Persons who cherish a dislike of the institutions of our fathers and make it their constant study to denounce and decry the Laws find in these and similar passages openings as it were for their godlessness. “Can you still,” say these impious scoffers, “speak gravely of the ordinances as containing the canons of absolute truth? For see your so-called holy books contain also myths, which you regularly deride when you hear them related by others. And indeed,” they continue, “it is needless to collect the numerous examples scattered about the Law-book, as we might had we leisure to spend in exposing its failings. We have but to remind you of the instances which lie at our very feet and ready to our hand.” One of these we have here, which resembles the fable told of the Aloeidae, who according to Homer the greatest and most reputed of poets planned to pile the three loftiest mountains on each other in one heap, hoping that when these were raised to the height of the upper sky they would furnish an easy road to heaven for those who wished to ascend thither. Homer’s lines on this subject run thus: They on Olympus Ossa fain would pile, On Ossa Pelion with its quivering leaves, In hope thereby to climb the heights of heaven. Olympus, Ossa and Pelion are names of mountains. For these the lawgiver substitutes a tower which he represents as being built by the men of that day who wished in their folly and insolent pride to touch the heaven. Folly indeed; surely dreadful madness! For if one should lay a small foundation and build up upon it the different parts of the whole earth, rising in the form of a single pillar, it would still be divided by vast distances from the sphere of ether, particularly if we accept the view of the philosophers who inquire into such problems, all of whom are agreed that the earth is the centre of the universe.
On the Confusion of Tongues 2
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.