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28To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worshipest them, I answer, in the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes;[77] in the second place neither have I seen even my own soul and yet I honor it. Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist and I venerate them.
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Notes
[77] "Seen even with the eyes." It is supposed that this may be explained by the Stoic doctrine, that the universe is a god (iv. 23), and that the celestial bodies are gods (viii. 19). But the emperor may mean that we know that the gods exist, as he afterwards states it, because we see what they do; as we know that man has intellectual powers, because we see what he does, and in no other way do we know it. This passage then will agree with the passage in the Epistle to the Romans (i. v. 20), and with the Epistle to the Colossians (i. v. 15), in which Jesus Christ is named "the image of the invisible god;" and with the passage in the Gospel of St. John (xiv. v. 9).
Gataker, whose notes are a wonderful collection of learning, and all of it sound and good, quotes a passage of Calvin which is founded on St. Paul's language (Rom. i. v. 20): "God by creating the universe [or world, mundum], being himself invisible, has presented himself to our eyes conspicuously in a certain visible form." He also quotes Seneca (De Benef. iv. c. 8): "Quocunque te flexeris, ibi ilium videbis occurrentem tibi: nihil ab illo vacat, opus suum ipse implet." Compare also Cicero, De Senectute (c. 22), and Xenophon's Cyropaedia (viii. 7). I think that my interpretation of Antoninus is right.