Theater of the World

Good-hearted reader!

IT is not only those who have been in the Christian Church and have had knowledge of the true God who have understood and considered such things, but, as mentioned at the beginning, other worldly-wise people have also taken this to heart and lamented it greatly. Homerus in his Iliad compares men to the leaves on the trees, and in the same book, in another place, he writes: Non quidem est aliquid miserius homine omnium quæ spirant & per terram serpunt. There is truly nothing more miserable than man, among all that has living breath and creeps upon the earth. And in another place: Nil homine enutrit tellus infirmius alma. The nourishing earth produces nothing weaker than man. Phocylides, who otherwise compares the life of man to a wheel, has also spoken his part about it. Likewise, Ulysses says in Sophocles' Ajax Furens: Video enim nos nihil esse aliud præter simulachra, quicunq; viuimus, vel leuem vmbram. For I see that we who live are nothing but phantoms or a light shadow. And in the same place: Nil aliud ac vmbra atq; flatus est homo. Man is nothing other than a shadow and a breath. In these sayings, he calls men phantoms or illusions and shadows, yes, compares them to a puff and a breath of wind. Pindarus in his Pythian Ode 8 makes it even more contemptible and calls man a dream of a shadow. It is the smallest, most insignificant thing in the world to be a shadow, yet it was not enough for him; he had to make it a dream of a shadow. What could be said more contemptibly of man? In much the same way, Aeschylus compares the life of man to the shadow of smoke. What Menander held on this can be seen from what is still extant of his writings.