Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

444 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDsuch as the people believed, he utterly repudiated.Not he who denied such srods, but he who assumedtheir existence, was godless. He allowed, indeed,that there existed an immense multitude of gods,beings of human form, but endued with subtle,ethereal, transparent, indestructible bodies, whooccupied the intermundial spaces, free from care,regardless of human things, enjoying their ownblissful repose.25 His gods are in fact a companyof Epicurean philosophers, possessing everythingwhich they can desire, eternal life, no care, andperpetual opportunity of agreeable entertainment.The soul of man is a body made out of thefinest round and fiery atoms; a body which, likeheated air, most rapidly penetrates the whole materialframe. The finest portion of the soul, thefeeling and thinking spirit, which as a fourth elementis added to the fiery, aerial, and vaporousportions, dwells in the breast. In these elementsall the soul's passions and impulses are rooted.When death destroys the body, the sheltering andprotecting home of the soul's atoms, these evaporateat once. It was clear that in such a systemthe soul could not outlive the body, but Epicuruslaid a special stress on this, since thereby onlycould men be delivered from the greatest impedi-nent to repose and undisturbed enjoymentlife, the torturing fear of thhments after death. It was the crown of h25 Zeller, vol. iii. part 1, p. 398.