Traduction
Masquer
The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen
14.
Do you dare to laugh at us when we speak of hell, 1 and fires 2 which cannot be quenched, into which we have learned that souls are cast by their foes and enemies? What, does not your Plato also, in the book which he wrote on the immortality of the soul, name the rivers Acheron, Styx, 3 Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon, and assert that in them souls are rolled along, engulphed, and burned up? But though a man of no little wisdom, 4 and of accurate judgment and discernment, he essays a problem which cannot be solved; so that, while he says that the soul is immortal, everlasting, and without bodily substance, he yet says that they are punished, and makes them suffer pain. 5 But what man does not see that that which is immortal, which is simple, 6 cannot be subject to any pain; that that, on the contrary, cannot be immortal which does suffer pain? And yet his opinion is not very far from the truth. For although the gentle and kindly disposed man thought it inhuman cruelty to condemn souls to death, he yet not unreasonably 7 supposed that they are cast into rivers blazing with masses of flame, and loathsome from their foul abysses. For they are cast in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in 8 everlasting destruction. For theirs is an intermediate 9 state, as has been learned from Christ's teaching; and they are such that they may on the one hand perish if they have not known God, and on the other be delivered from death if they have given heed to His threats 10 and proffered favours. And to make manifest 11 what is unknown, this is man's real death, this which leaves nothing behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last end--annihilation: 12 this, I say, is man's real death, when souls which know not God shall 13 be consumed in long-protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel beings shall 14 cast them, who were unknown 15 before Christ, and brought to light only by His wisdom.
-
Pl. Cf. Milman's note on Gibbon, vol. 2, c. xi. p. 7. ↩
-
Lit., "certain fires." ↩
-
Plato, in the passage referred to (Phaedo, st. p. 113, § 61), speaks of the Styx not as a river, but as the lake into which the Cocytus falls. The fourth river which he mentions in addition to the Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus, which he calls Stygian, is the Ocean stream. ↩
-
So the ms., according to Hild., reading parvae; but acc. to Rigaltius and Crusius, it gives pravae--"of no mean." ↩
-
So LB., Hild., and Oehler, reading doloris afficiat sensu, by merely dropping m from the ms. sensu-m; while all the other edd. read doloribus sensuum--"affects with the pains of the senses." ↩
-
i.e., not compounded of soul and body. ↩
-
Or, "not unsuitably," absone. ↩
-
Lit., "in the failure (or disappointment') of," etc. ↩
-
i.e., neither immortal nor necessarily mortal. ↩
-
So Gelenius emended the unintelligible ms. reading se-mina by merely adding s, followed by all edd., although Ursinus in the margin suggests se mîam, i.e., mi-sericordiam--"pity;" and Heraldus conjectures munia--"gifts." ↩
-
So almost all edd., from a conjecture of Gelenius, supplying ut, which is wanting in the ms., first ed., and Oehler. ↩
-
It is worth while to contrast Augustine's words: "The death which men fear is the separation of the soul from the body. The true death, which men do not fear, is the separation of the soul from God" (Aug. in Ps. xlviii., quoted by Elmenhorst). ↩
-
In the first ed., Gelenius, Canterus, Ursinus, and Orelli, both verbs are made present, but all other edd. follow the ms. as above. ↩
-
In the first ed., Gelenius, Canterus, Ursinus, and Orelli, both verbs are made present, but all other edd. follow the ms. as above. ↩
-
Lit., "and unknown." Here Arnobius shows himself ignorant of Jewish teaching, as in iii. 12. ↩
Traduction
Masquer
Gegen die Heiden (BKV)
Nr. 14
Wagt ihr uns zu verlachen, wenn wir eine Hölle und gewisse unauslöschliche Feuer behaupten, in die, wie wir gehört haben, die Seelen von ihren Feinden und Widersachern hinabgestürzt werden? Wie, nennt derselbe Platon in jenem Gespräche, das er von der Seele Unsterblichkeit verfaßte, die Flüsse Acheron, Styx, Kekitos und Pyriphlegethon nicht, in welchen S. 63 seiner Versicherung zufolge, die Seelen umhergewälzt, versenkt, gebrennt werden. (Phaedon S. 112 flg. Stephan.) Und dieser Mensch von nicht unschicklicher Erkenntniß, von Ueberlegung und erwägendem Urtheil behauptet eine unerklärliche Sache, indem er, da er die Seelen als unsterblich, fortdauernd und der körperlichen Dichtheit befreit aussagt, doch behauptet, sie würden bestraft, und die Schmerzen der Empfindung hinzugefügt. Wer sieht aber nicht ein, daß das Unsterbliche, das Einfache keinen Schmerz zulassen könne? Und dennoch weicht seine Autorität nicht gar sehr von der Wahrheit ab: denn so sehr auch der milde und wohlwollende Mann geglaubt hat, es sey unmenschlich, die Seelen zur Todesstrafe zu verdammen, so hat er doch nicht ungereimt vermuthet, daß sie in Feuerströme, von den morastigen Schlünden abscheulich stinkend, geworfen werden. Werden sie nämlich hineingeworfen und zu Nichts vertilgt, so vergehen sie durch des fortwährenden Untergangs Verzögerung: denn sie sind zweideutiger Natur, wie durch Christus gewiß ist und können zu Grunde gehen, wenn sie Gott nicht kennen wollten, oder aber vom Untergang des Lebens errettet werden, wenn sie sich nach seinen Drohungen und Gnaden hinwendeten. Und damit was unbekannt ist, offen sey, dieß ist des Menschen wahrer Tod, der nichts mehr zurückläßt: denn jener, den man vor Augen sieht, ist die Trennung der Seele vom Körper, nicht das äußerste Ende der Vertilgung. Das, sage ich, ist des Menschen wahrer Tod, da die Gott nicht erkennenden Seelen durch die Peinen unendlicher Zeiten hin in wildem Feuer aufgezehrt werden, in welches dieselben gewisse vor Christus unerkannte und vom Wissenden nur allein entdeckte Böse grausam hinabstürzen.
