Praeparatio Evangelica 14 part 5/5

'Come then, let us go once more, for the third time, invoking the Savior, over the same argument.' 'What argument do you mean?' 'Philebus laid down for us that the good is pleasure, every pleasure, and complete.' 'It seems, Socrates, that just now you said we must resume, for the third time, the argument from the beginning.'

'Yes. Let us then hear what follows. For I, having perceived the things I have just now gone through, and being displeased not only with the argument of Philebus, but also, on countless other occasions, with those of many others, said that mind is by far better and superior to pleasure for the life of men.' 'This was indeed said.'

'And suspecting, too, that there were many other things besides, I said that, if something should appear better than both of these, I would fight on the side of mind against pleasure for the second place, and that pleasure would be deprived even of second place.' 'You did indeed say so.' 'And after this it became most fully apparent that neither of the two was sufficient.' 'Most true.'

'Is it not, then, that in this argument both mind and pleasure were altogether dismissed, since neither of the two, being deprived of self-sufficiency and of the power of what is adequate and complete, could itself be the good?' 'Most correctly.' 'And when something else appeared better than each of these two, then mind, in turn, was shown to be by far more akin and more closely allied to the character of the victor than pleasure is now.' 'How could it be otherwise?'

'Then, according to the judgment as our argument has now declared, pleasure's power would come out fifth.' 'So it seems.' 'But it would surely not come out first, even though all oxen and horses and every other beast declare it so by their pursuit of enjoyment; trusting in which, as diviners trust in birds, the many judge that pleasures are the mightiest for our living well, and think that the passions of beasts are more authoritative witnesses than the arguments each time divined by philosophic inspiration.' 'What you have said just now, Socrates, we all declare to be most true.'

These are the words of Plato. But I shall also set before you a few brief excerpts from the work On Nature by Dionysius, a man who was bishop of the philosophy according to Christ, from what he wrote against Epicurus. Take them, then, and read his words, which run as follows.

Whether the universe is one continuous whole, as it appears to us and to the wisest of the Greeks, Plato and Pythagoras and the Stoics and Heraclitus, or two, as perhaps someone has supposed, or even many and infinite, as it seemed to certain others, who through many aberrations of thought and various utterances of names attempted to break up into fragments the being of the universe — these last suppose it to be infinite, unbegotten, and without providence.

For some, calling them atoms — certain incorruptible and extremely minute bodies, countless in number — and positing also a certain empty region of unbounded extent, say that these atoms, being borne about at random in the void, collide with one another spontaneously through disorderly impact, and become entangled because, having many shapes, they lay hold of one another, and thus bring to completion the world and the things in it — or rather, worlds without number.

Of this opinion were Epicurus and Democritus; but they differed to this extent, that the one supposed all the atoms to be the smallest, and therefore imperceptible, while Democritus supposed that some atoms were also the largest. Both, however, say that they are, and are called, 'atoms' on account of their indissoluble solidity.

Others, renaming the atoms, call them 'partless bodies,' parts of the universe, out of which, being indivisible, all things are composed and into which they are dissolved. And they say that Diodorus was the one who coined the name for these 'partless' bodies; but they say another name was given them by Heraclides, who called them 'masses,' from whom also Asclepiades the physician inherited the name. Having said this, he next demolishes the doctrine by many arguments, and among others by the following.

How can we tolerate them when they say that wise, and therefore beautiful, works of craftsmanship are the result of chance occurrences? — works each one of which, when it came into being on its own, was seen by him who ordained its coming to be, to be good; and, in sum, likewise all of them together. 'For God saw,' it says, 'all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good.'

But they are not even instructed by the small, familiar examples right at their feet, from which they could learn that no work that is useful and profitable comes about without design or by mere chance combination, but is fashioned by craftsmanship for its fitting service; whereas when it falls into uselessness and unprofitability, then it is dissolved without order and scattered as chance will have it, since the wisdom that once had care for its constitution no longer handles or arranges it.

For a garment is not woven without a weaver, with the warp-threads coming together and the woof spontaneously interlacing itself; but if it wears out, the torn rags are thrown away. And a house is built, and a city, not by receiving into the foundations stones that come of their own accord, or that leap up of themselves into their courses, but the builder brings up the suitable stones each into its proper place; whereas when the building is thrown down, each stone, carried off however chance allows, falls away at random.

And when a ship is being built, it is not that a keel laid itself down beneath, and a mast set itself upright in the middle, and each of the other timbers took up of itself whatever position it happened upon; nor did the timbers of the so-called 'hundred-timbered' wagon fasten themselves together each in whatever empty spot it found, but the craftsman brought together the fitting timbers for each of the two structures; but if the ship should be broken up while at sea, or the wagon while being driven over land, the timbers are scattered wherever chance will have it — some by the waves, others by the violent momentum.

So it would be fitting to say of the atoms as well, that, remaining idle, unwrought by any hand, and useless, they are borne about at random. Let them, then, behold what cannot be seen, and let them conceive what cannot be conceived — not in the manner of that man who, when this was revealed to him by God, confesses to him: 'My eyes saw your unwrought substance.'

And when they say that the finely-textured fabrics which come to be from atoms are woven by the atoms themselves, unwisely and without perception, who could bear to hear the atoms called 'weavers' — atoms than which even the spider, working by its own craft, is wiser?

Or who could bear to hear that this great house, composed of heaven and earth, and called 'cosmos' [order] on account of the greatness and abundance of the wisdom that appears in it, has been adorned by atoms borne about with no order at all — and that order has come to be out of disorder?

And how could orderly movements and orderly paths proceed from disorderly motion? And how could the all-harmonious dance of the heavenly bodies sing in unison, produced from instruments unmusical and unattuned?

And in what way, when the substance of all is one and the same, and the incorruptible nature the same, differing only, as they say, in magnitudes and shapes, are some bodies divine and undefiled and eternal — as they themselves would say — or, according to him who so named them, 'long-lived,' whether visible or invisible: visible ones being the sun, moon, stars, earth, and water; invisible ones being gods, daemons, and souls? For these are things whose existence they cannot deny, even if they wished to.

And among animals and plants are the longest-lived: among animals, among the birds, as they say, eagles, ravens, and phoenixes; among land creatures, deer, elephants, and serpents; among water creatures, whales; among trees, palms, oaks, and persea trees. And of trees, some are evergreen, which one writer, having enumerated them, said number fourteen; others bloom and shed their leaves according to season; but most of the things that grow and are born are short-lived and quickly come to their end — among which is man too, as a certain sacred scripture said concerning him: 'Man that is born of woman is of few days.'

But they will say that it is the varying bonds of the atoms that are responsible for the difference in duration. For some things, they say, have been so compressed and tightly bound together by them that they have become masses altogether difficult to break apart, while others have had the connection of their atoms looser and slacker, to a lesser or greater degree, so that they come apart from their cohesion either quickly or not long afterward; and some are compounded of atoms of a certain sort and disposed in a certain fashion, others of different atoms arranged otherwise.

Who then is it that distinguishes, gathers together and pours out, arranging these atoms thus for the sun, and those in this other way, that the moon might come to be, and bringing each together according to its affinity for the shining of each star? For the solar atoms, being of such a number and such a kind and united in such a way, would never have descended to the work of the moon, nor have the twinings of the lunar atoms ever become the sun; nay, not even Arcturus, bright though he is, could ever presume to have the atoms of the Morning Star, nor could the Pleiades have those of Orion. For Paul rightly distinguished when he said, 'one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.'

And if their compacting together happened without any perception on their part, as being lifeless things, they needed a knowing craftsman; but if their combination was involuntary and by necessity, as of irrational creatures, then some wise herdsman presided over them, driving them together; but if they were shut up together to work willingly of their own accord, then some marvelous master-builder, giving them their tasks, went before them as their leader — just as a well-ordered general does not let his army fall into confusion, everyone mixed together, but arranges the cavalry in one part, the hoplites by themselves, the javelin-throwers apart, and the archers separately, and stations the slingers where they are needed, so that those bearing like weapons might fight together as allies.

But if they think this illustration a mockery, because I am comparing great bodies with the smallest, we shall pass on to the very smallest things.

Then next after this he adds: 'But if no word nor choice nor order of a ruler is placed upon them, and they themselves direct themselves out of the great tumult according to the flow, and pass through the great uproar of collisions — like joining with like, not led by God as the poet says, but running together and flocking together of their own accord, recognizing their kindred — it would be a marvelous democracy indeed of the atoms, with friends greeting one another and embracing, and hastening to settle down together into one dwelling; and some, having been automatically turned on a lathe into the sun, a great luminary, that they might make the day; and others, kindled into flame, perhaps into many pyramids of stars, that they might crown the whole heaven; and others arranged all around, that they might at random make solid and vault the aether into a platform for the luminaries; and the conspiracies of the vulgar atoms should choose dwelling-places for themselves, and cast lots for the heaven into houses and stations for themselves.'

Then after other things he says: 'But these men do not even see what is manifest, being far from also perceiving together what is unseen. For they seem not even to observe the ordered risings and settings, neither of the others nor the most conspicuous ones of the sun, nor to make use of the aids bestowed on men through them — the day kindled for labor, and the night casting its shadow for rest. For man shall go forth (it says) to his work and to his labor until the evening.'

But neither do they observe his other revolution, according to which he accomplishes fixed hours and opportune seasons and unswerving solstices, being guided (so they say) by the atoms of which he consists. But even if the wretched men do not wish it, yet as the righteous believe, 'great is the Lord who made him, and at his word he hastens his course.'

Is it atoms, O blind ones, that bring you the rains, that the earth might send up food for you and for all the living creatures upon it? Do they bring on the summer, that you might also receive the fruits of the trees for your delight? Then why do you not worship and sacrifice to the atoms that bear fruit? Ungrateful men, who do not even consecrate to them a few firstfruits out of the many gifts you have from them!

And shortly after he says: 'And the multi-national and much-mixed populace of the stars, which the wandering atoms, ever being tossed about, combined to form, have divided up regions for themselves by agreement, as though they had taken up a colony or a joint dwelling, with no founder or master of the house presiding over them; and they keep their neighborly relations with those nearby under oath and in peace, not overstepping the boundaries they seized from the beginning, as though legislated for by royal atoms.'

But those [atoms] do not rule; for how could things that do not even exist? But hear the divine oracles concerning his works: 'His works are according to the judgment of the Lord. From the beginning, and from their making, he distinguished their portions; he adorned his works forever, and their beginnings unto their generations.'

And shortly after he says: 'Or what phalanx so well-ordered ever marched across level ground, with none running ahead, none turning aside, none obstructing, none falling behind those arrayed alongside — as the host of the stars, which, ranked in equal files and locking shields, ever advances continuous and unbroken, undisturbed and unhindered?'

But by inclinations and sideways deflections, certain obscure turnings occur among them. And indeed they always keep watch of their times and foresee their places, as those who have attended to these matters can testify. Let then the cutters of atoms, the dividers of the indivisible, the collectors of the uncompounded, and those who speculate about the infinite, tell us: whence comes the circular motion and revolution of the heavenly bodies — not of a single mass of atoms irrationally flung together in this way, but of so great a circling chorus advancing in equal rhythm and revolving together — whence did countless companions, undisciplined, involuntary, and unknown to one another, come to keep company together? And the prophet rightly reckoned among impossible and unattested things this, that even two strangers should run together: 'shall two,' he says, 'walk together, unless they have known one another?'

Having said these things, and having added countless others to them, he goes on to establish the problem at greater length, from the individual elements of the universe, from the various living creatures within them, and indeed from the nature of man. From these I shall add a few more things to what has been said, and bring the present discourse to a close.

And they see neither themselves nor what pertains to themselves. For if any of the founders of this impious doctrine had reasoned about who he himself is and whence he came, he would have thought as he ought, having become aware of himself, and would have said, not to the atoms, but to his own father and maker: 'Thy hands have fashioned me and made me'; and he would further have worked out the wondrous manner of his own making: 'Hast thou not milked me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews; thou hast granted me life and mercy, and thy visitation has preserved my spirit.'

For how many atoms, and of what sort, did Epicurus' father pour forth from himself when he was begetting Epicurus? And how, when cast down into his mother's womb, did they congeal, take shape, be formed, be moved, and grow? And the tiny drop, having summoned many atoms of Epicurus, clothed some of them, once they had become skin and flesh, while it was set upright by others that had become bone, and was bound together by others stitched into sinew.

And did it fit together the many other members and inward parts and entrails and organs of sense, some within, some without, through which the body was brought to life? Of these, none was added idle or useless, since not even the most trifling things — neither hairs nor nails — but all things contribute, some to the benefit of the constitution, others to the beauty of appearance.

For providence takes care not only of use, but also of beauty. For hair is to all a fortification and covering of the head, and a beard is an adornment to the philosopher. And it fitted together the nature of the whole human body out of all its necessary parts, and it invested all the members with mutual fellowship with one another, and it apportioned to them the supply coming from the whole.

Of these, the general facts are evident even to laymen, from the experience of the power each has: the sovereignty of the head, and around the brain, as around a ruler in a citadel, the bodyguard of the senses — sight approaching, hearing reporting, taste as it were collecting tribute, smell as it were tracking and searching out, and touch ordering all that is subject to it.

(For now we shall run over briefly, in summary fashion, a few of the works of all-wise providence, intending to work them out more precisely a little later, God granting it, when we turn our attention against the one who seems the more reasonable opponent.)

The service of the hands, through which all kinds of labors and many-skilled arts are accomplished, the particular powers being articulated into one cooperative whole; the shoulders' bearing of burdens, the gripping of the fingers, the bending of the elbows, turning inward toward the body and leaning outward away from it, so that they may be able both to draw things toward themselves and to push them away; the service of the feet, through which the whole earthly creation lies subject to us — the earth passable, the sea navigable, the rivers fordable, and the intermingling of all things with all; the belly, a storehouse of nourishment, distributing from itself in measure the food-ration to all the members arrayed together, and setting aside what is superfluous; and the other things by which the governance of human continuance has manifestly been contrived — of which the wise, no less than the foolish, have the use, but do not possess the knowledge.

For some, believing this most knowledgeable economy concerning all things, and this most beneficial one toward themselves, to be the work of a superior and truly divine wisdom and power, refer it to God; while others, falling into whatever godlessness they hold, attribute this most wondrous fine workmanship, aimlessly, to the chance coincidence and collision of atoms.

As for the still more active examination of these things, and the disposition of the inward parts, physicians, having investigated them precisely and been struck with astonishment, have deified nature; but we shall, later on, as best we are able, review the matter even if only superficially.

In general, and to sum it up altogether, who built this whole tabernacle to be such as it is — lofty, upright, well-proportioned, keen in sense, agile in movement, effective in work, capable of every task? 'The irrational multitude of atoms,' they say. But those, even coming together, could not fashion a clay image, nor carve a stone statue, nor melt down and produce a silver or golden idol.

But arts and manual crafts, body-fashioning skills, have been devised for these by men. And if even the likenesses and mere outline-sketches of these things could not come to be apart from wisdom, how could the true and original archetypes of them have come about automatically?

And whence did soul, mind, and reason come to be present in the philosopher? Did he beg these as a contribution from the lifeless, mindless, and irrational atoms, and did each of them breathe into him some thought and doctrine?

And just as the myth of Hesiod says that Pandora was fashioned by the gods, so was the wisdom of the man completed by the atoms? And then will the Greeks no longer say that all poetry, all music, astronomy, geometry, and the other sciences are the discoveries and teachings of the gods, but that the atoms alone have become the muses, skilled and wise in all things?

For the theogony of Epicurus, sprung from atoms, is an exile from the infinite worlds, and has been banished into the infinite disorder.

But to labor, to administer, to care for and provide for beforehand, and such things, are perhaps burdensome to the idle, the foolish, the weak, and the wicked — the sort of company in which Epicurus enrolled himself, holding such opinions about the gods; but to the earnest, the capable, the intelligent, and the temperate — such as philosophers ought to be (how much more the gods!) — these things are not merely not unpleasant and irksome, but most delightful, and more welcome than anything else, to whom negligence and postponing to do what is good is a reproach; just as the poet admonishes them, counseling them not to put things off until tomorrow, and further threatening: 'for the man who puts off his work always wrestles with ruin.'

And the prophet instructs us more solemnly, saying that deeds done in accordance with virtue are truly deeds befitting God, while as for the one who is negligent of these — 'accursed,' he says, 'is he who does the works of the Lord negligently.'

And for those who are unskilled in any art whatsoever, and less accomplished, weariness arises in their undertakings, because of their unfamiliarity with experience and their lack of practice in the tasks; but those who are advancing, and still more the accomplished, rejoice as they easily succeed in what they pursue, and would rather choose to do and complete what they are accustomed to than to have all the goods that exist among men.

Democritus himself, at any rate, as they say, used to say that he would rather discover one causal explanation than become king of the Persians — and this while giving explanations in vain and without real cause, as one setting out from an empty starting-point and an erring hypothesis, not seeing the root and the common necessity of the nature of things, but considering it the greatest wisdom to comprehend things that happen unwisely and foolishly; and he set up Chance as mistress and queen over the universal and divine things, declaring that everything came to be according to her, while at the same time banishing her from the life of men and refuting as senseless those who honor her.

At the beginning of his 'Exhortations,' at any rate, he says: 'Men fashioned an idol of Chance as an excuse for their own folly. For by nature, judgment is at war with Chance; they declared that this, the greatest enemy of prudence, prevails over it — or rather, utterly destroying and abolishing prudence, they set up Chance in its place. For it is not prudence that they praise as fortunate, but Chance that they hymn as most prudent.'

Now those who are masters of life-benefiting works exult in the aid they render to their fellow kind, and reach out for praise and glory for the labors they undertake on others' behalf — some by feeding them, others by piloting them, others by healing them, others by governing the state; but the philosophers, who undertake with great zeal to educate mankind, take the greatest pride in it.

Or will Epicurus or Democritus dare to say that they are vexed while philosophizing? But they would not prefer any other delight to this one. For even if they hold that the good is pleasure, still they will be ashamed not to say that philosophizing is more pleasant to them than anything else.

But as for the gods, concerning whom the poets among them sing that they are 'givers of good things,' while these philosophers with mockery pay them lip-service as 'gods who give and share in none of all good things' — by what means do they prove that they are gods at all, seeing them neither present nor doing anything (as those who marveled at the sun and moon and stars, on account of their running [theein], said they were called 'gods' [theoi]), nor attributing to them any act of creation or fashioning, so that from 'placing' [theinai], that is, 'making,' they might deify them (for this reason, in truth, the maker and creator of all things alone is truly God), nor setting forth any governance or judgment or favor of theirs toward men, that we, owing them fear or honor, might worship them?

Did Epicurus, having peeped out beyond the world and overstepped the heavenly enclosure, or having gone out through certain secret gates known only to himself, there behold the gods in the void, and deem their abundant luxury blessed? And then, having become desirous of that pleasure and a zealot for that life in the void, does he thus exhort all men, that they too may become like those gods and share in this blessedness — furnishing them a blessed banquet, not the one the poets locate in heaven or Olympus, but assembling the void, and setting before them ambrosia made of atoms, and pledging them nectar drawn from the same?

And indeed, by those gods who mean nothing to us, he writes countless oaths and adjurations in his own books, swearing continually 'by Zeus' and 'yea, by Zeus,' and adjuring his readers and those with whom he converses by the gods — himself in no way fearing, nor thinking they fear, the guilt of perjury, but uttering this as an empty, false, idle, and meaningless appendage to his words, as if he were merely clearing his throat, or spitting, or turning his face, or moving his hand. For such was, in his case, the unthinking and vain pretense that was the naming of the gods.

But this at least is evident, that after the death of Socrates, being terrified of the Athenians, so that he might not seem to be what he indeed was — an atheist — he painted for them empty shadows of nonexistent gods by way of a marvel-mongering display. For he neither looked up to heaven with the eyes of the mind, so as to hear that clear voice from above, which the attentive spectator, having heard, testified: 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands'; nor did he perceive with his understanding down to the ground; for he would have learned that 'the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord,' and that 'the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.' For afterward it says: 'The Lord looked upon the earth, and filled it with his good things. He covered the face of it with the soul of every living creature.'

But if they are not blind, let them examine the vastly variegated multitude of living creatures — the land animals, the birds, the water creatures — and let them perceive how the testimony of the Master concerning the judgment of all things has proved true, and how all things, according to his command, have appeared good.

These things have been culled by me from very many of the writings composed against Epicurus by Dionysius, the bishop among us. But it is time to pass on to the school of Aristotle and the sect of the Stoic philosophers, and to review the rest of the doctrines of the marvelous natural philosophers, so that we may also furnish, to those fond of finding fault, our own defense concerning our withdrawal from these.