28. Will any one say that
incense is given to the celestials, for this reason, that it has a
sweet smell, and imparts a pleasant sensation to the nose, while the
rest are disagreeable, and have been set aside because of their
offensiveness? Do the gods, then, have nostrils with which to
breathe? do they inhale and respire currents of air so that the
qualities of different smells can penetrate them? But if we allow
that this is the case, we make them subject to the conditions of
humanity, and shut them out from the limits of deity; for whatever
breathes and draws in draughts of air, to be sent back in the same way,
must be mortal, because it is sustained by feeding on the
atmosphere. But whatever is sustained by feeding on the
atmosphere, if you take away the means by which communication is kept
up,4897
| 4897
Lit., “the returns by which the vital alternation is restored and
withdrawn.” |
its
life
must be
crushed out, and its vital principle must be
destroyed and
lost. So then, if the gods also breathe and inhale odours enwrapt
in the
air that accompanies them, it is not untrue to say that they
live upon what is received from others,
4898
| 4898 So the ms., Hild., and Oehler, reading suffec-tionibus
alienis, for which the rest read suffi-—“the
fumigations of others.” |
and that they might
perish if
their
air-
holes were blocked up. And whence, lastly, do you know
whether, if they are charmed by the sweetness of smells, the same
things are pleasant to them which
are pleasant to you, and charm
and affect your
different natures with a similar feeling?
May it not be possible that the things which give
pleasure to you,
seem, on the contrary, harsh and disagreeable to them? For since
the opinions of the gods are not the same, and their substance not one,
by what methods can it be brought about that that which is unlike in
quality should have the same feeling and perception as to that which
touches it.
4899
| 4899
Lit., “feel and receive one contact.” |
Do we
not every day see that, even among the creatures sprung from the
earth,
the same things are either
bitter or sweet to different species, that
to some things are fatal which are not
pernicious to others, so that
the same things which charm some with their delightful odours, give
forth exhalations
deadly to the bodies of others? But the cause
of this is not in the things which cannot be at one and the same time
deadly and wholesome, sweet and
bitter; but just as each one has been
formed to receive impressions from what is external,
4900
| 4900 Lit.,
“as each has been made for the touching of a thing coming from
without.” |
so he is affected:
4901
| 4901 So
Gelenius and later edd., reading afficiturfor the
unintelligible reading of ms. and Roman
edd., efficit—“effects.” |
his condition is not caused by the
influences of the things, but springs from the
nature of his own
senses, and connection with the external. But all this is set
far
from the gods, and is separated from them by no
small interval.
For if it is true, as is believed by the
wise, that they are
incorporeal, and not supported by any excellence of
bodily
strength, an odour is of no effect upon them, nor can reeking fumes
move them by their senses, not
even if you were to set on
fire a
thousand pounds of the finest
incense, and the whole
sky were clouded
with the darkness of the abundant vapours. For that which does
not have
bodily strength and corporeal substance, cannot be
touched by corporeal substance; but an odour is corporeal, as is shown
by the nose when touched
by one: therefore it cannot,
according to reason, be felt by a deity, who has no body, and is
without any feeling and thought.
4902
| 4902 So
all edd., without remark, reading cog-it-atione, although
“meditation” has nothing to do with the sense of smell, and
has not been previously mentioned. We should probably read
cog-n-atione—“relation,” i.e., to such
objects. |
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