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Everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elemen… - Sallustius
" "Everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all?
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About Sallustius
Sallustius or Sallust (Σαλούστιος) was a 4th-century Latin writer, a friend of the Roman Emperor Julian. He wrote the treatise On the Gods and the Cosmos, which owes much to the work of Iamblichus of Chalcis, who synthesized Platonism with Pythagoreanism and theurgy, as well as to Julian's own philosophical writings. Though uncertainty remains, and some have identified him with the praetorian prefect of Gaul, Flavius Sallustius, he is widely thought to have been Saturninius Secundus Salutius, praetorian prefect of the Orient in 361, who declined the army's offer to become Emperor after the death of Julian, after which Jovian accepted the position.
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Additional quotes by Sallustius
If any one thinks the doctrine of the unchangeableness of the Gods is reasonable and true, and then wonders how it is that they rejoice in the good and reject the bad, are angry with sinners and become propitious when appeased, the answer is as follows: God does not rejoice — for that which rejoices also grieves; nor is he angered — for to be angered is a passion; nor is he appeased by gifts — if he were, he would be conquered by pleasure. It is impious to suppose that the divine is affected for good or ill by human things. The Gods are always good and always do good and never harm, being always in the same state and like themselves. The truth simply is that, when we are good, we are joined to the Gods by our likeness to live according to virtue we cling to the Gods, and when we become evil we make the Gods our enemies — not because they are angered against us, but because our sins prevent the light of the Gods from shining upon us, and put us in communion with spirits of punishment. And if by prayers and sacrifices we find forgiveness of sins, we do not appease or change the Gods, but by what we do and by our turning toward the divine we heal our own badness and so enjoy again the goodness of the Gods. To say that God turns away from the evil is like saying that the sun hides himself from the blind.
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Now the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the Gods — subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the unspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and that which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of sense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the myths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only to those who can understand.
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