He contends much against Epicurus and those that
take away providence from the conceptions we have of the
Gods, whom we esteem beneficial and gracious to men.
And these things being frequently said by them, there is
no necessity of setting down the words. Yet all do not
conceive the Gods to be good and favorable to us. For
see what the Jews and Syrians think of the Gods; see
also with how much superstition the poets are filled. But
there is not any one, in a manner to speak of, that imagines God to be corruptible or to have been born. And to
omit all others, Antipater the Tarsian, in his book of the
Gods writes thus, word for word: ‘At the beginning of
our discourse we will briefly repeat the opinion we have
[p. 466]
concerning God. We understand therefore God to be an
animal, blessed and incorruptible, and beneficial to men.’
And then expounding every one of these terms he says:
‘And indeed all men esteem the Gods to be incorruptible.’ Chrysippus therefore is, according to Antipater,
not one of ‘all men ;’ for he thinks none of the Gods, except Fire, to be incorruptible, but that they all equally were
born and will die. These things are, in a manner, everywhere said by him. But I will set down his words out of
his Third Book of the Gods: ‘It is otherwise with the
Gods. For some of them are born and corruptible, but
others not born. And to demonstrate these things from
the beginning will be more fit for a treatise of Nature.
For the Sun, the Moon, and other Gods who are of a like
nature, were begotten; but Jupiter is eternal.’ And
again going on: ‘But the like will be said concerning dying and being born, both concerning the other Gods and
Jupiter. For they indeed are corruptible, but his parts
incorruptible.’ With these I compare a few of the things
said by Antipater: ‘Whosoever they are that take away
from the Gods beneficence, they attack in some part our
preconception of them; and according to the same reason
they also do this, who think they participate of generation
and corruption.’ If then he who esteems the Gods corruptible is equally absurd with him who thinks them not
to be provident and gracious to men, Chrysippus is no less
in an error than Epicurus. For one of them deprives the
Gods of beneficence, the other of incorruptibility.
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