[66] Hist. Nat. ii, 1, 5 (7). Pliny identifies nature and deity: “Per quæ declaratur haud dubie naturæ potentia, idque esse quod Deum vocamus” (last cit., end). [↑]

[67] Hist. nat. vii, 55 (56). Cp. Boissier, i, 300. [↑]

[68] Id. pp. 301–303. [↑]

[69] See the praiseworthy treatise of Mr. J. A. Farrer, Paganism and Christianity, 1891, chs. 5, 6, and 7. [↑]

[70] “... vires religionis, ad quas maxime etiamnum caligat humanum genus.” Hist. nat. xxx, 1. [↑]

[71] Above, p. 188. [↑]

[72] Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. Frag. 22, ed. Burmanni. The whole passage is noteworthy. See also his Satyricon, c. 137, as to his estimate of sacerdotal sincerity. [↑]

[73] Thebaid, iii, 661. [↑]

[74] Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo (with Jamblichus). Chaeremon, however, is said to have regarded comets as divine portents. Origen, Ag. Celsus, bk. i, ch. 59. [↑]

[75] Prof. C. Martha, Les moralistes sous l’empire romain, ed. 1881, p. 341. [↑]