{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020106.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020106.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020106.htm","text":"And why should I recount further the vast array of such names and genealogies? So that all the authors and poets, and those called philosophers, are wholly deceived; and so, too, are they who give heed to them. For they plentifully composed fables and foolish stories about their gods, and did not exhibit them as gods, but as men, and men, too, of whom some were drunken, and others fornicators and murderers. But also concerning the origin of the world, they uttered contradictory and absurd opinions. First, some of them, as we before explained, maintained that the world is uncreated. And those that said it was uncreated and self-producing contradicted those who propounded that it was created. For by conjecture and human conception they spoke, and not knowing the truth. And others, again, said that there was a providence, and destroyed the positions of the former writers. Aratus, indeed, says: 560 \u2014\n \u201cFrom Jove begin my song; nor ever be\nThe name unuttered: all are full of thee;\nThe ways and haunts of men; the heavens and sea:\nOn thee our being hangs; in thee we move;\nAll are thy offspring and the seed of Jove.\nBenevolent, he warns mankind to good,\nUrges to toil and prompts the hope of food.\nHe tells where cattle best may graze, and where\nThe soil, deep-furrowed, yellow grain will bear.\nWhat time the husbandman should plant or sow,\n\u2019Tis his to tell, \u2019tis his alone to know.\u201d\nWho, then, shall we believe: Aratus as here quoted, or Sophocles, when he says: 561 \u2014\n \u201cAnd foresight of the future there is none;\n\u2019Tis best to live at random, as one can\u201d?\nAnd Homer, again, does not agree with this, for he says 562 that virtue\n \u201cWaxes or wanes in men as Jove decrees.\u201d\n \u201cNo man nor state has virtue save from God;\nCounsel resides in God; and wretched man\nHas in himself nought but his wretchedness.\u201d\n \u201cApart from God, there\u2019s nothing owned by men.\u201d\n \u201cSave God alone, there\u2019s none for us provides.\u201d\n \u201cFor when God wills to save, all things He\u2019ll bend\nTo serve as instruments to work His end.\u201d\n \u201cIf God design to save you, safe you are,\nThough sailing in mid-ocean on a mat.\u201d 563\nAnd saying numberless things of a like kind, they contradicted themselves. At least Sophocles, who in another place denied Providence, says:\u2014\n \u201cNo mortal can evade the stroke of God.\u201d\nBesides, they both introduced a multitude of gods, and yet spoke of a Unity; and against those who affirmed a Providence they maintained in opposition that there was no Providence. Wherefore Euripides says:\u2014\n \u201cWe labour much and spend our strength in vain,\nFor empty hope, not foresight, is our guide.\u201d\nAnd without meaning to do so, they acknowledge that they know not the truth; but being inspired by demons and puffed up by them, they spoke at their instance whatever they said. For indeed the poets,\u2014Homer, to wit, and Hesiod, being, as they say, inspired by the Muses,\u2014spoke from a deceptive fancy, 564 and not with a pure but an erring spirit. And this, indeed, clearly appears from the fact, that even to this day the possessed are sometimes exorcised in the name of the living and true God; and these spirits of error themselves confess that they are demons who also formerly inspired these writers. But sometimes some of them wakened up in soul, and, that they might be for a witness both to themselves and to all men, spoke things in harmony with the prophets regarding the monarchy of God, and the judgment and such like.\nThe following lines are partly from the translation of Hughes.\n97:561 97:562 97:563\nThis verse is by Plutarch hesitatingly attributed to Pindar. The expression, \u201cThough you swim in a wicker basket,\u201d was proverbial.\n97:564\nLiterally, \u201cin fancy and error.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: THEOPHILUS: Chapter VIII....","type":"page"}