12. But let them4138
| 4138
i.e., the predictions. |
be true, as
you maintain, yet will you have us also believe
4139
| 4139
Lit., “will you make the same belief.” |
that Mellonia, for example, introduces
herself into the entrails, or Limentinus, and that they set themselves
to make known
4140
| 4140 Lit.,
“adapt themselves to the significations of the things
which.” |
what you
seek to
learn? Did you ever see their face, their deportment, their
countenance? or can even these be seen in lungs or livers? May it
not happen, may it not come to pass, although you craftily conceal it,
that the one should take the other’s place, deluding, mocking,
deceiving, and presenting the
appearance of the
deity
invoked? If the magi,
who are so much akin to
4141
soothsayers,
relate that, in their incantations, pretended gods
4142
steal in frequently instead of those
invoked; that some of these, moreover, are spirits of grosser
substance,
4143
| 4143
Perhaps “abilities”—materiis. |
who pretend
that they are gods, and delude the ignorant by their lies and
deceit,—why
4144
| 4144
The ms. reads
cum—“with similar reason we may believe,”
instead of cur, as above. |
should we
not similarly believe that here, too, others substitute themselves for
those who are not, that they may both strengthen your superstitious
beliefs, and rejoice that victims are slain in sacrifice to them under
names not their own?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
