15. Lo, if some one were to
place before you copper in the lump, and not formed4684
| 4684
Lit., “thrown together.” |
into any works
of art, masses
of unwrought
silver, and
gold not fashioned into shape,
wood,
stones,
and
bones, with all the other materials of which statues and images of
deities usually consist,—nay, more, if some one were to place
before you the faces of battered gods, images melted down
4685
| 4685
Rigaltius suggested
confracta—“shattered,” for ms. -flata. |
and broken,
and were also to bid you
slay victims to the bits and fragments, and
give
sacred and
divine honours to masses without form,—we ask you
to say to us, whether you would do this, or refuse to obey.
Perhaps you will say, why? Because there is no man so stupidly
blind that he will class among the gods
silver, copper,
gold, gypsum,
ivory,
potter’s
clay, and say that these very things have, and possess
in themselves,
divine power. What reason is there, then, that all
these bodies should want the
power of
deity and the rank of celestials
if they remain untouched and unwrought,
but should forthwith
become gods, and be classed and numbered among the
inhabitants of
heaven if they receive the forms of men,
ears, noses, cheeks,
lips,
eyes, and eyebrows? Does the fashioning add any
newness to these
bodies, so that from this addition you are compelled
4686
| 4686
So the edd. reading cog- for the ms. cogit-amini. |
to believe that something
divine and
majestic has been united to them? Does it change copper into
gold, or compel worthless earthenware to become
silver? Does it
cause things which but a little before were without feeling, to
live
and breathe?
4687
| 4687
Lit., “be moved with agitation of breathing.” |
If
they had any
natural properties previously,
4688
| 4688 Lit., “outside,” i.e.,
before being in bodily forms. |
all these they retain
4689
| 4689
So Ursinus and LB., reading retin-e-ntfor the ms. -ea-, which can hardly be correct.
There may possibly be an ellipsis of si before this clause, so
that the sentence would run: “If they had any natural
properties, (if) they retain all these, what stupidity,” etc. |
when built
up in the bodily forms of statues. What stupidity it is—for
I refuse to call it blindness—to suppose that the natures of
things are changed by the kind of form
into which they are
forced, and that that receives divinity from the appearance given
to it, which in its original body has been inert, and unreasoning, and
unmoved by feeling!
4690
| 4690
Lit., “deprived of moveableness of feeling.” |
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