50 1-16
On the Nature ofthe Gods 1.43-56 [1-16]
43 .... For he [Epicurus] is the only one who saw, first, that the gods
exist, because nature herself has impressed a conception of them on the
souls of everyone. For what people or race of men is there which does
not have, even without being taught, a basic grasp of the gods, which is
what Epicurus calls a prolepsis, i.e., a kind of outline of the thing [in
question], which is antecedently grasped by the mind, and without which
nothing can be either understood or investigated or debated? We have
learned the force and utility of this line of inference from that divine
book of Epicurus on the canon or standard [of truth]. 44. You see, then,
that the point which is the foundation of this investigation has been laid
very well indeed. For since the opinion is established not on the basis
of some convention or custom or law, but is and remains a solid and
harmonious consensus of all men, it is necessary to understand that there
are gods, because we have implanted, or rather innate, conceptions of
them. For what all men by nature agree about must necessarily be true.
So one must concede that the gods exist. Since this point is accepted by
virtually everyone, philosophers and laymen alike, let us admit that the
following point too is established, that we have this basic grasp, as I said
before, or preconception about the gods-for new names must be assigned
to new things, just as Epicurus himself referred to a prolepsis, which no
one had previously designated by this term-45. we have, then, this basic
grasp, that we consider the gods to be blessed and immortal. And the
same nature which gave us an outline of the gods themselves has also
inscribed in our minds the notion that they are eternal and blessed. And
if this is so, that was a true maxim expounded by Epicurus, that what
is blessed and eternal neither has any troubles of its own nor provides
them to others, and so is subject to neither anger nor gratitude, since
everything of this nature is weak.^23
Enough would have been said already, if all we were looking for were
pious worship of the gods and freedom from superstition; for the excellent
nature of the gods would be worshipped by pious men because of that
nature's blessedness and eternity (for whatever is excellent is justifiably
the object of reverence), and all fears of the anger or power of the gods
would have been expelled (for it is understood that anger and gratitude
are banned from a blessed and immortal nature, and when these are
removed no fears about the beings above hang over us). But in order to
confirm this opinion, the mind enquires into the form of god, the kind
- Principal Doctrine I.