City of God (Penguin Classics) (191 page)

27
. cf. ch. 7; 9.

28
. cf. Bk III, 13. The other epithets are not found as tides of Jupiter in classical literature.

29
. cf. ch. 9n.

30
.
Nodutus
and
Volutina:
cf. Bk IV, 8.
Rumina
occurs in Bk IV, 21.

31
. Bk IV, 21; 24.

32
. Sall., Cat., 11, 3.

33
. cf. ch. 9.

34
.
Genius:
the spirit presiding over man’s birth, and also dwelling with him, like a guardian angel, or in him, giving him the power of generation; hence the bed is the
lectus genialis
. The notion is somewhat vague and elastic, and St Augustine in ch. 23 seems to identify a man’s genius with his soul, or spirit. The
genius
of the Roman Empire was the focus of emperor-worship. A place .could have a
genius
loci; and we find mention of the
genius
urbis
Romac
. The Genius included among the ‘select’ gods in ch. 2 is perhaps the
genius populi S-omani
.

35
. cf. Apul.,
De Deo Socr.
, 14.

36
. Mercury. St Augustine’s (or Varro’s) derivation is, as usual, fantastic The name is almost certainly connected with
merx, merces
, ‘merchandise’, as the Augustan philologist, Verrius Flaccus, thought (Festus - epitomata of Ver-rius Raccus - De Verb.
Sign.
, 11).
Hermeneia
is of course derived from Hermes.

37
.
Saturn on the Capitol.
Legend said that Saturn was driven out of Crete by Jupiter, and settled on the hill Saturnia, which was later called the Capitol when Jupiter took it over; cf. Bk IV, 23.

38
.
As Trivia.

39
. cf.Bk Iv, 11.

40
. Ceres, Vesta: cf.Bk Iv, ion.The
Great
Mother: cf.Bk VI, 7; Bk II, 4n.

41
. cf.Bk iv, 10.

42
.
Xenophanes
(sixth century) wrote a philosophic poem on Nature of which only fragments survive. He attacked polytheism and anthropomorphic conceptions of deity, and ridiculed those who professed knowledge about divine matters.

43
. Euhemerism, cf.Bk Iv, 27n.

44
. cf.Bk Iv, 10.

45
.
The Eleusiman cult
. The mysteries of Demeter and Persephone seem to have arisen from a local fertility rite connected with the autumn sowing at Eleusis in Attica some twelve miles from Athens. After the union of Eleusis with Athens (about 600 b.c.) this rite somehow developed into a ceremony of initiation, the principal features of which were a procession from Athens to Eleusis, a ceremonial bath of purification in the sea, and some kind of performance in a darkened hall, consisting of ‘doings, sayings, and showings’.

46
. cf.Bk Iv, 8n.

47
. cf.Bk Iv, 11n; Bk VI, 9.

48
. cf.Bkrv, 11.

49
. Unknown.
Venilia
in Bk IV, 11 appears to be a different deity (cf.n.there).

50
.
The three degrees of the soul
are first distinguished in Aristotle’s De
Anima.

51
. cf.ch.13n.

52
. cf.Bk Iv, 10.

53
.
Altor
and
Rusor
are unknown elsewhere.

54
. cf.Bk n, 7n.

55
. cf.Bk Iv, 8n.

56
.
Vesta
= Gk.
Hestias
, the hearth, from an Indo-European root
vas =
burn; cf.Bk rv, 10n.

57
. Attis (cf.Bk VI, 7n.) was a foreign divinity (a Phrygian god associated with Cybele) and Varro had no reason to treat of him in his
Roman
Antiquities.

58
. Porphyry of Tyre (A.D.Z33~c.300): a pupil of Plotinus and a leading exponent of Neoplatonism. He wrote an attack on Christianity, Against the
Christians
, which is often mentioned by the Christian Fathers.

59
. cf.ch.19.

60
. There is here a play on the Latin noun mundus (the world) and the adjective
immundus
(impure).

61
. Aen., 8, 319f.; cf.ch.15.

62
. cf.Bk IV, 2711.

63
. cf.ch.7; 10.

64
.
Samothrace.
The mysteries of the Cabin, non-Hellenic deities, were probably (like Dionysus) from Phyrgia. The centre of their worship was Samothrace, where rites of initiation were performed at the festival of Cabiria, but their cult was observed on other islands and on the mainland, and it became widespread in the Hellenistic age. Primarily gods of fertility, they were often called the ‘Great Gods’; but they also extended their protection to sailors and in later times they were assimilated with the Dioscuri because their functions overlapped in this regard.

65
. sc. Jupiter and Neptune.

66
. cf.ch.24.

67
. cf.Bk v, 15 and Bk x, 1.

68
. Bk m, 9.

69
. Liv., 40, 29; Plut, Num., 22; Plin., 13, 13, 84s.

70
. Such
practices were permitted.
We have no record of legislation against magical practices as such until the time of Diocletian, whose laws were reinforced by edicts of Constantine forbidding all nocturnal ceremonies and all forms of divination concerned with individuals.

1
. cf.Wisd., 7, 24ff.

2
. cf.Bk vi, 511.

3
. Thales, born c.624 B.c. As a statesman he helped to organize Ionian resistance to Persia. He is reputed to have foretold the solar eclipse of 23 May 585, the day of the battle of the Halys, and to have introduced to Greece Egyptian mensuration. His cosmological speculations make him the father of natural science. Water, in his theory, is the fundamental and eternal substance from which all things are derived, and to which they return. His works are not extant

4
.
Anaximander
of Miletus (b.610 B.c.), author of the first Greek prose treatise. In his theory the source of all things is ‘the Infinite’, an indefinite and unlimited substance capable of modification into the various forms of matter. St Augustine seems to have misunderstood this, perhaps by a confusion with Anaxagoras (see n.6) but he is right about Anaximander’s teachings of innumerable worlds. Anaximander seems to have been the first to hold that the earth is spherical, thus revolutionizing astronomy. He is also credited with the introduction of the sundial into Greece, and with the drawing of the first map of the world.

5
.
Anaximenes
of Miletus
(fl.c.
500 B.c.), taught that air is rarefied into fire, condensed into cloud, water, earth, stone. The earth is flat (a retrogression in astronomy) and the heavenly bothes are flakes of fire exhaled from the earth.

6
.
Anaxagoras
of Clazomenae (c.500-c.430 B.c.), teacher and friend of Pericles. Accounts of his teaching vary, but St Augustine seems right on the fundamental point, a radical pluralism of an infinitely complex matter, derived from an infinity of ‘seeds’, homogeneous for each distinct substance. The universe is controlled by a Supreme Intelligence, independent of matter, and in this he is perhaps the originator of the mind-matter dualism. Another ‘flat-earther’.

7
.
Diogenes
of Appollonia (
fl
.
c
440
B.C
.) revived the teaching of Anaximenes (he can hardly have been a pupil) about air and its rarefaction and condensation. He made important contributions to physiology. In astronomy he followed Anaximenes and Anaxagoras.

8
.
Archelaus
(
fi
. fifth century) seems to have combined the ‘seeds’ of An axagoras with the ‘air’ of Anaximenes and Diogenes.

9
. Aristippus of Cyrene, founder of the Cyrenaic school, was probably not the companion of Socrates, but the grandson of that Aristippus. He taught that immediate pleasure was the only end of action; but he seems to have distinguished between pleasures, since some ultimately cause pain. Man must be selective about his pleasures; and since this involves self-control, we find an approach here to the teaching of Epicurus (cf. Bk XIV, 2n.). Antisthenes (
fl
400
B.C
.); pupil of Socrates. The reputed founder of the Cynic school (
cf
. Bk XIV, 20n.), he taught that virtue, and resulting happiness, depended on freedom from wants and desires.

10
.
None nearer to us than the Platonists
: cf.
De Ver
. Rel.,7, ‘if these men (viz. the Platonists) could have had this life over again with us.… They would have become Christians, with the change of a few words and statements.’ Minucius Felix says much the same in Octovius, ch. 21; and Gement of Alexandria (
Strom
., 1, 21) quotes Numenius of Apamea: ‘What, after all, is Flato but Moses in Attic Greek?’

11
. cf. Bk VII, 34.

12
. cf. ch. 27; Bk XII, 11; Plut.,
Alex
., 27.

13
. Tusc. Disp., 1, 13, 29.

14
.
Epicurus
(341–270
B.C
.) accepted the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus (
fl c
. 420
B.C
.).

Stoics held that the universe, at the end of each cycle (the series of which is infinite) is dissolved into the divine fire.

15
. Rom. 1, 19f.

16
.
Epicurus
held that ‘the criteria of truth were the feelings, the preconceptions and the experiences’ (Diog. Laert. 10, 20, 31). In Stoic theory perceptions arise from impressions; their repetition produces experience, and from experience concepts are formed.

17
. cf. Gorg., 470D; 508B.

18
. Diogenes Laertius (1, 122) describes the diffusion of philosophy among the Magi of Asia Minor, ‘the gymnosophists’ of India (cf. Bk X, 32; XIV, 17; XV 20), the Celts, the Galatians, the Druids, and in North Africa.

19
. Col. 2, 8.

20
. Rom. 1, 19f.

21
. Acts 17, 28, referring to Cleanthes’
Hymn to Zeus
and the
Phaenomena
of Aratus.

22
. Rom. 1, 21f.

23
.
In some of my books
:
De Doetr
.
Christ
., 2, 43. St Augustines revokes the idea in
Retract
, 2, 4. For Plato’s supposed acquaintance with Scripture, cf. Justin Martyr (
Apol
., 1, 60), Origen (
C. Cels
., 4, 39), Eusebius (
Praep. Ev
., 11, 9, 2), Cyril of Alexandria (
C. Jul
., 29), Clement of Alexandria (
Strom
., 1, 22).

24
. Jeremiah was called to a prophetic ministry
c
. 626
B
.
C
. (Jer. 1, 2); Plato lived 428–347. ‘About a century’ is something of an understatement on St Augustine’s part. For the translation of the Septuagint see Bk XV, 13.

25
. Gen. 1, 1f.

26
. Tim., 31B.

27
. Tim., 32B.

28
. Exod. 3, 14.

29
. cf. e.g., Rp., 2, 380D-381C

30
. cf. Bk IV 30n.

31
. They are usually called ‘Neoplatonists’.

32
.
Plotinus
(
c
.
A
.
D
. 205-
c
. 270): born in Egypt, and settled in Rome in 244;the chief Neoplatonist teacher. Reality, in his doctrine, is to be found in thespiritual world accessible to reason; the material world is in comparison unreal, created by the soul through the imposition of ‘forms’. The ascendingdegrees of reality are: matter - soul - reason - God (who is pure existence). Themoral aim for man is to achieve purification through discipline, and thus toascend to the spiritual world through love of the Divine.