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But let us omit further examination of history, and return to the
philosophers from whom we digressed to these things. They seem to have
labored in their studies for no other end than to find out how to live
in a way proper for laying hold of blessedness. Why, then, have the
disciples dissented from their masters, and the fellow-disciples from
one another, except because as men they have sought after these things
by human sense and human reasonings? Now, although there might be
among them a desire of glory, so that each wished to be thought wiser
and more acute than another, and in no way addicted to the judgment of
others, but the inventor of his own dogma and opinion, yet I may
grant that there were some, or even very many of them, whose love of
truth severed them from their teachers or fellow-disciples, that they
might strive for what they thought was the truth, whether it was so or
not. But what can human misery do, or how or where can it reach
forth, so as to attain blessedness, if divine authority does not lead
it? Finally, let our authors, among whom the canon of the sacred
books is fixed and bounded, be far from disagreeing in any respect.
It is not without good reason, then, that not merely a few people
prating in the schools and gymnasia in captious disputations, but so
many and great people, both learned and unlearned, in countries and
cities, have believed that God spoke to them or by them, i.e. the
canonical writers, when they wrote these books. There ought,
indeed, to be but few of them, lest on account of their multitude what
ought to be religiously esteemed should grow cheap; and yet not so few
that their agreement should not be wonderful. For among the multitude
of philosophers, who in their works have left behind them the monuments
of their dogmas, no one will easily find any who agree in all their
opinions. But to show this is too long a task for this work.
But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping
city, that the rest who have differed from or opposed him in opinion
have been disapproved? The Epicureans asserted that human affairs
were not under the providence of the gods; and the Stoics, holding
the opposite opinion, agreed that they were ruled and defended by
favora ble and tutelary gods. Yet were not both sects famous among the
Athenians? I wonder, then, why Anaxagoras was accused of a crime
for saying that the sun was a burning stone, and denying that it was a
god at all; while in the same city Epicurus flourished gloriously and
lived securely, although he not only did not believe that the sun or
any star was a god, but contended that neither Jupiter nor any of the
gods dwelt in the world at all, so that the prayers and supplications
of men might reach them! Were not both Aristippus and Antisthenes
there, two noble philosophers and both Socratic? yet they placed the
chief end of life within bounds so diverse and contradictory, that the
first made the delight of the body the chief good, while the other
asserted that man was made happy mainly by the virtue of the mind. The
one also said that the wise man should flee from the republic; the
other, that he should administer its affairs. Yet did not each gather
disciples to follow his own sect? Indeed, in the conspicuous and
well-known porch, in gymnasia, in gardens, in places public and
private, they openly strove in bands each for his own opinion, some
asserting there was one world, others innumerable worlds; some that
this world had a beginning, others that it had not; some that it would
perish, others that it would exist always; some that it was governed
by the divine mind, others by chance and accident; some that souls are
immortal, others that they are mortal, and of those who asserted their
immortality, some said they transmigrated through beasts, others that
it was by no means so; while of those who asserted their mortality,
some said they perished immediately after the body, others that they
survived either a little while or a longer time, but not always; some
fixing supreme good in the body, some in the mind, some in both;
others adding to the mind and body external good things; some thinking
that the bodily senses ought to be trusted always, some not always,
others never. Now what people, senate, power, or public dignity of
the impious city has ever taken care to judge between all these and
oilier well-nigh innumerable dissensions of the philosophers,
approving and accepting some, and disapproving and rejecting others?
Has it not held in its bosom at random, without any judgment, and
confusedly, so many controversies of men at variance, not about
fields, houses, or anything of a pecuniary nature, but about those
things which make life either miserable or happy? Even if some true
things were said in it, yet falsehoods were uttered with the same
licence; so that such a city has not amiss received the title of the
mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as we remember we have
already explained. Nor does it matter to the devil, its king, how
they wrangle among themselves in contradictory errors, since all alike
deservedly belong to him on account of their great and varied impiety.
But that nation, that people, that city, that republic, these
Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted, by no means
confounded with similar licence false prophets with the true prophets;
but, agreeing together, and differing in nothing, acknowledged and
upheld the authentic authors of their sacred books. These were their
philosophers, these were their sages, divines, prophets, and
teachers of probity and piety. Whoever was wise and lived according to
them was wise and lived not according to men, but according to God who
hath spoken by them. If sacrilege is forbidden there, God hath
forbidden it. If it is said, "Honor thy father and thy mother,"
God hath commanded it. If it is said, "Thou shall not commit
adultery, Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not steal," and other
similar commandments, not human lips but the divine oracles have
enounced them. Whatever truth certain philosophers, amid their false
opinions, were able to see, and strove by laborious discussions to
persuade men of, such as that God had made this world, and Himself
most providently governs it, or of the nobility of the virtues, of the
love of country, of fidelity in friendship, of good works and
everything pertaining to virtuous manners, although they knew not to
what end and what rule all these things were to be referred, all
these, by words prophetic, that is, divine, although spoken by men,
were commended to the people in that city, and not inculcated by
contention in arguments, so that he who should know them might be
afraid of contemning, not the wit of men, but the oracle of God.
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