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

by Arnobius

36.^[1] You say that some of them cause dissensions, that there are others who inflict pestilences, others who excite love and madness, others, even, who preside over wars, and are delighted by the shedding of blood; but we, indeed, on the contrary, judge that these things are remote^[2] from the dispositions of the deities; or if there are any who inflict and bring these ills on miserable mortals, we maintain that they are far from the nature of the gods, and should not be spoken of under this name. You judge that the deities are angry and perturbed, and given over and subject to the other mental affections; we think that such emotions are alien from them, for these suit savage beings, and those who die as mortals.^[3] You think that they rejoice, are made glad, and are reconciled to men, their offended feelings being soothed by the blood of beasts and the slaughter of victims; we hold that there is in the celestials no love of blood, and that they are not so stern as to lay aside their resentment only when glutted with the slaughter of animals. You think that, by wine and incense, honour is given to the gods, and their dignity increased; we judge it marvellous and monstrous that any man thinks that the deity either becomes more venerable by reason of smoke,^[4] or thinks himself supplicated by men with sufficient awe and respect when they offer^[5] a few drops of wine. You are persuaded that, by the crash of cymbals and the sound of pipes, by horse-races and theatrical plays, the gods are both delighted and affected, and that their resentful feelings conceived before^[6] are mollified by the satisfaction which these things give; we hold it to be out of place, nay more, we judge it incredible, that those who have surpassed by a thousand degrees every kind of excellence in the height of their perfection, should be pleased and delighted with those things which a wise man laughs at, and which do not seem to have any charm except to little children, coarsely and vulgarly educated.

Footnotes

1. 50 in Orelli.
2. It is important to notice the evidence in this one sentence of haste and want of revision. In the first line we find a genitive (discordiarum—“dissensions”), but not the noun on which it depends; and in the apodosis a verb (disjunctas esse—“have been removed,” i.e., “are remote”) has no subject, although its gender imperatively requires that has res, or some such words, be supplied. One omission might have been easily ascribed to a slip on the part of the copyist; but two omissions such as these occurring so closely, must, it would seem, be assigned to the impetuous disregard of minutiæ with which Arnobius blocked out a conclusion which was never carefully revised. (Cf. Appendix, note 1, and p. 539, n. 8.) The importance of such indications is manifest in forming an opinion on the controversy as to this part of the work.
3. Lit., “are of…those meeting the functions of mortality,” obeunti-um, corrected by Gelenius (according to Orelli) for the ms. -bus, retained, though unintelligible, by Canterus, Oberth., and Hild.
4. [See p. 519, note 1, and p. 528, cap. 26, supra.]
5. Lit., “of.” [Cap. 29, p. 529, supra.]
6. Lit., “some time.”