MENIPPUS
As for the contradictory nature of their theories, that is easy to appreciate. Just see for yourself, in Heaven’s name, whether their doctrines are akin and not widely divergent. First of all, there is their difference of opinion about the universe. Some think it is without beginning and without end, but others have even ventured to tell who made it and how it was constructed; and these latter surprised me most, for they made some god or other the creator of the universe, but did not tell where he came from or where he stood when he created it all; and yet it is impossible to conceive of time and space before the genesis of the universe.
As for the contradictory nature of their theories, that is easy to appreciate. Just see for yourself, in Heaven’s name, whether their doctrines are akin and not widely divergent. First of all, there is their difference of opinion about the universe. Some think it is without beginning and without end, but others have even ventured to tell who made it and how it was constructed; and these latter surprised me most, for they made some god or other the creator of the universe, but did not tell where he came from or where he stood when he created it all; and yet it is impossible to conceive of time and space before the genesis of the universe.
FRIEND
They are very presumptuous charlatans by what you say, Menippus.
They are very presumptuous charlatans by what you say, Menippus.
MENIPPUS
But my dear man, what if I should tell you all they said about “ideas” and incorporeal entities, or their theories about the finite and the infinite? On the latter point also they had a childish dispute, some of them setting a limit to the universe and others considering it to be unlimited; nay more, they asserted that there are many worlds and censured those who talked as if there were but one. Another, not a man of peace, opined that war was the father of the universe.
1
But my dear man, what if I should tell you all they said about “ideas” and incorporeal entities, or their theories about the finite and the infinite? On the latter point also they had a childish dispute, some of them setting a limit to the universe and others considering it to be unlimited; nay more, they asserted that there are many worlds and censured those who talked as if there were but one. Another, not a man of peace, opined that war was the father of the universe.
1
Icaromenippus. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
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