Traduction Masquer
Gegen die Heiden (BKV)

Nr. 44

War aber die anwesende Schlange der Gott nicht, wie ist dann nach derselben Ankunft der Pestseuche Gewalt gebrochen und dem römischen Volke die Gesundheit wieder hergestellt worden? Dagegen erwidern wir: Ward durch die Bücher der Weissagungen und durch die Aussprüche der Wahrsager befohlen, den Gott Aeskulap nach der Stadt einzuladen, um ihr Schutz und Sicherheit wider der Pestseuche Ansteckung zu gewähren und kam er, die Einladung nicht verschmähend, wie ihr aussagt, in der Gestalt eines Drachen; warum wurde dann die Stadt Rom noch so oftmals von dieses Uebels Verheerungen heimgesucht; so oftmals zu anderen Zeiten verwüstet und vieler Tausende seiner Bürger beraubt? Behauptet man nämlich, um deßwillen sey der Gott herbeigeholt worden, auf daß er alle Ursachen, wodurch die Pestseuche entstand, durchaus abwende; so folgte, daß die Stadt unantastbar seyn mußte und er ihr Befreiung wie Unverletzbarkeit für immer gewährte. Gleichwohl aber sehen wir, wie oben gesagt worden, daß oftmals dieselbe verderbliche Lebensanfälle durch diese Seuchen erlitt und daß durch S. 210 schweren Verlust des Volkes Muth gebrochen und entnervt worden. Wo war also Aeskulap, wo jener durch ehrwürdige Orakelsprüche Verheißene? Warum mußte nach Erbauung des Tempels die wohlverdiente Stadt das Verderben erfahren, da er um deßwillen herbeigeholt worden, sowohl das gegenwärtige Uebel zu heilen, als auch das befürchtete künftige Eindringen zu wehren?

Traduction Masquer
The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen

44.

¹ In like manner we might go through the other narratives, and show that in these also, and in expositions of these, something far different from what the gods should be is said and declared about them, as in this very story which I shall next relate, one or two only being added to it, that disgust may not be produced by excess. ² After certain gods were brought from among nations dwelling beyond the sea, you say, and after temples were built to them, after their altars were heaped with sacrifices, the plague-stricken people grew strong and recovered, and the pestilence fled before the soundness of health which arose. What gods, say, I beseech? AEsculapius, you say, the god of health, from Epidaurus, and now settled in the island in the middle of the Tiber. If we were disposed to be very scrupulous in dealing with your assertions, we might prove by your own authority that he was by no means divine who had been conceived and born from a woman's womb, who had by yearly stages reached that term of life at which, as is related in your books, a thunderbolt drove him at once from life and light. But we leave this question: let the son of Coronis be, as you wish, one of the immortals, and possessed of the everlasting blessedness ³ of heaven. From Epidaurus, however, what was brought except an enormous serpent? If we trust the annals, and ascribe to them well-ascertained truth, nothing else, as it has been recorded. What shall we say then? That AEsculapius, whom you extol, an excellent, a venerable god, the giver of health, the averter, preventer, destroyer of sickness, is contained within the form and outline of a serpent, crawling along the earth as worms are wont to do, which spring from mud; he rubs the ground with his chin and breast, dragging himself in sinuous coils; and that he may be able to go forward, he draws on the last part of his body by the efforts of the first.