241

this; for he introduced Sisyphus as a champion of this opinion and agreed with his view.” 14.16.2 After these things, he again introduces Anaxagoras, first saying that he thought correctly concerning God. And he speaks thus: “Anaxagoras says that in the beginning bodies stood still, but the Mind of God set them in order and made the generations of all things. But Plato did not suppose that the first bodies were standing still, but were moving without order; wherefore God, he says, having taken charge, since order is better than disorder, set them in order.” 14.16.3 To which he adds: “But both are in error, because they made God concerned with human affairs and for this reason constructing the world; for the blessed and imperishable living being, filled with all good things and unreceptive of any evil, being wholly concerned with the maintenance of its own happiness and imperishability, is unconcerned with human affairs. For he would be wretched, like a laborer and a carpenter, bearing burdens and being anxious for the construction of the world. 14.16.4 and again, the God of whom they speak, either did not exist in the age before, when bodies were motionless or when they were moving without order, or he was sleeping or he was awake or neither of these. And it is not possible to accept the first—for how is God eternal?—nor the second; for if God was sleeping from eternity, he would have been dead; for eternal sleep is death; but God is unreceptive of sleep; for that which is immortal and 14.16.5 near to God is separate from sleep. But if God was awake, he was either lacking in happiness or was fulfilled in blessedness. And God is not blessed according to the first; for what is lacking in happiness is not blessed; nor according to the second; for lacking nothing he would have been about to undertake empty actions. But how, if God exists and human affairs are managed by his providence, does the base man prosper, while the good man suffers the opposite? For Agamemnon, both a good king and a mighty warrior, was overcome by an adulterer and an adulteress and treacherously slain; and his kinsman Heracles, having purged many things that harmed human life, was poisoned by Deianira and treacherously slain. 14.16.6 Thales, that the world is God. Anaximander, that the stars are heavenly gods. Democritus, that God is the spherical soul of the world in fire. Pythagoras, that of the principles, the monad is God and the good, which is the nature of the one, mind itself; but the indefinite dyad is a demon and evil, in which is the material multitude.” 14.16.7 After these, hear how those newer in time held their opinions: “Socrates and Plato, that the one, the simple, the monadic, the truly existing is good; and all these names refer to the mind; therefore God is the mind, a separate form, that is, unmixed with any matter and not entwined with anything passible. 14.16.8 Aristotle, that the highest God is a separate form, mounted upon the sphere of the universe, which is an aetherial body, called by him the fifth; and this being divided into spheres, connected in nature but separate in reason, he thinks that each of the spheres is a living being composed of body and soul, of which the body is aetherial, moving circularly, and the soul is an ever-moving reason, the cause of the motion in actuality. 14.16.9 The Stoics declare God to be intelligent, an artistic fire, proceeding methodically to the generation of the world, containing all the seminal reasons, according to which each thing comes into being according to fate; and a spirit pervading the whole world, but taking its names from the whole of the matter through which it has passed. And God is also the world and the stars and the earth, and the highest of all, the mind in the aether. 14.16.10 Epicurus, that the gods are anthropomorphic, but all are perceptible by reason because of the fine-particled nature of their images. The same man in another way posits these four natures imperishable in kind: the atoms, the void, the infinite, the similarities, and these are called homoeomeries and the elements.” 14.16.11

241

δὲ τοῦτο· τὸν γὰρ Σίσυφον εἰσήγαγε προστάτην ταύτης τῆς δόξης καὶ συνηγόρησεν αὐτοῦ τῇ γνώμῃ.» 14.16.2 Ἐπὶ τούτοις πάλιν τὸν Ἀναξαγόραν εἰσάγει, πρῶτον φάσκων αὐτὸν ὀρθῶς φρονῆσαι περὶ θεοῦ. λέγει δὲ οὕτως· «Ὁ δὲ Ἀναξαγόρας φησὶν ὡς εἱστήκει κατ' ἀρχὰς τὰ σώματα, Νοῦς δὲ αὐτὰ διεκόσμησε θεοῦ καὶ τὰς γενέσεις τῶν ὅλων ἐποίησεν. ὁ δὲ Πλάτων οὐχ ἑστηκότα ὑπέθετο τὰ πρῶτα σώματα, ἀτάκτως δὲ κινούμενα· διὸ ὁ θεός, φησίν, ἐπιστήσας, ὡς τάξις ἀταξίας ἐστὶ βελτίων, διεκόσμησεν αὐτά.» 14.16.3 Οἷς ἐπιλέγει· «Ἁμαρτάνουσι δὲ ἀμφότεροι, ὅτι τὸν θεὸν ἐποίησαν ἐπιστρεφόμενον τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων καὶ τούτου χάριν τὸν κόσμον κατασκευάζοντα· τὸ γὰρ μακάριον καὶ ἄφθαρτον ζῷον, πεπληρωμένον πᾶσι τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς καὶ κακοῦ παντὸς ἄδεκτον, ὅλον ὂν περὶ τὴν συνοχὴν τῆς ἰδίας εὐδαιμονίας τε καὶ ἀφθαρσίας, ἀνεπιστρεφές ἐστι τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων. κακοδαίμων δ' ἂν εἴη, ἐργάτου δίκην καὶ τέκτονος ἀχθοφορῶν καὶ μεριμνῶν εἰς τὴν τοῦ κόσμου κατασκευήν. 14.16.4 καὶ πάλιν, ὁ θεὸς ὃν λέγουσιν, ἤτοι τὸν ἔμπροσθεν αἰῶνα οὐκ ἦν, ὅτε ἦν ἀκίνητα τὰ σώματα ἢ ὅτε ἀτάκτως ἐκινεῖτο, ἢ ἐκοιμᾶτο ἢ ἐγρηγόρει ἢ οὐδέτερον τούτων. καὶ οὐδὲ τὸ πρῶτον ἔστι δέξασθαι πῶς γὰρ θεὸς αἰώνιος;· οὔτε τὸ δεύτερον· εἰ γὰρ ἐκοιμᾶτο ἐξ αἰῶνος ὁ θεός, ἐτεθνήκει· αἰώνιος γὰρ ὕπνος θάνατός ἐστιν· ἀλλά γε ἄδεκτος ὕπνου ὁ θεός· τὸ γὰρ ἀθάνατον καὶ 14.16.5 τοῦ θεοῦ ἐγγὺς ὕπνου κεχώρισται. εἰ δὲ ἦν ὁ θεὸς ἐγρηγορώς, ἤτοι ἐνέλειπεν εἰς εὐδαιμονίαν ἢ πεπλήρωτο ἐν μακαριότητι. καὶ οὔτε κατὰ τὸ πρῶτόν ἐστι μακάριος ὁ θεός· τὸ γὰρ ἐλλεῖπον εἰς εὐδαιμονίαν οὐ μακάριον· οὔτε κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον· μηδὲν γὰρ ἐλλείπων κεναῖς ἔμελλεν ἐπιχειρεῖν πράξεσι. πῶς δέ, εἴπερ ὁ θεὸς ἔστι καὶ τῇ τούτου φροντίδι τὰ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον οἰκονομεῖται, τὸ μὲν κίβδηλον εὐτυχεῖ, τὸ δὲ ἀστεῖον τὸ ἐναντίον πάσχει; Ἀγαμέμνων τε γάρ, ἀμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ' ἀγαθὸς κρατερός τ' αἰχμητής, ὑπὸ μοιχοῦ καὶ μοιχαλίδος ἡττηθεὶς ἐδολοφονήθη· καὶ ὁ τούτου δὲ συγγενὴς Ἡρακλῆς, πολλὰ τῶν ἐπιλυμαινομένων τὸν ἀνθρώπινον βίον καθάρας, ὑπὸ ∆ηϊανείρας φαρμακωθεὶς ἐδολοφονήθη. 14.16.6 Θαλῆς τὸν κόσμον εἶναι τὸν θεόν. Ἀναξίμανδρος τοὺς ἀστέρας οὐρανίους θεούς. ∆ημόκριτος θεὸν ἐν πυρὶ σφαιροειδῆ τὴν κόσμου ψυχήν. Πυθαγόρας τῶν ἀρχῶν τὴν μονάδα θεὸν καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἡ τοῦ ἑνὸς φύσις, αὐτὸς ὁ νοῦς· τὴν δ' ἀόριστον δυάδα καὶ δαίμονα καὶ τὸ κακόν, περὶ ἥν ἐστι τὸ ὑλικὸν πλῆθος.» 14.16.7 Μετὰ δὲ τούτους οἱ νέοι τῷ χρόνῳ πῶς ἐδόξαζον ἄκουε· «Σωκράτης καὶ Πλάτων ἓν τὸ μονοφυές, τὸ μοναδικόν, τὸ ὄντως ὂν ἀγαθόν· πάντα δὲ ταῦτα τῶν ὀνομάτων εἰς τὸν νοῦν σπεύδειν· νοῦς οὖν ὁ θεὸς χωριστὸν εἶδος, τοῦτ' ἔστι τὸ ἀμιγὲς πάσης ὕλης καὶ μηδενὶ παθητῷ συμπεπλεγμένον. 14.16.8 Ἀριστοτέλης τὸν μὲν ἀνωτάτω θεὸν εἶδος χωριστόν, ἐπιβεβηκότα τῇ σφαίρᾳ τοῦ παντός, ἥτις ἐστὶν αἰθέριον σῶμα, τὸ πέμπτον ὑπ' αὐτοῦ καλούμενον· διῃρημένου δὲ τούτου κατὰ σφαίρας τῇ μὲν φύσει συναφεῖς, τῷ λόγῳ δὲ κεχωρισμένας, ἑκάστην οἴεται τῶν σφαιρῶν ζῷον εἶναι σύνθετον ἐκ σώματος καὶ ψυχῆς, ὧν τὸ μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν αἰθέριον, κινούμενον κυκλοφορικῶς, ἡ ψυχὴ δὲ λόγος ἀεικίνητος, αἴτιος τῆς κινήσεως κατ' ἐνέργειαν. 14.16.9 Οἱ Στωϊκοὶ νοερὸν θεὸν ἀποφαίνονται, πῦρ τεχνικόν, ὁδῷ βαδίζον ἐπὶ γένεσιν κόσμου, περιειληφότος πάντας τοὺς σπερματικοὺς λόγους, καθ' οὓς ἕκαστα καθ' εἱμαρμένην γίνεται· καὶ πνεῦμα διῆκον δι' ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου, τὰς δὲ προσηγορίας μεταλαμβάνον δι' ὅλης τῆς ὕλης, δι' ἧς κεχώρηκε. θεὸν δὲ καὶ τὸν κόσμον καὶ τοὺς ἀστέρας καὶ τὴν γῆν, τὸν δ' ἀνωτάτω πάντων νοῦν ἐν αἰθέρι. 14.16.10 Ἐπίκουρος ἀνθρωποειδεῖς μὲν τοὺς θεούς, λόγῳ δὲ πάντας θεωρητοὺς διὰ λεπτομέρειαν τῆς τῶν εἰδώλων φύσεως. ὁ δ' αὐτὸς ἄλλως τέτταρας φύσεις κατὰ γένος ἀφθάρτους τάσδε· τὰ ἄτομα, τὸ κενόν, τὸ ἄπειρον, τὰς ὁμοιότητας, αὗται δὲ λέγονται ὁμοιομέρειαι καὶ τὰ στοιχεῖα.» 14.16.11