Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Physical Philosophers Maintained the Divinity of the Elements; The Absurdity of the Tenet Exposed.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter III.—The Physical Philosophers Maintained the
Divinity of the Elements; The Absurdity of the Tenet
Exposed.
From these developments of opinion, we see that
your814
physical class of philosophers are
driven to the necessity of contending that the elements are gods, since
it alleges that other gods are sprung from them; for it is only from
gods that gods could be born. Now, although we shall have to examine
these other gods more fully in the proper place, in the mythic section
of the poets, yet, inasmuch as we must meanwhile treat of them in their
connection with the present class,815
| 815 Ad præsentem
speciem, the physical class. | we shall
probably even from their present class,816
when
once we turn to the gods themselves, succeed in showing that they can
by no means appear to be gods who are said to be sprung from the
elements; so that we have at once a presumption817
| 817 Ut jam hinc
præjudicatum sit. | that
the elements are not gods, since they which are born of the elements
are not gods. In like manner, whilst we show that the elements are not
gods, we shall, according to the law of natural relationship,818
| 818 Ad illam agnatorum
speciem. | get a presumptive argument that they cannot
rightly be maintained to be gods whose parents (in this case the
elements) are not gods. It is a settled point819
that
a god is born of a god, and that what lacks divinity820
is born of what is not divine. Now, so far as821
| 821 “Quod,” with
a subj. mood. | the
world of which your philosophers treat822
(for
I apply this term to the universe in the most comprehensive
sense823
) contains the elements, ministering to them
as its component parts (for whatever its own condition may be, the same
of course will be that of its elements and constituent portions), it
must needs have been formed either by some being, according to the
enlightened view824
of Plato, or else by
none, according to the harsh opinion825
of Epicurus; and
since it was formed, by having a beginning, it must also have an end.
That, therefore, which at one time before its beginning had no
existence, and will by and by after its end cease to have an existence,
cannot of course, by any possibility, seem to be a god, wanting as it
does that essential character of divinity, eternity, which is reckoned
to be826
without beginning, and without end. If,
however, it827
is in no wise formed,
and therefore ought to be accounted divine—since, as divine, it
is subject neither to a beginning nor an end of itself—how is it
that some assign generation to the elements, which they hold to be
gods, when the Stoics deny that anything can be born of a god?
Likewise, how is it that they wish those beings, whom they suppose to
be born of the elements, to be regarded as gods, when they deny that a
god can be born? Now, what must hold good of the
universe828
| 828 Mundi, i.e., the
universe; see above. | will have to be
predicated of the elements, I mean of heaven, and of earth, and of the
stars, and of fire, which Varro has vainly proposed that you should
believe829
| 829 The best reading is
“vobis credi;” this is one of Tertullian’s
“final infinitives.” | to be gods, and the parents of gods, contrary
to that generation and nativity which he had declared to be impossible
in a god. Now this same Varro had shown that the earth and the
stars were animated.830
| 830 Compare Augustine,
de Civit. Dei, vii. 6, 23, 24, 28. | But if this be the case, they must needs be
also mortal, according to the condition831
of
animated nature; for although the soul is evidently immortal, this
attribute is limited to it alone: it is not extended to that with which
it is associated, that is, the body. Nobody, however, will deny that
the elements have body, since we both touch them and are touched by
them, and we see certain bodies fall down from them. If, therefore,
they are animated, laying aside the principle832
of a
soul, as befits their condition as bodies, they are mortal—of
course not immortal. And yet whence is it that the elements appear to
Varro to be animated? Because, forsooth, the elements have
motion. And then, in order to anticipate what may be objected on the
other side, that many things else have motion—as wheels, as
carriages, as several other machines—he volunteers the statement
that he believes only such things to be animated as move of themselves,
without any apparent mover or impeller from without, like the apparent
mover of the wheel, or propeller of the carriage, or director of the
machine. If, then, they are not animated, they have no motion of
themselves. Now, when he thus alleges a power which is not apparent, he
points to what it was his duty to seek after, even the creator and
controller of the motion; for it does not at once follow that, because
we do not see a thing, we believe that it does not exist. Rather, it is
necessary the more profoundly to investigate what one does not see, in
order the better to understand the character of that which is apparent.
Besides if (you admit) only the existence of those things which appear
and are supposed to exist simply because they appear, how is it that
you also admit them to be gods which do not appear? If, moreover, those
things seem to have existence which have none, why may they not have
existence also which do not seem to have it? Such, for instance, as the
Mover833
of the heavenly beings. Granted, then, that
things are animated because they move of themselves, and that they move
of themselves when they are not moved by another: still it does
not follow that they must straightway be gods, because they are
animated, nor even because they move of themselves; else what is to
prevent all animals whatever being accounted gods, moving as they do of
themselves? This, to be sure, is allowed to the Egyptians, but their
superstitious vanity has another basis.834
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
