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ARNOBIUS

THE SEVEN BOOKS OF ARNOBIUS AGAINST THE HEATHEN, BOOKS IV-VII.

[Translated by Archdeacon Hamilton Bryce, LL.D., D.C.L. and Hugh Campbell,
M.A.]

BOOK IV.

   1. We would ask you, and you above all, O Romans, lords and princes of
the world, whether you think that Piety, Concord, Safety, Honour, Virtue,
Happiness, and other such names, to which we see you rear(1) altars and
splendid temples, have divine power, and live in heaven?(2) or, as is
usual, have you classed them with the deities merely for form's sake,
because we desire and wish these blessings to fall to our lot? For if,
while you think them empty names without any substance, you yet deify them
with divine honours,(3) you will have to consider whether that is a
childish frolic, or tends to bring your deities into contempt,(4) when you
make equal, and add to their number vain and feigned names. But if you have
loaded them with temples and couches, holding with more assurance that
these, too, are deities, we pray you to teach us in our ignorance, by what
course, in what way, Victory, Peace, Equity, and the others mentioned among
the gods, can be understood to be gods, to belong to the assembly of the
immortals?

   2. For we--but, perhaps, you would rob and deprive us of common-sense--
feel and perceive that none of these has divine power, or possesses a form
of its own;(5) but that, on the contrary, they are the excellence of
manhood,(6) the safety of the safe, the honour of the respected, the
victory of the conqueror, the harmony of the allied, the piety of the
pious, the recollection of the observant, the good fortune, indeed, of him
who lives happily and without exciting any ill-feeling. Now it is easy to
perceive that, in speaking thus, we speak most reasonably when we
observe(7) the contrary qualities opposed to them, misfortune, discord,
forgetfulness, injustice, impiety, baseness of spirit, and unfortunate(8)
weakness of body. For as these things happen accidentally, and(9) depend on
human acts and chance moods, so their contraries, named(10) after more
agreeable qualities, must be found in others; and from these, originating
in this wise, have arisen those invented names.

   3. With regard, indeed, to your bringing forward to us other bands of
unknown(11) gods, we cannot determine whether you do that seriously, and
from a belief in its certainty; or, merely playing with empty fictions,
abandon yourselves to an unbridled imagination. The goddess Luperca, you
tell us on the authority of Varro, was named because the fierce wolf spared
the exposed children  Was that goddess, then, disclosed, not by her own
power, but by the course of events? and was it only after the wild beast
restrained its cruel teeth, that she both began to be herself and was
marked by(12) her name? or if she was already a goddess long before the
birth of Romulus and his brother, show us what was her name and title.
Praestana was named, according to you, because, in throwing the javelin,
Quirinus excelled all in strength;(13) and the goddess Panda, or Pantica,
was named because Titus Tatius was allowed to open up and make passable a
road, that he might take the Capitoline. Before these events, then, had the
deities never existed? and if Romulus had not held the first place in
casting the javelin, and if the Sabine king had been unable to take the
Tarpeian rock, would there be no Pantica, no Praestana? And if you say that
they(1) existed before that which gave rise to their name, a question which
has been discussed in a preceding section,(2) tell us also what they were
called.

   4. Pellonia is a goddess mighty to drive back enemies. Whose enemies,
say, if it is convenient? Opposing armies meet, and fighting together, hand
to hand, decide the battle; and to one this side, to another that, is
hostile. Whom, then, will Pellonia turn to flight, since on both sides
there will be fighting? or in favour of whom will she incline, seeing that
she should afford to both sides the might and services of her name? But if
she indeed(3) did so, that is, if she gave her good-will and favour to both
sides, she would destroy the meaning of her name, which was formed with
regard to the beating back of one side. But you will perhaps say, She is
goddess of the Romans only, and, being on the side of the Quirites alone,
is ever ready graciously to help them.(4) We wish, indeed, that it were so,
for we like the name; but it is a very doubtful matter. What! do the Romans
have gods to themselves, who do not help(5) other nations? and how can they
be gods, if they do not exercise their divine power impartially towards all
nations everywhere? and where, I pray you, was this goddess Pellonia long
ago, when the national honour was brought under the yoke at the Caudine
Forks? when at the Trasimene lake the streams ran with blood? when the
plains of Diomede(6) were heaped up with dead Romans when a thousand other
blows were sustained in countless disastrous battles? Was she snoring and
sleeping;(7) or, as the base often do, had she deserted to the enemies'
camp?

   5. The sinister deities preside over the regions on the left hand only,
and are opposed to those(8) on the right. But with what reason this is
said, or with what meaning, we do not understand ourselves; and we are sure
that you cannot in any degree cause it to be clearly and generally
understood.(9) For in the first place, indeed, the world itself has in
itself neither right nor left neither upper nor under regions, neither fore
nor after parts. For whatever is round, and bounded on every side by the
circumference(10) of a solid sphere, has no beginning, no end; where there
is no end and beginning, no part can have(11) its own name and form the
beginning. Therefore, when we say, This is the right, and that the left
side, we do not refer to anything(12) in the world, which is everywhere
very much the same, but to our own place and position, we being(13) so
formed that we speak of some things as on our right hand, of others as on
our left; and yet these very things which we name left, and the others
which we name right, have in us no continuance, no fixedness, but take
their forms from our sides, just as chance, and the accident of the moment,
may have placed us. If I look towards the rising sun, the north pole and
the north are on my left hand; and if I turn my face thither, the west will
be on my left, for it will be regarded as behind the sun's back. But,
again, if I turn my eyes to the region of the west, the wind and country of
the south are now said to be on(14) my left. And if I am turned to this
side by the necessary business of the moment, the result is, that the east
is said to be on the left, owing to a further change of position,(15)--from
which it can be very easily seen that nothing is either on our right or on
our left by nature, but from position, time,(16) and according as our
bodily position with regard to surrounding objects has been taken up. But
in this case, by what means, in what way, will there be gods of the regions
of the left, when it is clear that the same regions are at one time on the
right, at another on the left? or what have the regions of the right done
to the immortal gods, to deserve that they should be without any to care
for them, while they have ordained that these should be fortunate, and ever
accompanied by lucky omens?

   6. Lateranus,(17) as you say, is the god and genius of hearths, and
received this name because men build that kind of fireplace of unbaked
bricks. What then? if hearths were made of baked clay, or any other
material whatever, will they have no genii? and will Lateranus, whoever he
is, abandon his duty as guardian, because the kingdom which he possesses
has not been formed of bricks of clay? And for what purpose,(18) I ask, has
that god received the charge of hearths? He runs about the kitchens of men,
examining and discovering with what kinds of wood the heat in their fires
is produced; he gives strength(1) to earthen vessels that they may not fly
in pieces, overcome by the violence of the flames; he sees that the flavour
of unspoilt dainties reaches the taste of the palate with their own
pleasantness, and acts the part of a taster, and tries whether the sauces
have been rightly prepared. Is not this unseemly, nay--to speak with more
truth--disgraceful, impious, to introduce some pretended deities for this
only, not to do them reverence with fitting honours, but to appoint them
over base things, and disreputable actions?(2)

   7. Does Venus Militaris, also, preside over the evil-doing(3) of camps,
and the debaucheries of young men? Is there one Perfica,(4) also, of the
crowd of deities, who causes those base and filthy delights to reach their
end with uninterrupted pleasure? Is there also Pertunda, who presides over
the marriage(5) couch? Is there also Tutunus, on whose huge members(6) and
horrent fascinum you think it auspicious, and desire, that your matrons
should be borne? But if facts themselves have very little effect in
suggesting to volt a right understanding of the truth, are you not able,
even from the very names, to understand that these are the inventions of a
most meaningless superstition, and the false gods of fancy?(7) Puta, you
say, presides over the pruning of trees, Peta over prayers; Nemestrinus(8)
is the god of groves; Patellana is a deity, and Patella, of whom the one
has been set over things brought to light, the other over those yet to be
disclosed. Nodutis is spoken of as a god, because he(9) brings that which
has been sown to the knots: and she who presides over the treading out of
grain, Noduterensis;(10) the goddess Upibilia(11) delivers from straying
from the right paths; parents bereaved of their children are under the care
of Orbona,--those very near  to death, under that of Naenia. Again,(12)
Ossilago herself is mentioned as she who gives firmness and solidity to the
bones of young children. Mellonia is a goddess, strong and powerful in
regard to bees, caring for and guarding the sweetness of their honey.

   8. Say, I pray you,--that Peta, Puta, Patella may graciously favour
you,--if there were no(13) bees at all on the earth then, or if we men were
born without bones, like some worms, would there be no goddess
Mellonia;(14) or would Ossilago, who gives bones their solidity, be without
a name of her own? I ask truly, and eagerly inquire whether you think that
gods, or men, or bees, fruits, twigs, and the rest, are the more ancient in
nature, time, long duration? No man  will doubt that you say that the gods
precede all things whatever by countless ages and generations. But if it is
so, how, in the nature of  things, can it be that, from things produced
afterwards, they received those names which are earlier in point of time?
or that the gods were charged with the care(15) of those things which were
not yet produced, and assigned to be of use to men? Or were the gods long
without names; and was it only after things began to spring up, and be on
the earth, that you thought it right that they should be called by these
names(16) and titles? And whence could you have known what name to give to
each, since you were wholly ignorant of their existence; or that they
possessed any fixed powers, seeing that you were equally unaware which of
them had any power, and over what he should be placed to suit his divine
might?

   9. What then? you say; do you declare that these gods exist nowhere in
the world, and have been created by unreal fancies? Not we alone, but truth
itself, and reason, say so, and that common-sense in which all men share.
For who there who believes that there are gods of gain, and that they
preside over the getting of it, seeing that it springs very often from the
basest employments, and is always at the expense of others? Who believes
that Libentina, who that Burnus.(17) is set over those lusts which wisdom
bills us avoid, and which, in a thousand ways, vile and filthy wretches(18)
attempt and practise? Who that Limentinus and Lima have the care of
thresholds, and do the duties of their keepers, when every day we see the
thresholds of temples and private houses destroyed and overthrown, and that
the infamous approaches to stews are not without them? Who believes that
the Limi(1) watch over obliquities? who that Saturnus presides over the
sown crops? who that Montinus is the guardian of mountains; Murcia,(2) of
the slothful? Who, finally, would believe that Money is a goddess, whom
your writings declare, as though she were the greatest deity, to give
golden rings,(3) the front seats at games and shows, honours in the
greatest number, the dignity of the magistracy, and that which the indolent
love most of all,--an undisturbed ease, by means of riches.

   10. But if you urge that bones, different kinds of honey, thresholds,
and all the other things which we have either run over rapidly, or, to
avoid prolixity, passed by altogether, have(4) their own peculiar
guardians, we may in like manner introduce a thousand other gods, who
should care for and guard innumerable things. For why should a god have
charge of honey only, and not of gourds, rape, cunila, cress, figs, beets,
cabbages? Why should the bones alone have found protection, and not the
nails, hair, and all the other things which are placed in the hidden parts
and members of which we feel ashamed, and are exposed to very many
accidents, and stand more in need of the care and attention of the gods? Or
if you say that these parts, too, act under the care of their own tutelar
deities, there will begin to be as many gods as there are things; nor will
the cause be stated why the divine care does not protect all things, if you
say that there are certain things over which the deities preside, and for
which they care.

   11. What say you, O fathers of new religions, and powers?(5) Do you cry
out, and complain that these gods are dishonoured by us, and neglected with
profane contempt, viz. Lateranus, the genius of hearths; Limentinus, who
presides over thresholds; Pertunda,(6) Perfica, Noduterensis:(7) and do you
say that things have sunk into ruin, and that the world itself has changed
its laws and constitution, because we do not bow humbly in supplication to
Mutunus(8) and Tutunus? But now look and see, lest while you imagine such
monstrous things, and form such conceptions, you may have offended the gods
who most assuredly exist, if only there are any who are worthy to bear and
hold that most exalted title; and it be for no other reason that those
evils, of which you speak, rage, and increase by accessions every day.(9)
Why, then, some one of you will perhaps say, do you maintain(10) that it is
not true that these gods exist? And, when invoked by the diviners, do they
obey the call, and come when summoned by their own names, and give answers
which may be relied on, to those who consult them? We can show that what is
said is false, either because in the whole matter there is the greatest
room for distrust, or because we, every day, see many of their predictions
either prove untrue or baffled expectation to suit the opposite issues.

   12. But let them(11) be true, as you maintain, yet will you have us
also believe(12) that Mellonia, for example, introduces herself into the
entrails, or Limentinus, and that they set themselves to make known(13)
what you seek to learn? Did you ever see their face their deportment, their
countenance? or can even these be seen in lungs or livers? May it not
happen, may it not come to pass, although you craftily conceal it, that the
one should take the other's place, deluding, mocking, deceiving, and
presenting the appearance of the deity invoked? If the magi, who are so
much akin to(14) soothsayers, relate that, in their incantations, pretended
gods(15) steal in frequently instead of those invoked; that some of these,
moreover, are spirits of grosser substance, (16) who pretend that they are
gods, and delude the ignorant by their lies and deceit,--why(17) should we
not similarly believe that here, too, others substitute themselves for
those who are not, that they may both strengthen your superstitious
beliefs, and rejoice that victims are slain in sacrifice to them under
names not their own?

   13. Or, if you refuse to believe this on account of its novelty,(18)
how can you know whether there is not some one, who comes in place of all
whom yon invoke, and substituting himself in all parts of the world,(1)
shows to you what appear to be(2) many gods and powers? Who is that one?
some one will ask. We may perhaps, being instructed by truthful authors, be
able to say; but, lest you should be unwilling to believe us, let my
opponent ask the Egyptians, Persians, Indians, Chaldeans, Armenians, and
all the others who have seen and become acquainted with these things in the
more recondite arts. Then, indeed, you will learn who is the one God, or
who the very many under Him are, who pretend to be gods, and make sport of
men's ignorance.

   Even now we are ashamed to come to the point at which not only boys,
young anti pert, but grave men also, cannot restrain their laughter, and
men who have been hardened into a strict and stern humour.(3) For while we
have all heard it inculcated and taught by our teachers, that in declining
the names of the gods there was no plural number, because the gods were
individuals, and the ownership of each name could not be common to a great
many;(4) you in fogetfulness, and putting away the memory of your early
lessons, both give to several gods the same names, and, although you are
elsewhere more moderate as to their number, have multiplied them, again, by
community of names; which subject, indeed, men of keen discernment and
acute intellect have before now treated both in Latin and Greek.(5) And
that might have lessened our labour,(6) if it were not that at the same
time we see that some know nothing of these books; and, also, that the
discussion which we have begun, compels us to bring forward something on
these subjects, although it has been already laid hold of, and related by
those writers.

   14. Your theologians, then, and authors on unknown antiquity, say that
in the universe there are three Joves, one of whom has Aether for his
father; another, CAElus; the third, Saturn, born and buried(7) in the
island of Crete. They speak of five Suns and vie Mercuries,--of whom, as
they relate, the first Sun is called the son of Jupiter, and is regarded as
grandson of Aether; the second is also Jupiter's son, and the mother who
bore him Hyperiona;(8) the third the son of Vulcan, not Vulcan of Lemnos,
but the son of the Nile; the fourth, whom Acantho bore at Rhodes in the
heroic age, was the father of Ialysus; while the fifth is regarded as the
son of a Scythian king and subtle Circe. Again, the first Mercury, who is
said to have lusted after Proserpina,(9) is son of Coelus, who is above
all. Under the earth is the second, who boasts that he is Trophonius. The
third was born of Maia, his mother, and the third Jove;(10) the fourth is
the offspring of the Nile, whose name the people of Egypt dread and fear to
utter. The fifth is the slayer of Argus, a fugitive and exile. and the
inventor of letters in Egypt. But there are five Minervas also, they say,
just as there are five Suns and Mercuries;  the first of whom is no virgin
but the mother of Apollo by Vulcan; the second, the offspring of the Nile,
who is asserted to be the Egyptian Sais; the third is descended from
Saturn, and is the one who devised the use of arms; the fourth is sprung
from Jove, and the Messenians name her Coryphasia; and the fifth is she who
slew her lustful(11) father, Pallas.

   15. And lest it should seem tedious and prolix to wish to consider each
person singly, the same theologians say that there are four Vulcans and
three Dianas, as many Aesculapii and five Dionysi, six Hercules and four
Venuses, three  sets of Castors and the same number of Muses, three winged
Cupids, and four named Apollo;(12) whose fathers they mention in like
manner, in like manner their mothers, and the places where they were born,
and point out the origin and  family of each. But if it is true and
certain, and is told in earnest as a well-known matter, either they are not
all gods, inasmuch as there cannot be several under the same name, as we
have been taught; or if there is one of them, he will not be known and
recognised, because he is obscured by the confusion of very similar names.
And thus it results from your own action, however unwilling you may be that
it should be so, that religion is brought into difficulty and confusion,
and has no fixed end to which it can turn itself, without being made the
sport of equivocal illusions.

   16. For suppose that it had occurred to us, moved either by suitable
influence or violent fear of you,(1) to worship Minerva, for example, with
the rights you deem sacred, and the usual ceremony: if, when we prepare
sacrifices, and approach to make the offerings appointed for her on the
flaming altars, all the Minervas shall fly thither, and striving for the
right to that name, each demand that the offerings prepared be given to
herself; what drawn-out animal shall we place among them, or to whom shall
we direct the sacred offices which are our duty?(2) For the first one of
whom we spoke will perhaps say: "The name Minerva is mine, mine(3) the
divine majesty, who bore Apollo and Diana, and by the fruit of my womb
enriched heaven with deities, and multiplied the number of the gods." "Nay,
Minerva," the fifth will say, "are you speaking,(4) who, being a wife, and
so often a mother, have lost the sanctity of spotless purity? Do you not
see that in all temples(5) the images of Minervas are those of virgins, and
that all artists refrain from giving to them the figures of matrons?(6)
Cease, therefore, to appropriate to yourself a name not rightfully(7)
yours. For that I am Minerva, begotten of father Pallas, the whole band of
poets bear witness, who call me Pallas, the surname being derived from my
father." The second will cry on hearing this: "What say you? Do you, then,
bear the name of Minerva, an impudent parricide, and one defiled by the
pollution of lewd lust, who, decking yourself with rouge and a harlot's
arts, roused upon yourself even your father's passions, full of maddening
desires? Go further, then, seek for yourself another name for this belongs
to me, whom the Nile, greatest of rivers, begot from among his flowing
waters, and brought to a maiden's estate from the condensing of
moisture.(8) But if you inquire into the credibility of the matter, I too
will bring as witnesses the Egyptians, in whose language I am called Neith,
as Plato's Timoeus(9) attests." What, then, do we suppose will be the
result? Will she indeed cease to say that she is Minerva, who is named
Coryphasia, either to mark her mother, or because she sprung forth from the
top of Jove's head, bearing a shield, and girt with the terror of arms? Or
are we to suppose that she who is third will quietly surrender the name?
and not argue(10) and resist the assumption of the first two with such
words as these: "Do you thus dare to assume the honour of my name, O
Sais,(11) sprung from the mud and eddies of a stream, and formed in miry
places? Or do you usurp(12) another's rank, who falsely say that you were
born a goddess from the head of Jupiter, and persuade very silly men that
you are reason? Does he conceive and bring forth children from ms head?
That the arms you bear might be forged and formed, was there even in the
hollow of his head a smith's workshop? were there anvils, hammers,
furnaces, bellows, coals, and pincers? Or if, as you maintain, it is true
that you are reason, cease to claim for yourself the name which is mine;
for reason, of which you speak, is not a certain form of deity, but the
understanding of difficult questions." If, then, as we have said, five
Minervas should meet us when we essay to sacrifice,(13) and contending as
to whose this name is, each demand that either fumigations of incense be
offered to her, or sacrificial wines poured out from golden cups; by what
arbiter, by what judge, shall we dispose of so great a dispute? or what
examiner will there be, what umpire of so great boldness as to attempt,
with such personages, either to give a just decision, or to declare their
causes not founded on right? Will he not rather go home, and, keeping
himself apart from such matters, think it safer to have nothing to do with
them, test he should either make enemies of the rest, by giving to one what
belongs to all, or be charged with folly for yielding(14) to all what
should be the property of one?

   17. We may say the very same things of the Mercuries, the Suns,--indeed
of all the others whose numbers you increase and multiply. But it is
sufficient to know from one case that the same principle applies to the
rest; and, lest our prolixity should chance to weary our audience, we shall
cease to deal with individuals, lest, while we accuse you of excess, we
also should ourselves be exposed to the charge of excessive loquacity. What
do you say, you who, by the fear of bodily tortures, urge us to worship the
gods, and constrain us to undertake the service of your deities? We can be
easily won, if only something befitting the conception of so great a race
be shown to us. Show us Mercury, but only, one; give us Bacchus, but only
one; one Venus, and in like manner one Diana. For you will never make us
believe that there are four Apollos, or three Jupiters, not even if you
were to call Jove himself as witness, or make the Pythian god your
authority.

   18. But some one on the opposite side says, How do we know whether the
theologians have written what is certain and well known, or set forth a
wanton fiction,(1) as they thought and judged? That has nothing to do with
the matter; nor does the reasonableness of your argument depend upon this,-
-whether the facts are as the writings of the theologians state, or are
otherwise and markedly different. For to us it is enough to speak of things
which come before the public; and we need not inquire what is true, but
only confute and disprove that which lies open to all, and which men's
thoughts have generally received. But if they are liars, declare yourselves
what is the truth, and disclose the unassailable mystery. And how can it be
done when the services of men of letters are set aside? For what is there
which can be said about. the immortal gods that has not reached men's
thoughts from what has been written by men on these subjects?(2) Or can you
relate anything yourselves about their rights and ceremonies, which has not
been recorded in books, and made known by what authors have written? Or if
you think these of no importance, let all the books be destroyed which have
been composed about the gods for you by theologians, pontiffs, and even
some devoted to the study of philosophy; nay, let us rather suppose that
from the foundation of the world no man ever wrote(3) anything about the
gods: we wish to find out, and desire to know, whether you can mutter or
murmur in mentioning the gods,(4) or conceive those in thought to whom no
idea(5) from any book gave shape in your minds. But when it is clear that
you have been informed of their names and powers by the suggestions of
books,(6) it is unjust to deny the reliableness of these books by whose
testimony and authority you establish what you say.

   19. But perhaps these things will turn out to be false, and what you
say to be true. By what proof, by what evidence, will it be shown? For
since both parties are men, both those who have said the one thing and
those who have said the other, and on both sides the discussion was of
doubtful matters, it is arrogant to say that that is true which seems so to
you, but that that which offends your feelings manifests wantonness and
falsehood. By the laws of the human race, and the associations of mortality
itself, when you read and hear, That god was born of this father and of
that mother, do you not feel in your mind(7) that something is said which
belongs to man, and relates to the meanness of our earthly race? Or, while
you think that it is so,(8) do you conceive no anxiety lest you should in
something offend the gods themselves, whoever they are, because you believe
that it is owing to filthy intercourse ...(9) that they have reached the
light they knew not of, thanks to lewdness? For we, lest any one should
chance to think that we are ignorant of, do not know, what befits the
majesty of that name, assuredly(10) think that the gods should not know
birth; or if they are born at all, we hold and esteem that the Lord and
Prince of the universe, by ways which He knew Himself, sent them forth
spotless, most pure, undefiled, ignorant of sexual pollution,(11) and
brought to the full perfection of their natures as soon as they were
begotten? (12)

   20. But you, on the contrary, forgetting how great(13) their dignity
and grandeur are, associate with them a birth,(14) and impute to them a
descent,(14) which men of at all refined feelings regard as at once
execrable and terrible. From Ops, you say, his mother, and from his father
Saturn, Diespiter was born with his brothers. Do the gods, then, have
wives; and, the matches having been previously planned, do they become
subject to the bonds of marriage? Do they take upon themselves(15) the
engagements of the bridal couch by prescription, by the cake of spelt, and
by a pretended sale?(16) Have they their mistresses,(17) their promised
wives, their betrothed brides, on settled conditions? And what do we say
about their marriages, too, when indeed you say that some celebrated their
nuptials, and entertained joyous throngs, and that the goddesses sported at
these; and that some threw all things into utter confusion with dissensions
because they had no share in singing the Fescennine verses, and occasioned
danger and destruction(18) to the next generation of men?(19)

   21. But perhaps this foul pollution may be less apparent in the rest.
Did, then, the ruler of the heavens, the father of gods and men, who, by
the motion of his eyebrow, and by his nod, shakes the whole heavens and
makes them tremble,--did he find his origin in man and woman? And unless
both sexes abandoned themselves to degrading pleasures in sensual
embraces,(1) would there be no Jupiter, greatest of all; and even to this
time would the divinities have no king, and heaven stand without its lord?
And why do we marvel that you say Jove sprang from a woman's womb, seeing
that your authors relate that he both had a nurse, and in the next place
maintained the life given to him by nourishment drawn from a foreign(2)
breast? What say you, O men? Did, then, shall I repeat, the god who makes
the thunder crash, lightens and hurls the thunderbolt, and draws together
terrible clouds, drink in the streams of the breast, wail as an infant,
creep about, and, that he might be persuaded to cease his crying most
foolishly protracted, was he made silent by the noise of rattles,(3) and
put to sleep lying in a very soft cradle, and lulled with broken words? O
devout assertion of the existence of gods, pointing out and declaring the
venerable majesty of their awful grandeur! Is it thus in your opinion, ask,
that the exalted powers(4) of heaven are produced? do your gods come forth
to the light by modes of birth such as these, by which asses, pigs. dogs,
by which the whole of this unclean herd(5) of earthly beasts is conceived
and begotten?

   22. And, not content to have ascribed these carnal unions to the
venerable Saturn,(6) you affirm that the king of the world himself begot
children even more shamefully than he was himself born and begotten. Of
Hyperiona,(7) as his mother, you say, and Jupiter, who wields the
thunderbolt, was born the golden and blazing Sun; of Latona and the same,
the Delian archer, and Diana,(8) who rouses the woods; of Leda and the
same,(9) those named in Greek Dioscori; of Aclmena and the same, the Theban
Hercules, whom his club and hide defended; of him and Semele, Liber, who is
named Bromius, and was born a second time from his father's thigh; of him,
again, and Main, Mercury, eloquent in speech, and bearer of the harmless
snakes. Can any greater insult be put upon your Jupiter, or is there
anything else which will destroy and ruin the reputation of the chief of
the gods, further than that you believe him to have been at times overcome
by vicious pleasures, and to have glowed with the passion of a heart roused
to lust after women? And what had the Saturnian king to do with strange
nuptials? Did Juno not suffice him; and could he not stay the force of his
desires on the queen of the deities, although so great excellence graced
her, such  beauty, majesty of countenance, and snowy and marble whiteness
of arms? Or did he, not content with one wife, taking pleasure in
concubines, mistresses, and courtezans, a lustful god, show(10) his
incontinence in all directions, as is the custom with dissolute(11) youths;
and in old age,  after intercourse with numberless persons, did he renew
his eagerness for pleasures now losing their zest? What say you, profane
ones; or what vile thoughts do you fashion about your love? Do you not,
then, observe do you not see with what disgrace you brand him? of what
wrong-doing you make him the author? or what stains of vice, how great
infamy you heap upon  him?

   23. Men, though prone to lust, and inclined, through weakness of
character, to yield to the allurements of sensual pleasures, still punish
adultery by the laws, and visit with the penalty of death those whom they
find to have possessed themselves of others rights by forcing the marriage-
bed. The greatest of kings, however, you tell us, did not know how vile,
how infamous the person of the seducer and adulterer was; and he who, as is
said, examines our merits and demerits, did not, owing to the reasonings of
his abandoned heart, see what was the fitting course for him to resolve on.
But this misconduct might perhaps be endured, if you were to conjoin him
with persons at least his equals, and if he were made by you the paramour
of the immortal goddesses. But what beauty, what grace was there, I ask
you, in human bodies, which could move, which could turn to it(12) the eyes
of Jupiter? Skin, entrails, phlegm, and all that filthy mass placed under
the coverings of the intestines, which not Lynceus only with his searching
gaze can shudder at, but any other also can be made to turn from even by
merely thinking.

   24. If you will open your minds' eyes, and see the real(1) truth
without gratifying any private end, you will find that the causes of all
the miseries by which, as you say, the human race has long been afflicted,
flow from such beliefs which you held in former times about your gods; and
which you have refused to amend, although the truth was placed before your
eyes. For what about them, pray, have we indeed ever either imagined which
was unbecoming, or put forth in shameful writings that the troubles which
assail men and the loss of the blessings of life(2) should be used to
excite a prejudice against us? Do we say that certain gods were produced
from eggs,(3) like storks and pigeons? Do we say that the radiant Cytherean
Venus grew up, having taken form from the sea's foam and the severed
genitals of Coelus? that Saturn was thrown into chains for parricide, and
relieved from their weight only on his own days?(4) that Jupiter was saved
from death(5) by the services of the Curetes? that he drove his father from
the seat of power, and by force and fraud possessed a sovereignty not his
own? Do we say that his aged sire, when driven out, concealed himself in
the territories of the Itali, and gave his name as a gift to Latium,(6)
because he had been there protected from his son? Do we say that Jupiter
himself incestuously married his sister? or, instead of pork, breakfasted
in ignorance upon the son of Lycaon, when invited to his table? that
Vulcan, limping on one foot, wrought as a smith in the island of Lemnos?
that AEculapius was transfixed by a thunderbolt because of his greed and
avarice, as the Boeotian Pindar(7) sings? that Apollo, having become rich,
by his ambiguous responses, deceived the very kings by whose treasures and
gifts he had been enriched? Did we declare that Mercury was a thief? that
Laverna is so also, and along with him presides over secret frauds? Is the
writer Myrtilus one of us, who declares that the Muses were the handmaids
of Megalcon,(8) daughter of Macarus?(9)

   25. Did we say(10) that Venus was a courtezan, deified by a Cyprian
king named Cinyras? Who reported that the palladium was formed from the
remains of Pelops? Was it not you? Who that Mars was Spartanus? was it not
your writer Epicharmus? Who that he was born within the confines of Thrace?
was it not Sophocles the Athenian, with the assent of all his spectators?
Who that he was born in Arcadia? was it not you? Who that he was kept a
prisoner for thirteen months?(11) was it not the son of the river Meles?
Who said that dogs were sacrificed to him by the Carians, asses by the
Scythians? was it not Apollodorus especially, along with the rest? Who that
in wronging another's marriage couch, he was caught entangled in snares?
was it not your writings, your tragedies? Did we ever write that the gods
for hire endured slavery, as Hercules at Sardis(12) for lust and
wantonness; as the Delian Apollo, who served Admetus, as Jove's brother,
who served the Trojan Laomedon, whom the Pythian also served, but with his
uncle; as Minerva, who gives light, and trims the lamps to secret lovers?
Is not he one of your poets, who re resented Mars and Venus as wounded by
men's hands? Is not Panyassis one of you, who relates that father Dis and
queenly Juno were wounded by Hercules? Do not the writings of your Polemo
say that Pallas(13) was slain,(14) covered with her own blood, overwhelmed
by Ornytus? Does not Sosibius declare that Hercules himself was afflicted
by the wound and pain he suffered at the hands of Hipocoon's children? Is
it related at our instance that Jupiter was committed to the grave in the
island of Crete? Do we say that the brothers,(15) who were united in their
cradle, were buried in the territories of Sparta and Lacedaemon? Is the
author of our number, who is termed Patrocles the Thurian in the titles of
his writings, who relates that the tomb and remains of Saturn are found(16)
in Sicily? Is Plutarch of Chaeronea(17) esteemed one of us, who said that
Hercules was reduced to ashes on the top of Mount (Eta, after his loss of
strength through epilepsy?

   26. But what shall I say of the desires with which it is written in
your books, and contained in your writers, that the holy immortals lusted
after women? For is it by us that the king of the sea is asserted in the
heat of maddened passion to have robbed of their virgin purity
Amphitrite,(1) Hippothoe, Amymone, Menalippe, Alope?(2) that the spotless
Apollo, Latona's son, most chaste and pure, with the passions of a breast
not governed by reason, desired Arsinoe, AEthusa, Hypsipyle, Marpessa,
Zeuxippe, and Prothoe, Daphne, and Sterope?(1) Is it shown in our poems
that the aged Saturn, already long covered with grey hair, and now cooled
by weight of years, being taken by his wife in adultery, put on the form of
one of the lower animals, and neighing loudly, escaped in the shape of a
beast? Do you not accuse Jupiter himself of having assumed countless forms,
and concealed by mean deceptions the ardour of his wanton lust? Have we
ever written that he obtained his desires by deceit, at one time changing
into gold, at another into a sportive satyr; into a serpent, a bird, a
bull; and, to pass beyond all limits of disgrace, into a little ant, that
he might, forsooth, make Clitor's daughter the mother of Myrmidon, in
Thessaly? Who represented him as having watched over Alcmena for nine
nights without ceasing? was it not you?--that he indolently abandoned
himself to his lusts, forsaking his post in heaven? was it not you? And,
indeed, you ascribe(3) to him no mean favours; since, in your opinion, the
god Hercules was born to exceed and surpass in such matters his father's
powers. He in nine nights begot(4) with difficulty one son; but Hercules, a
holy god, in one night taught the fifty daughters of Thestius at once to
lay aside their virginal title, and to bear a mother's burden. Moreover,
not content to have ascribed to the gods love of women, do you also say
that they lusted after men? Some one loves Hylas; another is engaged with
Hyacinthus; that one burns with desire for Pelops; this one sighs more
ardently for Chrysippus; Catamitus is carried off to be a favourite and
cup-bearer; and Fabius, that he may be called Jove's darling, is branded on
the soft parts, and marked in the hinder.

   27. But among you, is it only the males who lust; and has the female
sex preserved its purity?(5) Is it not proved in your books that Tithonus
was loved by Aurora; that Luna lusted after Endymion; the Nereid after
AEacus; Thetis after Achilles' father; Proserpina after Adonis; her mother,
Ceres, after some rustic Jasion, and afterwards Vulcan, Phaeton,(6) Mars;
Venus herself, the mother of AEneas, and founder of the  Roman power, to
marry Anchises? While, therefore, you accuse, without making any exception,
not one only by name, but the whole of the gods alike, in whose existence
you believe, of such  acts of extraordinary shamefulness and baseness, do
you dare, without violation of modesty, to say either that we are impious,
or that you are pious, although they receive from you much greater occasion
for offence on account of all the shameful acts which you heap up to their
reproach, than in connection with the service and duties required by their
majesty, honour, and worship? For either all these things are false which
you bring forward about them individually, lessening their credit and
reputation; and it is in that case a matter quite deserving, that the gods
should utterly destroy the race of men; or if they are true and certain,
and perceived without any reasons for doubt, it comes to this issue, that,
however unwilling you may be, we believe them to be not of heavenly, but of
earthly birth.

   28. For where there are weddings, marriages, births, nurses, arts,(7)
and weaknesses; where there are liberty and slavery; where there are
wounds, slaughter, and shedding of blood; where there are lusts, desires,
sensual pleasures; where there is every mental passion arising from
disgusting emotions,--there must of necessity be nothing godlike there; nor
can that cleave to a superior nature which belongs to a fleeting race, and
to the frailty of earth. For who, if only he recognises and perceives what
the nature of that power is, can believe either that a deity had the
generative members, and was deprived of them by a very base operation; or
that he at one time cut off the children sprung from himself, and was
punished by suffering imprisonment; or that he, in a way, made civil war
upon his father, and deprived him of the right of governing; or that he,
filled with fear of one younger when overcome, turned to flight, and hid in
remote solitudes, like a fugitive and exile? Who, I say, can believe that
the deity reclined at men's tables, was troubled on account of his avarice,
deceived his suppliants by an ambiguous reply, excelled in the tricks of
thieves, committed adultery, acted as a slave, was wounded, and in love,
and submitted to the seduction of impure desires in all the forms of lust?
But yet you declare all these things both were, and are, in your gods; and
you pass by no form of vice, wickedness, error, without bringing it
forward, in the wantonness of your fancies, to the reproach of the gods.
You must, therefore, either seek out other gods, apply; or if there are
only these whose names and character you have declared, by your beliefs you
do away with them: for all the things of which you speak relate to men.

   29. And here, indeed, we can show that all those whom you represent to
us as and call gods, were but men, by quoting either Euhemerus of
Acragas,(1) whose books were translated by Ennius into Latin that all might
be thoroughly acquainted with them; or Nicanor(2) the Cyprian; or the
Pellaean Leon; or Theodorus of Cyrene; or Hippo and Diagoras of Melos; or a
thousand other writers, who have minutely, industriously, and carefully(3)
brought secret things to light with noble candour. We may, I repeat, at
pleasure, declare both the acts of Jupiter, and the wars of Minerva and the
virgin(4) Diana; by what stratagems Liber strove to make himself master of
the Indian empire; what was the condition, the duty, the gain(5) of Venus;
to whom the great mother was bound in marriage; what hope, what joy was
aroused in her by the comely Attis; whence came the Egyptian Serapis and
Isis, or for what reasons their very names(6) were formed.

   30. But in the discussion which we at present maintain, we do not
undertake this trouble or service, to show and declare who all these were.
But this is what we proposed to ourselves, that as you call us impious and
irreligious, and, on the other hand, maintain that you are pious anti serve
the gods, we should prove and make manifest that by no men are they treated
with less respect than by you. But if it is proved by the very insults that
it is so, it must, as a consequence, be understood that it is yon who rouse
the gods to fierce and terrible rage, because you either listen to or
believe, or yourselves invent about them, stories so degrading. For it is
not he who is anxiously thinking of religious rites,(7) and slays spotless
victims, who gives piles of incense to be burned with fire, not he must be
thought to worship the deities, or alone discharge the duties of religion.
True worship is in the heart, and a belief worthy of the gods; nor does it
at all avail to bring blood and gore, if you believe about them things
which are not only far remote from and unlike their nature, but even to
some extent stain and disgrace both their dignity and virtue.

   31. We wish, then, to question you, and invite you to answer a short
question, Whether you think it a greater offence to sacrifice to them
being neither wishes nor desires these; or, with foul beliefs, to hold
opinions about them so degrading, that they might rouse any one's spirit to
a mad desire for revenge? If the relative importance of the matters be
weighed, you will find no judge so prejudiced as not to believe it a
greater crime to defame by manifest insults any one's reputation, than to
treat it with silent neglect. For this, perhaps, may be held and believed
from deference to reason; but the other course manifests an impious spirit,
and a blindness despaired of in fiction. If in your ceremonies and rites
neglected sacrifices and expiatory offerings may be demanded, guilt is said
to have been contracted; if by a momentary forgetfulness(8) any one has
erred either in speaking or in pouring wine;(9) or again,(10) if at the
solemn games and sacred races the dancer has halted, or the musician
suddenly become silent,--you all cry out immediately that something has
been done contrary to the sacredness of the ceremonies; or if the boy
termed patrimus let go the thong in ignorance,(11) or could not hold to the
earth:(12) and yet do you dare to deny that the gods are ever being wronged
by you in sins so grievous, while you confess yourselves that, in less
matters, they are often angry, to the national ruin?

   32. But all these things, they say, are the fictions of poets, and
games arranged for pleasure. It is not credible, indeed, that men by no
means thoughtless, who sought to trace out the character of the remotest
antiquity, either did not(13) insert in their poems the fables which
survived in men's minds(14) and common conversation;(15) or that they would
have assumed to themselves so great licence as to foolishly feign what was
almost sheer madness, and might give them reason to be afraid of the gods,
and bring them into danger with men. But let us grant that the poets are,
as yon say, the inventors anti authors of tales so disgraceful; you are
not, however, even thus free from the guilt of dishonouring the gods, who
either are remiss in punishing such offences, or have not, by passing laws,
and by severity of punishments, opposed such indiscretion, and
determined(1) that no man should henceforth say that which tended to the
dishonour,(2) or was unworthy of the glory of the gods.(3) For whoever
allows the wrongdoer to sin, strengthens his audacity; and it is more
insulting to brand and mark any one with false accusations, than to bring
forward and upbraid their real offences. For to be called what you are, and
what you feel yourself to be, is less offensive, because your resentment is
checked by the evidence supplied against you on privately reviewing your
life;(4) but that wounds very keenly which brands the innocent, and defames
a man's honourable name and reputation.

   33. Your gods, it is recorded, dine on celestial couches, and in golden
chambers, drink, and are at last soothed by the music of the lyre, and
singing. You fit them with ears not easily wearied;(5) and do not think it
unseemly to assign to the gods the pleasures by which earthly bodies are
supported, and which are sought after by ears enervated by the frivolity of
an unmanly spirit. Some of them are brought forward in the character of
lovers, destroyers of purity, to commit shameful and degrading deeds not
only with women, but with men also. You take no care as to what is said
about matters of so much importance, nor do you check, by any fear of
chastisement at least, the recklessness of your wanton literature; others,
through madness and frenzy, bereave themselves, and by the slaughter of
their own relatives cover themselves with blood, just as though it were
that of an enemy. You wonder at these loftily expressed impieties; and that
which it was fitting should be subjected to all punishments, you extol with
praise that spurs them on, so as to rouse their recklessness to greater
vehemence. They mourn over the wounds of their bereavement, and with
unseemly wailings accuse the cruel fates; you are astonished at the force
of their eloquence, carefully study and commit to memory that which should
have been wholly put away from human society,(6) and are solicitous that it
should not perish through any forgetfulness. They are spoken of as being
wounded, maltreated, making war upon each other with hot and furious
contests; you enjoy the description; and, to enable you to defend so great
daring in the writers, pretend that these things are allegories, and
contain the principles of natural science.

   34. But why do I complain that you have disregarded the insults(7)
offered to the other deities? That very Jupiter, whose name you should not
have spoken without fear and trembling over your whole body, is described
as confessing his faults when overcome by lust(8) of his wife, and,
hardened in shamelessness, making known, as if he were mad and ignorant,(9)
the mistresses he preferred to his spouse, the concubines he preferred to
his wife; you say that those who have uttered so marvellous things are
chiefs and kings among poets endowed with godlike genius, that they are
persons most holy; and so utterly have you lost sight of your duty in the
matters of religion which you bring forward, that words are of more
importance, in your opinion, than the profaned majesty of the immortals. So
then, if only you felt any fear of the gods, or believed with confident and
unhesitating assurance that they existed at all, should you not, by bills,
by popular votes, by fear of the senate's decrees, have hindered,
prevented, and forbidden any one to speak at random of the gods otherwise
than in a pious manner?(10) Nor have they obtained this honour even at your
hands, that you should repel insults offered to them by the same laws by
which you ward them off from yourselves. They are accused of treason among
you who have whispered any evil about your kings. To degrade a magistrate,
or use insulting language to a senator, you have made by decree a crime,
followed by the severest punishment. To write a satirical poem, by which a
slur is cast upon the reputation and character of another, you determined,
by the decrees of the decemvirs, should not go unpunished; and that no one
might assail your ears with too wanton abuse, you established formulae(11)
for severe affronts. With you only the gods are unhonoured, contemptible,
vile; against whom you allow any one liberty to say what he will, to accuse
them of the deeds of baseness which his lust has invented and devised. And
yet you do not blush to raise against us the charge of want of regard for
deities so infamous, although it is much better to disbelieve the existence
of the gods than to think they are such, and of such repute.

   35. But is it only poets whom you have thought proper(12) to allow to
invent unseemly tales about the gods, and to turn them shamefully into
sport? What do your pantomimists, the actors, that crowd of mimics and
adulterers?(13) Do they(14) not abuse your gods to make to themselves gain,
and do not the others(1) find enticing pleasures in(2) the wrongs and
insults offered to the gods? At the public games, too, the colleges of all
the priests and magistrates take their places, the chief Pontiffs, and the
chief priests of the curiae; the Quindecemviri take their places, crowned
with wreaths of laurel, and the flamines diales with their mitres; the
augurs take their  places, who disclose the divine mind and will; and the
chaste maidens also, who cherish and guard the ever-burning fire; the whole
people and the senate take their places; the fathers who have done service
as consuls, princes next to the gods, and most worthy of reverence; and,
shameful to say, Venus, the mother of the race of Mars, and parent of the
imperial people, is represented by gestures as in love,(3) and is
delineated with shameless mimicry as raving like a Bacchanal, with all the
passions of a vile harlot.(4) The Great Mother, too, adorned with her
sacred fillets, is represented by dancing; and that Pessinuntic
Dindymene(5) is, to the dishonour of her age, represented as with shameful
desire using passionate gestures in the embrace of a herdsman; and also in
the Trachiniae of Sophocles,(6) that son of Jupiter, Hercules, entangled in
the toils of a death-fraught garment, is exhibited uttering piteous cries,
overcome by his violent suffering, and at last wasting away and being
consumed, as his intestines soften and are dissolved.(7) But in these tales
even the Supreme Ruler of the heavens Himself is brought forward, without
any reverence for His name and majesty, as acting the part of an adulterer,
and changing His countenance for purposes of seduction, in order that He
might by guile rob of their chastity matrons, who were the wives of others,
and putting on the appearance of their husbands, by assuming the form of
another.

   36. But this crime is not enough: the persons of the most sacred gods
are mixed up with farces also, and scurrilous plays. And that the idle
onlookers may be excited to laughter and jollity, the deities are hit at in
jocular quips, the spectators shout and rise up, the whole pit resounds
with the clapping of hands and applause. And to the debauched scoffers(8)
at the gods gifts and presents are ordained, ease, freedom from public
burdens, exemption and relief, together  with triumphal garlands,--a crime
for which no amends can be made by any apologies. And after this do you
dare to wonder whence these ills come with which the human race is deluged
and overwhelmed without any interval, while you daily both repeat and learn
by heart all these things, with which are mixed up libels upon the gods and
slanderous sayings; and when(9) you wish your inactive minds to be occupied
with useless dreamings, demand that days be given to you, and exhibition
made without any interval? But if you felt any real indignation on behalf
of your religious beliefs, you should rather long ago have burned these
writings, destroyed those books of yours, and overthrown these theatres, in
which evil reports of your deities are daily made public in shameful tales.
For why, indeed, have our writings deserved to be given to the flames? our
meetings to be cruelly broken up,(10) in which prayer is made to the
Supreme God, peace and pardon are asked for all in authority, for soldiers,
kings, friends, enemies, for those still in life, and those freed from the
bondage of the flesh;(11) in which all that is said is such as to make men
humane,(12) gentle, modest, virtuous, chaste, generous in dealing with
their substance, and inseparably united to all embraced in our
brotherhood?(13)

   37. But this is the state of the case, that as you are exceedingly
strong in war and in military power, you think you excel in knowledge of
the truth also, and are pious before the gods,(14) whose might you have
been the first to besmirch with foul imaginings. Here, if your fierceness
allows. and madness suffers, we ask you to answer us this: Whether you
think that anger finds a place in the divine nature, or that the divine
blessedness is far removed from such passions? For if they are subject to
passions so furious,(15) and are excited by feelings of rage as your
imaginings suggest.--for you say that they have often shaken the earth with
their roaring,(16) and bringing woful misery on men, corrupted with
pestilential contagion the character of the times,(1) both because their
games had been celebrated with too little care, and because their priests
were not received with favour, and because some small spaces were
desecrated, and because their rites were not duly performed,--it must
consequently be understood that they feel no little wrath on account of the
opinions which have been mentioned. But if, as follows of necessity, it is
admitted that all these miseries with which men have long been overwhelmed
flow from such fictions, if the anger of the deities is excited by these
causes, you are the occasion of so terrible misfortunes, because you never
cease to jar upon the feelings of the gods, and excite them to a fierce
desire for vengeance. But if, on the other hand, the gods are not subject
to such passions, and do not know at all what it is to be enraged, then
indeed there is no ground for saying that they who know not what anger is
are angry with us, * and they are free from its presence,(2) and  the
disorder(3) it causes. For it cannot be, in the nature of things, that what
is one should become  two; and that unity, which is naturally uncompounded,
should divide and go apart into separate things.(4)

BOOK V.

   1. Admitting that all these things which do the immortal gods
dishonour, have been put forth by poets merely in sport, what of those
found in grave, serious, and careful histories, and handed down by you in
hidden mysteries? have they been invented by the licentious fancy of the
poets? Now if they seemed(1) to you stories of such absurdity, some of them
you would neither retain in their constant use, nor celebrate as solemn
festivals from year to year, nor would you maintain them among your sacred
rites as shadows of real events. With strict moderation, I shall adduce
only one of these stories which are so numerous; that in which Jupiter
himself is brought on the stage as stupid and inconsiderate, being tricked
by the ambiguity of words. In the second hook of Antias--lest any one
should think, perchance, that we are fabricating charges calumniously--the
following story is written:--

   The famous king Numa, not knowing how to avert evil portended by
thunder, and being eager to learn, by advice of Egeria concealed beside a
fountain twelve chaste youths provided with chains; so that when Faunus and
Martius(2) Picus came to this place(3) to drink,--for hither they were wont
to come(4) to draw water,--they might rush on them, seize and bind them.
But, that this might be done more speedily, the king filled many(5) cups
with wine and with mead,(6) and placed them about the approaches to the
fountain, where they would be seen--a crafty snare for those who should
come. They, as was their usual custom, when overcome by thirst, came to
their well-known haunts. But when they had perceived cups with sweetly
smelling liquors, they preferred the new to the old; rushed eagerly upon
them; charmed with the sweetness of the draught, drank too much; and
becoming drunk, fell fast asleep. Then the twelve youths threw themselves
upon the sleepers, and cast chains round them, lying soaked with wine; and
they,(7) when roused, immediately taught the king by what methods and
sacrifices Jupiter could be called down to earth. With this knowledge the
king performed the sacred ceremony on the Aventine, drew down Jupiter to
the earth, and asked from him the due Form of expiation. Jupiter having
long hesitated, said, "Thou shalt avert what is portended by thunder with a
head."(8) The king answered. "With an onion."(9) Jupiter again, "With a
man's." The king returned, "But with hair."(10) The deity in turn, "With
the life.(1) With a fish,"(2) rejoined Pompilius. Then Jupiter, being
ensnared by the ambiguous terms used, uttered these words: "Thou hast
overreached me, Numa; for I had determined that evils portended by thunder
should be averted with sacrifices of human heads, not(3) with hair and an
onion. Since, however, your craft has outwitted me, have the mode which you
wished; and always undertake the expiation of thunder-portents with those
things which you have bargained for."

   2. What the mind should take up first, what last, or what it should
pass by silently, it is not easy to say, nor is it made clear by any amount
of reflection; for all have been so devised and fitted to be laughed at,
that you should strive that they may be believed to be false--even if they
are true--rather than pass current as true, and suggest as it were
something extraordinary, and bring contempt upon deity itself. What, then,
do you say, O you--? Are we to believe(4) that that Faunus and Martius
Picus--if they are of the number of the gods, and of that everlasting and
immortal substance--were once parched with thirst, and sought the gushing
fountains, that they might be able to cool with water their heated veins?
Are we to believe that, ensnared by wine, and beguiled by the sweetness of
mead, they dipped so long into the treacherous cups, that they even got
into danger of becoming drunk? Are we to believe that, being fast asleep,
and plunged in the forgetfulness of most profound slumbers, they gave to
creatures of earth an opportunity to bind them? On what parts, then, were
those bonds and chains flung? Did they have any solid substance, or had
their hands been formed of hard bones, so that it might be possible to bind
them with halters and hold them fast by tightly drawn knots? For I do not
ask, I do not inquire whether they could have said anything when swaying to
and fro in their drunken maunderings; or whether, while Jupiter was
unwilling, or rather unwitting, any one could have marie known the way to
bring him down to earth. This only do I wish to hear, why, if Faunus and
Picus are of divine origin and power, they did not rather themselves
declare to Numa, as he questioned them, that which he desired to learn from
Jove himself at a greater risk? Or(5) did Jupiter alone have knowledge of
this--for from him the thunderbolts fall--how training in some kind of
knowledge should avert impending dangers? Or, while he himself hurls these
fiery bolts, is it the business of others to know in what way it is fitting
to allay his wrath and indignation? For truly it would be most absurd to
suppose that he himself appoints(6) the means by which may be averted that
which he has determined should befall men through the hurling of his
thunderbolts. For this is to say, By such ceremonies you will turn aside my
wrath; and if I shall at any time have foreshown by flashes of lightning
that some evil is close at hand, do this and that, so that(7) what I have
determined should be done may be done altogether in vain, and may pass away
idly through the force(8) of these rites.

   3. But let us admit that, as is said, Jupiter has himself appointed
against himself ways and means by which his own declared purposes might
fittingly be opposed: are we also to believe that a deity of so great
majesty was dragged down to earth, and, standing on a petty hillock with a
mannikin, entered into a wrangling dispute? And what, I ask, was the charm
which forced Jupiter to leave the all-important(9) direction of the
universe, and appear at the bidding of mortals? the sacrificial meal,
incense, blood, the scent of burning laurel-boughs,(10) and muttering of
spells? And were all these more powerful than Jupiter, so that they
compelled him to do unwillingly what was enjoined, or to give himself up of
his own accord to their crafty tricks? What! will what follows be believed,
that the son of Saturn had so little foresight, that he either proposed
terms by the ambiguity of which he was himself ensnared, or did not know
what was going to happen, how the craft and cunning of a mortal would
overreach him? You shall make expiation, he says, with a head when
thunderbolts have fallen. The phrase is still incomplete, and the meaning
is not fully expressed and defined; for it was necessarily right to know
whether Diespiter ordains that this expiation be effected with the head of
a wether, a sow, an ox, or any other animal. Now, as he had not yet fixed
this specifically, and his decision was still uncertain anti not yet
determined, how could Numa know that Jupiter would say the head of a man,
so as to(7) anticipate and prevent him, and turn his uncertain and
ambiguous words(11) into "an onion's head?"

   4. But you will perhaps say that the king was a diviner. Could he be
more so than Jupiter himself? But for a mortal's anticipating(1) what
Jupiter--whom(2) he overreached--was going to say, could the god not know
in what ways a man was preparing to overreach him? Is it not, then, clear
and manifest that these are puerile and fanciful inventions, by which,
while a lively wit is assigned(3) to Numa, the greatest want of foresight
is imputed to Jupiter? For what shows so little foresight as to confess
that you have been ensnared by the subtlety of a man's intellect, and while
you are vexed at being deceived, to give way to the wishes of him who has
overcome you, and to lay aside the means which you had proposed? For if
there was reason and some natural fitness that(4) expiatory sacrifice for
that which was struck with lightning should have been made with a man's
head, I do not see why the proposal of an onion's was made by the king; but
if it could be performed with an onion also, there was a greedy lust for
human blood. And both parts are made to contradict themselves: so that, on
the one hand, Numa is shown not to have wished to know what he did wish;
and, on the other, Jupiter is shown to have been merciless, because he said
that he wished expiation to be made with the heads of men, which could have
been done by Numa with an onion's head.

   5. In Timotheus, who was no mean mythologist, and also in others
equally well informed, the birth of the Great Mother of the gods, and the
origin of her rites, are thus detailed, being de-rived--as he himself
writes and suggests--from learned books of antiquities, and from his
acquaintance with the most secret mysteries:--Within the confines of
Phrygia, he says, there is a rock of unheard-of wildness in every respect,
the name of which is Agdus, so named by the natives of that district.
Stones taken from it, as Themis by her oracle(5) had enjoined, Deucalion
and Pyrrha threw upon the earth, at that time emptied of men; from which
this Great Mother, too, as she is called, was fashioned along with the
others, and animated by the deity. Her, given over to rest and sleep on the
very summit of the rock, Jupiter assailed with lewdest(6) desires. But
when, after long strife, he could no accomplish what he had proposed to
himself, he, baffled, spent his lust on the stone. This the rock received,
and with many groanings Acdestis(7) is born in the tenth month, being named
from his mother rock. In him there had been resistless might, and a
fierceness of disposition beyond control, a lust made furious, and derived
from both sexes.(8) He violently plundered and laid waste; he scattered
destruction wherever the ferocity of his disposition had led him; he
regarded not gods nor men, nor did he think anything more powerful than
himself; he contemned  earth, heaven, and the stars.

   6. Now, when it had been often considered in the councils of the gods,
by what means it might be possible either to weaken or to curb his
audacity, Liber, the rest hanging back, takes upon himself this task. With
the strongest wine he drugs a spring much resorted to by Acdestis(9) where
he had been wont to assuage the heat and burning thirst(10) roused in him
by sport and hunting. Hither runs Acdestis to drink when he felt the
need;(11) he gulps down the draught too greedily into his gaping veins.
Overcome by what he is quite unaccustomed to, he is in consequence sent
fast asleep. Liber is near the snare which he had set; over his foot he
throws one end of a halter(12) formed of hairs, woven together very
skilfully; with the other end he lays hold of his privy members. When the
fumes of the wine passed off, Acdestis starts up furiously, and his foot
dragging the noose, by his own strength he robs himself of his(13) sex;
with the tearing asunder of these parts there is an immense flow of blood;
both(14) are carried off and swallowed up by the earth; from them there
suddenly springs up, covered with fruit, a pomegranate tree, seeing the
beauty of which, with admiration, Nana,(15) daughter of the king or river
Sangarius, gathers and places in her bosom some  of the fruit. By this she
becomes pregnant; her father shuts her up, supposing that she had been(16)
debauched, and seeks to have her starved to death; she is kept alive by the
mother of the gods with apples, and other food,(17) and brings forth a
child, but Sangarius(18) orders it to be exposed. One Phorbas having found
the child, takes it home,(19) brings it up on goats' milk; and as handsome
fellows are so named in Lydia, or  because the Phrygians in their own way
of speaking call their goats attagi, it happened in consequence that the
boy obtained the name Attis.(1) Him the mother of the gods loved
exceedingly, because he was of most surpassing beauty; and Acdestis, who
was his companion, as he grew up fondling him, and bound to him by wicked
compliance with his lust in the only way now possible, leading him through
the wooded glades, and presenting him with the spoils of many wild beasts,
which the boy Attis at first said boastfully were won by his own toil and
labour. Afterwards, under the influence of wine, he admits that he is both
loved by Acdestis, and honoured by him with the gifts brought from the
forest; whence it is unlawful for those polluted by drinking wine to enter
into his sanctuary, because it discovered his secret.(2)

   7. Then Midas, king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the youth from so
disgraceful an intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in marriage,
and caused the gates of the town to be closed, that no one of evil omen
might disturb their marriage joys. But the mother of the gods, knowing the
fate of the youth, and that he would live among men in safety only so long
as he was free from the ties of marriage, that no disaster might occur,
enters the closed city, raising its walls with her head, which began to be
crowned with towers in consequence. Acdestis, bursting with rage because of
the boy's being torn from himself, and brought to seek a wife, fills all
the guests with frenzied madness:(3) the Phrygians shriek aloud, panic-
stricken at the appearance of the gods;(4) a daughter of adulterous(5)
Gallus cuts off her breasts; Attis snatches the pipe borne by him who was
goading them to frenzy; and he, too, now filled with furious passion,
raving frantically and tossed about, throws himself down at last, and under
a pine tree mutilates himself, saying, "Take these,(6) Acdestis, for which
you have stirred up so great and terribly perilous commotions."(7) With the
streaming blood his life flies; but the Great Mother of the gods gathers
the parts which had been cut off, and throws earth on them, having first
covered them, and wrapped(8) them in the garment of the dead. From the
blood which had flowed springs a flower, the  violet, and with(9) this the
tree(10) is girt. Thence the custom began and arose, whereby you even now
veil and wreath with flowers the sacred pine. The virgin who had been the
bride, whose name, as Valerius(11) the pontifex relates, was Ia, veils the
breast of the lifeless youth with soft wool, sheds tears with Acdestis, and
slays herself After her death her blood is changed into purple violets. The
mother of the gods sheds tears also,(12) from which springs an almond tree,
signifying the bitterness of death.(13) Then she bears away to her cave the
pine tree, beneath which Attis had unmanned himself; and Acdestis joining
in her wailings, she beats and wounds her breast, pacing round the trunk of
the tree now at rest.(14) Jupiter is begged by Acdestis that Attis may be
restored to life: he does not permit it. What, however, fate allowed,(15)
he readily grants, that his body should not decay, that his hairs should
always grow, that the least of his fingers should live, and should be kept
ever in motion; content with which favours, it is said that Acdestis
consecrated the body in Pessinus, and honoured it with yearly rites and
priestly services.(16)

   8. If some one, despising the deities, and furious with a savagely
sacrilegious spirit, had set himself to blaspheme your gods, would he dare
to say against them anything more severe than this tale relates, which you
have reduced to form, as though it were some wonderful narrative, and have
honoured without ceasing,(17) lest the power of time and the remoteness(18)
of antiquity should cause it to be forgotten? For what is there asserted in
it, or what written about the gods, which, if said with regard to a man
brought up with bad habits and a pretty rough training, would not make you
liable to be accused of wronging and insulting him, and expose you to
hatred and dislike, accompanied by implacable resentment? From the stones,
you say, which Deucalion and Pyrrha threw, was produced the mother of the
gods. What do you say, O theologians? what, ye priests of the heavenly
powers? Did the mother of the gods, then, not exist at all for the sake of
the deluge? and would there be no cause or beginning of her birth, had not
violent storms of rain swept away the whole race of men? It is through man,
then, that she feels herself to exist, and she owes it to Pyrrha's kindness
that she sees herself addressed as a real being;(1) but if that is indeed
true, this too will of necessity not be false, that she was human, not
divine. For if it is certain that men are sprung originally from the
casting of stones, it must be believed that she too was one of us, since
she was produced by means of the same causes. For it cannot be, for nature
would not suffer it,(2) that from one kind of stones, and from the same
mode of throwing them, some should be formed to rank among the immortals,
others with the condition of men. Varro, that famous Roman, distinguished
by the diversity of his learning, and unwearied in his researches into
ancient times, in the first of four books which he has left in writing on
the race of the Roman people, shows by careful calculations, that from the
time of the deluge, which we mentioned before, down to the consulship of
Hirtius and Pansa,(3) there are not quite two thousand years; and if he is
to be believed, the Great Mother, too, must be said to have her whole life
bounded by the limits of this number. And thus the matter is brought to
this issue, that she who is said to be parent of all the deities is not
their mother, but their daughter; nay, rather a mere child, a little girl,
since we admit that in the never-ending series of ages neither beginning
nor end has been ascribed to the gods.

   9. But why do we speak of your having bemired the Great Mother of the
gods with the filth of earth, when you have not been able for but a little
time even to keep from speaking evil of Jupiter himself? While the mother
of the gods was then sleeping on the highest peak of Agdus, her son, you
say, tried stealthily to surprise her chastity while she slept. After
robbing of their chastity virgins and matrons without number, did Jupiter
hope to gratify his detestable passion upon his mother? and could he not be
turned from his fierce desire by the horror which nature itself has excited
not only in men, but in some other animals also, and by common(4) feeling?
Was he then regardless of piety(5) and honour, who is chief in the temples?
and could he neither reconsider nor perceive how wicked was his desire, his
mind being madly agitated? But, as it is, forgetting his majesty and
dignity, he crept forward to steal those vile pleasures, trembling and
quaking with fear, holding his breath, walking in terror on tiptoe, and,
between hope and fear, touched her secret parts, trying how soundly his
mother slept, and what she would suffer.(6) Oh, shameful representation!
oh, disgraceful plight of Jupiter, prepared to attempt a filthy contest!
Did the ruler of the world, then, turn to force, when, in his heedlessness
and haste, he was prevented from stealing on by surprise;(7) and when he
was unable to snatch his pleasure by cunning craft, did he assail his
mother with violence, and begin without any concealment to destroy the
chastity which he should have revered? Then, having striven for a very long
time when she is unwilling, did he go off conquered, vanquished, and
overcome? and did his spent lust part him whom piety was unable to hold
back from execrable lust after his mother?

   10. But you will perhaps say the human race shuns and execrates such
unions;(8) among the gods there is no incest. And why, then, did his mother
resist with the greatest vehemence her son when he offered her violence?
Why did she flee from his embraces, as if she were avoiding unlawful
approaches? For if there was nothing wrong in so doing, she should have
gratified him without any reluctance, just as he eagerly wished to satisfy
the cravings of his lust. And here, indeed, very thrifty men, and frugal
even about shameful works, that that sacred seed may not seem to have been
poured forth in vain--the rock, one says, drank up Jupiter's foul
incontinence. What followed next, I ask? Tell. In the very heart of the
rock, and in that flinty  hardness, a child was formed and quickened to be
the offspring of great Jupiter. It is not easy to object to conceptions so
unnatural and so wonderful. For as the human race is said by you to have
sprung and proceeded from stones, it must be believed that the stones both
had genital parts, and drank in the seed cast on them, and when their time
was full were pregnant,(9) and at last brought forth, travailing in
distress as women do. That impels our curiosity to inquire, since you say
that the birth occurred after ten months, in what womb of the rock was he
enclosed at that time? with what food, with what juices, was he supplied?
or what could he have drawn to support him from the hard stone, as unborn
infants usually receive from their mothers! He had not yet reached the
light, my informant says; and already bellowing and imitating his father's
thunderings, he reproduced their sound.(1) And after it was given him to
see the sky and the light of day, attacking all things which lay in his
way, he made havoc of them, and assured himself that he was able to thrust
down from heaven the gods themselves. O cautious and foreseeing mother of
the gods, who, that she might not undergo the ill-will of so(2) arrogant a
son, or that his bellowing while still unborn might not disturb her
slumbers or break her repose, withdrew herself, and sent far from her that
most hurtful seed, and gave it to the rough rock.

   11. There was doubt in the councils of the gods how that unyielding and
fierce violence was to be subdued; and when there was no other way, they
had recourse to one means, that he should be soaked with much wine, and
bereft of his members, by their being cut off. As if, indeed, those who
have suffered the loss of these parts become less arrogant, and as if we do
not daily see those who have cut them away from themselves become more
wanton, and, neglecting all the restraints of chastity and modesty, throw
themselves headlong into filthy vileness, making known abroad their
shameful deeds. I should like, however, to see--were it granted me to be
born at those times--father Liber, who overcame the fierceness of Acdestis,
having glided down from the peaks of heaven after the very venerable
meetings of the gods, cropping the tails of horses,(3) plaiting pliant
halters, drugging the waters harmless while pure with much strong wine, and
after that drunkenness sprung from drinking, to have carefully introduced
his hands, handled the members of the sleeper, and directed his care
skilfully(4) to the parts which were to perish, so that the hold of the
nooses placed round them might surround them all.

   12. Would any one say this about the gods who had even a very low
opinion of them? or, if they were taken up with such affairs,
considerations, cares, would any man of wisdom either believe that they are
gods, or reckon them among men even? Was that Acdestis, pray, the lopping
off of whose lewd members was to give a sense of security to the immortals,
was he one of the creatures of earth, or one of the gods, and possessed
of(5) immortality? For if he was thought to be of our lot and in the
condition of men, why did he cause the deities so much terror? But if he
was a god, how could he be deceived, or how could anything be cut off from
a divine body?(6) But we raise no issue on this point: he may have been of
divine birth, or one of us, if you think it more correct to say so. Did a
pomegranate tree, also, spring from the blood which flowed and from the
parts which were cut off? or at the time when(7) that member was concealed
in the bosom of the earth, did it lay hold of the ground with a root, and
spring up into a mighty tree, put forth branches loaded with blossoms,(8)
and in a moment bare mellow fruit perfectly and completely ripe? And
because these sprang from red blood, is their colour therefore bright
purple, with a dash of yellow? Say further that they are juicy also, that
they have the taste of wine, because they spring from the blood of one
filled with it, and you have finished your story consistently. O Abdera,
Abdera, what occasions for mocking you would give(9) to men, if such a tale
had been devised by you! All fathers relate it, and haughty states peruse
it; and you are considered foolish, and utterly dull and stupid.(10)

   13. Through her bosom, we are told,(11) Nana conceived a son by an
apple. The opinion is self-consistent; for where rocks and hard stones
bring forth, there apples must have their time of generating.(12) The
Berecyntian goddess fed the imprisoned maiden with nuts(13) and figs, fitly
and rightly; for it was right that she should live on apples who had been
made a mother by an apple. After her offspring was born, it was ordered by
Sangarius to be cast far away: that which he believed to be divinely
conceived long before, he would not have(14) called the offspring of his
child. The infant was brought up on he-goats' milk. O story ever opposed
and most inimical to the male sex, in which not only do men lay aside their
virile powers, but beasts even which were males become mothers!(15) He was
famous for his beauty, and distinguished by his remarkable(16) comeliness.
It is wonderful enough that the noisome stench of goats did not cause him
to be avoided and fled from. The Great Mother loved him--if as a
grandmother her grandson, there is nothing wrong; but if as the theatres
tell, her love is infamous and disgraceful. Acdestis, too, loved him above
all, enriching him with a hunter's gifts. There could be no danger to his
purity from one emasculated, you say; but it is not easy to guess what
Midas dreaded? The Mother entered bearing(1) the very walls. Here we
wondered, indeed, at the might and strength of the deity; but again(2) we
blame her carelessness, because when she remembered the decree of fate,(3)
she heedlessly laid open the city to its enemies. Acdestis cites to fury
and madness those celebrating the nuptial vows. If King Midas had
displeased who was binding the youth to a wife, of what had Gallus been
guilty, and his concubine's daughter, that he should rob himself of his
manhood, she herself of her breasts? "Take and keep these," says he,(4)
"because of which you have excited such commotions to the overwhelming of
our minds with fear." We should none of us yet know what the frenzied
Acdestis had desired in his paramour's body, had not the boy thrown to him,
to appease his wrath,(5) the parts cut off.

   14. What say you, O races and nations, given up to such beliefs? When
these things are brought forward, are you not ashamed and confounded to say
things so indecent? We wish to hear or learn from you something befitting
the gods; but you, on the contrary, bring forward to us the cutting off of
breasts, the lopping off of men's members, ragings, blood, frenzies, the
self-destruction of maidens, and flowers and trees begotten from the blood
of the dead. Say, again, did the mother of the gods, then, with careful
diligence herself gather in her grief the scattered genitals with the shed
blood?(6) With her own sacred, her own divine(7) hands, did she touch and
lift up the instruments of a disgraceful and indecent office? Did she also
commit them to the earth to be hid from sight; and lest in this case they
should, being uncovered, be dispersed in the bosom of the earth, did she
indeed wash and anoint them with fragrant gums before wrapping and covering
them with his dress? For whence could the violet's sweet scent have come
had not the addition of those cintments modified the putrefying smell of
the member? Pray, when you read such tales, do you not seem to yourselves
to hear either girls at the loom wiling away their tedious working hours,
or old women seeking diversions for credulous children,(8) and to be
declaring manifold fictions under the guise of truth? Acdestis appealed
to(9) Jupiter to restore life to his paramour: Jupiter would not consent,
because he was hindered by the fates more powerful than himself; and that
he might not be in every respect very hard-hearted, he granted one favour--
that the body should not decay through any corruption; that the hair should
always grow; that the least of his fingers alone in his body should live,
alone keep always in motion. Would any one grant this, or support it with
an unhesitating assent, that hair grows on a dead body,--that part(10)
perished, and that the rest of his mortal body, free from the law of
corruption, remains even still?

   15. We might long ago have urged you to ponder this, were it not
foolish to ask proofs of such things, as well as to say(11) them. But this
story is false, and is wholly untrue. It is no mat ter to us, indeed,
because of whom you maintain that the gods have been driven from the earth,
whether it is consistent and rests on a sure foundation,(12) or is, on the
contrary, framed and devised in utter falsehood. For to us it is enough--
who have proposed this day to make  it plain--that those deities whom you
bring for ward, if they are anywhere on earth, and glow  with the fires of
anger, are not more excited to  furious hatred by us than by you; and that
that story, has been classed as an event and committed to writing by you,
and is willingly read over by you every day, and handed down in order for
the edifying of later times. Now, if this story is indeed true, we see that
there is no reason in it why the celestial gods should be asserted to he
angry with us, since we have neither declared things so much to their
disgrace, nor committed them to writing at all, nor brought them publicly
to light(13) by the celebration of sacred rites; but if, as you think, it
is untrue, and made up of delusive falsehoods, no man can doubt that you
are the cause of offence, who have either allowed certain persons to write
such stories, or have suffered them, when written, to abide in the memory
of ages.

   16. And yet how can you assert the falsehood of this story, when the
very rites which you celebrate throughout the year testify that you believe
these things to be true, and consider them per fectly trustworthy? For what
is the meaning of that pine(1) which on fixed days you always bring into
the sanctuary of the mother of the gods? Is it not in imitation of that
tree, beneath which the raging and ill-fated youth laid hands upon himself,
and which the parent of the gods consecrated to relieve her sorrow?(2) What
mean the fleeces of wool with which you bind and surround the trunk of the
tree? Is it not to recall the wools with which la(3) covered the dying
youth, and thought that she could procure some warmth for his limbs fast
stiffening with cold? What mean the branches of the tree girt round and
decked with wreaths of violets? Do they not mark this, how the Mother
adorned with early flowers the pine which indicates and bears witness to
the sad mishap? What mean the Galli(4) with dishevelled hair beating their
breasts with their palms? Do they not recall to memory those lamentations
with which the tower-bearing Mother, along with the weeping Acdestis,
wailing aloud,(5) followed the boy? What means the abstinence from eating
bread which you have named castus? Is it not in imitation of the time when
the goddess abstained from Ceres' fruit in her vehement sorrow?

   17. Or if the things which we say are not so declare, say yourselves--
those effeminate and delicate men whom we see among you in the sacred rites
of this deity--what business, what care, what concern have they there; and
why do they like mourners wound their arms and(6)  breasts, and act as
those dolefully circumstanced? What mean the wreaths, what the violets,
what the swathings, the coverings of soft wools? Why, finally, is the very
pine, but a little before swaying to and fro among the shrubs, an utterly
inert log, set up in the temple of the Mother of the gods next, like some
propitious and very venerable deity? For either this is the cause which we
have found in your writings and treatises, and in that case it is clear
that you do not celebrate divine rites, but give a representation of sad
events; or if there is any other reason which the darkness of the mystery
has withheld from us, even it also must be involved in the infamy of some
shameful deed. For who would believe that there is any honour in that which
the worthless Galli begin, effeminate debauchees complete?

   18. The greatness of the subject, and our duty to those on their
defence also,(7) demand that we should in like manner hunt up the other
forms of baseness, whether those which the histories of antiquity record,
or those contained in the sacred mysteries named initia,(8) and not
divulged(9) openly to all, but to the silence of a few; but your
innumerable sacred rites, and the loath-someness of them all,(10) will not
allow us to go through them all bodily: nay, more, to tell the truth, we
turn aside ourselves from some purposely and intentionally, lest, in
striving to unfold all things, we should be defiled by contamination in the
very exposition. Let us pass by Fauna(11) Fatua, therefore, who is called
Bona Dea, whom Sextus Clodius, in his sixth book in Greek on the gods,
declares to have been scourged to death with rods of myrtle, because she
drank a whole jar of wine without her husband's knowledge; and this is a
proof, that when women show her divine honour a jar of wine is placed
there, but covered from sight, and that it is not lawful to bring in twigs
of myrtle, as Butas(12) mentions in his Causalia. But let us pass by with
similar neglect(13) the dii conserentes, whom Flaccus and others relate to
have buried themselves, changed in humani penis similitudinem in the
cinders Under a pot of exta.(14) And when Tanaquil, skilled in the arts of
Etruria,(15) disturbed these, the gods erected themselves, and became
rigid. She then commanded a captive woman from Corniculum to learn and
understand what was the meaning of this: Ocrisia, a woman of the greatest
wisdom divos inseruisse genitali, explicuisse motus certos. Then the holy
and burning deities poured forth the power of Lucilius,(16) and thus
Servius king of Rome was born.

   19. We shall pass by the wild Bacchanalia also, which are named in
Greek Omophagia, in which with seeming frenzy and the loss of your senses
you twine snakes about you; and, to show yourselves full of the divinity
and majesty of the god, tear in pieces with gory mouths the flesh of
loudly-bleating goats. Those hidden mysteries of Cyprian Venus we pass by
also, whose founder is said to have been King Cinyras,(17) in which being
initiated, they bring stated fees as to a harlot, and carry away phalli,
given as signs of the propitious deity. Let the rites of the Corybantes
also be consigned to oblivion, in which is revealed that sacred mystery, a
brother slain by his brothers, parsley sprung from the blood of the
murdered one, that vegetable forbidden to be placed on tables, test the
manes of the dead should be unappeasably offended. But those other
Bacchanalia also we refuse to proclaim, in which there is revealed and
taught to the initiated a secret not to be spoken; how Liber, when taken up
with boyish sports, was torn asunder by the Titans; how he was cut up limb
by limb by them also, and thrown into pots that he might  be cooked; how
Jupiter, allured by the sweet savour, rushed unbidden to the meal, and
discovering what had been done, overwhelmed the revellers with his terrible
thunder, and hurled them to the lowest part of Tartarus. As evidence and
proof of which, the Thracian bard handed down in his poems the dice,
mirror, tops, hoops, and smooth balls, and golden apples taken from the
virgin Hesperides.

   20. It was our purpose to leave unnoticed those mysteries also into
which Phrygia is initiated, and all that(1) race, were it not that the name
of Jupiter, which has been introduced by them, would not suffer us to pass
cursorily by the wrongs and insults offered to him; not that we feel any
pleasure in discussing(2) mysteries so filthy, but that it may be made
clear to you again and again what wrong you heap upon those whose
guardians, champions, worshippers, you profess to be. Once upon a time,
they say, Diespiter, burning after his mother Ceres with evil passions and
forbidden desires, for she is said by the natives of that district to be
Jupiter's mother, and yet not daring to seek by open(3) force that for
which he had conceived a shameless longing, hits upon a clever trick by
which to rob of her chastity his mother, who feared nothing of the sort.
Instead of a god, he becomes a bull; and concealing his purpose and daring
under the appearance of a beast lying in wait,(4) he rushes madly with
sudden violence upon her, thoughtless and unwitting, obtains his incestuous
desires; and the fraud being disclosed by his lust, flies off known and
discovered. His mother burns, foams, gasps, boils with fury and
indignation; and being unable to repress the storm(5) and tempest of her
wrath, received the name Brimo(6) thereafter from her ever-raging passion:
nor has she any other wish than to punish as she may her son's audacity.

   21. Jupiter is troubled enough, being overwhelmed with fear, and cannot
find means to soothe the rage of his violated mother. He pours forth
prayers, and makes supplication; her ears are closed by grief. The whole
order of the gods is sent to seek his pardon; no one has weight enough to
win a hearing. At last, the son seeking how to make satisfaction, devises
this means: Arietem nobilem bene grandibus cum testiculis deligit, exsecat
hos ipse et lanato exuit ex folliculi tegmine. Approaching his mother sadly
and with downcast looks, and as if by his own decision he had condemned
himself, he casts and throws these(7) into her bosom. When she saw what his
pledge was,(8) she is somewhat softened, and allows herself to be recalled
to the care of the offspring which she had conceived.(9) After the tenth
month she bears a daughter, of beautiful form, whom later ages have called
now Libera, now Proserpine; whom when Jupiter Verveceus(10) saw to be
strong, plump, and blooming, forgetting what evils and what wickedness, and
how great recklessness, he had a little before fallen into,(11) he returns
to his former practices; and because it seemed too(12) wicked that a father
openly be joined as in marriage with his daughter, he passes into the
terrible form of a dragon: he winds his huge coils round the terrified
maiden, and under a fierce appearance sports and caresses her in softest
embraces. She, too, is in consequence filled with the seed of the most
powerful Jupiter, but not as her mother was, for she(13) bore a daughter
like herself; but from the maiden was born something like a bull, to
testify to her seduction by Jupiter. If any one asks(14) who narrates this,
then we shall quote the well-known senarian verse of a Tarentine poet which
antiquity sings,(15) saying: "The ball begot a dragon, and the dragon a
bull." Lastly, the sacred rites themselves, and the ceremony of initiation
even, named Sebadia,(16) might attest the truth; for in them a golden snake
is let down into the bosom of the initiated, and taken away again from the
lower parts.

   22. I do not think it necessary here also with many words to go through
each part, and show how many base and unseemly things there are in each
particular. For what mortal is there, with but little sense even of what
becomes a man, who does not himself see clearly the character of all these
things, how wicked they, are, how vile, and what disgrace is brought upon
the gods by the very ceremonies of their mysteries, and by the unseemly
origin of their rites? Jupiter, it is said, lusted after Ceres. Why, I ask,
has Jupiter deserved so ill of you, that there is no kind of disgrace, no
infamous adultery, which you do not heap upon his head, as if on some vile
and worthless person? Leda was unfaithful to her nuptial vow; Jupiter is
said to be the cause of the fault. Danae could not keep her virginity; the
theft is said to have been Jupiter's. Europa hastened to the name of woman;
he is again declared to have been the assailant of her chastity. Alcmena,
Electra, Latona, Laodamia, a thousand other virgins, and a thousand
matrons, and with them the boy Catamitus, were robbed. of their honour
and(1) chastity. It is the same story everywhere--Jupiter. Nor is there any
kind of baseness in which you do not join and associate his name with
passionate lusts; so that the wretched being seems to have been born for no
other reason at all except that he might be a field fertile in(2) crimes,
an occasion of evil-speaking, a kind of open place into which should gather
all filthiness from the impurities of the stage.(3) And yet if you were to
say that he had intercourse with strange women, it would indeed be impious,
but the wrong done in slandering him might be bearable. Did he lust(4)
after his mother also, after his daughter too, with furious desires; and
could no sacredness in his parent, no reverence for her. no shrinking even
from the child which had sprung from himself, withhold him from conceiving
so detestable a plan?

   23. I should wish, therefore, to see Jupiter, the father of the gods,
who ever controls the world and men,(5) adorned with the horns of an ox,
shaking his hairy ears, with his feet contracted into hoofs, chewing green
grass, and having behind him(6) a tail, hams,(7) and ankles smeared over
with soft excrement,(8) and bedaubed with the filth cast forth. I should
wish, I say,--for it must be said over and over again,--to see him who
turns the stars in their courses, and who terrifies and overthrows nations
pale with fear, pursuing the flocks of wethers, inspicientem testiculos
aretinos, snatching these away with that severe(9) and divine hand with
which he was wont to launch the gleaming lightnings and to hurl in his rage
the thunderbolt.(10) Then, indeed, I should like to see him ransacking
their inmost parts with glowing knife;(11) and all witnesses being removed,
tearing away the membranes circumjectas prolibus, and bringing them to his
mother, still hot with rage, as a kind of fillet(12) to draw forth her
pity, with downcast countenance, pale, wounded,(13) pretending to be in
agony; and to make this believed, defiled with the blood of the rain, and
covering his pretended wound with bands of wool and linen. Is it possible
that this can be heard and read in this world,(14) and that those who
discuss these things wish themselves to be thought pious, holy, and
defenders of religion? Is there any greater sacrilege than this, or can any
mind(15) be found so imbued with impious ideas as to believe such stories,
or receive them, or hand them down in the most secret mysteries of the
sacred rites? If that Jupiter of whom you speak, whoever he is, really(16)
existed, or was affected by any sense of wrong, would it not be fitting
that,(17) roused to anger, be should remove the earth from under our feet,
extinguish the light of the sun and moon; nay more, that he should throw
all things into one mass, as of old?(18)

   24. But, my opponent says, these are not the rites of our state. Who,
pray, says this, or who repeats it? is he Roman, Gaul, Spaniard, African,
German, or Sicilian? And what does it avail your cause if these stories are
not yours, while those who compose them are on your side? Or of what
importance is it whether you approve of them or not, since what you
yourselves say(19) are found to be either just as foul, or of even greater
baseness? For do you wish that we should consider the mysteries and those
ceremonies which are named by the Greeks Thesmophoria,(20) in which those
holy vigils and. solemn watchings were consecrated to the goddess by the
Athenians? Do you wish us, I say, to see what beginnings they have, what
causes, that we may prove that Athens itself also, distinguished in the
arts and pursuits of civilization, says things as insulting to the gods as
others, and that stories are there publicly related under the mask of
religion just as disgraceful as are thrown in our way by the rest of you?
Once, they say, when Proserpine, not yet a woman and still a  maiden, was
gathering purple flowers in the meadows of Sicily, and when her eagerness
to gather them was leading her hither and thither in all directions, the
king of the shades, springing forth through an opening of unknown depth,
seizes and bears away with him the maiden, and conceals himself again in
the bowels(1) of the earth. Now when Ceres did not know what had happened,
and had no idea where in the world her daughter was, she set herself to
seek the lost one all over the(2) world. She snatches up two torches lit at
the fires of AEtna;(3) and giving herself light by means of these, goes on
her quest in all parts of the earth.

   25. In her wanderings on that quest, she reaches the confines of
Eleusis as well as other countries(4)--that is the name of a canton in
Attica. At that time these parts were inhabited by aborigines(5) named
Baubo, Triptolemus, Eubuleus, Eumolpus,(6) Dysaules: Triptolemus, who yoked
oxen; Dysaules, a keeper of goats; Eubuleus, of swine; Eumolpus, of
sheep,(7) from whom also flows the race of Eumolpidae, and from whom is
derived that name famous among the Athenians,(8) and those who afterwards
flourished as caduceatores,(9) hierophants, and criers. So, then, that
Baubo who, we have said, dwelt in the canton of Eleusis, receives
hospitably Ceres, worn out with ills of many kinds, hangs about her with
pleasing attentions, beseeches her not to neglect to refresh her body,
brings to quench her thirst wine thickened with spelt,(10) which the Greeks
term cyceon. The goddess in her sorrow turns away from the kindly offered
services,(11) and rejects them; nor does her misfortune suffer her to
remember what the body always requires.(12) Baubo, on the other hand, begs
and exhorts her--as is usual in such ca-lamities--not to despise her
humanity; Ceres remains utterly immoveable, and tenaciously maintains an
invincible austerity. But when this was done several times, and her fixed
purpose could not be worn out by any attentions, Baubo changes her plans,
and determines to make merry by strange jests her whom she could not win by
earnestness. That part of the body by which women both bear children and
obtain the name of mothers,(13) this she frees from longer neglect: she
makes it assume a purer appearance, and become smooth like a child, not yet
hard and rough with hair. In this wise she returns(14) to the sorrowing
goddess; and while trying the common expedients by which it is usual to
break the force of grief, and moderate it, she uncovers herself, and baring
her groins, displays all the parts which decency hides;(15) and then the
goddess fixes her eyes upon these,(16) and is pleased with the strange form
of consolation. Then becoming more cheerful after laugh ing, she takes and
drinks off the drought spurned before, and the indecency of a shameless
action forced that which Baubo's modest conduct was long unable to win.

   26. If any one perchance thinks that we are speaking wicked calumnies,
let him take the hooks of the Thracian soothsayer,(17) which you speak of
as of divine antiquity; and he will find that we are neither cunningly
inventing anything, nor seeking means to bring the holiness of the gods
into ridicule, and doing so: for we shall bring forward the very verses
which the son of Calliope uttered in Greek,(18) and published abroad in his
songs to the human race throughout all ages:--

   "With these words she at the same time drew up her garments from the
lowest hem,
   And exposed to view formatas inguinibus res,
   Which Baubo grasping(19) with hollow hand, for
   Their appearance was infantile, strikes, touches gently.
   Then the goddess, fixing her orbs of august light,
   Being softened, lays aside for a little the sadness of her mind;
   Thereafter she takes the cup in her hand, and laughing,
   Drinks off the whole draught of cyceon with gladness."(20)

What say you, O wise sons of Erectheus?(1) what, you citizens of
Minerva?(2) The mind is eager to know with what words you will defend what
it is so dangerous to maintain, or what arts you have by which to give
safety to personages and causes wounded so mortally. This(3) is no false
mistrust, nor are you assailed with lying accusations:(4) the infamy of
your Eleusinia is declared both by their base beginnings and by the records
of ancient literature, by the very signs, in fine, which you use when
questioned in receiving the sacred things,--"I have fasted, and drunk the
draught;(5) I have taken out of the mystic cist,(6) and put into the
wicker-basket; I have received again, and transferred to the little
chest."(7)

   27. Are then your deities carried off by force, and do they seize by
violence, as their holy and hidden mysteries relate? do they enter into
marriages sought stealthily and by fraud?(8) is their honour snatched from
virgins(9) resisting and unwilling? have they no knowledge of impending
injury, no acquaintance with what has happened to those carried off by
force? Are they, when lost, sought for as men are? and do they traverse the
earth's vast extent with lamps and torches when the sun is shining most
brightly? Are they afflicted? are they troubled? do they assume the squalid
garments of mourners, and the signs of misery? and that they may be able to
turn their mind to victuals and the taking of food, is use made not of
reason, not of the right time, not of some weighty words or pressing
courtesy, but is a display made of the shameful and indecent parts of the
body? and are those members exposed which the shame felt by all, and the
natural law of modesty, bid us conceal, which it is not permissible to name
among pure ears without permission, and saying, "by your leave?"(10)  What,
I ask you, was there in such a sight,(11) what in the privy parts of Baubo,
to move to wonder and laughter a goddess of the same sex, and formed with
similar parts? what was there such that, when presented to the divine
eyes(12) and sight, it should at the same time enable her to forget her
miseries, and bring her with sudden cheerfulness to a happier state of
mind? Oh, what have we had it in our power to bring forward with scoffing
and jeering, were it not for respect for the reader,(13) and the dignity of
literature!

   28. I confess that I have long been hesitating, looking on every side,
shuffling, doubling Tellene perplexities;(14) while I am ashamed to mention
those Alimontian(15) mysteries in which Greece erects phalli in honour of
father Bacchus, and the whole district is covered with images of men's
fascina. The meaning of this is obscure perhaps, and it is asked why it is
done. Whoever is ignorant of this, let him learn, and, wondering at what is
so important, ever keep it with reverent care in a pure heart.(16) While
Liber, born at Nysa,(17) and son of Semele, was still among men, the story
goes, he wished to become acquainted with the shades below, and to inquire
into what went on in Tartarus; but this wish was hindered by some
difficulties, because, from ignorance of the route, he did not know by what
way to go and proceed. One Prosumnus starts up, a base lover of the god,
and a fellow too prone to wicked lusts, who promises to point out the gate
of Dis, and the approaches to Acheton, if the god will gratify him, and
suffer uxorias voluptates ex se carpi. The god, without reluctance, swears
to put himself(18) in his power and at his disposal, but only immediately
on his return from the lower regions, having obtained his wish and
desire.(19) Prostmmus politely tells him the way, and sets him on the very
threshold of the lower regions. In the meantime, while Liber is
inspecting(20) and examining carefully Styx, Cerberus, the Furies, and all
other things, the informer passed from the number of the living, and was
buried according to the manner of men. Evius(21) comes up froth the lower
regions, and learns that his guide is dead. But that he might fulfil his
promise, and free himself from the obligation of his oath, he goes to the
place of the funeral, and--"ficorum ex arbore ramum validissimum praesecans
dolat, runcinat, levigat et humani speciem fabricatur in penis, figit super
aggerem tumuli, et postica ex parte nudatus accedit, subsidit, insidit.
Lascivia deinde surientis assumpta, huc atque illuc clunes torquet et
meditatur ab ligno pati quod jamdudum in veritate promiserat."

   29. Now, to prevent any one from thinking that we have devised what is
so impious, we do not call upon him to believe Heraclitus as a witness, nor
to receive from his account what he felt about such mysteries. Let him(1)
ask the whole of Greece what is the meaning of these phalli which ancient
custom erects and worships throughout the country, throughout the towns: he
will find that the causes are those which we say; or if they are ashamed to
declare the truth honestly, of what avail will it be to obscure, to conceal
the cause and origin of the rite, while(2) the accusation holds good
against the very act of worship? What say you, O peoples? what, ye nations
busied with the services of the temples, and given up to them? Is it to
these rites you drive us by flames, banishment, slaughter, and any other
kind of punishments, and by fear of cruel torture? Are these the gods whom
you bring to us, whom you thrust and impose upon us, like whom you would
neither wish yourselves to be, nor any one related to you by blood and
friendship?(3) Can you declare to your beardless sons, still wearing the
dress of boys, the agreements which Liber formed with his lovers? Can you
urge your daughters-in-law, nay, even your own wives, to show the modesty
of Baubo, and enjoy the chaste pleasures of Ceres? Do you  wish your young
men to know, hear, and learn what even Jupiter showed himself to more
matrons than one? Would you wish your grown-up maidens and still lusty
fathers to learn how  the same deity sported with his daughter? Do  you
wish full brothers, already hot with passion,  and sisters sprung from the
same parents, to hear  that he again did not spurn the embraces, the couch
of his sister? Should we not then flee far from such gods; and should not
our ears be stopped altogether, that the filthiness of so pure a religion
may not creep into the mind? For what man is there who has been reared with
morals so pure, that the example of the gods does not excite him to similar
madness? or who can keep back his desires from his kinsfolk, and those of
whom he should stand in awe, when he sees that among the gods above nothing
is held sacred in the confusion caused by(4) their lusts? For when it is
certain that the first and perfect nature has not been able to restrain its
passion within right limits, why should not man give himself up to his
desires without distinction, being both borne on headlong by his innate
frailty,  and aided by the teaching of the holy deities?(5)

   30. I confess that, in reflecting on such monstrous stories in my own
mind, I have long been accustomed to wonder that you dare to speak of those
as atheists,(6) impious, sacrilegious, who either deny that there are any
gods at all, or doubt their existence, or assert that they were men, and
have been numbered among the gods for the sake of some power and good
desert; since, if a true examination be made, it is fitting that none
should be called by such names, more than yourselves, who, under the
pretence of showing them reverence, heap up in so doing(7) more abuse and
accusation, than if you had conceived the idea of doing this openly with
avowed abuse. He who doubts the existence of the gods, or denies it
altogether, although he may seem to adopt monstrous opinions from the
audacity of his conjectures, yet refuses to credit what is obscure without
insulting any one; and he who asserts that they were mortals, although he
brings them down from the exalted place of inhabitants of heaven, yet heaps
upon them other(8) honours, since he supposes that they have been raised to
the rank of the gods(9) for their services, and from admiration of their
virtues.

   31. But you who assert that you are the defenders and propagators of
their immortality, have you passed by, have you left untouched, any one of
them, without assailing him(10) with your abuse? or is there any kind of
insult so damnable in the eyes of all, that you have been afraid to use it
upon them, even though hindered(11) by the dignity of their name? Who
declared that the gods loved frail and mortal bodies? was it not you? Who
that they perpetrated those most charming thefts on the couches of others?
was it not you? Who that children had intercourse with their mothers; and
on the other hand, fathers with their virgin daughters? was it not you? Who
that pretty boys, and even grown-up men of very fine appearance, were
wrongfully lusted after? was it not you? Who declared that they(12) were
mutilated, debauched,(13) skilled in dissimulation, thieves, held in bonds
and chains, finally assailed with thunderbolts, and wounded, that they
died, and even found graves on earth? was it not you? While, then, so many
and grievous charges have been raised by you to the injury of the gods, do
you dare to assert that the gods have been displeased because of us, while
it has long been clear that you are the guilty causes of such anger, and
the occasion of the divine wrath?

   32. But you err, says my opponent, and are mistaken, and show, even in
criticising these things, that you are rather ignorant, unlearned, and
boorish. For all those stories which seem to you disgraceful, and tending
to the discredit of the gods, contain in them holy mysteries, theories
wonderful and profound, and not such as any one can easily become
acquainted with by force of understanding. For that is not meant and said
which has been written and placed on the surface of the story; but all
these things are understood in allegorical senses, and by means of secret
explanations privately supplied.(1) Therefore he who says(2) Jupiter lay
with his mother, does not mean the incestuous or shameful embraces of
Venus, but names Jupiter instead of rain, and Ceres instead of the earth.
And he, again, who says that he(3) dealt lasciviously with his daughter,
speaks of no filthy pleasures, but puts Jupiter for the name of a shower,
and by his daughter means(4) the crop sown. So,  too, he who says that
Proserpina was carried off  by father Dis, does not say, as you suppose,(5)
that the maiden was carried off to gratify the basest desires; but because
we cover the seed with clods, he signifies that the goddess has sunk under
the earth, and unites with Orcus to bring forth fruit. In like manner in
the other stories also one thing indeed is said, but something else is
understood; and under a commonplace openness of expression there lurks a
secret doctrine, and a dark profundity of mystery.

   33. These are all quirks, as is evident, and quibbles with which they
are wont to bolster up weak cases before a jury; nay, rather, to speak more
truly, they are pretences, such as are used in(6) sophistical reasonings,
by which not the truth is sought after, but always the image, and
appearance, and shadow of the truth. For because it is shameful and
unbecoming to receive as true the correct accounts, you have had
recourse(7) to this expedient, that one thing should be substituted for
another, and that what was in itself shameful should, in being explained,
be forced into the semblance of decency. But what is it to us whether other
senses and other meanings underlie these vain stories? For we who assert
that the gods are treated by you wickedly and impiously, need only(8)
receive what is written, what is said,(9) and need not care as to what is
kept secret, since the insult to the deities consists not in the idea
hidden in its meanings,(10) but in what is signified by the words as they
stand out. And yet, that we may not seem unwilling to examine what you say,
we ask this first of you, if only you will bear with us, from whom have you
learned, or by whom has it been made known, either that these things were
written allegorically, or that they should be understood in the same way?
Did the writers summon you to take counsel with them? or did you lie hid in
their bosoms at the time(11) when they put one thing for another, without
regard to truth? Then, if they chose, from religions awe(12) and fear on
any account, to wrap those mysteries in dark obscurity, what audacity it
shows in you to wish to understand what they did not wish, to know
yourselves and make all acquainted with that which they vainly attempted to
conceal by words which did not suggest the truth!

   34. But, agreeing with you that in all these stories stags are spoken
of instead of Iphigenias, yet, how are you sure, when you either explain or
unfold these allegories, that you give the same explanations or have the
same ideas which were entertained by the writers themselves in the silence
of their thoughts, but expressed by words not adapted(13) to what was
meant, but to something else? You say that the falling of rain into the
bosom of the earth was spoken of as the union of Jupiter and Ceres; another
may both devise with greater subtlety, and conjecture with some
probability, something else; a third, a fourth may do the same; and as the
characteristics of the minds of the thinkers show themselves, so each thing
may be explained in an infinite number of ways. For since all that
allegory, as it is called, is taken from narratives expressly made
obscure,(14) and has no certain limit within which the meaning of the
story,(15) as it is called, should be firmly fixed and unchangeable, it is
open to every one to put the meaning into it which he pleases, and to
assert that that has been adopted(16) to which his thoughts and
surmises(17) led him. But this being the case, how can you obtain certainty
from what is doubtful, and attach one sense only to an expression which you
see to be explained in innumerable different ways?(1)

   35. Finally, if you think it right, returning to our inquiry, we ask
this of you, whether you think that all stories about the gods,(2) that is,
without any exception,(3) have been written throughout with a double
meaning and sense, and in a way(4) admitting of several interpretations; or
that some parts of them are not ambiguous at all, while, on the contrary,
others have many meanings, and are enveloped in the veil of allegory which
has been thrown round them? For if the whole structure and arrangement of
the narrative have been surrounded with a veil of allegory from beginning
to end, explain to us, tell us, what we should put and substitute for each
thing which every story says, and to what other things and meanings we
should refer(5) each. For as, to take an example, you wish Jupiter to be
said instead of the rain, Ceres for the earth, and for Libera(6) and father
Dis the sinking and casting of seed into the earth, so you ought to say
what we should understand for the bull, what for the wrath and anger of
Ceres; what the word Brimo(7) means; what the anxious prayer of Jupiter
what the gods sent to make intercession for him, but not listened to; what
the castrated ram; what the parts(8) of the castrated ram; what the
satisfaction made with these; what the further dealings with his daughter,
still more unseemly in their lustfulness; so, in the other story also, what
the grove and flowers of Henna are; what the fire taken from Aetna, and the
torches lit with it; what the travelling through the world with these; what
the Attic country, the canton of Eleusin, the hut of Baubo, and her rustic
hospitality; what the drought of cyceon(9) means, the refusal of it, the
shaving and disclosure of the privy parts, the shameful charm of the sight,
and the forgetfulness of her bereavement produced by such means. Now, if
you point out what should be put in the place of all these, changing the
one for the other,(10) we shall admit your assertion; but if you can
neither present another supposition in each case, nor appeal to(11) the
context as a whole, why do you make that obscure,(12) by means of fair-
seeming allegories, which has been spoken plainly, and disclosed to the
understanding of all?

   36. But you will perhaps say that these allegories are not found in the
whole body of the story, but that some parts are written so as to be
understood by all, while others have a clouble meaning, and are veiled in
ambiguity. That is refined subtlety, and can be seen through by the
dullest. For because it is very difficult for you to transpose, reverse,
and divert to other meanings all that has been said, you choose out some
things which suit your purpose, and by means of these you strive to
maintain that false and spurious versions were thrown about the truth which
is under them.(13) But yet, supposing that we should grant to you that it
is just as you say, how do you know, or whence do you learn, which part of
the story is written without any double meaning,(14) which, on the other
hand, has been covered with jarring and alien senses? For it  may be that
what you believe to be so(15) is otherwise, that what you believe to be
otherwise(16) has been produced with different, and even opposite modes of
expression. For where, in a consistent whole, one part is said to be
written allegorically, the other in plain and trustworthy language, while
there is no sign in the thing itself to point out the difference between
what is said ambiguously and what is said simply, that which is simple may
as well be thought to have a double meaning, as what has been written
ambiguously be believed to be wrapt in obscurity.(17) But, indeed, we
confess that we do not understand at all by whom this(18) is either done,
or can be believed to be possible.

   37. Let us examine, then, what is said in this way. In the grove of
Henna, my opponent says, the maiden Proserpine was once gathering flowers:
this is as yet uncorrupted, and has been told in a straightforward manner,
for all know without any doubt what a grove and flowers are, what
Proserpine is, and a maiden. Summanus sprung forth from the earth, borne
along in a four-horse chariot: this, too, is just as simple, for a team of
four horses, a chariot, and Summanus need no interpreter. Suddenly he
carried off Proserpine, and bore her with himself under the earth: the
burying of the seed, my opponent says, is meant by the rape of Proserpine.
What has happened, pray, that the story should be suddenly turned to
something else? that Proserpine should be called the seed? that she who was
for a long time held to be a maiden gathering flowers, after that she was
taken away and carried off by violence, should begin to signify the seed
sown? Jupiter, my opponent says, having turned himself into a bull, longed
to have intercourse with his mother Ceres: as was explained before, under
these names the earth and falling rain are spoken of I see the law of
allegory expressed in the dark and ambiguous terms. Ceres was enraged and
angry, and received the parts(1) of a ram as the penalty demanded by(2)
vengeance: this again I see to be expressed in common language, for both
anger and (testes and) satisfaction are spoken of in their usual
circumstances.(3) What, then, happened here,--that from Jupiter, who was
named for the rain, and Ceres, who was named for the earth, the story
passed to the true Jove, and to a most straightforward account of events?

   38. Either, then, they must all have been written and put forward
allegorically, and the whole should be pointed out to us; or nothing has
been so written, since what is supposed to be allegorical does not seem as
if it were part of the narrative.(4) These are all written allegorically,
you sat. This seems by no means certain. Do you ask for what reason, for
what cause? Because, I answer, all that has taken place and has been set
down distinctly in any book cannot be turned into an allegory, for neither
can that be undone which has been done, nor can the character of an event
change into one which is utterly different. Can the Trojan war be turned
into the condemnation of Socrates? or the battle of Cannae become the cruel
proscription of Sulla? A proscription may indeed, as Tullius says(5) in
jest, be spoken of as a battle, and be called that of Cannae; but what has
already taken place, cannot be at the same time a battle and a
proscription; for neither, as I have said, can that which has taken place
be anything else than what has taken place; nor can that pass over into a
substance foreign to it which has been fixed down firmly in its own nature
and peculiar condition.

   39. Whence, then, do we prove that all these narratives are records of
events? Froth the solemn rites and mysteries of initiation, it is clear,
whether those which are celebrated at fixed times and on set days, or those
which are taught secretly by the heathen without allowing the observance of
their usages to be interrupted. For it is not to be believed that these
have no origin, arc practised without reason or meaning, and have no causes
connected with their first beginnings. That pine which is regularly born
into the sanctuary of the Great Mother,(6) is it not in imitation of that
tree beneath which Attis mutilated and unmanned himself, which also, they
relate, the goddess consecrated to relieve her grief? That erecting of
phalli and fascina, which Greece worships and celebrates in rites every
year, does it not recall the deed by which Liber(7) paid his debt? Of what
do those Eleusinian mysteries and secret rites contain a narrative? Is it
not of that wandering in which Ceres, worn out in seeking for her daughter,
when she came to the confines of Attica, brought wheat with her, graced
with a hind's skin the family of the Nebridae(8) and laughed at that most
wonderful sight in Baubo's groins? Or if there is another cause, that is
nothing to us, so long as they are all produced by some cause. For it is
not credible that these things were set on foot without being preceded by
any causes, or the inhabitants of Attica must be considered mad to have
received(9) a religious ceremony got up without any reason. But if this is
clear and certain, that is, if the causes and origins of the mysteries are
traceable to past events, by no change can they be turned into the figures
of allegory; for that which has been done, which has taken place, cannot,
in the nature of things, be undone.(10)

   40. And yet, even if we grant you that this is the case, that is, even
if the narratives give utterance to one thing in words, but mean(11)
something else, after the manner of raving seers, do you not observe in
this case, do you not see how dishonouring, how insulting to the gods, this
is which is said to be done?(12) or can any greater wrong be devised than
to term and call the earth and rain, or anything else,--for it does not
matter what change is made in the interpretation,--the intercourse of
Jupiter and Ceres? and to signify the descent of rain from the sky, and the
moistening of the earth, by charges against the gods? Can anything be
either thought or believed more impious than that the rape of Proserpine
speaks of seeds buried in the earth, or anything else,--for in like manner
it is of no importance,--and that it speaks of the pursuit of agriculture
to(13) the dishonour of father Dis? Is it not a thousand times more
desirable to become mute and speechless, and to lose that flow of words and
noisy and(1) unseemly loquacity, than to call the basest things by the
names of the gods; nay, more, to signify commonplace things by the base
actions of the gods?

   41. It was once usual, in speaking allegorically, to conceal under
perfectly decent ideas, and clothe(2) with the respectability of decency,
what was base and horrible to speak of openly; but now venerable things are
at your instance; vilely spoken of, and what is quite pure(3) is related(4)
in filthy language, so that that which vice(5) formerly concealed from
shame, is now meanly and basely spoken of, the mode of speech which was
fitting(6) being changed. In speaking of Mars and Venus as having been
taken in adultery by Vulcan's art, we speak of lust, says my opponent, and
anger, as restrained by the force and purpose of reason. What, then,
hindered, what prevented you from expressing each thing by the words and
terms proper to it? nay, more, what necessity was there, when you had
resolved(7) to declare something or other, by means of treatises and
writings, to resolve that that should not be the meaning to which you
point, and in one narrative to take up at the same time opposite positions-
-the eagerness of one wishing to teach, the niggardliness of one reluctant
to make public?(8) Was there no risk in speaking of the gods as unchaste?
The mention of lust and anger, ray opponent says, was likely to defile the
tongue and mouth with foul contagion.(9) But, assuredly, if this were
done,(10) and the veil of allegorical obscurity were removed, the matter
would be easily understood, and by the same the dignity of the gods would
be maintained unimpaired. But now, indeed, when the restraining of vices is
said to be signified by the binding of Mars and Venus, two most
inconsistent(11) things are done at the very same time; so that, on the one
hand, a description of something vile suggests an honourable meaning, and
on the other, the baseness occupies the mind before any regard for religion
can do so.

   42. But you will perhaps say, for this only is left which you may
think(12) can be brought forward by you, that the gods do not wish their
mysteries to be known by men, and that the narratives were therefore
written with allegorical ambiguity. And whence have you learned(13) that
the gods above do not wish their mysteries to be made public? whence have
you become acquainted with these? or why are you anxious to unravel them by
explaining them as allegories? Lastly, and finally, what do the gods mean,
that while they do not wish honourable, they allow unseemly, even the
basest things, to be said about them? When we name Attis, says my opponent,
we mean and speak of the sun; but if Attis is the sun, as you reckon him
and say, who will that Attis be whom your books record and declare to have
been born in Phrygia, to have suffered certain things, to have done certain
things also, whom all the theatres know in the scenic shows, to whom every
year we see divine honours paid expressly by name amongst the other
religious ceremonies? Whether was this name made to pass from the sun to a
man, or from a man to the sun? For if that name is derived in the first
instance from the sun, what, pray, has the golden sun done to you, that you
should make that name to belong to him in common with an emasculated
person? But if it is derived from a goat, and is Phrygian, of what has the
sire of Phaethon, the father of this light and brightness, been guilty,
that he should seem worthy to be named from a mutilated man, and should
become more venerable when designated by the name of an emasculated body?

   43. But what the meaning of this is, is already clear to all. For
because you are ashamed of such writers and histories, and do not see that
these things can be got rid of which have once been committed to writing in
filthy language, you strive to make base things honourable, and by every
kind of subtlety you pervert and corrupt the real senses(14) of words for
the sake of spurious interpretations;(15) and, as ofttimes happens to the
sick, whose senses and understanding have been put to flight by the
distempered force of disease, you toss about confused and uncertain
conjectures, and rave in empty fictions.

   Let it be granted that the irrigation of the earth was meant by the
union of Jupiter and Ceres, the burying of the seed(16) by the ravishing of
Proserpine by father Dis, wines scattered over the earth by the limbs of
Liber torn asunder by the Titans, that the restraining(17) of lust and
rashness has been spoken of as the binding of the adulterous Venus and
Mars.

   44. But if you come to the conclusion that these fables have been
written allegorically, what is to be done with the rest, which we see
cannot be forced into such changes of sense? For what are we to substitute
for the wrigglings(1) into which the lustful heat(2) of Semele's offspring
forced him upon the sepulchral mound? and what for those Ganymedes who were
carried off(3) and set to preside over lustful practices? what for that
conversion of an ant into which Jupiter, the greatest of the gods,
contracted the outlines of his huge body?(4) what for swans and satyrs?
what for golden showers, which the same seductive god put on with
perfidious guile, amusing himself by changes of form?:\nd, that we may not
seem to speak of Jupiter only, what allegories can there be in the loves of
the other deities? what in their circumstances as hired servants and
slaves? what in their bonds, bereavements, lamentations? what in their
agonies, wounds, sepulchres? Now, while in this you might be held guilty in
one respect for writing in such wise about the gods, you have added to your
guilt beyond measure(5) in calling base things by the names of deities, and
again in defaming the gods by giving to them the names of infamous things.
But if you believed without any doubt(6) that they were here close at hand,
or anywhere at all, fear would check you in making mention of them, and
your beliefs and unchanged thoughts should have been exactly(7) as if they
were listening to you and heard your words. For among men devoted to the
services of religion, not only the gods themselves, but even the names of
the gods should be reverenced, and there should De quite as much grandeur
in their names as there is in those even who are thought of under these
names.

   45. Judge fairly, and you are deserving of censure in this,(8) that in
your Common conversation you name Mars when you mean(9) fighting, Neptune
when you mean the seas, Ceres when you mean bread, Minerva when you mean
weaving,(10) Venus when you mean filthy lusts. For what reason is there,
that, when things can be classed under their own names, they should be
called by the names of the gods. and that such an insult should be offered
to the deities as not even we men endure, if any one applies and turns our
haines to trifling objects? But language, you say, is contemptible, if
defiled with such words.(11) O modesty,(12) worthy of praise! you blush to
name bread and wine, and are not afraid to speak of Venus instead of carnal
intercourse!

BOOK VI.

   1. Having shown briefly how impious and infamous are the opinions which
you have formed about your gods, we have now to(1) speak of their temples,
their images also, and sacrifices, and of the other things which are(2)
nailed and closely related to them. For you are here in the habit of
fastening upon us a very serious charge of impiety because we do not rear
temples for the ceremonies of worship, do not set up statues and images(3)
of any god, do not build altars,(4) do not offer the blood of creatures
slain in sacrifices, incense,(5) nor sacrificial meal, and finally, do not
bring wine flowing in libations from sacred bowls; which, indeed, we
neglect to build and do, not as though we cherish impious and wicked
dispositions, or have conceived any madly desperate feeling of contempt for
the gods, but because we think and believe that they(6)--if only they are
true gods, and are called by this exalted name(7)--either scorn such
honours, if they give way to scorn, or endure them with anger, if they are
roused by feelings of rage.

   2. For--that you may learn what are our sentiments and opinions about
that race--we think that they--if only they are true gods. that the same
things may be said again till you are wearied hearing them(8)--should have
all the virtues in perfection, should be wise, upright. venerable,--if only
our heaping upon them human honours is not a crime,--strong in excellences
within themselves, and should not give themselves(1) up to external props,
because the completeness of their unbroken bliss is made perfect; should be
free from all agitating and disturbing passions; should not burn with
anger, should not he excited by any desires; should send misfortune to
none, should not find a cruel pleasure in the ills of men; should not
terrify by portents, should not show prodigies to cause fear; should not
hold men responsible and liable to be punished for the vows which they owe,
nor demand expiatory sacrifices by threatening omens; should not bring on
pestilences and diseases by corrupting the air, should not burn up the
fruits with droughts; should take no part in the slaughter of war and
devastation of cities; should not wish ill to one party, and be favourable
to the success of another; but, as becomes great minds, should weigh all in
a just balance, and show kindness impartially to all. For it belongs to a
mortal race and human weakness to act otherwise;(2) and the maxims and
declarations of wise men state distinctly, that those who are touched by
passion live a life of suffering,(3) and are weakened by grief,(4) and that
it cannot be but that those who have been given over to disquieting
feelings, have been bound by the laws of mortality. Now, since this is the
case, how can we be supposed to hold the gods in contempt, who we say are
not gods, and cannot be connected with the powers of heaven, unless they
are just and worthy of the admiration which great minds excite?

   3. But, we are told, we rear no temples to them, and do not worship
their images; we do not slay victims in sacrifice, we do not offer
incense(5) and libations of wine. And what greater honour or dignity can we
ascribe to them, than that we put them in the same position as the Head and
Lord of the universe, to whom the gods owe it in common with us,(6) that
they are conscious that they exist, and have a living being?(7) For do we
honour Him with shrines, and by building temples?(8) Do we even slay
victims to Him? Do we give Him the other things, to take which and pour
them forth in libation shows not a careful regard to reason, but heed to a
practice maintained(9) merely by usage? For it is perfect folly to measure
greater powers by your necessities, and to give the things useful to
yourself to the gods who give all things, and to think this an honour, not
an insult. We ask, therefore, to do what service to the gods, or to meet
what want, do you say that temples have been reared,(10) and think that
they should be again built? Do they feel the cold of(11) winter, or are
they scorched by summer suns? Do storms of rain flow over them, or
whirlwinds shake them? Are they in danger of being exposed to the onset of
enemies, or the furious attacks of wild beasts, so that it is right and
becoming to shut them up in places of security,(12) or guard them by
throwing up a rampart of stones? For what are these temples? If you ask
human weakness(13)--something vast and spacious; if you consider the power
of the gods--small caves, as it were,(14) and even, to speak more truly,
the narrowest kind of caverns formed and contrived with sorry,
judgment.(15) Now, if you ask to be told who was their first founder(16)
and builder, either Phoroneus or the Egyptian Merops(17) will be mentioned
to you, or, as Varro relates in his treatise "de Admirandis," Aeacus the
offspring of Jupiter. Though these, then, should be built of heaps of
marble, or shine resplendent with ceilings fretted with gold, though
precious stones sparkle here, and gleam like stars set at varying
intervals, all these things are made up of earth, and of the lowest dregs
of even baser matter. For not even, if you value these more highly, is it
to be believed that the gods take pleasure in them, or that they do not
refuse and scorn to shut themselves up, and be confined within these
barriers. This, my opponent says, is the temple of Mars, this that of Juno
and of Venus, this that of Hercules, of Apollo, of Dis. What is this but to
say this is the house of Mars, this of Juno and Venus,(18) Apollo dwells
here, in this abides Hercules, in that Summanus? Is it not, then, the
very(19) greatest affront to hold the gods kept fast(1) in habitations, to
give to them little huts, to build lockfast places and cells, and to think
that the things are(2) necessary to them which are needed by men, cats,
emmets, and lizards, by quaking, timorous, and little mice?

   4. But, says my opponent, it is not for this reason that we assign
temples to the gods as though we wished to ward off from them drenching
storms of rain, winds, showers, or the rays of the sun; but in order that
we may be able to see them in person and close at hand, to come near and
address them, and impart to them, when in a measure present, the
expressions of our reverent feelings. For if they are invoked under the
open heaven, and the canopy of ether, they hear nothing, I suppose; and
unless prayers are addressed to them near at hand, they will stand deaf and
immoveable as if nothing were said. And yet we think that every god
whatever--if only he has the power of this name--should hear what every one
said from every part of the world, just as if he were present; nay, more,
should foresee, without waiting to be told(3) what every one conceived in
his secret and silent(4) thoughts. And as the stars, the sun, the moon,
while they wander above the earth, are steadily and everywhere in sight of
all those who gaze at them without any exception; so, too,(5) it is fitting
that the ears of the gods should be closed against no tongue, and should be
ever within reach, although voices should flow together to them from widely
separated regions. For this it is that belongs specially to the gods,--to
fill all things with their power, to be not partly at any place, but all
everywhere, not to go to dine with the Aethiopians, and return after twelve
days to their own dwellings.(6)

   5. Now, if this be not the case, all hope of help is taken away, and it
will be doubtful whether you are heard (7) by the gods or not, if ever you
perform the sacred rites with due ceremonies. For, to make it clear,(8) let
us suppose that there is a temple of some deity in the Canary Islands,
another of the same deity in remotest Thyle, also among the Seres, among
the tawny Garamantes, and any others(9) who are debarred from knowing each
other by seas, mountains, forests, and the four quarters of the world. If
they all at one time beg of the deity with sacrifices what their wants
compel each one to think about,(10) what hope, pray, will there be to all
of obtaining the benefit, if the god does not hear the cry sent up to him
everywhere, and if there shall be any distance to which the words of the
suppliant for help cannot penetrate? For either he will be nowhere present,
if he may at times not be anywhere,(11) or he will be at one place only,
since he cannot give his attention generally, and without making any
distinction. And thus it is brought about, that either the god helps none
at all, if being busy with something he has been unable to hasten to give
ear to their cries, or one only goes away with his prayers heard, while the
rest have effected nothing.

   6. What can you say as to this, that it is attested by the writings of
authors, that many of these temples which have been raised with golden
domes and lofty roofs cover bones and ashes, and are sepulchres of the
dead? Is it not plain and manifest, either that you worship dead men for
immortal gods, or that an inexpiable affront is cast upon the deities,
whose shrines and temples have been built over the tombs of the dead?
Antiochus,(12) in the ninth book of his Histories, relates that Cecrops was
buried in the temple of Minerva,(13) at Athens; again, in the temple of the
same goddess, which is in the citadel of Larissa,(14) it is related and
declared that Acrisius was laid, and in the sanctuary of Polias,(15)
Erichthonius; while the brothers Dairas and Immarnachus were buried in the
enclosure of Eleusin, which lies near the city. What say you as to the
virgin daughters of Coleus? are they not said to be buried(16) in the
temple of Ceres at Eleusin? and in the shrine of Diana, which was set up in
the temple of the Delian Apollo, are not Hyperoche and Laodice buried, who
are said to have been brought thither from the country of the Hyperboreans?
In the Milesian Didymae,(17) Leandrius says that Cleochus had the last
honours of burial paid to him. Zeno of Myndus openly relates that the
monument of Leucophryne is in the sanctuary of Diana at Maghesia. Under the
altar of Apollo, which is seen in the city of Telmessus, is it not
invariably declared by writings that the prophet Telmessus lies buried?
Ptolemaeus, the son of Agesarchus, in the first book of the History of
Philopatar(1) which he published, affirms, on the authority of literature,
that Cinyras, king of Paphos, was interred in the temple of Venus with all
his family, nay, more, with all his stock. It would be(2) an endless and
boundless task to describe in what sanctuaries they all are throughout the
world; nor is anxious care required, although(3) the Egyptians fixed a
penalty for any one who should have revealed the places in which Apis lay
hid, as to those Polyandria(4) of Varro,(5) by what temples they are
covered, and what heavy masses they have laid upon them.

   7. But why do I speak of these trifles? What man is there who is
ignorant that in the Capitol of the imperial people is the sepulchre of
Tolus(6) Vulcentanus? Who is there, I say, who does not know that from
beneath(7) its foundations there was rolled a man's head, buried for no
very long time before, either by itself without the other parts of the
body,--for some relate this,--or with all its members? Now, if you require
this to be made clear by the testimonies of authors, Sammonicus, Granius,
Valerianus,(8) and Fabius will declare to you whose son Aulus(9) was, of
what race and nation, how(10) he was bereft of life and light by the slave
of his brother, of what crime he was guilty against his fellow-citizens,
that he was denied burial in his father(11) land. You will learn also--
although they pretend to be unwilling to make this public--what was done
with his head when cut off, or in what place it was shut up, and the whole
affair carefully concealed, in order that the omen which the gods had
attested might stand without interruption,(12) unalterable, and sure. Now,
while it was proper that this story, should be suppressed, and concealed,
and forgotten in the lapse of time, the composition at the name published
it, and, by a testimony which could not be got rid of, caused it to remain
in men's minds, together with its causes, so long as it endured itself;(13)
and the state which is greatest of all, and worships all deities, did not
blush in giving a name to the temple, to name it from the head of Olus(14)
Capitolium rather than from the name of Jupiter.

   8. we have therefore--as I suppose--shown sufficiently, that to the
immortal gods temples have been either reared in vain, or built in
consequence of insulting opinions held to their dishonour and to the
belittling(15) of the power believed to be in their hands. We have next to
say something about statues and images, which you form with much skill, and
tend with religious care,--wherein if there is any credibility, we can by
no amount of consideration settle in our own minds whether you do this in
earnest and with a serious purpose, or amuse yourselves in childish dreams
by mocking at these very things.(16) For if you are assured that the gods
exist whom you suppose, and that they live in the highest regions of
heaven, what cause, what reason, is there that those images should be
fashioned by you, when you have true beings to whom you may pour forth
prayers, and from whom you may, ask help in trying circumstances? But if,
on the contrary, you do not believe, or, to speak with moderation, are in
doubt, in this case, also, what reason is there, pray, to fashion and set
up images of doubtful beings, and to form(17) with vain imitation what you
do not believe to exist? Do you perchance say, that under these images of
deities there is displayed to you their presence, as it were, and that,
because it has not been given you to see the gods, they are worshipped in
this fashion,(18) and the duties owed to them paid? He who says and asserts
this, does not believe that the gods exist; and he is proved not to put
faith in his own religion, to whom it is necessary to see what he may hold,
lest that which being obscure is not seen, may happen to be vain.

   9. We worship the gods, you say, by means of images.(19) What then?
Without these, do the gods not know that they are worshipped, and will they
not think that any honour is shown to them by you? Through bypaths, as it
were, then, and by assignments to a third party,(20) as they are called,
they receive and accept your services; and before those to whom that
service is owed experience it, you first sacrifice to images, and transmit,
as it were, some remnants to them at the pleasure of others.(1) And what
greater wrong, disgrace, hardship, can be inflicted than to acknowledge one
god, and yet make supplication to something else--to hope for help from a
deity, and pray to an image without feeling? Is not this, I pray you, that
which  is said in the common proverbs: "to cut down the smith when you
strike at the fuller;"(2) "and  when you seek a man's advice, to require of
asses  and pigs their opinions as to what should be  done?"

   10. And whence, finally, do you know whether all these images which you
form and put in the place of(3) the immortal gods reproduce and bear a
resemblance to the gods? For it may happen that in heaven one has a beard
who by you is represented(4) with smooth cheeks; that another is rather
advanced in years to whom you give the appearance of a youth;(5) that here
he is fair, with blue eyes,(6) who really has grey ones; that he has
distended nostrils whom you make and form with a high nose. For it is not
right to call or name that an image which does not derive from the face of
the original features like it; which(7) can be recognised to be clear and
certain from things which are manifest. For while all we men see that the
sun is perfectly round by  our eyesight, which cannot be doubted, you have
given(8) to him the features of a man, and of mortal bodies. The moon is
always in motion, and in its restoration every month puts on thirty
faces:(9) with you, as leaders and designers, that is represented as a
woman, and has one countenance, which passes through a thousand different
states, changing each day.(10) We understand that  all the winds are only a
flow of air driven and impelled in mundane ways in your hands they take(11)
the forms of men filling with breath twisted trumpets by blasts from out
their breasts.(12) Among the representations of your gods we see that there
is the very stern face of a lion(13) smeared with pure vermilion, and that
it is named Frugifer. If all these images are likenesses of the gods above,
there must then be said to dwell in heaven also a god such as the image
which has been made to represent his form and appearance;(14) and, of
course, as here that figure of yours, so there the deity himself(15) is a
mere mask and face, without the rest of the body, growling with fiercely
gaping jaws, terrible, red as blood,(16) holding an apple fast with his
teeth, and at times, as dogs do when wearied, putting his tongue out of his
gaping mouth.(17) But if,(18) indeed, this is not the case, as we all think
that it is not, what, pray, is the meaning of so great audacity to fashion
to yourself whatever form you please, and to say(19) that it is an image of
a god whom you cannot prove to exist at all?

   11. You laugh because in ancient times the Persians worshipped rivers,
as is told in the writings which hand down these things to memory; the
Arabians an unshapen stone;(20) the Scythian nations a sabre; the Thespians
a branch instead of Cinxia;(21) the Icarians(22) an unhewn log instead of
Diana; the people of Pessinus a flint instead of the mother of the gods;
the Romans a spear instead of Mars, as the muses of Varro point out; and,
before they were acquainted with the statuary's art, the Samians a
plank(23) instead of Juno, as Aethlius(1) relates: and you do not laugh
when, instead of the immortal gods, you make supplication to little images
of men and human forms--nay, you even suppose that these very little images
are gods, and besides these you do not believe that anything has divine
power. What say you, O ye -------! Do the gods of heaven have ears, then,
and temples, an occiput, spine, loins, sides, hams, buttocks, houghs,(2)
ankles, and the rest of the other members with which we have been formed,
which were also mentioned in the first part of this book(3) a little more
fully, and cited with greater copiousness of language? Would that it were
possible(4) to look into the sentiments and very recesses of your mind, in
which yon revolve various and enter into the most obscure considerations:
we should find that you yourselves even feel as we do, and have no other
opinions as to the form of the deities. But what can we do with obstinate
prejudices? what with those who are menacing us with swords, and devising
new punishments against us? In your rage(5) you maintain a bad cause, and
that although you are perfectly aware of it; and that which you have once
done without reason, you defend lest you should seem to have ever been in
ignorance; and you think it better not to be conquered, than to yield and
bow to acknowledged truth.

   12. From such causes as these this also has followed, with your
connivance, that the wanton fancy of artists has found full scope in
representing the bodies of the gods, and giving forms to them, at which
even the sternest might laugh. And so Hammon is even now formed and
represented with a ram's horns; Saturn with his crooked sickle, like some
guardian of the fields, and pruner of too luxuriant branches; the son of
Maia with a broad-brimmed travelling cap, as if he were preparing to take
the road, and avoiding the sun's rays and the dust; Liber with tender
limbs, and with a woman's perfectly free and easily flowing lines of
body(6) Venus, naked and unclothed, just as if you said that she exposed
publicly, and sold to all comers,(7) the beauty of her prostituted body;
Vulcan with his cap and hammer, but with his right hand free, and with his
dress girt up as a workman prepares(8) for his work; the Delian god with a
plectrum and lyre, gesticulating like a player on the cithern and an actor
about to sing; the king of the sea with his trident, just as if he had to
fight in the gladiatorial contest: nor can any figure of any deity be
found(9) which does not have certain characteristics(10) bestowed on it by
the generosity of its makers. Lo, if some witty and cunning king were to
remove the Sun from his place before the gate(11) and transfer him to that
of Mercury, and again were to carry off Mercury and make him migrate to the
shrine of the Sun.--for both are made beardless by you, and with smooth
faces.--and to give to this one rays of light to place a little cap(12) on
the Sun's head, how will you be able to distinguish between them, whether
this is the Sun, or that Mercury, since dress, not the peculiar appearance
of the face, usually points out the gods to you? Again, if, having
transported them in like manner, he were to take away Iris horns from the
unclad Jupiter, and fix them upon the temples of Mars. and to strip Mars of
his arms, and, on the other hand, invest Hammon with them, what distinction
can there be between them, since he who had been Jupiter can be also
supposed to be Mars, and he who had been Mayors can assume the appearance
of Jupiter Hammon? To such an extent is there wantonness in fashioning
those images and consecrating names, as if they were peculiar to them;
since, if you take away their dress, the means of recognising each is put
an end to, god may be believed to be god, one may seem to be the other,
nay, more, both may be considered both!

   13. But why do I laugh at the sickles and tridents which have been
given to the gods? why at the horns, hammers, and caps, when I know that
certain images have(13) the forms of certain men, and the features of
notorious courtesans? For who is there that does not know that the
Athenians formed the Hermae in the likeness of Alcibiades? Who does not
know--if he read Posidippus over again--that Praxiteles, putting forth his
utmost skill,(14) fashioned the face of the Cnidian Venus on the model of
the courtesan Gratina, whom the unhappy man loved desperately? Blot is this
the only Venus to whom there has been given beauty taken from a harlot's
face? Phryne.(15) the well-known native of Thespia--as those who have
written on Thespian affairs relate--when she was at the height of her
beauty. comeliness, and youthful vigour, is said to have ben the model of
all the Venuses which are held in esteem, whether throughout the cities of
Greece or here,(16) whither has flowed the longing and eager desire for
such figures. All the artists, therefore, who lived at that time, and to
whom truth gave the greatest ability to portray likenesses, vied in
transferring with all painstaking and zeal the outline of a prostitute to
the images of the Cytherean. The beautiful thoughts(1) of the artists were
full of fire; and they strove each to excel the other with emulous rivalry,
not that Venus might become more august, but that Phryne(2) might stand for
Venus. And so it was brought to this, that sacred honours were offered to
courtesans instead of the immortal gods, and an unhappy system of worship
was led astray by the making of statues.(3) That well-known and(4) most
distinguished statuary, Phidias, when he had raised the form of Olympian
Jupiter with immense labour and exertion,(5) inscribed on the finger of the
god Pantarces(6) is BEAUTIFUL,--this, moreover, was the name of a boy loved
by him, and that with lewd desire,--and was not moved by any fear or
religious dread to call the god by the name of a prostitute; nay, rather,
to consecrate the divinity and image of Jupiter to a debauchee. To such an
extent is there wantonness and childish feeling in forming those little
images, adoring them as gods, heaping upon them the divine virtues, when we
see that the artists themselves find amusement in fashioning them, and set
them up as monuments of their own lusts! For what reason is there, if you
should inquire, why Phidias should hesitate to amuse himself, and be wanton
when he knew that, but a little before, the very Jupiter which he had made
was gold, stones, and ivory,(7) formless, separated, confused, and that it
was he himself who brought all these together and bound them fast, that
their appearance(8) had been given to them by himself in the imitation(9)
of limbs which he had carved; and, which is more than(10) all, that it was
his own free gift, that Jupiter had been produced and was adored among
men?(11)

   14. We would here, as if all nations on the earth were present, make
one speech, and pour  into the ears of them all, words which should be
heard in common:(12) Why, pray, is this, 0 men! that of your own accord you
cheat and deceive yourselves by voluntary blindness? Dispel the darkness
now, and, returning to the light of the mind, look more closely and see
what that is which is going on, if only you retain your right,(13) and are
not beyond the reach(14) of the reason and prudence given to you.(15) Those
images which fill you with terror, and which you adore prostrate upon the
ground(16) in all the temples, are bones, stones, brass, silver, gold,
clay, wood taken from a tree, or glue mixed with gypsum. Having been heaped
together, it may be, from a harlot's gauds or from a woman's(17) ornaments,
from camels' bones or from the tooth of the Indian beast,(18) from cooking-
pots and little jars, from candlesticks anti lamps, or from other less
cleanly vessels, and having been melted down, they were cast into these
shapes and came out into the forms which you see, baked in potters'
furnaces, produced by anvils and hammers, scraped with the silversmith's,
and filed down with ordinary, files, cleft and hewn with saws, with
augers,(19) with axes, dug and hollowed out by the turning of borers, and
smoothed with planes. Is not this, then, an error? Is it not, to speak
accurately, folly to believe that a god which you yourself made with care,
to kneel down trembling in supplication to that which has been formed by
you, and while you know, and are assured that it is the product(20) of the
labour of your hands,(21)--to cast yourself down upon your face, beg aid
suppliantly, and, in adversity and time of distress, ask it to succour(22)
you with gracious and divine favour?

   15. Lo, if some one were to place before you copper in the lump, and
not formed(23) into any worlds of art, masses of unwrought silver, and gold
not fashioned into shape, wood, stones, and bones, with all the other
materials of which statues and images of deities usually consist,--nay,
more, if some one were to place before you the faces of battered gods,
images melted down(24) and broken, and were also to bid you slay victims to
the bits and fragments, and give sacred and divine honours to masses
without form,--we ask you to say to us, whether you would do this, or
refuse to obey. Perhaps you will say, why? Because there is no man so
stupidly blind that he will class among the gods silver, copper, gold,
gypsum, ivory, potter's clay, and say that these very things have, and
possess in themselves, divine power. What reason is there, then, that all
these bodies should want the power of deity and the rank of celestials if
they remain untouched and unwrought, but should forthwith become gods, and
be classed and numbered among the inhabitants of heaven if they receive the
forms of men, ears, noses, cheeks, lips, eyes, and eyebrows? Does the
fashioning add any newness to these bodies, so that from this addition you
are compelled(1) to believe that something divine and majestic has been
united to them? Does it change copper into gold, or compel worthless
earthenware to become silver? Does it cause things which but a little
before were without feeling, to live and breathe?(2) If they had any
natural properties previously,(3) all these they retain(4) when bulk up in
the bodily forms of statues. What stupidity it is--for I refuse to call it
blindness--to suppose that the natures of things are changed by the kind of
form into which they are forced, and that that receives divinity from the
appearance given D it, which in its original body has been inert, and
unreasoning, and unmoved by feeling!(5)

   16. And so unmindful and forgetful of what the substance and origin of
the images are, you, men, rational beings(6) and endowed with the gift of
wisdom and discretion, sink down before pieces of baked earthenware, adore
plates of copper, beg from the teeth of elephants good health,
magistracies, sovereignties, power, victories, acquisitions, gains, very
good harvests, and very rich vintages; and while it is plain and clear that
you are speaking to senseless things, you think that you are heard, and
bring yourselves into disgrace of your own accord, by vainly and
credulously deceiving yourselves.(7) Oh, would that you might enter into
some statue! rather, would that you might separate(8) and break up into
parts(9) those Olympian and Capitoline Jupiters, and behold all those parts
alone and by themselves which make up the whole of their bodies! You would
at once see that these gods of yours, to whom the smoothness of their
exterior gives a majestic appearance by its alluring(10) brightness, are
only a framework of flexible(11) plates, particles without shape joined
together; that they are kept from falling into ruin and fear of
destruction, by dove-tails and clamps and brace-irons; and that lead is run
into the midst of all the hollows and where the joints meet, and causes
delay(12) useful in preserving them. You would see, I say, at once that
they have faces only without the rest of the head,(13) imperfect hands
without arms, bellies and sides in halves, incomplete feet,(14) and, which
is most ridiculous, that they have been put together without uniformity in
the construction of their bodies, being in one part made of wood, but in
the other of stone. Now, indeed, if these things could not be seen through
the skill with which they were kept out of sight,(15) even those at least
which lie open to all should have taught and instructed you that you are
effecting nothing, and giving your services in vain to dead things. For, in
this case,(16) do you not see that these images, which seem to breathe,(17)
whose feet and knees you touch and handle when praying, at times fall into
ruins from the constant dropping of rain, at other times lose the firm
union of their parts from their decaying and becoming rotten,(18)--how they
grow black, being fumigated and discoloured by the steam of sacrifices, and
by smoke,--how with continued neglect they lose their position(19) and
appearance, and are eaten away with rust? In this case, I say, do yon not
see that newts, shrews, mice, and cockroaches, which shun the light, build
their nests and live under the hollow parts of these statues? that they
gather carefully into these all kinds of filth, and other things suited to
their wants, hard and half-gnawed bread, bones dragged thither in view of
probable scarcity,(20) rags, down, and pieces of paper to make their nests
soft, and keep their young warm? Do you not see sometimes over the face of
an image cobwebs and treacherous nets spun by spiders, that they may be
able to entangle in them buzzing and imprudent flies while on the wing? Do
you not see, finally, that swallows full of filth, flying within the very
domes of the temples, toss themselves about, and bedaub now the very faces,
now the mouths of the deities, the beard, eyes, noses, and all the other
parts on which their excrements(1) fall? Blush, then, even though it is
late, and accept true methods and views from dumb creatures, and let these
teach you that there is nothing divine in images, into which they do not
fear or scruple to cast unclean things in obedience to the laws of their
being, and led by their unerring instincts.(2)

   17. But you err, says my opponent, and are mistaken, for we do not
consider either copper, or gold and silver, or those other materials of
which statues are made, to be in themselves gods and sacred deities; but in
them we worship and venerate those whom their(3) dedication as sacred
introduces and causes to dwell in statues made by workmen. The reasoning is
not vicious nor despicable by which any one--the dull, and also the most
intelligent--can believe that the gods, forsaking their proper seats--that
is, heaven--do not shrink back and avoid entering earthly habitations; nay,
more, that impelled by the rite of dedication, they are joined to images Do
your gods, then, dwell in gypsum and in figures of earthenware? Nay,
rather, are the gods the minds, spirits, and souls of figures of
earthenware and of gypsum? and, that the meanest things may be able to
become of greater importance, do they suffer themselves to be shut up and
concealed and confined in(4) an obscure abode? Here, then, in the first
place, we wish and ask to be told this by you: do they do this against
their will--that is, do they enter the images as dwellings, dragged to them
by the rite of dedication--or are they ready and willing? and do you not
summon them by any considerations of necessity? Do they do this
unwillingly?(5) and how can it be possible that they should be compelled to
submit to any necessity without their dignity being impaired? With ready
assent?(6) And what do the gods seek for in figures of earthenware that
they should prefer these prisons(7) to their starry seats,--that, having
been all but fastened to them, they should ennoble(8) earthenware and the
other substances of which images are made?

   18. What then? Do the gods remain always in such substances, and do
they not go away to any place, even though summoned by the most momentous
affairs? or do they have free passage, when they please to go any whither,
and to leave their own seats and images? If they are under the necessity of
remaining, what can be more wretched than they, what more unfortunate than
if hooks and leaden bonds hold them fast in this wise on their pedestals?
but if we allow that they prefer these images to heaven and the starry
seats, they have lost their divine power.(9) But if, on the contrary, when
they choose, they fly forth, and are perfectly free to leave the statues
empty, the images will then at some time cease to be gods, and it will be
doubtful when sacrifices should be offered,--when it is right and fitting
to withhold them. Oftentimes we see that by artists these images are at one
time made small, and reduced to the size of the hand, at another raised to
an immense height, and built up to a wonderful size. In this way, then, it
follows that we should understand that the gods contract themselves in(10)
little statuettes, and are compressed till they become like(11) a strange
body; or, again, that they stretch themselves out to a great length, and
extend to immensity in images of vast bulk. So, then, if this is the case,
in sitting statues also the gods should be said to be seated, and in
standing ones to stand, to be running in those stretching forward to run,
to be hurling javelins in those represented as casting them, to fit and
fashion themselves to their countenances, and to make themselves like(12)
the other characteristics of the body formed by the artist.

   19. The gods dwell in images--each wholly in one, or divided into
parts, and into members? For neither is it possible that there can be at
one time one god in several images, nor, again, divided into parts by his
being cut up.(13) For let us suppose that there are ten thousand images of
Vulcan in the whole world: is it possible at all, as I said, that at one
time one deity can be in all the ten thousand? I do not think so. Do you
ask wherefore? Because things which are naturally single and unique, cannot
become many while the integrity of their simplicity(14) is maintained. And
this they are further unable to become if the gods have the forms of men,
as your belief declares; for either a hand separated froth the head, or a
foot divided from the body, cannot manifest the perfection of the whole, or
it must be said that parts can be the same as the whole, while the whole
cannot exist unless it has been made by gathering together its parts.
Moreover, if the same deity shall be said to be in all the statues, all
reasonableness and soundness is lost to the truth, if this is assumed that
at one tithe one can remain in them all; or each of the gods must be said
to divide himself from himself, so that he is both himself and another, not
separated by any distinction, but himself the same as another. But as
nature rejects and spurns and scorns this, it must either be said and
confessed that there are Vulcans without number, if we decide that he
exists anti is in all the images; or he will be in none, because he is
prevented by nature from being divided among several.

   20. And yet, O you--if it is plain and clear to you that tim gods live.
and that the inhabitants of heaven dwell in the inner parts of the images,
why do you guard, protect, and keep them shut up under the strongest keys,
and under fastenings of immense size, under iron bars, bolts,(1) and other
such things, and defend them with a thousand men and a thousand women to
keep guard, lest by chance some thief or nocturnal robber should creep in?
Why do you feed dogs in the capitols?(2) Why do you give food and
nourishment to geese? Rather, if you are assured that the gods are there,
and that they do not depart to any place from their figures and images,
leave to them the care of themselves, let their shrines be always unlocked
and open; and if anything is secretly carried off by any one with reckless
fraud, let them show the might of divinity, and subject the sacrilegious
robbers to fitting punishments at the moment(3) of their theft and wicked
deed. For it is unseemly, and subversive of their power and majesty, to
entrust the guardianship of the highest deities to the care of dogs, and
when you are seeking for some means of frightening thieves so as to keep
them away, not to beg it from the gods themselves, but to set and place it
in the cackling of geese.

   21. They say that Antiochus of Cyzicum took from its shrine a statue of
Jupiter made of gold ten(4) cubits high, and set up in its place one made
of copper covered with thin plates of gold. If the gods are present, and
dwell. in their own images, with what business, with what cares, had
Jupiter been entangled that he could not punish the wrong done to himself,
and avenge his being substituted in baser metal? When the famous Dionysius-
-but it was the younger(5)--despoiled Jupiter of his golden vestment, and
put instead of it one of wool, and, when mocking him with pleasantries
also, he said that that which he was taking away was cold in the frosts of
winter, this warm, that that one was cumbrous in summer, that this, again,
was airy in hot weather,--where was the king of the world that he did not
show his presence by some terrible deed, and recall the jocose buffoon to
soberness by bitter torments? For why should I mention that the dignity of
Aesculapius was mocked by him? For when Dionysius was spoiling him of his
very ample beard, which was of great weight and philosophic thickness,(6)
he said that it was not right that a son sprung from Apollo, a father
smooth and beardless, and very like a mere boy,(7) should be formed with
such a beard that it was left uncertain which of them was father, which
son, or rather whether they were of the same(8) race and family. Now, when
all these things were being done, and the robber was speaking with impious
mockery, if the deity was concealed in the statue consecrated to his name
and majesty, why did he not punish with just and merited vengeance the
affront of stripping his face of its beard and disfiguring his countenance,
and show by this, both that he was himself present, and that he kept watch
over his temples and images without ceasing?

   22. But you will perhaps say that the gods do not trouble themselves
about these losses, and do not think that there is sufficient cause for
them to come forth and inflict punishment upon the offenders for their
impious sacrilege.(9) Neither. then. if this is the case, do they wish to
have these images. which they allow to be plucked up and torn away with
impunity; nay, on the contrary, they tell us plainly that they despise
these statues, in which they do not care to show that they were contemned,
by taking any revenge. Philostephanus relates in his Cypriaca, that
Pygmalion, king(10) of Cyprus, loved as a woman an image of Venus, which
was held by the Cyprians holy and venerable from ancient times,(1) his
mind, spirit, the light of his reason, and his judgment being darkened; and
that he was wont in his madness, just as if he were dealing with his wife,
having raised the deity to his couch, to be joined with it in embraces and
face to face, and to do other vain things, carded away by a foolishly
lustful imagination.(2) Similarly, Posidippus,(3) in the book which he
mentions to have been written about Gnidus and about its affairs,(4)
relates that a young man, of noble birth,--but he conceals his name,--
carried away with love of the Venus because of which Gnidus is famous,
joined himself also in amorous lewdness to the image of the same deity,
stretched on the genial couch, and enjoying(5) the pleasures which ensue.
To ask, again, in like manner: If the powers of the gods above lurk in
copper and the other substances of which images have been formed, where in
the world was the one Venus and the other to drive far away from them the
lewd wantonness of the youths, and punish their impious touch with terrible
suffering?(6) Or, as the goddesses are gentle and of calmer dispositions,
what would it have been for them to assuage the furious joys of(7) the
wretched men, and to bring back their insane minds again to their senses?

   23. But perhaps, as you say, the goddesses took the greatest pleasure
in these lewd and lustful insults, and did not think that an action
requiring vengeance to be taken, which soothed their minds, and which they
knew was suggested to human desires by themselves. But if the goddesses,
the Venuses, being endowed with rather calm dispositions, considered that
favour should be shown to the misfortunes of the blinded youths; when the
greedy flames so often consumed the Capitol, and had destroyed the
Capitoline Jupiter himself with his wife and his daughter,(8) where was the
Thunderer at that time to avert that calamitous fire, and preserve from
destruction his property, and himself, and all his family? Where was the
queenly Juno when a violent fire destroyed her famous shrine, and her
priestess(9) Chrysis in Argos? Where the Egyptian Serapis, when by a
similar disaster his temple fell, burned to ashes, with all the mysteries,
and Isis? Where Liber Eleutherius, when his temple fell at Athens? Where
Diana, when hers fell at Ephesus? Where Jupiter of Dodona, when his fell at
Dodona? Where, finally, the prophetic Apollo, when by pirates and sea
robbers he was both plundered and set on fire,(10) so that out of so many
pounds of gold, which ages without number had heaped up, he did not have
one scruple even to show to the swallows which built under his caves,(11)
as Varro says in his Saturae Menippeoe?(12) It would be an endless task to
write down what shrines have been destroyed throughout the whole world by
earth quakesand tempests--what have been set on fire by enemies, and by
kings and tyrants--what have been stript bare by the overseers and priests
themselves, even though they have turned suspicion away from them(13)--
finally, what have been robbed by thieves and Canacheni,(14) opening them
up, though barred by unknown means;(15) which, indeed, would remain safe
and exposed to no mischances, if the gods were present to defend them, or
had any care for their temples, as is said. But now because they are empty,
and protected by no indwellers, Fortune has power over them, and they are
exposed to all accidents just as much as are all other things which have
not life.(16)

   24. Here also the advocates of images are wont to say this also, that
the ancients knew well that images have no divine nature, and that there is
no sense in them, but that they formed them profitably and wisely, for the
sake of the unmanageable and ignorant mob, which is the majority in nations
and in states, in order that a kind of appearance, as it were, of deities
being presented to them, from fear they might shake off their rude natures,
and, supposing that they were acting in the presence of the gods, put(17)
away their impious deeds, and, changing their manners, learn to act as
men;(18) and that august forms of gold and silver were sought for them, for
no other reason than that some power was believed to reside in their
splendour, such as not only to dazzle the eyes, but even to strike terror
into the mind itself at the majestic beaming lustre. Now this might perhaps
seem to be said with some reason, if, after the temples of the gods were
founded, and their images set up, there were no wicked man in the world, no
villany at all, if justice, peace, good faith, possessed the hearts of men,
and no one on earth were called guilty and guiltless, all being ignorant of
wicked deeds. But now when, on the contrary, all things are full of wicked
men, the name of innocence has almost perished, and every moment, every
second, evil deeds, till now unheard of, spring to light in myriads from
the wickedness of wrongdoers, how is it right to say that images have been
set up for the purpose of striking terror into the mob, while, besides
innumerable forms of crime and wickedness,(1) we see that even the temples
themselves are attacked by tyrants, by kings, by robbers, and by nocturnal
thieves, and that these very gods whom antiquity fashioned and consecrated
to cause terror, are carried away(2) into the caves of robbers, in spite
even of the terrible splendour of the gold?(3)

   25. For what grandeur--if you look at the truth without any
prejudice(4)--is there in these images(5) of which they speak, that the men
of old should have had reason to hope and think that, by beholding them,
the vices of men could be subdued, and their morals and wicked ways brought
under restraint?(6) The reaping-hook, for example, which was assigned to
Saturn,(7) was it to inspire mortals with fear, that they should be willing
to live peacefully, and to abandon their malicious inclinations? Janus,
with double face, or that spiked key by which he has been distinguished;
Jupiter, cloaked and bearded, and holding in his right hand a piece of wood
shaped like a thunderbolt; the cestus of Juno,(8) or the maiden lurking
under a soldier's helmet; the mother of the gods, with her timbrel; the
Muses, with their pipes and psalteries; Mercury, the winged slayer of
Argus; Aesculapius, with his staff; Ceres, with huge breasts, or the
drinking cup swinging in Liber's right hand; Mulciber, with his workman s
dress; or Fortune, with her horn full of apples, figs, or autumnal fruits;
Diana, with half-covered thighs, or Venus naked, exciting to lustful
desire; Anubis, with his dog's face; or Priapus, of less importance(9) than
his own genitals: were these expected to make men afraid?

   26. O dreadful forms of terror and(10) frightful bugbears(11) on
account of which the human race was to be benumbed for ever, to attempt
nothing in its utter amazement, and to restrain itself from every wicked
and shameful act--little sickles, keys, caps, pieces of wood, winged
sandals, staves, little timbrels, pipes, psalteries, breasts protruding and
of great size, little drinking cups, pincers, and horns filled with fruit,
the naked bodies of women, and huge veretra openly exposed! Would it not
have been better to dance and to sing, than calling it gravity and
pretending to be serious, to relate what is so insipid and so silly, that
images(12) were formed by the ancients to check wrongdoing, and to arouse
the fears of the wicked and impious? Were the men of that age and time, in
understanding, so void of reason and good sense, that they were kept back
from wicked actions, just as if they were little boys, by the
preternatural(13) savageness of masks, by grimaces also, and bugbears?(14)
And how has this been so entirely changed, that though there are so many
temples in your states filled with images of all the gods, the multitude of
criminals cannot be resisted even with so many laws and so terrible
punishments, and their audacity cannot be overcome(15) by any means, and
wicked deeds, repeated again and again, multiply the more it is striven by
laws and severe judgments to lessen the number of cruel deeds, and to quell
them by the check given by means of punishments? But if images caused any
fear to men, the passing of laws would cease, nor would so many kinds of
tortures be established against the daring of the guilty: now, however,
because it has been proved and established that the supposed(16) terror
which is said to flow out from the images is in reality vain, recourse has
been had to the ordinances of laws, by which there might be a dread of
punishment which should be most certain fixed in men's minds also, and a
condemnation settled; to which these very images also owe it that they yet
stand safe, and secured by some respect being yielded to them.

BOOK VII.

   1. Since it has been sufficiently shown, as far as there has been
opportunity, how vain it is to forth images, the course of our argument
requires that we should next speak as briefly as possible, and without any
periphrasis, about sacrifices, about the slaughter and immolation of
victims, about pure wine, about incense, and about all the other things
which are provided on such occasions.(1) For with respect to this you have
been in the habit of exciting against us the most violent ill-will, of
calling us atheists, and inflicting upon us the punishment of death, even
by savagely tearing us to pieces with wild beasts, on the ground that we
pay very little respect(2) to the gods; which, indeed, we admit that we do,
not froth contempt or scorn of the divine,(3) but because we think that
such powers require nothing of the kind, and are not possessed by desires
for such things.(4)

   What, then,(5) some one will say, do you think that no sacrifices at
all should be offered? To answer you not with our own, but with your
Varro's opinion--none. Why so? Because, he says, the true gods neither wish
nor demand these; while those(6) which are made of copper, earthenware,
gypsum, or marble, care much less for these things, for they have no
feeling; and you are not blamed(7) if you do not offer them, nor do you win
favour if you do. No sounder opinion can be found, none truer, and one
which any one may adopt, although he may be stupid and very hard to
convince. For who is so obtuse as either to slay victims in sacrifice to
those who have no sense, or to think that they should be given to those who
are removed far from them in their nature and blessed state?

   2. Who are the true gods? you say. To answer you in common and simple
language, we do not know;(8) for how can we know who those are whom we have
never seen? We have been accustomed to hear from you that an infinite
number(9) are gods, and are reckoned among(10) the deities; but if these
exist(11) anywhere, and are true gods, as Terentius(12) believes, it
follows as a consequence, that they correspond to their name; that is, that
they are such as we all see that they should be, and that they are worthy
to be called by this name; nay, more,--to make an end without many words,--
that they are such as is the Lord of the universe, and the King omnipotent
Himself, whom we have knowledge anti understanding enough to speak of as
the true God when we are led to mention His name. For one god differs from
another in nothing as respects his divinity;(13) nor can that which is one
in kind be less or more in its parts while its own qualities remain
unchanged.(14) Now, as this is certain, it follows that they should never
have been begotten, but should be immortal, seeking nothing from without,
and not drawing any earthly pleasures from the resources of matter.

   3. So, then, if these things are so. we desire to learn this, first.
from you--what is the cause, what the reason, that you offer them
sacrifices; and then, what gain comes to the gods themselves from this, and
remains to their advantage. For whatever is done should have a cause, and
should not be disjoined from reason, so as to be lost(15) among useless
works, and tossed about among vain and idle uncertainties.(16) Do the gods
of heaven(17) live on these sacrifices, and must materials be supplied to
maintain the union of their parts? And what man is there so ignorant or
what a god is, certainly, as to think that they are maintained by any kind
of nourishment, and that it is the food given to them(18) which causes them
to live and endure throughout their endless immortality? For whatever is
upheld by causes and things external to itself, must be mortal and on the
way to destruction, when anything on which it lives begins to be wanting.
Again, it is impossible to suppose that any one believes this, because we
see that of these things which are brought to their altars, nothing is
added to and reaches the substance of the deities; for either incense is
given, and is lost melting on the coals,(1) or the life only of the victim
is offered to the gods,(2) and its blood is licked up by dogs; or if any
flesh is placed upon the altars, it is set on fire in like manner, and is
destroyed, and falls into ashes,--unless perchance the god seizes upon the
souls of the victims, or snuffs up eagerly the fumes and smoke which rise
from the blazing altars, and feeds upon the odours which the burning flesh
gives forth, still wet with blood, and damp with its former juices.(3) But
if a god, as is said, has no body, and cannot be touched at all, how is it
possible that that which has no body should be nourished by things
pertaining to the body,--that what is mortal should support what is
immortal, and assist and give vitality to that which it cannot touch? This
reason for sacrifices is not valid, therefore, as it seems; nor can it be
said by any one that sacrifices are kept up for this reason, that the
deities are nourished by them, and supported by feeding on them.

   4. If perchance it is not this,(4) are victims not slain in sacrifice
to the gods, and cast upon their flaming altars to give them(5) some
pleasure and delight? And can any man persuade himself that the gods become
mild as they are exhilarated by pleasures, that they long for sensual
enjoyment, and, like some base creatures, are affected by agreeable
sensations, and charmed and tickled for the moment by(6) a pleasantness
which soon passes away? For that which is overcome by pleasure must be
harassed by its opposite, sorrow; nor can that be free from the anxiety of
grief, which trembles with joy, and is elated capriciously with
gladness.(7) But the gods should be free from both passions, if we would
have them to be everlasting, and freed from the weakness of mortals.
Moreover, every pleasure is, as it were, a kind of flattery of the body,
and is addressed to the five well-known senses; but if the gods above feel
it,(8) they must partake also of those bodies through which there is a way
to the senses, and a door by which to receive pleasures. Lastly, what
pleasure is it to take delight in the slaughter of harmless creatures, to
have the ears ringing often with their piteous bellowings, to see rivers of
blood, the life fleeing away with the blood, and the secret parts having
been laid open, not only the intestines to protrude with the excrements,
but also the heart still bounding with the life left in it, and the
trembling, palpitating veins in the viscera? We half-savage men, nay
rather,--to say with more candour what it is truer and more candid to say,-
-we savages, whom unhappy necessity and bad habit have trained to take
these as food, are sometimes moved with pity for them; we ourselves accuse
and condemn ourselves when the thing is seen and looked into thoroughly,
because, neglecting the law which is binding on men, we have broken through
the bonds which naturally united us at the beginning.(9) Will(10) any one
believe that the gods, who are kind, beneficent, gentle, are delighted and
filled with joy by the slaughter of cattle, if ever they fall and expire
pitiably before their altars?(11) And there is no cause, then, for pleasure
in sacrifices, as we see, nor is there a reason why they should be offered,
since there is no pleasure afforded by them; and if perchance there is
some,(12) it has been shown that it cannot in any way belong to the gods.

   5. We have next to examine the argument which we bear continually
coming from the lips of the common people, and find embedded in popular
conviction, that sacrifices are offered to the gods of heaven for this
purpose, that they may lay aside their anger and passions, and may be
restored to a calm and placid tranquillity, the indignation of their fiery
spirits being assuaged. And if we remember the definition which we should
always bear steadily in mind, that all agitating feelings are unknown to
the gods, the consequence is, a belief(13) that the gods are never angry;
nay, rather, that no passion is further from them than that which,
approaching most nearly to the spirit of wild beasts and savage creatures,
agitates those who suffer it with tempestuous feelings, and brings them
into danger of destruction. For whatever is harassed by any kind of
disturbance,(14) is, it is clear, capable of suffering, and frail; that
which has been subjected to suffering and frailty must be mortal; but anger
harasses and destroys(15) those who are subject to it: therefore that
should be called mortal which has been made subject to the emotions of
anger. But yet we know that the gods should be never-dying, and should
possess an immortal nature; and if this is clear and certain, anger has
been separated far from them and from their state. On no ground, then, is
it fitting to wish to appease that in the gods above which you see cannot
suit their blessed state.

   6. But let us allow, as you wish, that the gods are accustomed to such
disturbance, and that sacrifices are offered and sacred solemnities
performed to calm it, when, then, is it fitting that these offices should
be made use of, or at what time should they be given?--before they are
angry and roused, or when they have been moved and displeased even?(1) If
we must meet them with sacrifices before their anger is roused, lest they
become enraged, you are bringing forward wild beasts to us, not gods, to
which it is customary to toss food, upon which they may rage madly, and
turn their desire to do harm, lest, having been roused, they should rage
and burst the barriers of their dens. But if these sacrifices are offered
to satisfy(2) the gods when already fired and burning with rage, I do not
inquire, I do not consider, whether that happy(3) and sublime greatness of
spirit which belongs to the deities is disturbed by the offences of little
men, and wounded if a creature, blind and ever treading among clouds of
ignorance, has committed any blunder,--said anything by which their dignity
is impaired.

   7. But neither do I demand that this should be said, or that I should
be told what causes the gods have for their anger against men, that having
taken offence they must be soothed. I do ask, however, Did they ever ordain
any laws for mortals? and was it ever settled by them what it was fitting
for them to do, or what it was not? what they should pursue, what avoid; or
even by what means they wished themselves to be worshipped, so that they
might pursue with the vengeance of their wrath what was done otherwise than
they had commanded, and might be disposed, if treated contemptuously, to
avenge themselves on the presumptuous and transgressors? As I think,
nothing was ever either settled or ordained by them, since neither have
they been seen, nor has it been possible for it to be discerned very
clearly whether there are any.(4) What justice is there, then, in the gods
of heaven being angry for any reason with those to whom they have neither
deigned at any time to show that they existed, nor given nor imposed any
laws which they wished to be honoured by them and perfectly observed?(5)

   8. But this, as I said, I do not mention, but allow it to pass away in
silence. This one thing I ask, above all, What reason is there if I kill a
pig, that a god changes his state of mind, and lays aside his angry
feelings and frenzy; that if I consume a pullet, a calf under his eyes and
on his altars, he forgets the wrong which I did to him, and abandons
completely all sense of displeasure? What passes from this act(6) to modify
his resentment? Or of what service(7) is a goose, a goat, or a peacock,
that from its blood relief is brought to the angry god? Do the gods, then,
make insulting them a matter of payment? and as little boys, to induce them
to give up their fits of passion(8) and desist from their wailings, get
little sparrows, dolls, ponies, puppets,(8) with which they may be able to
divert themselves, do the immortal gods in such wise receive these gifts
from you, that for them they may lay aside their resentment, and be
reconciled to those who offended them? And yet I thought that the gods--if
only it is right to believe that they are really moved by anger--lay aside
their anger and resentment, and forgive the sins of the guilty, without any
price or reward. For this belongs specially to deities, to be generous in
forgiving, and to seek no return for their gifts.(9) But if this cannot be,
it would be much wiser that they should continue obstinately offended, than
that they should be softened by being corrupted with bribes. For the
multitude increases of those who sin, when there is hope given of paying
for their sin; and there is little hesitation to do wrong, when the favour
of those who pardon offences may be bought.

   9. So, if some ox, or any animal you please, which is slain to mitigate
and appease the fury of the deities, were to take a man's voice and speak
these(10) words: "Is this, then, O Jupiter, or whatever god thou art,
humane or right, or should it he considered at all just, that when another
has sinned I should be killed, and that you should allow satisfaction to be
made to you with my blood, although I never did you wrong, never wittingly
or unwittingly did violence to your divinity anti majesty, being, as thou
knowest, a dumb creature, not departing from(11) the simplicity of my
nature, nor inclined to be fickle in my(12) manners? Did I ever celebrate
your games with too little reverence and care? did I drag forward a dancer
so that thy deity was offended? did I swear falsely by thee? did I
sacrilegiously steal your property and plunder your temples? did I uproot
the most sacred groves, or pollute and profane some hallowed places by
rounding private houses? What, then, is the reason that the crime of
another is atoned for with my blood, and that my life and innocence are
made to pay for wickedness with which I have nothing to do? Is it because I
am a base creature, and am not possessed of reason and wisdom, as these
declare who call themselves men, and by their ferocity make themselves
beasts?(1) Did not the same nature both beget and form me from the same
beginnings? Is it not one breath of life which sways both them and me? Do I
not respire and see, and am I not affected by the other senses just as they
are? They have livers, lungs, hearts, intestines, bellies; and do not I
have as many members? They love their young, and come together to beget
children; and do not I both take care to procure offspring, and delight in
it when it has been begotten? But they have reason, and utter articulate
sounds; and how do they know whether I do what I do for my own reasons, and
whether that sound which I give forth is my kind of words, and is
understood by us alone? Ask piety whether it is more just that I should be
slain, that I should be killed, or that man should be pardoned and be safe
from punishment for what he has done? Who formed iron into a sword? was it
not man? Who brought disaster upon races; who imposed slavery upon nations?
was it not man? Who mixed deadly draughts, and gave them to his parents,
brothers, wives, friends? was it not man? Who found out or devised so many
forms of wickedness, that they can hardly be related in ten thousand
chronicles of years, or even of days? was it not man? Is not this, then,
cruel, monstrous, and savage? Does it not seem to you, O Jupiter, unjust
and barbarous that I should be killed, that I should be slain, that you may
be soothed, and the guilty find impunity?"

   It has been established that sacrifices are offered in vain for this
purpose then, viz., that the angry deities may be soothed; since reason has
taught us that the gods are not angry at any time, and that they do not
wish one thing to be destroyed, to be slain for another, or offences
against themselves to be annulled by the blood of an innocent creature.(2)

   10. But perhaps some one will say, We give to the gods sacrifices and
other gifts, that, being made willing in a measure to grant our prayers,
they may give us prosperity and avert from us evil, cause us to live always
happily, drive away grief truly, and any evils which threaten us from
accidental circumstances. This point demands great care; nor is it usual
either to hear or to believe what is so easily said. For the whole company
of the learned will straightway swoop upon us, who, asserting and proving
that whatever happens, happens according to the decrees of fate, snatch out
of our(3) hands that opinion, and assert that we are putting our trust in
vain beliefs. Whatever, they will say, has been done in the world, is being
done, and shall be done, has been settled and fixed in time past, and has
causes which cannot be moved, by means of which events have been linked
together, and form an unassailable chain of unalterable necessity between
the past and the future. If it has been determined and fixed what evil or
good should befall each person, it is already certain; but if this is
certain and fixed, there is no room for all the help given by the gods,
their hatred, and favours. For they are just as unable to do for you that
which cannot be done, as to prevent that from being done which must happen,
except that they will be able, if they choose, to depreciate somewhat
powerfully that belief which you entertain, so that they(4) say that even
the gods themselves are worshipped by you in vain, and that the
supplications with which you address them are superfluous. For as they are
unable to turn aside the course of events, and change what has been
appointed by fate, what reason, what cause, is there to wish to weary and
deafen the ears of those in whose help you cannot trust at your utmost
need?

   11. Lastly, if the gods drive away sorrow and grief, if they bestow joy
and pleasure, how(5) are there in the world so many(6) and so wretched men,
whence come so many unhappy ones, who lead a life of tears in the meanest
condition? Why are not those free from calamity who every moment, every
instant, load and heap up the altars with sacrifices? Do we not see that
some of them, say the learned, are the seats of diseases, the light of
their eves quenched, and their ears stopped, that they cannot move with
their feet, that they live mere trunks without the use of their hands, that
they are swallowed up, overwhelmed, and destroyed by conflagrations,
shipwrecks, and disasters;(7) that, having been stripped of immense
fortunes, they support themselves by labouring for hire, and beg for alms
at last; treat they are exiled, proscribed, always in the midst of sorrow,
overcome by the loss of children, and harassed by other misfortunes, the
kinds and forms of which no enumeration can comprehend? But assuredly this
would not occur if the gods, who had been laid under obligation, were able
to ward off, to turn aside, those evils from those who merited this favour.
But now, because in these mishaps there is no room for the interference of
the gods, but all things are brought about(1) by inevitable necessity, the
appointed course of events goes on and accomplishes that which has been
once determined.

   12. Or the gods of heaven should be said to be ungrateful if, while
they have power to prevent it, they suffer an unhappy race to be involved
in so many hardships and disasters. But perhaps they may say something of
importance in answer to this, and not such as should be received by
deceitful, fickle, and scornful ears. This point, however, because it would
require too tedious and prolix discussion,(2) we hurry past unexplained and
untouched, content to have stated this alone, that you give to your gods
dishonourable reputations if you assert that on no other condition do they
bestow blessings and turn away what is injurious, except they have been
first bought over with the blood of she-goats and sheep, and with the other
things which are put upon their altars. For it is not fitting, in the first
place, that the power of the deities and the surpassing eminence of the
celestials should be believed to keep their favours on sale, first to
receive a price, and then to bestow them; and then, which is much more
unseemly, that they aid no one unless they receive their demands, and that
they suffer the most wretched to undergo whatever perils may befall
them,(3) while they could ward these off, and come to their aid. If of two
who are sacrificing, one is a scoundrel,(4) and rich, the other of small
fortune, but worthy of praise for his integrity and goodness,--if the
former should slay a hundred oxen, and as many ewes with their lambkins,
the poor man burn a little incense, and a small piece of some odorous
substance,--will it not follow that it should be believed that, if only the
deities bestow nothing except when rewards are first offered, they will
give their favour(5) to the rich man, turn their eyes away from the poor,
whose gifts were restricted not by his spirit, but by the scantiness of his
means?(6)For where the giver is venal and mercenary, there it must needs be
that favour is granted according to the greatness of the gift by which it
is purchased, and that a favourable decision is given to him from whom(7)
far the greater reward and bribe, though this be shameful, flows to him who
gives it.(8) What if two nations, on the other hand, arrayed against each
other in war, enriched the altars of the gods with equal sacrifices, and
were to demand that their power and help should be given to them, the one
against the other: must it not, again, be believed that, if they are
persuaded to be of service by rewards, they are at a loss between both
sides, are struck motionless, and do not perceive what to do, since they
understand that their favour has been pledged by the acceptance of the
sacrifices? For either they will give assistance to this side and to that,
which is impossible, for in that case they will fight themselves against
themselves, strive against their own favour and wishes; or they will do
nothing to aid either nation(9) after the price of their aid has been paid
and received, which is very wicked. All this infamy, therefore, should be
removed far from the gods; nor should it be said at all that they are won
over by rewards and payments to confer blessings, and remove what is
disagreeable, if only they are true gods, and worthy to be ranked under
this name. For either whatever happens, happens inevitably, and there is no
place in the gods for ambition and favour; or if fate is excluded and got
rid of, it does not belong to the celestial dignity to sell the boon of its
services,(10) and the conferring of its bounties.

   13. We have shown sufficiently, as I suppose, that victims, and the
things which go along with them, are offered in vain to the immortal gods,
because they are neither nourished by them, nor feel any pleasure, nor lay
aside their anger and resentment, so as either to give good fortune, or to
drive away anti avert the opposite. We have now to examine that point also
which has been usually asserted by some, and applied to forms of ceremony.
For they say that these sacred rites were instituted to do honour to the
gods of heaven, and that these things which they do, they do to show them
honour, and to magnify the powers of the deities by them. What if they were
to say, in like manner, that they keep awake and sleep, walk about, stand
still, write something, and read, to give honour to the gods, and make them
more glorious in majesty? For what substance is there added to them from
the blood of cattle, and from the other things which are prepared in
sacrificing? what power is given and added to them? For all honour, which
is said to be offered by any one, and to be yielded to reverence for a
greater being, is of a kind having reference to the other; and consists of
two parts, of the concession of the giver, and the increase of honour of
the receiver. As, if any one, on seeing a man famed for his very great
power(1) and authority, were to make way for him, to stand up, to uncover
his head, and leap down from his carriage, then, bending forward to salute
him with slavish servility and(2) trembling agitation, I see what is aimed
at in showing such respect: by the bowing down of the one, very great
honour is given to the other, and he is made to appear great whom the
respect of an inferior exalts and places above his own rank.(3)

   14. But all this conceding and ascribing of honour about which we are
speaking are met with among men alone, whom their natural weakness and love
of standing above their fellows(4) teach to delight in arrogance, and in
being preferred above others. But, I ask, where is there room for honour
among the gods, or what greater exaltation is found to be given(5) to them
by piling up(6) sacrifices? Do they become more venerable, more powerful,
when cattle are sacrificed to them? is there anything added to them from
this? or do they begin to be more truly gods, their divinity being
increased? And yet I consider it almost an insult, nay, an insult
altogether, when it is said that a god is honoured by a man, and exalted by
the offering of some gift. For if honour increases and augments the
grandeur of him to whom it is given, it follows that a deity becomes
greater by means of the man from whom he has received the gift, and the
honour conferred on him; and thus the matter is brought to this issue, that
the god who is exalted by human honours is the inferior, while, on the
other hand, the man who increases the power of a deity is his superior.(7)

   15. What then! some one will say, do you think that no honour should be
given to the gods at all? If you propose to us gods such as they should be
if they do exist, and such as(8) we feel that we all mean when we
mention(9) that name, how can we but give them even the greatest honour,
since we have been taught by the commands which have especial power over
us,(10) to pay honour to all men even, of whatever rank, of whatever
condition they may be? What, pray, you ask, is this very great honour? One
much more in accordance with duty than is paid by you, and directed to(11)
a more powerful race, we reply. Tell, us, you say, in the first place, what
is an opinion worthy of the gods, right and honourable, and not blameworthy
from its being made unseemly by something infamous? We reply, one such that
yon believe that they neither have any likeness to man, nor look for
anything which is outside of them and comes from without; then--and this
has been said pretty frequently--that they do not burn with the fires of
anger, that they do not give themselves up passionately to sensual
pleasure, that they are not bribed to be of service, that they are not
tempted to injure our enemies, that they do not sell their kindness and
favour, that they do not rejoice in having honour heaped on them, that they
are not indignant and vexed if it is not given; but--and this belongs to
the divine--that by their own power they know themselves, and that they do
not rate themselves by the obsequiousness of others. And yet, that we may
see the nature of what is said, what kind of honour is this, to bind a
wether, a ram, a bull before the face of a god, and slay them in his sight?
What kind of honour is it to invite a god to a banquet of blood, which you
see him take and share in with dogs? What kind of honour is it, having set
on fire piles of wood, to hide the heavens with smoke, and darken with
gloomy blackness the images of the gods? But if it seems good to you that
these actions should be considered in themselves,(12) not judged of
according to your prejudices, you will find that those altars of which you
speak, and even those beautiful ones which you dedicate to the superior
gods,(13) are places for burning the unhappy race of animals funeral pyres,
and mounds built for a most unseemly office, and formed to be filled with
corruption.

   16. What say you, O you--! is that foul smell, then, which is given
forth and emitted by burning hides, by bones, by bristles, by the fleeces
of lambs, and the feathers of fowls,--is that a favour and an honour to the
deity? and are the deities honoured by this, to whose temples, when yon
arrange to go, you come(14) cleansed from all pollution, washed, and
perfectly(15) pure? And what can be more polluted than these, more
unhappy,(1) more debased, than if their senses are naturally such that they
are fond of what is so cruel, and take delight in foul smells which, when
inhaled with the breath, even those who sacrifice cannot bear, and
certainly not a delicate(2) nose? But if you think that the gods of heaven
de honoured by the blood of living creatures being offered to them, why do
you not(3) sacrifice to them both mules, and elephants, and asses? why not
dogs also, bears, and foxes, camels, and hyaenas, and lions? And as birds
also are counted victims by you, why do you not sacrifice vultures, eagles,
storks, falcons, hawks, ravens, sparrow-hawks, owls, and, along with them,
salamanders, water-snakes, vipers, tarantulae? For indeed there is both
blood in these, and they are in like manner moved by the breath of life.
What is there more artistic in the former kind of sacrifices, or less
ingenious in the latter, that these do not add to and increase the grandeur
of the gods? Because, says my opponent, it is right to honour the gods of
heaven with those things by which we are ourselves nourished and sustained,
and live; which also they have, in their divine benevolence, deigned to
give to us for food. But the same gods have given to you both cumin, cress,
turnips, onions, parsley, esculent thistles, radishes, gourds, rue, mint,
basil, flea-bane, and chives, and commanded them to be used by you as part
of your food; why, then, do you not put these too upon the altars, and
scatter wild-marjoram, with which oxen are fed, over them all, and mix
amongst them onions with their pungent flavour?

   17. Lo, if dogs--for a case must be imagined, in order that things may
be seen more clearly--if dogs, I say, and asses, and along with them water-
wagtails, if the twittering swallows, and pigs also, having acquired some
of the feelings of men, were to think and suppose that you were gods, and
to propose to offer sacrifices in your honour, not of other things and
substances, but of those with which they are wont to be nourished and
supported, according to their natural inclination,--we ask you to say
whether you would consider this an honour, or rather a most outrageous
affront, when the swallows slew and consecrated flies to you, the water-
wagtails ants; when the asses put hay upon your altars, and poured out
libations of chaff; when the dogs placed bones, and burned human
excrements(4) at your shrines; when, lastly, the pigs poured out before you
a horrid mess, taken from their frightful hog-pools and filthy maws? Would
you not in this case, then, be inflamed with rage that your greatness was
treated with contumely, and account it an atrocious wrong that you were
greeted with filth? But, you reply, you honour the gods with the carcasses
of bulls, and by slaying(5) other living creatures. And in what respect
does this differ from that, since these sacrifices, also, if they are not
yet, will nevertheless soon be, dung, and will become rotten after a very
short time has passed? Finally, cease to place fire upon(6) your altars,
then indeed you will(7) see that consecrated flesh of bulls, with which you
magnify the honour of the gods, swelling and heaving with worms, tainting
and corrupting the atmosphere, and infecting the neighbouring districts
with unwholesome smells. Now, if the gods were to enjoin you to turn these
things(8) to your own account, to make your meals from them(9) in the usual
way; you would flee to a distance, and, execrating the smell, would beg
pardon from the gods, and bind yourselves by oath never again to offer such
sacrifices to them. Is not this conduct of yours mockery, then? is it not
to confess, to make known that you do not know what a deity is, nor to what
power the meaning and title of this name should be given and applied? Do
you give new dignity to the gods by new kinds of food? do you honour them
with savours and juices, and because those things which nourish you are
pleasing and grateful to you? do you believe that the gods also flock up to
enjoy their pleasant taste, and, just as barking dogs, lay aside their
fierceness for mouthfuls, and pretty often fawn upon those who hold these
out?

   18. And as we are now speaking of the animals sacrificed, what cause,
what reason is there, that while the immortal gods--for, so far as we are
concerned, they may all be gods who are believed to be so--are of one mind,
or should be of one nature, kind, and character, all are not appeased with
all the victims, but certain deities with certain animals, according to the
sacrificial laws? For what cause is there, to repeat the same question,
that that deity should be honoured with bulls, another with kids or sheep,
this one with sucking pigs, the other with unshorn lambs, this one with
virgin heifers, that one with horned goats, this with barren cows, but that
with teeming(10) swine, this with white, that with dusky(11) victims, one
with female, the other, on the contrary, with male animals? For if victims
are slain in sacrifice to the gods, to do them honour and show reverence
for them, what does it matter, or what difference is there with the life of
what animal this debt is paid, their anger and resentment put away? Or is
the blood of one victim less grateful and pleasing to one god, while the
other's fills him with pleasure and joy? or, as is usually done, does that
deity abstain from the flesh of goats because of some reverential and
religious scruple, another turn with disgust from pork, while to this
mutton stinks? and does this one avoid tough ox-beef that he may not
overtax his weak stomach, and choose tender(1) sucklings that he may digest
them more speedily?(2)

   19. But you err, says my opponent, and fall into mistakes; for in
sacrificing female victims to the female deities, males to the male
deities, there is a hidden and very(3) secret reason, and one beyond the
reach of the mass. I do not inquire, I do not demand, what the sacrificial
laws teach or contain; but if reason has demonstrated,(4) and truth
declared, that among the gods  there is no difference of species, and that
they are not distinguished by any sexes, must not all these reasonings be
set at nought, and be proved, the opinions of wise men, who cannot restrain
their laughter when they hear distinctions of sex  attributed to the
immortal gods: I ask of each man whether he himself believes in his own
mind, and persuades himself that the race of the gods is so distinguished
that they are male and female, and have been formed with members arranged
suitably for the begetting of young?

   But if the laws of the sacrifices enjoin that like sexes should be
sacrificed to like, that is, female  victims to the female gods, male
victims, on the contrary, to the male gods, what relation is there in the
colours, so that it is right and fitting that  to these white, to those
dark, even the blackest victims are slain? Because, says my opponent, to
the gods above, and those who have power to give favourable omens,(5) the
cheerful colour is acceptable and propitious from the pleasant appearance
of pure white; while, on the contrary, to the sinister deities, and those
who inhabit the infernal seats, a dusky colour is more pleasing, and one
tinged with gloomy hues. But if, again, the reasoning holds good, that the
infernal regions are an utterly vain and empty name,(6) and  that
underneath the earth there are no Plutonian  realms and abodes, this, too,
must nullify your ideas about black cattle and gods under the ground.
Because, if there are no infernal regions, of necessity there are no dii
Manium also. For how is it possible that, while there are no regions, there
should be said to be any who inhabit them?

   20. But let us agree, as you wish, that there are both infernal regions
and Manes, and that some gods or other dwell in these by no means
favourable to men, and presiding over misfortunes; and what cause, what
reason is there, that black victims, even(7) of the darkest hue, should be
brought to their altars? Because dark things suit dark, and gloomy things
are pleasing to similar beings. What then? Do you not see--that we, too,
may joke with you stupidly, and just as you do yourselves(8)--that the
flesh of the victims is not black,(9) nor their bones, teeth, fat, the
bowels, with(10) the brains, and the soft marrow in the bones? But the
fleeces are jetblack, and the bristles of the creatures are jetblack. Do
you, then, sacrifice to the gods only wool and little bristles torn from
the victims? Do you leave the wretched creatures, despoiled it may be, and
shorn, to draw the breath of heaven, and rest in perfect innocence upon
their feeding-grounds? But if yon think that those things are pleasing to
the infernal gods which are black and of a gloomy colour, why do you not
take care that all the other things which it is customary to place upon
their sacrifices should be black, and smoked, and horrible in colour? Dye
the incense if it is offered, the salted grits, and all the libations
without exception. Into the milk, oil, blood, pour soot and ashes, that
this may lose its purple hue, that the others may become ghastly. But if
you have no scruple in introducing some things which are white and retain
their brightness, you yourselves do away with your own religious scruples
and reasonings, while you do not maintain any single and universal rule in
performing the sacred rites.

   21. But this, too, it is fitting that we should here learn from you: If
a goat be slain to Jupiter, which is usually sacrificed to father Liber and
Mercury,(11) or if the barren heifer be sacrificed to Unxia, which you give
to Proserpine, by what usage and rule is it determined what crime there is
in this, what wickedness or guilt has been contracted, since it makes no
difference to the worship offered to the deity what animal it is with whose
head the honour is paid which you owe? It is not lawful, says my opponent,
that these  things should be confounded, and it is no small crime to throw
the ceremonies of the rites and  the mode of expiation into confusion.
Explain the reason, I beg. Because it is right to consecrate victims of a
certain kind to certain deities, and that certain forms of supplication
should be  also adopted. And what, again, is the reason that it is right to
consecrate victims of a certain kind to certain deities, and that certain
forms of supplication should he also adopted, for this very rightfulness
should have its own cause, and spring, be derived from certain reasons? Are
you going to speak about antiquity and custom? If so, you relate to me
merely the opinions of men, and the inventions of a blind creature: but I,
when I request a reason to be brought forward to me, wish to hear either
that something has fallen from heaven, or, which the subject rather
requires, what relation Jupiter has to a bull's blood that it should be
offered in sacrifice to him, not to Mercury or Liber. Or what are the
natural properties of a goat, that they again should  be suited to these
gods, should not be adapted to the sacrifices of Jupiter? Has a partition
of the animals been made amongst the gods? Has some contract been made and
agreed to, so that(1) it is fitting that this one should hold himself back
from the victim which belongs to that, that the other should cease(2) to
claim as his own the blood which belongs to another? Or, as envious boys,
are they unwilling to allow others to have a share in enjoying the cattle
presented to them? or, as is reported to be done by races which differ
greatly in manners, are the same things which by one party are considered
fit for eating, rejected as food by others?

   22. If, then, these things are vain, and are not supported by any
reason, the very offering(3) of sacrifices also is idle. For how can that
which follows have a suitable cause, when that very first statement from
which the second flows is found to be utterly idle and vain, and
established on no solid basis? To mother Earth, they say, is sacrificed a
teeming(4) and pregnant sow; but to the virgin Minerva is slain a virgin
calf, never forced(5) by the goad to attempt any labour. But yet we think
that neither should a virgin have been sacrificed to a virgin, that the
virginity might not be violated in the brute, for which the goddess is
especially esteemed; nor should gravid and pregnant victims have been
sacrificed to the Earth from respect for its fruitfulness, which(6) we all
desire and wish to go on always in irrepressible fertility.(7) For if
because the Tritonian goddess is a virgin it is therefore fitting that
virgin victims be sacrificed to her, and if because the Earth is a mother
she is in like manner to be entertained with gravid swine, then also Apollo
should be honoured by the sacrifice of musicians because he is a musician;
AEsculapius, because he is a physician, by the sacrifice of physicians; and
because he is an artificer, Vulcan by the sacrifice of artificers; and
because Mercury is eloquent, sacrifice should be made to him with the
eloquent and most fluent. Bat if it is madness to say this, or, to speak
with moderation, nonsense, that shows much greater madness to slaughter
pregnant swine to the Earth because she is even more prolific; pure and
virgin heifers to Minerva because she is pure, of unviolated virginity.

   23. For as to that which we hear said by you, that some of the gods are
good, that others, on the contrary, are bad, and rather inclined to indulge
in wanton mischief,(8) and that the usual rites are paid to the one party
that they may show layout, but to the others that they may not do you
harm,--with what reason this is said, we confess that we cannot understand.
For to say that the gods are most benevolent, and have gentle dispositions,
is not only pious and religious, but also true; but that they are evil and
sinister, should by no means be listened to, inasmuch as that divine power
has been far removed and separated from the disposition which does harm.(9)
But whatever can occasion calamity, it must first be seen what it is, and
then it should be removed very far from the name of deity.

   Then, supposing that we should agree with you that the gods promote
good fortune and calamity, not even in this case is there any reason why
you should allure some of them to grant you prosperity, and, on the other
hand, coax others with sacrifices and rewards not to do you harm. First,
because the good gods cannot act badly, even if they have been worshipped
with no honour.--for whatever is mild and placid by nature, is separated
widely from the practice and devising of mischief; while the bad knows not
to restrain his ferocity, although he should be enticed to do so with a
thousand flocks and a thousand altars. For neither can bitterness change
itself into sweetness, dryness into moisture, the heat of fire into cold,
or what is contrary to anything take and change into its own nature that
which is its opposite. So that, if you should stroke a viper with your
hand, or caress a poisonous scorpion, the former will attack you with its
fangs, the latter, drawing itself together, will fix its sting in you; and
your caressing will be of no avail, since both creatures are excited to do
mischief, not by the stings of rage, but by a certain peculiarity of their
nature. It is thus of no avail to wish to deserve well of the sinister
deities by means of sacrifices, since, whether you do this, or on the
contrary do not, they follow their own nature, and by inborn laws and a
kind of necessity are led to those things, to do which(1) they were made.
Moreover, in this way(2) both kinds of gods cease to possess their own
powers, and to retain their own characters. For if the good are worshipped
that they may be favourable, and supplication is made in the same way to
the others, on the contrary, that they may not be injurious, it follows
that it should be understood that the propitious deities will show no
favour if they receive no gifts, and become bad instead of good;(3) while,
on the contrary, the bad, if they receive offerings, will lay aside their
mischievous disposition, and become thereafter good: and thus it is brought
to this issue, that neither are these propitious, nor are those sinister:
or, which is impossible, both are propitious, and both again sinister.

   24. Be it so; let it be conceded that these most unfortunate cattle are
not sacrificed in the temples of the gods without some religious
obligation, and that what has been dome in accordance with usage and custom
possesses some rational ground: but if it seems a great and grand thing to
slay bulls to the gods, and to burn in sacrifice the flesh of animals whole
and entire, what is the meaning of these relics connected with the arts of
the Magi which the pontifical mysteries have restored to a place among the
secret laws of the sacred rites, and have mixed up with religious affairs?
What, I say, is the meaning of these things, apexaones, hircioe,
silicernia, longavi, which are names and kinds of sausages,(4) some stuffed
with goats' blood,(5) others with minced liver? What is the meaning of toe-
doe, uoenioe, offoe, not those used by the common people, but those named
and called offoe penitoe?--of which the first(6) is fat cut into very small
pieces, as dainties(7) are; that which has been placed second is the
extension of the gut by which the excrements are given off after being
drained of all their nourishing juices; while the offa penita is a beast's
tail cut off with a morsel of flesh. What is the meaning of polimina,
omenta, palasea, or, as some call it, plasea?--of which that named omentum
is a certain part enclosed by the reservoirs of the belly are kept within
bounds; the plasea is an ox's tail(8) besmeared with flour and blood; the
polimina, again, are those parts which we with more decency call proles,--
by the vulgar, however, they are usually termed testes. What is the meaning
of fitilla, frumen, africia, gratilla, catumeum, cumspolium, cubula?--of
which the first two are names of species of pottage, but differing in kind
and quality; while the series of names which follows denotes consecrated
cakes, for they are not shaped in one and the same way. For we do not
choose to mention the caro strebula which is taken from the haunches of
bulls, the roasted pieces of meat which are spitted, the intestines first
heated, and baked on glowing coals, nor, finally, the pickles(9) which are
made by mixing four kinds of fruit. In like manner, we do not choose to
mention the fendicoe, which also are the hiroe,(10) which the language of
the mob, when it speaks, usually terms ilia;(11) nor, in the same way, the
oerumnaoe,(12) which are the first part of the gullet,(13) where ruminating
animals are accustomed to send down their food and bring it back again; nor
the magmenta,(14) augmina, and thousand other kinds of sausages or pottages
which you have given unintelligible names to, and have caused to be more
revered by common people.

   25. For if whatever is done by men, and especially in religion, should
have its causes,--and nothing should be done without a reason in all that
men do and perform,--tell us and say what is the cause. what the reason,
that these things also are given to the gods and burned upon their sacred
altars? For here we delay, constrained most urgently to wait for this
cause, we pause, we stand fast, desiring to learn what a god has to do with
pottage, with cakes, with different kinds of stuffing prepared in manifold
ways, and with different ingredients? Are the deities affected by splendid
dinners or luncheons, so that it is fitting to devise for them feasts
without number? Are they troubled by the loathings of their stomachs, and
is variety of flavours sought for to get rid of their aversion, so that
there is set before them meat at one thee roasted, at another raw, and at
another half cooked and half raw? But if the gods like to receive all these
parts which you term proesicioe,(1) and if these gratify them with any
sense of pleasure or delight, what prevents, what hinders you from laying
all these upon their altars at once with the whole animals? What cause,
what reason is there that the haunch-piece(2) by itself, the gullet, the
tail, and the tail-piece(3) separately, the entrails only, and the
membrane(4) alone, should be brought to do them honour? Are the gods of
heaven moved by various condiments? After stuffing themselves with
sumptuous and ample dinners, do they, as is usually done, take these little
bits as sweet dainties, not to appease their hunger, but to rouse their
wearied palates,(5) and excite in themselves a perfectly voracious
appetite? O wonderful greatness of the gods, comprehended by no men,
understood by no creatures! if indeed their favours are bought with the
testicles and gullets of beasts, and if they do not lay aside their auger
and resentment, unless they see the entrails(6) prepared and offoe bought
and burned upon their altars.

   26. We have now to say a few words about incense and wine, for these,
too, are connected and mixed up with your ceremonies,(7) and are used
largely in your religious acts. And, first, with respect to that very
incense which you use, we ask this of you particularly, whence or at what
thee you have been able to become acquainted with it, and to know it, so
that you have just reason to think that it is either worthy to be given to
the gods, or most agreeable to their desires. For it is almost a novelty;
and there is no endless succession of years since it began to be known in
these parts, and won its way into the shrines of the gods. For neither in
the heroic ages, as it is believed and declared, was it known what incense
was, as is proved by the ancient writers, in whose books is found no
mention(8) of it; nor was Etruria, the parent and mother of superstition,
acquainted with its fame and renown, as the rites of the chapels prove; nor
was it used by any one in offering sacrifice during the four hundred years
in which Alba flourished; nor did even Romulus or Numa, who was skilful in
devising new ceremonies, know either of its existence or growth, as the
sacred grits(9) show with which it was customary that the usual sacrifices
should be performed. Whence, therefore, did its use begin to be adopted? or
what desire of novelty assailed the old and ancient custom, so that that
which was not needed for so many ages took the first place in the
ceremonies? For if without incense the performance of a religious service
is imperfect, and if a quantity of it is necessary to make the celestials
gentle and propitious to men, the ancients fell into sin, nay rather, their
whole life was full of guilt, for they carelessly neglected to offer that
which was most fitted to give pleasure to the gods. But if in ancient times
neither men nor gods sought for this incense, it is proved that to-day also
that is offered uselessly and in vain which antiquity did not believe
necessary, but modern times desired without any reason.(10)

   27. Finally, that we may always abide by the rule and definition by
which it has been shown and determined that whatever is done by man must
have its causes, we will hold it fast here also, so as to demand of you
what is the cause, what the reason, that incense is put on the altars
before the very images of the deities, and that, from its being burned,
they are supposed to become friendly and gentle. What do they acquire from
this being done, or what reaches their minds, so that we should be fight in
judging that these things are well expended, and are not consumed uselessly
and in vain? For as you should show why you give incense to the gods, so,
too, it follows that you should manifest that the gods have some reason for
not rejecting it with disdain, nay more, for desiring it so fondly. We
honour the gods with this, some one will perhaps say. But we are not
inquiring what your feeling  is, but the gods'; nor do we ask what is done
by  you, but how much they value what is done to purchase their favour. But
yet, O piety, what or how great is this honour which is caused by the odour
of a fire, and produced from the gum of a tree? For, lest you should happen
not to know what this incense is, or what is its origin, it is a gum
flowing from the bark of trees, just as from the almond-tree, the cherry-
tree, solidifying as it exudes in drops. Does this, then, honour and
magnify the celestial dignities? or, if their displeasure has been at any
thee excited, is it melted away before the smoke of incense, and lulled to
sleep, their anger being moderated? Why, then, do you not burn
indiscriminately the juice of any tree whatever, without making any
distinction? For if the deities are honoured by this, and are not
displeased that Panchaean gums are burned to them, what does it matter from
what the smoke proceeds on your sacred altars, or from what kind of gum the
clouds of fumigation arise?

   28. Will any one say that incense is given to the celestials, for this
reason, that it has a sweet smell, and imparts a pleasant sensation to the
nose, while the rest are disagreeable, and have been set aside because of
their offensiveness? Do the gods, then, have nostrils with which to
breathe? do they inhale and respire currents of air so that the qualities
of different smells can penetrate them? But if we allow that this is the
case, we make them subject to the conditions of humanity, and shut them out
from the limits of deity; for whatever breathes and draws in draughts of
air, to be sent back in the same way, must be mortal, because it is
sustained by feeding on the atmosphere. But whatever is sustained by
feeding on the atmosphere, if you take away the means by which
communication is kept up,(1) its life must be crushed out, and its vital
principle must be destroyed and lost. So then, if the gods also breathe and
inhale odours enwrapt in the air that accompanies them, it is not untrue to
say that they live upon what is received from others,(2) and that they
might perish if their air-holes were blocked up. And whence, lastly, do you
know whether, if they are charmed by the sweetness of smells, the same
things are pleasant to them which are pleasant to you, and charm and affect
your different natures with a similar feeling? May it not be possible that
the things which give pleasure to you, seem, on the contrary, harsh and
disagreeable to them? For since the opinions of the gods are not the same,
and their substance not one, by what methods can it be brought about that
that which is unlike in quality should have the same feeling and perception
as to that which touches it.(3) Do we not every day see that, even among
the creatures sprung from the earth, the same things are either bitter or
sweet to different species, that to some things are fatal which are not
pernicious to others, so that the same things which charm some with their
delightful odours, give forth exhalations deadly to the bodies of others?
But the cause of this is not in the things which cannot be at one and the
same thee deadly and wholesome, sweet and bitter; but just as each one has
been formed to receive impressions from what is external,(4) so he is
affected:(5) his condition is not caused by the influences of the things,
but springs from the nature of his own senses, and connection with the
external. But all this is set far from the gods, and is separated from them
by no small interval. For if it is true, as  is believed by the wise, that
they are incorporeal, and not supported by any excellence of bodily
strength, an odour is of no effect upon them, nor can reeking fumes move
them by their senses, not even if you were to set on fire a thousand pounds
of the finest incense, and the whole sky were clouded with the darkness of
the abundant vapours. For that which does not have bodily strength and
corporeal substance, cannot be touched by corporeal substance; but an odour
is corporeal, as is shown by the nose when touched by one: therefore it
cannot, according to reason, be felt by a deity, who has no body, and is
without any feeling and thought.(6)

   29. Wine is used along with incense; and of this, in like manner, we
ask an explanation why it is poured upon it when burning. For if a reason
is not(7) shown for doing this, and its cause is not(8) set forth, this
action of yours must not now be attributed to a ridiculous error, but, to
speak more plainly, to madness, foolishness, blindness. For, as has been
already said pretty frequently, everything which is done should have its
cause manifest, and not involved in any dark obscurity. If, therefore, you
have confidence in what is done, disclose, point out why that liquor is
offered; that is, why wine is poured on the altars. For do the bodies of
the deities feel parching thirst, and is it necessary that their dryness be
tempered by some moisture? Are they accustomed, as men are, to combine
eating and drinking? In like manner, also, after the solid(9) food of cakes
and pottages, and victims slain in honour of them, do they drench
themselves, and make themselves merry with very frequent cups of wine, that
their food may be more easily softened, and thoroughly digested? Give, I
beg, to the immortal gods to drink; bring forth goblets, bowls,(10) ladles,
and cups; and as they stuff themselves with bulls, and luxurious feasts,
and rich food,--lest some piece of flesh hastily(11) gulped down should
stick in passing through the stomach, run up, hasten, give pure wine to
Jupiter, the most excellent, the supreme, lest he be choked. He desires to
break wind, and is unable; and unless that hindrance passes away and is
dissolved, there is very great danger that his breathing will be stopped
and(1) interrupted, and heaven be left desolate without its rulers.

   30. But, says my opponent, you are insulting us without reason, for we
do not pour forth wine to the gods of heaven for these reasons, as if we
supposed that they either thirsted, or drank, or were made glad by tasting
its sweetness. It is given to them to do them honour; that their eminence
may become more exalted, more illustrious, we pour libations on their
altars, and with the half-extinguished embers we raise sweet smells,(2)
which show our reverence. And what greater insult can be inflicted upon the
gods than if you believe that they become propitious on receiving wine, or,
if you suppose that great honour is done to them, if you only throw and
drop on the live coals a few drops of wine? We are not speaking to men void
of reason, or not possessed of common understanding: in you, too, there is
wisdom, there is perception, and in your hearts you know, by your own(3)
judgment, that we are speaking truly. But what can we do with those who are
utterly unwilling to consider things as they are, to converse themselves
with themselves? For you do what you see to be done, not that which you are
assured should be done, inasmuch(4) as with you a custom without reason
prevails, more than a perception of the nature of circumstances based on a
careful examination of the truth. For what has a god to do with wine? or
what or how great is the power in it, that, on its being poured out, his
eminence becomes greater, and his dignity is supposed to be honoured? What,
I say, has a god to do with wine, which is most closely connected with the
pursuits of Venus, which weakens the strength of all virtues, and is
hostile to the decency of modesty and chastity,--which has often excited
men's minds, and urged them to madness and frenzy, and compelled the gods
to destroy their own authority by raving and foul language? Is not this,
then, impious, and perfectly sacrilegious, to give that as an honour which,
if you take too eagerly, you know not what you are doing, you are ignorant
of what you are saying, and at last are reviled, and become infamous as a
drunkard, a luxurious and abandoned fellow?

   31. It is worth while to bring forward the words themselves also,
which, when wine is offered, it is customary to use and make supplication
with: "Let the deity be worshipped with this wine which we bring."(5) The
words "which we bring," says Trebatius, are added for this purpose, and put
forth for this reason, that all the wine whatever which has been laid up in
closets and storerooms, from which was taken that which is poured out, may
not begin to be sacred, and be reft from the use of men. This word, then,
being added, that alone will be sacred which is brought to the place, and
the rest will not be consecrated.(6) What kind of honour, then, is this, in
which there is imposed on the deity a condition,(7) as it were, not to ask
more than has been given? or what is the greed of the god, who, if he were
not verbally interdicted, would extend his desires too far, and rob his
suppliant of his stores? "Let the deity be worshipped with this wine which
we bring:" this is a wrong, not an honour. For what if the deity shall wish
for more, and shall not be content with what is brought! Must he not be
said to be signally wronged who is compelled to receive honour
conditionally? For if all wine in cellars whatever must become consecrated
were a limitation not added, it is manifest both that the god is insulted
to whom a limit is prescribed against his wishes, and that in sacrificing
you yourselves violate the obligations of the sacred rites, who do not give
as much wine as you see the god wishes to be given to himself. "Let the
deity be worshipped with this wine which we bring:" what is this but
saying, "Be worshipped as much as I choose; receive as much dignity as I
prescribe, as much honour as I decide and determine by a strict
engagement(8) that you should bare?" O sublimity of the gods, excelling in
power, which thou shouldst venerate and worship with all ceremonial
observances, but on which the worshipper imposes conditions, which he
adores with stipulations and contracts, which, through fear of one word, is
kept from excessive desire of wine!

   32. But let there be, as you wish, honour in wine and in incense, let
the auger and displeasure of the deities be appeased by the immolation and
slaughter of victims: are the gods moved by garlands also, wreaths and
flowers, by the jingling of brass also, and the shaking of cymbals, by
timbrels also, and also by symphonious pipes?(9) What effect has the
clattering of castanets, that when the deities have heard them, they think
that honour has been shown to them, and lay aside their fiery spirit of
resentment in forgetfulness? Or, as little boys are frightened into giving
over their silly wailings by hearing the sound of rattles, are the almighty
deities also soothed in the same way by the whistling of pipes? and do they
become mild, is their indignation softened, at the musical sound of
cymbals? What is the meaning of those calls(1) which you sing in the
morning, joining your voices to the music of the pipe? Do the gods of
heaven fall asleep, so that they should return to their posts? What is the
meaning of those slumbers(1) to which you commend them with auspicious
salutations that they may be in good health? Are they awakened from sleep;
and that they may be able to be overcome by it, must soothing lullabies be
heard? The purification, says my opponent, of the mother of the gods is to-
day.(2) Do the gods, then, become dirty; and to get rid of the filth, do
those who wash them need water, and even some cinders to rub them with?(3)
The feast of Jupiter is to-morrow. Jupiter, I suppose, dines, and must be
satiated with great banquets, and long filled with eager cravings for food
by fasting, and hungry after the usual(4) interval. The vintage festival of
Aesculapius is being celebrated. The gods, then, cultivate vineyards, and,
having collected gatherers, press the wine for their own uses.(5) The
lectisternium of Ceres(6) will be on the next Ides, for the gods have
couches; and that they may be able to lie on softer cushions, the pillows
are shaken up when they have been pressed down.(7) It is the birthday of
Tellus;(8) for the gods are born, and have festal days on which it has been
settled that they began to breathe.

   33. But the games which you celebrate, called Floralia and
Megalensia,(9) and all the rest which you wish to be sacred, and to be
considered religious duties, what reason have they, what cause, that it was
necessary that they should be instituted and founded anti designated by the
names(10) of deities? The gods are honoured by these, says thy opponent;
and if they have any recollection of offences committed(11) by men, they
lay it aside, get rid of it, and show themselves gracious to us again,
their friendship being renewed. And what is the cause, again, that they are
made quite calm and gentle, if absurd things are done, and idle fellows
sport before the eyes of the multitude? Does Jupiter lay aside his
resentment if the Amphitryon of Plautus is acted and declaimed? or if
Europa, Leda, Ganymede, or Danae is represented by dancing does he restrain
his passionate impulses? Is the Great Mother rendered more calm, more
gentle, if she beholds the old story of Attis furbished up by the players?
Will Venus forget her displeasure if she sees mimics act the part of Adonis
also in a ballet?(12) Does the anger of Aleides die away if the tragedy of
Sophocles named Trachinioe, or the Hercules of Euripides, is acted? or does
Flora think(13) that honour is shown to her if at her games she sees that
shameful actions are done, and the stews abandoned for the theatres? Is not
this, then, to lessen the dignity of the gods, to dedicate and consecrate
to them the basest things which a rigidly virtuous mind will turn from with
disgust, the performers of which your law has decided to be dishonoured and
to be considered infamous? The gods, forsooth, delight in mimics; and that
surpassing excellence which has not been comprehended by any bureau
faculty, opens(14) its ears most willingly to hear these plays, with most
of which they know they are mixed up to be turned to derision; they are
delighted, as it is, with the shaved heads of the fools, by the sound of
flaps, and by the noise of applause, by shameful actions and words, by huge
red fascina. But further, if they see men weakening themselves to the
effeminacy of women, some vociferating uselessly, others running about
without cause,(15) others, while their friendship is unbroken, bruising and
maiming each with the bloody cestus, these contending in speaking without
drawing breath,(16) swelling out their cheeks with wind, and shouting out
noisily empty vows, do they lift up their hands to heaven in their
admiration, start up moved by such wonders, burst into exclamations, again
become gracious to men? If these things cause the gods to forget their
resentment, if they derive the highest pleasure from comedies, Atellane
farces, and pantomimes, why do you delay, why do you hesitate, to say that
the gods themselves also play, act lasciviously, dance, compose obscene
songs, and undulate with trembling haunches? For what difference is there,
or what does it matter, whether they do these things themselves, or are
pleased and delighted to see them done by others?

   34. Whence, therefore, have these vicious opinions flowed, or from what
causes have they sprung? From this it is clear, in great measure, that men
are unable to know what God is, what is His essence, nature, substance,
quality; whether He has a form, or is limited by no bodily outline, does
anything or not, is ever watchful, or is at times sunk in slumbers, runs,
sits, walks, or is free from such motions and inactivity. Being, as I have
said, unable to know all these things, or to discern them by any power of
reason, they fell into these fanciful beliefs, so that they fashioned gods
after themselves, and gave to these such a nature as they have themselves,
in actions, circumstances, and desires. But if they were to perceive that
they are worthless creatures,(1) and that there is no great difference
between themselves and a little ant, they would cease, indeed, to think
that they have anything in common with the gods of heaven, and would
confine their unassuming insignificance(2) within its proper limits. But
now, because they see that they themselves have faces, eyes, heads, cheeks,
ears, noses, and all the other parts of our limbs and muscles, they think
that the gods also have been formed in the same way, that the divine nature
is embodied in a human frame;(3) and because they perceive that they
themselves rejoice and are glad, and again are made sad by what is too
disagreeable, they think that the deities also on joyous occasions are
glad, and on less pleasant ones become dejected. They see that they are
affected by the games, and think that the minds of the celestials are
soothed by enjoying games; and because they have pleasure in refreshing
themselves with warm baths, they think that the cleanness produced by(4)
bathing is pleasing to the gods above. We men gather our vintages, and they
think and believe that the gods gather and bring in their grapes; we have
birthdays, and they affirm that the powers of heaven have birthdays.(5) But
if they could ascribe to the gods ill-health, sickness, and bodily disease,
they would not hesitate to say that they were splenetic, blear-eyed, and
ruptured, because they are themselves both splenetic, and often blear-eyed,
and weighed down by huge hernice.

   35. Come now: as the discussion has been prolonged and led to these
points, let us, bringing forward what each has to say,(6) decide by a brief
comparison whether your ideas of the gods above are the better, or our
thoughts preferable, and much more honourable and just, and such as to give
and assign its own dignity to the divine nature. And, first, you declare
that the gods, whom you either think or believe to exist, of whom you have
set up images and statues in all the temples, were born and produced from
the germs of males and females, under the necessary condition of sexual
embraces. But we, on the contrary, if they are indeed true gods, and have
the authority, power, dignity of this name, consider that they must either
be unbegotten, for it is pious to believe this, or, if they have a
beginning in(7) birth, it belongs to the supreme God to know by what
methods He made them, or how many ages there are since He granted to them
to enter upon the eternal being of His own divine nature. You consider that
the deities have sexes, and that some of them are male, others female; we
utterly deny that the powers of heaven have been distinguished by sexes,
since this distinction has been given to the creatures of earth which the
Author of the universe willed should embrace and generate, to provide, by
their carnal desires, one generation of offspring after another. You think
that they are like men, and have been fashioned with the countenances of
mortals; we think that the images of them are wide of the mark,(8) as form
belongs to a mortal body; and if they have any, we swear with the utmost
earnestness and confidence that no man can comprehend it. By you they are
said to have each his trade, like artisans; we laugh when we hear you say
such things, as we hold and think that professions are not necessary to
gods, and it is certain and evident that these have been provided to assist
poverty.

   36.(9) You say that some of them cause dissensions, that there are
others who inflict pestilences, others who excite love and madness, others,
even, who preside over wars, and are delighted by the shedding of blood;
but we, indeed, on the contrary, judge that these things are remote(10)
from the dispositions of the deities; or if there are any who inflict and
bring these ills on miserable mortals, we maintain that they are far from
the nature of the gods, and should not be spoken of under this name. You
judge that the deities are angry and perturbed, and given over and subject
to the other mental affections; we think that such emotions are alien from
them, for these suit savage beings, and those who die as mortals.(1) You
think that they rejoice, are made glad, and are reconciled to men, their
offended feelings being soothed by the blood of beasts and the slaughter of
victims; we hold that there is in the celestials no love of blood, and that
they are not so stern as to lay aside their resentment only when glutted
with the slaughter of animals. You think that, by wine and incense, honour
is given to the gods, and their dignity increased; we judge it marvellous
and monstrous that any man thinks that the deity either becomes more
venerable by reason of smoke,(2) or thinks himself supplicated by men with
sufficient awe and respect when they offer(3) a few drops of wine. You are
persuaded that, by the crash of cymbals and the sound of pipes, by horse-
races and theatrical plays, the gods are both delighted and affected, and
that their resentful feelings conceived before(4) are mollified by the
satisfaction which these things give; we hold it to be out of place, nay
more, we judge it incredible, that those who have surpassed by a thousand
degrees every kind of excellence in the height of their perfection, should
be pleased and delighted with those things which a wise man laughs at, and
which do not seem to have any charm except to little children, coarsely and
vulgarly educated.

   37. Since these things are so, and since there is so great difference
between(3) our opinions and yours, where are we, on the one hand, impious,
or you pious, since the decision as to(3) piety and impiety must be founded
on the opinions of the two parties? For he who makes himself an image which
he may worship for a god, or slaughters an innocent beast, and burns it on
consecrated altars, must not be held to be devoted to religion.(5) Opinion
constitutes religion, and a right way of thinking about the gods, so that
you do not think that they desire anything contrary to what becomes their
exalted position, which is manifest.(6) For since we see all the things
which are offered to them consumed here under our eyes, what else can be
said to reach them from us than opinions worthy of the gods, and most
appropriate to their name? These are the surest gifts, these true
sacrifices; for gruel, incense, and flesh feed the devouring flames, and
agree very well with the parentalia(7) of the dead.

   38.(8) If the immortal gods cannot be angry, says my opponent, and
their nature is not agitated or troubled by any passions, what do the
histories, the annals mean, in which we find it written(9) that the gods,
moved by some annoyances, occasioned pestilences, sterility,(10) failure of
crops, and other dangers, to states and nations; and that they again, being
appeased and satisfied by means of(11) sacrifices, laid aside their burning
anger, and changed the state of the atmosphere and times into a happier
one? What is the meaning of the earth's roarings, the earthquakes, which we
have been told occurred because the games had been celebrated carelessly,
and their nature and circumstances had not been attended to, and yet, on
their being celebrated afresh, and repeated with assiduous care, the
terrors of the gods were stilled, and they were recalled to care and
friendship for men? How often, after that--in obedience to the commands of
the seers and the responses of the diviners--sacrifice has been offered,
and certain gods have been summoned from nations dwelling beyond the sea,
and shrines erected to them, and certain images and statues set on loftier
pillars, have fears of impending dangers been diverted, and the most
troublesome enemies beaten, and the republic extended both by repeated
joyous victories. and by gaining possession of several provinces! Now,
certainly this would not happen if the gods despised sacrifices, games, and
other acts of worship, and did not consider themselves honoured by
expiratory offerings. If, then, all the rage and indignation of the deities
are cooled when these things are offered, and those things become
favourable which seemed fraught with terrors, it is dear that all these
things are not done without the gods wishing them, and that it is vain, and
shows utter ignorance, to blame us for giving them.

   39.(12) We have come, then, in speaking, to the very point of the case,
to that on which the question hinges, to the real and most intimate part of
the discussion. which it is fitting that, laying aside superstitious dread,
and putting away partiality, we should examine whether these are or whether
they are something far different, and should be separated from the notion
of this name and power. For we do not deny that all these things are to be
found in the writings of the annalists which have been brought forward by
you in opposition; for we ourselves also, according to the measure and
capacity of our abilities, have read, and know, that it has been recorded
that once at the ludi circenses, celebrated in honour of Jupiter the
supreme, a master dragged across the middle of the arena, and  afterwards,
according to custom, punished with the cross, a very worthless slave whom
he had beaten with rods. Then, when the games were ended, and the races not
long finished, a pestilence began to distress the state; and when each day
brought fresh ill worse than what was before,(1) and the people were
perishing in crowds, in a dream Jupiter said to a certain rustic, obscure
from the lowliness of his lot, that he should go(2) to the consuls, point
out that the dancer(3) had displeased him, that it might be better for the
state if the respect due to the games were paid to them, and they were
again celebrated afresh with assiduous care. And when he had utterly
neglected to do this, either because he supposed it was an empty dream, and
would find no credence with those to whom he should tell it, or because,
remembering his natural insignificance, he avoided and dreaded approaching
those who were so powerful,(4) Jupiter was rendered hostile to the
lingerer, and imposed as punishment an him the death of his sons.
Afterwards, when he(5) threatened the man himself with death unless he went
to announce his disapproval of the dancer,--overcome by fear of dying,
since he was already himself also burning with the fever of the plague,
having been infected, he was carried to the senate-house, as his neighbours
wished, and, when his vision had been declared, the contagious fever passed
away. The repetition of the games being then decreed, great care was, on
the one hand, given to the shows, and its former good health was restored
to the people.

   40.(6) But neither shall we deny that we know this as well, that once
on a time, when the state and republic were in difficulties, caused either
by(7) a terrible plague continually infecting the people and carrying them
off, or by enemies powerful, and at that time almost threatening to  rob it
of its liberty(8) because of their success in: battle,--by order and advice
of the seers, certain gods(9) were summoned from among nations dwelling
beyond the sea, and honoured with magnificent temples; and that the
violence of the plague abated, and very frequent triumphs were gained, the
power of the enemy being broken, and the territory of the empire was
increased, and provinces without number fell under your sway. But neither
does this escape our knowledge, that we have seen it asserted that, when
the Capitol was struck by a thunderbolt, and many other things in it, the
image of Jupiter also, which stood on a lofty pillar, was hurled from its
place. Thereafter a response was given by the soothsayers, that cruel and
very sad mischances were portended from fire and slaughter, from the
destruction of the laws, and the overthrow of justice, especially, however,
from enemies themselves belonging to the nation, and from an impious band
of conspirators; but that these things could not be averted, nay, that the
accursed designs could not be revealed, unless Jupiter were again set up
firmly on a higher pillar, turned towards the east, and facing the rays of
the rising sun. Their words were trustworthy, for, when the pillar was
raised, and the statue turned towards the sun, the secrets were revealed,
and the offences made known were punished.

   41.(10) All these things which have been mentioned, have indeed a
miraculous appearance,--rather, they are believed to have it,--if they come
to men's ears just as they have been brought forward; and we do not deny
that there is in them something which, being placed in the fore front, as
the saying is, may stun the ears, and deceive by its resemblance to truth.
But if you will look closely at what was done, the personages and their
pleasures,(11) you will find that there is nothing worthy of the gods, and,
as has already been said often, nothing worthy to be referred to the
splendour and majesty of this race. For, first, who is there who will
believe that he was a god who was pleased with horses running to no
purpose,(12) and considered it most delightful that he should be
summoned(13) by such sports? Rather, who is there who will agree that that
was Jupiter--whom you call the supreme god, and the creator of all things
which are--who set out from heaven to behold geldings vieing with each
other in speed, and running(14) the seven rounds of the course; and that,
although he had himself determined that they should not be equally nimble,
he nevertheless rejoiced to see them pass each other, and be passed, some
in their haste falling forward upon their heads, and overturned upon their
backs along with their chariots, others dragged along and lamed, their legs
being broken; and that he considered as the highest pleasures fooleries
mixed with trifles and cruelties, which any man, even thought fond of
pleasure, and not trained to strive after seriousness and dignity,  would
consider childish, and spurn as ridiculous?  Who is there, I say, who will
believe--to repeat  this word assiduously--that he was divine who, being
irritated because a slave was led across the circus, about to suffer and be
punished as he deserved, was inflamed with anger, anal prepared himself to
take vengeance? For if the slave was guilty, and deserved to be punished
with that chastisement, why should Jupiter have been moved with any
indignation when nothing was being done unjustly, nay, when a guilty fellow
was being punished, as was right? But if he was free from guilt, and not
worthy of punishment at all, Jupiter himself was the cause of the dancer's
vitiating the games,(1) for when he might have helped him, he did him no
service--nay, sought both to allow what he disapproved, and to exact from
others the penalty for what he had permitted. And why, then, did he
complain and declare that he was wronged in the case of that dancer because
he was led through the midst of the circus to suffer the cross, with his
back torn by rods and scourges?

   42.(2) And what pollution or abomination could have flowed from this,
either to make the circus less pure, or to defile Jupiter, seeing that in a
few moments, in a few seconds, he beheld so many thousands throughout the
world perish by different kinds of death, and with various forms of
torture? He was led across, says my opponent, before the games began to be
celebrated. If from a sacrilegious spirit and contempt(3) for religion, we
have reason to excuse Jupiter for being indignant that he was contemned,
and that more anxious care was not given to his games. But if from mistake
or accident that secret fault was not observed and known, would it not have
beer right and befitting Jupiter to pardon human failings, and grant
forgiveness to the blindness of ignorance? But it was necessary that it
should be punished. And after this, will any one believe that he was a god
who avenged and punished neglect of a childish show by the destruction of a
state? that he had any seriousness and dignity, or any steady constancy,
who, that he might speedily enjoy pleasure afresh, turned the air men
breathed(4) into a baneful poison, and ordered the destruction of mortals
by plague and pestilence? If the magistrate who presided over the ganges
was too careless in learning who on that day had been led across the
circus, and blame was therefore contracted, what had the unhappy people
done that they should in their own persons suffer the penalty of another's
offences, and should be forced to hurry out of life by contagious
pestilences? Nay, what had the women, whose weakness did not allow them to
take part in public business, the grown-up(5) maidens, the little boys,
finally the young children, yet dependent for food on their nurses,--what
had these done that they should be assailed with equal, with the same
severity, and that before they tasted the joy of life(6) they should feel
the bitterness of death?

   43.(7) If Jupiter sought to have his games celebrated, and that
afresh,(8) with greater care; if he honestly sought to restore(9) the
people to health, and that the evil which he had caused should go no
further and not be increased, would it not have been better that he should
come to the consul himself, to some one of the public priests, the pontifex
maximus, or to his own flamen Dialis, and in a vision reveal to him the
defect in the games occasioned by the dancer, and the cause of the sadness
of the times? What reason had there been that he should choose, to announce
his wishes and procure the satisfaction desired, a man accustomed to live
in the country, unknown from the obscurity of his name, not acquainted with
city matters, and perhaps not knowing what a dancer is? And if he indeed
knew, as he must have known if he was a diviner,(10) that this fellow would
refuse to obey, would it not have been more natural and befitting a god, to
change the man's mind, and constrain him to be willing to obey, than to try
more cruel methods, and vent his rage indiscriminately, without any reason,
as robbers do? For if the old rustic, not being quick in l entering upon
anything, delayed in doing what was commanded, being kept back by stronger
motives, of what had his unhappy children been guilty, that Jupiter's anger
and indignation should he turned upon them, and that they should pay for
another's offences by being robbed of their lives? And can any man believe
that he is a god who is so unjust, so impious, and who does not observe
even the laws of men, among whom it would be held a great crime to punish
one for another, and to avenge one man's offences upon others?(11) But, I
am told, he caused the man himself to be seized by the cruel pestilence.
Would it not then have been better, nay rather, juster, if it seemed that
this should be done, that dread of punishment should be first excited by
the father, who(1) had been the cause of such passion by(2) his disobedient
delay, than to do violence to the children, and to consume and destroy
innocent persons to make him sorrowful?(3) What, pray, was the meaning of
this fierceness, this cruelty, which was so great that, his offspring being
dead, it afterwards terrified the father by his own danger! But if he had
chosen to do this long before, that is, in the first place, not only would
not the innocent brothers have been cut off, but the indignant purpose of
the deity also would have been known. But certainly, it will be said, when
he had done his duty by announcing the vision, the disease immediately left
him, and the man was forthwith restored to health. And what is there to
admire in this if he removed(4) the evil which he had himself breathed into
the man, and vaunted himself with false pretence? But if you weigh the
circumstances thoroughly, there was greater cruelty than kindness in his
deliverance, for Jupiter did not preserve him to the joys of life who was
miserable and wishing to perish after his children, but to learn his
solitariness and the agonies of bereavement.

   44.(5) In like manner we might go through the other narratives, and
show that in these also, and in expositions of these, something far
different from what the gods should be is said and declared about them, as
in this very story which I shall next relate, one or two only being added
to it, that disgust may not be produced by excess.(6) After certain gods
were brought from among nations dwelling beyond the sea, you say, and after
temples were built to them, after their altars were heaped with sacrifices,
the plague-stricken people grew strong and recovered, and the pestilence
fled before the soundness of health which arose. What gods, say, I beseech?
Aesculapius, you say, the god of health, from Epidaurus, and now settled in
the island in the middle of the Tiber. If we were disposed to be very
scrupulous in dealing with your assertions, we might prove by your own
authority that he was by no means divine who had been conceived and born
from a woman's womb, who bad by yearly stages reached that term of life at
which, as is related in your books, a thunderbolt drove him at once from
life and light. But we leave this question: let the son of Coronis be, as
you wish, one of the immortals, and possessed of the everlasting
blessedness(7) of heaven. From Epidaurus, however, what was brought except
an enormous serpent? If we trust the annals, and ascribe to them well-
ascertained truth, nothing else, as it has been recorded. What shall we say
then? That Aesculapius, whom you extol, an excellent, a venerable god, the
giver of health, the averter, preventer, destroyer of sickness, is
contained within the form and outline of a serpent, crawling along the
earth as worms are wont to do, which spring from mud; he rubs the ground
with his chin and breast, dragging himself in sinuous coils; and that he
may be able to go forward, he draws on the last part of his body by the
efforts of the first.

   45.(8) And as we read that he used food also, by which bodily existence
is kept up, he has a large gullet, that he may gulp down the food sought
for with gaping mouth; he has a belly to receive it, and(9) a place where
he may digest the flesh which he has eaten and devoured, that blood may be
given to his body, and his strength recruited;(10) he has also a draught,
by which the filth is got rid of, freeing his body from a disagreeable
burden. Whenever he changes his place, and prepares to pass from one region
to another, he does not as a god fly secretly through the stars of heaven,
and stand in a moment where something requires his presence, but, just as a
dull animal of earth, he seeks a conveyance on which he may be borne; he
avoids the waves of the sea; and that he may be safe and sound, he goes on
board ship along with men; and that god of the common safety trusts himself
to weak planks and to sheets of wood joined together. We do not think that
you can prove and show that that serpent was Aesculapius, unless you choose
to bring forward this pretext, that you should say that the god changed
himself into a snake, in order that he might be able(11) to deceive men as
to himself, who he was, or to see what men were. But if you say this, the
inconsistency of your own statements will show how weak and feeble such a
defence is.(12) For if the god shunned being seen by men, he should not
have chosen to be seen in the form of a serpent, since in any form whatever
he was not to be other than himself, but always himself. But if, on the
other hand, he had been intent on allowing himself to be seen--he should
not have refused to allow men's eyes to look on him(1)--why did he not show
himself such as he knew that he was in his own divine power?(2) For this
was preferable, and much better, and more befitting his august majesty,
than to become a beast, and be changed into the likeness of a terrible
animal, and afford room for objections, which cannot be decided,(3) as to
whether he was a true god, or something different and far removed from the
exalted nature of deity.

   46.(4) But, says my opponent, if he was not a god, why, after he left
the ship, and crawled to the island in the Tiber, did he immediately become
invisible, and cease to be seen as before? Can we indeed know whether there
was anything in the way under cover of which he hid himself, or any opening
in the earth?  Do you declare, say yourselves, what that was, or to what
race of beings it should be referred, if your service of certain personages
is in itself certain.(5) Since the case is thus, and the discussion deals
with your deity, and your religion also, it is your part to teach, and
yours to show what that was, rather than to wish to hear our opinions and
to await our decisions. For we, indeed, what else can we say than that
which took place and was seen, which has been handed down in all the
narratives, and has been observed by means of the eyes? This, however,
undoubtedly we say was a colubra(6) of very powerful frame and immense
length, or, if the name is despicable, we say it was a snake,(7) we call it
a serpent,(8) or any other name which usage has afforded to us, or the
development of language devised. For if it crawled as a serpent, not
supporting itself and walking on feet,(9) but resting upon its belly and
breast; if, being made of fleshly substance, it lay stretched out in(10)
slippery length; if it had a head and tail, a back covered with scales,
diversified by spots of various colours; if it had a mouth bristling with
fangs, and ready to bite, what else can we say than that it was of earthly
origin, although of immense and excessive size, although it exceeded in
length of body and greatness of might that which was slain by Regulus by
the assault of his army? But if we think otherwise, we subvert(11) and
overthrow the truth. It is yours, then, to explain what that was, or what
was its origin, its name, and nature. For how could it have been a god,
seeing that it had those things which we have mentioned, which gods should
not have if they intend to be gods, and to possess this exalted title?
After it crawled to the island in the Tiber, forthwith it was nowhere to be
seen, by which it is shown that it was a deity. Can we, then, know whether
there was there anything in the way under cover of which it hid itself,(12)
or some opening in the earth, or some caverns and vaults, caused by huge
masses being heaped up irregularly, into which it hurried, evading the gaze
of the beholders? For what if it leaped across the river? what if it swam
across it? what if it hid itself in the dense forests? It is weak reasoning
from this,(13) to suppose that that serpent was a god because with all
speed it withdrew itself from the eyes of the beholders, since, by the same
reasoning, it can be proved, on the other hand, that it was not a god.

   47.(14) But if that snake was not a present deity, says my opponent,
why, after its arrival, was the violence of the plague overcome, and health
restored to the Roman people? We, too, on the other hand, bring forward the
question, If, according to the books of the fates and the responses of the
seers, the god Aesculapius was ordered to be invited to the city, that he
might cause it to be safe and sound from the contagion of the plague and of
pestilential diseases, and came without spurning the proposal
contemptuously, as you say, changed into the form of serpents,--why has the
Roman state been so often afflicted with such disasters, so often at one
time and another torn, harassed, and diminished by thousands, through the
destruction of its citizens times without number? For since the god is said
to have been summoned for this purpose, that he might drive away utterly
all the causes by which pestilence was excited, it followed that the state
should be safe, and should be always maintained free from pestilential
blasts, and unharmed. But yet we see, as was said before, that it has over
and over again had seasons made mournful by these diseases, and that the
manly vigour of its people has been shattered and weakened by no slight
losses. Where, then, was Aesculapius? where that deliverer promised by
venerable oracles? Why, after temples were built, and shrines reared to
him, did he allow a state deserving his favour to be any longer plague-
stricken, when he had been summoned for this purpose, that he should cure
the diseases which were raging, and not allow anything of the sort which
might be dreaded to steal on them afterwards?

   48.(1) But some one will perhaps say that the care of such a god has
been denied(2) to later and following ages, because the ways in which men
now live are impious and objectionable; that it brought help to our
ancestors, on the contrary, because they were blameless and guiltless. Now
this might perhaps have been listened to, and said with some
reasonableness, either if in ancient times all were good without exception,
or if later times produced(3) only wicked people, and no others.(4) But
since this is the case that in great peoples, in nations, nay, in all
cities even, men have been of mixed(5) natures, wishes, man-nets, and the
good and bad have been able to exist at the same time in former ages, as
well as in modern times, it is rather stupid to say that mortals of a later
day have not obtained the aid of the deities on account of their
wickedness. For if on account of the wicked of later generations the good
men of modern times have not been protected, on account of the ancient
evil-doers also the good of former times should in like manner not have
gained the favour of the  deities. But if on account of the good of ancient
times the wicked of ancient times were preserved also, the following age,
too, should have been protected, although it was faulty, on  account of the
good of later times. So, then, either that snake gained the reputation of
being a deliverer while he had been of no service at all, through his being
brought to the city when the violence of the disease(6) was already
weakened and impaired, or the hymns of the fates must be said to have been
far from giving(7) true indications, since the remedy given by them is
found to have been useful, not to all in succession, but to one age only.

   49.(8) But the Great Mother, also, says my opponent, being summoned
from Phrygian Pessinus in precisely the same way by command of the seers,
was a cause of safety and great joy to the people. For, on the one hand, a
long-powerful enemy was thrust out from the position he had gained in(9)
Italy; and, on the other, its ancient glory was restored to the city by
glorious and illustrious victories, and the boundaries of the empire were
extended far and wide, and their rights as freemen were torn from races,
states, peoples without number, and the yoke of slavery imposed on them,
and many other things acComplished at home and abroad established the
renown and dignity of the race with irresistible power. If the histories
tell the truth, and do not insert what is false in their accounts of
events, nothing else truly(10) is said to have been brought from Phrygia,
sent by King Attalus, than a stone, not large, which could be carried in a
man's hand without any pressure--of a dusky and black colour--not smooth,
but having little corners standing out, and which to-day we all see put in
that image instead of a face, rough and unhewn, giving to the figure a
countenance by no means lifelike.(11)

   50.(12) What shall we say then? Was Hannibal, that famous Carthaginian,
an enemy strong and powerful, before whom the fortunes of Rome trembled in
doubt and uncertainty, and its greatness shook--was he driven from Italy by
a stone?(13) was he subdued by a stone? was he made fearful, and timid, and
unlike himself by a stone? And with regard to Rome's again springing to the
height of power and royal supremacy, was nothing done by wisdom, nothing by
the strength of men;  and, in returning to its former eminence, was no
assistance given by so many and so great leaders by their military skill,
or by their acquaintance with affairs? Did the stone give strength to some,
feebleness to others? Did it hurl these down from success, raise the
fortunes of others which seemed hopelessly overthrown? And what man will
believe that a stone taken from the earth, having(14) no feeling, of sooty
colour and dark(15) body, was the mother of the gods? or who, again, would
listen to this,--for this is the only alternative,--that the power(16) of
any deity dwelt in pieces of flint, within(17) its mass,(18) and hidden in
its veins? And how was the victory procured if there was no deity in the
Pessinuntine stone? We may say, by the zeal and valour of the soldiers, by
practice, time, wisdom, reason; we may say, by fate also, and the
alternating fickleness of fortune. But if the state of affairs was
improved, and success and victory were regained, by the stone's assistance,
where was the Phrygian mother at the time when the commonwealth was bowed
down by the slaughter of so many and so great armies, and was in danger of
utter ruin? Why did she not thrust herself before the threatening, the
strong enemy? Why did she not crush and repel assaults(1) so terrible
before these awful blows fell, by which all the blood was shed, and the
life even failed, the vitals being almost exhausted? She had not been
brought yet, says my opponent, nor asked to show favour. Be it so;(2) but a
kind helper never requires to be asked, always offering assistance of his
own accord. She was not able, you say, to expel the enemy and put him to
flight, while still separated from Italy(3) by much sea and land. But to a
deity, if really one,(4) nothing whatever is remote, to whom the earth is a
point, and by whose nod all things have been established.

   51.(5) But suppose that the deity was present in that very stone, as
you demand should be believed: and what mortal is there, although he may be
credulous and very ready to listen to any fictions you please, who would
consider that she either was a goddess at that time, or should be now so
spoken of and named, who at one time desires these things, at another
requires those, abandons and despises her worshippers, leaves the humbler
provinces, and allies herself with more powerful and richer peoples,
truly(6) loves warfare, and wishes to be in the midst of battles,
slaughter, death, and blood? If it is characteristic of the gods--if only
they are true gods, and those who it is fitting should be named according
to the meaning of this word and the power of divinity--to do(7) nothing
wickedly, nothing unjustly, to show(7) themselves equally gracious to all
men without any partiality, would any man believe that she was of divine
origin, or showed s kindness worthy of the gods, who, mixing herself up
with the dissensions of men, destroyed the power of some, gave and showed
favour to others, bereft some of their liberty, raised others to the height
of power,--who, that one state might be pre-eminent, having been born to be
the bane of the human race, subjugated the guiltless world?

APPENDIX(1)

[Found in the MS. after the first sentence of ch. 44; almost certainly contains the corrections of Arnobius himself.]

   We do not deny that all these things which have been brought forward by
you in opposition are contained in the writings of the annalists. For we
have ourselves also, according to the measure and capacity of our powers,
read these same things, and know that they have been alleged; but the whole
discussion hinges upon this: whether these are gods who you assert are
furious when displeased, and are soothed by games and sacrifices, or are
something far different, and should be separated from the notion even of
this, and from its power.

   For who, in the first place, thinks or believes that those are gods who
are lost in joyful pleasure at theatrical shows(2) and ballets, at horses
running to no purpose; who set out from heaven to behold silly and insipid
acting, and grieve that they are injured, and that the honours due to them
are withheld if the pantomimist halts for a little, or the player, being
wearied, rests a little; who declare that the dancer has displeased them if
some guilty fellow passes through the middle of the circus to suffer the
penalty and punishment of his deeds? All which things, if they be sifted
thoroughly and without any partiality, will be found to be alien not only
to the gods, but to any man of refinement, even if he has not been trained
to the utmost gravity and self-control.(3)  For, in the first place, who is
there who would suppose that those had been, or believe that they are,
gods, who have a nature which tends to mischief and fury, and lay these(2)
aside again, being moved by a cup of blood and fumigation with incense; who
spend days of festivity, and find the liveliest pleasure in theatrical
shows(3) and ballets; who set out from heaven to see geldings running in
vain, and without any reason, and rejoice that some of them pass the rest,
that others are passed,(4) rush on, leaning forward, and, with their heads
towards the ground, are overturned on their backs with the chariots to
which they are yoked, are dragged along crippled, and limp with broken
legs; who declare that the dancer has displeased them if some wicked fellow
passes through the middle of the circus to suffer the punishment and
penalty of his deeds; who grieve that they are injured, and that the
honours due to them are withheld if the pantomimist halts for a little, the
player, being wearied, rests a little, that puer matrimus happens to fall,
stumbling through some(5) unsteadiness? Now, if all these things are
considered thoroughly and without any partiality, they are found to be
perfectly(6) alien not only to the character of the gods, but to that of
any man of common sense, even although he has not been trained to zealous
pursuit of truth by becoming acquainted with what is rational?


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 6, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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