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| Argument: The Weapon that Cæcilius Had Slightly Brandished Against Him, Taken from the Auspices and Auguries of Birds, Octavius Retorts by Instancing the Cases of Regulus, Mancinus, Paulus, and Cæsar. And He Shows by Other Examples, that the Argument from the Oracles is of No Greater Force Than the Others. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
XXVI.—Argument: The Weapon that Cæcilius Had Slightly
Brandished Against Him, Taken from the Auspices and Auguries of Birds,
Octavius Retorts by Instancing the Cases of Regulus, Mancinus, Paulus,
and Cæsar. And He Shows by Other Examples, that the Argument
from the Oracles is of No Greater Force Than the Others.
“And now I come to those Roman auspices and
auguries which you have collected with extreme pains, and have borne
testimony that they were both neglected with ill consequences, and
observed with good fortune. Certainly Clodius, and Flaminius, and
Junius lost their armies on this account, because they did not judge it
well to wait for the very solemn omen given by the greedy pecking of
the chickens. But what of Regulus? Did he not observe the
auguries, and was taken captive? Mancinus maintained his
religious duty, and was sent under the yoke, and was given up.
Paulus also had greedy chickens at Cannæ, yet he was overthrown
with the greater part of the republic.1802
1802 Reipublicæ; but
it is shrewdly conjectured that the passage was written, “cum
majore R. P. parte”—“with the greater part of
the Roman people,” and the mistake made by the transcriber of the
ms. | Caius Cæsar despised the auguries
and auspices that resisted his making his voyage into Africa before the
winter, and thus the more easily he both sailed and conquered.
But what and how much shall I go on to say about oracles? After
his death Amphiaraus answered as to things to come, though he knew not
(while living) that he should be betrayed by his wife on account of a
bracelet. The blind Tiresias saw the future, although he did not
see the present. Ennius invented the replies of the Pythian
Apollo concerning Pyrrhus, although Apollo had already ceased to make
verses; and that cautious and ambiguous oracle of his, failed just at
the time when men began to be at once more cultivated and less
credulous. And Demosthenes, because he knew that the answers were
feigned, complained that the Pythia philippized. But
sometimes, it is true, even auspices or oracles have touched the
truth. Although among many falsehoods chance might appear as if
it imitated forethought; yet I will approach the very source of error
and perverseness, whence all that obscurity has flowed, and both dig
into it more deeply, and lay it open more manifestly. There are
some insincere and vagrant spirits degraded from their heavenly vigour
by earthly stains and lusts. Now these spirits, after having lost
the simplicity of their nature by being weighed down and immersed in
vices, for a solace of their calamity, cease not, now that they are
ruined themselves, to ruin others; and being depraved themselves, to
infuse into others the error of their depravity and being themselves
alienated from God, to separate others from God by the introduction of
degraded superstitions. The poets know that those spirits are
demons; the philosophers discourse of them; Socrates knew it, who, at
the nod and decision of a demon that was at his side, either declined
or undertook affairs. The Magi, also, not only know that there
are demons, but, moreover, whatever miracle they affect to perform, do
it by means of demons; by their aspirations and communications they
show their wondrous tricks, making either those things appear which are
not, or those things not to appear which are. Of those magicians,
the first both in eloquence and in deed, Sosthenes,1803 not only describes the true God with fitting
majesty, but the angels that are the ministers and messengers of God,
even the true God. And he knew that it enhanced His veneration,
that in awe of the very nod and glance of their Lord they should
tremble. The same man also declared that demons were earthly,
wandering, hostile to humanity. What said Plato,1804
1804 [Octavius and Minucius
had but one mind (see cap. i. supra), and both were philosophers
of the Attic Academy reflecting Cicero. See my remarks on
Athenagoras, vol. ii. p. 126, this series.] | who believed that it was a hard thing to
find out God? Does not he also, without hesitation, tell of both
angels and demons? And in his Symposium also, does not he
endeavour to explain the nature of demons? For he will have it to
be a substance between mortal and immortal—that is, mediate
between body and spirit, compounded by mingling of earthly weight and
heavenly lightness; whence also he warns us of the desire of
love,1805
1805 According to some
editors, “warns us that the desire of love is
received.” | and he says that it is moulded and glides
into the human breast, and stirs the senses, and moulds the affections,
and infuses the ardour of lust.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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