54 /-17 to /-18
gods do not have a body, but only a quasi-body, and that they do not
have blood, but only quasi-blood. It is taken to be remarkable if one
soothsayer can see another without laughing, but it is even more remark-
able, that you [Epicureans] can restrain your laughter when you are by
yourselves. "This is not a body, but a quasi-body"; I could understand
what this would be like if we were talking about waxen images and
earthenware figurines. But I cannot understand what quasi-body and
quasi-blood are supposed to be in the case of a god. And neither can
you, Velleius, but you don't want to admit it ....
... 73. Now, what do you understand by that quasi-body and quasi-
blood? 74. Not only do I concede that you understand them better than
I, but I am even happy about it. But when the idea is expressed in words,
what reason is there that Velleius should be able to understand it and
Cotta should not? So I know what body is and what blood is; but in no
way do I understand what quasi-body is or what quasi-blood is. Yet you
do not hide [your view] from me, as Pythagoras used to hide his views
from outsiders, nor do you deliberately speak in riddles like Heraclitus;
rather, to speak frankly between ourselves, you yourself do not under-
stand. 75. I am aware that you contend that there is a kind of image of
the gods which has nothing solid or dense about it, no definite shape,
no depth, but is refined, light, and translucent. So we will speak of it as
we do of the Venus on Cos: it is not a body but like a body, and the
blush blended with pallor which suffuses [her skin] is not blood but a
sort of semblance of blood. In the same way Epicurean gods are not real
things but semblances of real things.
But suppose that I believe in things which I cannot even understand.
Now show me the outlines and shapes of those shadowy gods of yours!
76. Here you suffer from no lack of arguments designed to show that
the gods have human form. First [is the argument that] our minds contain
an outline and basic grasp of such a nature that when a man thinks about
a god, a human form appears to him; second, that since the divine nature
is better than everything else, it ought also to have the most beautiful
form, and none is more beautiful than the human form; the third argument
you adduce is that no other shape can house an intellect.
On the Nature ofthe Gods 1.103-110 [1-18]
- Let us suppose it true, then, as you wish, that god is an image
and semblance of man: what home, what dwelling, what place does he
have? what, indeed, are his activities? in virtue of what is he, as you
claim, happy? For he who is going to be happy ought to both use and
enjoy his own goods. And even inanimate natures have each their own