For it would, indeed, be absurd that certain stones and buildings should
be regarded as more sacred or more profane than others, according as
they were constructed for the honour of God, or for the reception of
dishonourable and accursed persons;[725] while bodies should not differ
from bodies, according as they are inhabited by rational or irrational
beings, and according as these rational beings are the most virtuous or
most worthless of mankind. Such a principle of distinction, indeed, has
led some to deify the bodies of distinguished men,[726] as having
received a virtuous soul, and to reject and treat with dishonour those
of very wicked individuals. I do not maintain that such a principle has
been always soundly exercised, but that it had its origin in a correct
idea. Would a wise man, indeed, after the death of Anytus and Socrates,
think of burying the bodies of both with like honours? And would he
raise the same mound or tomb to the memory of both? These instances we
have adduced because of the language of Celsus, that “none of these is
the work of God” (where the words “of these” refer to the body of a man,
or to the snakes which come out of the body; and to that of an ox, or of
the bees which come from the body of an ox; and to that of a horse, or
of an ass, and to the wasps which come from a horse, and the beetles
which proceed from an ass); for which reason we have been obliged to
return to the consideration of his statement, that “the soul is the work
of God, but that the nature of body is different.”
Footnote 725:
σωμάτων.
Footnote 726:
τῶν διαφερόντων.