54. But you do not believe
these things; yet those who witnessed their occurrence, and who saw
them done before their eyes—the very best vouchers and the most
trustworthy authorities—both believed them themselves, and
transmitted them to us who follow them, to be believed with no scanty
measure of confidence. Who are these? you perhaps ask.
Tribes, peoples, nations, and that incredulous human race; but3351
| 3351 Or,
“which if…itself, would never,” etc. [Note the
confidence of this appeal to general assent.] |
if the matter
were not plain, and, as the saying is, clearer than day itself, they
would never grant their assent with so ready belief to events of such a
kind. But shall we say that the men of that time were
untrustworthy, false, stupid, and brutish to such a degree that they
pretended to have seen what they never had seen, and that they put
forth under false evidence,
or alleged with childish asseveration things which never took place,
and that when they were able to live in harmony and to maintain
friendly relations with you, they wantonly incurred hatred, and were
held in execration?
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