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

by Arnobius

13. But it is not enough that you limit the gods by forms:—you even confine them to the human figure, and with even less decency enclose them in earthly bodies. What shall we say then? that the gods have a head modelled with perfect symmetry,^[1] bound fast by sinews to the back and breast, and that, to allow the necessary bending of the neck, it is supported by combinations of vertebræ, and by an osseous foundation? But if we believe this to be true, it follows that they have ears also, pierced by crooked windings; rolling eyeballs, overshadowed by the edges of the eyebrows; a nose, placed as a channel,^[2] through which waste fluids and a current of air might easily pass; teeth to masticate food, of three kinds, and adapted to three services; hands to do their work, moving easily by means of joints, fingers, and flexible elbows; feet to support their bodies, regulate their steps, and prompt the first motions in walking. But if the gods bear these things which are seen, it is fitting that they should bear those also which the skin conceals under the framework of the ribs, and the membranes enclosing the viscera; windpipes, stomachs, spleens, lungs, bladders, livers, the long-entwined intestines, and the veins of purple blood, joined with the air-passages,^[3] coursing through the whole viscera.

Footnotes

1. Lit., “with smooth roundness.” [Cf. Xenoph., Mem., i. cap. 4.]
2. Lit., “the raised gutter of the nose, easily passed by,” etc.
3. The veins were supposed to be for the most part filled with blood, mixed with a little air; while in the arteries air was supposed to be in excess. Cf. Cicero, de Nat. Deor. ii. 55: “Through the veins blood is poured forth to the whole body, and air through the arteries.”