16. But, they say,
while we are moving swiftly down towards our mortal bodies,3520
| 3520 There
has been much confusion as to the meaning of Arnobius throughout this
discussion, which would have been obviated if it had been remembered
that his main purpose in it is to show how unsatisfactory and unstable
are the theories of the philosophers, and that he is not therefore to
be identified with the views brought forward, but rather with the
objections raised to them. |
causes
pursue us
from the
world’s circles,
3521
| 3521 Cf.
c. 28, p. 440, note 2. |
through the working of which we become
bad, ay, most
wicked;
burn with
lust and
anger, spend our
life in
shameful
deeds, and are given over to the
lust of all by the
prostitution of our bodies for
hire. And how can the material
unite with the immaterial? or how can that which
God has made, be led
by weaker causes to degrade itself through the
practice of vice?
Will you lay aside your habitual arrogance,
3522
| 3522
So the ms., followed by Orelli and others
reading institutum superciliumque—“habit and
arrogance,” for the first word of which LB. reads istum
typhum—“that pride of yours;” Meursius, isti
typhum—“Lay aside pride, O ye.” |
O men, who claim
God as your
Father, and
maintain that you are
immortal, just as He is? Will you inquire,
examine, search what you are yourselves, whose you are, of what
parentage you are supposed
to be, what you do in the
world, in
what way you are
born, how you
leap to
life? Will you, laying
aside
all partiality, consider in the
silence of your thoughts
that we are creatures either quite like the
rest, or separated by no
great difference? For what is there to show that we do not
resemble them? or what excellence is in us, such that we
scorn to be
ranked as creatures? Their bodies are built up on
bones, and
bound closely together by sinews; and our bodies are in like manner
built up on
bones, and bound closely together by sinews. They
inspire the
air through nostrils, and in breathing
expire it again; and
we in like manner drew in the
air, and breathed it out with
frequent
respirations. They have been arranged in classes,
female and
male; we, too, have been fashioned by our Creator into the same
sexes.
3523
| 3523 So
the edd., reading in totidem sexus for the ms. sexu—“into so many kinds in
sex.” |
Their
young are
born from the
womb, and are begotten through union of the
sexes; and we are
born from sexual embraces, and are brought forth and
sent into
life from our mothers’ wombs. They are supported
by eating and drinking, and get rid of the
filth which remains by the
lower parts; and we are supported by eating and drinking, and that
which
nature refuses we deal with in the same way. Their care is
to ward off
death-bringing
famine, and of necessity to be on the watch
for
food. What else is our aim in the
business of
life, which
presses so much upon us,
3524
but to
seek the means by which the
danger of starvation may be
avoided, and carking
anxiety put
away? They are exposed to
disease and
hunger, and at last lose
their
strength by reason of age. What, then? are we not exposed
to these evils, and are we not in like manner weakened by noxious
diseases,
destroyed by wasting age? But if that, too, which is
said in the more hidden mysteries is true, that the souls of wicked
men, on leaving their human bodies, pass into cattle and other
creatures,
3525
| 3525
Cf. Plato, Phædo, st. p. 81. |
it is
even more clearly shown that we are allied to them, and not
separated by any great interval, since it is on the same ground that
both we and they are said to be living creatures, and to act as
such.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
