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# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Anti-Marcion/On the Resurrection of the Flesh/XIX

Chapter XIX.—The Sophistical Sense Put by Heretics on the Phrase “Resurrection of the Dead,” As If It Meant the Moral Change of a New Life.
Now this consideration of the phrase in question, and its signification—besides maintaining, of course, the true meaning of the important words—must needs contribute to this further result, that whatever obscurity our adversaries throw over the subject under the pretence of figurative and allegorical language, the truth will stand out in clearer light, and out of uncertainties certain and definite rules will be prescribed. For some, when they have alighted on a very usual form of prophetic statement, generally expressed in figure and allegory, though not always, distort into some imaginary sense even the most clearly described doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, alleging that even death itself must be understood in a spiritual sense. They say that which is commonly supposed to be death is not really so,—namely, the separation of body and soul: it is rather the ignorance of God, by reason of which man is dead to God, and is not less buried in error than he would be in the grave. Wherefore that also must be held to be the resurrection, when a man is reanimated by access to the truth, and having dispersed the death of ignorance, and being endowed with new life by God, has burst forth from the sepulchre of the old man, even as the Lord likened the scribes and Pharisees to “whited sepulchres.” Whence it follows that they who have by faith attained to the resurrection, are with the Lord after they have once put Him on in their baptism. By such subtlety, then, even in conversation have they often been in the habit of misleading our brethren, as if they held a resurrection of the dead as well as we. Woe, say they, to him who has not risen in the present body; for they fear that they might alarm their hearers if they at once denied the resurrection. Secretly, however, in their minds they think this: Woe betide the simpleton who during his present life fails to discover the mysteries of heresy; since this, in their view, is the resurrection. There are however, a great many also, who, claiming to hold a resurrection after the soul’s departure, maintain that going out of the sepulchre means escaping out of the world, since in their view the world is the habitation of the dead—that is, of those who know not God; or they will go so far as to say that it actually means escaping out of the body itself, since they imagine that the body detains the soul, when it is shut up in the death of a worldly life, as in a grave.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xxiii. 27.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXII

22. You err, my opponent says, and are deceived; for the gods are not themselves artificers, but suggest these arts to ingenious men, and teach mortals what they should know, that their mode of life may be more civilized. But he who gives any instruction to the ignorant and unwilling, and strives to make him intelligently expert in some kind of work, must himself first know that which he sets the other to practise. For no one can be capable of teaching a science without knowing the rules of that which he teaches, and having grasped its method most thoroughly. The gods are, then, the first artificers; whether because they inform the minds of men with knowledge, as you say yourselves, or because, being immortal and unbegotten, they surpass the whole race of earth by their length of life. This, then, is the question; there being no occasion for these arts among the gods, neither their necessities nor nature requiring in them any ingenuity or mechanical skill, why you should say that they are skilled, one in one craft, another in another, and that individuals are pre-eminently expert in particular departments in which they are distinguished by acquaintance with the several branches of science?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “by the long duration of time.”
* ↑ Lit., “skilled in notions”—perceptionibus; for which præceptionibus, i.e., “the precepts of the different arts,” has been suggested in the margin of Ursinus.
* ↑ Lit., “and have skill (sollertias) in which individuals excel.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXIV

24. No one, says my opponent, makes supplication to the tutelar deities, and they therefore withhold their usual favours and help. Cannot the gods, then, do good, except they receive incense and consecrated offerings? and do they quit and renounce their posts, unless they see their altars anointed with the blood of cattle? And yet I thought but now that the kindness of the gods was of their own free will, and that the unlooked-for gifts of benevolence flowed unsought from them. Is, then, the King of the universe solicited by any libation or sacrifice to grant to the races of men all the comforts of life? Does the Deity not impart the sun’s fertilizing warmth, and the season of night, the winds, the rains, the fruits, to all alike,—the good and the bad, the unjust and the just, the free-born and the slave, the poor and the rich? For this belongs to the true and mighty God, to show kindness, unasked, to that which is weary and feeble, and always encompassed by misery, of many kinds. For to grant your prayers on the offering of sacrifices, is not to bring help to those who ask it, but to sell the riches of their beneficence. We men trifle, and are foolish in so great a matter; and, forgetting what God is, and the majesty of His name, associate with the tutelar deities whatever meanness or baseness our morbid credulity can invent.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “salted fruits,” the grits mixed with salt, strewed on the victim.
* ↑ Supplied by Ursinus.
* ↑ So the edd. reading quid, except Hild. and Oehler, who retain the ms. qui—“who.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXVI

26. We shall not here mention Laverna, goddess of thieves, the Bellonæ, Discordiæ, Furiæ; and we pass by in utter silence the unpropitious deities whom you have set up. We shall bring forward Mars himself, and the fair mother of the Desires; to one of whom you commit wars, to the other love and passionate desire. My opponent says that Mars has power over wars; whether to quell those which are raging, or to revive them when interrupted, and kindle them in time of peace? For if he claims the madness of war, why do wars rage every day? but if he is their author, we shall then say that the god, to satisfy his own inclination, involves the whole world in strife; sows the seeds of discord and variance between far-distant peoples; gathers so many thousand men from different quarters, and speedily heaps up the field with dead bodies; makes the streams flow with blood, sweeps away the most firmly-founded empires, lays cities in the dust, robs the free of their liberty, and makes them slaves; rejoices in civil strife, in the bloody death of brothers who die in conflict, and, in fine, in the dire, murderous contest of children with their fathers.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXVIII

28. Can any man, who has accepted the first principles even of reason, be found to mar or dishonour the unchanging nature of Deity with morals so vile? to credit the gods with natures such as human kindness has often charmed away and moderated in the beasts of the field? How, I ask, can it be said that the gods are far removed from any feeling of passion? that they are gentle, lovers of peace, mild? that in the completeness of their excellence they reach the height of perfection, and the highest wisdom also? or, why should we pray them to avert from us misfortunes and calamities, if we find that they are themselves the authors of all the ills by which we are daily harassed? Call us impious as much as you please, contemners of religion, or atheists, you will never make us believe in gods of love and war, that there are gods to sow strife, and to disturb the mind by the stings of the furies. For either they are gods in very truth, and do not do what you have related; or if they do the things which you say, they are doubtless no gods at all.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “where, I ask, is the (assertion) that,” etc.
* ↑ Lit., “hold.”
* ↑ In the ms. these words, aut si, are wanting.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXI

21. And, I ask, what reason is there, what unavoidable necessity, what occasion for the gods knowing and being acquainted with these handicrafts as though they were worthless mechanics? For, are songs sung and music played in heaven, that the nine sisters may gracefully combine and harmonize pauses and rhythms of tones? Are there on the mountains of the stars, forests, woods, groves, that Diana may be esteemed very mighty in hunting expeditions? Are the gods ignorant of the immediate future; and do they live and pass the time according to the lots assigned them by fate, that the inspired son of Latona may explain and declare what the morrow or the next hour bears to each? Is he himself inspired by another god, and is he urged and roused by the power of a greater divinity, so that he may be rightly said and esteemed to be divinely inspired? Are the gods liable to be seized by diseases; and is there anything by which they may be wounded and hurt, so that, when there is occasion, he of Epidaurus may come to their assistance? Do they labour, do they bring forth, that Juno may soothe, and Lucina abridge the terrible pangs of childbirth? Do they engage in agriculture, or are they concerned with the duties of war, that Vulcan, the lord of fire, may form for them swords, or forge their rustic implements? Do they need to be covered with garments, that the Tritonian maid may, with nice skill, spin, weave cloth for them, and make them tunics to suit the season, either triple-twilled, or of silken fabric? Do they make accusations and refute them, that the descendant of Atlas may carry off the prize for eloquence, attained by assiduous practice?

## Footnotes

* ↑ The ms., followed by LB. and Hild., reads sidereis motibus—“in the motions of the stars;” i.e., can these be in the stars, owing to their motion? Oehler conjectures molibus—“in the masses of the stars;” the other edd. read montibus, as above.
* ↑ The ms., both Roman edd., and Oehler read habetur Diana—“is Diana esteemed;” the other edd., ut habeatur, as above.
* ↑ i.e., Æsculapius.
* ↑ i.e., Minerva. [Elucidation II. Conf. n. 4, p. 467, supra.]
* ↑ “With nice skill…for them,” curiose iis; for which the ms. and first five edd. read curiosius—“rather skilfully.”
* ↑ The ms. reads unintelligibly et imponere, for which Meursius emended componat, as above.
* ↑ Mercury, grandson of Atlas by Maia.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXIII

23. But you will, perhaps, say that the gods are not artificers, but that they preside over these arts, and have their oversight; nay, that under their care all things have been placed, which we manage and conduct, and that their providence sees to the happy and fortunate issue of these. Now this would certainly appear to be said justly, and with some probability, if all we engage in, all we do, or all we attempt in human affairs, sped as we wished and purposed. But since every day the reverse is the case, and the results of actions do not correspond to the purpose of the will, it is trifling to say that we have, set as guardians over us, gods invented by our superstitious fancy, not grasped with assured certainty. Portunus gives to the sailor perfect safety in traversing the seas; but why has the raging sea cast up so many cruelly-shattered wrecks? Consus suggests to our minds courses safe and serviceable; and why does an unexpected change perpetually issue in results other than were looked for? Pales and Inuus are set as guardians over the flocks and herds; why do they, with hurtful laziness, not take care to avert from the herds in their summer pastures, cruel, infectious, and destructive diseases? The harlot Flora, venerated in lewd sports, sees well to it that the fields blossom; and why are buds and tender plants daily nipt and destroyed by most hurtful frost? Juno presides over childbirth, and aids travailing mothers; and why are a thousand mothers every day cut off in murderous throes? Fire is under Vulcan’s care, and its source is placed under his control; and why does he, very often, suffer temples and parts of cities to fall into ashes devoured by flames? The soothsayers receive the knowledge of their art from the Pythian god; and why does he so often give and afford answers equivocal, doubtful, steeped in darkness and obscurity? Æsculapius presides over the duties and arts of medicine; and why cannot men in more kinds of disease and sickness be restored to health and soundness of body? while, on the contrary, they become worse under the hands of the physician. Mercury is occupied with combats, and presides over boxing and wrestling matches; and why does he not make all invincible who are in his charge? why, when appointed to one office, does he enable some to win the victory, while he suffers others to be ridiculed for their disgraceful weakness?

## Footnotes

* ↑ According to Oehler, Portunus (Portumnus or Palæmon—“the god who protects harbours”) does not occur in the ms., which, he says, reads per maria præstant—“through the seas they afford;” emended as above by Ursinus, præstat Portunus. Oehler himself proposes permarini—“the sea gods afford.”
* ↑ Pales, i e., the feeding one; Inuus, otherwise Faunus and Pan.
* ↑ Otherwise, “from the absence of rain.”
* ↑ So the margin of Ursinus, reading meretrix; but in the first four edd., LB., and Oberthür, genetrix—“mother,” is retained from the ms.
* ↑ So LB., reading cura-t, the ms. omitting the last letter.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXIX

29. We might, however, even yet be able to receive from you these thoughts, most full of wicked falsehoods, if it were not that you yourselves, in bringing forward many things about the gods so inconsistent and mutually destructive, compel us to withhold our minds from assenting. For when you strive individually to excel each other in reputation for more recondite knowledge, you both overthrow the very gods in whom you believe, and replace them by others who have clearly no existence; and different men give different opinions on the same subjects, and you write that those whom general consent has ever received as single persons are infinite in number. Let us, too, begin duty, then, with father Janus, whom certain of you have declared to be the world, others the year, some the sun. But if we are to believe that this is true, it follows as a consequence, that it should be understood that there never was any Janus, who, they say, being sprung from Cœlus and Hecate, reigned first in Italy, founded the town Janiculum, was the father of Fons, the son-in-law of Vulturnus, the husband of Juturna; and thus you erase the name of the god to whom in all prayers you give the first place, and whom you believe to procure for you a hearing from the gods. But, again, if Janus be the year, neither thus can he be a god. For who does not know that the year is a fixed space of time, and that there is nothing divine in that which is formed by the duration of months and lapse of days? Now this very argument may, in like manner, be applied to Saturn. For if time is meant under this title, as the expounders of Grecian ideas think, so that that is regarded as Kronos, which is chronos, there is no such deity as Saturn. For who is so senseless as to say that time is a god, when it is but a certain space measured off in the unending succession of eternity? And thus will be removed from the rank of the immortals that deity too, whom the men of old declared, and handed down to their posterity, to be born of father Cœlus, the progenitor of the dii magni, the planter of the vine, the bearer of the pruning-knife.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Stewechius and Orelli would omit rebus, and interpret “about the same gods.” Instead of de—“about,” the ms. has deos.
* ↑ The ms. reads fonti, corrected by Meursius Fontis, as above.
* ↑ Lit., “circuit.”
* ↑ Lit., “finished.”
* ↑ i.e., the god.
* ↑ i.e., time.
* ↑ Lit., “the measuring of a certain space included in,” etc.
* ↑ Cf. vi. 12.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXV

25. Unxia, my opponent says, presides over the anointing of door-posts; Cinxia over the loosening of the zone; the most venerable Victa and Potua attend to eating and drinking. O rare and admirable interpretation of the divine powers! would gods not have names if brides did not besmear their husbands’ door-posts with greasy ointment; were it not that husbands, when now eagerly drawing near, unbind the maiden-girdle; if men did not eat and drink? Moreover, not satisfied to have subjected and involved the gods in cares so unseemly, you also ascribe to them dispositions fierce, cruel, savage, ever rejoicing in the ills and destruction of mankind.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The ms. reads Vita.
* ↑ [i.e., these names are derived from their offices to men. Have they no names apart from these services?]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXVII

27. Now we may apply this very argument to Venus in exactly the same way. For if, as you maintain and believe, she fills men’s minds with lustful thoughts, it must be held in consequence that any disgrace and misdeed arising from such madness should be ascribed to the instigation of Venus. Is it, then, under compulsion of the goddess that even the noble too often betray their own reputation into the hands of worthless harlots; that the firm bonds of marriage are broken; that near relations burn with incestuous lust; that mothers have their passions madly kindled towards their children; that fathers turn to themselves their daughters’ desires; that old men, bringing shame upon their grey hairs, sigh with the ardour of youth for the gratification of filthy desires; that wise and brave men, losing in effeminacy the strength of their manhood, disregard the biddings of constancy; that the noose is twisted about their necks; that blazing pyres are ascended; and that in different places men, leaping voluntarily, cast themselves headlong over very high and huge precipices?

## Footnotes

* ↑ i.e., those who subdue their own spirits. “Constancy” is the εὐπάθεια of the Stoics.
* ↑ Referring to Dido.
* ↑ As despairing lovers are said to have sought relief in death, by leaping from the Leucadian rock into the sea.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XXX

30. But what shall we say of Jove himself, whom the wise have repeatedly asserted to be the sun, driving a winged chariot, followed by a crowd of deities; some, the ether, blazing with mighty flames, and wasting fire which cannot be extinguished? Now if this is clear and certain, there is, then, according to you, no Jupiter at all; who, born of Saturn his father and Ops his mother, is reported to have been concealed in the Cretan territory, that he might escape his father’s rage. But now, does not a similar mode of thought remove Juno from the list of gods? For if she is the air, as you have been wont to jest and say, repeating in reversed order the syllables of the Greek name, there will be found no sister and spouse of almighty Jupiter, no Fluonia, no Pomona, no Ossipagina, no Februtis, Populonia, Cinxia, Caprotina; and thus the invention of that name, spread abroad with a frequent but vain belief, will be found to be wholly useless.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. Plato, Phædr., st. p. 246.
* ↑ Lit., “the reversed order of the Greek name being repeated,” i. e., instead of ἥ-ρα, ἀ-ήρ.
* ↑ The ms. gives Fluvionia.
* ↑ Lit., “with the frequency (or fame) of vain,” etc.
* ↑ Lit., “very.”
# Behind the Scenes (Paterson)

The actor struts his little hour, Between the limelight and the band; The public feel the actor's power, Yet nothing do they understand Of all the touches here and there That make or mar the actor's part, They never see, beneath the glare, The artist striving after art.
To them it seems a labour slight Where nought of study intervenes; You see it in another light When once you've been behind the scenes.
For though the actor at his best Is, like a poet, born not made, He still must study with a zest And practise hard to learn his trade. So, whether on the actor's form The stately robes of Hamlet sit, Or as Macbeth he rave and storm, Or plays burlesque to please the pit,
'Tis each and all a work of art, That constant care and practice means -- The actor who creates a part Has done his work behind the scenes.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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# Behn Meyer Company v. Miller

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
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United States Supreme Court
266 U.S. 457
Behn Meyer Company v. Miller
Argued: Nov. 24, 1924. --- Decided: Jan 5, 1925
[Syllabus from pages 457-459 intentionally omitted]
Mr. Wm. D. Guthrie, of New York, City, for appellant.
Mr. Merrill E. Otis, of St. Joseph, Mo., for appellees.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 459-461 intentionally omitted]
Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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