Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
With these matters thus dispatched, we can see that this physical theory has been rigged up for the sole purpose of arguing that the elements are gods, while at the same time claiming that other gods were born from them — although a god can only be born from a god. Since we will examine these gods more fully in their proper place, in the section on mythology, still, as regards what needs to be reconsidered about them for the present purpose — and simultaneously turning from the present purpose back to them — we intend to show that the beings said to be born of the elements cannot in any way be seen as gods, so that it will already stand pre-judged from this point on that the elements are not gods, since those said to be born from the elements are not gods; and likewise, by demonstrating that the elements are not gods, we will lay the groundwork for rightly defending that their offspring, so called, are not gods either — since their parents, that is, the elements, are not gods.
We know that god is born from god, just as non-god is born from non-god. So then, as to what elements this world of ours contains (to treat the matter summarily, dealing with the universe as a whole before its parts — for whatever condition applies to the whole will certainly apply also to the elements, as its members) — either the world was necessarily set up by someone, as Plato's humane view has it, or by no one, as Epicurus in his hard-nosed way holds; and if it was set up, then having had a beginning it will also have an end. And so, what did not exist at some point before its beginning, and will at some point not exist after its end, simply cannot be seen as god, lacking as it does the substance of divinity — that is, eternity, which by definition has neither beginning nor end. But if it truly was not set up at all, and is therefore to be held a god, since as a god it suffers neither beginning nor end — then how is it that some people assign generation to the elements, wanting them to be gods, when the Stoics themselves deny that anything is born of god? Likewise, how can they wish those things reckoned to have sprung from the elements to be counted gods, when they deny that god is ever born at all? So then, whatever belongs to the world will be ascribed to the elements — I mean sky, earth, stars, and fire — which Varro, and those who taught Varro that sky and stars are living creatures, have vainly proposed you should believe to be gods and parents of gods, against the very denial of divine generation and birth.
But if that is so, they must also be mortal, following the pattern proper to living creatures; for even granting that the soul is immortal, that privilege belongs to the soul alone, not also to that to which it is attached — that is, the body. Now nobody could dispute that the elements possess a bodily nature, given that we make contact with them and in turn are affected by their contact, and we can clearly observe solid matter breaking off from them. Therefore, if they are living creatures, subject — once you set aside the soul — to the same condition as bodies, namely mortality, then they are certainly not gods.
And yet where does Varro get the idea that the elements are living creatures? "Because," he says, "they move." And to forestall the objection that many other things move too — wheels, wagons, machines of every sort — he heads it off in advance by saying that these are believed to be living creatures because they move by themselves, with no mover or initiator of their motion appearing from outside, unlike the case where we can plainly see someone driving the wheel, turning the wagon, or operating the machine. So then, unless they are living creatures, they are not self-moving.
Furthermore, in appealing to what does not appear, he shows precisely what he ought to have sought instead — namely, the craftsman and arbiter of the motion; for it does not follow that, because we do not see something, we therefore do not believe it exists. Quite the opposite: the deeper the search must go into what is not seen, precisely so that we can know the true nature of what is seen. Otherwise, if things visible are believed to exist simply because they are visible, how is it that you also accept as gods those which are not visible at all? And if beings that do not exist can be believed to exist because they are seen, why should beings that are not seen not also exist? I mean the mover of the heavenly bodies. So then, let the elements be living creatures, because they move by themselves; and let them be self-moving, because moved by no other — yet just as they are not therefore gods merely because they are living creatures, so they are not gods merely because they are self-moving either; or else what is to stop every self-moving living creature whatsoever from being counted a god? Which, by another sort of folly, is exactly what the Egyptians allow.
IV.