Chapter VI.—The Changes of the Heavenly Bodies, Proof that They are Not Divine.  Transition from the Physical to the Mythic Class of Gods.

Come now, do you allow that the Divine Being not only has nothing servile in His course, but exists in unimpaired integrity, and ought not to be diminished, or suspended, or destroyed? Well, then, all His blessedness414    Felicitas. would disappear, if He were ever subject to change. Look, however, at the stellar bodies; they both undergo change, and give clear evidence of the fact. The moon tells us how great has been its loss, as it recovers its full form;415    These are the moon’s monthly changes. its greater losses you are already accustomed to measure in a mirror of water;416    Tertullian refers to the Magian method of watching eclipses, the ἐνοπτρομαντεία. so that I need not any longer believe in any wise what magians have asserted. The sun, too, is frequently put to the trial of an eclipse. Explain as best you may the modes of these celestial casualties, it is impossible417    Instead of “non valet,” there is the reading “non volet,” “God would not consent,” etc. for God either to become less or to cease to exist. Vain, therefore, are418    Viderint igitur “Let them look to themselves,” “never mind them.” those supports of human learning, which, by their artful method of weaving conjectures, belie both wisdom and truth.  Besides,419    Alias. it so happens, indeed, according to your natural way of thinking, that he who has spoken the best is supposed to have spoken most truly, instead of him who has spoken the truth being held to have spoken the best. Now the man who shall carefully look into things, will surely allow it to be a greater probability that those420    Ista. elements which we have been discussing are under some rule and direction, than that they have a motion of their own, and that being under government they cannot be gods. If, however, one is in error in this matter, it is better to err simply than speculatively, like your physical philosophers. But, at the same time,421    Sedenim. if you consider the character of the mythic school, (and compare it with the physical,) the error which we have already seen frail men422    Mortalitas. making in the latter is really the more respectable one, since it ascribes a divine nature to those things which it supposes to be superhuman in their sensibility, whether in respect of their position, their power, their magnitude, or their divinity. For that which you suppose to be higher than man, you believe to be very near to God.

6. Age jam, conceditisne divinitatem non modo non serviliter currere, sed imprimis integre stare, neque minui neque intercipi neque corrumpi debere. Caeterum abiit omnis felicitas ejus, si quid patitur unquam. Ecce autem et astra intercidunt, et intercicidisse se attestantur. Confitetur et luna , quantum 0594A amiserit, cum resumit. Jam majora ejus detrimenta soletis in aquae speculo considerare, ut nihil amplius ullam. . . . . credam quod magi norunt. Ipse etiam sol saepe defectione tentatus est. Fingite quaslibet rationes coelestium casuum, non volet deus aut minor fieri, aut esse desinere. Viderint igitur humanae doctrinae patrocinia, quae conjectandi artificio sapientiam mentiuntur et veritatem. Nam alias natura sic est, ut qui melius dixerit, hic verius dixisse videatur, non qui verius, is melius.