[3489] Brunda or Brenda, i.e., Brundisium.
13. Meantime, however, O you who wonder and are astonished at the doctrines of the learned, and of philosophy, do you not then think it most unjust to scoff, to jeer at us as though we say foolish and senseless things, when you too are found to say either these or just such things which you laugh at when said and uttered by us? Nor do I address those who, scattered through various bypaths of the schools, have formed this and that insignificant party through diversity of opinion. You, you I address, who zealously follow Mercury, [3490] Plato, and Pythagoras, and the rest of you who are of one mind, and walk in unity in the same paths of doctrine. Do you dare to laugh at us because we [3491] revere and worship the Creator and Lord [3492] of the universe, and because we commit and entrust our hopes to Him? What does your Plato say in the Theætetus, to mention him especially? Does he not exhort the soul to flee from the earth, and, as much as in it lies, to be continually engaged in thought and meditation about Him? [3493] Do you dare to laugh at us, because we say that there will be a resurrection of the dead? And this indeed we confess that we say, but maintain that it is understood by you otherwise than we hold it. What says the same Plato in the Politicus? Does he not say that, when the world has begun to rise out of the west and tend towards the east, [3494] men will again burst forth from the bosom of the earth, aged, grey-haired, bowed down with years; and that when the remoter [3495] years begin to draw near, they will gradually sink down [3496] to the cradles of their infancy, through the same steps by which they now grow to manhood? [3497] Do you dare to laugh at us because we see to the salvation of our souls?--that is, ourselves care for ourselves: for what are we men, but souls shut up in bodies?--You, indeed, do not take every pains for their safety, [3498] in that you do not refrain from all vice and passion; about this you are anxious, that you may cleave to your bodies as though inseparably bound to them. [3499] --What mean those mystic rites, [3500] in which you beseech some unknown powers to be favourable to you, and not put any hindrance in your way to impede you when returning to your native seats?
[3490] Hermes Trismegistus. See index.
[3491] So the ms., Elmenh., LB., Hildebrand, and Oehler, reading quod, for which the other edd. read qui--"who."
[3492] This seems to be the reading intended by the ms., which according to Hild. gives dom, i.e., probably dominum, which Oehler adopts, but all other edd. read deum--"god."
[3493] Arnobius rather exaggerates the force of the passage referred to (st. p. 173), which occurs in the beautiful digression on philosophers. Plato there says that only the philosopher's body is here on earth, while his mind, holding politics and the ordinary business and amusements of life unworthy of attention, is occupied with what is above and beneath the earth, just as Thales, when he fell into a ditch, was looking at the stars, and not at his steps.
[3494] In cardinem vergere qui orientis est solis seems to be the reading of all edd.; but according to Crusius the ms. reads vertere--"to turn." Hildebrand, on the contrary, affirms that instead of t, the ms. gives c.
[3495] i.e., originally earlier.
[3496] So most edd., reading desituros, for which Stewechius suggests desulturos--"leap down;" LB. exituros--"go out."
[3497] Reference is here made to one of the most extraordinary of the Platonic myths (Pol., 269-274), in which the world is represented as not merely material, but as being further possessed of intelligence. It is ever in motion, but not always in the same way. For at one time its motion is directed by a divine governor (tou pantos ho men kubernetes); but this does not continue, for he withdraws from his task, and thereupon the world loses, or rather gives up its previous bias, and begins to revolve in the opposite direction, causing among other results a reverse development of the phenomena which occurred before, such as Arnobius describes. Arnobius, however, gives too much weight to the myth, as in the introduction it is more than hinted that it may be addressed to the young Socrates, as boys like such stories, and he is not much more than a boy. With it should be contrasted the "great year" of the Stoics, in which the universe fulfilled its course, and then began afresh to pass through the same experience as before (Nemesius, de Nat. Hom., c. 38).
[3498] LB. makes these words interrogative, but the above arrangement is clearly vindicated by the tenor of the argument: You laugh at our care for our souls' salvation; and truly you do not see to their safety by such precautions as a virtuous life, but do you not seek that which you think salvation by mystic rites?
[3499] Lit., "fastened with beam" (i.e., large and strong) "nails."
[3500] Cf. on the intercessory prayers of the Magi, c. 62, infra.
14. Do you dare to laugh at us when we speak of hell, [3501] and fires [3502] which cannot be quenched, into which we have learned that souls are cast by their foes and enemies? What, does not your Plato also, in the book which he wrote on the immortality of the soul, name the rivers Acheron, Styx, [3503] Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon, and assert that in them souls are rolled along, engulphed, and burned up? But though a man of no little wisdom, [3504] and of accurate judgment and discernment, he essays a problem which cannot be solved; so that, while he says that the soul is immortal, everlasting, and without bodily substance, he yet says that they are punished, and makes them suffer pain. [3505] But what man does not see that that which is immortal, which is simple, [3506] cannot be subject to any pain; that that, on the contrary, cannot be immortal which does suffer pain? And yet his opinion is not very far from the truth. For although the gentle and kindly disposed man thought it inhuman cruelty to condemn souls to death, he yet not unreasonably [3507] supposed that they are cast into rivers blazing with masses of flame, and loathsome from their foul abysses. For they are cast in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in [3508] everlasting destruction. For theirs is an intermediate [3509] state, as has been learned from Christ's teaching; and they are such that they may on the one hand perish if they have not known God, and on the other be delivered from death if they have given heed to His threats [3510] and proffered favours. And to make manifest [3511] what is unknown, this is man's real death, this which leaves nothing behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last end--annihilation: [3512] this, I say, is man's real death, when souls which know not God shall [3513] be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel beings shall [3514] cast them, who were unknown [3515] before Christ, and brought to light only by His wisdom.
[3501] Pl. Cf. Milman's note on Gibbon, vol. 2, c. xi. p. 7.
[3502] Lit., "certain fires."
[3503] Plato, in the passage referred to (Phædo, st. p. 113, § 61), speaks of the Styx not as a river, but as the lake into which the Cocytus falls. The fourth river which he mentions in addition to the Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus, which he calls Stygian, is the Ocean stream.
[3504] So the ms., according to Hild., reading parvæ; but acc. to Rigaltius and Crusius, it gives pravæ--"of no mean."
[3505] So LB., Hild., and Oehler, reading doloris afficiat sensu, by merely dropping m from the ms. sensu-m; while all the other edd. read doloribus sensuum--"affects with the pains of the senses."
[3506] i.e., not compounded of soul and body.
[3507] Or, "not unsuitably," absone.
[3508] Lit., "in the failure (or disappointment') of," etc.
[3509] i.e., neither immortal nor necessarily mortal.
[3510] So Gelenius emended the unintelligible ms. reading se-mina by merely adding s, followed by all edd., although Ursinus in the margin suggests se mîam, i.e., mi-sericordiam--"pity;" and Heraldus conjectures munia--"gifts."
[3511] So almost all edd., from a conjecture of Gelenius, supplying ut, which is wanting in the ms., first ed., and Oehler.
[3512] It is worth while to contrast Augustine's words: "The death which men fear is the separation of the soul from the body. The true death, which men do not fear, is the separation of the soul from God" (Aug. in Ps. xlviii., quoted by Elmenhorst).
[3513] In the first ed., Gelenius, Canterus, Ursinus, and Orelli, both verbs are made present, but all other edd. follow the ms. as above.
[3514] In the first ed., Gelenius, Canterus, Ursinus, and Orelli, both verbs are made present, but all other edd. follow the ms. as above.
[3515] Lit., "and unknown." Here Arnobius shows himself ignorant of Jewish teaching, as in iii. 12.
15. Wherefore there is no reason that that [3516] should mislead us, should hold out vain hopes to us, which is said by some men till now unheard of, [3517] and carried away by an extravagant opinion of themselves, that souls are immortal, next in point of rank to the God and ruler of the world, descended from that parent and sire, divine, wise, learned, and not within reach of the body by contact. [3518] Now, because this is true and certain, and because we have been produced by Him who is perfect without flaw, we live unblameably, I suppose, and therefore without blame; are good, just, and upright, in nothing depraved; no passion overpowers, no lust degrades us; we maintain vigorously the unremitting practice of all the virtues. And because all our souls have one origin, we therefore think exactly alike; we do not differ in manners, we do not differ in beliefs; we all know God; and there are not as many opinions as there are men in the world, nor are these divided in infinite variety. [3519]
[3516] So the ms. and LB., followed by Oehler; in the edd. id is omitted.
[3517] The ms. reading is a no-b-is quibusdam, for which LB. reads nobis a qu.--"to us," and Hild. a notis--"by certain known;" but all others, as above, from a conjecture of Gelenius, a no-v-is, although Orelli shows his critical sagacity by preferring an emendation in the margin of Ursinus, a bonis--"by certain good men," in which he sees a happy irony!
[3518] Lit., "not touchable by any contact of body," neque ulla corporis attrectatione contiguas.
[3519] Arnobius considers the reductio ad absurdum so very plain that he does not trouble himself to state his argument more directly.
16. But, they say, while we are moving swiftly down towards our mortal bodies, [3520] causes pursue us from the world's circles, [3521] 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] 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] 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] 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.