And again:
"But had the oxen or the lions hands,
Or could with hands depict a work like men,
Were beasts to draw the semblance of the gods,
The horses would them like to horses sketch,
To oxen, oxen, and their bodies make
Of such a shape as to themselves belongs."
Let us hear, then, the lyric poet Bacchylldes speaking of the divine:
"Who to diseases dire[1] never succumb, And blameless are; in nought resembling men."
And also Cleanthes, the Stoic, who writes thus in a poem on the Deity:[2]
"If you ask what is the nature of the good, listen—
That which is regular, just, holy, pious,
Self-governing, useful, fair, fitting,
Grave, independent, always beneficial,
That feels no fear or grief, profitable, painless,
Helpful, pleasant, safe, friendly,
Held in esteem, agreeing with itself, honourable,
Humble, careful, meek, zealous,
Perennial, blameless, ever-during."
And the same, tacitly vilifying the idolatry of the multitude, adds:
"Base is every one who looks to opinion,
With the view of deriving any good from it."
We are not, then, to think of God according to the opinion of the multitude.
"For I do not think that secretly,
Imitating the guise of a scoundrel,
He would go to thy bed as a man,"
says Amphion to Antiope. And Sophocles plainly writes:
"His mother Zeus espoused,
Not in the likeness of gold, nor covered
With swan's plumage, as the Pluronian girl
He impregnated; but an out and out man."
He further proceeds, and adds:
- ↑ H. Stephanus, in his Fragments of Baccliylides, reads αἰκελείων (foul) instead of ἀεικαιλιαν of the text.
- ↑ Quoted in Exhortation to the Heathen, p. 72, and is here corrected from the text there.
