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

by Arnobius

17. But you err, says my opponent, and are mistaken, for we do not consider either copper, or gold and silver, or those other materials of which statues are made, to be in themselves gods and sacred deities; but in them we worship and venerate those whom their^[1] dedication as sacred introduces and causes to dwell in statues made by workmen. The reasoning is not vicious nor despicable by which any one—the dull, and also the most intelligent—can believe that the gods, forsaking their proper seats—that is, heaven—do not shrink back and avoid entering earthly habitations; nay, more, that impelled by the rite of dedication, they are joined to images! Do your gods, then, dwell in gypsum and in figures of earthenware? Nay, rather, are the gods the minds, spirits, and souls of figures of earthenware and of gypsum? and, that the meanest things may be able to become of greater importance, do they suffer themselves to be shut up and concealed and confined in^[2] an obscure abode? Here, then, in the first place, we wish and ask to be told this by you: do they do this against their will—that is, do they enter the images as dwellings, dragged to them by the rite of dedication—or are they ready and willing? and do you not summon them by any considerations of necessity? Do they do this unwillingly?^[3] and how can it be possible that they should be compelled to submit to any necessity without their dignity being impaired? With ready assent?^[4] And what do the gods seek for in figures of earthenware that they should prefer these prisons^[5] to their starry seats,—that, having been all but fastened to them, they should ennoble^[6] earthenware and the other substances of which images are made?

Footnotes

1. Lit., “the sacred dedication.”
2. Lit., “concealed in the restraint of.”
3. The ms. reads inrogati (the next letter being erased, having probably been s redundant) si inviti, corrected in the margin of Ursinus and Oehler, as above, -tis in.
4. Lit., “with the assent of voluntary compliance.” “Do you say,” or some such expression, must be understood, as Arnobius is asking his opponent to choose on which horn of the dilemma he wishes to be impaled.
5. Lit., “bindings.”
6. So Gelenius, Canterus, Elm., Oberth., and Orelli, reading nobilitent. No satisfactory emendation has been proposed, and contradictory accounts are given as to the reading of the ms. Immediately after this sentence, LB., followed by Orelli, inserts a clause from the next chapter. Cf. the following note.