4. If perchance it is not
this,4785
| 4785
The heathen opponent is supposed to give up his first reason, that the
sacrifices provided food for the gods, and to advance this new
suggestion, that they were intended for their gratification merely. |
are victims
not slain in
sacrifice to the gods, and cast upon their flaming
altars
to give them
4786
| 4786
Lit., “for the sake of.” |
some
pleasure and
delight? And can any man
persuade himself that the
gods become mild as they are exhilarated by
pleasures, that they long
for
sensual enjoyment, and, like some base creatures, are affected by
agreeable sensations, and charmed and tickled for the moment
by
4787
| 4787 Lit., “with the fleeting
tickling of.” |
a
pleasantness which soon passes away? For that which is overcome
by
pleasure must be harassed by its opposite,
sorrow; nor
can that
be free from the
anxiety of
grief, which trembles with
joy, and is
elated capriciously with
gladness.
4788
| 4788 Lit., “with the levities of
gladnesses.” |
But the gods should be free
from both passions, if we would have them to be
everlasting, and freed
from the
weakness of
mortals. Moreover, every
pleasure is, as it
were, a
kind of
flattery of the body, and is addressed to the five
well-known senses; but if the gods above feel it,
4789
they must partake also of those
bodies through which there is a way to the senses, and a
door by
which to receive
pleasures. Lastly, what
pleasure is it to
take
delight in the
slaughter of
harmless creatures, to have the
ears
ringing often with their piteous bellowings, to see
rivers of
blood,
the
life fleeing away with the
blood, and the
secret parts having been
laid open, not only the intestines to protrude with the excrements, but
also the
heart still bounding with the
life left in it, and the
trembling, palpitating veins in the viscera? We half-savage men,
nay rather,—to say with more candour what it is truer and more
candid to say,—we savages, whom unhappy necessity and bad
habit
have trained to take these as
food, are sometimes moved with pity for
them; we ourselves
accuse and
condemn ourselves when the thing is seen
and looked into thoroughly, because, neglecting the
law which is
binding on men, we have broken through the
bonds which naturally united
us at the beginning.
4790
| 4790
Naturalis initii consortia. |
Will
4791
| 4791
So the ms. and first ed., according to
Oehler, reading cred-e-t, the others
-i-—“does.” |
any one believe that the gods,
who
are kind, beneficent,
gentle, are
delighted and filled with
joy by
the
slaughter of
cattle, if ever they fall and
expire pitiably before
their
altars?
4792
And
there is no cause, then, for pleasure in sacrifices, as we see, nor is
there a reason why they should be offered, since there is no pleasure
afforded by them; and if perchance there is some,
4793
| 4793
Arnobius says that the sacrifices give no pleasure to any being, or at
least, if that is not strictly true, that they give none to the
gods. [See Elucidation VI., infra.] |
it has been
shown that it cannot in any way belong to the gods.
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