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out tho amoura of Ares and Venus mith tho Nautiles crown: Ho. Mat they ales togather in the palace of Hephaestus Secreuy; and he gave many gista, and disio ured the bod and chamber of hing Hephaestus.'
hoops of their rings they cut a representation of tho amoro bita stat fluiterin round Leda, aving a strong predilectionsor representations os effemina ,--d uso a seat stampedmissi an impression of the licentio ness os Zeus. Such are
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64 EXHORTATION TO THE NEA THEA .examples of your Voluptuousness, such aro the theologies os vice, suta are the instructions of your gods, Who commit somnication along with you; for What one Wishes, that he thinlis, according to the Athenian orator. And of What hind, on thoother hand, Me your other imagos ' Diminutive Pans, and nised oris, and drunken Satyra, and erecta pudenda, pianted naked in pictures disgraceiul sor filthinem. And moro inanthis: Fou are not ashmed in the ves of ali in look at representations os ali soms os licentio ness Which are portra din public places, but set them up and Mard them Minscrupulous care, consecrating thmo pillars of shamet messat home, as is, fors th, they Were the images of Four Mds, depicting on them equalty the postures of Philaenis and the laboursos Heracles. Not only tho use of these, but the sight of them, and the very hearing of them, me denounce as deseruing thedoom os oblivion. Your eam are debauched, your Ves commitfornication, your looks commit adultery bes e Fou embrace. Ο yo that have done violenco to man, and have devoted to
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s hioned with tho most exquisite beauu possibie, you eXe cise no caro in Mard against yo coming like images for stupidi . Accordingly, With the ulmost clearn s and brevi , the prophetic mord condemns this practico: μFor est thogods of the nations are the images of demons; but God madotho heavens, and what is in heaven. Some, homoer, Whohave salien into error, I know not hoW, Morallip God's Worhi tota of God Himself,-the sun and the moon, and the rest
tho wholo universo; it is His mork: and the heaven, and the Sun, and anget' and men, are the wocts of Ηis fingers.' How great is the power of Godi His bare volition mas thecreation of the universe. For God alone made it, becauso
He alone is truly God. By tho baro exerciso os volition Hecreates; His mers milling Was fosso ed by the sprining into ing of What He Willod. Consequently the choir of phil
Sophera are in error, Who indeed most nobiy consess that man was made for tho contemplation os the heavens, but ho Worship tho objecta that appear in the hemens and ars
apprehended by sioti For is tho heavenly bodios ars notthB Woris of men, they mero certa ly creared for man. Letraone os you Worship tho sis, but set his destres on the Maher of the sun; nor deify the universe, but sein after tho Creator of the universe. The only refuge, then, Which remalas larhim Who Would reach tho portias os salvation is divino Wisdom. From this, as from a sacred asylum, the man Who presses aster salvation, can be Magyd is no demon.
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THE OPINIONS OF TΗΕ PHILOSOPHERS RESPECTING GOD. us then run over, is you choose, the opinions of the philosophers, to Whicli thoy give boantes ulterance, respecting the gods; that we may di ' cover philosophv iueis, through ita conceit malangan idol of mattor; although me are ille to ShoW, M We Pr ceed, that even While detiying certain demons, it has a dream of tho truth. The elements were designated as the first principies of est things by some of them: by Thales of Miletus, who celebrated Water, and Anaximenes, also os Miletus, Whocelebrated air as the first principio os ali things, and was ioblowed astemards by Diogenes of Apollonia. Parmenides of Elia introduced fire and earth as gods; one of Whicli, namelyfire, Hippasus os Meuapontum and Heraclitus of Ephesus supposed a divinity. Empedocles of Agrigentum teli inwith a multitudo, and, in addition to those four elementa,
morshipped matter, Who did not indeed pay religious hono in stoclis and stones, but delfied earili, the mother of these,-who did not maho an image of Poseidon, but revered materiiseis. For What else, according to the original signification, is Poseidon, but a moisi substance' the name boing derived imm poma drinh); as, beyond doubt, the warllo Ares isso called, iram arsis rising up and anoereais destroyini. For this reason mainin I thinli, many fix a smord into thoground, and sacrifice in ii as in Ares. Tho Scythians havo a practico of this nature, as Eudoxus telis us in tho secondbook of his Traneis. The Sauromatae, too, a tribe os the
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is mas also the case With Heraclitus and his sollamen, o Worisipped firo as sto firet cause; for this fire ostemnamed Hophaestus. The Persian Magi, too, and many oitho inhabitants of Asia, modihipped fire; and besides them, the Macedonians, as Diogenes relates in the fidit book of his Persica. Why speciiy the Sauromatae, Who aro said by Nymphodorus, in his Barbario C toma, to pay sacredhonoum to firo Τ or the Perstans, or tho Medes, or the vigil Theso, Dino telis us, sacrifice beneath the open so, regardingsire and water as the oesy images of the goci. Nor havs I falled to reveat their ignorance; sor, hoWevermueli they thinh to k p clear of error in one form, in uido into it in another. They have not supposed stoas and stones to bo images of the god' liko the Greeis; nor Ibises and Ichneumons, lihotho Egyptians; but Me and water, as philosophers. Berosus, in tho inita book of his Chaldaies, shows that it Was after many successive periods of years that men morshipped images of human shape, this praetice being introduced by Artaxerxes, the wn os Darius, and fallier of Ochus, Who fini set up theimago of Aphrodiis Anaitis at Babylon and Susa; and Ecbatana set the examplo os mors Ding it to the Perstans; tho Bactrians, to Damascus and Sardis. Let the philosophere, then, o n as their tinctera the Pe stans, or the Sauromatae, or the Magi, hom Whom they havolearned the implous doctrine of regarding as divine certain fidit principies, being ignorant of the great Firat Cause, tho Mahor os ali inings, and Creator of those very firat principies, the unbeginning God, but reverencing these Weis and bemarly elementa, ' as the apostle says, Whicli mere madesor the service of man. And of tho rest os tho philosophers bo, passing oVer the elementa, have eagerly sought astersomething hi ex and nobior, somo have descanted on the Infinite, of whom mero Anaximander of Miletus, goras os Clazomenae, and the Athenian Archelaus, both of
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Leucippus and the Chian Aletrodorus apparently inculcatodtwo fimi principies-fulness and vacui . Democritus of Abdera, While accepting theso tWo, added to them images εἴδωλα); While Alcmaeon of Crotona supposed the stare tobe gods, and endoWed with liso Ι mill not keop silenco as totheir effronte ). Xenocrates of Chalcedon indicatos that the planeis are seven gods, and that the universe, composed os est these, is an eighth. Nor mill I pass over those of tho Porcii, Who say that the Divinity pervades ali matter, eventho vilest, and thus clumsily disgraco philosophy. Nor do Ιthinh mill it bo tahen ill, having reached this potnt, to advertio tho Peripateties. The father of this seci, not knowing the Faster of ali things, thinks that He who is called the Hi ostis tho soul of the universe; that is, he supposes the foui oftho worid to be God, and so is pierced by his oWn sword. Foris sint limiting the sphero os Providonco to the orbit os thomoon, and then by supposing the universe in be God, he confutes himsels, in much as ho teaches that thaν which is .ithout God is God. And that Eresian Theophrastus, thepupit os Aristolle, conjectures at one time heaveri, and at anothor spirit, to be God. Epicurus alone I stati gladiy formi, who carries impiety to ita tuli longth, and thinks that Godiises no charge of the worid. What, moreover, os Heraclidesos Pontus ' Ηρ is dramed eve Where to the images he
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or earib, or stones, or stocis, or fleel, or this universe, to be
Vaunted science of astrology, not astronomy, to those men
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70 EXHORTA NON TO THE E THEMmeans be expressod. Woli dono, Platot Thou hast touchodon the truth. But do not flag. Undorlaho with mo tho inquio respecting the Good. For into ali mon Whatevor, especialty those Who are occupied With intellectual pursutis, a certain divino effluence has been instilled; Wheresore, thoughreluctantin they confess that God is one, indestructible, unbe-miten, and that somo here above in the tracta of heaven, in His οὐ peculiar appropriate eminence, Whenco He Suo Sali inings, Ηe has an existence true and eternat.
Euripides says. Accordin*y, Menander feems to me to havo fallen into error When he said :
of tho fame sentiments is Plato, who som-here alludes to
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He minos the circuit os nature; and justice alWays follom Him, avenging those Who violato the divine lam.'Whenee, o Plato, is that hint os the truth which thougivest ' menco this rich copioum s of diction, whicli proclaims piety With oracular ulteranco The tribos of thobarbarians, he says, Me miser than these; I know sty inachers, even ii thou moestit conceia them. You have learned ge meim fmm the Egyptians, astronomy Dom tho Babylonians; the charms of healing you have got irom the Thracians; tho Assyrians also havo taught you many things; but for thelaws that are consistent Wissi truth, and Four sentiments respecting God, you are indebled to tho Hebrem,
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What flain ean seo mith the eyo the celestiat, me true, tho immortal God, Who inhabita the vavit of heaven '
My, men bom mortia cannot even stand fore the mys of the sun. '
Cloanthos Pisadous,' the Stoic philosopher, Who exhibita nota poetic theogony, but a true theology, has not concealed hat sentiments he enteriained respecting God: