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BOOK III, ARGUMENT. Is the two preceding books, Arnobius
endeavoured to repel the objections raised against Christianity;
but already, he says, it had found able defenders, though strong
enough in its own might to need none (1); and therefore, having
replied to the charge of neglecting the worship of the gods, by
asserting that in worshipping the Supreme God, the Creator of the
universe, any other gods, if there are such, receive honour,
inasmuch as they are sprung from him (2, 3), he goes on to attack
heathenism itself, pointing out that the other gods cannot be
proved to exist, their names and number being alike unknown (4, 5).
These gods, moreover, are spoken of as male and female, but the
divine cannot be liable to such distinctions, as Cicero showed (6);
whom it would be well, therefore, for the heathen to refute,
instead of merely raising an unreasoning clamour against his
writings (7). The use by Christians of a masculine term to denote
the Deity, is merely a necessity of speech; but the heathen
expressly attributed sex to their deities (8), who would therefore,
being immortal, be innumerable; or if the gods did not beget
children, why had they sex (9) ? Arnobius then inveighs against
this opinion as degrading and dishonouring the gods (10), and says
that it is far more likely that they would afflict men to punish
such insults, than to take vengeance on Christians, who did them no
dishonour (11). He then goes on to speak of bodily form, denying
that it is attributed to the Deity by Christians (12), while the
heathen boldly asserted that their gods had human bodies, which,
Arnobius shows, makes it necessary to ascribe to some gods the
basest offices (13-15). It might, however, be said that the gods
were not really supposed to have such bodies, but were so spoken of
o...
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