Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book I/Chapter LI

by Arnobius

51. What say ye, O minds incredulous, stubborn, hardened? 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 Maximus, 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 hang-nail, 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 correspondence^[2] between the deed and the doer. To be able to transfer to a man your own power, 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.

Footnotes

1. So understood by Orelli, who reads quo Dius est, adopting the explanation 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 generally refer it to the succeeding jure, with this “right” which is his. Canterus reads, quod majus est, i.e., than the Pontifex Maximus. [Compare vol. iv. p. 74, note 7.]
2. So the ms. reading æqualitas, which is retained by Hild. and Oehler; all other editions drop æ—“that the quality of deed and doer might be one.”