Chap. I. - The Heathen Gods from Heathen Authorities. Varro Has Written a Work on the Subject. His Threefold Classification. The Changeable Character of that Which Ought to Be Fixed and Certain.
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 understand5 that of which it is cognizant.6 If indeed the enormous perverseness (of your worship) could7 be broken up8 by a single demurrer, we should have our objection ready to hand in the declaration9 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 enough12 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 spurious15 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 guide17 for us. Now, if I inquire of him who were the subtle inventors18 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 of19 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 130 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?20 This sort of opinion,21 however, is only promiscuous22 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,23 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 history24 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.25
Chap. II. - Philosophers Had Not Succeeded! in Discovering God. The Uncertainty and Confusion of Their Speculations.
But the authority of the physical philosophers is maintained among you26 as the special property.27 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.” (Pro_9:10; Psa_111:10) But28 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,29 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 shaken30 by the over-scrupulousness of an irregular belief,31 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 simply32 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 worldly things, both as the disposer and judge thereof. The Epicureans regarded Him as apathetic33 and inert, and (so to say) a non-entity.34 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.”35 When Croesus inquired of Thales of Miletus what he thought of the gods, the latter having taken some time36 to consider, answered by the word “Nothing.” Even Socrates denied with an air of certainty37 those gods of yours.38 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, 131 what “fear” could it possibly have had of Him whom it was not competent39 clearly to determine? We have been taught to believe of the world that it is god.40 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.
Chap. III. - The Physical Philosophers Maintained the Divinity of the Elements; the Absurdity of the Tenet Exposed.
From these developments of opinion, we see that your41 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,42 we shall probably even from their present class,43 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 presumption44 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,45 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 point46 that a god is born of a god, and that what lacks divinity47 is born of what is not divine. Now, so far as48 the world of which your philosophers treat49 (for I apply this term to the universe in the most comprehensive sense50) 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 view51 of Plato, or else by none, according to the harsh opinion52 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 be53 without beginning, and without end. If, however, it54 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 universe55 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 believe56 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 132 stars were animated.57 But if this be the case, they must needs be also mortal, according to the condition58 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 principle59 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 Mover60 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.61
Chap. IV. - Wrong Derivation of the Word Θεός. The Name Indicative of the True Deity. God Without Shape and Immaterial. Anecdote of Thales.
Some affirm that the gods (i.e., θεοί) were so called because the verbs θέειν and σείσθαι signify to run and to be moved.62 This term, then, is not indicative of any majesty, for it is derived from running and motion, not from any dominion63 of godhead. But inasmuch as the Supreme God whom we worship is also designated Θεός, 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 θεοί from running and motion, but that the term was borrowed from the designation of the true God; so that you gave the name θεοί 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 θεοί to all those gods of yours, in whom there is no attribute of course or motion indicated. When, therefore, you call them both θεοί and immoveable with equal readiness, there is a deviation as well from the meaning of the word as from the idea64 of godhead, which is set aside65 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 interpretation66 in the case of the true God, but transferred in a borrowed sense67 to those other objects which you choose to call gods, then you ought to show to us68 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 133 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.69 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 confess70 men were niggardly in even celestial objects. In process of time their ambitious conceptions advanced, and so the sun too enlarged its disk.71 Accordingly, the Peripatetics marked it out as a larger world.72 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,73 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 falling74 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,75 who persist in applying76 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.
Chap. V. - The Physical Theory Continued. Further Reasons Advanced Against the Divinity of the Elements.
Why, then, do we not resort to that far more reasonable77 opinion, which has clear proof of being derived from men’s common sense and unsophisticated deduction?78 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,79 of being produced, nourished, or applied to the sustenance80 of man’s life and of the earth, since not even our bodies and souls could have sufficed in themselves without the modification81 of the elements. By this it is that the world is made generally habitable, - a result which is harmoniously secured82 by the distribution into zones,83 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 call84 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 enough85 accounted gods, whether their nature becomes the object of reverence as being favourable, or of fear because terrible - the sovereign dispenser,86 in fact,87 both of help and of hurt. But in the practical conduct of 134 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.88 In like manner, when one is in ill-health, you do not bestow your acknowledgments on the flannel wraps,89 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,90 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 notice91 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 slavery92 out of the appointed functions of those elements to which you ascribe (the attributes) of power?93 But gods are not slaves; therefore whatever things are servile in character are not gods. Otherwise94 they should prove to us that, according to the ordinary course of things, liberty is promoted by irregular licence,95 despotism by liberty, and that by despotism divine power is meant. For if all the (heavenly bodies) overhead forget not96 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 result97 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 world98 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.
Chap. VI. - The Changes of the Heavenly Bodies, Proof that They Are Not Divine. Transition from the Physical to the Mythic Class of Gods.
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 blessedness99 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;100 its greater losses you are already accustomed to measure in a mirror of water;101 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 impossible102 for God 135 either to become less or to cease to exist. Vain, therefore, are103 those supports of human learning, which, by their artful method of weaving conjectures, belie both wisdom and truth. Besides,104 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 those105 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,106 if you consider the character of the mythic school, (and compare it with the physical,) the error which we have already seen frail men107 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.
Chap. VII. - The Gods of the Mythic Class. The Poets a Very Poor Authority in Such Matters. Homer and the Mythic Poets. Why Irreligious.
But to pass to the mythic class of gods, which we attributed to the poets, (see above, c. i.) [note 19] 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. (see The Apology, especially cc. xxii. and xxiii.) 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 yourselves108 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 up109 their decrees and titles, pull down their statues, and deface110 their images on the current coin? Will He, however, who beholds all things, who approves, nay, rewards the good, prostitute before all men111 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 wise112 in selecting and multiplying113 their deities? Shall attendants on kings and princes be more pure than those who wait on the Supreme God?114 You turn your back in horror, indeed, on outcasts and exiles, on the poor and weak, on the obscurely born and the low-lived;115 but yet you honour, even by legal sanctions,116 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 contempt117 of this said118 poetic licence, then you are not only troubled with no horror of it, but you go so far as119 to show it respect, and to hold it as one of the indispensable (fine) arts; nay,120 you carry out the studies of your higher classes121 by its means, as the very foundation122 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,123 he was the crowned head of them all. But 136 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 truth124 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 dishonour125 of human casualties, or crimes, or fables? Do you not, in fact, put faith in your poets, when it is in accordance with their rhapsodies126 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, (Compare The Apology, ix.) if it is not because he spared not his own? Why is a male mutilated in honour of the Idæan 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?127 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 that128 your gods did such things when they were human beings, nor because they predicated divine scandals129 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.
Chap. VIII. - The Gods of the Different Nations. Varro’s Gentile Class. Their Inferiority. A Good Deal of This Perverse Theology Taken from Scripture. Serapis a Perversion of Joseph.
There remains the gentile class of gods amongst the several nations: (see c. i.) 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 votaries130 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 notions131 of Nortia of Vulsinii?132 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 gods133 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 native134 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.135 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.136 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 137 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 turban137 which adorned his head. The peck-like138 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,139 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,140 which they regard (as a sentry) in Hades, and put it under his right hand, because the care of the Egyptians was concentrated141 under his hand. And they put at his side Pharia,142 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 enshrined143 by a nation at war with itself, refractory144 to its kings, despised among foreigners, with even the appetite of a slave and the filthy nature of a dog.
Chap. IX. - The Power of Rome. Romanized Aspect of All the Heathen Mythology. Varro’s Threefold Distribution Criticised. Roman Heroes (Aeneas Included,) Unfavourably Reviewed.
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 worship145 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 to146 such folly as the Athenians did; for at Athens there was an altar with this inscription: “To The Unknown Gods.”147 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,148 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 foreign149 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,150 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 138 pains. Their fond151 father Aeneas, in whom they believed, was never glorious, and was felled with a stone152 - a vulgar weapon, to pelt a dog withal, inflicting a wound no less ignoble! But this Aeneas turns out153 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, (Referred to also above i. 18.), 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 heart154 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 royal155 house, they surrender156 even children and wives, and every dearest pledge.157 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 youths158 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 daughter159 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.160 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 even161 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 spear162 on his account. What did Sterculus do to merit deification? If he worked hard to enrich the fields stercoribus,163 (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.164 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”165 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,166 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.
Chap. X. - A Disgraceful Feature of the Roman Mythology. It Honours Such Infamous Characters as Larentina.
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. They167 relate that his temple-warder168 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 139 body of even a Hercules169 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;170 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.171 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.172 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?173 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 prepare174 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.
Chap. XI. - The Romans Provided Gods for Birth, Nay, Even Before Birth, to Death. Much Indelicacy in This System.
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 life175 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,176 to preside over concubital generation; and Fluviona,177 to preserve the (growth of the) infant in the womb; after these come Vitumnus and Sentinus,178 through whom the babe begins to have life and its earliest sensation; then Diespiter,179 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 are180 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,181 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. Cunina182 is present as the protector of the child’s deep slumber, and supplies to it refreshing rest. To lift them (when fallen)183 there is Levana, and along with her Rumina.184 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;185 to teach the child to stand erect is the work of Statina,186 whilst Adeona helps him to come to dear Mamma, and Abeona to toddle off again; then there is Domiduca,187 (to bring home the bride;) and the goddess Mens, to influence the mind to either good or evil.188 They have likewise Volumnus and Voleta,189 to control the will; Paventina, (the goddess) of fear; Venilia, of hope;190 Volupia, of pleasure;191 Praestitia, of beauty.192 Then, again, they give his name to Peragenor,193 from his teaching men to go through their work; to Consus, from his suggesting 140 to them counsel. Juventa is their guide on assuming the manly gown, and “bearded Fortune” when they come to full manhood.194 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 Mutunus195 and Tutunus and Pertunda196 and Subigus and the goddess Prema and likewise Perfica.197 O spare yourselves, y
