De Natura Deorum Liber Tertius
by Marcus Tullius Cicero
English Summary of Book III |
| Before giving his objections to the doctrines of the Stoics
as expounded by Balbus Cotta expressly defends himself against the suspicion of not
believing the religious faith handed down from former times. He believes it, he says,
thoroughly; but to him religion is only a matter of faith, not of knowledge, and his
objections are directed solely against the attempt of the Stoic to change this faith into
knowledge by means of rational proof. He cannot allow any conclusive force to the
arguments adduced by Balbus (§§ 1-5). He then commences the discussion in detail, and
first takes up the proofs for the existence of the gods. Balbus had said that, properly
speaking, no proofs of it were necessary, and yet had attempted to give them; in reality
however he had only made the matter more doubtful. He had appealed to the popular belief,
without really agreeing with that belief himself; moreover such an appeal cannot pass,
says Cotta, for a scientific argument (6-10). The pretended instances of apparitions of
the gods, and all that Balbus had said about revelation by the auspices, can make no claim
to certainty or to be received as valid proof (11-15). This is sufficient to refute the
first part of Cleanthes's argument which is also based on revelation. The second part,
which appealed to the impression made by the gigantic phenomena of nature, is met by the
remark that, although the common people regard these as the operations of divine beings,
it by no means follows that they really are such (16, 17). The two remaining parts are
reserved for the portion of the argument on the divine providence; this however is no
longer extant. For this portion is also reserved the discussion of the arguments of
Chrysippus, of the syllogisms of Zeno and the propositions of physics in regard to the
creative principle of heat, the soul of the universe, the divinity of the world and the
heavenly bodies (18). All that Balbus had said about the nature of the gods is considered by Cotta as rather adapted to make even their existence doubtful. Balbus had argued that the universe must be God because there exists nothing more perfect than the universe. But even if this were true, it does not necessarily follow from its perfection that the universe is endowed with a soul, with reason, with wisdom, nor that it is God (21-23). Nor can the regularity of the motions of the heavenly bodies be cited as proof that they are divine; if so, we should have to consider the ebb and flow of the tide and even intermittent fever as gods by reason of their regular recurrence. The further deduction of Balbus, that, since the universe is not the work of human power or human wisdom, there must exist beings of a higher sort than men, and hence gods, rests on an arbitrary and erroneous view of what is higher, and upon a confusion of reason and natural force (25, 26). That too is a prejudice, that the human reasonable soul must derive from a reasonable soul already existing in the world. It is, says Cotta, a result of the force of nature, just as the harmonious complex of the universe is, and no gods are necessary to explain this (27, 28). Next follows the argument of Carneades, that no bodily, no living and sensitive being can be eternal and immortal (29-35), and the proof that the principle of fire or heat, which the Stoics regard as living and as the source of all life, cannot be immortal, inasmuch as according to their notion it needs replenishing (35-37). Cotta omits the further deduction from this, which follows of itself: for if there is nothing which is immortal, and if immortality is an essential predicate of the deity, there can be no gods. Finally he says that the idea of deity excludes the idea of virtue, which only comports with human relations; while again on the other hand a god is inconceivable without virtue (38, 39). But granting too that the universe is God, how can we justify the assumption of several gods? And suppose we let pass also the divinity of the heavenly bodies; to consider eatable things as gods is an evident absurdity; and how gods can be made out of men is quite inconceivable (40-42). If we are to learn from popular belief and tradition whom to recognise as God, we shall have shall have all sorts, even the most monstrous and most ridiculous gods (43-50). If the heavenly bodies are gods, there is no reason for not considering the rainbows, clouds and winds as gods; if earth and sea pass for gods, so must rivers and springs; in short there is no limit (51, 52). The learned inquirers think they have found out that all the chief gods of the popular belief were only men of olden time who have not actually become gods but are only imagined to be so by the deluded people. Such a view, Cotta thinks, must necessarily be rejected in the interest of religion itself<1>; but the Stoics, by their allegorical explanation of these pretended gods and the stories about them, have, instead of rejecting them, rather given them a sort of respectability (53-60). Still all their views are easily refuted. Some of the beings explained to be gods are evidently impersonal things, qualities and relations; and all the rest after the Stoic explanations, instead of gods, become mere forces of nature. Next came in the original the third part or the refutation of the proposition that the world is governed by the divine providence; but the whole of this part is lost.<2> A large portion of the fourth part is also no longer extant, which was devoted to showing that the gods had no especial care for men. The remaining portion (§ 66) relates to Balbus's eulogy of reason as the most excellent gift of the gods to men (Bk. II, c. 61). Cotta attempts to show on the contrary that reason, since it is so often turned to evil purposes and brings so much harm, cannot by any possibility be regarded as a divine gift; for we cannot suppose either that the gods would have given to men a hurtful gift or that they could not have prevented or foreseen the evil use which mankind would make of it (66-78). Gods who really wished well to mankind ought rather to have made them good and wise; or if not this, they ought at least to have had a care for those who are good and wise (79, 80). But this is no more the case than the other; the best men often fare the worst, and the worst the best; experience gives no proof whatever of a divine justice, which rewards virtue and punishes vice; and this would afford encouragement to crime, were it not for conscience, which, regardless of the deity, furnishes to mankind a support and guide (81-85). But no evidence of divine government is discernible here; and the pretext that the gods concern themselves with human affairs only in general, not with trifles, is inadmissible, because the cases in which the absence of divine justice is felt are by no means all trifles of no importance (86). The general belief regards precisely the external gifts of fortune, not the internal ones such as virtue and wisdom, as coming from the gods; and thus the good fortune, which bad men enjoy, is a proof against the divine government of the world (87, 88). Isolated instances, in which the good meet with success, are of no weight against the majority of cases where the contrary happens; and it is no excuse to say either that the gods do not concern themselves with every individual case or that they are ignorant (89, 90). And to say that the gods visit the punishment of evil deeds, if not on the evil-doers themselves, at least upon their children and descendants is to attribute to them the greatest injustice. But suffering and misfortune come not from any god, but from men themselves. The deity does not protect us against it, even where it should justly do so, if, as the Stoics say, it has the power to do what it wills. So then the deity is ignorant of what it can do, or it has no concern for mankind, or it is incapable of judging what is good (91, 92). The Stoics contradict themselves, says Cotta, when they say that the gods do not concern themselves with details, and at the same time maintain that dreams come from the gods, and urge everybody to pray to the deity, for in that case the deity must hear the prayers of individuals. Cotta closes with the assurance that the aim of his whole discourse is not to deny the existence of the gods, but only to show how difficult it is to arrive at any distinct knowledge about them. Cicero adds however that, although Velleius pronounces the exposition of Cotta true and convincing, he himself is inclined to consider the views of Balbus as more probable. |
| Footnotes -- <return> hyperlink will take you back
to the footnote number in the text. 1. For this rejection
of Euhemerism see note on 23, 60. Cotta is here evidently guilty of an inconsistency. For
if in the interest of religion, in order not to take from the common people the gods in
whom they believed, he rejected the Euhemeristic humanizing of them, the same interest
would necessarily have deterred him also from interfering with any one of the deities
worshipped by the people which he has really done in many instances in what has preceded.
It would seem that this inconsistency is due to Cicero alone, and that the real Academic
philosophers by no means disdained to make use of Euhemerism as a weapon against the
popular religion; just as at a subsequent period the Christian opponents of polytheism
were fond of doing. And that Cicero himself did not refuse to acknowledge a justification
for Euhemerism is seen from Tusc. I, 13, 28, and V, 3, 8. <return> |
 [Cicero Page] |
 [Book 2 Summary] |
 [Top of Page] |
 [Latin Text] |