Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>With those men who, though not by free avowal of their\r\nconvictions, do still testify that they disapprove of those things\r\nby their muttering disapprobation during disputations on the\r\nsubject, it may not be very far amiss to discuss the following\r\nquestion: Whether, for the sake of the life which is to be\r\nafter death, we ought to worship, not the one God, who made\r\nall creatures spiritual and corporeal, but those many gods who,\r\nas some of these philosophers hold, were made by that one God,\r\nand placed by Him in their respective sublime spheres, and are\r\ntherefore considered more excellent and more noble than all the\r\nothers?<a id=\"FNanchor_227_227\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_227_227\">[227]</a> But who will assert that it must be affirmed and<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_230\">[Pg 230]</a></span>\r\ncontended that those gods, certain of whom I have mentioned\r\nin the fourth book,<a id=\"FNanchor_228_228\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_228_228\">[228]</a> to whom are distributed, each to each, the\r\ncharges of minute things, do bestow eternal life? But will those\r\nmost skilled and most acute men, who glory in having written\r\nfor the great benefit of men, to teach on what account each god\r\nis to be worshipped, and what is to be sought from each, lest\r\nwith most disgraceful absurdity, such as a mimic is wont for\r\nthe sake of merriment to exhibit, water should be sought from\r\nLiber, wine from the Lymphs,—will those men indeed affirm\r\nto any man supplicating the immortal gods, that when he\r\nshall have asked wine from the Lymphs, and they shall have\r\nanswered him, \"We have water, seek wine from Liber,\" he\r\nmay rightly say, \"If ye have not wine, at least give me\r\neternal life?\" What more monstrous than this absurdity?\r\nWill not these Lymphs,—for they are wont to be very easily\r\nmade laugh,<a id=\"FNanchor_229_229\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_229_229\">[229]</a>—laughing loudly (if they do not attempt to\r\ndeceive like demons), answer the suppliant, \"O man, dost\r\nthou think that we have life (<i>vitam</i>) in our power, who thou\r\nhearest have not even the vine (<i>vitem</i>)?\" It is therefore most\r\nimpudent folly to seek and hope for eternal life from such\r\ngods as are asserted so to preside over the separate minute\r\nconcernments of this most sorrowful and short life, and whatever\r\nis useful for supporting and propping it, as that if anything\r\nwhich is under the care and power of one be sought\r\nfrom another, it is so incongruous and absurd that it appears\r\nvery like to mimic drollery,—which, when it is done by\r\nmimics knowing what they are doing, is deservedly laughed\r\nat in the theatre, but when it is done by foolish persons, who\r\ndo not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed in the world.\r\nWherefore, as concerns those gods which the states have\r\nestablished, it has been cleverly invented and handed down to\r\nmemory by learned men, what god or goddess is to be supplicated\r\nin relation to every particular thing,—what, for\r\ninstance, is to be sought from Liber, what from the Lymphs,\r\nwhat from Vulcan, and so of all the rest, some of whom I\r\nhave mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have thought\r\nright to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from\r\nCeres, bread from Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_231\">[Pg 231]</a></span>\r\nLymphs, how much greater absurdity ought it to be thought,\r\nif supplication be made to any one of these for eternal life?</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK SIXTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-423"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"0f0b6d123cee4a0355b3716d8c768388d01c7a2a4e3038a407cf9dc92d7ef163","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_227_227","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_227_227","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_227_227\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_227_227\"><span class=\"label\">[227]</span></a> Plato, in the <i>Timæus</i>.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_227_227","text_sha256":"63aceaa8ac8c94590dc1d4fd358e9c69af1b6c24bb37b3887493c4883681ddd3","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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