Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XII

by Arnobius

12. Thus far of sex. Now let us come to the appearance and shapes by which you believe that the gods above have been represented, with which, indeed, you fashion, and set them up in their most splendid abodes, your temples. And let no one here bring up against us Jewish fables and those of the sect of the Sadducees,^[1] as though we, too, attribute to the Deity forms;^[2] for this is supposed to be taught in their writings, and asserted as if with assurance and authority. For these stories either do not concern us, and have nothing at all in common with us, or if they are shared in by us, as you believe, you must seek out teachers of greater wisdom, through whom you may be able to learn how best to overcome the dark and recondite sayings of those writings. Our opinion on the subject is as follows:—that the whole divine nature, since it neither came into existence at any time, nor will ever come to an end of life, is devoid of bodily features, and does not have anything like the forms with which the termination of the several members usually. completes the union of parts.^[3] For whatever is of this character, we think mortal and perishable; nor do we believe that that can endure for ever which an inevitable end shuts in, though the boundaries enclosing it be the remotest.

Footnotes

1. It is evident that Arnobius here confuses the sceptical Sadducees with their opponents the Pharisees, and the Talmudists.
2. The ms. reads tribuant et nos unintelligibly, for which LB. and Hild. read et os—“as though they attribute form and face;” the other edd, as above, tribuamus et nos.
3. Lit., “the joinings of the members.”