Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II:
THEOPHILUS: Chapter VIII.— Opinions Concerning Providence.

Chapter VIII.— Opinions Concerning Providence.

And why should I recount further the vast array of such names and genealogies? So that all the authors and poets, and those called philosophers, are wholly deceived; and so, too, are they who give heed to them. For they plentifully composed fables and foolish stories about their gods, and did not exhibit them as gods, but as men, and men, too, of whom some were drunken, and others fornicators and murderers. But also concerning the origin of the world, they uttered contradictory and absurd opinions. First, some of them, as we before explained, maintained that the world is uncreated. And those that said it was uncreated and self-producing contradicted those who propounded that it was created. For by conjecture and human conception they spoke, and not knowing the truth. And others, again, said that there was a providence, and destroyed the positions of the former writers. Aratus, indeed, says: 560 —

Who, then, shall we believe: Aratus as here quoted, or Sophocles, when he says: 561 —

And Homer, again, does not agree with this, for he says 562 that virtue

And Simonides says:—

So, too, Euripides:—

And Menander:—

And Euripides again:—

And Thestius:—

And saying numberless things of a like kind, they contradicted themselves. At least Sophocles, who in another place denied Providence, says:—

Besides, they both introduced a multitude of gods, and yet spoke of a Unity; and against those who affirmed a Providence they maintained in opposition that there was no Providence. Wherefore Euripides says:—

And without meaning to do so, they acknowledge that they know not the truth; but being inspired by demons and puffed up by them, they spoke at their instance whatever they said. For indeed the poets,—Homer, to wit, and Hesiod, being, as they say, inspired by the Muses,—spoke from a deceptive fancy, 564 and not with a pure but an erring spirit. And this, indeed, clearly appears from the fact, that even to this day the possessed are sometimes exorcised in the name of the living and true God; and these spirits of error themselves confess that they are demons who also formerly inspired these writers. But sometimes some of them wakened up in soul, and, that they might be for a witness both to themselves and to all men, spoke things in harmony with the prophets regarding the monarchy of God, and the judgment and such like.

Footnotes

The following lines are partly from the translation of Hughes.

Œdipus Rex, line 978.

Il., xx. 242.

This verse is by Plutarch hesitatingly attributed to Pindar. The expression, “Though you swim in a wicker basket,” was proverbial.

Literally, “in fancy and error.”