19. But perhaps these things
will turn out to be false, and what you say to be true. By what
proof, by what evidence, will it be shown? For since both
parties are men, both those who have said the one thing and those who
have said the other, and on both sides the discussion was of doubtful
matters, it is arrogant to say that that is true which seems so to you,
but that that which offends your feelings manifests wantonness and
falsehood. By the laws of the human race, and the associations of
mortality itself, when you read and hear, That god was born of this
father and of that mother, do you not feel in your mind4178
| 4178
Lit., “does it not touch the feeling of your mind.” |
that
something is said which
belongs to man, and relates to the meanness of
our earthly race? Or, while you think that it is so,
4179
| 4179
Ursinus would supply eos—“that they are
so.” |
do you
conceive no
anxiety lest you should in something offend the gods
themselves, whoever they are, because you believe that it is owing to
filthy intercourse…
4180
| 4180
Atque ex seminis, actu, or jactu, as the edd. except
Hild. read it. |
that they have reached the
light they
knew not of, thanks to
lewdness? For we, lest any one should
chance to think that we are ignorant of, do not know, what
befits the
majesty of that name, assuredly
4181
| 4181
The ms. reads dignitati-s
aut; corrected, as above, d. sane, in the first five edd.,
Oberthür, and Orelli. [John x. 35.] |
think that the gods should not know
birth; or if they are
born at all, we hold and esteem that the
Lord and
Prince of the universe, by ways which He knew Himself, sent them forth
spotless, most pure, undefiled, ignorant of sexual pollution,
4182
| 4182
Quæsit fœditas ista coeundi. |
and brought
to the full perfection of their natures as soon as they were
begotten?
4183
| 4183
Lit., “as far as to themselves, their first generation being
completed.” |
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