Excerpts from R. G. Bury's Loeb Classical Library translation.
Sextus uses ho theos ('the god') in three ways:
- "the god who was just mentioned" - usually translated as "the god" by Bury.
- "the gods as a species", i.e. all gods. Often misleadingly translated as "God".
- "the highest (rational) principle", i.e. the Cosmic God of Stoicism, the Demiurge in Middle Platonism, the First Mover of Roman-period Aristotelianism. Also translated as "God" (a less Christianizing translation might be "The God").
The expression is often ambiguous between the second and third sense, or embraces both meanings.
Book II
5
"[W]hen the Stoic criticizes the statement of the Epicurean that “Being is divided,” or that “God does not foreknow events in the Universe,” or that “Pleasure is the Good,” has he apprehended or has he not apprehended? If he has apprehended these dogmas, by asserting their real truth he entirely overthrows the Porch; while if he has not apprehended them, he is unable to say anything against them."
141
"And of arguments which deduce something non-evident, some conduct us through the premisses to the conclusion by way of progression only, others both by way of progression and by way of discovery as well. By progression, for instance, are those which seem to depend on belief and memory, such as the argument “If a god has said to you that this man will be rich, this man will be rich; but this god (assume that I point to Zeus) has said to you that this man will be rich; therefore he will be rich”; for we assent to the conclusion not so much on account of the logical force of the premisses as because of our belief in the statement of the god."
Book III
1-12
"Concerning the logical division of what is called “Philosophy” the foregoing account may suffice by way of outline.
Chapter I.—Of The Physical Division
Pursuing the same method of exposition in our investigation of the Physical division of Philosophy, we shall not refute each of their statements in order, but we shall endeavour to overthrow those of a more general character wherein the rest also are included.
Let us begin with their doctrine of Principles.
Chapter II.—Of Efficient Principles
Since it is agreed by most that of Principles some are material and some efficient, we shall make our argument start with the efficient; for these, as they assert, are superior to the material.
Chapter III.—Concerning God
Since, then, the majority have declared that God is a most efficient Cause, let us begin by inquiring
about God, first premising that although, following the ordinary view, we affirm undogmatically that Gods exist and reverence Gods and ascribe to them foreknowledge, yet as against the rashness of the Dogmatists we argue as follows.
When we conceive objects we ought to form conceptions of their substancesc as well, as, for instance, whether they are corporeal or incorporeal. And also of their forms; for no one could conceive “Horse” unless he had first learnt the horse’s form. And of course the object conceived must be conceived <as existing> somewhere. Since, then, some of the Dogmatists assert that God is corporeal, others that he is incorporeal, and some that he has human form, others not, and some that he exists in space, others not; and of those who assert that he is in space some put him inside the world, others outsided; how shall we be able to reach a conception of God when we have no agreement about his substance or his form or his place of abode? Let them first agree and consent together that God is of such and such a nature, and then, when they have sketched out for us that nature, let them require that we should form a conception of God. But so long as they disagree interminably, we cannot say what agreed notion we are to derive from them.
But, say they, when you have conceived of a Being imperishable and blessed, regard this as God. But this is foolish; for just as one who does not know Dion is unable also to conceive the properties which belong to him as Dion, so also when we do not know the substance of God we shall also be unable to learn and conceive his properties. And apart from this, let them tell us what a “blessed” thing is—whether it is that which energizes according to virtue and foreknows what is subject to itself, or that which is void of energy and neither performs any work itself nor provides work for another. For indeed about this also they disagree interminably and thus render “the blessed” something we cannot conceive, and therefore God also.
Further, in order to form a conception of God one must necessarily—so far as depends on the Dogmatists—suspend judgement as to his existence or non-existence. For the existence of God is not pre-evident. For if God impressed us automatically, the Dogmatists would have agreed together regarding his essence, his character, and his place; whereas their interminable disagreement has made him seem to us non-evident and needing demonstration. Now he that demonstrates the existence of God does so by means of what is either pre-evident or non-evident. Certainly not, then, by means of the pre-evident; for if what demonstrates God’s existence were pre-evident, then—since the thing proved is conceived together with that which proves it, and therefore is apprehended along with it as well, as we have establishedc—God’s existence also will be pre-evident, it being apprehended along with the pre-evident fact which proves it. But, as we have shown, it is not pre-evident; therefore it is not proved, either, by a pre-evident fact. Nor yet by what is non-evident. For if the non-evident fact which is capable of proving God’s existence, needing proof as it does, shall be said to be proved by means of a pre-evident fact, it will no longer be non-evident but pre-evident. Therefore the non-evident fact which proves his existence is not proved by what is pre-evident. Nor yet by what is non-evident; for he who asserts this will be driven into circular reasoning when we keep demanding proof every time for the non-evident fact which he produces as proof of the one last propounded. Consequently, the existence of God cannot be proved from any other fact. But if God’s existence is neither automatically pre-evident nor proved from another fact, it will be inapprehensible.
There is this also to be said. He who affirms that God exists either declares that he has, or that he has not, forethought for the things in the universe, and in the former case that such forethought is for all things or for some things. But if he had forethought for all, there would have been nothing bad and no badness in the world; yet all things, they say, are full of badness; hence it shall not be said that God forethinks all things. If, again, he forethinks some, why does he forethink these things and not those? For either he has both the will and the power to forethink all things, or else he has the will but not the power, or the power but not the will, or neither the will nor the power. But if he had had both the will and the power he would have had forethought for all things; but for the reasons stated above he does not forethink all; therefore he has not both the will and the power to forethink all. And if he has the will but not the power, he is less strong than the cause which renders him unable to forethink what he does not forethink: but it is contrary to our notion of God that he should be weaker than anything. And if, again, he has the power but not the will to have forethought for all, he will be held to be malignant; while if he has neither the will nor the power, he is both malignant and weak—an impious tiling to say about God. Therefore God has no forethought for the things in the universe.
But if he exercises no forethought for anything, and there exists no work nor product of his, no one will be able to name the source of the apprehension of God’s existence, inasmuch as he neither appears of himself nor is apprehended by means of any of his products. So for these reasons we cannot apprehend whether God exists. And from this we further conclude that those who positively affirm God’s existence are probably compelled to be guilty of impiety; for if they say that he forethinks all things they will be declaring that God is the cause of what is evil, while if they say that he forethinks some things or nothing they will be forced to say that God is either malignant or weak, and obviously this is to use impious language."
30-32
"So far, then, as concerns the efficient Principle this account will suffice for the present. But we must also give a brief account of what are called the Material Principles. Now that these are inapprehensible may easily be gathered from the disagreement which exists about them amongst the Dogmatists. For Pherecydes of Syros declared earth to be the Principle of all things; Thales of Miletus, water; Anaximander (his pupil), the Unlimited; Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia, air; Hippasus of Metapontum, fire; Xenophanes of Colophon, earth and water; Oenopides of Chios, fire and air; Hippo of Rhegium, fire and water; Onomacritus, in his Orphica, fire and water and earth; the School of Empedocles as well as the Stoics, fire, air, water and earth—for why should one even mention that mysterious “indeterminate matter” which some of them talk about, when not even they themselves are positive that they apprehend it? Aristotle the Peripatetic <takes as his Principles> fire, air, water, earth, and the “revolving body”; Democritus and Epicurus, atoms; Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, homoeomeriese; Diodorus, surnamed Cronos, minimal and non-composite bodies; Heracleides Ponticus and Asclepiades the Bithynian, homogeneous masses; the School of Pythagoras, the numbers; the Mathematicians, the limits of bodies; Strato the Physicist, the qualities."
119-123
"Space, or place, then, is used in two senses, the strict and the loose—loosely of place taken broadly (as “my city”), and strictly of exactly containing place whereby we are exactly enclosed. Our inquiry, then, is concerned with space of the strict kind. This some have affirmed, others denied; and others have suspended judgement about it. And of these, those who maintain its existence have recourse to the evidence of experience. Who, they argue, could assert that space does not exist when he sees the parts of space, such as right and left, up and down, before and behind: and when he is now here, now there, and sees that where my teacher was talking there I am talking now; and when he observes that the place of things naturally light is different from that of things naturally heavy: and when, also, he hears the ancients declaring that “Verily first of all came Chaos into existence”? For space, they say, is called Chaos from its capacity for containingc what becomes within it. Then, too, if any body exists, space also exists: for without it body would not exist. And if “that-by-which” exists, and “that-from-which,” there exists; also “that-in-which,” and this is space; but the first is in each of the two, therefore the second is in both.
But those who deny space do not admit the existence of the parts of space; for space, they say, is nothing else than its parts, and he who tries to deduce the existence of space from the assumption that its parts exist is seeking to establish the matter in question by means of itself. Equally silly is the language of those who assert that a thing becomes or has become in some place, when space in general is not admitted. And they also presume the reality of body, which is not self-evident; and, in much the same way as space, both that-from-which and that-by-which are proved to be unreal. Hesiod, too, is no competent judge of philosophical problems. And while thus rebutting the arguments that tend to establish the existence of space, they also demonstrate its unreality more elaborately by making use of what are held to be the most weighty views of the Dogmatists about space, namely those of the Stoics and Peripatetics, in the following fashion."
198-228
"And perhaps it may not be amiss, in addition to what has been said, to dwell more in detail, though briefly, on the notions concerning things shameful and not shameful, unholy and not so, laws and customs, piety towards the gods, reverence for the departed, and the like. For thus we shall discover a great variety of belief concerning what ought or ought not to be done.
For example, amongst us sodomy is regarded as shameful or rather illegal, but by the Germani, they say, it is not looked on as shameful but as a customary thing. It is said, too, that in Thebes long ago this practice was not held to be shameful, and they say that Meriones the Cretan was so called by way of indicating the Cretans’ custom, and some refer to this the burning love of Achilles for Patroclus. And what wonder, when both the adherents of the Cynic philosophy and the followers of Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, declare that this practice is indifferent? Having intercourse with a woman, too, in public, although deemed by us to be shameful, is not thought to be shameful by some of the Indians; at any rate they couple publicly with indifference, like the philosopher Crates, as the story goes. Moreover, prostitution is with us a shameful and disgraceful thing, but with many of the Egyptians it is highly esteemed; at least, they say that those women who have the greatest number of lovers wear an ornamental ankle-ring as a token of their proud position. And with some of them the girls marry after collecting a dowry before marriage by means of prostitution. We see the Stoics also declaring that it is not amiss to keep company with a prostitute or to live on the profits of prostitution.
Moreover, with us tattooing is held to be shameful and degrading, but many of the Egyptians and Sarmatians tattoo their offspring. Also, it is a shameful thing with us for men to wear earrings, but amongst some of the barbarians, like the Syrians, it is a token of nobility. And some, by way of marking their nobility still further, pierce the nostrils also of their children and suspend from them rings of silver or gold—a thing which nobody with us would do, just as no man here would dress himself in a flowered robe reaching to the feet, although this dress, which with us is thought shameful, is held to be highly respectable by the Persians. And when, at the Court of Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, a dress of this description was offered to the philosophers Plato and Aristippus, Plato sent it away with the words—
A man am I, and never could I don
A woman’s garb;
but Aristippus accepted it, saying—
For e’en midst revel-routs
She that is chaste will keep her purity.
Thus, even in the case of these sages, while the one of them deemed this practice shameful, the other did not. And with us it is sinful to marry one’s mother or one’s own sister; but the Persians, and especially those of them who are reputed to practise wisdom—namely, the Magi,—marry their mothers; and the Egyptiansa take their sisters in marriage, even as the poet says—
Thus spake Zeus unto Hera, his wedded wife and his sister.
Moreover, Zeno of Citium says that it is not amiss for a man to rub his mother’s private part with his own private part, just as no one would say it was bad for him to rub any other part of her body with his hand. Chrysippus, too, in his book The State approves of a father getting children by his daughter, a mother by her son, and a brother by his sister. And Plato, in more general terms, has declared that wives ought to be held in common. Masturbation, too, which we count loathsome, is not disapproved by Zeno; and we are informed that others, too, practise this evil as though it were a good thing.
Moreover, the eating of human flesh is sinful with us, but indifferent amongst whole tribes of barbarians. Yet why should one speak of “barbarians” when even Tydeus is said to have devoured the brains of his enemy, and the Stoic School declare that it is not wrong for a man to eat either other men’s flesh or his own? And with most of us it is sinful to defile an altar of a god with human blood, but the Laconians lash themselves fiercely over the altar of Artemis Orthosia in order that a great stream of blood may flow over the altar of the goddess. Moreover, some sacrifice a human victim to Cronos, just as the Scythians sacrifice strangers to Artemis; whereas we deem that holy places are defiled by the slaying of a man. Adulterers are, of course, punished by law with us, but amongst some peoplesd intercourse with other men’s wives is a thing indifferent; and some philosophers, too, declare that intercourse with the wife of another is indifferent.
With us, also, the law enjoins that the fathers should receive due care from their children; but the Scythians cut their throats when they get to be over sixty years old. And what wonder, seeing that Cronos cut off his father’s genitals with a sickle, and Zeus plunged Cronos down to Tartarus, and Athena with the help of Hera and Poseidon attempted to bind her father with fetters? Moreover, Cronos decided to destroy his own children, and Solon gave the Athenians the law “concerning things immune,” by which he allowed each man to slay his own child; but with us the laws forbid the slaying of children. The Roman lawgivers also ordain that the children are subjects and slaves of their fathers, and that power over the children’s property belongs to the fathers and not the children, until the children have obtained their freedom like bought slaves; but this custom is rejected by others as being despotic. It is the law, too, that homicides should be punished; but gladiators when they kill often receive actual commendation. Moreover, the laws prevent the striking of free men; yet when athletes strike free men, and often even kill them, they are deemed worthy of rewards and crowns. With us, too, the law bids each man to have one wife, but amongst the Thracians and Gaetulians (a Libyan tribe) each man has many wives. Piracy, too, is with us illegal and criminal, but with many of the barbarians it is not disapproved. Indeed they say that the Cilicians used to regard it as a noble pursuit, so that they held those who died in the course of piracy to be worthy of honour. So too Nestor—in the poet’s account—after welcoming Telemachus and his comrades, addresses them thus—
Say, are you roaming
Aimlessly, like sea-rovers?
Yet, if piracy had been an improper thing, he would not have welcomed them in this friendly way, because of his suspicion that they might be people of that kind.
Moreover, thieving is with us illegal and criminal; yet those who declare that Hermes is a most thievish god cause this practice to be accounted not criminal—for how could a god be bad? And some say that the Laconians also punished those who thieved, not because they had thieved, but because they had been found out. Moreover, the coward and the man who throws away his shield are in many places punished by law; and this is why the Laconian mother, when giving a shield to her son as he set out for the war, said, “Either with this, my child, or upon it.” Yet Archilochus, as though vaunting to us of his flight after flinging away his shield, speaks thus of himself in his poems—
Over my shield some Saïan warrior gloats,—
The shield I left, though loth, beside the bush—
A flawless piece of armour; I myself
Fled and escaped from death which endeth all.
And the Amazons used to maim the males amongst their offspring so as to make them incapable of any manly action, while they themselves attended to warfare; though with us the opposite practice is regarded as right. The Mother of the gods, also, approves of effeminates, and the goddess would not have decided thus if unmanliness were naturally a bad thing. So it is that, in regard to justice and injustice and the excellence of manliness, there is a great variety of opinion.
Around all matters of religion and theology also, there rages violent controversy. For while the majority declare that gods exist, some deny their existence, like Diagoras of Melos, and Theodorus, and Critias the Athenian. And of those who maintain the existence of gods, some believe in the ancestral gods, others in such as are constructed in the Dogmatic systems—as Aristotle asserted that God is incorporeal and “the limit of heaven,” the Stoics that he is a breath which permeates even through things foul, Epicurus that he is anthropomorphic, Xenophanes that he is an impassive sphere. Some, too, hold that he cares for human affairs, others that he does not so care; for Epicurus declares that “what is blessed and incorruptible neither feels trouble itself nor causes it to others.” Hence ordinary people differ also, some saying that there is one god, others that there are many gods and of various shapes; in fact, they even come to share the notions of the Egyptiansc who believe in gods that are dog-faced, or hawk-shaped, or cows or crocodiles or anything else.
Hence, too, sacrificial usages, and the ritual of worship in general, exhibit great diversity. For things which are in some cults accounted holy are in others accounted unholy. But this would not have been so if the holy and the unholy existed by nature. Thus, for example, no one would sacrifice a pig to Sarapis, but they sacrifice it to Heracles and Asclepius. To sacrifice a sheep to Isis is forbidden, but it is offered up in honour of the so-called Mother of the gods and of other deities. To Cronos a human victim is sacrificed <at Carthago>, although this is regarded by most as an impious act. In Alexandria they offer a cat to Horus and a beetle to Thetis—a thing which no one here would do. To Poseidon they sacrifice a horse; but to Apollo (especially the Didymaean Apollo) that animal is an abomination. It is an act of piety to offer goats to Artemis, but not to Asclepius. And I might add a host of similar instances, but I forbear since my aim is to be brief. Yet surely, if a sacrifice had been holy by nature or unholy, it would have been deemed so by all men alike.
Examples similar to these may also be found in the religious observances with regard to human diet. For a Jew or an Egyptian priest would sooner die than eat swine’s flesh; by a Libyan it is regarded as a most impious thing to taste the meat of a sheep, by some of the Syrians to eat a dove, and by others to eat sacrificial victims. And in certain cults it is lawful, but in others impious, to eat fish. And amongst the Egyptians some of those who are reputed to be sages believe it is sinful to eat an animal’s head, others the shoulder, others the foot, others some other part. And no one would bring an onion as an offering to Zeus Casius of Pelusium, just as no priest of the Libyan Aphrodite would taste garlic. And in some cults they abstain from mint, in others from catmint, in others from parsley. And some declare that they would sooner eat their fathers’ heads than beans. Yet, amongst others, these things are indifferent. Eating dog’s flesh, too, is thought by us to be sinful, but some of the Thracians are reported to be dog-eaters. Possibly this practice was customary also amongst the Greeks; and on this account Diocles, too, starting from the practices of the Asclepiadae, prescribes that hounds’ flesh should be given to certain patients. And some, as I have said, even eat human flesh indifferently, a thing which with us is accounted sinful. Yet, if the rules of ritual and of unlawful foods had existed by nature, they would have been observed by all men alike.
A similar account may be given of reverence towards the departed. Some wrap the dead up completely and then cover them with earth, thinking that it is impious to expose them to the sun; but the Egyptians take out their entrails and embalm them and keep them above ground with themselves. The fish-eating tribes of the Ethiopians cast them into the lakes, there to be devoured by the fish; the Hyrcanians expose them as a prey to dogs, and some of the Indians to vultures. And they say that some of the Troglodytes take the corpse to a hill, and then after tying its head to its feet cast stones upon it amidst laughter, and when they have made a heap of stones over it they leave it there. And some of the barbarians slay and eat those who are over sixty years old, but bury in the earth those who die young. Some burn the dead; and of these some recover and preserve their bones, while others show no care but leave them scattered about. And they say that the Persians impale their dead and embalm them with nitre, after which they wrap them round in bandages. How much grief others endure for the dead we see ourselves."
237
"[W]hen [someone] experiences what he regards as natural evils he deems himself to be pursued by Furies, and when he becomes possessed of what seems to him good things he falls into no ordinary state of disquiet both through arrogance and through fear of losing them, and through trying to guard against finding himself again amongst what he regards as natural evils;"
247-249
"And he proceeds, in the same treatises, to introduce amongst us cannibalism, saying: “And if from a living body a part be cut off that is good for food, we should not bury it nor otherwise get rid of it, but consume it, so that from our parts a new part may arise.” And in his book On Duty he says expressly, regarding the burial of parents: “When our parents decease we should use the simplest forms of burial, as though the body—like the nails or teeth or hair—were nothing to us, and we need bestow no care or attention on a thing like it. Hence, also, men should make use of the flesh, when it is good, for food, just as also when one of their own parts, such as the foot, is cut off, it would be proper that it and the like parts should be so used; but when the flesh is not good, they should either bury it and leave it, or burn it up and let the ashes lie, or cast it far away and pay no more regard to it than to nails or hair.”
Of such a kind are most of the philosophers’ theories; but they would not dare to put them into practice unless they lived under the laws of the Cyclopes or Laestrygones."
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