51. What say ye, O minds
incredulous, stubborn, hardened? Did that great Jupiter
Capitolinus of yours give to any human being power of this kind?
Did he endow with this right any priest of a curia, the Pontifex
Maximus, nay, even the Dialis, in whose name he is
revealed as
the god of life?
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I
shall not say,
did he impart power
to raise the dead, to give
light to the blind, restore the normal condition of their members to
the weakened and the paralyzed, but
did he even enable any one
to check a pustule, a hang-nail, a pimple, either by the word of his
mouth or the touch of his hand? Was this, then, a power natural
to man, or could such a right be granted, could such a licence be given
by the mouth of one reared on the vulgar produce of earth; and was it
not a divine and sacred gift? or if the matter admits of any hyperbole,
was it
not more than
divine and sacred? For if you do that which you are able to do,
and what is compatible with your strength and your ability, there is no
ground for the expression of astonishment; for you will have done that
which you were able, and which your power was bound to accomplish, in
order that there should be a perfect correspondence
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between the deed and the doer.
To be able to transfer to a man your own power, share with the frailest
being the ability to perform that which you alone are able to do, is a
proof of power supreme over all, and holding in subjection the causes
of all things, and the natural laws of methods and of
means.
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So
understood by Orelli, who reads
quo Dius est
, adopting the
explanation of Dialis given by Festus. The
ms.
, however, according to Crusius, reads,
Dialem, quod ejus est, flaminem isto jure donavit
; in which
case, from the position of the
quod
, the meaning might be,
“which
term
is his,” or possibly, “because he
(i.e., the priest) is his,” only that in the latter case a
pronoun would be expected: the commentators generally refer it to
the succeeding
jure
, with this “right” which
is his. Canterus reads,
quod majus est
, i.e., than the
Pontifex Maximus. [Compare vol. iv. p. 74, note 7.]
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So the
ms.
reading
æqualitas
, which is retained by Hild.
and Oehler; all other editions drop
æ
—“that the
quality of deed and doer might be one.”