The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

after, quem ego tam video animo, quam ea, qua oculis cernimus: “I see it as plainly, in my mind, as I can see anything with my eyes.” (Cicero, Letters to Friends.) ↩

אין זה ידיעה ממין ידיעתנו: “His knowledge is not such a sort of a knowledge as ours is.” It differs not ברב ובמעט לבד אבל במין הסציאה: “only in degree, but in kind.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed III, 20.) ↩

Ignari, quid queat esse, Quid nequeat: “Who are ignorant of what can be, and what cannot be,” to use Lucretius’s words more properly. (De Rerum Natura.) ↩

To attempt to comprehend the manner of God’s knowing is the same as to endeavor שנהיח אנהנו הוא: “to become what He is.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed III, 21.) ↩

ידיעתה במה שיהיה לא יוציא הדבר האפשר מטבעו: “His knowledge of anything that is future does not produce the thing that is possible in nature.” (Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed III, 20.) Much might be inserted upon this subject (out of Abravanel particularly) which I shall omit. ↩

Sicut enim tu memoriâ tuâ non cogis facta esse quæ præterierunt; sic Deus præscientiâ suâ non cogit facienda quæ futura sunt: “As we do not force the things that are past to have been done, by our remembering them; so God does not force the things that are future to be done, by his foreknowing them.” (St. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio.) ↩

Things come to pass καὶ κατὰ φυσικὰς ἀκολουθίας καὶ κατὰ λόγον: “according to their natural course, and according to reason;” and even τὰ σμικρότερα δεῖ συντετάχθαι καὶ συνυφάνθαι νομίζειν: “the most minute things, we ought to think, are duly regulated and connected with each other.” (Plotinus, Enneads.) That in Seneca looks something like this: Hoc dico, fulmina non mitti a Jove, sed sic omnia disposita, ut ea etiam, quæ ab illo non fiunt, tamen sine ratione non fiant: qua illius est.⁠ ⁠… Nam etsi Jupiter illa nunc non facit, fecit ut fierent: “I affirm this: that lightning does not come immediately from Jupiter himself, but everything is so ordered that even those things which are not done by Him are notwithstanding not done without reason, which reason is his.⁠ ⁠… For though Jupiter does not do these things at this time, yet He was the cause of their being done.” (Naturales Quaestiones.) ↩

This seems to be what Eusebius means, when he says that Divine providence does (among other things) τοῖς εκτὸς συμβαίνουσι τῆν δέουσαν τάξιν ἀπονέμειν: “appoint a proper course even to those things which we call accidental.” (Church History.) ↩

Τὴν γὰρ οὐδένειαν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ μετρεῖν ἔμαθον: “For I have learned what a mere nothing I am,” in Philo’s words. (Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit.) ↩

The case here put may perhaps supply an answer to that which is said in Mishnah, Berakhot IX, צועק לשעבר הרי זו תפלת שוא וכו׳: “It is a vain prayer, to cry out for what is already past.” ↩

If Plato had not been born in the time of Socrates, in all probability he had not been what he was. And therefore, with Lactantius’s favor, he might have reason to thank God, quòd Atheniensis [natus esset], et quòd temporibus Socratis: “that He was born at Athens, and in the days of Socrates.” (Divine Institutes.) Just as Marcus Aurelius ascribes, gratefully, to the Gods τὸ γνώναι᾿ Αρολλώνιον, Ρούστικον, Μάξιμον: “that he was acquainted with Apollonius Maximus (his tutor), Apollonius, and Rusticus.” (Meditations.) ↩

Plato and the Stoics, in Pseudo-Plutarch, make fate to be συμπλοκὴν ἀιτιῶν τεταγμένην, ἐν συμπλοκῇ καὶ τὸ παρ᾿ ἡμᾶς· ὥστε τὰ μὲν εἱμάρθαι, τὰ δ᾿ ἀνειμάρθαι: “a regular connection of causes, and those things which are in our power to belong to this connection. So that some things are decreed, and some things not.” (Placita Philosophorum.) ↩

The Heathen were of this opinion, otherwise Homer could have had no opportunity of introducing their Deities as he does, Τῷ δ᾿ ἂρ ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θῆκε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη· Ἀλλά τις ἀθανάτων τρέψε φρένας: “Minerva put it into their minds. But some God altered their minds” (Homer, Iliad), and the like often. Plutarch explains these passages thus: Οὐκ ἀναιροῦντα ποιεῖ [Ὄμηρος] τὸν θεόν, ἀλλὰ κινοῦντα τὴν προαίρεσιν· οὐδ᾿ ὁρμὰς ἐνεργαζόμενον, ἀλλὰ φαντασίας ὁρμῶν ἀγωγούς: “[Homer] does not make God to destroy the will of man, but only to move him to will; nor does he produce the appetites themselves in men, but only causes such imaginations as are capable of producing them.” And afterwards, the Gods are said to help men, τῆς ψυχῆς τὸ πρακτικὸν καὶ προαιρετικὸν ἀρχαῖς τισι καὶ φαντασίαις καὶ ἐπινοίαις ἐγείροντες ἢ τοὐναντίον ἀποστρέφοντες καὶ ἱστάντες: “by exciting the powers and faculties of the soul by some secret principles, or imaginations, or thoughts, or, on the contrary, by diverting or stopping them.” (Life of Coriolanus.) ↩

Σφαλεὶς [ὁ μειρακίσκος] οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως, ἐμοι μὲν τὸ φάρμακον, Πτοιοδώρῳ δὲ ἀφάρμακτον [κύλικα] ἐπέδωκα, says Callidemidas, who designed the poison for Ptœodorus, in Lucian of Samosata. (Dialogues of the Dead.) ↩

When Hannibal was in sight of Rome, non ausus est obsidere: “he dared not besiege it.” Sed religione quadam abstinuit, quod diceret, capienda urbis modo non dari voluntatem, modo non dari facultatem, ut testatur et Orosius: “But forbore upon some religious scruple, because he said that sometimes he