has been undertaken by me, for the purpose of showing or proving from what causes and for what reasons each event took place ; but in order to demonstrate that the reproaches of so grave a charge are far removed from our door. And if I prove this, if by examples and2 by powerful arguments the truth of the matter is "made clear, I care not whence these evils come, or from what sources and first be- ginnings they flow.
8. And yet, that I may not seem to have no opinion on subjects of this kind, that I may not appear when asked to have nothing to offer, I may say, What if the primal matter which has been diffused through the four elements of the universe, contains the causes of all miseries inherent in its own constitution I What if the movements of the heavenly bodies produce these evils in certain signs, regions, seasons, and tracts, and impose upon things placed under them the necessity of various dangers *? What if, at stated intervals,
1 The MS. here inserts a mark of interrogation.
2 So the MS., si facto et, corrected, however, by a later copyist, si facio ui, " if I cause that," etc.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 11
changes take place in the universe, and, as in the tides of the sea, prosperity at one time flows, at another time ebbs, evils alternating with it? What if those impurities of matter which we tread under our feet have this condition imposed upon them, that they give forth the most noxious exhalations, by means of which this our atmosphere is corrupted, and brings pestilence on our bodies, and weakens the human race? What if — and this seems nearest the truth — whatever appears to us adverse, is in reality not an evil to the world itself ? And what if, measuring by our own advantages all things which take place, we blame the results of nature through ill- formed judgments ? Plato, that sublime head and pillar of philosophers, has declared in his writings, that those cruel floods and those conflagrations of the world are a purification of the earth ; nor did that wise man dread to call the over- throw of the human race, its destruction, ruin, and death, a renewal of things, and to affirm that a youthfulness, as it were, was secured by this renewed strength.1
9. It rains not from heaven, my opponent says, and we are in distress from some extraordinary deficiency of grain crops. What then, do you demand that the elements should be the slaves of your wants ? and that you may be able to live more softly and more delicately, ought the compliant seasons to minister to your convenience ? What if, in this way, one who is intent on voyaging complains that now for a long time there are no winds, and that the blasts of heaven have for ever lulled ? Is it therefore to be said that that peacefulness of the universe is pernicious, because it interferes with the wishes of traders ? What if one, accustomed to bask himself in the sun, and thus to acquire dryness of body, simi- larly complains that by the clouds the pleasure of serene weather is taken away ? Should the clouds, therefore, be said to hang over with an injurious veil, because idle lust is not permitted to scorch itself in the burning heat, and to devise excuses for drinking? All these events which are brought to pass, and which happen under this mass of the universe, are not to be regarded as sent for our petty advan- 1 Plato, Tim. st. p. 22.
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tages, but as consistent with the plans and arrangements of Nature herself.
10. And if anything happens which does not foster our- selves or our affairs with joyous success, it is not to be set down forthwith as an evil, and as a pernicious thing. The world rains or does not rain : for itself it rains or does not rain ; and, though you perhaps are ignorant of it, it either diminishes excessive moisture by a burning drought, or by the outpouring of rain moderates the dryness extending over a very long period. It raises pestilences, diseases, famines, and other baneful forms of plagues : how can you tell whether it does not thus remove that which is in excess, and whether, through loss to themselves, it does not fix a limit to things prone to luxuriance ?
11. Would you venture to say that, in this universe, this thing or the other thing is an evil, whose origin and cause you are unable to explain and to analyze ? l And because it interferes with your lawful, perhaps even your unlawful pleasures, would you say that it is pernicious and adverse ? What, then, because cold is disagreeable to your members, and is wont to chill 2 the warmth of your blood, ought not winter on that account to exist in the world ? And because you are unable3 to endure the hottest rays of the sun, is summer to be removed from the year, and a different course of nature to be instituted under different laws? Hellebore is poison to men ; should it therefore not grow ? The wolf lies in wait by the sheepfolds ; is nature at all in fault, because she has produced a beast most dangerous to sheep ? The serpent by his bite takes away life ; a reproach, forsooth, to creation, because it has added to animals monsters so cruel.
12. It is rather presumptuous, when you are not your own master, even when you are the property of another, to dictate terms to those more powerful ; to wish that that should hap- pen which you desire, not that which you have found fixed
1 " To analyze " — dissolvere — is in the MS. marked as spurious.
2 In the MS. we find " to chill and numb " — conyelare, constringcre ; but the last word, too, is marked as spurious.
8 MS. sustinere (marked as a gloss), "to sustain;" perferre, "to endure."
BOOK i.J AENOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 13
in things by their original constitution. Wherefore, if you wish that your complaints should have a basis, you must first inform us whence you are, or who you are ; whether the world was created and fashioned for you, or whether you came into it as sojourners from other regions. And since it is not in your power to say or to explain for what purpose you live beneath this vault of heaven, cease to believe that anything belongs to you ; since those things which take place are not brought about in favour of a part, but have regard to the interest of the whole.
13. Because of the Christians, my opponents say, the gods inflict upon us all calamities, and ruin is brought on our crops by the heavenly deities. I ask, when you say these things, do you not see that you are accusing us with bare- faced effrontery, with palpable and clearly proved falsehoods? It is almost three hundred years ; — something less or more — since we Christians began to exist, and to be taken account of in the world. During all these years, have wars been incessant, has there been a yearly failure of the crops, has there been no peace on earth, has there been no season of cheapness and abundance of all things ? For this must first be proved by him who accuses us, that these calamities have been endless and incessant, that men have never had a breathing time at all, and that without any relaxation 2 they have undergone dangers of many forms.
14. And yet do we not see that, in these years and seasons that have intervened, victories innumerable have been gained from the conquered enemy, — that the boundaries of the empire have been extended, and that nations whose names we had not previously heard, have been brought under our power, — that very often there have been the most plentiful yields of grain, seasons of cheapness, and such abundance of commodities, that all commerce was paralyzed, being pros- trated by the standard of prices? For in what manner could affairs be carried on, and how could the human race have
1 See Introduction.
2 Sine vllisferiis, a proverbial expression, " without any holidays," i.e. without any intermixture of good.
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existed1 even to this time, had not the productiveness of nature continued to supply all things which use demanded ?
15. Sometimes, however, there were seasons of scarcity ; yet they were relieved by times of plenty. Again, certain wars were carried on contrary to our wishes.2 But they were afterwards compensated by victories and successes. What shall we say, then ? — that the gods at one time bore in mind our acts of wrong-doing, at another time again forgot them ? If, when there is a famine, the gods are said to be enraged at us, it follows that in time of plenty they are not wroth, and ill-to-be-appeased ; and so the matter comes to this, that they both lay aside and resume anger with sportive whim, and always renew their wrath afresh by the recollection of the causes of offence.
16. Yet one cannot discover by any rational process of reasoning, what is the meaning of these statements. If the gods willed that the Alemanni 3 and the Persians should be overcome because Christians dwelt among their tribes, how did they grant victory to the Romans when Christians dwelt among their peoples also? If they willed that mice and locusts should swarm forth in prodigious numbers in Asia and in Syria because Christians dwelt among their tribes too, why was there at the same time no such phenomenon in Spain and in Gaul, although innumerable Christians lived in those provinces also"? If among the Gaetuli and the Tingui- tani 4 they sent dryness and aridity on the crops on account of this circumstance, why did they in that very year give the most bountiful harvest to the Moors and to the Nomads, when a similar religion had its abode in these regions as well ? If in any one state whatever they have caused many
1 For qui durare Ursinus would read quiret durare ; but this seems to have no MS. authority, though giving better sense and an easier con- struction.
2 That is, unsuccessfully.
3 Alemanni, i.e. the Germans ; hence the French Allemagne. The MS. has Alamanni.
4 The Gsetuli and Tinguitani were African tribes. For Tinguitanos, another reading is tune Aquilanos; but Tinguitanos is much to be pre- ferred on every ground.
BOCK i.] AENOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 15
to die with hunger, through disgust at our name, why have they in the same state made wealthier, ay, very rich, by the high price of corn, not only men not of our body, but even Christians themselves ? Accordingly, either all should have had no blessing if we are the cause of the evils, for we are in all nations; or when you see blessings mixed with misfortunes, cease to attribute to us that which damages your interests, when we in no respect interfere with your blessings and pros- perity. For if I cause it to be ill with you, why do I not prevent it from being well with you ? If my name is the cause of a great dearth, why am I powerless to prevent the greatest productiveness ? If I am said to bring the [ill] luck of a wound being received in war, why, when the enemy are slain, am I not an evil augury ; and why am I not set forth against good hopes, through the ill luck of a bad omen ?
17. And yet, O ye great worshippers and priests of the deities, why, as you assert that those most holy gods are en- raged at Christian communities, do you not likewise perceive, do you not see what base feelings, what unseemly frenzies, you attribute to your deities ? For, to be angry, what else is it than to be insane, to rave, to be urged to the lust of ven- geance, and to revel in the troubles of another's grief, through the madness of a savage disposition ? Your great gods, then, know, are subject to and feel that which wild beasts, which monstrous brutes experience, which the deadly plant natrix contains in its poisoned roots. That nature which is superior to others, and which is based on the firm foundation of unwavering virtue, experiences, as you allege, the instability which is in man, the faults which are in the animals of earth. And what therefore follows of necessity, but that from their eyes flashes dart, flames burst forth, a panting breast emits a hurried breathing from their mouth, and by reason of their burning words their parched lips become pale ?
18. But if this that you say is true, — if it has been tested and thoroughly ascertained both that the gods boil with rage, and that an impulse of this kind agitates the divinities with excitement, on the one hand they are not immortal, and on the other they are not to be reckoned as at all partaking of
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divinity. For wherever, as the philosophers hold, there is any agitation, there of necessity passion must exist. Where pas- sion is situated, it is reasonable that mental excitement follow. Where there is mental excitement, there grief and sorrow exist. Where grief and sorrow exist, there is already room for weakening and decay; and if these two harass them, extinction is at hand, viz. death, which ends all things, and takes away life from every sentient being.
19. Moreover, in this way you represent them as not only unstable and excitable, but, what all agree is far removed from the character of deity, as unfair in their dealings, as wrong-doers, and, in fine, as possessing positively no amount of even moderate fairness. For what is a greater wrong than to be angry with some, and to injure others, to complain of human beings, and to ravage the harmless corn crops, to hate the Christian name, and to ruin the worshippers of Christ with every kind of loss ?
20. *Do they on this account wreak their wrath on you too, in order that, roused by your own private wounds, you may rise up for their vengeance ? It seems, then, that the gods seek the help of mortals ; and were they not protected by your strenuous advocacy, they are not able of themselves to repel and to avenge 2 the insults offered them. Nay rather, if it be true that they burn with anger, give them an oppor- tunity of defending themselves, and let them put forth and make trial of their innate powers, to take vengeance for their offended dignity. By heat, by hurtful cold, by noxious winds, by the most occult diseases, they can slay us, they can con- sume3 us, and they can drive us entirely from all intercourse with men ; or if it is impolitic to assail us by violence, let them give forth some token of their indignation,4 by which it may be clear to all that we live under heaven subject to their strong displeasure.
21. To you let them give good health, to .us bad, ay, the
1 The MS. reads at, " but."
2 Defendere is added in the MS., but marked as a gloss. 8 Consumere is in like manner marked as a gloss.
4 So Orelli, for the MS. judicationis, " judgment."
BOOK i.] AENOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 17
very worst. Let them water your farms with seasonable showers ; from our little fields let them drive away all those rains which are gentle. Let them see to it that your sheep are multiplied by a numerous progeny; on our flocks let them bring luckless barrenness. From your olive-trees and vineyards let them bring the full harvest ; but let them see to it that from not one shoot of ours one drop be expressed. Finally, and as their worst, let them give orders that in your mouth the products of the earth retain their natural quali- ties ; but, on the contrary, that in ours the honey become bitter, the flowing oil grow rancid, and that the wine when sipped, be in the very lips suddenly changed into disappoint- ing vinegar.
22. And since facts themselves testify that this result never occurs, and since it is plain that to us no less share of the bounties of life accrues, and to you no greater, what inordinate desire is there to assert that the gods are unfa- vourable, nay, inimical to the Christians, who, in the greatest adversity, just as in prosperity, differ from you in no respect? If you allow the truth to be told you, and that, too, without reserve, these allegations are but words, — words, I say ; nay, matters believed on calumnious reports not proved by any certain evidence.
23. But the true1 gods, and those who are worthy to have and to wear the dignity of this name, neither conceive anger nor indulge a grudge, nor do they contrive by insidious de- vices what may be hurtful to another party. For verily it is profane, and surpasses all acts of sacrilege, to believe that that wise and most blessed nature is uplifted in mind if one prostrates himself before it in humble adoration ; and if this adoration be not paid, that it deems itself despised, and re- gards itself as fallen from the pinnacle of its glory. It is childish, weak, and petty, and scarcely becoming for those whom the experience of learned men has for a long time called demigods and heroes,2 not to be versed in heavenly
1 The carelessness of some copyist makes the MS. read ve-st-ri, '"your," corrected as above by Ursinus.
2 So Ursinus, followed by Heraldus, LB., and Orelli, for the MS, ABNOB. B
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things, and, divesting themselves of their own proper state, to be busied with the coarser matter of earth.
24. These are your ideas, these are your sentiments, im- piously conceived, and more impiously believed. Nay, rather, to speak out more truly, the augurs, the dream interpreters, the soothsayers, the prophets, and the priestlings, ever vain, have devised these fables ; for they, fearing that their own arts be brought to nought, and that they may extort but scanty contributions from the devotees, now few and infre- quent, whenever they have found you to be willing1 that their craft should come into disrepute, cry aloud, The gods are neglected, and in the temples there is now a very thin attend- ance. Former ceremonies are exposed to derision, and the time-honoured rites of institutions once sacred have sunk be- fore the superstitions of new religions. Justly is the human race afflicted by so many pressing calamities, justly is it racked by the hardships of so many toils. And men — a senseless race — being unable, from their inborn blindness, to see even that which is placed in open light, dare to assert in their frenzy what you in your sane mind do not blush to believe.
25. And lest any one should suppose that we, through distrust in our reply, invest the gods with the gifts of serenity, that we assign to them minds free from resentment, and far removed from all excitement, let us allow, since it is pleasing to you, that they put forth their passion upon us, that they thirst for our blood, and that now for a long time they are eager to remove us from the generations of men. But if it is not troublesome to you, if it is not offensive, if it is a matter of common duty to discuss the points of this argument
errores, which Stewechius would change into errones — " vagrants " — re- ferring to the spirits wandering over the earth : most other edd., fol- lowing Gelenius, read, " called demigods, that these indeed " — ds&monas appellat, et Aos, etc.
1 So the MS., which is corrected in the first ed. " us to be willing " — nos velle: Stewechius reads, " us to be making good progress, are en- vious, enraged, and cry aloud," etc. — nos belle provenire compererunt, invident, indignantur, declamitantque, etc. ; to both of which it is suffi- cient objection that they do not improve the passage by their departure from the us.
BOOK L] AENOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 19
not on grounds of partiality, but on those of truth, we de- mand to hear from you what is the explanation of this, what the cause, why, on the one hand, the gods exercise cruelty on us alone, and why, on the other, men burn against us with exasperation. You follow, our opponents say, profane religious systems, and you practise rites unheard of through- out the entire world. What do you, O men, endowed with reason, dare to assert? What do you dare to prate of? What do you try to bring forward in the recklessness of unguarded speech? To adore God as the highest existence, as the Lord of all things that be, as occupying the highest place among all exalted ones, to pray to Him with respectful submission in our distresses, to cling to Him with all our senses, so to speak, to love Him, to look up to Him with faith, — is this an execrable and unhallowed religion, full of impiety and of sacrilege, polluting by the superstition of its own novelty ceremonies instituted of old ?
26. Is this, I pray, that daring and heinous iniquity on account of which the mighty powers of heaven whet against us the stings of passionate indignation, on account of which you yourselves, whenever the savage desire has seized you, spoil us of our goods, drive us from the homes of our fathers, inflict upon us capital punishment, tortiire, mangle, burn us, and at the last expose us to wild beasts, and give us to be torn by monsters ? Whosoever condemns that in us, or considers that it should be laid against us as a charge, is he deserving either to be called by the name of man, though he seem so to himself ? or is he to be believed a god, although he declare himself to be so by the mouth of a thousand1 pro- phets ? Does Trophonius,2 or Jupiter of Dodona, pronounce us to be wicked ? And will he himself be called god, and be reckoned among the number of the deities, who either fixes the charge of impiety on those who serve the King Supreme, or is racked with envy because His majesty and His worship are preferred to his own ?
1 So LB. and Orelli ; but the MS. reads, " himself to be like [a god] by [liis] prophets," etc. — se esse similem profiteatur in vatibus.
2 So corrected by Pithceus for the MS. profanus.
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Is Apollo, whether called Delian or Clarian, Didymean, Philesian, or Pythian, to be reckoned divine, who either knows not the Supreme Ruler, or who is not aware that He is entreated by us in daily prayers ? And although he knew not the secrets of our hearts, and though he did not discover what we hold in our inmost thoughts, yet he might either know by his ear, or might perceive by the very tone of voice which we use in prayer, that we invoke God Supreme, and that we beg from Him what we require.
27. This is not the place to examine all our traducers, who they are, or whence they are, what is their power, what their knowledge, why they tremble at the mention of Christ, why they regard his disciples as enemies and as hateful persons ; but [with regard to ourselves] to state expressly to those who will exercise common reason, in terms applicable to all of us alike, — We Christians are nothing else than worshippers of the Supreme King and Head, under our Master, Christ. If you examine carefully, you will find that nothing else is implied in that religion. This is the sum of all that we do ; this is the proposed end and limit of sacred duties. Before Him we all prostrate ourselves, according to our custom ; Him we adore in joint prayers ; from Him we beg things just and honourable, and worthy of his ear. Not that He needs our supplications, or loves to see the homage of so many thousands laid at his feet. This is our benefit, and has a regard to our advantage. For since we are prone to err, and to yield to various lusts and appetites through the fault of our innate weakness, He allows Himself at all times to be comprehended in our thoughts, that whilst we entreat Him and strive to merit his bounties, we may receive a desire for purity, and may free ourselves from every stain by the removal of all our shortcomings.
28. What say ye, O interpreters of sacred and of divine law?1 Are they attached to a better cause who adore
1 So Gelenius, followed by Orelli and others, for the MS., reading divini interpretes viri (instead of juris) — " 0 men, interpreters of the sacred and divine," which is retained by the 1st ed., Hildebrand, and Oehler.
BOOK i. J AENOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 21
the Lares Grundules, the Ail Locutii,1 and the Limen- tini,2 than we who worship God the Father of all things, and demand of Him protection in danger and distress ? They, too, seem to you wary, wise, most sagacious, and not worthy of any blame, who revere Fauni and Fatuse, and the genii of states,3 who worship Pausi and Bellonae : — we are pro- nounced dull, doltish, fatuous, stupid, and senseless, who have given ourselves up to God, at whose nod and pleasure everything which exists has its being, and remains immoveable by his eternal decree. Do you put forth this opinion ? Have you ordained this law? Do you publish this decree, that he be crowned with the highest honours who shall worship your slaves ? that he merit the extreme penalty of the cross who shall offer prayers to you yourselves, his masters ? In the greatest states, and in the most powerful nations, sacred rites are performed in the public name to harlots, who in old days earned the wages of impurity, and prostituted themselves to the lust of all ;4 [and yet for this] there are no swellings of indignation on the part of the deities. Temples have been erected with lofty roofs to cats, to beetles, and to heifers :5 — the powers of the deities thus insulted are silent; nor are they affected with any feeling of envy because they see the sacred attributes of vile animals put in rivalry with them. Are the deities inimical to us alone ? To us are they most
1 Aii Locutii. Shortly before the Gallic invasion, B.C. 390, a voice •was heard at the dead of night announcing the approach of the Gauls, but the warning was unheeded. After the departure of the Gauls, the Eomans dedicated an altar and sacred enclosure to Aius Locutius, or Loquens, i.e. " The Announcing Speaker," at a spot on the Via Nova, where the voice was heard. The MS. reads aiaceos boetios, which Gelenius emended Aios Locutios.
2 So emended by Ursinus for the MS. libentinos, which is retained in the 1st ed., and by Gelenius, Canterus, and others. Cf. iv. 9, where Libentina is spoken of as presiding over lusts.
3 As a soul was assigned to each individual at his birth, so a genius was attributed to a state. The genius of the Roman people was often represented on ancient coins.
4 Thus the Athenians paid honours to Lesena, the Romans to Acca Laurentia and Flora.
5 The superstitions of the Egyptians are here specially referred to.
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unrelenting, because we worship their Author, by whom, if they do exist, they began to be, and to have the essence of their power and their majesty, from whom, having ob- tained their very divinity, so to speak, they feel that they exist, and realize that they are reckoned among things that be, at whose will and at whose behest they are able both to perish and be dissolved, and not to be dissolved and not to perish ? l For if we all grant that there is only one great Being, whom in the long lapse of time nought else precedes, it necessarily follows that after Him all things were generated and put forth, and that they burst into an existence each of its kind. But if this is unchallenged and sure, you2 will be compelled as a consequence to confess, on the one hand, that the deities are created,3 and on the other, that they derive the spring of their existence from the great source of things. And if they are created and brought forth, they are also doubtless liable to annihilation and to dangers ; but yet they are believed to be immortal, ever- existent, and subject to no extinction. This is also a gift from God their Author, that they have been privileged to remain the same through countless ages, though by nature they are fleeting, and liable to dissolution.
29. And would that it were allowed me to deliver this argument with the whole world formed, as it were, into one assembly, and to be placed in the hearing of all the human race ! Are we therefore charged before you with an impious religion? and because we approach the Head and Pillar4 of the universe with worshipful service, are we to be con- sidered (to use the terms employed by you in reproaching us) as persons to be shunned, and as godless ones ? And who would more properly bear the odium of these names than he
1 That is, by whose pleasure and at whose command they are pre- served from annihilation.
2 So Orelli, adopting a conjecture of Meursius, for the MS. noUs.
3 That is, not self -existent, but sprung from something previously in being.
4 Columen is here regarded by some as equal to culmen ; but the term " pillar" makes a good sense likewise.
BOOK i.J ARNOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 23
who either knows, or inquires after, or believes any other god rather than this of ours ? To Him do we not owe this first, that we exist, that we are said to be men, that, being either sent forth from Him, or having fallen from Him, we are confined in the darkness of this body ? l Does it not come from Him that we walk, that we breathe and live 1 and by the very power of living, does He not cause us to exist and to move with the activity of animated being ? From this do not causes emanate, through which our health is sustained by the bountiful supply of various pleasures ? Whose is that world in which you live? or who hath authorized you to retain its produce and its possession ? Who hath given that common light, enabling us to see distinctly all things lying beneath it, to handle them, and to examine them ? Who has ordained that the fires of the sun should exist for the growth of things, lest elements pregnant with life should be numbed by settling down in the torpor of inactivity ? When you believe that the sun is a deity, do you not ask who is his founder, who has fashioned him "I Since the moon is a god- dess in your estimation, do you in like manner care to know who is her author and framer ?
30. Does it not occur to you to reflect and to examine in whose domain you live ? on whose property you are ? whose is that earth which you till ? 2 whose is that air which you inhale, and return again in breathing ? whose fountains do you abundantly enjoy? whose water? who has regulated the blasts of the wind? who has contrived the watery clouds? who has discriminated the productive powers of seeds by special characteristics ? Does Apollo give you rain ? Does Mercury send you water from heaven ? Has ^Escu- lapius, Hercules, or Diana devised the plan of showers and
1 This is according to the doctrine of Pythagoras, Plato, Origen, and others, who taught that the souls of men first existed in heavenly beings, and that on account of sins of long standing they were transferred to earthly bodies to suffer punishment. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. p. 433.
2 The Peripatetics called God the locus rerum, r&Vo? wiiyTuy, the " locality and the area of all things," that is, the being in whom all else was contained.
24 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
of storms ? And how can this be, when you give forth that they were born on earth, and that at a fixed period they received vital perceptions ? For if the world preceded them in the long lapse of time, and if before they were born nature already experienced rains and storms, those who were born later have no right of rain-giving, nor can they mix themselves up with those methods which they found to be in operation here, and to be derived from a greater Author.
31. O greatest, O supreme Creator of things invisible ! O thou who art thyself unseen, and who art incomprehen- sible ! Thou art worthy, thou art verily worthy — if only mortal tongue may speak of thee — that all breathing and intelligent nature should never cease to feel and to return thanks ; that it should throughout the whole of life fall on bended knee, and offer supplication with never-ceasing prayers. For thou art the first cause; in thee created things exist, and thou art the space in which rest the foundations of all things, whatever they be. Thou art illimitable, unbegotten, immortal, enduring for aye, God thyself alone, whom no bodily shape may represent, no outline delineate ; of virtues inexpressible, of greatness indefinable ; unrestricted as to locality, movement, and condition, concerning whom nothing can be clearly expressed by the significance of man's words. That thou mayest be understood, we must be silent; and that erring conjecture may track thee through the shady cloud, no word must be uttered. Grant pardon, O King Supreme, to those who persecute thy servants ; and in virtue of thy benign nature, forgive those who fiy from the worship of thy name and the observance of thy religion. It is not to be wondered at if thou art unknown ; it is a cause of greater astonishment if thou art clearly comprehended. But per- chance some one dares — for this remains for frantic mad- ness to do — to be uncertain, and to express doubt whether that God exists or not ; whether He is believed in on the proved truth of reliable evidence, or on the imaginings of empty rumour. For of those who have given themselves to philosophizing, we have heard that some1 deny the existence 1 Diagoras of Melos and Theodoras of Gyrene, called the Atheists.
BOOK i.] AENOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 25
of any divine power, that others1 inquire daily whether there be or not; that others2 construct the whole fabric of the universe by chance accidents and by random collision, and fashion it by the concourse of atoms of different shapes ; with whom we by no means intend to enter at this time on a dis- cussion of such perverse convictions.3 For those who think wisely say, that to argue against things palpably foolish, is a mark of greater folly.
32. Our discussion deals with those who, acknowledging that there is a divine race of beings, doubt about those of greater rank and power, whilst they admit that there are deities inferior and more humble. What then? Do we strive and toil to obtain such results by arguments ? Far hence be such madness ; and, as the phrase is, let the folly, say I, be averted from us. For it is as dangerous to attempt to prove by arguments that God is the highest being, as it is to wish to discover by reasoning of this kind that He exists. It is a matter of indifference whether you deny that He exists, or affirm it and admit it ; since equally culpable are both the assertion of such a thing, and the denial of an unbelieving opponent.
33. Is there any human being who has not entered on the first day of his life with an idea of that Great Head ? In whom has it not been implanted by nature, on whom has it not been impressed, aye, stamped almost in his mother's womb even, in whom is there not a native instinct, that He is King and Lord, the ruler of all things that be ? In fine, if the dumb animals even could stammer forth their thoughts, if they were able to use our languages ; nay, if trees, if the clods of the earth, if stones animated by vital perceptions were able to produce vocal sounds, and to utter articulate speech, would they not in that case, with nature as their guide and teacher,
The former flourished about B.C. 430, the latter about B.C. 310. See Cic. Nat. Dear. i. 2.
1 Protagoras of Abdera, b. B.C. 480, d. 411.
2 Democritus of Abdera, b. B.C. 460, and Epicurus, b. B.C. 342, d. 270.
3 Obstinatione, literally "stubbornness;" Walker conjectures opinativne, "imaginings," which Orelli approves.
26 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
in the faith of uncorrupted innocence, both feel that there is a God, and proclaim that He alone is Lord of all ?
34. But in vain, says one, do you assail us with a ground- less and calumnious charge, as if we deny that there is a deity of a higher kind, since Jupiter is by us both called and esteemed the best and the greatest ; and since we have dedicated to him the most sacred abodes, and have raised huge Capitols. You are endeavouring to connect together things which are dissimilar, and to force them into one class, [thereby] intro- ducing confusion. For by the unanimous judgment of all, and by the common consent of the human race, the omnipotent God is regarded as having never been born, as having never been brought forth to new light, and as not having begun to exist at any time or century. For He Himself is the source of all things, the Father of ages and of seasons. For they do not exist of themselves, but from His everlasting perpetuity they move on in unbroken and ever endless flow. Yet Jupiter indeed, as you allege, has both father and mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, and brothers : now lately conceived in the womb of his mother, being completely formed and perfected in ten months, he burst with vital sensa- tions into light unknown to him before. If, then, this is so, how can Jupiter be God [supreme], when it is evident that He is everlasting, and the former is represented by you as having had a natal day, and as having uttered a mournful cry, through terror at the strange scene ?
35. But suppose they be one, as you wish, and not different in any power of deity and in majesty, do you therefore per- secute us with undeserved hatred ? Why do you shudder at the mention of our name as of the worst omen, if we too worship the deity whom you worship ? or why do you con- tend that the gods are friendly to you, but inimical, aye, most hostile to us, though our relations to them are the same ? For if one religion is common to us and to you, the anger of the gods is stayed j1 but if they are hostile to us alone, it is
1 So the MS. ; for which Meursius would read, nobis iwbisque, corn- munis esset (for cessat) — " is to us and to you, the anger of the gods would be [shared in] common."
BOOK i.] A RNOBI US AD VEES US GENTES. 2 7
plain that both you and they have no knowledge of God. And that that God is not Jove, is evident by the very wrath of the deities.
36. But, says my opponent, the deities are not inimical to you, because you worship the omnipotent God ; but because you both allege that one born as men are, and put to death on the cross, which is a disgraceful punishment even for worthless men, was God, and because you believe that he still lives, and because you worship him in daily supplica- tions. If it is agreeable to you, my friends, state clearly what deities those are who believe that the worship of Christ by us has a tendency to injure them? Is it Janus, the founder of the Janiculum, and Saturn, the author of the Saturnian state I Is it Fauna Fatua,1 the wife of Faunus, who is called the Good Goddess, but who is better and more deserving of praise in the drinking of wine ? Is it those gods [Indigetes] who swim in the river, and live in the channels of the Numicius, in company with frogs and little fishes ? Is it JEsculapius and father Bacchus, the former born of Coronis, and the other dashed by lightning from his mother's womb ? Is it Mercury, son of Maia, and what is more divine, [Maia] the beautiful ? Is it the bow-bearing deities Diana and Apollo, who were companions of their mother's wanderings, and who were scarcely safe in float- ing islands ? Is it Venus, daughter of Dione, paramour of a man of Trojan family, and the prostituter of her secret charms 1 Is it Ceres, born in Sicilian territory, and Proser- pine, surprised while gathering flowers ? Is it the Tlieban or the Phoenician Hercules, — the latter buried in Spanish territory, the other burned by fire on Mount CEta? Is it the brothers Castor and Pollux, sons of Tyndareus, — the one accustomed to tame horses, the other an excellent boxer, and unconquerable with the untanned gauntlet ? Is it the Titans and the Bocchores of the Moors, and the Syrian2
1 So Ursinus, followed by most edd., for the reading of the us. Feitta Fatua, cf. v. 18. A later writer has corrected the MS. Fanda, which, Rigaltius says, an old gloss renders " mother."
8 So restored by Salmasius for Dioscuri, and understood by him aa
28 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
deities, the offspring of eggs ? Is it Apis, born in the Peloponnese, and in Egypt called Serapis? Is it Isis, tanned by Ethiopian suns, lamenting her lost son and husband torn limb from limb? Passing on, we omit the royal offspring of Opis, which your writers have in their books set forth for your instruction, telling you both who they are, and of what character. Do these, then, hear with offended ears that Christ is worshipped, and that he is accepted by us and regarded as a divine person ? And being forgetful of the grade and state in which they re- cently were, are they unwilling to share with another that which has been granted to themselves ? Is this the justice of the heavenly deities ? Is this the righteous judgment of the gods ? Is not this a kind of malice and of greed ? is it not a species of base envy, to wish their own fortunes only to rise, — those of others to be lowered, and to be trodden down in despised lowliness ?
37. We worship one who was born a man. What then ? do you worship no one who was born a man ? Do you not worship one and another, aye, deities innumerable ? Nay, have you not taken from the number of mortals all those whom you now have in your temples; and have you not set them in heaven, and among the constellations "I For if, perchance, it has escaped you that they once partook of human destiny, and of the state common to all men, search the most ancient literature, and range through the writings of those who, living nearest to the days of antiquity, set forth all things with undisguised truth and without flattery : you will learn in detail from what fathers, from what mothers they were each sprung, in what district they were
meaning Dea Syria, i.e. Venus, because it is said that a large egg hav- ing been found by the fish in the Euphrates, was pushed up by them to the dry land, when a dove came down, and sat upon it until the goddess came forth. Such was the form of the legend according to Nigidius ; but Eratosthenes spoke of both Venus and Cupid as being produced in this manner. The Syrian deities were therefore Venus, Cupid, and perhaps Adonis. It should be remembered, however, that the Syrians paid reverence to pigeons and fish as gods (Xen. Anab. i. 4, 9), and that these may therefore be meant.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 29
born, of what tribe ; what they made, what they did, what they endured, how they employed themselves, what fortunes they experienced of an adverse or of a favourable kind in discharging their functions. But if, while you know that they were borne in the womb, and that they lived on the produce of the earth, you nevertheless upbraid us with the worship of one born like ourselves, you act with great in- justice, in regarding that as worthy of condemnation in us which you yourselves habitually do ; or what you allow to be lawful for you, you are unwilling to be in like manner lawful for others.
38. But in the meantime let us grant, in submission to your ideas, that Christ was one of us — similar in mind, soul, body, weakness, and condition ; is he not worthy to be called and to be esteemed God by us, in consideration of his bounties, so numerous as they are ? For if you have placed in the assembly1 of the gods Liber, because he discovered the use of wine ; Ceres, because she discovered the use of bread ; ^Esculapius, because he discovered the use of herbs ; Minerva, because she produced the olive ; Triptolemus, be- cause he invented the plough ; Hercules, because he over- powered and restrained wild beasts and robbers, and water- serpents of many heads, — with how great distinctions is he to be honoured by us, who, by instilling his truth into our hearts, has freed us from great errors ; who, when we were straying everywhere, as if blind and without a guide, with- drew us from precipitous and devious paths, and set our feet on more smooth places ; who has pointed out what is espe- cially profitable and salutary for the human race ; who has shown us what God is,2 who he is, how great and how good ; who has permitted and taught us to conceive and to under- stand, as far as our limited capacity can, his profound and inexpressible depths ; who, in his great kindness, has caused it to be known by what founder, by what creator this world was established and made ; who has explained the nature of
1 So all edd., except those of Hildebrand and Oehler, for the MS. cen- tum— "list."
2 That is, that God is a Spirit.
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its origin l and essential substance, never before imagined in the conceptions of any ; whence generative warmth is added to the rays of the sun ; why the moon, always uninjured 2 in her motions, is believed to alternate her light and her obscu- rity from intelligent causes;3 what is the origin of animals, what rules regulate seeds; who designed man himself, who fashioned him, or from what kind of material did he com- pact the very build of bodies ; what the perceptions are ; what the soul, and whether it flew to us of its own ac- cord, or whether it was generated and brought into exist- ence with our bodies themselves ; whether it sojourns with us, partaking of death, or whether it is gifted with an end- less immortality ; what condition awaits us when we shall have separated from our bodies relaxed in death ; whether we shall retain our perceptions,4 or have no recollection of our former sensations or of past memories;5 who has re- strained 6 our arrogance, and has caused our necks, uplifted with pride, to acknowledge the measure of their weakness ; who hath shown that we are creatures imperfectly formed, that we trust in vain expectations, that we understand
1 Orelli would refer these words to God ; he thinks that with those immediately following they may be understood of God's spiritual nature, — an idea which he therefore supposes Arnobius to assert had never been grasped by the heathen.
2 So Gelenius, followed by Orelli and others, for the corrupt reading of the MS., idem ne quis ; but possibly both this and the preceding clause have crept into the text from the margin, as in construction they differ from the rest of the sentence, both that which precedes, and that which follows.
3 The phrase animalibus causis is regarded by commentators as equal to animatis causis, and refers to the doctrine of the Stoics, that in the sun, moon, stars, etc., there was an intelligent nature, or a certain impulse of mind, which directed their movements.
4 Lit. " shall see" — visuri, the reading of the MS. ; changed in the first ed. and others to victuri — " shall live."
8 Some have suggested a different construction of these words — memo- riam nuUam nostri sensus et recordationis habituri, thus — " have no memory of ourselves and senses of recollection ;" but that adopted above is sim- pler, and does not force the words as this seems to do.
6 The MS. and 1st and 2d Roman edd. read, qui constringit — " who restrains."
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVEESUS GENTES. 31
nothing thoroughly, that we know nothing, and that we do not see those things which are placed before our eyes ; who has guided us from false superstitions to the true reli- gion,— a blessing which exceeds and transcends all his other gifts ; who has raised our thoughts to heaven from brutish statues formed of the vilest clay, and has caused us to hold converse in thanksgiving and prayer with the Lord of the universe.
39. But lately, O blindness, I worshipped images produced from the furnace, gods made on anvils and by hammers, the bones of elephants, paintings, wreaths on aged trees;1 when- ever I espied an anointed stone and one bedaubed with olive oil, as if some power resided in it I worshipped it, I addressed myself to it and begged blessings from a senseless stock. And these very gods of whose existence I had convinced my- self, I treated with gross insults, when I believed them to be wood, stone, and bones, or imagined that they dwelt in the substance of such objects. Now, having been led into the paths of truth by so great a teacher, I know what all these things are, I entertain honourable thoughts concerning those which are worthy, I offer no insult to any divine name ; and what is due to each, whether inferior2 or superior, I assign with clearly-defined gradations, and on distinct authority. Is Christ, then, not to be regarded by us as God? and is he, who in other respects may be deemed the very greatest, not to be honoured with divine worship, from whom we have already received while alive so great gifts, and from whom, when the day comes, we expect greater ones ?
40. But he died nailed to the cross. What is that to the argument 1 For neither does the kind and disgrace of the death change his words or deeds, nor will the weight of his
1 It was a common practice with the Romans to hang the spoils of an enemy on a tree, which was thus consecrated to some deity. Hence such trees were sacred, and remained unhurt even to old age. Some have supposed that the epithet " old " is applied from the fact that the heathen used to offer to their gods objects no longer of use to them- selves ; thus it was only old trees, past bearing fruit, which were gene- rally selected to hang the xjtolia upon.
8 Vel personx vel capiti.
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teaching appear less ; because he freed himself from the shackles of the body, not by a natural separation, but de- parted by reason of violence offered to him. Pythagoras of Samos was burned to death in a temple, under an unjust suspicion of aiming at sovereign power. Did his doctrines lose their peculiar influence, because he breathed forth his life not willingly, but in consequence of a savage assault ? In like manner Socrates, condemned by the decision of his fellow-citizens, suffered capital punishment : have his discus- sions on morals, on virtues, and on duties been rendered vain, because he was unjustly hurried from life ? Others without number, conspicuous by their renown, their merit, and their public character, have experienced the most cruel forms of death, as Aquilius, Trebonius, and Regulus : were they on that account adjudged base after death, because they perished not by the common law of the fates, but after being mangled and tortured in the most cruel kind of death ? No inno- cent person foully slain is ever disgraced thereby; nor is he stained by the mark of any baseness, who suffers severe punishment, not from his own deserts, but by reason of the savage nature of his persecutor.1
41. And yet, O ye who laugh because we worship one who died an ignominious death, do not ye too, by conse- crating shrines to him, honour father Liber, who was torn limb from limb by the Titans ? Have you not, after his punishment and his death by lightning, named ^Esculapius, the discoverer of medicines, as the guardian and protector of health, of strength, and of safety ? Do you not invoke the great Hercules himself by offerings, by victims, and by kindled frankincense, whom you yourselves allege to have been burned alive after his punishment,2 and to have been
1 So all the later edd. ; but in the MS., 1st and 2d Roman edd., and in those of Gelenius and Canterus, this clause reads, cruciatoris perpelitur sssvitatem — " but suffers the cruelty of his persecutor."
2 The words post pcenas in the text are regarded as spurious by Orelli, who supposes them to have crept in from the preceding sentence ; but they may be defended as sufficiently expressing the agonies which Her- cules suffered through the fatal shirt of Nessus.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 33
consumed on the fatal pyres ? Do you not, with the unani- mous approbation of the Gauls, invoke as a propitious l and as a holy god, in the temples of the Great Mother,2 that Phrygian Atys3 who was mangled and deprived of his viri- lity"? Father Romulus himself, who was torn in pieces by the hands of a hundred senators, do you not call Quirinus Marti us, and do you not honour him with priests and with gorgeous couches,4 and do you not worship him in most spacious temples ; and in addition to all this, do you not affirm that he has ascended into heaven? Either, therefore, you too are to be laughed at, who regard as gods men slain by the most cruel tortures ; or if there is a sure ground for your thinking that you should do so, allow us too to feel assured for what causes and on what grounds we do this.
42. You worship one who was born a human being, [say my opponents]. Even if that were true, as has been already said in former passages, yet, in consideration of the many liberal gifts which he has bestowed on us, he ought to be called and be addressed as God. Since he is a God in reality and without any shadow of doubt, do you think that we will deny that he is worshipped by us with all the fervour we are capable of, and assumed as the guardian of our body ? Is that Christ of yours a god, then ? some raving, wrathful, and excited man will say. A god, we will reply, and a god of the inner powers;5 and — what may still further torture unbelievers
1 The words deum propitium are indeed found in the MS., but accord- ing to Rigaltius are not in the same handwriting as the rest of the work.
2 Cybele, whose worship was conjoined with that of Atys. 8 So Orelli, but the MS. Attis.
4 This refers to the practice of placing the images of the gods on pil- lows at feasts. In the temples there were pulvinaria, or couches, specially for the purpose.
5 The phrase j)otentiarum interiorum is not easily understood. Orelli is of opinion that it means those powers which in the Bible are called the " powers of heaven," the "army of heaven," i.e. the angels. The Jews and the early fathers of the church divided the heaven into circles or zones, each inhabited by its peculiar powers or intelligent natures, differing in dignity and in might. The central place was assigned to God himself, and to Christ, who sat on his right hand, and who is called by the fathers of the church the " Angel of the Church,"
C
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with the most bitter pains— he was sent to us by the King Supreme for a purpose of the very highest moment. My opponent, becoming more mad and more frantic, will per- haps ask whether the matter can be proved, as we allege. There is no greater proof than the credibility of the acts done by him, than the unwonted excellence of the virtues [he exhibited], than the conquest and the abrogation of all those deadly ordinances which peoples and tribes saw exe- cuted in the light of day,1 with no objecting voice ; and even they whose ancient laws or whose country's laws he shows to be full of vanity and of the most senseless superstition, (even they) dare not allege these things to be false.
43. My opponent will perhaps meet me with many other slanderous and childish charges which are commonly urged. Jesus was a Magian ; 2 he effected all these things by secret arts. From the shrines of the Egyptians he stole the names of angels of might,3 and the religious system of a remote country. Why, O witlings, do you speak of things which you have not examined, and which are unknown to you, prating with the garrulity of a rash tongue I Were, then, those things which were done, the freaks of demons, and
and the " Angel of the New Covenant." Next in order came " Thrones," " Archangels," " Cherubim and Seraphim," and most remote from God's throne, the " Chorus of Angels," the tutelar genii of men. The system of zones and powers seems to have been derived from the Chaldeans, who made a similar division of the heavens. According to this idea, Arnobius speaks of Christ as nearest to the Father, and God of the " inner powers," who enjoyed God's immediate presence. Eeference is perhaps made to some recondite doctrine of the Gnostics. It may mean, however, the more subtile powers of nature, as affecting both the souls of men and the physical universe.
1 So Orelli with most edd., following Ursinus, for the US. suo ge-ne- ri-s sub limine, which might, however, be retained, as if the sense were that these ordinances were coeval with man's origin, and translated, " tribes saw at the beginning of their race."
2 Magus, almost equivalent to sorcerer.
3 Arnobius uses nomina, " names," with special significance, because the Magi in their incantations used barbarous and fearful names of angels and of powers, by whose influence they thought strange and unusual things were brought to pass.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 35
the tricks of magical arts ? Can you specify and point out to me any one of all those magicians who have ever existed in past ages, that did anything similar, in the thousandth degree, to Christ ? Who has done this without any power of incantations, without the juice of herbs and of grasses, without any anxious watching of sacrifices, of libations, or of seasons ? For we do not press it, and inquire what they profess to do, nor in what kind of acts all their learning and experience are wont to be comprised. For who is not aware that these men either study to know beforehand things im- pending, which, whether they will or not, come of necessity as they have been ordained ? or to inflict a deadly and wasting disease on whom they choose ; or to sever the affec- tions of relatives ; or to open without keys places which are locked ; or to seal the mouth in silence ; or in the chariot race to weaken, urge on, or retard horses ; or to inspire in wives, and in the children of strangers, whether they be males or females, the flames and mad desires of illicit love ? l Or if they seem to attempt anything useful, to be able to do it not by their own power, but by the might of those deities whom they invoke.
44. And yet it is agreed on that Christ performed all those miracles which he wrought without any aid from external things, without the observance of any ceremonial, without any definite mode of procedure, [but solely] by the inherent might of his authority ; and as was the proper duty of a true God, as was consistent with his nature, as was worthy of him, in the generosity of his bounteous power he bestowed nothing hurtful or injurious, but [only that which is] helpful, beneficial, and full of blessings good 2 for men.
1 All these different effects the magicians of old attempted to produce : to break family ties by bringing plagues into houses, or by poisons ; open doors and unbind chains by charms (Orig. contra Cels. ii.) ; affect horses in the race (of which Hieronymus in his Life of Hilarion gives an example) ; and use philters and love potions to kindle excessive and unlawful desires.
2 So Orelli and most edd., following a marginal reading of Ursinus, auxiliaribus plenum lonis (for the MS. nobis).
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45. What do you say again, oh you1 ? Is he then
a man, is he one of us, at whose command, at whose voice, raised in the utterance of audible and intelligible words,2 in- firmities, diseases, fevers, and other ailments of the body fled away t Was he one of us, whose presence, whose very sight, that race of demons which took possession of men was unable to bear, and terrified by the strange power, fled away ? Was he one of us, to whose order the foul leprosy, at once checked, was obedient, and left sameness of colour to bodies formerly spotted ? Was he one of us, at whose light touch the issues of blood were stanched, and stopped their excessive flow 1 3 Was he one of us, whose hands the waters of the lethargic dropsy fled from, and that searching4 fluid avoided; and did the swelling body, assuming a healthy dryness, find relief ? Was he one of us, who bade the lame run "? Was it his work, too, that the maimed stretched forth their hands, and the joints relaxed the rigidity5 acquired even at birth; that the paralytic rose to their feet, and persons now carried home their beds who a little before were borne on the shoulders of others ; the blind were restored to sight, and men born with- out eyes now looked on the heaven and the day ?
46. Was he one of us, I say, who by one act of inter- vention at once healed a hundred or more afflicted with various infirmities and diseases; at whose word only the raging and maddened seas were still, the whirlwinds and tempests were lulled ; who walked over the deepest pools
1 In the height of his indignation and contempt, the writer stops short and does not apply to his opponents any new epithet.
2 This is contrasted with the mutterings and strange words used by the magicians.
8 So the MS. according to Oehler, and seemingly Heraldus ; but ac- cording to Orelli, the MS. reads immoderati (instead of — os) coJiibelant fluores, which Meursius received as equivalent to " the excessive flow- stayed itself."
4 Penetrabilis, " searching," i.e. finding its way to all parts of the body.
* So Orelli, LB., Elmenhorst, and Stewechius, adopting a marginal reading of Ursinus, which prefixes im — to the MS. mobilitates — " loose- ness"— retained by the other edd.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 37
with unwet foot; who trod the ridges of the deep, the very waves being astonished, and nature coming under bondage ; who with five loaves satisfied five thousand of his followers ; and who, lest it might appear to the unbelieving and hard of heart to be an illusion, filled twelve capacious baskets with the fragments that remained? Was he one of us, who ordered the breath that had departed to return to the body, persons buried to come forth from the tomb, and after three days to be loosed from the swathings of the under- taker? Was he one of us, who saw clearly in the hearts of the silent what each was pondering,1 what each had in his secret thoughts ? Was he one of us, who, when he uttered a single word, was thought by nations far removed from one another and of different speech to be using well- known sounds, and the peculiar language of each?2 Was he one of us, who, when he was teaching his followers the duties of a religion that could not be gainsaid, suddenly filled the whole world, and showed how great he was and who he Avas, by unveiling the boundlessness of his authority ? Was he one of us, who, after his body had been laid in the tomb, manifested himself in open day to countless numbers of men; who spoke to them, and listened to them; who taught them, reproved and admonished them ; who, lest they should imagine that they were deceived by unsubstantial fancies, showed himself once, a second time, aye frequently, in familial- conversation ; who appears even now to righteous men of unpolluted mind who love him, not in airy dreams, but in a form of pure simplicity;3 whose name, when heard, puts to flight evil spirits, imposes silence on soothsayers, prevents men from consulting the augurs, causes the efforts of arro- gant magicians to be frustrated, not by the dread of his name, as you allege, but by the free exercise of a greater power ?
1 Cf. John ii. 25.
2 No such miracle is recorded of Christ, and Oehler suggests with some probability that Arnobius may have here fallen into confusion as to what is recorded of the apostles on the day of Pentecost.
3 The Latin is, per purge speciem simplicitatis, which is not easily under- stood, and is less easily expressed.
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47. These facts set forth in summary we have put for- ward, not on the supposition that the greatness of the agent was to be seen in these virtues alone. For however great these things be, how excessively petty and trifling will they be found to be, if it shall be revealed from what realms he has come, of what God he is the minister! But with regard to the acts which were done by him, they were per- formed, indeed, not that he might boast himself in empty ostentation, but that hardened and unbelieving men might be assured that what was professed was not deceptive, and that they might now learn to imagine, from the beneficence of his works, what a true god was. At the same time we wish this also to be known,1 when, as was said, an enumera- tion of his acts has been given in summary, that Christ was able to do not only those things which he did, but that he could even overcome the decrees of fate. For if, as is evi- dent, and as is agreed by all, infirmities and bodily sufferings, if deafness, deformity, and dumbness, if shrivelling of the sinews and the loss of sight happen to us, and are brought on us by the decrees of fate, and if Christ alone has corrected this, has restored and cured man, it is clearer than the sun himself that he was more powerful than the fates are when he has loosened and overpowered those things which were bound with everlasting knots, and fixed by unalterable necessity.
48. But, says some one, you in vain claim so much for Christ, when we now know, and have in past times known, of other gods both giving remedies to many who were sick, and healing the diseases and the infirmities of many men. I do not inquire, I do not demand, what god did so, or at what time ; whom he relieved, or what shattered frame he restored to sound health : this only I long to hear, whether, without the addition of any substance — that is, of any medical appli- cation— he ordered diseases to fly away from men at a touch ; whether he commanded and compelled the cause of ill health to be eradicated, and the bodies of the weak to return to their natural strength. For it is known that Christ, either
1 So almost all edd. ; but tr.e MS. and 1st and 2d Roman edd. read scire— " to know," etc.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 39
by applying his hand to the parts affected, or by the com- mand of his voice only, opened the ears of the deaf, drove away blindness from the eyes, gave speech to the dumb, loosened the rigidity of the joints, gave the power of walking to the shrivelled, — was wont to heal by a word and by an order, leprosies, agues, dropsies, and all other kinds of ail- ments, which some fell power1 has willed that the bodies of men should endure. What act like these have all those gods done, by whom you allege that help has been brought to the sick and the imperilled ? for if they have at any time ordered, as is reported, either that medicine or a special diet be given to some,2 or that a draught be drunk off, or that the juices of plants and of blades be placed3 on that which causes uneasiness, or [have or- dered] that persons should walk, remain at rest, or abstain from something hurtful, — and that this is no great matter, and deserves no great admiration, is evident, if you will attentively examine it — a similar mode of treatment is fol- lowed by physicians also, a creature earth-born and not relying on true science, but founding on a system of conjec- ture, and wavering in estimating probabilities. Now there is no [special] merit in removing by remedies those ailments which affect men : the healing qualities belong to the drugs — not virtues inherent in him who applies them ; and though it is praiseworthy to know by what medicine or by what method it may be suitable for persons to be treated, there is room, for this credit being assigned to man, but not to the deity. For it is [at least] no discredit that he4 should have improved the health of man by things taken from without: it is a disgrace to a god that he is not able to effect it of himself, but that he gives soundness and safety [only] by the aid of external objects. 49. And since you compare Christ and the other deities as
1 See Bk. ii. chap. 36.
2 The gods in whose temples the sick lay ordered remedies through the priests.
8 So all edd. except LB., which reads with the MS. superponere — *' that [one] place the juices," etc. * That is, the physician.
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to the blessings of health bestowed, how many thousands of infirm persons do you wish to be shown to you by us ; how many persons affected with wasting diseases, whom no appli- ances whatever restored, although they went as suppliants through all the temples, although they prostrated themselves before the gods, and swept the very thresholds with their lips — though, as long as life remained, they wearied with prayers, and importuned with most piteous vows YEsculapius himself, the health-giver, as they call him? Do we not know that some died of their ailments ? that others grew old by the torturing pain of their diseases ? that others began to live a more abandoned life after they had wasted their days 1 and nights in incessant prayers, and in expectation of mercy ? 2 Of what avail is it, then, to point to one or another who may have been healed, when so many thousands have been left unaided, and the shrines are full of all the wretched and the unfortunate ? Unless, perchance, you say that the gods help the good, but that the miseries of the wicked are over- looked. And yet Christ assisted the good and the bad alike ; nor was there any one rejected by him, who in adversity sought help against violence and the ills of fortune. For this is the mark of a true god and of kingly power, to deny his bounty to none, and not to consider who merits it or who does not ; since natural infirmity and not the choice of his desire, or of his sober judgment, makes a sinner. To say, moreover, that aid is given by the gods to the deserving when in distress, is to leave undecided and render doubtful what you assert : so that both he who has been made whole may seem to have been preserved by chance, and he who is not may appear to have been unable to banish infirmity, not be- cause of his demerit, but by reason of a heaven-sent weakness.3
1 So the edd., reading tri-v-erunt, for the MS. tri-lu-erunt — " given up," which is retained in the first ed.
2 Pietatis, " of mercy," in which sense the word is often used in late writers. Thus it was from his clemency that Antoninus, the Koman emperor, received the title of Pitts.
3 So most edd., following a marginal reading of Ursinus, which pre- fixes in — to the MS. firmitate.
BOOK i.] ARNOB1US ADVERSUS GENTES. 41
50. Moreover, by his own power he not only performed those miraculous deeds which have been detailed by us in sum- mary, and not as the importance of the matter demanded ; but, what was more sublime, he has permitted many others to attempt them, and to perform them by the use of his name. For when he foresaw that you were to be the de- tractors of his deeds and of his divine work, in order that no lurking suspicion might remain of his having lavished these gifts and bounties by magic arts, from the immense multitude of people, which with admiring wonder strove to gain his favour, he chose fishermen, artisans, rustics, and unskilled persons of a similar kind, that they being sent through various nations should perform all those miracles with- out any deceit and without any material aids. By a word he assuaged the racking pains of the aching members ; and by a word they checked the writhings of maddening sufferings. By one command he drove demons from the body, and re- stored their senses to the lifeless; they, too, by no different command, restored to health and to soundness of mind those labouring under the inflictions of these [demons].1 By the application of his hand he removed the marks of leprosy; they, too, restored to the body its natural skin by a touch not dissimilar. He ordered the dropsical and swollen flesh to recover its natural dryness ; and his servants in the same manner stayed the wandering waters, and ordered them to glide through their own channels, avoiding injury to the frame. Sores of immense size, refusing to admit of healing, he restrained from further feeding on the flesh, by the inter- position of one word ; and they in like manner, by restricting its ravages, compelled the obstinate and merciless cancer to confine itself to a scar. To the larne he gave the power of walking, to the dark eyes sight, the dead he recalled to
1 " They, too, . . . those labouring under the inflictions of these :" sa LB., with the warm approval of Orelli (who, however, with previous cdd., retains the MS. reading in his text) and others, reading sub eorum t-ortantes (for MS. p — ) et illi se casibus ; Heraldus having suggested rutantes. This simple and elegant emendation makes it unnecessary to notice the harsh and forced readings of earlier edd.
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life ; and not less surely did they, too, relax the tightened nerves, fill the eyes with light already lost, and order the dead to return from the tombs, reversing the ceremonies of the funeral rites. Nor was anything calling forth the be- wildered admiration of all done by him, which he did not freely allow to be performed by those humble and rustic men, and which he did not put in their power.
51. What say ye, O minds incredulous, stubborn, har- dened? Did that great Jupiter Capitolinus of yours give to any human being power of this kind ? Did he endow with this right any priest of a curia, the Pontifex Maxi- mus, nay, even the Dialis, in whose name he is [revealed as] the god of life?1 I shall not say, [did he impart power] to raise the dead, to give light to the blind, restore the normal condition of their members to the weakened and the paralyzed, but [did he even enable any one] to check a pustule, a hangnail, a pimple, either by the word of his mouth or the touch of his hand ? Was this, then, a power natural to man, or could such a right be granted, could such a licence be given by the mouth of one reared on the vulgar produce of earth ; and was it not a divine and sacred gift? or if the matter admits of any hyperbole, was it not more than divine and sacred ? For if you do that which you are able to do, and what is compatible with your strength and your ability, there is no ground for the expression of astonishment ; for you will have done that which you were able, and which your power was bound to accomplish, in order that there should be a perfect correspondence2 between the deed and the doer. To be able to transfer to a man your own power,
1 So understood by Orelli, who reads quo Dius est, adopting the ex- planation of Dialis given by Festus. The MS., however, according to Crusius, reads, Dialem, quod ejus est, flaminem isto jure donavit ; in which case, from the position of the quod, the meaning might be, " which [term] is his," or possibly, "because he (i.e. the priest) is his," only that in the latter case a pronoun would be expected: the commentators gene- rally refer it to the succeeding jure, with this "right," which is his. Canterus reads, quod majus est, i.e. than the Pontifex Maximus.
2 So the MS. reading tequalitas, which is retained by Hild. and Oehler ; all other editions drop «— " that the quality of deed and doer might be one."
BOOK i. J A RNOB1 US AD VERS US GENTES. 43
share with the frailest being the ability to perform that which you alone are able to do, is a proof of power supreme over all, and holding in subjection the causes of all things, and the natural laws of methods and of means.
52. Come, then, let some Magian Zoroaster1 arrive from a remote part of the globe, crossing over the fiery zone,2 if we believe Hermippus as an authority. Let these join him too — that Bactrian, whose deeds Ctesias sets forth in the first book of his History; the Armenian, grandson of Hosthanes;3 and Pamphilus, the intimate friend of Cyrus ; Apollonius, Damigero, and Dardanus ; Velus, Julianus, and Basbulus ; and if there be any other one who is supposed to have especial powers and reputation in such magic arts. Let them grant to one of the people to adapt the mouths of the dumb for the purposes of speech, to unseal the ears of the deaf, to give the natural powers of the eye to those born without sight, and to restore feeling and life to bodies long cold in death. Or if that is [too] difficult, and if they cannot impart to others
1 This passage has furnished occasion for much discussion as to text and interpretation. In the text Orelli's punctuation has been follower!, who regards Arnobius as mentioning four Zoroasters — the Assyrian or Chaldaean, the Bactrian (cf. c. 5 of this book), the Armenian, and finally the Pamphylian, or Pamphilos, who, according to Clem. Alex. (Strom, v. p. 598), is referred to in Plato's Republic, Bk. x., under tlie name Er ; Meursius and Salmasius, however, regarding the whole as one sentence, consider that only three persons are so referred to, the first being either Libyan or Bactrian, and the others as with Orelli. To seek to determine which view is most plausible even, would be a fruitless task, as will be evident on considering what is said in the index under Zoroaster.
2 So Orelli, reading veniat qu-is su-per igneam zonam. LB. reads for the second and third words, quse-so per — " let there come, I pray you, through," etc., from the MS. quse super ; while Heraldus would change the last three words into Azonaces, the name of the supposed teacher of Zoroaster. By the " fiery zone" Salmasius would understand Libya ; but the legends should be borne in mind which spoke of Zoroaster as having shown himself to a wondering multitude from a hill blazing with fire, that he might teach them new ceremonies of worship, or as being other- wise distinguished in connection with fire.
3 So Stewechius, Orelli, and others, for the MS. Zostriani—" grandson of Zostrianus," retained in the 1st ed. and LB.
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the power to do such acts, let themselves perform them, and with their own rites. Whatever noxious herbs the earth brings forth from its bosom, whatever powers those muttered words and accompanying spells contain — these let them add, we envy them not ; [those] let them collect, we forbid them not. We wish to make trial and to discover whether they can effect, with the aid of their gods, what has often been accomplished by unlearned Christians with a word only.
53. Cease in your ignorance to receive such great deeds with abusive language, which will in no wise injure him who did them, but which will bring danger to yourselves — danger, I say, by no means small, but one dealing with matters of great,1 aye, even the greatest importance, since beyond a doubt the soul is a precious thing, and nothing can be found dearer to a man than himself. There was nothing magical, as you suppose, nothing human, delusive, or crafty in Christ ; no deceit lurked in him,2 although you smile in derision, as your wont is, and though you split with roars of laughter. He was God on high, God in his inmost nature, God from unknown realms, and was sent by the Ruler of all as a Saviour God ; whom neither the sun himself, nor any stars, if they have powers of perception, not the rulers and princes of the world, nor, in fine, the great gods, or those who, feigning themselves so, terrify the whole human race, were able to know or to guess whence and who he was — and naturally so. But3 when, freed from the body, which he carried about as but a very small part of himself, he allowed himself to be seen, and [let it be known] how great he was, all the elements of the universe bewildered by the strange events were thrown into confusion. An earthquake shook
1 So the edd., reading in rebus eximiis for the MS. exi-gu-is, which •would, of course, give an opposite and wholly unsuitable meaning.
2 So generally, Heraldus having restored aditu-it in Cliristo from the MS., which had omitted -it, for the reading of Gelenius, Canterus, and Ursinus, delicti — "no deceit, no sin [was]," etc.
8 So emended by Salmasius, followed by most later edd. In the earlier edd. the reading is et merito exutus a corpore (Salm. reading at instead of a, and inserting a period after mer.*) — " and when rightly freed from the body," etc.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 45
the world, the sea was heaved up from its depths, the heaven was shrouded in darkness, the sun's fiery blaze was checked, and his heat became moderate \ for what else could occur when he was discovered to be God who heretofore was reckoned one of us ?
54. But you do not believe these things ; yet those who witnessed their occurrence, and who saw them done before their eyes — the very best vouchers and the most reliable authorities — both believed them themselves, and transmitted them to us who follow them to be believed with no scanty measure of confidence. Who are these? you perhaps ask. Tribes, peoples, nations, and that incredulous human race ; but2 if the matter were not plain, and, as the saying is, clearer than day itself, they would never grant their assent with so ready belief to events of such a kind. But shall we say that the men of that time were untrustworthy, false, stupid, and brutish to such a degree that they pretended to have seen what they never had seen, and that they put forth under false evidence, or alleged with childish asseveration things which never took place, and that when they were able to live in harmony and to maintain friendly relations with you, they wantonly incurred hatred, and were held in execration ?
55. But if this record of events is false, as you say, how comes it that in so short a time the whole world has been filled with such a religion ? or how could nations dwelling widely apart, and separated by climate and by the con- vexities of heaven,3 unite in one conclusion? They have been prevailed upon [say my opponents] by mere assertions, been led into vain hopes ; and in their reckless madness have chosen to incur voluntarily the risks of death, although they had hitherto seen nothing of such a kind as could by
1 It may be instructive to notice how the simpler narrative of the Gospels is amplified. Matthew (xxvii. 51) says that the earth trembled, and Luke (xxiii. 45) that the sun was darkened; but they go no further.
2 Or, " which if ... itself, would never," etc.
8 That is, by the climate and the inclination of the earth's surface.
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its wonderful and strange character induce them to adopt this manner of worship. Nay, because they saw all these things to be done by [Christ] himself and by his apostles, who being sent throughout the whole world carried with them the blessings of the Father, which they dispensed in benefiting1 as well the minds as the bodies of men ; over- come by the force of the very truth itself they both devoted themselves to God, and reckoned it as but a small sacrifice to surrender their bodies to you and to give their flesh to be mangled.
56. But our writers [we shall be told] have put forth these statements with false effrontery; they have extolled2 small matters to an inordinate degree, and have magnified trivial affairs with most pretentious boastfulness. And3 would that all things could have been reduced to writing, — both those which were done by himself, and those which were accomplished by his apostles with equal authority and power. Such an assemblage of miracles, however, would make you more incredulous ; and perhaps you might be able to discover a passage from which* it would seem very probable, both that additions were made to facts, and that falsehoods were inserted in writings and commentaries. But in nations which were unknown to the writers, and which themselves knew not the use of letters, all that was done could not have been embraced in the records or even have reached the ears of all men ; or, if any were committed to written and connected narrative, some insertions and additions would have been made by the malevolence of the demons and of men like to them, whose
1 So the 1st ed., Ursinus, Elmenhorst, Orelli, and Hildebrand, read- ing munerandis, which is found in the MS. in a later handwriting, for the original reading of the MS. munera dis.
2 According to Rigaltius the MS. reads ista promiserunt in immensum — " have put forth (i.e. exaggerated) these things to an immense degree falsely, small matters and trivial affairs have magnified," etc.; while by a later hand has been superscribed over in immensum, in ink of a different colour, extulere — " have extolled."
3 So the MS., 1st ed., and Hildebrand, while all others read atqu-i — " but."
4 So I.E., reading quo for the iis. quod.
BOOK i.] AENOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 47
care and study it is to obstruct l the progress of this truth : there would have been some changes and mutilations of words and of syllables, at once to mar the faith of the cautious and to impair the moral effect of the deeds. But it will never avail them that it be gathered from written testimony [only] who and what Christ was ; for his cause has been put on such a basis, that if what we say be admitted to be true, he is by the confession of all proved to have been God.
57. You do not believe our writings, and we do not believe yours. We devise falsehoods concerning Christ [you say] ; and you put forth baseless and false statements concerning your gods : for no god has descended from heaven, or in his own person and life has sketched out your system, or in a similar way thrown discredit on our system and our cere- monies. These were written by men ; those, too, were •written by men — set forth in human speech ; and whatever you seek to say concerning our writers, remember that about yours, too, you will find these things said with equal force. What is contained in your writings you wish to be treated as true ; those things, also, which are attested in our books, you must of necessity confess to be true. You accuse our system of falsehood ; we, too, accuse yours of falsehood. But ours is more ancient, say you, therefore most credible and trustworthy ; as if, indeed, antiquity were not the most fertile source of errors, and did not herself put forth those things which in discreditable fables have attached the utmost infamy to the gods. For could not falsehoods have been both spoken and believed ten thousand years ago, or is it not most pro- bable that that which is near to our own time should be more credible than that which is separated by a long term of years ? For these of ours are brought forward on the faith of witnesses, those of yours on the ground of opinions ; and it is much more natural that there should be less invention in matters of recent occurrence, than in those far removed in the darkness of antiquity.
58. But they were written by unlearned and ignorant
1 So most edd., reading intercip-ere for the MS. intercipi — "it is that the progress be obstructed," etc.
48 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
men, and should not therefore be readily believed. See that this be not rather a stronger reason for believing that they have not been adulterated by any false statements, but were put forth by men of simple mind, who knew not how to trick out their tales with meretricious ornaments. But the language is mean and vulgar. For truth never seeks de- ceitful polish, nor in that which is well ascertained and certain does it allow itself to be led away into excessive pro- lixity. Syllogisms, enthymemes, definitions, and all those ornaments by which men seek to establish their statements, aid those groping for the truth, but do not clearly mark its great features. But he who really knows the subject under discussion, neither defines, nor deduces, nor seeks the other tricks of words by which an audience is wont to be taken in, and to be beguiled into a forced assent to a proposition.
59. Your narratives, my opponent says, are overrun with barbarisms and solecisms, and disfigured by monstrous blun- ders. A censure, truly, which shows a childish and petty spirit ; for if we allow that it is reasonable, let us cease to use certain kinds of fruit because they grow with prickles on them, and other growths useless for food, which on the one hand cannot support us, and yet do- not on the other binder us from enjoying that which specially excels, and which nature has designed to be most wholesome for us. For how, I pray you, does it interfere with or retard the compre- hension [of a statement], whether anything be pronounced smoothly1 or with uncouth roughness ? whether that have the grave accent which ought to have the acute, or that have the acute which ought to have the grave ? Or how is the truth of a statement diminished, if an error is made in number or case, in preposition, participle, or conjunction ? Let that pomposity of style and strictly regulated diction be reserved for public assemblies, for lawsuits, for the forum and the courts of justice, and by all means be handed over to those who, striving after the soothing influences of pleasant sensations, bestow all their care upon splendour of language.
1 So Orelli and Hildcbrand, reading glabre from a conjecture of Gro- tius, for the MS. grave.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 49
[But] when we are discussing matters far removed from mere display, we should consider what is said, not with what charm it is said nor how it tickles the ears, but what benefits it confers on the hearers, especially since we know that some even who devoted themselves to philosophy, not only disre- garded refinement of style, but also purposely adopted a vulgar meanness when they might have spoken with greater elegance and richness, lest forsooth they might impair the stern gravity of speech and revel rather in the pretentious show of the Sophists. For indeed it evidences a worthless heart to seek enjoyment in matters of importance ; and when you have to deal with those who are sick and diseased, to pour into their ears dulcet sounds, not to apply a remedy to their wounds. Yet, if you consider the true state of the case, no language is naturally perfect, and in like manner none is faulty. For what natural reason is there, or what law written in the constitution of the world, that paries should be called hie1 and sella hcec? — since neither have they sex distinguished by male and female, nor can the most learned man tell me what hie and hcec are, or why one of them denotes the male sex while the other is applied to the female. These conventionalities are man's, and certainly are not indispensable to all persons for the use of forming their language ; for panes might perhaps have been called hcec, and sella hie, without any fault being found, if it had been agreed upon at first that they should be so called, and if this practice had been maintained by following generations in their daily conversation. And yet, O you who charge our writings with disgraceful blemishes, have you not these solecisms in those most perfect and wonderful books of yours ? Does not one of you make the plur. of uter, utria ? another utres?2 [and do you not write] ccelus and ccelum, filus and jilum, crocus and crocum, fretus and frelum ? Do you not also say hoc pane and hie panis, hie sanguis and hoc sanguen ? Are not candelabrum and jugulum in like manner written jugulus and candelaber? For if each noun cannot have
1 i.e. that the one should be masculine, the other feminine.
8 i.e. does not one of you make the plural of uter masc., another neut. ?
ARNOB. D
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more than one gender, and if the same word cannot be of this gender and of that (for one gender cannot pass into the other), he commits as great a blunder who utters mas- culine genders under the laws of feminines, as he who applies masculine articles to feminine genders. And yet we see you using masculines as feminines, and feminines as mas- culines, and those which you call neuter both in this way and in that, without any distinction. Either, therefore, it is no blunder to employ them indifferently, and [in that case] it is vain for you to say that our works are disfigured with monstrous solecisms ; or if the way in which each ought to be employed is unalterably fixed, you also are involved in similar errors, although you have on your side all the Epi- cadi, Caesellii, Verrii, Scauri, and Nisi.
60. But, say my opponents, if Christ was God, why did he appear in human shape, and why was he cut off by death after the manner of men ? Could that power which is in- visible, and which has no bodily substance, have come upon earth and adapted itself to the world and mixed in human society, otherwise than by taking to itself some covering of a more solid substance, which might bear the gaze of the eyes, and on which the look of the least observant might fix it- self ? For what mortal is there who could have seen him, who could have distinguished him, if he had decreed to come upon the earth such as he is in his own primitive nature, and such as he has chosen to be in his own proper character and divinity? He took upon him, therefore, the form of man; and under the guise of our race he imprisoned his power, so that he could be seen and carefully regarded, might speak and teach, and without encroaching on the sovereignty and government of the King Supreme, might carry out all those objects for the accomplishment of which he had come into the world.
61. What, then, says [my opponent], could not the Supreme Ruler have brought about those things which he had ordained to be done in the world, without feigning himself a man ? If it were necessary to do as you say, he perhaps would have done so ; because it was not necessary, he acted otherwise.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 51
The reasons why he chose to do it in this way, and did not choose to do it in that, are unknown, being involved in so great obscurity, and comprehensible by scarcely any ; but these you might perhaps have understood if you were not already prepared not to understand, and were not shaping your course to brave unbelief, before that was explained to you which you sought to know and to hear.
62. But [you will say] he was cut off by death as men are. Not [Christ] himself ; for it is impossible either that death should befall what is divine, or that that should waste away and disappear in death which is one [in its substance], and not compounded, nor formed by bringing together any parts. Who, then [you ask], was seen hanging on the cross ? Who dead? The human form,1 [I reply], which he had put on,2 and which he bore about with him. It is a tale passing belief, [you say], and wrapt in dark obscurity ; if you will, it is not dark, and [is] established by a very close analogy.3 If the Sibyl, when she was uttering and pouring forth her prophecies and oracular responses, was filled, as you say, with Apollo's power, had been cut down and slain by impious robbers,4 would Apollo be said to have been slain in her ? If Bacis,6 if Helenus, Marcius,6 and other soothsayers, had been in like manner robbed of life and light when raving as inspired, would any one say that those who, speaking by
1 So the MS., followed by Hildebrand and Oehler, reads and punctu- ates quis mortuusf homo, for which all edd. read mortuus est? "Who died?"
2 Here, as in the whole discussion in the second book on the origin and nature of the soul, the opinions expressed are Gnostic, Cerinthus saying more precisely that Christ having descended from heaven in the form of a dove, dwelt in the body of Jesus during his life, but removed from it before the crucifixion.
8 So the MS. by changing a single letter, with LB. and others, simili- tudine proxim-a (MS. o) constitutum; while the first ed., Gelenius, Can- terus, Ursinus, Orelli, and others, read -dini proxinie — " settled very closely to analogy."
4 In the original latronibus; here, as in the next chapter, used loosely to denote lawless men.
5 So emended by Mercerus for the MS. vatis.
6 So read in the MS.— not -tius, as in LB. and Orelli
03 THE SEVEN BOOKS OF [BOOK i.
their mouths, declared to inquirers what should be done,1 had perished according to the conditions of human life? The death of which you speak was [that] of the human body which he had assumed,2 not his own — of that which was borne, not of the bearer ; and not even this [death] would he 8 have stooped to suffer, were it not that a matter of such import- ance was to be dealt with, and the inscrutable plan of fate 4 brought to light in hidden mysteries.
63. What are these hidden and unseen mysteries, you will say, which neither men can know, nor those even who are called gods of the world can in any wise reach by fancy and conjecture ; [which] none [can discover],5 except those whom [Christ] himself has thought fit to bestow the blessing of so great knowledge upon, and to lead into the secret recesses of the inner treasury [of wisdom] ? Do you then see that if he had determined that none should do him violence, he should have striven to the utmost to keep off from him his enemies, even by directing his power against them ? 6 Could not he [then], who had restored their sight to the blind, make [his enemies] blind if it were necessary ? Was it hard or troublesome for him to make them weak, who [had given] strength to the feeble ? Did he who bade 7 the lame walk,
1 Lit., " the ways of things" — vias rerum.
2 The MS. reads unintelligibly assumpti-o hominis fuit, which was, however, retained in both Roman edd., although Ursinus suggested the dropping of the o, which has been done by all later edd.
3 The MS. reads, quam nee ipsam perpeti succuluisset vis — " would his might," i.e. "would he with his great power have stooped." Orelli simply omits vis as Canterus, and seemingly the other later edd. do.
4 The MS. and 1st ed. read sati-s, which has clearly arisen from/ being confounded with the old form of s.
5 The construction is a little involved, qu.se, nulli nee homines scire nee ipsi qui appellantur dii mundi queunt — " which none, neither men can know, nor those .... of the world can reach, except those whom," etc.
6 In the Latin, vel potestate inversa, which according to Oehler is the US. reading, while Orelli speaks of it as an emendation of LB. (where it is certainly found, but without any indication of its source), and with most edd. reads universa — " by his universal power."
7 So the MS. according to Hildebrand, reading prsecipi-'bat. Most edd., however, following Gelenius, read faciebat — "made them lame."
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 53
not know how to take from them all power to move their limbs,1 by making their sinews stiff ? 2 Would it have been difficult for him who drew the dead from their tombs to in- flict death on whom he would ? But because reason required that those things which had been resolved on should be done here also in the world itself, and in no other fashion than was done, he, with gentleness passing understanding and belief, regarding as but childish trifles the wrongs which men did him, submitted to the violence of savage and most hardened robbers;3 nor did he think it worth while to take account of what their daring had aimed at, if he only showed to his [disciples] what they were in duty bound to look for from him. For when many things about the perils of souls, many evils about their . . . . ; on the other hand, the intro- ducer,4 the master and teacher directed his laws and ordi- nances, that they might find their end in fitting duties ;5 did he not destroy the arrogance of the proud? Did he not quench the fires of lust ? Did he not check the craving of greed 1 Did he not wrest the weapons from their hands, and rend from them all the sources6 of every [form of] corruption ? To conclude, was he not himself gentle, peace-
1 Lit., " to bind fast the motions of the members," adopting the read- ing of most edd., molus alligare merribrorum (MS. c-al-igare).
2 The MS. reads nervorum duritia-m, for which Ursinus, with most edd., reads as above, merely dropping m ; Hildebrand and Oehler insert in, and read, from a conjecture of Ursinus adopted by Elmenhorst, c-ol-ligare — " to bind into stiffness."
3 Ursinus suggested di- (" most terrible ") for the MS. durissimis.
4 So the MS. reading, multa mala de illarum contra insinuator (mala is perhaps in the abl., agreeing with a lost word), which has been regarded by Heraldus and Stewechius, followed by Orelli, as mutilated, and is so read in the first ed., and by Ursinus and LB. The passage is in all cases left obscure and doubtful, and we may therefore be excused dis- cussing its meaning here.
5 Lit., " to the ends of fitting duties."
6 In the original, seminaria abscidit, — the former word used of nur- series for plants, while the latter may be either as above (from abscindo), or may mean "cut off" (from dbscido) ;.but in both cases the gene- ral meaning is the same, and the metaphor is in either slightly con- fused.
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ful, easily approached, friendly when addressed ?l Did he not, grieving at men's miseries, pitying with his unexampled benevolence all in any wise afflicted with troubles and bodily ills,2 bring them back and restore them to soundness ?
64. What, then, constrains you, what excites you to revile, to rail at, to hate implacably him whom no man 3 can accuse of any crime ?4 Tyrants and your kings, who, putting away [all] fear of the gods, plunder and pillage the treasuries of temples; who by proscription, banishment,5 and slaughter, strip the state of its nobles ; who, with licentious violence, undermine and wrest away the chastity of matrons and maidens, — [these men] you name indigites and divi; and you worship with couches, altars, temples, and other ser- eice, and by celebrating their games and birthdays, those whom it was fitting that you should assail with keenest6 hatred. And all those, too, who by writing books assail in many forms with biting reproaches public manners ; who censure, brand, and tear in pieces your luxurious habits and lives ; who carry down to posterity evil reports of their own times7 in their enduring writings; who [seek to] persuade [men] that the rights of marriage should be held in common ; 8 who lie with boys, beautiful, lustful-, naked ; who declare that
1 Lit., "familiar to be accosted," — the supine, as in the preceding clause.
* So the edd., reading corporalibus affectos malis, but the MS. inserts after mails the word morbis (" with evil bodily diseases") ; but accord- ing to Hildebrand this word is marked as spurious.
3 So the edd., reading nemo h-om-i-n-um, except Hildebrand and Oehler, who retain the MS. om-n-i-um — " no one of aU."
4 John viii. 46 :" Which of you convinceth me of sin ? "
fi So Heraldus and LB., followed by later edd., reading exiliis for the MS. ex-uis, for which Gelenius, Canterus, and Ursinus read et suis — " and by their slaughters."
6 Here, as frequently in Arnobius, the comparative is used instead of the superlative.
7 " To posterity evil reports of their own time " — SMI temporis posteris notas — so emended by Ursinus, followed by Orelli and Hildebrand, for the MS. in temporis posteri-s, retained by LB., and with the omission of s in the first ed. ; but this requires our looking on the passage as defective.
8 The reference is clearly to the well-known passage in Plato's Republic^ st. p. 457.
BOOK i.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 55
you are beasts, runaways, exiles, and mad and frantic slaves of the most worthless character, — [all these] with wonder and applause you exalt to the stars of heaven, you place in the shrines of your libraries, you present with chariots and statues, and as much as in you lies, gift with a kind of immortality, as it were, by the witness which immortal titles bear to them. Christ alone you would tear in pieces,1 you would rend asunder, if you could [do so to] a god ; nay, [him alone] you would, were it allowed, gnaw with bloody mouths, and break his bones in pieces, and devour him like beasts of the field. For what that he has done, tell, I pray you, for what crime?2 What has he done to turn aside the course of justice, and rouse you to hatred made fierce by maddening torments ? [Is it] because he declared that he was sent by the only [true] King [to be] your soul's guardian, and to bring to you the immor- tality which you believe that you [already] possess, relying on the assertions of a few men ? But [even] if you were assured that he spoke falsely, that he even held out hopes without the slightest foundation, not even in this case do I see [any] reason that you should hate [and] condemn him with bitter reproaches. Nay, if you were kind and gentle in spirit, you ought to esteem him even for this alone, that he promised to you things which you might well wish and hope for ; that he was the bearer of good news ; that his message was such as to trouble no one's mind, nay, rather to fill [all] with less anxious expectation.8
65. Oh ungrateful and impious age, prepared* for its own
1 So Gelenius, LB., and Orelli, reading con-v-dl-e-re for the MS. con- p-ell-a-re, " to accost " or " abuse," which is out of place here. Canterus suggested com-p-il-are, " to plunder," which also occurs in the sense " to cudgel."
2 Supply, "do you pursue him so fiercely?"
3 These words are followed in the edition of Gelenius by ch. 2-5 of the second book, seemingly without any mark to denote transposition ; while Ursinus inserted the same chapters — beginning, however, with the last sentence of the first chapter (read as mentioned in the note on it) — but prefixed an asterisk, to mark a departure from the order of the MS. The later editors have not adopted either change.
* So Ursinus suggested in the margin, followed by LB. and Orelli,
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destruction by its extraordinary obstinacy! If there had come to you a physician from lands far distant and unknown to you before, offering some medicine to keep off from you altogether every kind of disease and sickness, would you not all eagerly hasten to [him]? Would you not with every kind of flattery and honour receive him into your houses, and treat him kindly ? Would you not wish that that kind of medicine should be quite reliable, should be genuine, which promised that even to the utmost limits of life you should be free from such countless bodily distresses ? And though it were a doubtful matter, you would yet entrust yourselves [to him] ; nor would you hesitate to drink the unknown draught, incited by the hope of health set before you and by the love of safety.1 Christ shone out and appeared to tell us news of the utmost importance, bringing an omen of pro- sperity, and a message of safety to those who believe. What, I pray you, means2 this cruelty, what such barbarity, nay rather, to speak more truly, scornful3 pride, not only to harass the messenger and bearer of so great a gift with taunting words ; but even to assail him with fierce hostility, and with all the weapons which can be showered upon him, and [with all modes of] destruction.? Are his words displeas- ing, and are you offended when you hear them ? Count them as [but] a soothsayer's empty tales. Does he speak very stupidly, and promise foolish gifts? Laugh with scorn as wise men, and leave [him in] his folly* to be tossed about among his errors. What means this fierceness (to repeat what has been said more than once) ; what a passion, so murderous? to declare implacable hostility towards one who
reading in privatam perniciem p-a-r-atum for the MS. p-r-iv-atum, which is clearly derived from the preceding privatam, but is, though unintel- ligible also, retained in the two Roman edd. The conclusion of the sentence is, literally, "obstinacy of spirit."
1 In the original, ?pe salutis proposita atque amore incolumitatis.
2 Lit., " is "—est.
3 So all the edd., reading fastidi-os-um supercilium, which Crusius says the MS. reads with os omitted, i.e. " pride, scorn."
4 So the edd., reading fatuito-tem, for the MS. fatuita-n-tem, which may, however, point to a verb not found elsewhere.
BOOK i.] AENOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 57
has done nothing to deserve it at your hands ; to wish, if it were allowed you, to tear him limb from limb, who not only did no man any harm, but with uniform kindness1 told his enemies what salvation was being brought to them from God Supreme, what must be done that they might escape destruction and obtain an immortality which they knew not of ? And when the strange and unheard-of things which were held out staggered the minds of those who heard him, and made them hesitate to believe, [though] master of every power and destroyer of death itself he suffered his human form to be slain, that from the result2 they might know that the hopes were safe which they had long entertained about the soul's salvation, and that in no other way could they avoid the danger of death.
1 i.e. to friends and foes alike. The MS. reads sequaliter benignus hosti- bus dicere, which is retained by Orelli, supposing an ellipsis offuerit, i.e. " [he was] kind to say," which might be received ; but it is more natural to suppose that -t has dropped off, and read diceret. as above, with the two Roman editions and LB. Gelenius, followed by Ursinus, emended omnibus docuerit — " with uniform kindness taught to all." It may be well to give here an instance of the very insufficient grounds on which supposed references to Scripture are sometimes based. Orelli considers that Arnobius here refers (yidetur respexisse, he says) to Col. i. 21, 22, " You, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death," to which, though the words which follow might indeed be thought to have a very distant resemblance, they can in no way be shown to refer.
2 i.e. from his resurrection, which showed that death's power v;as» broken by him.
BOOK II.
ARGUMENT.
THE question is again asked, Why is Christ so bitterly hated, while it cannot be said that he ever injured any one (1) ? Because, an opponent is supposed to reply, he drove religion from the earth by withholding men from worshipping the gods. In this, however, it is shown that he did not assail, but built up religion, as he taught men to worship the creator and source of all things, God supreme, the worship of whom is surely the truest religion (2, 3). It is declared to be mere folly in the heathen to disbelieve Christ's message, for the future alone can prove or disprove the truth of what is foretold; but when there are the two prospects, that if Christ's words are false, his followers lose nothing more than others, but that, on the other hand, if he spoke truly, those who refuse to believe in him suffer an infinite loss, it is more rational to choose the course which tends to no evil and may lead to blessing, rather than that which it is certain leads to no good, and may bring us to terrible woe (4, 5). Is the truth of Christianity not manifested, he goes on to ask, in the readiness with which it has been received by men of every class in all parts of the world, and by the noble constancy with which so many have endured suffering even to death, rather than abandon or dishonour it (5) ? And if, as was often the case, any one should say that there were indeed many who received Christ's gospel, but that these were silly and stupid people, Arnobius reminds him that learn- ing and grammatical knowledge alone do not fit a man to decide between truth and falsehood, to say what may and what cannot take place (6) ; and this is shown by the uncertainty and confusion which surround even those matters which force themselves on our notice every day, such as the nature and origin of man, the end of his being, the mode in which he was quickened into life, and many other similar questions (7). Moreover, the heathen laughed at the faith of the Christians ; but in doing so, Arnobius asks, did they not expose themselves to ridicule ? For does not the whole conduct of life depend on the belief that the end will corre- spond to our aims and actions (8) ? Again, most men put faith in one or other of the leading philosophers (9) ; and these, in turn, trust their own fancies, and put faith in their own theories, so that faith is common to all men alike (10). And if the heathen put faith in the philosophers, the Christians have no less reason to put faith in Christ ; while, if a comparison be entered into, no other can point to such wonderful powers and such marvellous deeds as are recorded of him (11). Not by such
BOOK ii.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 59
subtle quibbling as men brought against it did the new religion make its way, but by the marvellous and unheard-of miracles which attested its truth, so that it won followers among all tribes on the face of the earth; and if any man was ignorant of these facts, it was because he had not chosen to know them, and had suffered the truth to be obscured by those interested in upholding error (12). Arnobius goes on to show that many Christian doctrines which were ridiculed as such by the heathen, were held by the philosophers also ; referring more particularly to the worship of one God, the resurrection of the dead (13), and the quenchless fires of punishment, from which he takes occasion to point out that man's true death comes not at, but after the soul's separation from the body, and to discuss the nature of the soul (14). The soul is not, he maintains, immortal in itself, or of divine origin — if it were born of God, men would be pure and holy, and of one opinion (15)— but has been made vicious and sinful by causes to be found in the world ; while, if it had been made by the supreme God, how could his work have been marred by that which was less powerful (16) ? Arnobius next en- deavours to show that we are in nothing distinguished from the brutes : so far as body, the maintenance of life, and the reproduction of the race are concerned, we are found to be alike, while the heathen are reminded of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls (16) ; and if stress is laid on man's reason and intelligence as a distinctive characteristic, it is first suggested that all men do not act rationally, and the question is then asked, What is the reason which man possesses, and not the beasts (17)? Man's practical skill is no proof of superior reason, for its exercise is necessitated by his excessive poverty ; and it is, moreover, not a faculty native in the soul, but one acquired only after long years under the pressure of necessity (18). The arts, grammar, music, oratory, and geometry are similarly noticed, and the doctrine of reminiscence re- jected (19). Arnobius next supposes a boy to be brought up wholly apart from human society, and seeks to establish his position by the supposed results of imaginary questions put to this hypothetical being (20-23) ; and then goes on to attack the contrary opinions which Plato had sought to establish in a somewhat similar way, by challenging him to question the boy just imagined, who is, of course, found to be exactly what was intended (24) ; and thus gives his creator a triumph, by show- ing conclusively that man untaught is ignorant as a stock or stone, while on being taught other creatures can learn also — the ox and ass to grind and plough, the horse to run in harness, and the like (25). Pursuing the same subject, it is argued that if the soul loses its former knowledge on uniting with the body, it cannot be incorporeal, and cannot therefore be immortal (26, 27) ; and further, that if the soul's former knowledge were lost through the influence of the body, the knowledge acquired in this life should in like manner be lost (28). Those who assert the soul's immortality are accused of teaching that which will add to the wicked«
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ness of men : for how shall any one be restrained even by the fear of a higher power, who is persuaded that his life cannot be cut short by any power (29)? while if he is threatened with the punishments of the infernal regions, he will laugh them to scorn, knowing that what is in- corruptible cannot be affected by mere bodily ills. If the soul is im- mortal, Arnobius affirms there is no need or ground for philosophy, that is, ethics, whose purpose is to raise man above the brutish pleasures of sense to a virtuous life : for why should not a soul which cannot perish give itself up to any pleasures ? while if the soul is mortal, philosophy is in precisely the same position, aiming to do for man what will not profit him if done (30). The soul, he concludes, is neither mortal nor im- mortal (31) ; and there is therefore good reason that those who have no confidence in their power to help themselves, should welcome a saviour in one more powerful (32, 33). Christians and heathen alike, then, look for the deliverance of their souk from death ; and neither party, therefore, has any reason to mock the other in this (33, 34). Such, too, is the condition of all spirits which are supposed to exist (35) ; and it is only through God's goodness that any spirit becomes immortal (36). It is next argued at great length, and with some prolixity, that the soul is not sprung from God, on the ground of its vicious and imperfect nature (37-46) ; and it is then shown that, in denying the soul's divine origin on this ground, we are acting most reasonably, although we cannot say what its real origin is (47, 48) ; while if any one attempts to show that the soul is not imperfect and polluted by sin by pointing to good and upright men, he is reminded that the whole race cannot taVe its character from a few individual members, and that these men were not so naturally (49, 50). There is nothing ridiculous, Arnobius goes on to say, in confessing ignorance of such matters ; and the preceding state- ments are to a certain extent supported by Plato's authority, in so far as he separates the formation of man's soul from the divine acts (51, 52). But if this belief be mistaken, what harm does it do to others (53) ? From this there naturally follows a discussion of the origin of evil, the existence of which cannot be denied, though its cause is beyond our knowledge ; it is enough to know that all God does is good (54, 55). How idle a task it would be to attempt the solution of such problems, is seen when we consider how diverse are the results already arrived at, and that each is supported on plausible grounds (56, 57) ; which clearly shows that man's curiosity cannot be certainly satisfied, and that one man cannot hope to win general assent to his opinions (57). Arnobius now proposes to his opponents a series of questions as to men and things, after answering which they may with more reason taunt him with his ignorance of the soul's origin (58, 59) ; and says that, because of the vanity of all these inquiries, Christ had commanded them to be laid aside, and men to strive after the knowledge of God (60), and the deliverance of their souls from the evils which otherwise await them
BOOK ii.] A EN OBI US AD VERS US GENTES. 6 1
(61), — a task to be accomplished only through the aid of Him who is all-powerful (62). The condition of those who lived before Christ came to earth is to be learned from his teaching (63) ; and his bounty extends to all, though all do not accept it (64) ; for to compel those to turn to him who will not come, would be to use violence, not to show mercy (65). No purity therefore, or holiness, can save the man who refuses to accept Christ as his Saviour (66). Arnobius next deals with the objection that Christianity is a thing of yesterday, for which it would be absurd to give up the more ancient religions, by asking if it is thus that we look upon the various improvements which have been suggested from time to time by the increase of knowledge and wisdom (66-68). All things, moreover, have had a beginning — philosophy, medicine, music, and the rest (69), even the gods themselves (70) ; but all this is wholly beside the mark, for the truth of a religion depends not on its age, but on its divine origin. And if, a few hundred years before, there was no Christianity, the gods were in like manner unknown at a still earlier period (71). But Christianity worships that which was before all, the eternal God, although late in its worship, because there was not the needed revelation sooner (72). Arnobius again asserts that Christianity does not stand alone, for it was at a comparatively late time that the worship of Serapis and Isis, and of others, was introduced ; and so Christianity too had sprung up but lately, because it was only then that its teacher had appeared (73) : and having considered why Christ was so late in appearing among men (74, 75), and why Christians are allowed to undergo such suffering and trial on earth (76, 77), he earnestly exhorts all to see to the safety of their souls, and flee for salvation to God, seeing that such terrible dangers threaten us, lest the last day come upon us, and we be found in the jaws of death (78).1
SERE, if any means could be found, I should wish to converse thus with all those who hate the name of Christ, turning aside for a little from the defence primarily set up: — If you think it no dishonour to answer when asked a ques-
1 There has been much confusion in dealing with the first seven chapters of this book, owing to the leaves of the MS. having been arranged in wrong order, as was pointed out at an early period by some one who noted on the margin that there was some transposition. To this circumstance, however, Oehler alone seems to have called attention ; but the corruption was so manifest, that the various editors gave themselves full liberty to re-arrange and dispose the text more correctly. The first leaf of the MS. concludes with the words sine ullius personal discriminibus inrogavit, " without any distinction of person," and is followed by one
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tion, explain to us and say what is the cause, what the reason, that you pursue Christ with so bitter hostility? or what offences you remember which he did, that at the mention of his name you are roused to bursts of mad and savage fury ? l Did he ever, in claiming for himself power as king, fill the whole world with bands of the fiercest soldiers ; and of nations at peace from the beginning, did he destroy and put an end to some, [and] compel others to submit to his yoke and serve him ? Did he ever, excited by grasping 2 avarice, claim as his own by right all that wealth to have abundance of which men strive eagerly? Did he ever, transported with lustful passions, break down by force the barriers of purity, or stealthily lie in wait for other men's wives? Did he ever, puffed up with haughty arrogance, in- flict at random injuries and insults, without any distinction of persons? (B) And if he was not worthy that you should listen to and believe [him, yet] he should not have been despised by you even on this account, that he showed to you things concerning your salvation, that he prepared for you a path3 to
which begins with the words (A, end of c. 5) et non omnium virtutum, "and (not) by an eager longing," and ends tanta experiatur examina, " undergoes such countless ills " (middle of c. 7). The third and fourth leaves begin with the words (B, end of'c. 1) utrum in cunctos . . . amoverit f qui si dignos, " Now if he was not worthy " (see notes), and run on to end of c. 5, quadam dulcedine, " by some charm ; " while the fifth (C, middle of c. 7) begins atque ne (or utrumne) ilium, " whether the earth," and there is no further difficulty. This order is retained in the first ed., and also by Hildebrand, who supposes three lacunae at A, B, and C, to account for the abruptness and want of connection ; but it is at once seen that, on changing the order of the leaves, so that they shall run BAG, the argument and sense are perfectly restored. This arrangement seems to have been first adopted in LB., and is followed by the later editors, with the exception of Hildebrand.
1 Lit., "boil up with the ardours of furious spirits."
2 Lit., " by the heats of."
8 So Meursius, reading a- for the MS. o-ptaret, which is retained by LB., Orelli, and others. The MS. reading is explained, along with the next words vota immortalitatis, by Orelli as meaning " sought by his prayers," with reference to John xvii. 24, in which he is clearly mis- taken. Heraldus conjectures p-o-r-ta-s a-p-er-taret, "opened paths . . . and the gates of immortality."
BooKn.] ARNOB1US ADVERSUS GENTES. 63
heaven, and the immortality for which you long; although1 he neither extended the light of life to all, nor delivered [all] from the danger which threatens them through their ignorance.2
2. But indeed, [some one will say], he deserved our hatred because he has driven religion3 from the world, because he has kept men back from seeking to honour the gods.4 Is he then denounced as the destroyer of religion and pro- moter of impiety, who brought true religion into the world, who opened the gates of piety to men blind and verily living in impiety, and pointed out to whom they should bow themselves? Or is there any truer religion — [one] more serviceable,5 powerful, [and] right — than to have learned to know the supreme God, to know [how] to pray to God supreme, who alone is the source and fountain of all good, the creator,6 founder, and framer of all that endures, by whom
1 The words which follow, ut non in cunctos, etc., have been thus trans- posed by Heraldus, followed by later editors ; but formerly they pre- ceded the rest of the sentence, and, according to Oehler, the MS. gives utrum, thus : " [You ask] whether he has both extended to all ... ignorance ? who, if he was not," etc. Cf. p. 55, note 3.
2 So the MS., reading periculum i-g-n-ora-tionis, for which Meursius suggests i-n-teri-tionis — " danger of destruction."
8 PL
4 This seems the true rationale of the sentence, viewed in relation to the context. Immediately before, Arnobius suggests that the hatred of Christ by the heathen is unjustifiable, because they had suffered nothing at his hands ; now an opponent is supposed to rejoin, " But he has de- served our hatred by assailing our religion." The introductory particles at enim fully bear this out, from their being regularly used to introduce a rejoinder. Still, by Orelli and other editors the sentence is regarded as interrogative, and in that case would be, " Has he indeed merited our hatred by driving out," etc., which, however, not merely breaks away from what precedes, but also makes the next sentence somewhat lame. The older editors, too, read it without any mark of interrogation.
5 i.e., according to Orelli, to the wants of men ; but possibly it may here have the subjective meaning of " more full of service," i.e. to God.
6 So the MS., reading perpetuarum pater, fun dator, conditor rerum, but all the editions pa-ri-ter, " alike," which has helped to lead Orelli astray. He suggests etfons est perpetu-us pariter, etc., " perpetual fountain, . . . of all things alike the founder and framer." It has been also proposed by Oehler (to get rid of the difficulty felt here) to transfer per metathesin, the idea of " enduring" to God ; but the reference is surely quite clear,
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all things on earth and all in heaven are quickened, and filled with the stir of life, and without whom there would assuredly be nothing to bear any name, and [have any] substance ? But perhaps you doubt whether there is that ruler of whom we speak, and rather [incline to] believe in the existence of Apollo, Diana, Mercury, Mars. Give a true judgment;1 and, looking round on all these things which we see, [any one] will rather doubt whether [all] the other gods exist, than hesitate with regard to the God whom we all know by nature, whether when we cry out, O God, or when we make God the witness of wicked [deeds],2 and raise our face to heaven as though he saw us.
3. But he did not permit men to make supplication to the lesser gods. Do you, then, know who are, or where are the lesser gods ? Has mistrust of them, or the way in which they were mentioned, ever touched you, so that you are justly indig- nant that their worship has been done away with and deprived of all honour ? 3 But if haughtiness of mind and arrogance,4 as it is called by the Greeks, did not stand in your way and hinder you, you might long ago have been able to understand what he forbade to be done, or wherefore; within what limits he would have true religion lie;5 what danger arose to you from that which you thought obedience; or from what evils you would escape if you broke away from your dangerous delusion.
viewed as a distinction between the results of God's working and that of all other beings.
1 So the MS. and almost all edd., reading da verum judicium, for which Heraldus suggested da naturse, or verum animas judicium, " give the judgment of nature," or " the true judgment of the soul," as if appeal were made to the inner sense ; but in his later observations he pro- posed da puerum judicem, " give a boy as judge," which is adopted by Orelli. Meursius, merely transposing d-a, reads much more naturally ad — " at a true judgment."
2 The MS. reading is ilium testem d-e-um constituimus improb-arum, retained in the edd. with the change of -arum into -orum. Perhaps for deum should be read r-e-r-um, " make him witness of wicked things." With this passage compare iii. 31-33.
8 It seems necessary for the sake of the argument to read this inter- rogatively, but in all the edd. the sentence ends without any mark of interrogation.
4 Typhus— Tvtfsos. 6 Lit., " he chose ... to stand."
BOOK ii.] AENOBIUS AD VERSUS GENTES. 65
4. But all these things will be more clearly and distinctly noticed when we have proceeded further. For we shall show that Christ did not teach the nations impiety, but delivered ignorant and wretched men from those who most wickedly wronged them.1 We do not believe, you say, that what he says is true. What, then ? Have you no doubt as to the things which2 you say are not true, while, as they are [only] at hand, and not yet disclosed,3 they can by no means be disproved? But he, too, does not prove what he pro- mises. It is so; for, as I said, there can be no proof of [things still in] the future. Since, then, the nature of the future is such that it cannot be grasped and comprehended by any anticipation,4 is it not more rational,5 of two things uncertain and hanging in doubtful suspense, rather to believe that which carries [with it] some hopes, than that which [brings] none at all? For in the one case there is no danger, if that which is said to be at hand should prove vain and groundless ; in the other there is the greatest loss, even6 the loss of salvation, if, when the time has come, it be shown that there was nothing false [in what was de- clared].7
5. What say you, O ignorant ones, for whom we might well weep and be sad ? 8 Are you so void of fear that these
1 Lit., " the ignorance of wretched men from the worst robbers," i.e. the false prophets and teachers, who made a prey of the ignorant and credulous. Cf. p. 51, n. 4.
3 Lit., " Are [the things] clear with you which," etc.
3 So the MS., followed by both Roman edd., Hildebrand and Oehler, reading passa, which Cujacius (referring it to patior, as the editors seem to have done generally) would explain as meaning " past," while in all other editions cassa, " vain," is read.
4 Lit., " the touching of no anticipation." 6 Lit., " purer reasoning."
6 Lit., " that is." This clause Meursius rejects as a gloss.
7 i.e. If you believe Christ's promises, your belief makes you lose nothing should it prove groundless ; but if you disbelieve them, then the consequences to you will be terrible if they are sure. This would seem too clear to need remark, were it not for the confusion of Orelli in particular as to the meaning of the passage.
8 Lit., " most worthy even of weeping and pity."
A KNOB. E
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things may be true which are despised by you and turned to ridicule ? and do you not consider with yourselves at least, in your secret thoughts, lest that which to-day with perverse obstinacy you refuse to believe, time may too late show to be true,1 and ceaseless remorse punish [you]? Do not even these proofs at least give you faith to believe,2 [viz.] that already, in so short and brief a time, the oaths of this vast army have spread abroad over all the earth? that already there is no nation so rude and fierce that it has not, changed by his love, subdued its fierceness, and, with tranquillity hitherto unknown, become mild in disposition ? 8 that [men] endowed with so great abilities, orators, critics, rhetoricians, lawyers, and physicians, those, too, who pry into the myste- ries of philosophy, seek to learn these things, despising those in which but now they trusted ? that slaves choose to be tor- tured by their masters as they please, wives to be divorced, children to be disinherited by their parents, rather than be unfaithful to Christ and cast off the oaths of the warfare of salvation ? that although so terrible punishments have been denounced by you against those who follow the precepts of this religion, it4 increases [even] more, and a great host strives more boldly against all threats and the terrors which would keep it back, and is roused to zealous faith by the very attempt to hinder it? Do you indeed believe that these things happen idly and at random ? that these feelings are adopted on being met with by chance ?5 Is not this, then, sacred and divine ? Or [do you believe] that, without God['s grace], their minds are so changed, that although murderous hooks and other tortures without number threaten, as we said, those who shall believe, they receive the grounds of faith
1 Redarguat. This sense is not recognised by Riddle and White, and would therefore seem to be, if not unique, at least extremely rare. The derivative redargutio, however, is in late Latin used for " demonstra- tion," and this is evidently the meaning here.
2 Fidem vdbis faciunt argumenta credendi. Heraldus, joining the two last words, naturally regards them as a gloss from the margin ; but read as above, joining the first and last, there is nothing out of place.
3 Lit., " tranquillity being assumed, passed to placid feelings."
4 Res, " the thing." « Lit., " on chance encounters."
BOOK IL] A KNOB1 US AD VERS US GENTES. 67
with which they have become acquainted,1 as if carried away (A) by some charm, and by an eager longing for all the virtues,2 and prefer the friendship of Christ to all that is in the world ?3 6. But perhaps those seem to you weak-minded and silly, who even now are uniting all over the world, and joining together to assent with that readiness of belief [at which you mock].4 What, then? Do you alone, imbued5 with the true power of wisdom and understanding, see something wholly different6 and profound? Do you alone perceive that all these things are trifles ? you alone, that those things are mere words and childish absurdities which we declare [are] about to come to us from the supreme Ruler ? Whence, pray, has so much wisdom been given to you ? whence so
1 Rationes cognitas. There is some difficulty as to the meaning of these words, but it seems best to refer them to the argumenta credendi (beginning of chapter, " do not even these proofs "), and render as above. Hildebrand, however, reads tortwnes, " they accept the tortures which they know will befall them."
2 The MS. reads et non omnium, " and by a love not of all the virtues," changed in most edd. as above into atque omnium, while Oehler pro- poses et novo omnium, " and by fresh love of all," etc. It will be remem- bered that the transposition of leaves in the MS. (note on ii. 1) occurs here, and this seems to account for the arbitrary reading of Gelenius, which has no MS. authority whatever, but was added by himself when transposing these chapters to the first book (cf . p. 55, n. 4), atque nectare ebrii cuncta contemnant — " As if intoxicated with a certain sweetness and nectar, they despise all things." The same circumstance has made the restoration of the passage by Canterus a connecting of fragments of widely separated sentences and arguments.
8 Lit., " all the things of the world." Here the argument breaks off, and passes into a new phase, but Orelli includes the next sentence also in the fifth chapter.
4 Lit., " to the assent of that credulity."
6 So the MS., reading conditi vi meru, for which Orelli would read with Oudendorp, conditas — "by the pure force of recondite wisdom." The MS., however, is supported by the similar phrase in the beginning of c. 8, where tincti is used.
6 So the MS., reading aliud, for which Stewechius, adopting a sugges- tion of Canterus, conjectures, altius et profnndius — " something deeper and more profound." Others propose readings further removed from the text; while Obbarius, retaining the MS. reading, explains it as "not common."
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much subtlety and wit? Or from what scientific training have you been able to gain so much wisdom, to derive so much foresight ? Because you are skilled in declining verbs and nouns by cases and tenses, [and] 1 in avoiding barbarous words and expressions ; because you have learned either to express yourselves in2 harmonious, and orderly, and fitly- disposed language, or to know when it is rude and unpolished ;3 because you have stamped on your memory the Fornix of Lucilius,4 and Marsyas of Pomponius ; because [you know] what the issues to be proposed in lawsuits are, how many kinds of cases there are, how many ways of pleading, what the genus is, what the species, by what methods an opposite is distinguished from a contrary, — do you therefore think that you know what is false, what true, what can or cannot be done, what is the nature of the lowest and highest ? Have the well-known words never rung in5 your ears, that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God ?
7. In the first place, you yourselves, too,6 see clearly that,
1 Lit., " because [you are," etc.].
2 Lit., " either yourselves to utter," etc.
8 Incomptus, for which Heraldus would read inconditus, as in opposi- tion to " harmonious." This is, however,, unnecessary, as the clause is evidently opposed to the whole of the preceding one.
4 No trace of either of these works has coine down to us, and there- fore, though there has been abundance of conjecture, we can reach no satisfactory conclusion about them. It seems most natural to suppose the former to be probably part of the lost satires of Lucilius, which had dealt with obscene matters, and the author of the latter to be the Atel- lane poet of Bononia. As to this there has been some discussion ; but, in our utter ignorance of the work itself, it is as well to allow that we must remain ignorant of its author also. The scope of both works is suggested clearly enough by their titles — the statue of Marsyas in the forum overlooking nightly licentious orgies; and their mention seems intended to suggest a covert argument against the heathen, in the im- plied indecency of the knowledge on which they prided themselves. For Fornicem Lucilianum (MS. Lucialinuni) Meursius reads decilianum.
6 Lit., " Has that [thing] published never struck," etc. There is clearly a reference to 1 Cor. iii. 19, " the wisdom of this world." The argument breaks off here, and is taken up from a different point in the next sentence, which is included, however, in this chapter by Orelli.
' So Gelenius, followed by Canterus and Orelli, reading primum el
BOOK n.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 69
if you ever discuss obscure subjects, and seek to lay bare the mysteries of nature, on the one hand you do not know the very things which you speak of, which you affirm, which you uphold very often with especial zeal, and that each one defends with obstinate resistance his own suppositions as though they were proved and ascertained [truths]. For how can we of ourselves know whether we1 perceive the truth, even if all ages be employed in seeking out knowledge — [we] whom some envious power2 brought forth, and formed so ignorant and proud, that, although we know nothing at all, we yet deceive ourselves, and are uplifted by pride and arrogance so as to suppose ourselves possessed of knowledge ? For, to pass by divine things, and those plunged in natural obscurity, can any man explain that which in the Phsedrus3 the well-known Socrates cannot comprehend — what man is, or whence he is, uncertain, changeable, deceitful, manifold, of many kinds ? for what purposes he was produced? by whose ingenuity he was devised ? what he does in the world ? (C) why he undergoes such countless ills ? whether the earth gave life to him as to worms and mice, being affected with decay through the action of some moisture ;4 or whether he
ipsi, by rejecting one word of the MS. (et <7?<#). Canterus plausibly combines both words into itaque — '' therefore." LB. reads ecquid — " do you at all," etc., with which Orelli so far agrees, that he makes the whole sentence interrogative.
1 So restored by Stewechius ; in the first ed. perspiciam (instead of am-us) " if I perceive the truth," etc.
2 So the sis. very intelligibly and forcibly, res . . . invida, but the common reading is invid-i-a — " whom something . . . with envy." The train of thought which is merely started here is pursued at some length a little later.
* The MS. gives fedro, but all editions, except the first, Hildebrand, and Oehler, read Phsedone, referring, however, to a passage in the first Alcibiades (st. p. 129), which is manifestly absurd, as in it, while Alci- biades "cannot tell what man is," Socrates at once proceeds to lead him to the required knowledge by the usual dialectic. Nourry thinks that there is a general reference to Phzedr. st. p. 230, — a passage in which Socrates says that he disregards mythological questions that he may etudy himself.
4 Lit., " changed with the rottenness of some moisture." The refer-
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received1 these outlines of body, and [this] cast of face, from the hand of some maker and framer 1 Can he, I say, know these things, which lie open to all, and are recognisable by2 the senses common [to all], — by what causes we are plunged into sleep, by what we awake 1 in what ways dreams are produced, in what they are seen ? nay rather — as to which Plato in the Thea>tetm* is in doubt — whether we are ever awake, or whether that very state which is called waking is part of an unbroken slumber? and what we seem to do when we say that we see a dream ? whether we see by means of rays of light proceeding towards the object,4 or images of the objects fly to and alight on the pupils of our eyes ? whether the flavour is in the things [tasted], or arises from their touching the palate 1 from what causes hairs lay aside their natural darkness, and do not become gray all at once, but by adding little by little ? why it is that all fluids, on mingling, form one whole ; [that] oil, [on the contrary], does not suffer the others to be poured into it,5 but is ever brought together clearly into its own impenetrable6 substance ? finally, why the soul also, which is said by you to be immortal and divine,7 is sick in [men who are] sick, senseless in children,
ence is probably to the statement by Socrates (Phtedo, st. p. 96) of the questions with regard to the origin of life, its progress and development, which interested him as a young man.
1 So the MS., LB., and Oehler, but the other edd. make the verb plural, and thus break the connection.
2 Lit, "established in the common senses."
3 Arnobius overstates the fact here. In the passage referred to (Tli. st. p. 158), Socrates is represented as developing the Protagorean theory from its author's standpoint, not as stating his own opinions.
4 Lit., " by the stretching out of rays and of light." This, the doc- trine of the Stoics, is naturally contrasted in the next clause with that of Epicurus.
5 Lit., " oil refuses to suffer immersion into itself," i.e. of other fluids.
6 So LB., followed by Orelli, reading impenetrabil-em for the MS. impeiietrabil-is, which is corrected in both Roman edd. by Gclenius, Canterus, and Elmenhorst -e, to agree with the subject oleum—" being impenetrable is ever," etc.
7 Lit, "a god."
BOOK ii.] ARNOBIUS ADVERSUS GENTES. 71
worn out in doting, silly,1 and crazy old age ? Now the weak- ness and wretched ignorance of these [theories] is greater on this account, that while it may happen that we at times say something which is true,2 we cannot be sure even of this very thing, whether we have spoken the truth at all.
8. And since you have been wont to laugh at our faith, and with droll jests to pull to pieces [our] readiness of belief too, say, O wits, soaked and filled with wisdom's pure draught, is there in life any kind of business demanding diligence and activity, which the doers3 undertake, engage in, and essay, without believing [that it can be done] ? Do you travel about, do you sail on the sea without believing that you will return home when your business is done ? Do you break up the earth with the plough, and fill it with different kinds of seeds without believing that you will gather in the fruit with the changes of the seasons ? Do you unite with part- ners in marriage,4 without believing that it will be pure, and a union serviceable to the husband ? Do you beget children without believing that they will pass5 safely through the [different] stages of life to the goal of age I Do you commit your sick bodies to the hands of physicians, without believing that diseases can be relieved by their severity being lessened? Do you wage wars with your enemies, without believing that you will carry off the victory by success in battles?6 Do you worship and serve the gods without believing that they are, and that they listen graciously to your prayers ?
9. What, have you seen with your eyes, and handled7 with your hands, those things which you write yourselves,
1 So the edd., generally reading fatua for the MS. futura, which is clearly corrupt. Hildebrand turns the three adjectives into correspond- ing verbs, and Heinsius emends deliret (MS. -ra) et fatue et insane — " dotes both sillily and crazily." Arnobius here follows Lucr. iii. 445 sqq.
2 Lit., " something of truth."
3 The MS. has a-t-tor-o-s, corrected by a later writer a-c-tor-e-s, which is received in LB. and by Meursius and Orelli.
4 Lit., " unite marriage partnerships."
5 Lit., "be safe and come."
9 Or, " in successive battles "—prceliorum successioniliis. 7 Lit., " with ocular inspection, and held touched."
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which you read from time to time on subjects placed beyond human knowledge ? Does not each one trust this author or that? That which any one has persuaded himself is said with truth by another, does he not defend with a kind of assent, as it were, [like that] of faith ? Does not he who says that fire1 or water is the origin of all things, pin his faith to Thales or Heraclitus I he who places the cause [of all] in numbers, to Pythagoras of Samos, [and] to Archytas ? he who divides the soul, and sets up bodiless forms, to Plato, the disciple of Socrates'? he who adds a fifth element2 to the primary causes, to Aristotle, the father of the Peripatetics ? he who threatens the world with [destruction by] fire, and says that when the time comes it will be [set] on fire, to Panaetius, Chrysippus, Zeno? he who is always fashioning worlds from atoms,3 and destroying [them], to Epicurus, Democritus, Metrodorus? he who [says] that nothing is com- prehended by man, and that all things are wrapt in dark obscurity,4 to Archesilas,5 to Carneades? — to some teacher, in fine, of the old and later Academy ?
10. Finally, do not even the leaders and founders of the schools6 already mentioned, say those very things7 which
1 " Fire" is wanting in the MS.
2 Arnobius here allows himself to be misled by Cicero (Tusc. i. 10), who explains \vrthk-^.i» as a kind of perpetual motion, evidently con- fusing it with iv&tKkfcitx. (cf. Donaldson, New Crat. § 339 sqq.), and re- presents Aristotle as making it a fifth primary cause. The word has no such meaning, and Aristotle invariably enumerates only four primary causes: the material from which, the form in which, the power by which, and the end for which anything exists (Physics, ii. 3 ; MetapJi. iv. 2, etc.).
3 Lit., " with indivisible bodies." 4 PL
5 So the MS., LB., and Hildebrand, reading Archesilas, while the others read Archesilao, forgetting that Arcesilas is the regular Latin form, although Archesilaus is found.
6 Sententiarum is read in the first ed. by Gelenius, Canterus, and Ursinus, and seems from Crusius to be the MS. reading. The other edd., however, have received from the margin of Ursinus the reading of the text, sectarum.
7 In the first ed., and that of Ursinus, the reading is, nonne apud ea, " in those things which they say, do they not say," etc., which Geleniua emended as in the text, nonne ipsa ea.
BOOK n.] A RN OBI US AD VERSUS GENTES. 73
they do say through belief in their own ideas? For, did Heraclitus see things produced by the changes of fires? Thales, by the condensing of water 1 l [Did] Pythagoras [see them] spring from number?2 [Did] Plato [see] the bodiless forms ? Democritus, the meeting together of the atoms ? Or do those who assert that nothing at all can be comprehended by man, know whether what they say is true, so as to3 understand that the very proposition which they lay down is a declaration of truth ? 4 Since, then, you have discovered and learned nothing, and are led by credulity to assert all those things which you write, and comprise in thousands of books ; what kind of judgment, pray, is this, so unjust that you mock at faith in us, while you see that you have it in common with our readiness of belief ? 5 But [you say] you believe wise men, well versed in all kinds of learning! • — those, forsooth, who know nothing, and agree in nothing which they say; who join battle with their opponents on behalf of their own opinions, and are always contending fiercely with obstinate hostility ; who, overthrowing, refuting,
1 Cf. Diog. Laert. ix. 9, where Heraclitus is said to have taught that fire — the first principle — condensing becomes water, water earth, and conversely ; and on Thales, Arist. Met. A, 3, where, however, as in other places, Thales is merely said to have referred the generation and maintenance of all things to moisture, although by others he is repre- sented as teaching the doctrine ascribed to him above. Cf. Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10, and Heraclides, Alleg. Horn. c. 22, where water evaporating is said to become air, and settling, to become mud.
2 There is some difficulty as to the reading : the MS., first ed., and Ursinus give numero s-c-ire, explained by Canterus as meaning " that numbers have understanding," i.e. so as to be the cause of all. Gelenius, followed by Canterus, reads -os scit — " does Pyth. know numbers," which is absurdly out of place. Heraldus approved of a reading in the margin of Ursinus (merely inserting o after c), " that numbers unite," which seems very plausible. The text follows an emendation of Gro- novius adopted by Orelli, -o ex-ire.
3 So the MS., reading ut ; but Orelli, and all edd. before him, out — " or do they."
4 i.e. that truth knowable by man exists.
8 So the MS. reading nostra in-credulitate, for which Ursinus, followed by Stewechius, reads nostra cum. Heraldus conjectured vestra, i.e. " in your readiness of belief," you are just as much exposed to such ridicule.
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and bringing to nought the one the other's doctrines, have made all things doubtful, and have shown from their very want of agreement that nothing can be known.
11. But, [supposing that] these things do not at all hinder or prevent your being bound to believe and hearken to them in great measure ; l and what [reason] is there either that you should have more [liberty] in this respect, or that we [should have] less ? You believe Plato,2 Cronius,3 Numenius, or any one you please ; we believe and confide in Christ. How un- reasonable it is, that when we both abide 4 by teachers, and have one and the same thing, belief, in common, you should wish it to be granted to you to receive what is so5 said by them, [but] should be unwilling to hear and see what is brought for- ward by Christ ! And yet, if we chose to compare cause with cause, we are better able to point out what we have followed in Christ, than [you to point out] what you [have followed] in the philosophers. And we, indeed, have followed in him these things — those glorious works and most potent virtues which he manifested and displayed in diverse miracles, by which any one might be led to [feel] the necessity of believing, and [might] decide with confidence that they were not such as might be regarded as man's, but [such as showed] some divine and unknown power. What virtues did you follow in the
1 Heraldus has well suggested that plurimum is a gloss arising out of its being met with in the next clause.
2 So the MS. and edd., reading Platoni; but Ursinus suggested Plotino, which Heraldus thinks most probably correct. There is, indeed, an evident suitableness in introducing here the later rather than the earlier philosopher, which has great weight in dealing with the next name, and should therefore, perhaps, have some in this case also.
3 The MS. and both Eoman edd. give Crotonio, rejected by the others because no Crotonius is known (it has been referred, however, to Pytha- goras, on the ground of his having taught in Croton). In the margin of Ursinus Cronius was suggested, received by LB. and Orelli, who is mentioned by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. vi. 19, 3) with Numenius and others as an eminent Pythagorean, and by Porphyry (de Ant. Nymph, xxi.), as a friend of Numenius, and one of those who treated the Homeric poems as allegories. Gelenius substitutes Plotinus, followed by most edd.
4 Stemus, the admirable correction of Gelenius for the MS. tem-p-us. s Orelli, following Stewecluus, would omit ita.
BOOK ii.] ARNOBIUS ADVEESUS GENTES. 75
philosophers, that it was more reasonable for you [to believe] them than for us to believe Christ ? Was any one of them ever able by one word, or by a single command, I will not say to restrain, to check 1 the madness of the sea or the f ury of the storm ; to restore their sight to the blind, or give it to men blind from their birth ; to call the dead back to life ; to put an end to the sufferings of years ; but — and this is much easier 2 — to heal by one rebuke a boil, a scab, or a thorn fixed in the skin ? Not that we deny either that they are worthy of praise for the soundness of their morals, or that they are skilled in all kinds of studies and learning: for we know that they both speak in the most elegant language, and [that their words] flow in polished periods ; that they reason in syllogisms with the utmost acuteness ; that they arrange their inferences in due order ; 3 that they express, divide, distinguish principles by definitions ; that they say many things about the [different] kinds of numbers, many things about music ; that by their maxims and precepts 4 they settle the problems of geometry also. But what [has] that to [do with] the case? Do enthymemes, syllogisms, and other such things, assure us that these [men] know what is true ? or are they therefore such that credence should necessarily be given to them with regard to very obscure subjects ? A comparison of persons must be decided, not by vigour of eloquence, but by the excellence of the works [which they have] done. He must not5 be called a good teacher who has expressed himself clearly,6 but he who accompanies his promises with the guarantee of divine works.
12. You bring forward arguments against us, and specu-
1 Hildebrand thinks compescere here a gloss, but it must be remem- bered that redundancy is a characteristic of Arnobius.
2 The superlative is here, as elsewhere, used by Arnobius instead of the comparative.
3 i.e. so as to show the relations existing between them.
4 Perhaps " axioms and postulates."
5 According to Crusius, non is not found in the MS.
6 White and Riddle translate candidule, " sincerely," but give no other instance of its use, and here the reference is plainly to the pre- vious statement of the literary excellence of the philosophers. Heraldua
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lative quibblings,1 which — may I say this without displeasing him — if Christ himself were to use in the gatherings of the nations, who would assent ? who would listen ? who would say that he decided2 anything clearly? or who, though he were rash and utterly3 credulous, would follow him when pouring forth vain and baseless statements? His virtues [have been] made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly exercised by him, or that which was used 4 over the whole world by those who proclaimed him : it has subdued the fires of pas- sion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. For the [deeds] can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India,5 among the Seres, Per- sians, and Medes ; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria ; among the Galatians, Parthian s, Phrygians ; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus ; in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines ; in Rome herself, finally, the mistress [of the world], in which, although men are6
suggests callidule, " cunningly," of which Orelli approves; but by re- ferring the adv. to this well-known meaning of its primitive, all necessity for emendation is obviated.
1 Lit., " subtleties of suspicions." This passage is certainly doubtful. The reading translated, et suspicionum argutias profer-tis, is that of LB., Orelli, and the later edd. generally ; while the MS. reads -atis — " Bring forward arguments to us, and" (for which Heraldus conjectures very plausibly, nee, " and not