38. But in the meantime let
us grant, in submission to your ideas, that Christ was one of
us—similar in mind, soul, body, weakness, and condition; is He
not worthy to be called and to be esteemed God by us, in consideration
of His bounties, so numerous as they are? For if you have placed
in the assembly3301
| 3301
So all edd., except those of Hildebrand and Oehler, for the
ms.
censum—“list.” |
of the gods
Liber, because he
discovered the use of
wine; Ceres, because she
discovered the use of
bread; Æsculapius, because he
discovered the
use of
herbs; Minerva, because she produced the olive; Triptolemus,
because he
invented the plough; Hercules, because he overpowered and
restrained
wild beasts and robbers, and
water-
serpents of many
heads,—with how great distinctions is He to be honoured by us,
who, by instilling His
truth into our
hearts, has freed us from great
errors; who, when we were straying everywhere, as if
blind and without
a
guide, withdrew us from precipitous and devious paths, and set our
feet on more smooth places; who has pointed out what is especially
profitable and salutary for the human race; who has shown us what
God
is,
3302
who He is, how
great and how good; who has permitted and taught us to conceive and to
understand, as
far as our limited capacity can, His profound and
inexpressible
depths; who, in His great
kindness, has caused it to be
known by what founder, by what Creator, this
world was established and
made; who has explained the
nature of its origin
3303
| 3303
Orelli would refer these words to God; he thinks that with those
immediately following they may be understood of God’s spiritual
nature,—an idea which he therefore supposes Arnobius to assert
had never been grasped by the heathen. |
and essential substance, never before
imagined in the conceptions of any; whence generative warmth is added
to the rays of the sun; why the
moon, always uninjured
3304
| 3304
So Gelenius, followed by Orelli and others, for the corrupt
reading of the ms., idem ne quis;
but possibly both this and the preceding clause have crept into the
text from the margin, as in construction they differ from the rest of
the sentence, both that which precedes, and that which follows. |
in her motions,
is believed to alternate her
light and her obscurity from intelligent
causes;
3305
| 3305 The
phrase animalibus causis is regarded by commentators as equal to
animatis causis, and refers to the doctrine of the Stoics, that
in the sun, moon, stars, etc., there was an intelligent nature, or a
certain impulse of mind, which directed their movements. |
what is the
origin of
animals, what rules regulate
seeds; who designed man himself,
who fashioned him, or from what
kind of material did He
compact the
very build of bodies; what the perceptions are; what the
soul, and
whether it
flew to us of its own
accord, or whether it was generated
and brought into existence with our bodies themselves; whether it
sojourns with us, partaking of
death, or whether it is gifted with an
endless immortality; what condition awaits us when we shall have
separated from our bodies relaxed in
death; whether we shall retain our
perceptions,
3306
| 3306 Lit.
“shall see”—visuri, the reading of the
ms.; changed in the first ed. and others
to victuri—“shall live.” |
or have no
recollection of our former sensations or of past memories;
3307
| 3307
Some have suggested a different construction of these
words—memoriam nullam nostri sensus et recordationis
habituri, thus—“have no memory of ourselves and senses
of recollection;” but that adopted above is simpler, and does not
force the words as this seems to do. |
who has
restrained
3308
| 3308
The ms. and 1st and 2d Roman edd.
read, qui constringit—“who
restrains.” |
our
arrogance, and has caused our necks, uplifted with
pride, to
acknowledge the measure of their
weakness; who hath shown that we are
creatures imperfectly formed, that we
trust in
vain expectations, that
we understand nothing thoroughly, that we know nothing, and that we do
not see those things which are placed before our
eyes; who has
guided
us from false
superstitions to the true
religion,—a
blessing
which exceeds and transcends all His other
gifts; who has raised our
thoughts to heaven from brutish statues formed of the vilest clay, and
has caused us to hold converse in thanksgiving and prayer with the Lord
of the universe.
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