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

ἔργῳ πράξειεν: “No man should tell a lie either by word or deed.” (Laws.) The contrary to this is in Aristotle: ἀληθεύειν⁠ ⁠… ὁμοίως ἐν λόγοις καὶ πράξεσιν: “to perform the truth both in words and in deeds;” and ἐν βίῳ ἀληθεύειν: “to live in the truth.” (Nicomachean Ethics.) And in Sefer Bereshit לכת באמת: “to walk in the truth,” and דרך אמת: “in the way of truth.” ↩

Actum generale verbum est, sive verbis sive re quid agatur: “An act is a general expression, and signifies anything that is acted either by words or deeds.” (Justinian, Digest.) ↩

As it must be, because Ὀρθὸν ἡ ἁλήθεἰ ἀεί: “Truth is always right.” (Sophocles, Antigone.) ↩

Τῷ λογικῷ ζώῳ ἡ ἀυτὴ πρᾶξις κατὰ φύσιν ἐστὶ καὶ κατὰ λόγον: “An action which is done according to nature, or according to reason, is the same in a creature endowed with reason”; that is, according to truth, which it is the office of reason to discover. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.) Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit: “Nature never dictates one thing, and reason a different thing.” (Juvenal, Satires.) ↩

Ἔδωκεν [ὁ Θεὸς] ἀντὶ δέλτου τὸν κόσμον: “[God] has given us the world, as it were for a book to read in.” (Johannes Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians.) ↩

What Hierocles says of his ἐγκόσμιοι Θεοὶ, “Gods that govern this world,” is true in respect of everything. Τῷ Θέιῳ νόμῳ κατακολουθούντων ἐστί⁠ ⁠… τοῦτο ἀυτοὺς εἶναι τίθεσθαι, δ γεγόνασι: “The supposing them to be what they are⁠ ⁠… is paying obedience to the law of God.” (Commentary on the Carmen Aureum.) There is a passage somewhere in Sefer ha-Ikkarim (II, 28) much like this: where it is said (as I remember) that he, who worships an Angel מצד מה הוא שליח ה (“as being what he is, the messenger of God”) is not guilty of idolatry. (Joseph Albo.) ↩

הקב״ה נקרא אמת וכו׳: “The holy Being is called truth.” In Reshit Hokmah and others (Elijah ben Moses de Vidas). And St. Chrysostom defines truth in the same words, which philosophers apply to the Deity. Ἀλήθεια τὸ ὄντως ὄν: “Truth is that which has a real existence.” (Paraphrasing the Eleatic in Plato’s Sophist.) ↩

Ἀλήθεια γὰρ ὀπαδὸς θεοῦ: “For truth is the companion of God.” (Philo Judaeus, On the Life of Moses.) ↩

Ποιμνας⁠ ⁠… ὡς ἄνδρας⁠ ⁠… ἔχων: “Treating his flocks⁠ ⁠… like men,” is in Sophocles the character of Ajax, when his head was turned, in a fit of raving. And among the monstrous and mad extravagances of Caesar Caligula, one is that he treated his horse Incitatus as a man. (Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars.) ↩

Horace argues after the same manner: Si quis lectica nitidam gestare amet agnam; Huic vestem, ut gnatæ, paret, etc.⁠ ⁠… Interdicto huic omne adimat ius Prætor, etc.⁠ ⁠… Quid? si quis gnatam pro mutâ devovet agnâ Integer est animi? Ne dixeris: “If anyone should take pleasure in carrying a very pretty lamb about with him in his chariot, and clad it like his daughter, etc., ought not the magistrate to take the power out of such a one’s hands? etc. But what if any man should attempt to offer his daughter as a sacrifice instead of a dumb lamb, would you say that he was in his right senses? I am sure you would not.” (Satires.) If it be against truth and nature to use a lamb as a daughter, it will be as much against truth to use a daughter as a lamb. ↩

Καθ᾿ αὑτο⁠ ⁠… μὲν ψεῦδος φαῦλον καὶ ψεκτόν τὸ δ᾽ αληθει καλὸν καὶ ἐπαινετόν: “A lie is base and blameworthy of itself, and truth is beautiful and praiseworthy.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.) Est quiddam, quod suâ vi nos alliciat ad sese, non emolumento captans aliquo, sed trahens sua dignitate; quod genus, virtus, scientia, veritas est: “There is something that wins our affections by its own native force, something that does not catch us by any profit that it brings, but attracts us by its superior execellency; something of this kind is virtue, knowledge, truth.” (Cicero, De Inventione.) “Truth is a sweet thing” (a festival saying in Plutarch). ↩

O magna vis veritatis, etc.: “O the great force of truth, etc.” (Cicero, For Marcus Cœlius.) A good man עושה האמת מפני שהוא אמת: “does the truth, because it is the truth.” (Maimonides.) ↩

Plura vera discrepantia esse non possunt: “Be there never so many truths, they cannot be inconsistent with each other.” (Cicero, Academica Priora.) ↩

Oblivione voluntaria: “By a voluntary forgetfulness.” (Cicero, Letters to Friends.) ↩

In the Civil Law he is said to act, who does omit. Qui non facit quod facere debet, videtur facere adversus ea qua non facit. (Digestorum, seu Pandectarum.) ↩

Est quodam prodire tenus: “It is something to go, though it be but a little way, or to make a small progress.” (Horace, Epistles.) ↩

Disces quamdiu voles: tamdiu autem velle debebis quoad te, quantum proficias, non pœnitebit: “You may learn as long as you please, and you ought to please, so long as you are not uneasy at any improvement of yourself,” says Cicero to his son. (De Officiis.) ↩

Nulla virtus virtuti