Chapter V.—The Opinions of the Philosophers Respecting God.

Let us then run over, if you choose, the opinions of the philosophers, to which they give boastful utterance, respecting the gods; that we may discover philosophy itself, through its conceit making an idol of matter; although we are able to show, as we proceed, that even while deifying certain demons, it has a dream of the truth. The elements were designated as the first principles of all things by some of them: by Thales of Miletus, who celebrated water, and Anaximenes, also of Miletus, who celebrated air as the first principle of all things, and was followed afterwards by Diogenes of Apollonia. Parmenides of Elia introduced fire and earth as gods; one of which, namely fire, Hippasus of Metapontum and Heraclitus of Ephesus supposed a divinity. Empedocles of Agrigentum fell in with a multitude, and, in addition to those four elements, enumerates disagreement and agreement. Atheists surely these are to be reckoned, who through an unwise wisdom worshipped matter, who did not indeed pay religious honour to stocks and stones, but deified earth, the mother of these,—who did not make an image of Poseidon, but revered water itself. For what else, according to the original signification, is Poseidon, but a moist substance? the name being derived from posis (drink); as, beyond doubt, the warlike Ares is so called, from arsis (rising up) and anœresis (destroying). For this reason mainly, I think, many fix a sword into the ground, and sacrifice to it as to Ares. The Scythians have a practice of this nature, as Eudoxus tells us in the second book of his Travels. The Sauromatæ, too, a tribe of the Scythians, worship a sabre, as Ikesius says in his work on Mysteries.

This was also the case with Heraclitus and his followers, who worshipped fire as the first cause; for this fire others named Hephæstus. The Persian Magi, too, and many of the inhabitants of Asia, worshipped fire; and besides them, the Macedonians, as Diogenes relates in the first book of his Persica. Why specify the Sauromatæ, who are said by Nymphodorus, in his Barbaric Customs, to pay sacred honours to fire? or the Persians, or the Medes, or the Magi? These, Dino tells us, sacrifice beneath the open sky, regarding fire and water as the only images of the gods.

Nor have I failed to reveal their ignorance; for, however much they think to keep clear of error in one form, they slide into it in another.

They have not supposed stocks and stones to be images of the gods, like the Greeks; nor ibises and ichneumons, like the Egyptians; but fire and water, as philosophers. Berosus, in the third book of his Chaldaics, shows that it was after many successive periods of years that men worshipped images of human shape, this practice being introduced by Artaxerxes, the son of Darius, and father of Ochus, who first set up the image of Aphrodite Anaitis at Babylon and Susa; and Ecbatana set the example of worshipping it to the Persians; the Bactrians, to Damascus and Sardis.

Let the philosophers, then, own as their teachers the Persians, or the Sauromatæ, or the Magi, from whom they have learned the impious doctrine of regarding as divine certain first principles, being ignorant of the great First Cause, the Maker of all things, and Creator of those very first principles, the unbeginning God, but reverencing “these weak and beggarly elements,”64    Gal. iv. 9. as the apostle says, which were made for the service of man. And of the rest of the philosophers who, passing over the elements, have eagerly sought after something higher and nobler, some have discanted on the Infinite, of whom were Anaximander of Miletus, Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ, and the Athenian Archelaus, both of whom set Mind (νοῦς) above Infinity; while the Milesian Leucippus and the Chian Metrodorus apparently inculcated two first principles—fulness and vacuity. Democritus of Abdera, while accepting these two, added to them images ει ῎δωλα; while Alcmæon of Crotona supposed the stars to be gods, and endowed with life (I will not keep silence as to their effrontery). Xenocrates of Chalcedon indicates that the planets are seven gods, and that the universe, composed of all these, is an eighth. Nor will I pass over those of the Porch, who say that the Divinity pervades all matter, even the vilest, and thus clumsily disgrace philosophy. Nor do I think will it be taken ill, having reached this point, to advert to the Peripatetics. The father of this sect, not knowing the Father of all things, thinks that He who is called the Highest is the soul of the universe; that is, he supposes the soul of the world to be God, and so is pierced by his own sword. For by first limiting the sphere of Providence to the orbit of the moon, and then by supposing the universe to be God, he confutes himself, inasmuch as he teaches that that which is without God is God. And that Eresian Theophrastus, the pupil of Aristotle, conjectures at one time heaven, and at another spirit, to be God. Epicurus alone I shall gladly forget, who carries impiety to its full length, and thinks that God takes no charge of the world. What, moreover, of Heraclides of Pontus? He is dragged everywhere to the images—the εἴδωλα—of Democritus.

Ἐπιδράμωμεν δέ, εἰ βούλει, καὶ τῶν φιλοσόφων τὰς δόξας, ὅσας αὐχοῦσι περὶ τῶν θεῶν, εἴ πως καὶ φιλοσο φίαν αὐτὴν κενοδοξίας ἕνεκεν ἀνειδωλοποιοῦσαν τὴν ὕλην ἐφεύρωμεν, εἰ καὶ δαιμόνια ἄττα ἐκθειάζουσαν κατὰ παρα δρομὴν παραστῆσαι δυνηθῶμεν ὀνειρώττουσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν. Στοιχεῖα μὲν οὖν ἀρχὰς ἀπέλιπον ἐξυμνήσαντες Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ Ἀναξιμένης ὁ καὶ αὐτὸς Μιλήσιος τὸν ἀέρα, ᾧ ∆ιογένης ὕστερον ὁ Ἀπολλωνιάτης κατηκο λούθησεν. Παρμενίδης δὲ ὁ Ἐλεάτης θεοὺς εἰσηγήσατο πῦρ καὶ γῆν, θάτερον δὲ αὐτοῖν μόνον, τὸ πῦρ, θεὸν ὑπειλή φατον Ἵππασός τε ὁ Μεταποντῖνος καὶ ὁ Ἐφέσιος Ἡράκλειτος· Ἐμπεδοκλῆς γὰρ ὁ Ἀκραγαντῖνος εἰς πλῆθος ἐμπεσὼν πρὸς τοῖς τέτταρσι στοιχείοις τούτοις νεῖκος καὶ φιλίαν καταριθμεῖται. Ἄθεοι μὲν δὴ καὶ οὗτοι, σοφίᾳ τινὶ ἀσόφῳ τὴν ὕλην προσκυνήσαντες καὶ λίθους μὲν ἢ ξύλα οὐ τιμήσαντες, γῆν δὲ τὴν τούτων μητέρα ἐκθειάσαντες καὶ Ποσειδῶνα μὲν οὐκ ἀναπλάττοντες, ὕδωρ δὲ αὐτὸ προστρεπόμενοι. Τί γάρ ἐστί ποτε ἕτερον Ποσειδῶν ἢ ὑγρά τις οὐσία ἐκ τῆς πόσεως ὀνοματοποιουμένη; ὥσπερ ἀμέλει ὁ πολέμιος Ἄρης ἀπὸ τῆς ἄρσεως καὶ ἀναιρέσεως κεκλημένος. Ἧι καὶ δοκοῦσί μοι πολλοὶ μάλιστα τὸ ξίφος μόνον πήξαντες ἐπιθύειν ὡς Ἄρει· ἔστι δὲ Σκυθῶν τὸ τοιοῦτον, καθάπερ Εὔδοξος ἐν δευτέρᾳ Γῆς περιόδου λέγει. Σκυθῶν δὲ οἱ Σαυρομάται, ὥς φησιν Ἱκέσιος ἐν τῷ Περὶ μυστηρίων, ἀκινάκην σέβουσιν. Τοῦτο τοι καὶ οἱ ἀμφὶ τὸν Ἡράκλειτον τὸ πῦρ ὡς ἀρχέγονον σέβοντες πεπόνθασιν· τὸ γὰρ πῦρ τοῦτο ἕτεροι Ἥφαιστον ὠνόμασαν. Περσῶν δὲ οἱ Μάγοι τὸ πῦρ τετιμήκασι καὶ τῶν τὴν Ἀσίαν κατοικούντων πολλοί, πρὸς δὲ καὶ Μακεδόνες, ὥς φησι ∆ιογένης ἐν αʹ Περσικῶν. Τί μοι Σαυρομάτας κατα λέγειν, οὓς Νυμφόδωρος ἐν Νομίμοις βαρβαρικοῖς τὸ πῦρ σέβειν ἱστορεῖ, ἢ τοὺς Πέρσας καὶ τοὺς Μήδους καὶ τοὺς Μάγους; Θύειν ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ τούτους ὁ ∆ίνων λέγει, θεῶν ἀγάλματα μόνα τὸ πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ νομίζοντας. Οὐκ ἀπεκρυ ψάμην οὐδὲ τὴν τούτων ἄγνοιαν. Εἰ γὰρ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα ἀποφεύγειν οἴονται τῆς πλάνης, ἀλλ' εἰς ἑτέραν κατολισθαί νουσιν ἀπάτην· ἀγάλματα μὲν θεῶν οὐ ξύλα καὶ λίθους ὑπειλήφασιν ὥσπερ Ἕλληνες οὐδὲ μὴν ἴβιδας καὶ ἰχνεύμονας καθάπερ Αἰγύπτιοι, ἀλλὰ πῦρ τε καὶ ὕδωρ ὡς φιλόσοφοι. Μετὰ πολλὰς μέντοι ὕστερον περιόδους ἐτῶν ἀνθρωποειδῆ ἀγάλματα σέβειν αὐτοὺς Βήρωσσος ἐν τρίτῃ Χαλδαϊκῶν παρίστησι, τοῦτο Ἀρταξέρξου τοῦ ∆αρείου τοῦ Ὤχου εἰσηγησαμένου, ὃς πρῶτος τῆς Ἀφροδίτης Ἀναΐτιδος τὸ ἄγαλμα ἀναστήσας ἐν Βαβυλῶνι καὶ Σούσοις καὶ Ἐκβα τάνοις Πέρσαις καὶ Βάκτροις καὶ ∆αμασκῷ καὶ Σάρδεσιν ὑπέδειξε σέβειν. Ὁμολογούντων τοίνυν οἱ φιλόσοφοι τοὺς διδασκάλους τοὺς σφῶν Πέρσας ἢ Σαυρομάτας ἢ Μάγους, παρ' ὧν τὴν ἀθεότητα τῶν σεβασμίων αὐτοῖς μεμαθήκασιν ἀρχῶν, ἄρχοντα τὸν πάντων ποιητὴν καὶ τῶν ἀρχῶν αὐτῶν δημιουργὸν ἀγνοοῦντες, τὸν ἄναρχον θεόν, τὰ δὲ "πτωχὰ" ταῦτα καὶ "ἀσθενῆ", ᾗ φησιν ὁ ἀπόστολος, τὰ εἰς τὴν ἀνθρώπων ὑπηρεσίαν πεποιημένα "στοιχεῖα" προστρε πόμενοι. Τῶν δὲ ἄλλων φιλοσόφων ὅσοι τὰ στοιχεῖα ὑπερ βάντες ἐπολυπραγμόνησάν τι ὑψηλότερον καὶ περιττότερον, οἳ μὲν αὐτῶν τὸ ἄπειρον καθύμνησαν, ὡς Ἀναξίμανδρος (Μιλήσιος ἦν) καὶ Ἀναξαγόρας ὁ Κλαζομένιος καὶ ὁ Ἀθηναῖος Ἀρχέλαος. Τούτω μέν γε ἄμφω τὸν νοῦν ἐπεστησάτην τῇ ἀπειρίᾳ, ὁ δὲ Μιλήσιος Λεύκιππος καὶ ὁ Χῖος Μητρό δωρος διττάς, ὡς ἔοικεν, καὶ αὐτὼ ἀρχὰς ἀπελιπέτην τὸ πλῆρες καὶ τὸ κενόν· προσέθηκε δὲ λαβὼν τούτοιν τοῖν δυεῖν τὰ εἴδωλα ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης ∆ημόκριτος. Ὁ γάρ τοι Κροτωνιάτης Ἀλκμαίων θεοὺς ᾤετο τοὺς ἀστέρας εἶναι ἐμψύχους ὄντας. Οὐ σιωπήσομαι τὴν τούτων ἀναισχυντίαν· Ξενοκράτης (Καλχηδόνιος οὗτος) ἑπτὰ μὲν θεοὺς τοὺς πλανήτας, ὄγδοον δὲ τὸν ἐκ πάντων τῶν ἀπλανῶν συνεστῶτα κόσμον αἰνίττεται. Οὐδὲ μὴν τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς παρελεύ σομαι διὰ πάσης ὕλης καὶ διὰ τῆς ἀτιμοτάτης τὸ θεῖον διήκειν λέγοντας, οἳ καταισχύνουσιν ἀτεχνῶς τὴν φιλοσο φίαν. Οὐδὲν δὲ οἶμαι χαλεπὸν ἐνταῦθα γενόμενος καὶ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ Περιπάτου μνησθῆναι· καὶ ὅ γε τῆς αἱρέσεως πατήρ, τῶν ὅλων οὐ νοήσας τὸν πατέρα, τὸν καλούμενον "ὕπατον" ψυχὴν εἶναι τοῦ παντὸς οἴεται· τουτέστι τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ψυχὴν θεὸν ὑπολαμβάνων αὐτὸς αὑτῷ περιπείρεται. Ὁ γάρ τοι μέχρι τῆς σελήνης αὐτῆς διορίζων τὴν πρόνοιαν, ἔπειτα τὸν κόσμον θεὸν ἡγούμενος περιτρέπεται, τὸν ἄμοιρον τοῦ θεοῦ θεὸν δογματίζων. Ὁ δὲ Ἐρέσιος ἐκεῖνος Θεόφραστος ὁ Ἀριστοτέλους γνώριμος πῇ μὲν οὐρανόν, πῇ δὲ πνεῦμα τὸν θεὸν ὑπονοεῖ. Ἐπικούρου μὲν γὰρ μόνου καὶ ἑκὼν ἐκλήσομαι, ὃς οὐδὲν μέλειν οἴεται τῷ θεῷ, διὰ πάντων ἀσεβῶν. Τί γὰρ Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός; Ἔσθ' ὅπῃ οὐκ ἐπὶ τὰ ∆ημοκρίτου καὶ αὐτὸς κατασύρεται εἴδωλα.