[231]Dionysius here plays on the derivation of ἄτοµοι, from τέµνειν (= to cut).
[232]Amos iii. 3 (LXX). The A.V. and R.V. give the more exact meaning “agreed” to the last word.
[233]Hesiod, _Works and Days_, iv. 408 and 411.
[234]Viz. the heathen, to whom the poets were to some extent what the prophets are to us Christians.
[236]The happiness of the King of Persia was proverbial: see Hor., _Od._ ii. 12, 21, iii. 9, 4.
[237]By “Necessity” here Dionysius means not “Fate” in the fatalist’s sense, but that supreme Will and Purpose of God, which is opposed to the Epicurean doctrine of chance.
[238]The title here given (ὑποθῆκαι) is not given in the list of Democritus’s works, but the ὑποµνήµατα ἠθικά may be meant.
[239]It is impossible to reproduce the play upon words here, εὐτυχῆ τὴν φρόνησιν, ἐµφρονεστάτην τὴν τύχην. The reference seems to be to such poetical passages as Soph., _O. T._ 977 ff., and Eur., _Alc._ 785 ff., where the practical wisdom of leaving the future to take care of itself is extolled.
[240]Epicurus himself contended that by ἡδονή (pleasure) he meant not sensual enjoyments so much as freedom from pain of body and from disturbance of soul (ἀταραξία), the source of which was largely in the exercise of the mind and will: see Zeller, _Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics_, pp. 473 ff.
[241]The words quoted (δωτῆρας ἐάων) are a Homeric phrase, e. g. _Od._ viii. 325 and 335.
[242]The derivation from θέειν is proposed by Plato, _Cratyl._ 397 C: that from θεῖναι by Herod, ii. 52, and of the two the latter is the more likely (√θε) though Curtius suggests a root θες = to pray: see Peile, _Introd. to Philology_, p. 37 (3rd ed., 1875).
[243]These are probably some sort of Gnostics who took over Manichean views of God and Matter, but not of the worst kind, for they recognized that God had the control and disposition of matter.
[244]Some one, _i. e._ who could give them the property of being without beginning.
[245]“Different from both,” because the being without beginning is not of the very essence of both. See further on.
[246]A curious expression, for which one would have expected the opposite statement, viz. that the handicrafts can shape and form the materials they deal with rather than that the materials give the necessary methods and designs to the handicrafts which deal with them. Up to this point Dionysius has been combating the view with which the extract begins. The rest of the extract proceeds to show what amount of truth there is in it.
