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

had no mind, and at other times no power, to take the city, as is related also by Orofius.” (St. Jerome, Epistles.) ↩

Non enim cuiquam in potestate est quid veniat in mentem: “For it is not in any man’s power, what shall come into his mind.” (St. Augustine, On Order.) ↩

They, who called Simonides of Ceos out from Scopas and his company, as if it were to speak with him, saved his life. The story known (Cicero, De Oratore; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria). ↩

They who believe there is nothing but what they can handle or see, οἱ οὐδὲν ἄλλο οἰόμενοι εἶναι ἢ οὗ ἂν δύνωνται ἀπρὶξ τοῖν χεροῖν λαβέσθαι⁠ ⁠… πᾶν δὲ τὸ ἀόρατον οὐκ ἀποδεχόμενοι ὡς ἐν οὐσίας μέρει: “and do not allow anything that is invisible to have any real existence,” are by Plato reckoned to be void of all philosophy, ἀμύητοι, σκληροὶ, ἀντιτυποι, μάλ᾿ εὖ ἄμουσοι, “not so much as initiated, stupid, obstinate, and entirely illiterate.” (Plato, Theaetetus.) ↩

Ὀυχ ὁμοίως ἄνθρωπος ἀμύνεται καὶ θεός: “God does not afford assistance in the same manner as man does.” (Philo Judaeus, Life of Moses.) ↩

Si curent [Dij] homines, benè bonis sit, malè malis: quod nunc abest: “If they [the Gods] had any regard for men, things would go well with good men, and ill with bad men; but it is otherwise now.” (Cicero, De Natura Deorum.) The Jews, who call this case צדיק ורע לו רשע וטוב לו: “evil to the righteous, and good to the wicked,” have written many things about it, to be seen in their books: The Guide for the Perplexed, Sefer ha-Ikkarim, Menorat Ha-Maor, Nahalot Abot, etc. So have the Heathen philosophers too: Seneca, Plutarch, Plotinus, Simplicius, others. But the answers of neither are always just. God forbid that should be thought true, which is asserted by Glaucon in Plato (Republic), that the just, if they had Gyges’s ring, would do as the unjust, and ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν δίκαιος ἀλλ’ ἀναγκαζόμενος, κ.τ.λ.: “that no man is just voluntarily, but is forced to be so.” Or that in Sefer Hasidim and Menorath Hammaor צדיק ורע לו צדוק בן רשע: “Evil befalls the righteous, and the unrighteous inherit good.” The reason assigned for this case, in another place, is something better: כדי שלא יאמרו אם לא היה בטובה לא היה צדיק: “Wherefore let them not say that if good does not befall such a one, then he is a wicked man.” But the way of solving it in Sefer Nishmat Hayyim by גלגול הנשמות, “a revolution of souls,” or what the Kabbalists call עיבור, “transmigration,” is worst of all (Manasseh ben Israel). ↩

Cadit et Ripheus, justissimus unus Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus æqui. Dis aliter visum: “Ripheus also was slain, who was one of the most just men amongst the Trojans, and a very strict preserver of equity; but the Gods must be submitted to.” (Virgil, Aeneid.) ↩

Virtutes ipsas invertimus: “We turn even virtues into vices.” (Horace, Satires.) ↩

Οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως ἡδὺ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ὡς τὸ λαλεῖν τὰ ἀλλότρια· καὶ μάλιστα ἐὰν τύχωσιν ὑπ᾿ εὐνοίας τινὸς ἢ μίσους ἑλκόμενοι, ὑφ᾿ ὧν καὶ φιλεῖ κλέπτεσθαι ὡς τὰ πολλὰ ἡ ἀλήθεια: “There is nothing so delightful to men, as prating about things that don’t belong to them, especially if they are drawn into it by love or hatred, and they are apt to conceal truth as they do most other things.” (Gregory Nazianzen, The Second Oration.) ↩

Therefore, with Socrates in Plato, we ought not much to care what the multitude [ὁι πολλὸι] say of us, ἀλλ᾿ ὅ, τι ό ἐπαίων περὶ τῶν δικαίων, καὶ άδίκων, ὁ εἶς, καὶ ἀυτὴ ὴ ἀλήθεια: “but what he says who can distinguish betwixt the just and the unjust, the only one who is truth itself.” (Crito.) ↩

Or, vice-versa, he may judge that to be right, which is wrong. This seemss to be pretty much the case in that enumeration of good men who suffered, in Cicero: Cur duo Scipiones, fortissimos et oprimos viros, in Hispania Pœnus oppressit? Cur Maximus extulit filium consularem? Cur Marcellum Annibal interemit, etc.: “How did it come to pass, that the Carthaginians overthrew the two Scipios in Spain, those brave and excellent men? How came Maximus to bury his son, when he was fit to be a consul? How came Hannibal to kill Marcellus? etc.” (De Natura Deorum.) For here they are reckoned boni, “good,” only because they were fortes, “valiant;” that is, because they had been zealous and successful instruments in conquering and destroying them who happened to be so unfortunate as to be neighbors to the Romans, upon various pretences indeed, but in truth only to enlarge their own territories. Is this to be good? Does it deserve such a particular observation that Fabius Maximus buried a son, after he had been Consul too? How does it appear that Marcellus was a better man than Hannibal? Is it such a wonder if they, who spend their lives in slaughter, should at length be slain themselves? If the margin permitted, more remarks might be made upon this catalogue: as also some upon that which follows in the same place, of others, quibus improbis optime evênit: “who, though they were very bad men, yet had very good fortune.” ↩

Vitæ postscenia celant, “that part of life which they keep secret from