45.
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And as we read that he used food
also, by which bodily existence is kept up, he has a large gullet, that
he may gulp down the food sought for with gaping mouth; he has a belly
to receive it, and
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a place where he may digest the flesh
which he has eaten and devoured, that blood may be given to his body,
and his strength recruited;
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he has also a draught, by which the
filth is got rid of, freeing his body from a disagreeable burden.
Whenever he changes his place, and prepares to pass from one region to
another, he does not as a god fly secretly through the stars of heaven,
and stand in a moment where something requires his presence, but, just
as a dull animal
of earth
, he seeks a conveyance on which he may
be borne; he avoids the waves of the sea; and that he may be safe and
sound, he goes on board ship along with men; and that god of the common
safety trusts himself to weak planks and to sheets of wood joined
together. We do not think that you can prove and show that that
serpent was Æsculapius, unless you choose to bring forward this
pretext, that you should say that the god changed himself into a snake,
in order that he might be able
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to deceive
men as to
himself,
who he was, or to see what men were. But if you say this, the
inconsistency of your own statements will show how weak and feeble such
a defence is.
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For if
the god shunned being seen by men, he should not have chosen to be seen
in the form of a serpent, since in any form whatever he was not to be
other than himself, but
always
himself. But if, on the
other hand, he had been intent on allowing himself to be seen—he
should not have
refused to allow men’s eyes to look
on him
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—why did
he not show himself such as he knew that he was in his own divine
power?
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For
this was preferable, and much better, and more befitting his august
majesty, than to become a beast, and be changed into the likeness of a
terrible animal, and afford room for objections, which cannot be
decided,
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as to
whether he was a true god, or something different and far removed from
the exalted nature of deity.
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42
in Orelli.
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So
the edd., reading
et
for
ms.
ut
(according to Crusius).
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Lit., “restoration be supplied to his strength.”
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So Gelenius, merely adding
t
to the
ms.
posse
. The passage is, however,
very doubtful.
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Lit., “how weakly and feeble it is said.”
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These words,
non debuit oculorum negare conspectui
, should,
Orelli thinks, be omitted; and certainly their connection with the rest
of the sentence is not very apparent.
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Lit., “he was, and such as he had learned that he was, contained
in the power of his divinity.”
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Lit., “to ambiguous contradictions.”