45.4990
And as we read that he used
food
also, by which bodily existence is kept up, he has a large gullet, that
he may gulp down the
food sought for with gaping mouth; he has a
belly
to receive it, and
4991
| 4991 So
the edd., reading et for ms. ut (according to Crusius). |
a place where he may digest the
flesh
which he has eaten and
devoured, that
blood may be given to his body,
and his
strength recruited;
4992
he has also a
draught, by which the
filth is got rid of, freeing his body from a disagreeable burden.
Whenever he changes his place, and prepares to pass from one
region to
another, he does not as a
god fly secretly through the
stars of
heaven,
and stand in a moment where something requires his presence, but, just
as a dull
animal of earth, he
seeks a conveyance on which he may
be borne; he
avoids the waves of the
sea; and that he may be
safe and
sound, he goes on
board ship along with men; and that
god of the common
safety trusts himself to
weak planks and to sheets of
wood joined
together. We do not think that you can
prove and show that that
serpent was Æsculapius, unless you choose to bring forward this
pretext, that you should say that the
god changed himself into a snake,
in order that he might be able
4993
| 4993
So Gelenius, merely adding t to the ms. posse. The passage is, however,
very doubtful. |
to
deceive men as to himself,
who he was, or to see what men were. But if you say this, the
inconsistency of your own statements will show how
weak and
feeble such
a defence is.
4994
| 4994
Lit., “how weakly and feeble it is said.” |
For if
the
god shunned being seen by men, he should not have chosen to be seen
in the form of a
serpent, since in any form whatever he was not to be
other than himself, but
always himself. But if, on the
other
hand, he had been intent on allowing himself to be seen—he
should not have refused to allow men’s
eyes to look
on him
4995
| 4995
These words, non debuit oculorum negare conspectui, should,
Orelli thinks, be omitted; and certainly their connection with the rest
of the sentence is not very apparent. |
—why did
he not show himself such as he knew that he was in his own
divine
power?
4996
| 4996
Lit., “he was, and such as he had learned that he was, contained
in the power of his divinity.” |
For
this was preferable, and much better, and more
befitting his august
majesty, than to become a
beast, and be changed into the likeness of a
terrible animal, and afford
room for objections, which cannot be
decided,
4997
| 4997
Lit., “to ambiguous contradictions.” |
as to
whether he was a true god, or something different and far removed from
the exalted nature of deity.
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