Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>If, then, Plato defined the wise man as one who imitates,\r\nknows, loves this God, and who is rendered blessed through\r\nfellowship with Him in His own blessedness, why discuss\r\nwith the other philosophers? It is evident that none come\r\nnearer to us than the Platonists. To them, therefore, let that\r\nfabulous theology give place which delights the minds of men\r\nwith the crimes of the gods; and that civil theology also, in\r\nwhich impure demons, under the name of gods, have seduced\r\nthe peoples of the earth given up to earthly pleasures, desiring\r\nto be honoured by the errors of men, and, by filling the minds\r\nof their worshippers with impure desires, exciting them to\r\nmake the representation of their crimes one of the rites of\r\ntheir worship, whilst they themselves found in the spectators\r\nof these exhibitions a most pleasing spectacle,—a theology in\r\nwhich, whatever was honourable in the temple, was defiled by\r\nits mixture with the obscenity of the theatre, and whatever\r\nwas base in the theatre was vindicated by the abominations\r\nof the temples. To these philosophers also the interpretations\r\nof Varro must give place, in which he explains the sacred rites\r\nas having reference to heaven and earth, and to the seeds and\r\noperations of perishable things; for, in the first place, those\r\nrites have not the signification which he would have men believe\r\nis attached to them, and therefore truth does not follow\r\nhim in his attempt so to interpret them; and even if they\r\nhad this signification, still those things ought not to be worshipped\r\nby the rational soul as its god which are placed below\r\nit in the scale of nature, nor ought the soul to prefer to itself\r\nas gods things to which the true God has given it the preference.\r\nThe same must be said of those writings pertaining to\r\nthe sacred rites, which Numa Pompilius took care to conceal\r\nby causing them to be buried along with himself, and which,<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_313\">[Pg 313]</a></span>\r\nwhen they were afterwards turned up by the plough, were\r\nburned by order of the senate. And, to treat Numa with\r\nall honour, let us mention as belonging to the same rank as\r\nthese writings that which Alexander of Macedon wrote to his\r\nmother as communicated to him by Leo, an Egyptian high\r\npriest. In this letter not only Picus and Faunus, and Æneas\r\nand Romulus, or even Hercules and Æsculapius and Liber,\r\nborn of Semele, and the twin sons of Tyndareus, or any\r\nother mortals who have been deified, but even the principal\r\ngods themselves,<a id=\"FNanchor_294_294\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_294_294\">[294]</a> to whom Cicero, in his Tusculan questions,<a id=\"FNanchor_295_295\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_295_295\">[295]</a>\r\nalludes without mentioning their names, Jupiter, Juno,\r\nSaturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and many others whom Varro attempts\r\nto identify with the parts or the elements of the world, are\r\nshown to have been men. There is, as we have said, a similarity\r\nbetween this case and that of Numa; for, the priest\r\nbeing afraid because he had revealed a mystery, earnestly\r\nbegged of Alexander to command his mother to burn the letter\r\nwhich conveyed these communications to her. Let these two\r\ntheologies, then, the fabulous and the civil, give place to the\r\nPlatonic philosophers, who have recognised the true God as\r\nthe author of all things, the source of the light of truth, and\r\nthe bountiful bestower of all blessedness. And not these only,\r\nbut to these great acknowledgers of so great a God, those\r\nphilosophers must yield who, having their mind enslaved to\r\ntheir body, supposed the principles of all things to be material;\r\nas Thales, who held that the first principle of all things was\r\nwater; Anaximenes, that it was air; the Stoics, that it was\r\nfire; Epicurus, who affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that\r\nis to say, of minute corpuscules; and many others whom it is\r\nneedless to enumerate, but who believed that bodies, simple\r\nor compound, animate or inanimate, but nevertheless bodies,\r\nwere the cause and principle of all things. For some of them—as,\r\nfor instance, the Epicureans—believed that living things\r\ncould originate from things without life; others held that all\r\nthings living or without life spring from a living principle,\r\nbut that, nevertheless, all things, being material, spring from\r\na material principle. For the Stoics thought that fire, that\r\nis, one of the four material elements of which this visible<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_314\">[Pg 314]</a></span>\r\nworld is composed, was both living and intelligent, the maker\r\nof the world and of all things contained in it,—that it was\r\nin fact God. These and others like them have only been able\r\nto suppose that which their hearts enslaved to sense have\r\nvainly suggested to them. And yet they have within themselves\r\nsomething which they could not see: they represented\r\nto themselves inwardly things which they had seen without,\r\neven when they were not seeing them, but only thinking of\r\nthem. But this representation in thought is no longer a\r\nbody, but only the similitude of a body; and that faculty of\r\nthe mind by which this similitude of a body is seen is neither\r\na body nor the similitude of a body; and the faculty which\r\njudges whether the representation is beautiful or ugly is\r\nwithout doubt superior to the object judged of. This principle\r\nis the understanding of man, the rational soul; and it is\r\ncertainly not a body, since that similitude of a body which it\r\nbeholds and judges of is itself not a body. The soul is neither\r\nearth, nor water, nor air, nor fire, of which four bodies, called\r\nthe four elements, we see that this world is composed. And\r\nif the soul is not a body, how should God, its Creator, be a\r\nbody? Let all those philosophers, then, give place, as we\r\nhave said, to the Platonists, and those also who have been\r\nashamed to say that God is a body, but yet have thought that\r\nour souls are of the same nature as God. They have not been\r\nstaggered by the great changeableness of the soul,—an attribute\r\nwhich it would be impious to ascribe to the divine nature,—but\r\nthey say it is the body which changes the soul, for in\r\nitself it is unchangeable. As well might they say, \"Flesh is\r\nwounded by some body, for in itself it is invulnerable.\" In a\r\nword, that which is unchangeable can be changed by nothing,\r\nso that that which can be changed by the body cannot properly\r\nbe said to be immutable.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK EIGHTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-569"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"cb80eaa052e0c12e050846509fafd5245ada208867b0052dcf9d00405c39876e","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_295_295","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_295_295","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_295_295\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_295_295\"><span class=\"label\">[295]</span></a> Book i. 13.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_295_295","text_sha256":"576d79e088cd3068344156f10eff6d668c70f6bd6c02c572b0de09377f7fe2bd","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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