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| Wrong Derivation of the Word Qeός. The Name Indicative of the True Deity. God Without Shape and Immaterial. Anecdote of Thales.
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Chapter IV.—Wrong
Derivation of the Word Θεός. The Name
Indicative of the True Deity. God Without Shape and Immaterial.
Anecdote of Thales.
Some affirm that the gods (i.e.
θεοί) were so
called because the verbs θέειν and σείσθαι signify
to run and to be moved.835
| 835 This seems to mean:
“because θέειν has also the sense of
σείεσθαι (motion
as well as progression).” | This term, then,
is not indicative of any majesty, for it is derived from running and
motion, not from any dominion836
| 836
“Dominatione” is Oehler’s reading, but he approves of
“denominatione” (Rigault’s reading); this would
signify “designation of godhead.” | of godhead. But
inasmuch as the Supreme God whom we worship is also designated
Θεός,
without however the appearance of any course or motion in
Him, because He is not visible to any one, it is clear that that word
must have had some other derivation, and that the property of divinity,
innate in Himself, must have been discovered. Dismissing, then, that
ingenious interpretation, it is more likely that the gods were not
called θεοί from running and
motion, but that the term was borrowed from the designation of
the true God; so that you gave the name θεοί to the gods, whom you had in
like manner forged for yourselves. Now, that this is the case, a
plain proof is afforded in the fact that you actually give the common
appellation θεοί to all those gods of
yours, in whom there is no attribute of course or motion
indicated. When, therefore, you call them both θεοί and
immoveable with equal readiness, there is a deviation as well
from the meaning of the word as from the idea837
of
godhead, which is set aside838
if measured by the
notion of course and motion. But if that sacred
name be peculiarly significant of deity, and be simply true and not of
a forced interpretation839
in the case of the
true God, but transferred in a borrowed sense840
to those other objects which you choose to call gods, then you ought to
show to us841
that there is also a
community of character between them, so that their common designation
may rightly depend on their union of essence. But the true God, on the
sole ground that He is not an object of sense, is incapable of being
compared with those false deities which are cognizable to sight and
sense (to sense indeed is sufficient); for this amounts to a clear
statement of the difference between an obscure proof and a manifest
one. Now, since the elements are obvious to all, (and) since God, on
the contrary, is visible to none, how will it be in your power from
that part which you
have not seen to pass to a decision on the objects which you see?
Since, therefore, you have not to combine them in your perception or
your reason, why do you combine them in name with the purpose of
combining them also in power? For see how even Zeno separates the
matter of the world from God: he says that the latter has percolated
through the former, like honey through the comb. God, therefore, and
Matter are two words (and) two things. Proportioned to the difference
of the words is the diversity of the things; the condition also of
matter follows its designation. Now if matter is not God, because its
very appellation teaches us so, how can those things which are inherent
in matter—that is, the elements—be regarded as gods, since
the component members cannot possibly be heterogeneous from the body?
But what concern have I with physiological conceits? It were better for
one’s mind to ascend above the state of the world, not to stoop
down to uncertain speculations. Plato’s form for the world was
round. Its square, angular shape, such as others had conceived it to
be, he rounded off, I suppose, with compasses, from his labouring to
have it believed to be simply without a beginning.842
Epicurus, however, who had said, “What is above us is nothing to
us,” wished notwithstanding to have a peep at the sky, and found
the sun to be a foot in diameter. Thus far you must
confess843
men were niggardly in even celestial
objects. In process of time their ambitious conceptions advanced,
and so the sun too enlarged its disk.844
Accordingly, the
Peripatetics marked it out as a larger world.845
| 845 Majorem orbem. Another
reading has “majorem orbe,” q.d. “as
larger than the world.” | Now,
pray tell me, what wisdom is there in this hankering after conjectural
speculations? What proof is afforded to us, notwithstanding the
strong confidence of its assertions, by the useless affectation of a
scrupulous curiosity,846
which is tricked out
with an artful show of language? It therefore served Thales of Miletus
quite right, when, star-gazing as he walked with all the eyes he had,
he had the mortification of falling847
into a well, and
was unmercifully twitted by an Egyptian, who said to him, “Is it
because you found nothing on earth to look at, that you think you ought
to confine your gaze to the sky?” His fall, therefore, is a
figurative picture of the philosophers; of those, I mean,848
who persist in applying849
their studies to a vain purpose, since they indulge a stupid curiosity
on natural objects, which they ought rather (intelligently to direct)
to their Creator and Governor.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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