Traduction
Masquer
The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher
VII.
They also err who believe that man 1 is a god. For we see that he is moved by necessity, and is made to grow up, and becomes old even though he would not. And at one time he is joyous, at another he is grieved when he lacks food and drink and clothing. And we see that he is subject to anger and jealousy and desire and change of purpose and has many infirmities. He is destroyed too in many ways by means of the elements and animals, and by ever-assailing death. It cannot be admitted, then, that man is a god, but only a work of God.
Great therefore is the error into which the Chaldaeans wandered, following after their own desires.
For they reverence the perishable elements and lifeless images, and do not perceive that they themselves make these things to be gods.
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"I do not think it out of place here to mention Antinous of our day [a slave of the Emperor Hadrian], whom all, not withstanding they knew who and whence he was, yet affected to worship as a god."--Justin Martyr quoted in Eusebius Hist. Bk. IV., c. 8. ↩
Traduction
Masquer
The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher - Translated from the Syriac
VII.
And those who believed of the men of the past, that some of them were gods, they too were much mistaken. For as you yourself allow, O King, man is constituted of the four elements and of a soul and a spirit (and hence he is called a microcosm), 1 and without anyone of these parts he could not consist. He has a beginning and an end, and he is born and dies. But God, as I said, has none of these things in his nature, but is uncreated and imperishable. And hence it is not possible that we should set up man to be of the nature of God:--man, to whom at times when he looks for joy, there comes trouble, and when he looks for laughter there comes to him weeping,--who is wrathful and covetous and envious, with other defects as well. And he is destroyed in many ways by the elements and also by the animals.
And hence, O King, we are bound to recognize the error of the Barbarians, that thereby, since they did not find traces of the true God, they fell aside from the truth, and went after the desire of their imagination, serving the perishable elements and lifeless images, and through their error not apprehending what the true God is.
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Or "and hence the world also gets its name kosmos." The Syriac is the equivalent of the Greek "dio kai kosmos kaleitai," which occurs (Chap. IV.) in discussing the supposed divinity of the sky or heaven. ↩