51.
5031
But suppose that the deity was
present in that very stone, as you demand should be believed: and
what mortal is there, although he may be credulous and very ready to
listen to any fictions you please, who would consider that she either
was a goddess at that time, or should be now so spoken of and named,
who at one time desires these things, at another requires those,
abandons and despises her worshippers, leaves the humbler provinces,
and allies herself with more powerful and richer peoples,
truly
5032
loves
warfare, and wishes to be in the midst of battles, slaughter, death,
and blood? If it is characteristic of the gods—if only they
are true gods, and those who it is fitting should be named according to
the meaning of this word and the power of divinity—to do
5033
nothing
wickedly, nothing unjustly, to show
5034
themselves equally gracious to all men
without any partiality,
would
any man
believe
that she
was of divine origin, or showed
5035
kindness worthy of the gods, who,
mixing herself up with the dissensions of men, destroyed the power of
some, gave and showed favour to others, bereft some of their liberty,
raised others to the height of power,—who, that one state might
be pre-eminent, having been born to be the bane of the human race,
subjugated the guiltless world?
5031
48
in Orelli.
5032
All edd., except Hild. and Oehler, begin a new sentence here, and
change the construction, seemingly following the mistake of the 1st
ed.
5033
“To do…to show;” so the edd., dropping
-nt
from the
ms.
facere-nt
…
præbere-nt.
5034
“To do…to show;” so the edd., dropping
-nt
from the
ms.
facere-nt
…
præbere-nt.
5035
Lit, “showed.” Ursinus and Heraldus supposed
that some paragraphs are now wanting which were originally found
here. It should be noticed that in the
ms.
the usual subscription is found denoting the end of a
book. “The seventh book of Arnovius (
sic
) ends, the
eighth (i.e.,
Octavius
of Minucius Felix) begins,” so that
the present arrangement is not due to the binder, nor clearly to the
copyist who wrote these words. Nothing can be more certain than
that we do not have these chapters as Arnobius intended to leave them;
but there is not the slightest reason to suppose that he actually left
them otherwise than they have come down to us. Remembering this,
we may well suppose that we have only the first draught of them.
If so, the difficulties vanish, for nothing would be more natural than
that, when Arnobius was drawing near the close of his work, the ideas
of the conclusion in which the discussion was to be fairly summed up
should force themselves upon his attention, and that he should
therefore turn aside at once to give them expression roughly, without
seeking completeness and elaboration, and should then hastily resume
his argument, of course with the intention of afterwards revising and
re-arranging the whole. We may infer that the re-arrangement was
never effected, as there are sufficient proofs that the revision was
never accomplished, whatever may have been the reason.