Глава пятая Ложные мнения философов о богах

§ LXIV. On the deification of the elements by philosophers Let us turn, if you wish, to the opinions that philosophers dare to express about the gods. If we somehow discover that philosophy itself, because of its superstition, turns matter into idols or deifies certain demons, then it will be easy for us to show that it sees the truth as if in a dream. The philosophers gave us the elements as first principles, glorifying: Thales the Milesian - water, Anaximenes, who was also from Miletus - air. Anaximenes was later followed in this by Diogenes, a resident of Apollonia. Parmenides of Elea made fire and earth gods, of which Hippasus the Metapontian and Heraclitus of Ephesus considered only fire to be gods. Empedocles the Acragantian, in pursuit of quantity, added Enmity and Friendship to these four elements. They are also atheists, worshiping matter because of their stupid “wisdom”, giving honor not to stone and tree, but to deifying their mother, the earth; not inventing Poseidon, but praying to the water itself. For what else is Poseidon, if not a certain moist essence, which received its name from the word πόσις - “drink”? In the same way, the warlike Ares is named from the words ἄρσις “rise” and ἀναίρεσις – “destruction”. Mainly for this reason, it seems to me, many people, sticking a sword into the ground, make a sacrifice to him, as if to Ares. The Scythians have such a custom, as Eudoxus says in the second book of the “Description of the Earth.” The Sauromatians, one of the Scythian tribes, as Hykesius says in the book “On the Mysteries,” reverence the akinak sword. The same thing happened with the followers of Heraclitus who honored fire as the primary element: after all, others called this fire Hephaestus. § LXV. Persian priority in the deification of the elements He was revered by the Persian magicians, some of those who lived in Asia, and also by the Macedonians, as Diogenes says in the first book of the Persian History. Why should I talk about the Sauromatians, who, as Nymphodorus reports in the book “Customs of the Barbarians,” worship fire, or about the Persians, Medes and magicians? Dinon says that they make sacrifices in the open air, considering only fire and water as models of gods. I did not conceal their ignorance either; because although they think that they are farther from error than anyone else, they succumb to another deception: they considered the models of gods not wood and stones, like the Hellenes, and not ibises and ichneumons, like the Egyptians, but fire and water, like the philosophers. However, after many centuries they began to honor statues with a human appearance, as Berossus testifies in the third book of the Chaldean History. This custom was introduced by Artaxerxes, son of Darius, father of Ochus, who, having erected the first statue of Aphrodite Anaitides in Babylon, Susa and Ecbatana, ordered the Persians, Bactrians, inhabitants of Damascus and Sardis to honor it. Let the philosophers recognize as their teachers the Persians, the Sauromatians or the Magi, from whom they learned the atheism that lies in the veneration of the primary elements, being ignorant of the Lord and Creator of all, the Creator of these very primary elements, the beginningless God, and worshiping the “miserable and weak”, in the words of the Apostle, made to serve people, the “material principles” (Gal. 4:9). § LXVI. About the philosophers who rose above the veneration of the elements Of those remaining philosophers who, having stepped over the elements, began to zealously explore something more sublime and extraordinary, some sang of the infinite, like Anaximander the Milesian, and Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, and the Athenian Archelaus; the last two placed above infinity - Mind. The Milesian Leucippus and the Chian Metrodorus seem to have left two principles: fullness and emptiness. Having borrowed these two, the Abderite Democritus added “images” to them. And the Crotonian Alcmaeon thought that the gods were the stars, which he considered animate. I will not keep silent about the shamelessness of such philosophers! Xenocrates (he was a native of Chalcedon) says vaguely that the planets are seven gods, and the eighth is the cosmos, consisting of everything motionless. I will not pass by the Stoics who say that the divine penetrates all matter, even the most unworthy; they are a complete disgrace to philosophy. It seems to me that it does not hurt to mention the Peripatetics here. The Father of this direction, who did not know the Father of all, believes that He Who is called the Most High is the soul of the universe; Thus, this philosopher, considering the soul of the cosmos to be God, strikes a blow to himself: after all, limiting Providence to the sphere of the moon and what is under it, thinking, however, that the world is God, he contradicts himself, asserting that what is not part of God is God. The Eresian Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, suggests that God is partly heaven, partly spirit. I will gladly pass over in silence only Epicurus, who, being wicked, believes that God has no care for anything. And Heraclides of Pontus? Doesn't he lean towards the "images" of Democritus?