Writing in the second book of his “Natural History” (Naturalis Historia), Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), whilst recounting the many interesting facts he has learned and collected about the Moon, suddenly breaks from his explanations to wax critical upon a “disease of the human mind” he has observed.
I first began the study of the history or religion and of theology in 1990 and have been including the subjects in my ongoing pursuit of knowledge and wisdom ever since, and in this one brief passage, Pliny, in this one aside in his “Natural History” that briefly interrupts the topic about which he was writing, has sliced straight through myriad Gordian knots tied by countless theologians down through the ages.