The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Ἡ δίψα μὲν σώματι παρασκευάζει ἡδονὴν ποτοῦ, κ.τ.λ.: “It is thirst that makes the pleasure of drinking agreeable to the body.” (Maximus Tyrius, Dissertations.) This observation might be extended a great way. If there was, e.g., no such thing as poverty, there could be no riches, or no great benefit by them; there would be scarce any arts or sciences, etc. Ἂν γὰρ ἀνέλῃς τὴν πενίαν, τοῦ βίου τὴν σύστασιν ἀνεῖλες ἅπασαν, κ.τ.λ.: “Take away poverty, and you destroy the whole state of life.” (St. Chrysostom, De Anna.) ↩

Τὰ μέρη πρὸς ἀυτὸ τὸ ὅλον δεῖ σκοπεῖν, ἐἰ σύμφωνα καὶ ἁρμόττοντα ἐκείνω̨: “The parts must be compared with the whole, if we would see whether they are agreeable and fitted thereto,” with more to this purpose. (Plotinus, Enneads.) ↩

See Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed III, 12. ↩

Πολυειδὴς ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἰατρική: “God has provided several sorts of physic.” (Simplicius.) ↩

Κακία βλάστημα τῆς ϋλης: “Evil is a bud that springs from matter.” (Plutarch, Moralia.) ↩

To that question⁠—Why are we not so made ὥστε μηδὲ βουλομένοις ἡμῖν ὑπάρχειν τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν, “as to be incapable of committing sin?”⁠—St. Basil answers: Because ἀρετὴ ἐκ προαιρέσεως καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἀνάγκης γίνεται: “virtue is from our own choice, and not from any necessity.” And he who blames the Deity because we are not impeccable, οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἤ τὴν ἄλογον φύσιν τῆς λογικῆς προτιμᾷ, καὶ τὴν ἀκίνητον καὶ ἀνόρμητον τῆς προαιρετικῆς καὶ ἐμπράκτου, “does the very same thing as he does, who prefers a creature not endowed with reason to one that is, and a creature that has not the power of moving itself, and is void of all appetites, to a free agent and one that can choose what he will do.” (Homilia Quod Deus Non Est Auctor Malorum.) ↩

Ἀθληταὶ ἀρετῆς: “Champions for virtue,” as Philo Judaeus. ↩

In Chrysostom’s style, ἀρετῆς ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, καὶ καθάπερ ἐν παλαίστρᾳ ἐπὶ τοῦ παρόντος βίου ἀγωνίζεσθαι, ῖνα μετὰ τὸ λυθῆναι τὸ θέατρον λαμπρὸν ἀναδήσασθαι δυνηθῶμεν τὸν στέφανον: “To be industrious after virtue, and to strive in this present life, as in a place where exercises are to be performed; that, when we go off the stage, we may be crowned with a crown of glory.” (Homilies on Genesis.) ↩

Εἰ σῶμά ἐστι, φύσις δὲ σώματος μεριζομένη ἐις πλείω, ἕκαστον τῶν μὴ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶναι (f. ἔσται) τῷ ὅλῳ: “If it be made of matter, and if it be the property of matter to be divided into a multitude of parts, every single part will not be the same as the whole,” says Plotinus, even of the soul. (Enneads.) ↩

Δέδεικται δὲ καὶ ὅτι μέγεθος οὐδὲν ἐνδέχεται ἔχειν ταύτην οὐσίαν ἀλλὰ ἀμερὴς καὶ ἀδιαίρετός ἐστιν: “It has been shown before that nobody can be of this nature; it must be something indivisible, and whose parts cannot be separated from each other.” (Aristotle, Metaphysics.) ↩

They, who call God מקום, “space,” do it לפי שהוא מקום הכל ואין הכל מקומו, “because He is the space in which the whole universe is contained, and not because the universe is the space in which He is contained.” (Elijah Levita, Tishbi.) Or, as Phil. Aquin. from the ancients, הקב״ה מקום של עולם ואין עולמו מקימו: “The holy and blessed Being is the space in which the universe is contained, and not the universe the space in which He is contained.” (Rashi, on Exodus 34:21.) Οὐ γὰρ περιέχεται [ὁ Θεὸς], ἀλλὰ περιέχει τὸ πᾶν: “For He (God) is not comprehended in any thing, but He comprehends all things.” (Philo Judaeus, Legum Allegoriæ.) By which ways of speaking (though there is a Kabbalistic reason assigned too) they intend chiefly to express his omnipresence and immensity. That, in Acts of the Apostles (17:28), seems to be of the same kind: Ἐν ἀυτῷ γὰρ ζῶμεν, καὶ κινούμεθα, καὶ ἐσμεν: “In him we live, and move, and have our beings.” ↩

Such things as these, how incongruous and wild soever they are, have been affirmed: that God is infinite duration, space, etc. What can be meant by that, Καλῶς ἂν λέγοιτο ὁ αἰὼν θεὸς: “God may be properly called eternity,” in Plotinus (Enneads)? ↩

Were not they, who converse with books, accustomed to such trials, it would be shocking to find Balbus in Cicero asserting, esse mundum deum, “that the world was God;” and yet in another place, that it is quasi communis deorum, atque hominum domus, aut urbs utrorumque: “as it were the common house of the Gods and of men, or the city of both of them;” and deorum, hominumque cause factus: “was made for the sake of the Gods and of men;” in another, providentia deorum mundum, et omnes mundi partes et initio constitutas esse, et omni tempore administrari: “that the world, and all the parts of the world, were in the beginning made by the providence of the Gods, and were always governed by the same;” in another, mundum ipsum naturâ administrari: “that the world itself is governed by nature;” with other like inconsistences. (De Natura Deorum.) ↩

Ἄτοπον ἐι μία ἠ ἐμὴ [ψυχὴ] καὶ ἡ ὁτιοῦν ἄλλου· ἐχρῆν γὰρ ἐμοῦ αἰσθανομένου καὶ ἄλλον αἰσθάνεσθαι⁠ ⁠… καὶ ὅλως ὁμοπαθεῖν ἡμᾶς τε πρὸς ἀλλήλους, καὶ πρὸς τὸ πᾶν: “It is absurd that my (soul) and the soul