Of common conceptions, against the Stoics. (31-35)

DIADUMENUS. But lest these things should seem to have too much of logical difficulty, let us proceed to such as pertain more to natural philosophy. Since then, as themselves say,

Jove is of all beginning, midst, and end,[*]

they ought chiefly to have applied themselves to remedy, redress, and reduce to the best order the conceptions concerning the Gods, if there were in them any thing confused or erroneous; or if not, to have left every one in those sentiments which they had from the laws and custom concerning the Divinity:

For neither now nor yesterday

These deep conceits of God began;

Time out of mind they have been aye,

But no man knows where, how, or when.

[*]

But these men, having begun (as it were) from Vesta to disturb the opinions settled and received in every country concerning the Gods, have not (to speak sincerely) left any thing entire and uncorrupted. For what man is there or ever was, except these, who does not believe the Divinity to be immortal and eternal? Or what in the common anticipations is more unanimously chanted forth concerning the Gods than such things as these:

There the blest Gods eternally enjoy

Their sweet delights;

[*]

and again,

Both Gods immortal, and earth-dwelling men;[*]

and again,

Exempt from sickness and old age are they,

And free from toil, and have escaped the flood

Of roaring Acheron?

[*]

One may perhaps light upon some nations so barbarous and savage as not to think there is a God; but there was never found any man who, believing a God, did not at the same time believe him immortal and eternal. Certainly, those who were called Atheists, like Theodorus, Diagoras, and Hippo, durst not say that the Divinity is corruptible, but they did not believe that there is any thing incorruptible; not indeed admitting the subsistence of an incorruptibility, but keeping the idea of a God. But Chrysippus and Cleanthes, having filled (as one may say) heaven, earth, air, and sea with Gods, have not yet made any one of all these Gods immortal or eternal, except Jupiter alone, in whom they consume all the rest; so that it is no more proper for him to consume others than to be consumed himself. For it is alike an infirmity to perish by being resolved into another, and to be saved by being nourished by the resolution of others into himself. Now these are not like other of their absurdities, gathered by argument from their suppositions or drawn by consequence from their doctrines; but they themselves proclaim it aloud in their writings concerning the Gods, Providence, Fate, and Nature, expressly saying that all the other Gods were born, and shall die by the fire, melting away, in their opinion, as if they were of wax or tin. It is indeed as much against common sense that God should be mortal as that man should be immortal; nay, indeed, I do not see what the difference between God and man will be, if God also is a reasonable and corruptible animal. For if they oppose us with this subtle distinction, that man is mortal, and God not mortal but corruptible, see what they get by it. For they will say either that God is at the same time both immortal and corruptible, or else that he neither is mortal nor immortal; the absurdity of which even those cannot exceed who set themselves industriously to devise positions repugnant to common sense. I speak of others; for these men have left no one of the absurdest things unspoken or unattempted.

DIADUMENUS. To these things Cleanthes, contending for the conflagration of the world, says, that the sun will make the moon and all the other stars like to himself, and will change them into himself. Indeed, if the stars, being Gods, should contribute any thing to the sun towards their own destruction by contributing to its conflagration, it would be very ridiculous for us to make prayers to them for our salvation, and to think them the saviors of men, whose nature it is to accelerate their own corruption and dissolution.

DIADUMENUS. Nor is this the worst; but they are angry with Menander for saying upon the stage,

The chief beginning of men’s miseries

Are things exceeding good;

for that this is against sense. And yet they make God, who is good, the beginning of evils. For matter, they say, produced not any evil of itself; for it is without quality, and whatever differences it has, it has received them all from that which moves and forms it. But that which moves and forms it is the reason dwelling in it, since it is not made to move and form itself. So that of necessity evil, if it come by nothing, must have been produced from that which has no being; but if by some moving principle, from God. But if they think that Jupiter has not the command of his parts nor uses every one of them according to his reason, they speak against common sense, and imagine an animal, many of whose parts are not subservient to his will but use their own operations and actions, to which the whole gives no incitation nor begins their motion. For there is nothing which has life so ill compacted as that, against its will, its feet shall go, its tongue speak, its horns push, or its teeth bite. The most of which things God must of necessity suffer, if the wicked, being parts of him, do against his will lie, cheat, rob, and murder one another. But if, as Chrysippus says, the very least part cannot possibly behave itself otherwise than according to Jupiter’s pleasure, and if every living thing is so framed by Nature as to rest and move according as he inclines it and as he turns, stays, and disposes it,

This saying is more impious than the first.[*]

For it were more tolerable to say that many parts of Jupiter are, through his weakness and want of power, hurried on to do many absurd things against his nature and will, than that there is not any intemperance or wickedness of which Jupiter is not the cause. Moreover, since they affirm the world to be a city and the stars citizens, if this be so, there must be also tribes-men and magistrates, the sun must be some consul, and the evening star a praetor or mayor of a city. Now I know not whether any one that shall go about to confute such things will not show himself more absurd than those who assert and affirm them.