Frases de Salústio

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VIII. On Mind and Soul, and that the latter is immortal.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: First, we must consider what soul is. It is, then, that by which the animate differs from the inanimate. The difference lies in motion, sensation, imagination, intelligence. Soul therefore, when irrational, is the life of sense and imagination; when rational, it is the life which controls sense and imagination and uses reason. The irrational soul depends on the affections of the body; it feels desire and anger irrationally. The rational soul both, with the help of reason, despises the body, and, fighting against the irrational soul, produces either virtue or vice, according as it is victorious or defeated.

XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

X. Concerning Virtue and Vice.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: The doctrine of virtue and vice depends on that of the soul. When the irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces fight and desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the soul tripartite, composed of reason, fight, and desire. Virtue in the region of reason is wisdom, in the region of fight is courage, in the region of desire is temperance; the virtue of the whole soul is righteousness. It is for reason to judge what is right, for fight in obedience to reason to despise things that appear terrible, for desire to pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with reason desirable. When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for righteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And thus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among the untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid, another prudent and unprincipled. Indeed, these qualities should not be called virtues when they are devoid of reason and imperfect and found in irrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite elements. In reason it is folly, in fight, cowardice, in desire, intemperance, in the whole soul, unrighteousness.
The virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good rearing and education, the vices by the opposite.

XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: If evil exists it must exist either in Gods or minds or souls or bodies. It does not exist in any God, for all god is good. If anyone speaks of a "bad mind" he means a mind without mind. If of a bad soul, he will make the soul inferior to body, for no body in itself is evil. If he says that evil is made up of soul and body together, it is absurd that separately they should not be evil, but joined should create evil.

XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: The divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the irrational life in us.
From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them.

XX. On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: It is the natural duty of souls to do their work in the body; are we to suppose that when once they leave the body they spend all eternity in idleness? Again, if the souls did not again enter into bodies, they must either be infinite in number or God must constantly be making new ones. But there is nothing infinite in the world; for in a finite whole there cannot be an infinite part. Neither can others be made; for everything in which something new goes on being created, must be imperfect. And the world, being made by a perfect author, ought naturally to be perfect.

IV. That the species of myth are five, with examples of each.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Contexto: The mixed kind of myth may be seen in many instances: for example they say that in a banquet of the Gods Discord threw down a golden apple; the Goddesses contended for it, and were sent by Zeus to Paris to be judged. Paris saw Aphrodite to be beautiful and gave her the apple. Here the banquet signifies the hypercosmic powers of the Gods; that is why they are all together. The golden apple is the world, which being formed out of opposites, is naturally said to be "thrown by Discord." The different Gods bestow different gifts upon the world, and are thus said to "contend for the apple." And the soul which lives according to sense — for that is what Paris is — not seeing the other powers in the world but only beauty, declares that the apple belongs to Aphrodite.

VI. On Gods Cosmic and Hypercosmic.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

IV. That the species of myth are five, with examples of each.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XVII. That the World is by nature Eternal.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XVIII. Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

VII. On the Nature of the World and its Eternity.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XVII. That the World is by nature Eternal.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

III. Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

IV. That the species of myth are five, with examples of each.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XVI. Concerning sacrifices and other worships, that we benefit man by them, but not the Gods.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XIX. Why sinners are not punished at once.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XVIII. Why there are rejections of God, and that God is not injured.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

XVII. That the World is by nature Eternal.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

II. That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not in space.
Variant translation:
The essences of the gods are neither generated; for eternal natures are without generation; and those beings are eternal who possess a first power, and are naturally void of passivity. Nor are their essences composed from bodies; for even the powers of bodies are incorporeal: nor are they comprehended in place; for this is the property of bodies: nor are they separated from the first cause, or from each other; in the same manner as intellections are not separated from intellect, nor sciences from the soul.
II. That a God is immutable, without Generation, eternal, incorporeal, and has no Subsistence in Place, as translated by Thomas Taylor
On the Gods and the Cosmos

III. Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why.
On the Gods and the Cosmos