[4625] Lit., "with vicarious substitution for." [A very pertinent question as to the images worshipped in Rome to this day. There is one Madonna of African hue and features. See also Murray's Handbook, Italy, p. 72.]
[4626] The ms. reads effi-gitur, corrected as above, effin., in all edd. except Hild., who reads efficitur--"is made," and Stewechius, effigiatur--"is formed."
[4627] Lit., "boy's age."
[4628] Flavus, so invariably associated with blue eyes, that though these are the feature brought into contrast, they are only suggested in this way, and not directly mentioned--a mode of speech very characteristic of Arnobius.
[4629] i.e., a fact which can be seen to be true by appealing to analogy.
[4630] So the ms., LB., Hild., and Oehler, reading donastis, the others donatis--"you give."
[4631] As the appearance of the moon is the same in some of its phases as in others, it is clear that Arnobius cannot mean that it has thirty distinct forms. We must therefore suppose that he is either speaking very loosely of change upon change day after day, or that he is referring to some of the lunar theories of the ancients, such as that a new moon is created each day, and that its form is thus ever new (Lucr., v. 729-748).
[4632] Lit., "is changed through a thousand states with daily instability."
[4633] Lit., "are."
[4634] Lit., "intestine and domestic."
[4635] The ms. reads leon-e-s torvissimam faciem, emended, as above, leonis t. f., in LB., Orelli, Hild., and Oehler, and l. torvissima facie--"lions of very stern face," in the others. Nourry supposes that the reference is to the use of lions, or lion-headed figures, as architectural ornaments on temples (cf. the two lions rampant surmounting the gate of Mycenæ), but partially coincides in the view of Elm., that mixed figures are meant, such as are described by Tertullian and Minucius Felix (ch. 28: "You deify gods made up of a goat and a lion, and with the faces of lions and of dogs"). The epithet frugifer, however, which was applied to the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian Mithras, and Bacchus, who were also represented as lions, makes it probable that the reference is to symbolic statues of the sun.
[4636] Lit., "such a god to whose form and appearance the likeness of this image has been directed."
[4637] Lit., "that."
[4638] The ms. and both Roman edd. read unintelligibly sanquineo decotoro, for which s. de colore, as above, has been suggested by Canterus, with the approval of Heraldus.
[4639] The ms. here inserts puetuitate, for which no satisfactory emendation has been proposed. The early edd. read pituitate, a word for which there is no authority, while LB. gives potus aviditate--"drunk with avidity"--both being equally hopeless.
[4640] ms. sic, corrected by Gelenius si.
[4641] So Meursius, ac dicere, for ms. -cidere.
11. You laugh because in ancient times the Persians worshipped rivers, as is told in the writings which hand down these things to memory; the Arabians an unshapen stone; [4642] the Scythian nations a sabre; the Thespians a branch instead of Cinxia; [4643] the Icarians [4644] an unhewn log instead of Diana; the people of Pessinus a flint instead of the mother of the gods; the Romans a spear instead of Mars, as the muses of Varro point out; and, before they were acquainted with the statuary's art, the Samians a plank [4645] instead of Juno, as Aëthlius [4646] relates: and you do not laugh when, instead of the immortal gods, you make supplication to little images of men and human forms--nay, you even suppose that these very little images are gods, and besides these you do not believe that anything has divine power. What say you, O ye--! Do the gods of heaven have ears, then, and temples, an occiput, spine, loins, sides, hams, buttocks, houghs, [4647] ankles, and the rest of the other members with which we have been formed, which were also mentioned in the first part of this book [4648] a little more fully, and cited with greater copiousness of language? Would that it were possible [4649] to look into the sentiments and very recesses of your mind, in which you revolve various and enter into the most obscure considerations: we should find that you yourselves even feel as we do, and have no other opinions as to the form of the deities. But what can we do with obstinate prejudices? what with those who are menacing us with swords, and devising new punishments against us? In your rage [4650] you maintain a bad cause, and that although you are perfectly aware of it; and that which you have once done without reason, you defend lest you should seem to have ever been in ignorance; and you think it better not to be conquered, than to yield and bow to acknowledged truth.
[4642] It is worthy of notice that although in this passage, as often elsewhere, Arnobius adheres pretty closely to the argument proposed by Clemens Alexandrinus, he even in such passages sometimes differs from it, and not at random. Thus Clement speaks merely of a "stone," and Arnobius of an "unshaped stone." The former expression harmonizes with the words of Maximus Tyrius (Serm., xxxviii. p. 225, Steph.), "The Arabians worship I know not whom, but the image which I saw was a square stone;" while Suidas (Küster's ed., s.v. theus Ares) agrees with Arnobius in calling it a "stone, black, square, unfashioned" (atupotos). This is the more noteworthy, as at times Arnobius would almost seem to be following Clement blindly. [See Clement, cap. iv. vol. ii. p. 184, this series.]
[4643] So Arnobius renders Clement's Cithæronian Hera.
[4644] So corrected in the notes of Canterus from Clem. for the ms. reading Carios, retained by the first four edd. and Elmenh. In Icaria there was a temple of Diana called Tauropolion.
[4645] The ms. and first four edd. read p-uteum--"a well," corrected plut., as above, by Gifanius, and in the notes of Canterus.
[4646] The ms. reads ethedius, corrected in the notes of Canterus.
[4647] So all edd., except both Roman edd., which retain the ms. reading in the singular, suffraginem.
[4648] i. e., iii. 13. p. 467.
[4649] Lit., "it was allowed."
[4650] So Meursius suggested amentes for the ms. reading animantis for which Heraldus proposed argumentis--"by arguments."
12. From such causes as these this also has followed, with your connivance, that the wanton fancy of artists has found full scope in representing the bodies of the gods, and giving forms to them, at which even the sternest might laugh. And so Hammon is even now formed and represented with a ram's horns; Saturn with his crooked sickle, like some guardian of the fields, and pruner of too luxuriant branches; the son of Maia with a broad-brimmed travelling cap, as if he were preparing to take the road, and avoiding the sun's rays and the dust; Liber with tender limbs, and with a woman's perfectly free and easily flowing lines of body; [4651] Venus, naked and unclothed, just as if you said that she exposed publicly, and sold to all comers, [4652] the beauty of her prostituted body; Vulcan with his cap and hammer, but with his right hand free, and with his dress girt up as a workman prepares [4653] for his work; the Delian god with a plectrum and lyre, gesticulating like a player on the cithern and an actor about to sing; the king of the sea with his trident, just as if he had to fight in the gladiatorial contest: nor can any figure of any deity be found [4654] which does not have certain characteristics [4655] bestowed on it by the generosity of its makers. Lo, if some witty and cunning king were to remove the Sun from his place before the gate [4656] and transfer him to that of Mercury, and again were to carry off Mercury and make him migrate to the shrine of the Sun,--for both are made beardless by you, and with smooth faces,--and to give to this one rays of light to place a little cap [4657] on the Sun's head, how will you be able to distinguish between them, whether this is the Sun, or that Mercury, since dress, not the peculiar appearance of the face, usually points out the gods to you? Again, if, having transported them in like manner, he were to take away his horns from the unclad Jupiter, and fix them upon the temples of Mars, and to strip Mars of his arms, and, on the other hand, invest Hammon with them, what distinction can there be between them, since he who had been Jupiter can be also supposed to be Mars, and he who had been Mavors can assume the appearance of Jupiter Hammon? To such an extent is there wantonness in fashioning those images and consecrating names, as if they were peculiar to them; since, if you take away their dress, the means of recognising each is put an end to, god may be believed to be god, one may seem to be the other, nay, more, both may be considered both!
[4651] Lit., "and most dissolved with the laxity of feminine liquidity."
[4652] Divendere.
[4653] Lit., "with a workman's preparing."
[4654] Lit., "is there any figure to find."
[4655] Habitus.
[4656] Ex foribus. Cf. Tertull., de Idol., ch. 15: "In Greek writers we also read that Apollo Thuraios and the dæmones Antelii watch over doors."
[4657] So the edd, reading petas-un-culumfor the ms. -io-.
13. But why do I laugh at the sickles and tridents which have been given to the gods? why at the horns, hammers, and caps, when I know that certain images have [4658] the forms of certain men, and the features of notorious courtesans? For who is there that does not know that the Athenians formed the Hermæ in the likeness of Alcibiades? Who does not know--if he read Posidippus over again--that Praxiteles, putting forth his utmost skill, [4659] fashioned the face of the Cnidian Venus on the model of the courtesan Gratina, whom the unhappy man loved desperately? But is this the only Venus to whom there has been given beauty taken from a harlot's face? Phryne, [4660] the well-known native of Thespia--as those who have written on Thespian affairs relate--when she was at the height of her beauty, comeliness, and youthful vigour, is said to have been the model of all the Venuses which are held in esteem, whether throughout the cities of Greece or here, [4661] whither has flowed the longing and eager desire for such figures. All the artists, therefore, who lived at that time, and to whom truth gave the greatest ability to portray likenesses, vied in transferring with all painstaking and zeal the outline of a prostitute to the images of the Cytherean. The beautiful thoughts [4662] of the artists were full of fire; and they strove each to excel the other with emulous rivalry, not that Venus might become more august, but that Phryne [4663] might stand for Venus. And so it was brought to this, that sacred honours were offered to courtesans instead of the immortal gods, and an unhappy system of worship was led astray by the making of statues. [4664] That well-known and [4665] most distinguished statuary, Phidias, when he had raised the form of Olympian Jupiter with immense labour and exertion, [4666] inscribed on the finger of the god Pantarces [4667] is beautiful,--this, moreover, was the name of a boy loved by him, and that with lewd desire,--and was not moved by any fear or religious dread to call the god by the name of a prostitute; nay, rather, to consecrate the divinity and image of Jupiter to a debauchee. To such an extent is there wantonness and childish feeling in forming those little images, adoring them as gods, heaping upon them the divine virtues, when we see that the artists themselves find amusement in fashioning them, and set them up as monuments of their own lusts! For what reason is there, if you should inquire, why Phidias should hesitate to amuse himself, and be wanton when he knew that, but a little before, the very Jupiter which he had made was gold, stones, and ivory, [4668] formless, separated, confused, and that it was he himself who brought all these together and bound them fast, that their appearance [4669] had been given to them by himself in the imitation [4670] of limbs which he had carved; and, which is more than [4671] all, that it was his own free gift, that Jupiter had been produced and was adored among men? [4672]
[4658] Lit., "are."
[4659] Lit., "with strife of skills."
[4660] ms. Phyrna, but below Phryna, which is read in both instances by Hild. and Oehler.
[4661] So Meursius, followed by Orelli, reading istic for the ms. iste.
[4662] i.e., either the conceptions in their minds, or realized in their works. Orelli, followed by the German translator Besnard, adopting the former view, translates "the ideas of the artists (die Ideale der Künstler) were full of fire and life."
[4663] [See note 15, p. 511.]
[4664] [True, alas! to this day; notorious courtesans furnishing the models for the pictures and statues worshipped as saints, angels, etc.]