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OUR defence requires that we should at this point discuss with
you the character of your gods, O ye heathen, fit objects of our
pity,(2) appealing even to your own conscience to determine whether
they be truly gods, as you would have it supposed, or falsely, as you
are unwilling to have proved.(3) Now this is the material part of human
error, owing to the wiles of its author, that it is never free from the
ignorance of error,(4) whence your guilt is all the greater. Your eyes
are open, yet they see not; your ears are unstopped, yet they hear not;
though your heart beats, it is yet dull, nor does your mind
understand(5) that of which it is cognizant.(6) If indeed the enormous
perverseness (of your worship) could(7) be broken up(8) by a single
demurrer, we should have our objection ready to hand in the
declaration(9) that, as we know all those gods of yours to have been
instituted by men, all belief in the true Deity is by this very
circumstance brought to nought;(10) because, of course, nothing which
some time or other had a beginning can rightly seem to be divine. But
the fact is,(11) there are many things by which tenderness of
conscience is hardened into the callousness of wilful error. Truth is
beleaguered with the vast force (of the enemy), and yet how secure she
is in her own inherent strength! And naturally enough(12) when from her
very adversaries she gains to her side whomsoever she will, as her
friends and protectors, and prostrates the entire host of her
assailants. It is therefore against these things that our contest
lies—against the institutions of our ancestors, against the authority
of tradition,(13) the laws of our governors, and the reasonings of the
wise; against antiquity, custom, submission;(14) against precedents,
prodigies, miracles,—all which things have had their part in
consolidating that spurious(15) system of your gods. Wishing, then, to
follow step by step your own commentaries which you have drawn out of
your theology of every sort (because the authority of learned men goes
further with you in matters of this kind than the testimony of facts),
I have taken and abridged the works of Varro;(16) for he in his
treatise Concerning Divine Things, collected out of ancient digests,
has shown himself a serviceable guide(17) for us. Now, if I inquire of
him who were the subtle inventors(18) of the gods, he points to either
the philosophers, the peoples, or the poets. For he has made a
threefold distinction in classifying the gods: one being the physical
class, of which the philosophers treat; another the mythic class, which
is the constant burden of(19) the poets; the third, the gentile class,
which the nations have adopted each one for itself. When, therefore,
the philosophers have ingeniously composed their physical (theology)
out of their own conjectures, when the poets have drawn their mythical
from fables, and the (several) nations have forged their gentile
(polytheism) according to their own will, where in the world must truth
be placed? In the conjectures? Well, but these are only a doubtful
conception. In the fables? But they are at best an absurd story. In the
popular accounts?(1) This sort of opinion,(2) however, is only
promiscuous(3) and municipal. Now all things with the philosophers are
uncertain, because of their variation with the poets all is worthless,
because immoral; with the nations all is irregular and confused,
because dependent on their mere choice. The nature of God, however, if
it be the true one with which you are concerned, is of so definite a
character as not to be derived from uncertain speculations,(4) nor
contaminated with worthless fables, nor determined by promiscuous
conceits. It ought indeed to be regarded, as it really is, as certain,
entire, universal, because it is in truth the property of all. Now,
what god shall I believe? One that has been gauged by vague suspicion?
One that history(5) has divulged? One that a community has invented? It
would be a far worthier thing if I believed no god, than one which is
open to doubt, or full of shame, or the object of arbitrary
selection.(6)
But the authority of the physical philosophers is maintained
among you(7) as the special property.(8) of wisdom. You mean of course,
that pure and simple wisdom of the philosophers which attests its own
weakness mainly by that variety of opinion which proceeds from an
ignorance of the truth. Now what wise man is so devoid of truth, as not
to know that God is the Father and Lord of wisdom itself and truth?
Besides, there is that divine oracle uttered by Solomon: "The fear of
the Lord," says he," is the beginning of wisdom."(9) But(10) fear has
its origin in knowledge; for how will a man fear that of which he knows
nothing? Therefore he who shall have the fear of God, even if he be
ignorant of all things else, if he has attained to the knowledge and
truth of God,(11) will possess full and perfect wisdom. This, however,
is what philosophy has not clearly realized. For although, in their
inquisitive disposition to search into all kinds of learning, the
philosophers may seem to have investigated the sacred Scriptures
themselves for their antiquity, and to have derived thence some of
their opinions; yet because they have interpolated these deductions
they prove that they have either despised them wholly or have not fully
believed them, for in other cases also the simplicity of truth is
shaken(12) by the over-scrupulousness of an irregular belief,(13) and
that they therefore changed them, as their desire of glory grew, into
products of their own mind. The consequence of this is, that even that
which they had discovered degenerated into uncertainty, and there arose
from one or two drops of truth a perfect flood of argumentation. For
after they had simply(14) found God, they did not expound Him as they
found Him, but rather disputed about His quality, and His nature, and
even about His abode. The Platonists, indeed, (held) Him to care about
wordly things, both as the disposer and judge thereof. The Epicureans
regarded Him as apathetic(15) and inert, and (so to say) a
non-entity.(16) The Stoics believed Him to be outside of the world; the
Platonists, within the world. The God whom they had so imperfectly
admitted, they could neither know nor fear; and therefore they could
not be wise, since they wandered away indeed from the beginning of
wisdom," that is, "the fear of God." Proofs are not wanting that among
the philosophers there was not only an ignorance, but actual doubt,
about the divinity. Diogenes, when asked what was taking place in
heaven, answered by saying, "I have never been up there." Again,
whether there were any gods, he replied, "I do not know; only there
ought to be gods."(17) When Croesus inquired of Thales of Miletus what
he thought of the gods, the latter having taken some time(18) to
consider, answered by the word "Nothing." Even Socrates denied with an
air of certainty(19) those gods of yours.(20) Yet he with a like
certainty requested that a cock should be sacrificed to AEsculapius.
And therefore when philosophy, in its practice of defining about God,
is detected in such uncertainty and inconsistency, what "fear" could
it possibly have had of Him whom it was not competent(1) clearly to
determine? We have been taught to believe of the world that it is
god.(2) For such the physical class of theologizers conclude it to be,
since they have handed down such views about the gods that Dionysius
the Stoic divides them into three kinds. The first, he supposes,
includes those gods which are most obvious, as the Sun, Moon, and
Stars; the next, those which are not apparent, as Neptune; the
remaining one, those which are said to have passed from the human state
to the divine, as Hercules and Amphiaraus. In like manner, Arcesilaus
makes a threefold form of the divinity—the Olympian, the Astral, the
Titanian—sprung from Coelus and Terra; from which through Saturn and
Ops came Neptune, Jupiter, and Orcus, and their entire progeny.
Xenocrates, of the Academy, makes a twofold division—the Olympian and
the Titanian, which descend from Coelus and Terra. Most of the
Egyptians believe that there are four gods—the Sun and the Moon, the
Heaven and the Earth. Along with all the supernal fire Democritus
conjectures that the gods arose. Zeno, too, will have it that their
nature resembles it. Whence Varro also makes fire to be the soul of the
world, that in the world fire governs all things, just as the soul does
in ourselves. But all this is most absurd. For he says, Whilst it is in
us, we have existence; but as soon as it has left us, we die.
Therefore, when fire quits the world in lightning, the world comes to
its end.
From these developments of opinion, we see that your(3) physical
class of philosophers are driven to the necessity of contending that
the elements are gods, since it alleges that other gods are sprung from
them; for it is only from gods that gods could be born. Now, although
we shall have to examine these other gods more fully in the proper
place, in the mythic section of the poets, yet, inasmuch as we must
meanwhile treat of them in their connection with the present class,(4)
we shall probably even from their present class,(5) when once we turn
to the gods themselves, succeed in showing that they can by no means
appear to be gods who are said to be sprung from the elements; so that
we have at once a presumption(6) that the elements are not gods, since
they which are born of the elements are not gods. In like manner,
whilst we show that the elements are not gods, we shall, according to
the law of natural relationship,(7) get a presumptive argument that
they cannot rightly be maintained to be gods whose parents (in this
case the elements) are not gods. It is a settled point(8) that a god is
born of a god, and that what lacks divinity(9) is born of what is not
divine. Now, so far as(10) the world of which your philosophers
treat(11) (for I apply this term to the universe in the most
comprehensive sense(12)) contains the elements, ministering to them as
its component parts (for whatever its own condition may be, the same of
course will be that of its elements and constituent portions), it must
needs have been formed either by some being, according to the
enlightened view(13) of Plato, or else by none, according to the harsh
opinion(14) of Epicurus; and since it was formed, by having a
beginning, it must also have an end. That, therefore, which at one time
before its beginning had no existence, and will by and by after its end
cease to have an existence, cannot of course, by any possibility, seem
to be a god, wanting as it does that essential character of divinity,
eternity,which is reckoned to be(15) without beginning, and without
end. If, however, it(16) is in no wise formed, and therefore ought to
be accounted divine—since, as divine, it is subject neither to a
beginning nor an end of itself—how is it that some assign generation
to the elements, which they hold to be gods, when the Stoics deny that
anything can be born of a god? Likewise, how is it that they wish those
beings, whom they suppose to be born of the elements, to be regarded as
gods, when they deny that a god can be born? Now, what must hold good
of the universe(17) will have to be predicated of the elements, I mean
of heaven, and of earth, and of the stars, and of fire, which Varro has
vainly proposed that you should believe(18) to be gods, and the parents
of gods, contrary to that generation and nativity which he had declared
to be impossible in a god. Now this same Varro had shown that the earth
and the stars were animated.(1) But if this be the case, they must
needs be also mortal, according to the condition(2) of animated nature;
for although the soul is evidently immortal, this attribute is limited
to it alone: it is not extended to that with which it is associated,
that is, the body. Nobody, however, will deny that the elements have
body, since we both touch them and are touched by them, and we see
certain bodies fall down from them. If, therefore, they are animated,
laying aside the principle(3) of a soul, as befits their condition as
bodies, they are mortal—of course not immortal. And yet whence is it
that the elements appear to Varro to be animated? Because, forsooth,
the elements have motion. And then, in order to anticipate what may be
objected on the other side, that many things else have motion—as
wheels, as carriages, as several other machines—he volunteers the
statement that he believes only such things to be animated as move of
themselves, without any apparent mover or impeller from without, like
the apparent mover of the wheel, or propeller of the carriage, or
director of the machine. If, then, they are not animated, they have no
motion of themselves. Now, when he thus alleges a power which is not
apparent, he points to what it was his duty to seek after, even the
creator and controller of the motion for it does not at once follow
that, because we do not see a thing, we believe that it does not exist.
Rather, it is necessary the more profoundly to investigate what one
does not see, in order the better to understand the character of that
which is apparent. Besides if (you admit) only the existence of those
things which appear and are supposed to exist simply because they
appear, how is it that you also admit them to be gods which do not
appear? If, moreover, those things seem to have existence which have
none, why may they not have existence also which do not seem to have
it? Such, for instance, as the Mover(4) of the heavenly beings.
Granted, then, that things are animated because they move of
themselves, and that they move of themselves when they are not moved by
another: still it does not follow that they must straightway be gods,
because they are animated, nor even because they move of themselves;
else what is to prevent all animals whatever being accounted gods,
moving as they do of themselves? This, to be sure, is allowed to the
Egyptians, but their superstitious vanity has another basis.(5)
Some affirm that the gods (i.e. qeoi ) were so called because
the verbs qeein and seisqai signify to run and to be moved.(6) This
term, then, is not indicative of any majesty, for it is derived from
running and motion, not from any dominion(7) of godhead. But inasmuch
as the Supreme God whom we worship is also designated Qeos , without
however the appearance of any course or motion in Him, because He is
not visible to any one, it is clear that that word must have had some
other derivation, and that the property of divinity, innate in Himself,
must have been discovered. Dismissing, then, that ingenious
interpretation, it is more likely that the gods were not called qeoi
from running and motion, but that the term was borrowed from the
designation of the true God; so that you gave the name qeoi to the
gods, whom you had in like manner forged for yourselves. Now, that this
is the case, a plain proof is afforded in the fact that you actually
give the common appellation qeoi to all those gods of yours, in whom
there is no attribute of course or motion indicated. When, therefore,
you call them both qeoi and immoveable with equal readiness, there is
a deviation as well from the meaning of the word as from the idea(8) of
godhead, which is set aside(9) if measured by the notion of course and
motion. But if that sacred name be peculiarly significant of deity, and
be simply true and not of a forced interpretation(10) in the case of
the true God, but transferred in a borrowed sense(11) to those other
objects which you choose to call gods, then you ought to show to us(12)
that there is also a community of character between them, so that their
common designation may rightly depend on their union of essence. But
the true God, on the sole ground that He is not an object of sense, is
incapable of being compared with those false deities which are
cognizable to sight and sense (to sense indeed is sufficient); for this
amounts to a clear statement of the difference between an obscure proof
and a manifest one. Now, since the elements are obvious to all, (and)
since God, on the contrary, is visible to none, how will it be in your
power from that part which you have not seen to pass to a decision on
the objects which you see? Since, therefore, you have not to combine
them in your perception or your reason, why do you combine them in name
with the purpose of combining them also in power? For see how even Zeno
separates the matter of the world from God: he says that the latter has
percolated through the former, like honey through the comb. God,
therefore, and Matter are two words (and) two things. Proportioned to
the difference of the words is the diversity of the things; the
condition also of matter follows its designation. Now if matter is not
God, because its very appellation teaches us so, how can those things
which are inherent in matter—that is, the elements—be regarded as
gods, since the component members cannot possibly be heterogeneous from
the body? But what concern have I with physiological conceits? It were
better for one's mind to ascend above the state of the world, not to
stoop down to uncertain speculations. Plato's form for the world was
round. Its square, angular shape, such as others had conceived it to
be, he rounded off, I suppose, with compasses, from his labouring to
have it believed to be simply without a beginning.(1) Epicurus,
however, who had said, "What is above us is nothing to us," wished
notwithstanding to have a peep at the sky, and found the sun to be a
foot in diameter. Thus far you must confess(2) men were niggardly in
even celestial objects. In process of time their ambitious conceptions
advanced, and so the sun too enlarged its disk.(3) Accordingly, the
Peripatetics marked it out as a larger world.(4) Now, pray tell me,
what wisdom is there in this hankering after conjectural speculations?
What proof is afforded to us, notwithstanding the strong confidence of
its assertions, by the useless affectation of a scrupulous
curiosity,(5) which is tricked out with an artful show of language? It
therefore served Thales of Miletus quite right, when, star-gazing as he
walked with all the eyes he had, he had the mortification of falling(6)
into a well, and was unmercifully twitted by an Egyptian, who said to
him, "Is it because you found nothing on earth to look at, that you
think you ought to confine your gaze to the sky?" His fall, therefore,
is a figurative picture of the philosophers; of those, I mean,(7) who
persist in applying(8) their studies to a vain purpose, since they
indulge a stupid curiosity on natural objects, which they ought rather
(intelligently to direct) to their Creator and Governor.
Why, then, do we not resort to that far more reasonable(9)
opinion, which has clear proof of being derived from men's common sense
and unsophisticated deduction?(10) Even Varro bears it in mind, when he
says that the elements are supposed to be divine, because nothing
whatever is capable, without their concurrence,(11) of being produced,
nourished, or applied to the sustenance(12) of man's life and of the
earth, since not even our bodies and souls could have sufficed in
themselves without the modification(13) of the elements. By this it is
that the world is made generally habitable,—a result which is
harmoniously secured(14) by the distribution into zones,(15) except
where human residence has been rendered impracticable by intensity of
cold or heat. On this account, men have accounted as gods—the sun,
because it imparts from itself the light of day, ripens the fruit with
its warmth, and measures the year with its stated periods; the moon,
which is at once the solace of the night and the controller of the
months by its governance; the stars also, certain indications as they
are of those seasons which are to be observed in the tillage of our
fields; lastly, the very heaven also under which, and the earth over
which, as well as the intermediate space within which, all things
conspire together for the good of man. Nor is it from their beneficent
influences only that a faith in their divinity has been deemed
compatible with the elements, but from their opposite qualities also,
such as usually happen from what one might call(16) their wrath and
anger—as thunder, and hail, and drought, and pestilential winds,
floods also, and openings of the ground, and earthquakes: these are all
fairly enough(17) accounted gods, whether their nature becomes the
object of reverence as being favourable, or of fear because
terrible—the sovereign dispenser,(18) in fact,(19) both of help and of
hurt. But in the practical conduct of social life, this is the way in
which men act and feel: they do not show gratitude or find fault with
the very things from which the succour or the injury proceeds, so much
as with them by whose strength and power the operation of the things is
effected. For even in your amusements you do not award the crown as a
prize to the flute or the harp, but to the musician who manages the
said flute or harp by the power of his delightful skill.(1) In like
manner, when one is in ill-health, you do not bestow your
acknowledgments on the flannel wraps,(2) or the medicines, or the
poultices, but on the doctors by whose care and prudence the remedies
become effectual. So again, in untoward events, they who are wounded
with the sword do not charge the injury on the sword or the spear, but
on the enemy or the robber; whilst those whom a falling house covers do
not blame the tiles or the stones, but the oldness of the building; as
again shipwrecked sailors impute their calamity not to the rocks and
waves, but to the tempest. And rightly too; for it is certain that
everything which happens must be ascribed not to the instrument with
which, but to the agent by whom, it takes place; inasmuch as he is the
prime cause of the occurrence,(3) who appoints both the event itself
and that by whose instrumentality it comes to pass (as there are in all
things these three particular elements—the fact itself, its
instrument, and its cause), because he himself who wills the occurrence
of a thing comes into notice(4) prior to the thing which he wills, or
the instrument by which it occurs. On all other occasions therefore,
your conduct is right enough, because you consider the author; but in
physical phenomena your rule is opposed to that natural principle which
prompts you to a wise judgment in all other cases, removing out of
sight as you do the supreme position of the author, and considering
rather the things that happen, than him by whom they happen. Thus it
comes to pass that you suppose the power and the dominion to belong to
the elements, which are but the slaves and functionaries. Now do we
not, in thus tracing out an artificer and master within, expose the
artful structure of their slavery(5) out of the appointed functions of
those elements to which you ascribe (the attributes) of power?(6) But
gods are not slaves; therefore whatever things are servile in character
are not gods. Otherwise(7) they should prove to us that, according to
the ordinary course of things, liberty is promoted by irregular
licence,(1) despotism by liberty, and that by despotism divine power is
meant. For if all the (heavenly bodies) overhead forget not(9) to
fulfil their courses in certain orbits, in regular seasons, at proper
distances, and at equal intervals—appointed in the way of a law for
the revolutions of time, and for directing the guidance thereof—can it
fail to result(10) from the very observance of their conditions and the
fidelity of their operations, that you will be convinced both by the
recurrence of their orbital courses and the accuracy of their
mutations, when you bear in mind how ceaseless is their recurrence,
that a governing power presides over them, to which the entire
management of the world(11) is obedient, reaching even to the utility
and injury of the human race? For you cannot pretend that these
(phenomena) act and care for themselves alone, without contributing
anything to the advantage of mankind, when you maintain that the
elements are divine for no other reason than that you experience from
them either benefit or injury to yourself. For if they benefit
themselves only, you are under no obligation to them.
Come now, do you allow that the Divine Being not only has nothing
servile in His course, but exists in unimpaired integrity, and ought
not to be diminished, or suspended, or destroyed? Well, then, all His
blessedness(12) would disappear, if He were ever subject to change.
Look, however, at the stellar bodies; they both undergo change, and
give clear evidence of the fact. The moon tells us how great has been
its loss, as it recovers its full form;(13) its greater losses you are
already accustomed to measure in a mirror of water;(15) so that I need
not any longer believe in anywise what magians have asserted. The sun,
too, is frequently put to the trial of an eclipse. Explain as best you
may the modes of these celestial casualties, it is impossible(15) for
God either to become less or to cease to exist. Vain, therefore, are(1)
those supports of human learning, which, by their artful method of
weaving conjectures, belie both wisdom and truth. Besides,(2) it so
happens, indeed, according to your natural way of thinking, that he who
has spoken the best is supposed to have spoken most truly, instead of
him who has spoken the truth being held to have spoken the best. Now
the man who shall carefully look into things, will surely allow it to
be a greater probability that those(3) elements which we have been
discussing are under some rule and direction, than that they have a
motion of their own, and that being under government they cannot be
gods. If, however, one is in error in this matter, it is better to err
simply than speculatively, like your physical philosophers. But, at the
same time,(4) if you consider the character of the mythic school, (and
compare it with the physical,) the error which we have already seen
frail men(5) making in the latter is really the more respectable one,
since it ascribes a divine nature to those things which it supposes to
be superhuman in their sensibility, whether in respect of their
position, their power, their magnitude, or their divinity. For that
which you suppose to be higher than man, you believe to be very near to
God.
But to pass to the mythic class of gods, which we attributed to
the poets,(6) I hardly know whether I must only seek to put them on a
par with our own human mediocrity, or whether they must be affirmed to
be gods, with proofs of divinity, like the African Mopsus and the
Boeotian Amphiaraus. I must now indeed but slightly touch on this
class, of which a fuller view will be taken in the proper place.(7)
Meanwhile, that these were only human beings, is clear from the fact
that you do not consistently call them gods, but heroes. Why then
discuss the point? Although divine honours had to be ascribed to dead
men, it was not to them as such, of course. Look at your own practice,
when with similar excess of presumption you sully heaven with the
sepulchres of your kings: is it not such as are illustrious for
justice, virtue, piety, and every excellence of this sort, that you
honour with the blessedness of deification, contented even to incur
contempt if you forswear yourselves(8) for such characters? And, on the
other hand, do you not deprive the impious and disgraceful of even the
old prizes of human glory, tear up(9) their decrees and titles, pull
down their statues, and deface(10) their images on the current coin?
Will He, however, who beholds all things, who approves, nay, rewards
the good, prostitute before all men(11) the attribute of His own
inexhaustible grace and mercy? And shall men be allowed an especial
mount of care and righteousness, that they may be wise(12) in selecting
and multiplying(13) their deities? Shall attendants on kings and
princes be more pure than those who wait on the Supreme God?(14) You
turn your back in horror, indeed, on outcasts and exiles, on the poor
and weak, on the obscurely born and the low-lived;(15) but yet you
honour, even by legal sanctions,(16) unchaste men, adulterers, robbers,
and parricides. Must we regard it as a subject of ridicule or
indignation, that such characters are believed to be gods who are not
fit to be men? Then, again, in this mythic class of yours which the
poets celebrate, how uncertain is your conduct as to purity of
conscience and the maintenance thereof! For whenever we hold up to
execration the wretched, disgraceful and atrocious (examples) of your
gods, you defend them as mere fables, on the pretence of poetic
licence; whenever we volunteer a silent contempt(17) of this said(18)
poetic licence, then you are not only troubled with no horror of it,
but you go so far as(19) to show it respect, and to hold it as one of
the indispensable (fine) arts; nay,(20) you carry out the studies of
your higher classes by its means, as the very foundation(22) of your
literature. Plato was of opinion that poets ought to be banished, as
calumniators of the gods; he would even have) Homer himself expelled
from his republic, although, as you are aware,(23) he was the crowned
head of them all. But while you admit and retain them thus, why should
you not believe them when they disclose such things respecting your
gods? And if you do believe your poets, how is it that you worship such
gods (as they describe)? you worship them simply because you do not
believe the poets, why do you bestow praise on such lying authors,
without any fear of giving offence to those whose calumniators you
honour? A regard for truth(1) is not, of course, to be expected of
poets. But when you say that they only make men into gods after their
death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely
human? Now what is there strange in the fact, that they who were once
men are subject to the dishonour(2) of human casualties, or crimes, or
fables? Do you not, in fact, put faith in your poets, when it is in
accordance with their rhapsodies(3) that you have arranged in some
instances your very rituals? How is it that the priestess of Ceres is
ravished, if it is not because Ceres suffered a similar outrage? Why
are the children of others sacrificed to Saturn,(4) if it is not
because he spared not his own? Why is a male mutilated in honour of the
Idaean goddess Cybele, unless it be that the (unhappy) youth who was
too disdainful of her advances was castrated, owing to her vexation at
his daring to cross her love?(5) Why was not Hercules "a dainty dish"
to the good ladies of Lanuvium, if it was not for the primeval offence
which women gave to him? The poets, no doubt, are liars. Yet it is not
because of their telling us that(6) your gods did such things when they
were human beings, nor because they predicated divine scandals(7) of a
divine state, since it seemed to you more credible that gods should
exist, though not of such a character, than that there should be such
characters, although not gods.
There remains the gentile class of gods amongst the several
nations:(8) these were adopted out of mere caprice, not from the
knowledge of the truth; and our information about them comes from the
private notions of different races. God, I imagine, is everywhere
known, everywhere present, powerful everywhere—an object whom all
ought to worship, all ought to serve. Since, then, it happens that even
they, whom all the world worships in common, fail in the evidence of
their true divinity, how much more must this befall those whom their
very votaries(9) have not succeeded in discovering! For what useful
authority could possibly precede a theology of so defective a character
as to be wholly unknown to fame? How many have either seen or heard of
the Syrian Atargatis, the African Coelestis, the Moorish Varsutina, the
Arabian Obodas and Dusaris, or the Norican Belenus, or those whom Varro
mentions—Deluentinus of Casinum, Visidianus of Narnia, Numiternus of
Atina, or Ancharia of Asculum? And who have any clear notions(10) of
Nortia of Vulsinii?(11) There is no difference in the worth of even
their names, apart from the human surnames which distinguish them. I
laugh often enough at the little coteries of gods(12) in each
municipality, which have their honours confined within their own city
walls. To what lengths this licence of adopting gods has been pushed,
the superstitious practices of the Egyptians show us; for they worship
even their native(13) animals, such as cats, crocodiles, and their
snake. It is therefore a small matter that they have also deified a
man—him, I mean, whom not Egypt only, or Greece, but the whole world
worships, and the Africans swear by; about whose state also all that
helps our conjectures and imparts to our knowledge the semblance of
truth is stated in our own (sacred) literature. For that Serapis of
yours was originally one of our own saints called Joseph.(14) The
youngest of his brethren, but superior to them in intellect, he was
from envy sold into Egypt, and became a slave in the family of Pharaoh
king of the country.(15) Importuned by the unchaste queen, when he
refused to comply with her desire, she turned upon him and reported him
to the king, by whom he is put into prison. There he displays the power
of his divine inspiration, by interpreting aright the dreams of some
(fellow-prisoners). Meanwhile the king, too, has some terrible dreams.
Joseph being brought before him, according to his summons, was able to
expound them. Having narrated the proofs of true interpretation which
he had given in the prison, he opens out his dream to the king: those
seven fat-fleshed and well-favoured kine signified as many years of
plenty; in like manner, the seven lean-fleshed animals predicted the
scarcity of the seven following years. He accordingly recommends
precautions to be taken against the future famine from the previous
plenty. The king believed him. The issue of all that happened showed
how wise he was, how invariably holy, and now how necessary. So Pharaoh
set him over all Egypt, that he might secure the provision of corn for
it, and thenceforth administer its government. They called him Serapis,
from the turban(1) which adorned his head. The peck-like(2) shape of
this turban marks the memory of his corn-provisioning; whilst evidence
is given that the care of the supplies was all on his head,(3) by the
very ears of corn which embellish the border of the head-dress. For the
same reason, also, they made the sacred figure of a dog,(4) which they
regard (as a sentry) in Hades, and put it under his right hand, because
the care of the Egyptians was concentrated s under his hand. And they
put at his side Pharia,(6) whose name shows her to have been the king's
daughter. For in addition to all the rest of his kind gifts and
rewards, Pharaoh had given him his own daughter in marriage. Since,
however, they had begun to worship both wild animals and human beings,
they combined both figures under one form Anubis, in which there may
rather be seen clear proofs of its own character and condition
enshrined(7) by a nation at war with itself, refractory(8) to its
kings, despised among foreigners, with even the appetite of a slave and
the filthy nature of a dog.
Such are the more obvious or more remarkable points which we had
to mention in connection with Varro's threefold distribution of the
gods, in order that a sufficient answer might seem to be given touching
the physical, the poetic, and the gentile classes. Since, however, it
is no longer to the philosophers, nor the poets, nor the nations that
we owe the substitution of all (heathen worship for the true religion)
although they transmitted the superstition, but to the dominant Romans,
who received the tradition and gave it wide authority, another phase of
the widespread error of man must now be encountered by us; nay, another
forest must be felled by our axe, which has obscured the childhood of
the de generate worship(9) with germs of superstitions gathered from
all quarters. Well, but even the gods of the Romans have received from
(the same) Varro a threefold classification into the certain, the
uncertain, and the select. What absurdity! What need had they of
uncertain gods, when they possessed certain ones? Unless, forsooth,
they wished to commit themselves to(10) such folly as the Athenians
did; for at Athens there was an altar with this inscription: "To THE
UNKNOWN GODS."(11) Does, then, a man worship that which he knows
nothing of? Then, again, as they had certain gods, they ought to have
been contented with them, without requiring select ones. In this want
they are even found to be irreligious! For if gods are selected as
onions are,(12) then such as are not chosen are declared to be
worthless. Now we on our part allow that the Romans had two sets of
gods, common and proper; in other words, those which they had in common
with other nations, and those which they themselves devised. And were
not these called the public and the foreign(13) gods? Their altars tell
us so; there is (a specimen) of the foreign gods at the lane of Carna,
of the public gods in the Palatium. Now, since their common gods are
comprehended in both the physical and the mythic classes, we have
already said enough concerning them. I should like to speak of their
particular kinds of deity. We ought then to admire the Romans for that
third set of the gods of their enemies,(14) because no other nation
ever discovered for itself so large a mass of superstition. Their other
deities we arrange in two classes: those which have become gods from
human beings, and those which have had their origin in some other way.
Now, since there is advanced the same colourable pretext for the
deification of the dead, that their lives were meritorious, we are
compelled to urge the same reply against them, that no one of them was
worth so much pains. Their fond(1) father Aeneas, in whom they
believed, was never glorious, and was felled with a stone(2)—a vulgar
weapon, to pelt a dog withal, inflicting a wound no less ignoble! But
this Aeneas turns out(3) a traitor to his country; yes, quite as much
as Antenor. And if they will not believe this to be true of him, he at
any rate deserted his companions when his country was in flames, and
must be held inferior to that woman of Carthage,(4) who, when her
husband Hasdrubal supplicated the enemy with the mild pusillanimity of
our Aeneas, refused to accompany him, but hurrying her children along
with her, disdained to take her beautiful self and father's noble heart
s into exile, but plunged into the flames of the burning Carthage, as
if rushing into the embraces of her (dear but) ruined country. Is he
"pious Aeneas" for (rescuing) his young only son and decrepid old
father, but deserting Priam and Astyanax? But the Romans ought rather
to detest him; for in defence of their princes and their royal(6)
house, they surrender(7) even children and wives, and every dearest
pledge.(8) They deify the son of Venus, and this with the full
knowledge and consent of her husband Vulcan, and without opposition
from even Juno. Now, if sons have seats in heaven owing to their piety
to their parents, why are not those noble youths(9) of Argos rather
accounted gods, because they, to save their mother from guilt in the
performance of some sacred rites, with a devotion more than human,
yoked themselves to her car and dragged her to the temple? Why not make
a goddess, for her exceeding piety, of that daughter(10) who from her
own breasts nourished her father who was famishing in prison? What
other glorious achievement can be related of Aeneas, but that he was
nowhere seen in the fight on the field of Laurentum? Following his
bent, perhaps he fled a second time as a fugitive from the battle.(11)
In like manner, Romulus posthumously becomes a god. Was it because he
rounded the city? Then why not others also, who have built cities,
counting even(12) women? To be sure, Romulus slew his brother in the
bargain, and trickishly ravished some foreign virgins. Therefore of
course he becomes a god, and therefore a Quirinus ("god of the spear"),
because then their fathers had to use the spear(13) on his account.
What did Sterculus do to merit deification? If he worked hard to enrich
the fields stercoribus,(14) (with manure,) Augias had more dung than he
to bestow on them. If Faunus, the son of Picus, used to do violence to
law and right, because struck with madness, it was more fit that he
should be doctored than deified.(15) If the daughter of Faunus so
excelled in chastity, that she would hold no conversation with men, it
was perhaps from rudeness, or a consciousness of deformity, or shame
for her father's insanity. How much worthier of divine honour than this
"good goddess"(16) was Penelope, who, although dwelling among so many
suitors of the vilest character, preserved with delicate tact the
purity which they assailed! There is Sanctus, too,(17) who for his
hospitality had a temple consecrated to him by king Plotius; and even
Ulysses had it in his power to have bestowed one more god upon you in
the person of the most refined Alcinous.
I hasten to even more abominable cases. Your writers have not
been ashamed to publish that of Larentina. She was a hired prostitute,
whether as the nurse of Romulus, and therefore called Lupa, because she
was a prostitute, or as the mistress of Hercules, now deceased, that is
to say, now deified. They(18) relate that his temple-warder(19)
happened to be playing at dice in the temple alone; and in order to
represent a partner for himself in the game, in the absence of an
actual one, he began to play with one hand for Hercules and the other
for himself. (The condition was,) that if he won the stakes from
Hercules, he should with them procure a supper and a prostitute; if
Hercules, however, proved the winner, I mean his other hand, then he
should provide the same for Hercules. The hand of Hercules won. That
achievement might well have been added to his twelve labours! The
temple-warden buys a supper for the hero, and hires Larentina to play
the whore. The fire which dissolved the body of even a Hercules(1)
enjoyed the supper, and the altar consumed everything. Larentina sleeps
alone in the temple; and she a woman from the brothel, boasts that in
her dreams she had submitted herself to the pleasure of Hercules;(2)
and she might possibly have experienced this, as it passed through her
mind, in her sleep. In the morning, on going out of the temple very
early, she is solicited by a young man—"a third Hercules," so to
speak.(3) He invites her home. She complies, remembering that Hercules
had told her that it would be for her advantage. He then, to be sure,
obtains permission that they should be united in lawful wedlock (for
none was allowed to have intercourse with the concubine of a god
without being punished for it); the husband makes her his heir. By and
by, just before her death, she bequeathed to the Roman people the
rather large estate which she had obtained through Hercules. After this
she sought deification for her daughters too, whom indeed the divine
Larentina ought to have appointed her heirs also. The gods, of the
Romans received an accession in her dignity. For she alone of all the
wives of Hercules was dear to him, because she alone was rich; and she
was even far more fortunate than Ceres, who contributed to the pleasure
of the (king of the) dead.(4) After so many examples and eminent names
among you, who might not have been declared divine? Who, in fact, ever
raised a question as to his divinity against Antinous?(5) Was even
Ganymede more grateful and dear than he to (the supreme god) who loved
him? According to you, heaven is open to the dead. You prepare(6) a way
from Hades to the stars. Prostitutes mount it in all directions, so
that you must not suppose that you are conferring a great distinction
upon your kings.
And you are not content to assert the divinity of such as were
once known to you, whom you heard and handled, and whose portraits have
been painted, and actions recounted, and memory retained amongst you;
but men insist upon consecrating with a heavenly life(7) I know not
what incorporeal, inanimate shadows, and the mere names of
things—dividing man's entire existence amongst separate powers even
from his conception in the womb: so that there is a god Consevius,(8)
to preside over concubital generation; and Fluviona,(9) to preserve the
(growth of the) infant in the womb; after these come Vitumnus and
Sentinus,(10) through whom the babe begins to have life and its
earliest sensation; then Diespiter,(11) by whose office the child
accomplishes its birth. But when women begin their parturition,
Candelifera also comes in aid, since childbearing requires the light of
the candle; and other goddesses there are "who get their names from the
parts they bear in the stages of travail. There were two Carmentas
likewise, according to the general view: to one of them, called
Postverta, belonged the function of assisting the birth of the
introverted child; while the other, Prosa,(13) executed the like office
for the rightly born. The god Farinus was so called from (his
inspiring) the first utterance; while others believed in Locutius from
his gift of speech. Cunina(14) is present as the protector of the
child's deep slumber, and supplies to it refreshing rest. To lift them
(when fallen)(15) there is Levana, and along with her Rumina.(16) It is
a wonderful oversight that no gods were appointed for cleaning up the
filth of children. Then, to preside over their first pap and earliest
drink you have Potina and Edula;(17) to teach the child to stand erect
is the work of Statina,(18) whilst Adeona helps him to come to dear
Mramma, and Abeona to toddle off again; then there is Domiduca,(19) (to
bring home the bride;) and the goddess Mens, to influence the mind to
either good or evil.(20) They have likewise Volumnus and Voleta,(21) to
control the will; Paventina, (the goddess) of fear; Venilia, of
hope;(22) Volupia, of pleasure;(23) Praestitia, of beauty.(24) Then,
again, they give his name to Peragenor,(25) from his teaching men to go
through their work; to Consus, from his sug- gesting to them counsel.
Juventa is their guide on assuming the manly gown, and "bearded
Fortune" when they come to full manhood.(1) If I must touch on their
nuptial duties, there is Afterenda whose appointed function is to see
to the offering of the dower; but fie on you! you have your Mutunus(2)
and Tutunus and Pertunda(3) and Subigus and the goddess Prema and
likewise Perfica.(4) O spare yourselves, ye impudent gods! No one is
present at the secret struggles of married life. Those very few persons
who have a wish that way, go away and blush for very shame in the
midst of their joy.
Now, how much further need I go in recounting your gods—because
I want to descant on the character of such as you have adopted? It is
quite uncertain whether I shall laugh at your absurdity, or upbraid you
for your blindness. For how many, and indeed what, gods shall I bring
forward? Shall it be the greater ones, or the lesser? The old ones, or
the novel? The male, or the female? The unmarried, or such as are
joined in wedlock? The clever, or the unskilful? The rustic or the town
ones? The national or the foreign? For the truth is,(6) there are so
many families, so many nations, which require a catalogue(7) (of gods),
that they cannot possibly be examined, or distinguished, or described.
But the more diffuse the subject is, the more restriction must we
impose on it. As, therefore, in this review we keep before us but one
object—that of proving that all these gods were once human beings
(not, indeed, to instruct you in the fact,(8) for your conduct shows
that you have forgotten it)—let us adopt our compendious summary from
the most natural method(9) of conducting the examination, even by
considering the origin of their race. For the origin characterizes all
that comes after it. Now this origin of your gods dates,(10) I suppose,
from Saturn. And when Varro mentions Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, as the
most ancient of the gods, it ought not to have escaped our notice, that
every father is more ancient than his sons, and that Saturn therefore
must precede Jupiter, even as Coelus does Saturn, for Saturn was sprung
from Coelus and Terra. I pass by, however, the origin of Coelus and
Terra. They led in some unaccountable way(11) single lives, and had no
children. Of course they required a long time for vigorous growth to
attain to such a stature.(12) By and by, as soon as the voice of Coelus
began to break,(13) and the breasts of Terra to become firm,(14) they
contract marriage with one another. I suppose either Heaven(15) came
down to his spouse, or Earth went up to meet her lord. Be that as it
may, Earth conceived seed of Heaven, and when her year was fulfilled
brought forth Saturn in a wonderful manner. Which of his parents did he
resemble? Well, then, even after parentage began,(16) it is certain(17)
that they had no child previous to Saturn, and only one daughter
afterwards—Ops; thenceforth they ceased to procreate. The truth is,
Saturn castrated Coelus as he was sleeping. We read this name Coelus as
of the masculine gender. And for the matter of that, how could he be a
father unless he were a male? But with what instrument was the
castration effected? He had a scythe. What, so early as that? For
Vulcan was not yet an artificer in iron. The widowed Tetra, however,
although still quite young, was in no hurry(18) to marry another.
Indeed, there was no second Coeus for her. What but Ocean offers her an
embrace? But he savours of brackishness, and she has been accustomed to
fresh water.(19) And so Saturn is the sole male child of Coelus and
Tetra. When grown to puberty, he marries his own sister. No laws as yet
prohibited incest, nor punished parricide. Then, when male children
were born to him, he would devour them; better himself (should take
them) than the wolves, (for to these would they become a prey) if he
exposed them. He was, no doubt, afraid that one of them might learn the
lesson of his father's scythe. When Jupiter was born in course of time,
he was removed out of the way:(20) (the father) swallowed a stone
instead of the son, as was pretended. This artifice secured his safety
for a time; but at length the son, whom he had not devoured, and who
had grown up in secret, fell upon him, and deprived him of his kingdom.
Such, then, is the patriarch of the gods whom Heaven(1) and Earth
produced for you, with the poets officiating as midwives. Now some
persons with a refined(2) imagination are of opinion that, by this
allegorical fable of Saturn, there is a physiological representation of
Time: (they think) that it is because all things are destroyed by Time,
that Coelus and Tetra were themselves parents without having any of
their own, and that the (fatal) scythe was used, and that (Saturn)
devoured his own offspring, because he,(3) in fact, absorbs within
himself all things which have issued from him. They call in also the
witness of his name; for they say that he is called K ronos in Greek,
meaning the same thing as kronos .(4) His Latin name also they derive
from seed-sowing;(5) for they suppose him to have been the actual
procreator—that the seed, in fact, was dropt down from heaven to earth
by his means. They unite him with Ops, because seeds produce the
affluent treasure (Opem) of actual life, and because they develope with
labour (Opus). Now I wish that you would explain this metaphorical(6)
statement. It was either Saturn or Time. If it was Time, how could it
be Saturn? If he, how could it be Time? For you cannot possibly reckon
both these corporeal subjects(7) as co-existing in one person. What,
however, was there to prevent your worshipping Time under its proper
quality? Why not make a human person, or even a mythic man, an object
of your adoration, but each in its proper nature not in the character
of Time? What is the meaning of that conceit of your mental ingenuity,
if it be not to colour the foulest matters with the feigned appearance
of reasonable proofs?(8) Neither, on the one hand, do you mean Saturn
to be Time, because you say he is a human being; nor, on the other
hand, whilst portraying him as Time, do you on that account mean that
he was ever human. No doubt, in the accounts of remote antiquity your
god Saturn is plainly described as living on earth in human guise.
Anything whatever may obviously be pictured as incorporeal which never
had an existence; there is simply no room for such fiction, where there
is reality. Since, therefore, there is clear evidence that Saturn once
existed, it is in vain that you change his character. He whom you will
not deny to have once been man, is not at your disposal to be treated
anyhow, nor can it be maintained that he is either divine or Time. In
every page of your literature the origin(9) of Saturn is conspicuous.
We read of him in Cassius Severus and in the Corneliuses, Nepes and
Tacitus,(10) and, amongst the Greeks also, in Diodorus, and all other
compilers of ancient annals.(11) No more faithful records of him are to
be traced than in Italy itself. For, after (traversing) many
countries, and (enjoying) the hospitality of Athens, he settled in
Italy, or, as it was called, OEnotria, having met with a kind welcome
from Janus, or Janes,(12) as the Salii call him. The hill on which he
settled had the name Saturnius, whilst the city which he rounded(13)
still bears the name Saturnia; in short, the whole of Italy once had
the same designation. Such is the testimony derived from that country
which is now the mistress of the world: whatever doubt prevails about
the origin of Saturn, his actions tell us plainly that he was a human
being. Since, therefore, Saturn was human, he came undoubtedly from a
human stock; and more, because he was a man, he, of course, came not of
Coelus and Terra. Some people, however, found it easy enough to call
him, whose parents were unknown, the son of those gods from whom all
may in a sense seem to be derived. For who is there that does not speak
under a feeling of reverence of the heaven and the earth as his own
father and mother? Or, in accordance with a custom amongst men, which
induces them to say of any who are unknown or suddenly apparent, that
"they came from the sky?" Hence it happened that, because a stranger
appeared suddenly everywhere, it became the custom to call him a
heaven-born man,(14)—just as we also commonly call earth-born all
those whose descent is unknown. I say nothing of the fact that such was
the state of antiquity, when men's eyes and minds were so habitually
rude, that they were excited by the appearance of every newcomer as if
it were that of a god: much more would this be the case with a king,
and that the primeval one. I will linger some time longer over the case
of Saturn, because by fully discussing his primordial history I shall
beforehand furnish a compendious answer for all other cases; and I do
not wish to omit the more convincing testimony of your sacred
literature, the credit of which ought to be the greater in proportion
to its antiquity. Now earlier than all liters- ture was the Sibyl; that
Sibyl, I mean, who was the true prophetess of truth, from whom you
borrow their title for the priests of your demons. She in senarian
verse expounds the descent of Saturn and his exploits in words to this
effect: "In the tenth generation of men, after the flood had
overwhelmed the former race, reigned Saturn, and Titan, and Japetus,
the bravest of the sons of Tetra and Coelus." Whatever credit,
therefore, is attached to your older writers and literature, and much
more to those who were the simplest as belonging to that age,(1) it
becomes sufficiently certain that Saturn and his family(2) were human
beings. We have in our possession, then, a brief principle which
amounts to a prescriptive rule about their origin serving for all other
cases, to prevent our going wrong in individual instances. The
particular character(3) of a posterity is shown by the original
founders of the race—mortal beings (come) from mortals, earthly ones
from earthly; step after step comes in due relation(4)—marriage,
conception, birth—country, settlements, kingdoms, all give the
clearest proofs.(5) They, therefore who cannot deny the birth of men,
must also admit their death; they who allow their mortality must not
suppose them to be gods.
Manifest cases, indeed, like these have a force peculiarly their
own. Men like Varro and his fellow-dreamers admit into the ranks of the
divinity those whom they cannot assert to have been in their primitive
condition anything but men; (and this they do) by affirming that they
became gods after their death. Here, then, I take my stand. If your
gods were elected(7) to this dignity and deity,(8) just as you recruit
the ranks of your senate, you cannot help conceding, in your wisdom,
that there must be some one supreme sovereign who has the power of
selecting, and is a kind of Caesar; and nobody is able to confer(9) on
others a thing over which he has not absolute control. Besides, if they
were able to make gods of themselves after their death, pray tell me
why they chose to be in an inferior condition at first? Or, again, if
there is no one who made them gods, how can they be said to have been
made such, if they could only have been made by some one else? There is
therefore no ground afforded you for denying that there is a certain
wholesale distributor(10) of divinity. Let us accordingly examine the
reasons for despatching mortal beings to heaven. I suppose you will
produce a pair of them. Whoever, then, is the awarder (of the divine
honours), exercises his function, either that he may have some
supports, or defences, or it may be even ornaments to his own dignity;
or from the pressing claims of the meritorious, that he may reward all
the deserving. No other cause is it permitted us to conjecture. Now
there is no one who, when bestowing a gift on another, does not act
with a view to his own interest or the other's. This conduct, however,
cannot be worthy of the Divine Being, inasmuch as His power is so great
that He can make gods outright; whilst His bringing man into such
request, on the pretence that he requires the aid and support of
certain, even dead persons, is a strange conceit, since He was able
from the very first to create for Himself immortal beings. He who has
compared human things with divine will require no further arguments on
these points. And yet the latter opinion ought to be discussed, that
God conferred divine honours in consideration of meritorious claims.
Well, then, if the award was made on such grounds, if heaven was opened
to men of the primitive age because of their deserts, we must reflect
that after that time no one was worthy of such honour; except it be,
that there is now no longer such a place for any one to attain to. Let
us grant that anciently men may have deserved heaven by reason of their
great merits. Then let us consider whether there really was such merit.
Let the man who alleges that it did exist declare his own view of
merit. Since the actions of men done in the very infancy of time(11)
are a valid claim for their deification, you consistently admitted to
the honour the brother and sister who were stained with the sin of
incest—Ops and Saturn. Your Jupiter too, stolen in his infancy, was
unworthy of both the home and the nutriment accorded to human beings;
and, as he deserved for so bad a child, he had to live in Crete.(12)
Afterwards, when full-grown, he dethrones his own father, who, whatever
his parental character may have been, was most prosperous in his reign,
king as he was of the golden age. Under him, a stranger to toil and
want, peace maintained its joyous and gentle sway; under him—
"Nulli subigebant arva coloni"(1)
"No swains would bring the fields beneath their sway;"(2)
and without the importunity of any one the earth would bear all crops spontaneously.(3) But he hated a father who had been guilty of incest, and had once mutilated his(4) grandfather. And yet, behold, he himself marries his own sister; so that I should suppose the old adage was made for him: To ou patros —" Father's own child." There was "not a pin to choose" between the father's piety and the son's. If the laws had been just even at that early time,(5) Jupiter ought to have been "sewed up in both sacks."(6) After this corroboration of his lust with incestuous gratification, why should he hesitate to indulge himself lavishly in the lighter excesses of adultery and debauchery? Ever since(7) poetry sported thus with his character, in some such way as is usual when a runaway slave(8) is posted up in public, we have been in the habit of gossiping without restraint(9) of his tricks(10) in our chat with passers-by;(11) sometimes sketching him out in the form of the very money which was the fee of his debauchery—as when (he personated) a bull, or rather paid the money's worth of one,(12) and showered (gold. into the maiden's chamber, or rather forced his way in with a bribe;(13) sometimes (figuring him) in the very likenesses of the parts which were acted(14)—as the eagle which ravished (the beautiful youth),(15) and the swan which sang (the enchanting song).(16) Well now, are not such fables as these made up of the most disgusting intrigues and the worst of scandals? or would not the morals and tempers of men be likely to become wanton from such examples? In what manner demons, the offspring of evil angels who have been long engaged in their mission, have laboured to turn men(17) aside from the faith to unbelief and to such fables, we must not in this place speak of to any extent. As indeed the general body(18) (of your gods), which took their cue(19) from their kings, and princes, and instructors,(20) was not of the self-same nature, it was in some other way" that similarity of character was exacted by their authority. But how much the worst of them was he who (ought to have been, but) was not, the best of them? By a title peculiar to him, you are indeed in the habit of calling Jupiter "the Best,"" whilst in Virgil he is "AEquus Jupiter."(23) All therefore were like him—incestuous towards their own kith and kin, unchaste to strangers, impious, unjust! Now he whom mythic story left untainted with no conspicuous infamy, was not worthy to be made a god.
But since they will have it that those who have been admitted
from the human state to the honours of deification should be kept
separate from others, and that the distinction which Dionysius the
Stoic drew should be made between the native and the factitious(24)
gods, I will add a few words concerning this last class also. I will
take Hercules himself for raising the gist of a reply(25) (to the
question) whether he deserved heaven and divine honours? For, as men
choose to have it, these honours are awarded to him for his merits. If
it was for his valour in destroying wild beasts with intrepidity, what
was there in that so very memorable? Do not criminals condemned to the
games, though they are even consigned to the contest of the vile arena,
despatch several of these animals at one time, and that with more
earnest zeal? If it was for his world-wide travels, how often has the
same thing been accomplished by the rich at their pleasant leisure, or
by philosophers in their slave-like poverty?(26) Is it forgotten that
the cynic Asclepiades on a single sorry cow,(27) riding on her back,
and sometimes nourished at her udder, surveyed(28) the whole world with
a personal inspection? Even if Hercules visited the infernal regions,
who does not know that the way to Hades is open to all? If you have
deified him on account of his much carnage and many battles, a much
greater number of victories was gained by the illustrious Pompey, the
conqueror of the pirates who had not spared Ostia itself in their
ravages; and (as to carnage), how many thousands, let me ask, were
cooped up in one corner of the citadel(1) of Carthage, and slain by
Scipio? Wherefore Scipio has a better claim to be considered a fit
candidate for deification(2) than Hercules. You must be still more
careful to add to the claims of (our) Hercules his debaucheries with
concubines and wives, and the swathes(3) of Omphale, and his base
desertion of the Argonauts because he had lost his beautiful boy.(4) To
this mark of baseness add for his glorification likewise his attacks of
madness, adore the arrows which slew his sons and wife. This was the
man who, after deeming himself worthy of a funeral pile in the anguish
of his remorse for his parricides,(5) deserved rather to die the
unhonoured death which awaited him, arrayed in the poisoned robe which
his wife sent him on account of his lascivious attachment (to another).
You, however, raised him from the pyre to the sky, with the same
facility with which (you have distinguished in like manner) another
hero(6) also, who was destroyed by the violence of a fire from the
gods. He having devised some few experiments, was said to have restored
the dead to life by his cures. He was the son of Apollo, half human,
although the grandson of Jupiter, and great-grandson of Saturn (or
rather of spurious origin, because his parentage was uncertain, as
Socrates of Argon has related; he was exposed also, and found in a
worse tutelage than even Jove's, suckled even at the dugs of a dog);
nobody can deny that he deserved the end which befell him when he
perished by a stroke of lightning. In this transaction, however, your
most excellent Jupiter is once more found in the wrong—impious to his
grandson, envious of his artistic skill. Pindar, indeed, has not
concealed his true desert; according to him, he was punished for his
avarice and love of gain, influenced by which he would bring the
living to their death, rather than the dead to life, by the perverted
use of his medical art which he put up for sale.(7) It is said that his
mother was killed by the same stroke, and it was only right that she,
who had bestowed so dangerous a beast on the world,(8) should escape to
heaven by the same ladder. And yet the Athenians will not be at a loss
how to sacrifice to gods of such a fashion, for they pay divine honours
to Aesculapius and his mother amongst their dead (worthies). As if,
too, they had not ready to hand(9) their own Theseus to worship, so
highly deserving a god's distinction! Well, why not? Did he not on a
foreign shore abandon the preserver of his life,(10) with the same
indifference, nay heartlessness,(11) with which he became the cause of
his father's death?
It would be tedious to take a survey of all those, too, whom you
have buried amongst the constellations, and audaciously minister to as
gods.(12) I suppose your Castors, and Perseus, and Erigona,(13) have
just the same claims for the honours of the sky as Jupiter's own big
boy(14) had. But why should we wonder? You have transferred to heaven
even dogs, and scorpions, and crabs. I postpone all remarks(15)
concerning those whom you worship in your oracles. That this worship
exists, is attested by him who pronounces the oracle.(16) Why; you will
have your gods to be spectators even of sadness,(17) as is Viduus, who
makes a widow of the soul, by parting it from the body, and whom you
have condemned, by not permitting him to be enclosed within your
city-walls; there is Caeculus also, to deprive the eyes of their
perception; and Orbana, to bereave seed of its vital power; moreover,
there is the goddess of death herself. To pass hastily by all
others,(18) you account as gods the sites of places or of the city;
such are Father Janus (there being, moreover, the archer-goddess(19)
Jana(20)), and Septimontius of the seven hills.
Men sacrifice(21) to the same Genii, whilst they have altars or
temples in the same places; but to others besides, when they dwell in a
strange place, or live in rented houses.(1) I say nothing about
Ascensus, who gets his name for his climbing propensity, and Clivicola,
from her sloping (haunts); I pass silently by the deities called
Forculus from doors, and Cardea from hinges, and Limentinus the god of
thresholds, and whatever others are worshipped by your neighbours as
tutelar deities of their street doors.(2) There is nothing strange in
this, since men have their respective gods in their brothels, their
kitchens, and even in their prison. Heaven, therefore, is crowded with
innumerable gods of its own, both these and others belonging to the
Romans, which have distributed amongst them the functions of one's
whole life, in such a way that there is no want of the others gods.
Although, it is true,(4) the gods which we have enumerated are reckoned
as Roman peculiarly, and as not easily recognised abroad; yet how do
all those functions and circumstances, over which men have willed their
gods to preside, come about,(5) in every part of the human race, and in
every nation, where their guarantees(6) are not only without an
official recognition, but even any recognition at all?
BE THE FIRST TO ACKNOWLEDGE A CREATOR. THE ARTS CHANGEABLE FROM
TIME TO TIME, AND SOME BECOME OBSOLETE.
Well, but(7) certain men have discovered fruits and sundry
necessaries of life, (and hence are worthy of deification).(8) Now let
me ask, when you call these persons "discoverers," do you not confess
that what they discovered was already in existence? Why then do you not
prefer to honour the Author, from whom the gifts really come, instead
of converting the Author into mere discoverers? Previously he who made
the discover, the inventor himself no doubt expressed his gratitude to
the Author; no doubt, too, he felt that He was God, to whom really
belonged the religious service,(9) as the Creator (of the gift), by
whom also both he who discovered and that which was discovered were
alike created. The green fig of Africa nobody at Rome had heard of when
Cato introduced it to the Senate, in order that he might show how near
was that province of the enemy(10) whose subjugation he was constantly
urging. The cherry was first made common in Italy by Cn. Pompey, who
imported it from Pontus. I might possibly have thought the earliest
introducers of apples amongst the Romans deserving of the public
honour(11) of deification. This, however, would be as foolish a ground
for making gods as even the invention of the useful arts. And yet if
the skilful men(12) of our own time be compared with these, how much
more suitable would deification be to the later generation than to the
former! For, tell me, have not all the extant inventions superseded
antiquity,(13) whilst daily experience goes on adding to the new stock?
Those, therefore, whom you regard as divine because of their arts, you
are really injuring by your very arts, and challenging (their divinity)
by means of rival attainments, which cannot be surpassed.(14)
In conclusion, without denying all those whom antiquity willed
and posterity has believed to be gods, to be the guardians of your
religion, there yet remains for our consideration that very large
assumption of the Roman superstitions which we have to meet in
opposition to you, O heathen, viz. that the Romans have become the
lords and masters of the whole world, because by their religious
offices they have merited this dominion to such an extent that they are
within a very little of excelling even their own gods in power. One
cannot wonder that Sterculus, and Mutunus, and Larentina, have
severally(16) advanced this empire to its height! The Roman people has
been by its gods alone ordained to such dominion. For I could not
imagine that any foreign gods would have preferred doing more for a
strange nation than for their own people, and so by such conduct become
the deserters and neglecters, nay, the betrayers of the native land
wherein they were born and bred, and ennobled and buried. Thus not even
Jupiter could suffer his own Crete to be subdued by the Roman fasces,
forgetting that cave of Ida, and the brazen cymbals of the Corybantes,
and the most pleasant odour of the goat which nursed him on that dear
spot. Would he not have made that tomb of his superior to the whole
Capitol, so that that land should most widely rule which covered the
ashes of Jupiter? Would Juno, too, be willing that the Punic city, for
the love of which she even neglected Samos, should be destroyed, and
that, too, by the fires of the sons of AEneas? Although I am well aware
that
"Hic illius arma,
Hic currus fuit, hoc regnum des gentibus ease,
Si qua fata sinant, jam tunc tenditque fovetque."(1)
Here were her arms, her chariot here,
Here goddess-like, to fix one day
The seat of universal sway,
Might fate be wrung to yield assent,
E'en then her schemes, her cares were bent."(2)
Still the unhappy (queen of gods) had no power against the fates! And yet the Romans did not accord as much honour to the fates, although they gave them Carthage, as they did to Larentina. But surely those gods of yours have not the power of conferring empire. For when Jupiter reigned in Crete, and Saturn in Italy, and Isis in Egypt, it was even as men that they reigned, to whom also were assigned many to assist them.(3) Thus he who serves also makes masters, and the bond-slave(4) of Admetus(5) aggrandizes with empire the citizens of Rome, although he destroyed his own liberal votary Croesus by deceiving him with ambiguous oracles.(6) Being a god, why was he afraid boldly to foretell to him the truth that he must lose his kingdom. Surely those who were aggrandized with the power of wielding empire might always have been able to keep an eye, as it were,(7) on their own cities. If they were strong enough to confer empire on the Romans, why did not Minerva defend Athens from Xerxes? Or why did not Apollo rescue Delphi out of the hand of Pyrrhus? They who lost their own cities preserve the city of Rome, since (forsooth) the religiousness(8) of Rome has merited the protection! But is it not rather the fact that this excessive devotion(9) has been devised since the empire has attained its glory by the increase of its power? No doubt sacred rites were introduced by Numa, but then your proceedings were not marred by a religion of idols and temples. Piety was simple,(10) and worship humble; altars were artlessly reared,(11) and the vessels (thereof) plain, and the incense from them scant, and the god himself nowhere. Men therefore were not religious before they achieved greatness, (nor great) because they were religious. But how can the Romans possibly seem to have acquired their empire by an excessive religiousness and very profound respect for the gods, when that empire was rather increased after the gods had been slighted?(12) Now, if I am not mistaken, every kingdom or empire is acquired and enlarged by wars, whilst they and their gods also are injured by conquerors. For the same ruin affects both city-walls and temples; similar is the carnage both of civilians and of priests; identical the plunder of profane things and of sacred. To the Romans belong as many sacrileges as trophies; and then as many triumphs over gods as over nations. Still remaining are their captive idols amongst them; and certainly, if they can only see their conquerors, they do not give them their love. Since, however, they have no perception, they are injured with impunity; and since they are injured with impunity, they are worshipped to no purpose. The nation, therefore, which has grown to its powerful height by victory after victory, cannot seem to have developed owing to the merits of its religion—whether they have injured the religion by augmenting their power, or augmented their power by injuring the religion. All nations have possessed empire, each in its proper time, as the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Egyptians; empire is even now also in the possession of some, and yet they that have lost their power used not to behave(13) without attention to religious services and the worship of the gods, even after these had become unpropitious to them,(14) until at last almost universal dominion has accrued to the Romans. It is the fortune of the times that has thus constantly shaken kingdoms with revolution.(15) Inquire who has ordained these changes in the times. It is the same (great Being) who dispenses kingdoms,(16) and has now put the supremacy of them into the hands of the Ro- mans, very much as if(1) the tribute of many nations were after its exaction amassed in one (vast) coffer. What He has determined concerning it, they know who are the nearest to Him.(2)
APPENDIX.
A FRAGMENT CONCERNING THE EXECRABLE GODS OF THE HEATHEN.
....
So great blindness has fallen on the Roman race, that they call
their enemy Lord, and preach the filcher of blessings as being their
very giver, and to him they give thanks. They call those (deities),
then, by human names, not by their own, for their own names they know
not. That they are daemons(1) they understand: but they read histories
of the old kings, and then, though they see that their character(2) was
mortal, they honour them with a deific name.
As for him whom they call Jupiter, and think to be the highest
god, when he was born the years (that had elapsed) from the foundation
of the world(3) to him(4) were some three thousand. He is born in
Greece, from Saturnus and Ops; and, for fear he should be killed by his
father (or else, if it is lawful to say so, should be begotten(5)
anew), is by the advice of his mother carried down into Crete, and
reared in a cave of Ida; is concealed from his father's search) by (the
aid of) Cretans—born men!(6)—rattling their arms; sucks a she-goat's
dugs; flays her; clothes himself in her hide; and (thus) uses his own
nurse's hide, after killing her, to be sure, with his own hand! but he
sewed thereon three golden tassels worth the price of an hundred oxen
each, as their author Homer(7) relates, if it is fair to believe it.
This Jupiter, in adult age, waged war several years with his father;
overcame him; made a parricidal raid on his home; violated his virgin
sisters;(8) selected one of them in marriage; drave(9) his father by
dint of arms. The remaining scenes, moreover, of that act have been
recorded. Of other folks' wives, or else of violated virgins, he begat
him sons; defiled freeborn boys; oppressed peoples lawlessly with
despotic and kingly sway. The father, whom they erringly suppose to
have been the original god, was ignorant that this (son of his) was
lying concealed in Crete; the son, again, whom they believe the
mightier god, knows not that the father whom himself had banished is
lurking in Italy. If he was in heaven, when would he not see what was
doing in Italy? For the Italian land is "not in a corner."(10) And yet,
had he been a god, nothing ought to have escaped him. But that he whom
the Italians call Saturnus did lurk there, is clearly evidenced on the
face of it, from the fact that from his lurking(11) the Hesperian (12)
tongue is to this day called Latin,(13) as likewise their author Virgil
relates.(14) (Jupiter,) then, is said to have been born on earth, while
(Saturnus his father) fears lest he be driven by him from his kingdom,
and seeks to kill him as being his own rival, and knows not that he has
been stealthily carried off, and is in hiding; and afterwards the
son-god pursues his father, immortal seeks to slay immortal (is it
credible?(15)), and is disappointed by an interval of sea, and is
ignorant of (his quarry's) flight; and while all this is going on
between two gods on earth, heaven is deserted. No one dispensed the
rains, no one thundered, no one governed all this mass of world.(1) For
they cannot even say that their action and wars took place in heaven;
for all this was going on on Mount Olympus in Greece. Well, but heaven
is not called Olympus, for heaven is heaven.
These, then, are the actions of theirs, which we will treat of
first—nativity, lurking, ignorance, parricide, adulteries,
obscenities—things committed not by a god, but by most impure and
truculent human beings; beings who, had they been living in these days,
would have lain under the impeachment of all laws—laws which are far
more just and strict than their actions. "He drave his father by dint
of arms." The Falcidian and Sempronian law would bind the parricide in
a sack with beasts. "He violated his sisters." The Papinian law would
punish the outrage with all penalties, limb by limb. "He invaded
others' wedlock." The Julian law would visit its adulterous violator
capitally. "He defiled freeborn boys." The Cornelian law would condemn
the crime of transgressing the sexual bond with novel severities,
sacrilegiously guilty as it is of a novel union.(2) This being is shown
to have had no divinity either, for he was a human being; his father's
flight escaped him. To this human being, of such a character, to so
wicked a king, so obscene and so cruel, God's honour has been assigned
by men. Now, to be sure, if on earth he were born and grew up through
the advancing stages of life's periods, and in it committed all these
evils, and yet is no more in it, what is thought(3) (of him) but that
he is dead? Or else does foolish error think wings were born him in his
old age, whence to fly heavenward? Why, even this may possibly find
credit among men bereft of sense,(4) if indeed they believe, (as they
do,) that he turned into a swan, to beget the Castors;(5) an eagle, to
contaminate Ganymede; a bull, to violate Europa; gold, to violate
Danae; a horse, to beget Pirithous; a goat, to beget Egyppa(6) from a
she-goat; a Satyr, to embrace Antiope. Beholding these adulteries, to
which sinners are prone, they therefore easily believe that sanctions
of misdeed and of every filthiness are borrowed from their reigned god.
Do they perceive how void of amendment are the rest of his career's
acts which can find credit, which are indeed true, and which, they say,
he did without self transformation? Of Semele, he begets Liber;(7) of
Latona, Apollo and Diana; of Maia, Mercury; of Alcmena, Hercules. But
the rest of his corruptions, which they themselves confess, I am
unwilling to record, lest turpitude, once buried, be again called to
men's ears. But of these few (offsprings of his) I have made mention;
off-springs whom in their error they believe to be themselves, too,
gods—born, to wit, of an incestuous father; adulterous births,
supposititious births. And the living,(8) eternal God, of sempiternal
divinity, prescient of futurity, immeasurable,(9) they have dissipated
(into nothing, by associating Him) with crimes so unspeakable.
This Fragment is noted as spurious, by Oehler who attributes it
to somebody only moderately acquainted with Tertullian's style and
teaching. (1) I do not find it mentioned by Dupin, nor by Routh. This
translation is by Thelwall.