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Arnobius
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Introductory Notice to Arnobius.
[3284] As a soul was assigned to each individual at his birth, so a genius was attributed to a state. The genius of the Roman people was often represented on ancient coins.
[3285] Thus the Athenians paid honours to Leæna, the Romans to Acca Laurentia and Flora.
[3286] The superstitions of the Egyptians are here specially referred to.
[3287] That is, by whose pleasure and at whose command they are preserved from annihilation.
[3288] So Orelli, adopting a conjecture of Meursius, for the ms. nobis.
[3289] That is, not self-existent, but sprung from something previously in being.
[3290] Columen is here regarded by some as equal to culmen; but the term “pillar” makes a good sense likewise.
[3291] This is according to the doctrine of Pythagoras, Plato, Origen, and others, who taught that the souls of men first existed in heavenly beings, and that on account of sins of long standing they were transferred to earthly bodies to suffer punishment. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. p. 433.
[3292] The Peripatetics called God the locus rerum, τόπος πάντων, the “locality and the area of all things;” that is, the being in whom all else was contained.
[3293] [This prayer of Arnobius is surely worthy of admiration.]
[3294] Diagoras of Melos and Theodorus of Cyrene, called the Atheists. The former flourished about b.c. 430, the latter about b.c. 310. See Cic., Nat. Deor., i. 2. [Note the universal faith, cap. 34, infra.]
[3295] Protagoras of Abdera, b. b.c. 480, d. 411.
[3296] Democritus of Abdera, b. b.c. 460, and Epicurus, b. b.c. 342, d. 270.
[3297] Obstinatione, literally “stubbornness;” Walker conjectures opinatione, “imaginings,” which Orelli approves.
[3298] So the ms.; for which Meursius would read, nobis vobisque, communis esset (for cessat)—“is to us and to you, the anger of the gods would be shared in common.”
[3299] So Ursinus, followed by most edd., for the reading of the ms. Fenta Fatua, cf. v. 18. A later writer has corrected the ms. Fanda, which, Rigaltius says, an old gloss renders “mother.”
[3300] So restored by Salmasius for Dioscuri, and understood by him as meaning Dea Syria, i.e., Venus, because it is said that a large egg having been found by the fish in the Euphrates, was pushed up by them to the dry land, when a dove came down, and sat upon it until the goddess came forth. Such was the form of the legend according to Nigidius; but Eratosthenes spoke of both Venus and Cupid as being produced in this manner. The Syrian deities were therefore Venus, Cupid, and perhaps Adonis. It should be remembered, however, that the Syrians paid reverence to pigeons and fish as gods (Xen., Anab., i. 4, 9), and that these may therefore be meant.
[3301] So all edd., except those of Hildebrand and Oehler, for the ms. censum—“list.”
[3302] That is, that God is a Spirit. [Note our author’s spirit of faith in Christ.]
[3303] Orelli would refer these words to God; he thinks that with those immediately following they may be understood of God’s spiritual nature,—an idea which he therefore supposes Arnobius to assert had never been grasped by the heathen.
[3304] So Gelenius, followed by Orelli and others, for the corrupt reading of the ms., idem ne quis; but possibly both this and the preceding clause have crept into the text from the margin, as in construction they differ from the rest of the sentence, both that which precedes, and that which follows.
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