23. But the true36    The carelessness of some copyist makes the ms. read ve-st-ri, “your,” corrected as above by Ursinus. gods, and those who are worthy to have and to wear the dignity of this name, neither conceive anger nor indulge a grudge, nor do they contrive by insidious devices what may be hurtful to another party. For verily it is profane, and surpasses all acts of sacrilege, to believe that that wise and most blessed nature is uplifted in mind if one prostrates himself before it in humble adoration; and if this adoration be not paid, that it deems itself despised, and regards itself as fallen from the pinnacle of its glory. It is childish, weak, and petty, and scarcely becoming for those whom the experience of learned men has for a long time called demigods and heroes,37    So Ursinus, followed by Heraldus, LB., and Orelli, for the ms. errores, which Stewechius would change into errones—“vagrants”—referring to the spirits wandering over the earth: most other edd., following Gelenius, read, “called demigods, that these indeed”—dæmonas appellat, et hos, etc. not to be versed in heavenly things, and, divesting themselves of their own proper state, to be busied with the coarser matter of earth.

XXIII. Caeterum dii veri, et qui habere, qui ferre nominis hujus autoritatem condigni sunt, neque irascuntur, neque indignantur, neque quod alteri noceat, insidiosis machinationibus construunt. Etenim revera 0743B est impium, et sacrilegia cuncta transcendens, sapientem 0744A illam credere beatissimamque naturam magnum aliquid putare, si se sibi aliquis adulatoria humilitate submittat: et si fuerit non factum, despectam se credere, et ab summi culminis decidisse fastigio. Puerile, pusillum est, et exile, vix et illis conveniens, quos jamdudum experientia doctorum daemonas appellat et heroas, non nosse coelestia, et in hac rerum materia crassiore conditionis suae exortes versari.