In the next place, forgetting that his object is to accuse both Jews and
Christians, he quotes against himself an iambic verse of Euripides,
which is opposed to his view, and joining issue with the words, charges
them with being an erroneous statement. His words are as follow: “But if
you will quote the saying of Euripides, that
‘The Sun and Night are to mortals slaves,’[780]
why should they be so in a greater degree to us than to ants and flies?
For the night is created for them in order that they may rest, and the
day that they may see and resume their work.” Now it is undoubted, that
not only have certain of the Jews and Christians declared that the sun
and the heavenly bodies[781] are our servants; but he also has said
this, who, according to some, is the philosopher of the stage,[782] and
who was a hearer of the lectures on the philosophy of nature delivered
by Anaxagoras. But this man asserts that all things in the world are
subject to all rational beings,—one rational nature being taken to
represent all, on the principle of a part standing for the whole;[783]
which, again, clearly appears from the verse:
“The Sun and Night are to mortals slaves.”
Perhaps the tragic poet meant the day when he said the sun, inasmuch as
it is the cause of the day,—teaching that those things which most need
the day and night are the things which are under the moon, and other
things in a less degree than those which are upon the earth. Day and
night, then, are subject to mortals, being created for the sake of
rational beings. And if ants and flies, which labour by day and rest by
night, have, besides, the benefit of those things which were created for
the sake of men, we must not say that day and night were brought into
being for the sake of ants and flies, nor must we suppose that they were
created for the sake of nothing, but, agreeably to the design of
Providence, were formed for the sake of man.
Footnote 780:
Cf. Eurip. _Phœniss._ v. 512.
Footnote 781:
τὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ.
Footnote 782:
ὁ κατά τινας Σκηνικὸς φιλόσοφος. Euripides himself is the person
alluded to. He is called by Athenæus and Clemens Alexandrinus
(_Strom._ v.), ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς φιλόσοφος.—DE LA RUE.
Footnote 783:
συνεκδοχικῶς.