Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book IV/Chapter II

by Arnobius

2. For we—but, perhaps, you would rob and deprive us of common-sense—feel and perceive that none of these has divine power, or possesses a form of its own;^[1] but that, on the contrary, they are the excellence of manhood,^[2] the safety of the safe, the honour of the respected, the victory of the conqueror, the harmony of the allied, the piety of the pious, the recollection of the observant, the good fortune, indeed, of him who lives happily and without exciting any ill-feeling. Now it is easy to perceive that, in speaking thus, we speak most reasonably when we observe^[3] the contrary qualities opposed to them, misfortune, discord, forgetfulness, injustice, impiety, baseness of spirit, and unfortunate^[4] weakness of body. For as these things happen accidentally, and^[5] depend on human acts and chance moods, so their contraries, named^[6] after more agreeable qualities, must be found in others; and from these, originating in this wise, have arisen those invented names.

Footnotes

1. Lit., “is contained in a form of its own kind.”
2. i.e., manliness.
3. Lit., “which it is easy to perceive to be said by us with the greatest truth from,” etc.,—so most edd. reading nobis; but the ms., according to Crusius, gives vobis—“you,” as in Orelli and Oberthür.
4. Lit., “less auspicious.”
5. The ms., first four edd., and Elmenhorst, read, quæ—“which;” the rest, as above, que.
6. Lit., “what is opposed to them named,” nominatum; a correction by Oehler for the ms. nominatur—“is named.”