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

Ἡμεῖς τὸν ὠνούμενον βιβλία Πλάτωνος ὠνεῖσθαί φαμεν Πλάτωνα κ.τ.λ.: “He who buys Plato’s books, we say, buys Plato.” (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris.) ↩

Virgil (in The Eclogues) and Theocritus (in The Idyls). ↩

ותטמ שמשמ: “On the bed together.” (Rashi, Commentary on the Torah, on Genesis 26:8.) ↩

Only ענון נשוק וחיבוק, “kissing and embracing her,” according to Moses Alshek. (Torat Mosheh, on Genesis 26:8.) ↩

Ὦτα γὰρ τυγχάνει ἀνθρώποισι ἐόντα ἀπιστότερα ὀφθαλμῶν: “Men do not usually give so much credit to their ears, as to their eyes.” (Herodotus, The Persian Wars.) ↩

That instance of Menelaus and his guest Alexander, in Arrian, might be subjoined to this. Εἴ τις αὐτοὺς εἶδεν φιλοφρονουμένους ἀλλήλους, ἠπίστησεν ἂν τῷ λέγοντι οὐκ εἶναι φίλους αὐτούς: “If anyone saw them treating each other in a very friendly manner, he would not believe a person who should say that they were not friends.” (Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus.) ↩

De duplici martyrio ad Fortunatum, Desiderius Erasmus. ↩

Something like this is that in one of Gregory Nazinzen’s orations (Contra Julianum imperatorem.) When some Christians, who had been ensnared by Julian, asked, πῶς Χριστὸν ἠρνήμεθα: “How have we denied Christ?” They were answered, ὅτι κατὰ τοῦ πυρὸς ἐθυμιάσατε: “you have offered incense on the altar.” ↩

Τὰ ψευδῆ πράγματα διώκων: “Pursuing things that are false.” (Johannes Chrysostom, Expositiones in Psalmos.) Καὶ στολισμὸς ἀνδρὸς, καὶ γέλως, καὶ βῆμα ποδὸς ἀναγγέλλει περὶ αὐτοῦ: “Nay the habit of a man, or his laugh, or the step of his foot, will discover who he is,” as Basil speaks: and therefore greater things must do it more. (Chrysostom, The Prayer.) ↩

As that word Βλιτρι (Blitri) in Diogenes Laërtius’s Life of Zeno, which word has no meaning at all. ↩

Αἰγύπτιοι⁠ ⁠… τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ἔμπαλιν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ἀνθρώποισι ἐστήσαντο ἤθεά τε καὶ νόμους, κ.τ.λ.: “The Egyptians⁠ ⁠… have established a great many laws and customs, quite contrary to those of other people.” (Herodotus, The Persian Wars.) ↩

המתפלל לא יעמוד בתפלה⁠ ⁠… בראש מגולה: “He that prays, must not have his head uncovered while he is praying.” (Maimonodes in Mishneh Torah, Hilkot Tefillah, V, 5, and others everywhere.) ↩

Θεὸν ὁμολογοῦσιν ἐιδέναι, τοῖς δὲ ἔργοις ἀρνοῦνται: “They profess to know God, but in works they deny him.” (Epistle to Titus 1:16.) And τὸ ἔργοις ἀρνεῖσθαι Θεὸν ὐπερ τὸ εὶπεῖν ἐν στόματι: “To deny God by our works is worse than to deny him by our words.” (Johannes Chrysostom, Commentary on the Psalms.) ↩

Λόγος ἔργου σκιή: “Words are the images of our deeds.” (Plutarch, Moralia.) Res loquitur ipsa: quæ semper valet plurimum: “The thing speaks itself, which is always of very great force.” (Cicero, Pro Tito Annio Milone.) Quid verba audiam, cum facta videam? “What signifies my hearing of words, when I see the facts?” (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations.) Αὐτὰ βοᾷ τὰ πράγματα, κᾂν τῇ φωνῇ σιωπᾷς: “The facts themselves speak out aloud, though you are silent with your voice.” (Basil of Caesarea.) ↩

This we know. For they are different to different nations; we coin them as we please, etc. φύσει τῶν ὀνομάτων οὐδέν ἐστιν, ἀλλ᾿ ὅταν γένηται σύμβολον: “The names of things are not founded in nature, but are only artificial signs.” (Aristotle, Organon.) And though Plato seems to be of another mind, yet when Cratylus says, Ονόματος ὀρθότητα εἶναι ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων φύσει πεφυκυῖαν, “that the propriety of the name is founded in the nature of every thing,” it is as much to be questioned whether anything more be meant than this, that some names of things are more natural or proper than others. For he says that this rectitude of names is the same καὶ Ἕλλησι καὶ βαρβάροις, “with the Greeks and with the Barbarians;” that it is [only] such as is sufficient δηλοῦν οἷον ἕκαςτόν ἐςτι τῶν ὄντων, “to signify what every thing is;” such as may render them κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ὅμοιαhellip; τοῖς πράγμασιν, etc. “as like the things as is possible, etc.” (Plato, Cratylus.) That lepidum et festivum argumentum, “that witty and jocular argument,” which Publius Nigidius in Aulus Gellius makes use of to show, cur videri possint verba esse naturalia magis quam arbitraria, “why words seem rather to be natural than arbitrary,” deserves only to be laughed at. (Attic Nights.) ↩

רֵישׁ, the Hebrew word Resh. ↩

רֵישׁ, the Arabic word Resh. So Aben Ezra observes that אבה, Abab, in Hebrew is to “will,” in Arabic to “nill” (though in Arabic the word is written אבי, Abi): and in another place, that the same word even in the same language sometimes signifies דבר והפכו, a thing and its contrary. And everyone knows, that the greater part of our words have different senses and uses. The word עגוז (Gnigon) in Arabic, according to Giggeius and Golius, has 70 or 80, and some (two at least) contrary the one to the other. ↩

This is ποιεῖν ψεῦδος: “to act a lie.” (Revelation 21:27.) Plato uses the same way of speaking. Ψεῦδος, says he, μηδεὶς μηδὲν⁠ ⁠… μήτε λόγῳ μήτε