94 /-105 to /-115
morphic images strike them while they sleep they supposed that some
such anthropomorphic gods also existed in reality.
Aetius 1.7.34 = Dox.Gr. p. 306 (355 U) [I-106]
Epicurus [says that] the gods are anthropomorphic and can be contem-
plated by reason as a result of the fineness of the nature of their images.
Sextus M 9.178 (357 U) [I-107]
And again, if [the divine] exists, it is either vocal or non-vocal. Well,
to say that god is non-vocal is completely absurd and in conflict with
the common conceptions. But if [the divine] is vocal, then it uses its
voice and has speech organs, like lungs and windpipe and tongue and
mouth. But this is absurd and almost as bad as the myths told by Epicurus.
Aetius 1.7.7 = Dox.Gr. p. 300 (361 U) [I-108]
[An Epicurean speaks]: Both [Anaxagoras and Plato] share this error,
because they portrayed god as being concerned for human affairs and as
making the cosmos for the sake of man. For a blessed and indestructible
animal, overflowing with good things and free of any share of what is
bad, is completely preoccupied with the continuance of his own happiness
and indestructibility and so is not concerned with human affairs. For he
would be wretched, like a workman or builder, if he undertook burdens
and felt concern for the creation of the cosmos.
Lactantius On the Anger of God 13.20-22
(374 U)
[I-109]- And if this explanation [for the existence of bad things] ... is true,
then that argument ofEpicurus is refuted. "God," he says, "either wants
to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or
neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. 21. If he wants to
and cannot, then he is weak-and this does not apply to god. If he can
but does not want to, then he is spiteful-which is equally foreign to
god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful
and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting
for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not
eliminate them?" 22. I know that most of the philosophers who defend
[divine] providence are commonly shaken by this argument and against
their wills are almost driven to admit that god does not care, which is
exactly what Epicurus is looking for.