[4665] So Gelenius and Canterus, reading et for ms. est.
[4666] Lit., "with exertion of immense strength."
[4667] ms. Pantarches. This was a very common mode of expressing love among the ancients, the name of the loved one being carved on the bark of trees (as if the Loves or the mountain nymphs had done it), on walls, doors, or, as in this case, on statues, with the addition "beautiful" (Suidas, s.v. Kaloi and Ramnousia Nemesis, with Küster's notes). [Vol. ii. p. 187, note 1, this series.]
[4668] Lit., "bones."
[4669] Lit., "conditions," habitus.
[4670] Lit., "similitude."
[4671] Lit., "first among."
[4672] Lit., "human things."
14. We would here, as if all nations on the earth were present, make one speech, and pour into the ears of them all, words which should be heard in common: [4673] Why, pray, is this, O men! that of your own accord you cheat and deceive yourselves by voluntary blindness? Dispel the darkness now, and, returning to the light of the mind, look more closely and see what that is which is going on, if only you retain your right, [4674] and are not beyond the reach [4675] of the reason and prudence given to you. [4676] Those images which fill you with terror, and which you adore prostrate upon the ground [4677] in all the temples, are bones, stones, brass, silver, gold, clay, wood taken from a tree, or glue mixed with gypsum. Having been heaped together, it may be, from a harlot's gauds or from a woman's [4678] ornaments, from camels' bones or from the tooth of the Indian beast, [4679] from cooking-pots and little jars, from candlesticks and lamps, or from other less cleanly vessels, and having been melted down, they were cast into these shapes and came out into the forms which you see, baked in potters' furnaces, produced by anvils and hammers, scraped with the silversmith's, and filed down with ordinary files, cleft and hewn with saws, with augers, [4680] with axes, dug and hollowed out by the turning of borers, and smoothed with planes. Is not this, then, an error? Is it not, to speak accurately, folly to believe that a god which you yourself made with care, to kneel down trembling in supplication to that which has been formed by you, and while you know, and are assured that it is the product [4681] of the labour of your hands, [4682] --to cast yourself down upon your face, beg aid suppliantly, and, in adversity and time of distress, ask it to succour [4683] you with gracious and divine favour?
[4673] [Isa. xl. 18-20; xliv. 9-20; xlvi. 5-8.]
[4674] i.e., the faculty of discernment, which is properly man's.
[4675] Lit., "are in the limits of."
[4676] The ms. reads his--"these", emended, as above, vobis in the margin of Ursinus, Elm., and LB.
[4677] Lit., "and humble."
[4678] i.e., a respectable woman.
[4679] i.e., the elephant's tusk.
[4680] So Salmasius, followed by Orelli, Hild., and Oehler, reading furfuraculis, and LB., reading perforaculis for the ms. furfure aculeis.
[4681] So the margin of Ursinus, Meursius (according to Orelli), Hild., and Oehler, reading part-u-m for the ms. -e---"is a part of your labour," etc.
[4682] Lit., "of thy work and fingers."
[4683] So the ms., both Roman edd., Elm., and Orelli, reading numinis favore, for which LB. reads favorem--"the favour of the propitious deity to succour." [Isaiah's argument reproduced.]
15. Lo, if some one were to place before you copper in the lump, and not formed [4684] into any works of art, masses of unwrought silver, and gold not fashioned into shape, wood, stones, and bones, with all the other materials of which statues and images of deities usually consist,--nay, more, if some one were to place before you the faces of battered gods, images melted down [4685] and broken, and were also to bid you slay victims to the bits and fragments, and give sacred and divine honours to masses without form,--we ask you to say to us, whether you would do this, or refuse to obey. Perhaps you will say, why? Because there is no man so stupidly blind that he will class among the gods silver, copper, gold, gypsum, ivory, potter's clay, and say that these very things have, and possess in themselves, divine power. What reason is there, then, that all these bodies should want the power of deity and the rank of celestials if they remain untouched and unwrought, but should forthwith become gods, and be classed and numbered among the inhabitants of heaven if they receive the forms of men, ears, noses, cheeks, lips, eyes, and eyebrows? Does the fashioning add any newness to these bodies, so that from this addition you are compelled [4686] to believe that something divine and majestic has been united to them? Does it change copper into gold, or compel worthless earthenware to become silver? Does it cause things which but a little before were without feeling, to live and breathe? [4687] If they had any natural properties previously, [4688] all these they retain [4689] when built up in the bodily forms of statues. What stupidity it is--for I refuse to call it blindness--to suppose that the natures of things are changed by the kind of form into which they are forced, and that that receives divinity from the appearance given to it, which in its original body has been inert, and unreasoning, and unmoved by feeling!
[4684] Lit., "thrown together."
[4685] Rigaltius suggested confracta--"shattered," for ms. -flata.
[4686] So the edd. reading cog- for the ms. cogit-amini.
[4687] Lit., "be moved with agitation of breathing."
[4688] Lit., "outside," i.e., before being in bodily forms.
[4689] So Ursinus and LB., reading retin-e-ntfor the ms. -ea-, which can hardly be correct. There may possibly be an ellipsis of si before this clause, so that the sentence would run: "If they had any natural properties, (if) they retain all these, what stupidity," etc.
[4690] Lit., "deprived of moveableness of feeling."
16. And so unmindful and forgetful of what the substance and origin of the images are, you, men, rational beings [4691] and endowed with the gift of wisdom and discretion, sink down before pieces of baked earthenware, adore plates of copper, beg from the teeth of elephants good health, magistracies, sovereignties, power, victories, acquisitions, gains, very good harvests, and very rich vintages; and while it is plain and clear that you are speaking to senseless things, you think that you are heard, and bring yourselves into disgrace of your own accord, by vainly and credulously deceiving yourselves. [4692] Oh, would that you might enter into some statue! rather, would that you might separate [4693] and break up into parts [4694] those Olympian and Capitoline Jupiters, and behold all those parts alone and by themselves which make up the whole of their bodies! You would at once see that these gods of yours, to whom the smoothness of their exterior gives a majestic appearance by its alluring [4695] brightness, are only a framework of flexible [4696] plates, particles without shape joined together; that they are kept from falling into ruin and fear of destruction, by dove-tails and clamps and brace-irons; and that lead is run into the midst of all the hollows and where the joints meet, and causes delay [4697] useful in preserving them. You would see, I say, at once that they have faces only without the rest of the head, [4698] imperfect hands without arms, bellies and sides in halves, incomplete feet, [4699] and, which is most ridiculous, that they have been put together without uniformity in the construction of their bodies, being in one part made of wood, but in the other of stone. Now, indeed, if these things could not be seen through the skill with which they were kept out of sight, [4700] even those at least which lie open to all should have taught and instructed you that you are effecting nothing, and giving your services in vain to dead things. For, in this case, [4701] do you not see that these images, which seem to breathe, [4702] whose feet and knees you touch and handle when praying, at times fall into ruins from the constant dropping of rain, at other times lose the firm union of their parts from their decaying and becoming rotten, [4703] --how they grow black, being fumigated and discoloured by the steam of sacrifices, and by smoke,--how with continued neglect they lose their position [4704] and appearance, and are eaten away with rust? In this case, I say, do you not see that newts, shrews, mice, and cockroaches, which shun the light, build their nests and live under the hollow parts of these statues? that they gather carefully into these all kinds of filth, and other things suited to their wants, hard and half-gnawed bread, bones dragged thither in view of probable scarcity, [4705] rags, down, and pieces of paper to make their nests soft, and keep their young warm? Do you not see sometimes over the face of an image cobwebs and treacherous nets spun by spiders, that they may be able to entangle in them buzzing and imprudent flies while on the wing? Do you not see, finally, that swallows full of filth, flying within the very domes of the temples, toss themselves about, and bedaub now the very faces, now the mouths of the deities, the beard, eyes, noses, and all the other parts on which their excrements [4706] fall? Blush, then, even though it is late, and accept true methods and views from dumb creatures, and let these teach you that there is nothing divine in images, into which they do not fear or scruple to cast unclean things in obedience to the laws of their being, and led by their unerring instincts. [4707]
[4691] Lit., "a rational animal."
[4692] Lit., "with deceit of vain credulity." The edd. read this as an interrogation: "Do you, therefore, sink down, adore, and bring yourselves into disgrace?"
[4693] So Orelli, Hild., and Oehler, adopting a conjecture of Grævius, di-, for the ms. de-ducere--"to lead down."
[4694] Lit., "resolved into members."
[4695] Lit., "by the charm of."
[4696] The ms. reads flev-ilium, for which Hild. suggests flex-, as above, previous edd. reading flat---"of cast plates;" which cannot, however, be correct, as Arnobius has just said that the images were in part made of ivory.
[4697] Lit., "delays salutary for lastingnesses." The sense is, that the lead prevents the joints from giving way, and so gives permanence to the statue.
[4698] Occipitiis.
[4699] Plantarum vestigia.
[4700] Lit., "from the art of obscurity."
[4701] i.e., if the nature of the images is really concealed by the skill displayed in their construction.
[4702] Lit., "breathing." [Ps. cxv. 4-8.]
[4703] Lit., "are relaxed from decay of rottenness."
[4704] i.e., fall from their pedestals. For the ms. reading situs (retained in LB., as above), the margin of Ursinus, followed by the other edd. except the first four and Oberthür, read situ---"lose their appearance from mould."
[4705] So LB. and Oehler, reading famis in spemfor the ms. pannis, omitted in other edd. All prefix p, as above, to the next word, annos.
[4706] Deonerati proluvies podicis. [So Clement, vol. ii. p. 186, at note 1, this series.]
[4707] Lit., "incited by the truth of nature." The ms. and both Roman edd. read d-, all others instincta, as above.
17. But you err, says my opponent, and are mistaken, for we do not consider either copper, or gold and silver, or those other materials of which statues are made, to be in themselves gods and sacred deities; but in them we worship and venerate those whom their [4708] dedication as sacred introduces and causes to dwell in statues made by workmen. The reasoning is not vicious nor despicable by which any one--the dull, and also the most intelligent--can believe that the gods, forsaking their proper seats--that is, heaven--do not shrink back and avoid entering earthly habitations; nay, more, that impelled by the rite of dedication, they are joined to images! Do your gods, then, dwell in gypsum and in figures of earthenware? Nay, rather, are the gods the minds, spirits, and souls of figures of earthenware and of gypsum? and, that the meanest things may be able to become of greater importance, do they suffer themselves to be shut up and concealed and confined in [4709] an obscure abode? Here, then, in the first place, we wish and ask to be told this by you: do they do this against their will--that is, do they enter the images as dwellings, dragged to them by the rite of dedication--or are they ready and willing? and do you not summon them by any considerations of necessity? Do they do this unwillingly? [4710] and how can it be possible that they should be compelled to submit to any necessity without their dignity being impaired? With ready assent? [4711] And what do the gods seek for in figures of earthenware that they should prefer these prisons [4712] to their starry seats,--that, having been all but fastened to them, they should ennoble [4713] earthenware and the other substances of which images are made?