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

by Arnobius

20. This, then, this matter of forms and sexes, is the first affront which you, noble advocates in sooth, and pious writers, offer to your deities. But what is the next, that you represent to us^[1] the gods, some as artificers, some physicians, others working in wool, as sailors,^[2] players on the harp and flute, hunters, shepherds, and, as there was nothing more, rustics? And that god, he says, is a musician, and this other can divine; for the other gods cannot,^[3] and do not know how to foretell what will come to pass, owing to their want of skill and ignorance of the future. One is instructed in obstetric arts, another trained up in the science of medicine. Is each, then, powerful in his own department; and can they give no assistance, if their aid is asked, in what belongs to another? This one is eloquent in speech, and ready in linking words together; for the others are stupid, and can say nothing skilfully, if they must speak.

Footnotes

1. So the ms., followed by Oehler, reading nobis, for which all other edd. give vobis—“to you.”
2. Meursius would read naccas—“fullers,” for nautas; but the latter term may, properly enough, be applied to the gods who watch over seamen.
3. Or, “for the others are not gods,” i.e., cannot be gods, as they do not possess the power of divination. Cf. Lact., i. 11: Sin autem divinus non sit, ne deus quidem sit.