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Arnobius
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Introductory Notice to Arnobius.
[3643] So the ms., reading ad modum obsecutionis paratum—“prepared to the mode of compliance;” for which the edd. read adm. executioni—“quite prepared for performing,” except Hildebrand, who gives adm. obsecutioni—“for obedience.”
[3644] So the ms., according to Crusius, but all edd. read sequ-a-tur (for i)—“Is there anything which He has willed which it does not follow,” etc.
[3645] So all edd., reading mutabiles, except the two Roman edd. and Oehler, who gives, as the reading of the ms., nu.—“tottering.”
[3646] Lit., “in the doubtful condition of their lot.”
[3647] Lit., “which may have been of a name.”
[3648] LB., followed by the later edd., inserted si, “if they are,” which is certainly more consistent with the rest of the sentence.
[3649] The ms. reading is utterly corrupt and meaningless—immortalitatis largiter est donum dei certa prolatis. Gelenius, followed by Canterus, Oberthür, and Orelli, emended largi-tio…certe, as above. The two Roman edd. read, -tatem largitus…certam—“bestowed, assured immortality as God’s gift on,” etc.
[3650] i.e., who must therefore have received it if they have it at all.
[3651] Lit., “out, reduced to nothing with annihilation, not to be returned from.”
[3652] Lit., “they are held in a lasting bond,” i.e., of being.
[3653] Plato makes the supreme God, creator of the inferior deities, assure these lesser gods that their created nature being in itself subject to dissolution, His will is a surer ground on which to rely for immortality, than the substance or mode of their own being (Timæus, st. p. 41; translated by Cicero, de Univ., xi., and criticised de Nat. Deor., i. 8 and iii. 12).
[3654] The ms. and both Roman edd. read neque ullo ab-olitio-nis unintelligibly, for which Gelenius proposed nexusque abolitione—“and by the destruction of the bond;” but the much more suitable reading in the margin of Ursinus, translated above, ullo ab alio nis-i, has been adopted by later edd.
[3655] Lit., “be gifted with a saving order.” So the ms., reading salutari iussione, followed by both Rom. edd.; LB. and Orelli read vinctione—“bond;” Gelenius, Canterus, Elmenh., and Oberthür, m-issione—“dismissal.”
[3656] Lit., “that to the gods themselves the natures are intermediate.”
[3657] Lit., “supreme”—principali.
[3658] Cf. i. 48. On this passage Orelli quotes Irenæus, i. 21, where are enumerated several gnostic theories of the creation of the world and men by angels, who are themselves created by the “one unknown Father.” Arnobius is thought, both by Orelli and others, to share in these opinions, and in this discussion to hint at them, but obscurely, lest his cosmology should be confounded by the Gentiles with their own polytheistic system. It seems much more natural to suppose that we have here the indefinite statement of opinions not thoroughly digested.
[3659] Lit., “a generation of.”
[3660] Canterus, Elmenhorst, Oberthür, and Orelli omit ut, which is retained as above by the rest.
[3661] Lit., “obscene.”
[3662] Elmenhorst endeavours to show that Arnobius coincides in this argument with the Epicureans, by quoting Lucr. v. 165 sqq. and Lact. vii. 5, where the Epicurean argument is brought forward, What profit has God in man, that He should have created him? In doing this, it seems not to have been observed that the question asked by Arnobius is a very different one: What place has man in the world, that God should be supposed to have sent him to fill it?
[3663] i.e., so far from this being the case.
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