 In the five former books I think I have sufficiently disputed against those who believe that the many false gods which the Christian truth shows to be useless images or unclean spirits and pernicious demons, or certainly creatures, not the Creator, are to be worshipped for the advantage of this mortal life and of terrestrial affairs with that right and service which the Greeks call Letreia, and which is due to the one true God. And who does not know that in the face of excessive stupidity and obstinacy, now that these five, nor any other number of books whatsoever could be enough, when it has esteemed the glory of vanity to yield to no amount of strength in the sight of truth, certainly to his destruction over whom so heinous a vice tyrannizes. For notwithstanding all the assiduity of the physician who attempts to effect a cure, the disease remains unconquered not through any fault of his, but because of the incurableness of the sick man. But those who thoroughly weigh the things which they read, having understood and considered them without any or with no great and excessive degree of that obstinacy which belongs to a long cherished error, will more readily judge that in the five books already finished we have done more than the necessity of the question demanded, than that we have given it less discussion than it required. And they cannot have doubted but that all the hatred which the ignorant attempt to bring upon the Christian religion on account of the disasters of this life, and the destruction and change which befall terrestrial things, whilst the learned do not merely dissimulate but encourage that hatred contrary to their own consciences being possessed by a mad impiety. They cannot have doubted, I say, but that this hatred is devoid of right reflection and reason, and full of most light temerity and most pernicious animosity. CHAPTER I Now as in the next place, as the promised order demands, those are to be refuted and taught, who contend that the gods of the nations which the Christian truth destroys are to be worshiped not on account of this life, but on account of that which is to be after death, I shall do well to commence my disputation with the truthful oracle of the Holy Psalm, blessed is the man whose hope is in the Lord God, and who respecteth not vanities and lying follies. Nevertheless, in all vanities and lying follies the philosophers are to be listened to with far more toleration, who have repudiated those opinions and errors of the people, for the people set up images to the deities, and are there feigned concerning those whom they call immortal gods many false and unworthy things, or believed them, already feigned, and when believed, mixed them up with their worship and sacred rites. With those men who, though not by free a vow of their convictions, do still testify that they disapprove of those things by their muttering disapprobation during disputations on the subject, it may not be very far amiss to discuss the following question. Whether for the sake of the life which is to be after death we ought to worship not the one God who made all creatures spiritual and corporeal, but those many gods who, as some of these philosophers hold, were made by that one God and placed by him in their respective sublime spheres, and are therefore considered more excellent and more noble than all the others. But who will assert that it must be affirmed and contended that those gods, certain of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book, to whom are distributed each to each the charges of minute things, do bestow eternal life? But will those most skilled and most acute men, who glory in having written for the great benefit of men, to teach on what account each God is to be worshipped, and what is to be sought from each, lest with most disgraceful absurdity, such as a mimic as want for the sake of merriment to exhibit, water should be sought from Lieber, wine from the limps? Will those men indeed affirm to any man supplicating the immortal gods that when he shall have asked wine from the limps, and they shall have answered him, we have water, we seek wine from Lieber, he may rightly say, if you have not wine, at least give me eternal life. What more monstrous than this absurdity? Will not these limps, for they are want to be very easily made laugh, laughing loudly, if they do not attempt to deceive like demons, answer the suppliant, O man, dost thou think that we have life, V. Tom, in our power, when thou who hear us have not even the vine, V. Tim? It is therefore most impudent folly to seek and hope for eternal life from such gods as are asserted so to preside over the separate minute concernments of this most sorrowful and short life, and whatever is useful for supporting and propping it, as that if anything which is under the care and power of one be sought from another, it is so incongruous and absurd that it appears very like to mimic drullery, which, when it is done by mimics knowing what they are doing, is deservedly laughed at in the theatre, but when it is done by foolish persons who do not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed in the world. For as concerns those gods which the states have established, it has been cleverly invented and handed down to memory by learned men what God or goddess is to be supplicated in relation to every particular thing, what for instance is to be sought from Lieber, what from the Limps, what from Vulcan, and so of all the rest, some of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have thought right to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from Ceres, bread from Lieber, water from Vulcan, fire from the Limps, how much greater absurdity ought it to be thought if supplication be made to any one of these for eternal life? Therefore, if when we were inquiring what gods or goddesses are to be believed to be able to confer earthly kingdoms upon men, all things having been discussed, it was shown to be very far from the truth to think that even terrestrial kingdoms, or established by any of those many false deities, is it not most insane impiety to believe that eternal life, which is without any doubt or comparison to be preferred to all terrestrial kingdoms, can be given to any one by any of these gods? For the reason why such gods seem to us not to be able to give even an earthly kingdom was not because they are very great and exalted, whilst that is something small and abject, which they, in their so great sublimity, would not condescend to care for, but because, however deservedly any one may, in consideration of human frailty, despise the falling pinnacles of an earthly kingdom, these gods have presented such an appearance as to seem most unworthy to have the granting and preserving of even those entrusted to them. And consequently, if, as we have taught in the two last books of our work, where this matter is treated of, no god out of all that crowd, either belonging to, as it were, the plebeian or to the noble gods, is fit to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how much less is he able to make immortals of mortals. And more than this, if, according to the opinion of those with whom we are now arguing, the gods are to be worshiped not on account of the present life, but of that which is to be after death, then certainly they are not to be worshiped on account of those particular things which are distributed and portioned out, not by any law of rational truth, but by mere vain conjecture to the power of such gods, as they believe they ought to be worshiped, who contend that their worship is necessary for all the desirable things of this mortal life, against whom I have disputed sufficiently, as far as I was able, in the five preceding books. These things being so, if the age itself of those who worshiped the goddess Juventus should be characterized by remarkable vigor, whilst her despisers should either die within the years of youth, or should during that period grow cold as with the torpor of old age. If bearded Fortuna should cover the cheeks of her worshipers more handsomely and more gracefully than all others, whilst we should see those by whom she was despised, either altogether beardless or ill-bearded, even then we should most rightly say that thus far these several gods had power, limited in some way by their functions, and that consequently neither ought eternal life to be sought from Juventus, who could not give a beard, nor ought any good thing after this life to be expected from Fortuna Barbata, who has no power even in this life to give the age itself at which the beard grows. But now, when their worship is necessary, not even on account of those very things which they think are subjected to their power, for many worshipers of the goddess Juventus have not been at all vigorous at that age, and many who do not worship her rejoice in youthful strength, and also many suppliants of Fortuna Barbata have either not been able to attain to any beard at all, not even an ugly one, although they who adore her in order to obtain a beard are ridiculed by her bearded despisers, is the human heart really so foolish as to believe that that worship of the gods, which it acknowledges to be vain and ridiculous with respect to those very temporal and swiftly passing gifts over each of which one of these gods is said to preside, is fruitful and results with respect to eternal life, and that they are able to give eternal life has not been affirmed even by those who that they might be worshipped by the silly populace distributed in minute division among them these temporal occupations that none of them might set idle, for they had supposed the existence of an exceedingly great number. Chapter 2 Who has investigated those things more carefully than Marcus Varo? Who has discovered them more learnedly? Who has considered them more attentively? Who has distinguished them more acutely? Who has written about them more diligently and more fully? Who, though he is less pleasing in his eloquence, is nevertheless so full of instruction and wisdom that in all the erudition which we call secular, but they liberal, he will teach the student of things as much as Cicero delights the student of words? And even Tully himself renders him such testimony as to say in his academic books that he had held that disputation, which is there carried on with Marcus Varo, a man he adds unquestionably the acutist of all men and without any doubt the most learned. He does not say the most eloquent or the most fluent, for in reality he was very deficient in this faculty, but he says of all men the most acute. And in those books, that is the academic, where he contends that all things are to be doubted, he adds of him without any doubt the most learned. In truth he was so certain concerning this thing that he laid aside that doubt which he is want to have recourse to in all things, as if when about to dispute in favor of the doubt of the academics he had with respect to this one thing forgotten that he was an academic. But in the first book, when he extols the literary works of the same Varo, he says, us straying and wandering in our own city like strangers, thy books, as it were, brought home, that at length we might come to know of who we were and where we were. Thou hast opened up to us the age of the country, the distribution of seasons, the law of sacred things and of the priests. Thou hast opened up to us domestic and public discipline. Thou hast pointed out to us the proper places for religious ceremonies, and hast informed us concerning sacred places. Thou hast shown us the names, kinds, offices, causes of all divine and human things. This man, then, of so distinguished and excellent requirements, and as Terentian briefly says of him in a most elegant verse, Varo, a man universally informed, who read so much that we wonder when he had time to write, wrote so much that we can scarcely believe any one could have read it all, this man, I say, so great and talent, so great in learning, had he had been an opposer and a destroyer of the so-called divine things of which he wrote, and had he said that they were pertained to superstition rather than to religion, might perhaps even in that case not have written so many things which are ridiculous, contemptible, detestable. But when he so worshipped these same gods, and so vindicated their worship, as to say in that same literary work of his that he was afraid, lest they should perish, not by an assault of enemies, but by the negligence of the citizens, and that from this ignominy they are being delivered by him, and are being laid up and preserved in the memory of the good by means of such books, with a zeal far more beneficial than that through which Metellus is declared to have rescued the sacred things of Vesta from the flames, and Aeneas to have rescued the penalties from the burning of Troy, and when he nevertheless gives forth such things to be read by succeeding ages as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be unfit to be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion, what ought we to think but that a most acute and learned man, not however made free by the Holy Spirit, was overpowered by the custom and laws of his state, and not being able to be silent about those things by which he was influenced, spoke of them under pretense of commending religion. Chapter 3 He wrote forty-one books of antiquities, these he divided into human and divine things. Twenty-five he devoted to human things, sixteen to divine things, following this plan in that division, namely to give six books to each of the four divisions of human things, for he directs his attention to these considerations, who perform, where they perform, when they perform, what they perform. Therefore, in the first six books he wrote concerning men, in the second six concerning places, in the third six concerning times, in the fourth and last six concerning things. Four times six, however, make only twenty-four, but he placed at the head of them one separate work which spoke of all these things conjointly. In divine things the same order he preserved throughout as far as concerns those things which are performed to the gods, for sacred things are performed by men in places and times. These four things I have mentioned he embraced in twelve books allotting three to each, for he wrote the first three concerning men, the following three concerning places, the third three concerning times, and the fourth three concerning sacred rites, showing who should perform, where they should perform, when they should perform, what they should perform, with most subtle distinction. But because it was necessary to say, and that especially was expected, to whom they should perform sacred rites, he wrote concerning the gods themselves the last three books, and these five times three made fifteen. But they are at all, as we have said, sixteen, for he put also at the beginning of these one distinct book, speaking by way of introduction of all which follows, which being finished he proceeded to subdivide the first three in that five-fold distribution which pertain to men, making the first concerning high priests, the second concerning augurs, the third concerning the fifteen men presiding over the sacred ceremonies. The second three he made concerning places, speaking in one of them concerning their chapels, in the second concerning their temples, and in the third concerning religious places. The next three which follow these, and pertain to times, that is, to festival days, he distributed so as to make one concerning holidays, the other concerning the circus games, and the third concerning scenic plays. Of the fourth three, pertaining to sacred things, he devoted one to consecrations, another to private, the last to public sacred rites. In the three which remain, the gods themselves follow this pompous train, as it were, for whom all this culture has been expended. In the first book are the certain gods, in the second the uncertain, in the third, and last of all, the chief and select gods. CHAPTER IV In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle distributions and distinctions, it will most easily appear evident from the things we have said already, and from what is to be said hereafter, to any man who is not, in the obstinacy of his heart, in enemy to himself, that it is vain to seek and to hope for, and even most impudent, to wish for eternal life. For these institutions are either the work of men or of demons, not of those whom they call good demons, but to speak more plainly of unclean and without controversy malign spirits, who with wonderful slainness and secretness suggest to the thoughts of the empires, and sometimes openly present to their understandings, noxious opinions, by which the human mind grows more and more foolish, and becomes unable to adapt itself to, and abide in, the immutable and eternal truth, and seek to confirm these opinions by every kind of fallacious attestation in their power. This very same varo testifies that he wrote first concerning human things, but afterwards concerning divine things, because the states existed first, and afterward these things were instituted by them. But the true religion was not instituted by any earthly state, but plainly it established the celestial city. It, however, is inspired and taught by the true God, the giver of eternal life to his true worshipers. The following is the reason varo gives when he confesses that he had written first concerning human things, and afterwards of divine things, because these divine things were instituted by men. As the painter is before the painted tablet, the mason before the edifice, so states are before those things which are instituted by states. But he says that he would have written first concerning the gods, afterwards concerning men, if he had been writing concerning the whole nature of the gods, as if he were really writing concerning some portion of, and not all, the nature of the gods, or as if indeed some portion of, though not all, the nature of the gods are not to be put before that of men. How then comes it that in those three last books, when he is diligently explaining the certain, uncertain, and select gods, he seems to pass over no portion of the nature of the gods? Why then does he say, if we had been writing on the whole nature of the gods, we would first have finished the divine things before we touched the human? For he either writes concerning the whole nature of the gods, or concerning some portion of it, or concerning no part of it at all. If concerning at all it is certainly be put before human things, if concerning some part of it, why should it not, from the very nature of the case, perceive human things? Is not even some part of the gods to be preferred to the whole of humanity? But if it is too much to prefer a part of the divine to all human things, that part is certainly worthy to be preferred to the Romans at least. For he writes the books concerning human things not with reference to the whole world, but only to Rome, which books he says he had properly placed in the order of writing before the books on divine things, like a painter before the painted tablet, or a mason before the building, most openly confessing that as a picture or a structure even these divine things were instituted by man. There remains only the third supposition that he is to be understood to a written concerning no divine nature, but that he did not wish to say this openly, but left it to the intelligent to infer. For when one says not all, usage understands that to mean some, but it may be understood as meaning none, because that which is none is neither all nor some. In fact, as he himself says, if he had been writing concerning all the nature of the gods, its due place would have been before human things in the order of writing. But as the truth declares, even though Varro is silent, the divine nature should have taken precedence of Roman things, though it were not all but only some. But it is properly put after, therefore it is none. His arrangement therefore was due not to a desire to give human things priority to divine things, but to his unwillingness to prefer false things to true. For in what he wrote on human things he followed the history of affairs, but in what he wrote concerning those things which they call divine, what else did he follow but mere conjectures about vain things? This doubtless is what, in a subtle manner, he wished to signify, not only writing concerning divine things after the human, but even giving a reason why he did so. For if he had suppressed this, some perchance would have defended his doing so in one way, and some in another. But in that very reason he has rendered he has left nothing for men to conjecture at will, and has sufficiently proved that he preferred men to the institutions of men, not the nature of men to the nature of the gods. Thus he confessed that in the writing the books concerning divine things he did not write concerning the truth which belongs to nature, but the falseness which belongs to error, which he has elsewhere expressed more openly, as I have mentioned in the fourth book, saying that had he been founding a new city himself he would have written according to the order of nature, but as he had found only an old one he could not but follow its custom. CHAPTER V Now what are we to say of this proposition of his, namely that there are three kinds of theology, that is, of the account which is given of the gods, and of these the one is called mythical, the other physical, and the third, civil. Did the Latin usage permit we should call the kind which he has placed first in order of fabular, but let us call it fabulous, for mythical is derived from the Greek mythos, a fable. But that the second should be called natural, the usage of speech now admits. The third he himself is designated in Latin, calling it civil. Then he says, they call that kind mythical which the poets chiefly use, physical that which the philosophers use, civil that which the people use. As to the first I have mentioned, he says he, in it are many fictions which are contrary to the dignity and nature of the immortals, for we find in it that one god has been born from the head, another from the thigh, another from drops of blood. Also in this we find that gods have stolen, committed adultery, served men. In a word, in this all manner of things are attributed to the gods, such as made before not merely any man, but even the most contemptible man. He certainly where he could, where he dared, where he thought he could do it with impunity, has manifested, without any of the haziness of ambiguity, how great injury was done to the nature of the gods by lying fables. For he was speaking not concerning natural theology, not concerning civil, but concerning fabulous theology, which he thought he could freely find fault with. Let us see now what he says concerning the second kind. The second kind which I have explained, he says, is that concerning which philosophers have left many books in which they treat such questions as these, what gods there are, where they are, of what kind and character they are, since what time they have existed or if they have existed from eternity, whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus believes, or of number as Pythagoras, or of atoms as Epicurus says, and other such things which man's ears can more easily hear inside the walls of a school than outside in the forum. He finds fault with nothing in this kind of theology which they call physical, and which belongs to philosophers, except that he has related their controversies among themselves, through which there has arisen a multitude of dissentient sects. Nevertheless, he has removed this kind from the forum, that is, from the populace, but he has shut it up in schools. But that first kind, most false and most base, he has not removed from the citizens. Oh, the religious ears of the people, and among them even those of the Romans, that are not able to bear what the philosophers dispute concerning the gods. But when the poets sing, and stage-players act, such things as are derogatory to the dignity and nature of the immortals, such as may befall not a man merely, but the most contemptible man, they not only bear but willingly listen to. Nor is this all, but they even consider that these things please the gods, and that they are propitiated by them. But someone may say, let us distinguish these two kinds of theology, the mythical and the physical, that is, the fabulous and the natural, from this civil kind about which we are now speaking. Anticipating this, he himself has distinguished them. Let us see now how he explains the civil theology itself. I see indeed why it should be distinguished as fabulous, even because it is false, because it is base, because it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish the natural from the civil, what else is that but to confess that the civil itself is false? For if that be natural, what fault has it that it should be excluded? And if this which is called civil be not natural, what merit has it that it should be admitted? This in truth is the cause why he wrote first concerning human things and afterwards concerning divine things, since in divine things he did not follow nature but the institution of men. Let us look at this civil theology of his. The third kind says he is that which citizens in cities and especially the priests ought to know and to administer. From it is to be known what God each one may suitably worship, what sacred rites and sacrifices each one may suitably perform. Let us still attend to what follows. The first theology, he says, is especially adapted to the theater, the second to the world, the third to the city. Who does not see to which he gives the palm, certainly to the second, which he said above is that of the philosophers. For he testifies that this pertains to the world than which they think there is nothing better. But those two theologies, the first and the third, to which those of the theater and of the city, has he distinguished them or united them. For although we see that the city is in the world, we do not see that it follows that any things belonging to the city pertain to the world. For it is possible that such things may be worshiped and believed in the city according to false opinions as have no existence either in the world or out of it. But where is the theater, but in the city? Who instituted the theater but the state? For what purpose did it constitute it but for scenic plays? And to what class of things do scenic plays belong but to those divine things concerning which these books of varros are written with so much ability? CHAPTER VI. O Marcus Varo, thou art the most acute and without doubt the most learned, but still a man, not God, now lifted up by the Spirit of God to see and to announce divine things. Thou seest indeed that divine things are to be separated from human trifles and lies, but thou fearst to offend those most corrupt opinions of the populace and their customs and public superstitions, which thou thyself when thou considerest them on all sides perceivest, and all your literature loudly pronounces to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, even of such gods as the frailty of the human mind supposes to exist in the elements of this world. What can the most excellent human talent do here? What can human learning, though manifold, avail thee in this perplexity? Thou desirest to worship the natural gods, thou art compelled to worship the civil. Thou hast found some of the gods to be fabulous, on whom thou vomitest forth very freely what thou thinkest, and whether thou willest or not, thou wettest therewith even the civil gods. Thou seest foresooth that the fabulous are adapted to the theater, the natural to the world, and the civil to the city, though the world is a divine work, but cities and theaters are the works of men, and though the gods who are laughed at in the theater are not other than those who are adored in the temples, and ye do not exhibit games in honor of other gods than those to whom ye emulate victims. How much more freely and more subtly wouldst thou have decided these hadst thou said that some gods are natural, others established by men. And concerning those who have been so established, the literature of the poets gives one account, and that of the priests another, both of which are nevertheless so friendly the one to the other, through fellowship and falsehood, that they are both pleasing to the demons, to whom the doctrine of the truth is hostile. That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being put aside for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed, we may ask if anyone is really content to seek a hope for eternal life from poetical, theatrical, scenic gods, perish the thought, the true God avert so wild and sacrilegious a madness. What is eternal life to be asked from those gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things propitiate, in which their own crimes are represented? No one, as I think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and furious impiety. So then, neither by the fabulous nor by the civil theology it is anyone obtain eternal life. For the one sows based things concerning the gods by feigning them, the other reaps by cherishing them, the one scatters lies, the other gathers them together, the one pursues divine things with false crimes, the other incorporates among divine things the plays which are made up of these crimes, the one sounds abroad in human songs in pious fictions concerning the gods, the other consecrates these for the festivities of the gods themselves, the one sings the misdeeds and crimes of the gods, the other loves them, the one gives forth her feigns, the other either attests the true or delights in the false. Both are base, both are damnable. But the one which is theatrical teaches public abomination, and that one which is of the city adorns itself with that abomination. Shall eternal life be hoped for from these by which this short and temporal life is polluted? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life if they insinuate themselves into our affections and win our assent? And does not the society of demons pollute the life who are worshiped with their own crimes? If with true crimes how wicked the demons, if with false how wicked the worship? When we say these things it may perchance seem to someone who is very ignorant of these matters that only those things concerning the gods which are sung in the songs of the poets and acted on the stage are unworthy of the divine majesty and ridiculous and too detestable to be celebrated, whilst those sacred things which not stage players but priests perform are pure and free from all unseemliness. Had this been so, never would anyone have thought that these theatrical abominations should be celebrated in their honor, never would the gods themselves have ordered them to be performed to them. But men are in no wise ashamed to perform these things in the theaters because similar things are carried on in the temples. In short, when the four mentioned author attempted to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous and natural as a sort of third and distinct kind he wished it to be understood to be rather tempered by both and separated from either. For he says that those things which the poets write are less than the people ought to follow whilst what the philosophers say is more than it is expedient for the people to pry into. Which says he, differ in such a way that nevertheless not a few things from both of them have been taken to the account of the civil theology, wherefore we will indicate what the civil theology has in common with that of the poet, though it ought to be more closely connected with the theology of philosophers. Civil theology is therefore not quite disconnected from that of the poets. Nevertheless, in another place concerning the generations of the gods he says that the people are more inclined toward the poets than toward the physical theologists. For in this place he said what ought to be done, in that other place what was really done. He said that the latter had written for the sake of utility but the poets for the sake of amusement, and hence the things from the poets' writings which the people ought not to follow are the crimes of the gods, which nevertheless amuse both the people and the gods. For for amusement's sake he says the poets write and not for that of utility. Nevertheless, they write such things as the gods will desire and the people perform. CHAPTER 7-12 OF THE CITY OF GOD This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, would a volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. THE CITY OF GOD by St. Augustine of Hippo, Book 6, Chapter 7. That theology, therefore, which is fabulous, theatrical, scenic, and full of all baseness and unseemliness, is taken up into the civil theology, and part of that theology, which in its totality is deservedly judged to be worthy of reprobation and rejection, is pronounced worthy to be cultivated and observed. Not at all an incongruous part, as I have undertaken to show, and one which, being alien to the whole body, was unsuitably attached to and suspended from it, but a part entirely congruous with and most harmoniously fitted to the rest as a member of the same body. For what else do those images, forms, ages, sexes, characteristics of the gods show? If the poets have Jupiter with a beard and Mercury beardless, have not the priests the same? Is the Priapus of the priests less obscene than the Priapus of the players? Does he receive the adoration of worshipers in a different form from that in which he moves about the stage for the amusement of spectators? Is not Saturn old, and Apollo young, and the shrines where their images stand, as well as when represented by actors' masks? Why are forkulus, who presides over doors, and lamentinus, who presides over thresholds and lentils, male gods, and cardea between them feminine, who presides over hinges? Are not those things found in books on divine things which grave poets have deemed unworthy of their verses? Does the Diana of the theatre carry arms whilst the Diana of the city is simply a virgin? Is the stage-apolo a lyreist, but the Delphic Apollo ignorant of this art? But these things are decent compared with the more shameful things. What was thought of Jupiter himself by those who placed his wet nurse in the capital? Did they not bear witness to you, hemerus, who, not with the guerrillaity of a fableteller, but with the gravity of an historian who had diligently investigated the matter, wrote that all such gods had been men and mortals. And they who appointed the Apulonis as parasites at the table of Jupiter, what else did they wish for but mimic sacred rites? For if any mimic had said that the parasites of Jupiter were made use of at his table, he would assuredly have appeared to be seeking to call forth laughter. Varov said it, not when he was mocking, but when he was commending the gods, did he say it? His books on divine, not on human things, testify that he wrote this, not where he set forth the scenic games, but where he explained the capitaline laws. In a word he has conquered and confesses that as they made the gods with the human form, so they believe that they are delighted with human pleasures. For also maligned spirits were not so wanting to their own business as not to confirm noxious opinions in the minds of men by converting them into sport. Vance also is that story about the sacrosan of Hercules, which says that having nothing to do he took to playing at dice as a pastime, throwing them alternately with a one hand for Hercules, with the other for himself, with this understanding that if he should win, he should from the funds of the temple prepare himself a supper and hire a mistress. But if Hercules should win the game, he himself should at his own expense provide the same for the pleasure of Hercules. Then, when he had been beaten by himself as though by Hercules, he gave to the god Hercules the supper he owed him, and also the most noble harlot, La Rantina. But she, having fallen asleep in the temple, dreamed that Hercules had had intercourse with her, and had said to her that she would find her payment with the youth whom she should first meet on leaving the temple, and that she was to believe this to be paid to her by Hercules. And so the first youth that met her on going out was the wealthy Terusius, who kept her a long time, and when he died, left her his air. She, having obtained a most ample fortune, that she should not seem ungrateful for the divine hire, in her turn made the Roman people her heir, which she thought to be most acceptable to the deities, and having disappeared, the will was found, by which meritorious conduct they say that she gained divine honors. Now had these things been feigned by the poets and acted by the mimics, they would without any doubt have been said to pertain to the fabulous theology, and would have been judged worthy to be separated from the dignity of the civil theology. But when these shameful things, none of the poets but of the people, none of the mimics but of the sacred things, none of the theaters but of the temples, that is, not of the fabulous but of the civil theology, are reported by so great an author, not in vain do the actors represent with theatrical art the baseness of the gods, which is so great, but surely in vain do the priests attempt, by rights cold sacred, to represent their nobleness of character which has no existence. There are sacred rites of Juno, and these are celebrated in her beloved island, Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jupiter. There are sacred rites of Ceres in which Proserpinus sought for, having been carried off by Pluto. There are sacred rites of Venus, in which her beloved Adonis, being slain by a boar's tooth, the lovely youth, is lamented. There are sacred rites of the mother of the gods, in which the beautiful youth Atas, loved by her, and castrated by her through a woman's jealousy, is deplored by men who have suffered the like calamity, whom they call Gali. Since then these things are more unseemly than all scenic abomination, why is it that they strive to separate, as it were, the fabulous fictions of the poet concerning the gods, as forsooth pertaining to the theatre, from the civil theology which they wish to belong to the city, as though they were separating from noble and worthy things, things unworthy in base. Wherefore there is more reason to thank the stage actors who have spared the eyes of men, and have not laid bare by theatrical exhibition all the things which are hid by the walls of the temples. What good is to be thought of their sacred rites which are concealed in darkness, when those which are brought forth into the light are so detestable? And certainly they themselves have seen what they transact in secrets for the agency of mutilated and effeminate men. Yet they have not been able to conceal those same men miserably and vile, enervated and corrupted. Let them persuade whom they can that they transact anything holy through such men who they cannot deny are numbered and live among their sacred things. We know not what they transact, but we know through whom they transact, for we know what things are transacted on the stage, where never, even in a chorus of harlots, hath one who is mutilated or an effeminate appeared. And nevertheless even these things are acted by vile and infamous characters, for indeed they ought not to be acted by men of good character. What then are those sacred rites for the performance of which holiness has chosen such men as not even the obscenity of the stage has admitted? CHAPTER VIII But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that is, natural, interpretations showing their natural meaning, as though in this disputation we were seeking physics and not theology, which is the account not of nature but of God. For although he who is the true God is God, not by opinion, but by nature, nevertheless all nature is not God, for there is certainly a nature of man, of a beast, of a tree, of a stone, none of which is God. For if, when the question is concerning the mother of the gods, that from which the whole system of interpretation starts, certainly is, that the mother of the gods is the earth, why do we make further inquiry? Why do we carry our investigation through all the rest of it? What can more manifestly favor them who say that all those gods were men? For they are earthborn in the sense that the earth is their mother. But in the true theology the earth is the work, not the mother of God. But in whatever way their sacred rites may be interpreted, in whatever reference they may have to the nature of things, it is not, according to nature, but contrary to nature, that men should be effeminates. This disease, this crime, this abomination has a recognized place among those sacred things, though even depraved men will scarcely be compelled by torments to confess that they are guilty of it. Again, if these sacred rites which are proved to be fowler than scenic abominations are excused and justified on the ground that they have their own interpretations by which they are shown to symbolize the nature of things, why are not the poetical things in like manner excused and justified? For many have interpreted even these in like fashion to such a degree that even that which they say is the most monstrous and most horrible, namely that Saturn devoured his own children, has been interpreted by some of them to mean that length of time, which is signified by the name of Saturn, consumes whatever it begets. Or that, as the same Varo thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds which fall back again into the earth from Wednesday spring. And so one interprets it in one way and one in another, and the same is to be said of all the rest of this theology. And nevertheless it is called the fabulous theology, and is censored, cast off, rejected, together with all such interpretations belonging to it, and not only by the natural theology, which is that of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology concerning which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain to cities and peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation because it is invented unworthy things concerning the gods. Of which I want, this is the secret, that those most acute and learned men by whom those things were written understood that both theologies ought to be rejected, to wit both that fabulous and this civil one, but the former they dared to reject, the latter they dared not, the former they set forth to be censured, the latter they showed to be very like it. Not that it might be chosen to be held in preference to the other, but that it might be understood to be worthy of being rejected together with it. And thus without danger to those who feared to censure the civil theology, both of them being brought into contempt, that theology which they call natural might find a place in better disposed minds, for the civil and the fabulous are both fabulous and both civil. He who shall wisely inspect the vanities and obscenities of both will find that they are both fabulous, and he who shall direct his attention to the scenic plays pertaining to the fabulous theology, and the festivals of the civil gods, and the divine rites of the cities, will find they are both civil. How then can the power of giving eternal life be attributed to any of those gods whose own images and sacred rites convict them of being most like to the fabulous gods, which are most openly reprobated in forms, ages, sex, characteristics, marriages, generations, rites, in all which things they are understood, either to have been men, and to have had their sacred rites and salendities instituted in their honor according to the life or death of each of them, the demons suggesting and confirming this error are certainly most foul spirits who, taking advantage of some occasion or other, have stolen into the minds of men to deceive them. CHAPTER IX And as to those very offices of the gods so meanly and so minutely portioned out, so that they say that they ought to be supplicated each one according to his special function, about which we have spoken much already, though not all that is to be said concerning it. Are they not more consistent with mimic buffoonery than Divine Majesty? If anyone should use two nurses for his infant, one of whom should give nothing but food, the other nothing but drink, as these make use of two goddesses for this purpose, Edgica and Potina, he should certainly seem to be foolish and to do in his house a thing worthy of a mimic. They would have liber to be of been named from liberation because through him mails at the time of copulation are liberated by the emission of the seed. They also say that Libera, the same in their opinion as Venus, exercises the same function in the case of women because they say that they also emit seed, and they also say that on this account the same part of the male and of the female is placed in the temple, that of the male to Liber and that of the female to Libera. To these things they add the women assigned to Liber and the wine for exciting lust. Thus the bacchanalia are celebrated with the utmost insanity, with respect to which Varro himself confesses that such things would not be done by the bacchanals except their minds were highly excited. These things, however, afterwards displeased a saint or senate and that ordered them to be discontinued. Here at length they perhaps perceived how much power unclean spirits, when held to be gods, exercise over the minds of men. These things certainly were not to be done in the theaters, for there they play, not rave, although to have gods who are delighted with such plays is very like raving. But what kind of distinction is this which he makes between the religious and the superstitious man, saying that the gods are feared by the superstitious man but are reverenced as parents by the religious man not feared as enemies, and that they are all so good that they will more readily spare those who are impious than hurt one who is innocent? And yet he tells us that three gods are assigned as guardians to a woman after she has been delivered lest the god Sylvanas come in and molest her, and that in order to signify the presence of these protectors, three men go round the house during the night, and first strike the threshold with a hatchet, next with a pestle, and the third time sweep it with a brush, in order that these symbols of agriculture having been exhibited, the god Sylvanas might be hindered from entering, because neither are trees cut down or pruned without a hatchet, neither is grain ground without a pestle, nor corn heaped up without abyssum. Now from these three things three gods have been named, in Terchidona from the cut made by the hatchet, Pellumnas from the pestle, Divera from the byssum, by which guardian gods the woman who has been delivered is preserved against the power of the god Sylvanas. Thus the guardianship of kindly disposed gods would not avail against the malice of a mischievous god unless they were three to one and fought against him, as it were, with the opposing emblems of cultivation, who, being an inhabitant of the woods, is rough, horrible, and uncultivated. Is this the innocence of the gods? Is this their concord? Are these the health-giving deities of the cities more ridiculous than the things which are laughed at in the theatres? When a male and a female are united, the god Eugatinos presides. Well, let this be borne with. But the married women must be brought home. The god Domiducius is also invoked. That she may be in the house, the god Domitius is introduced, that she may remain with her husband, the goddess Manturne is used. What more is required? Let human modesty be spared, let the lust of flesh and blood go on with the rest, the secret of shame being respected. Why is the bed-chamber filled with the crowd of deities when even the groomsmen have departed? In moreover, it is so filled, not that in consideration of their presence more regard may be paid to chastity, but by their help the woman, naturally of the weaker sex, and trembling with the novelty of her situation, may the more readily yield her virginity. For there are the god Virginiensis, and the god Father Subigus, and the goddess Mother Prema, and the goddess Pertunda, and Venus, and Priapus. What is this? If it was absolutely necessary that a man laboring at this work should be helped by the gods, might not some one god or goddess have been sufficient? Was Venus not sufficient alone, who is even said to be named from this, that without her power a woman does not cease to be a virgin? If there is any shame in men which is not in the deities, is it not the case that when the married couple believed that so many gods of either sex or present and busy at this work, they are so much affected with shame that the man is less moved and the woman more reluctant? And certainly if the goddess Virginiensis is present to lose the virgin's zone, if the god Subigus is present that the virgin may be god unto the man, if the goddess Prema is present that having been god under him she may be kept down and may not move herself, what has the goddess Pertunda do there? Let her blush, let her go forth, let the husband himself do something. It is disgraceful that any one but himself should do that from which she gets her name. But perhaps she is tolerated because she is said to be a goddess and not a god. For if she were believed to be a male and were called Pertundus, the husband would demand more help against him for the chastity of his wife than the newly delivered woman against Sylvanas. But why am I saying this when Prius II is there, a male to excess, upon whose immense and most unsightly member the newly married bride is commanded to sit, according to the most honorable and most religious custom of matrons. Let them go on and let them attempt with all the subtlety they can to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous, the cities from the theaters, the temples from the stages, the sacred things of the priests, from the songs of the poets, as honorable things from base things, truthful things from fallacious, grave from light, serious from ludicrous, desirable things from things to be rejected, we understand what they do. They are aware that that theatrical and fabulous theology hangs by the civil and was reflected back upon it from the songs of the poets as from a mirror. And thus that theology having been exposed to view which they do not dare to condemn, they more freely assail and censure that picture of it in order that those who perceive what they mean may detest this very face itself of which that is the picture. Which, however, the gods themselves as those seeing themselves in the same mirror loves so much that it is better seen in both of them who and what they are. Wentz also they have compelled their worshipers with terrible commands to dedicate to them the uncleanness of the fabulous theology to put them among their salendities and reckon them among divine things. And thus they have both shown themselves more manifestly to be most impure spirits and have made that rejected and reprobated theatrical theology a member and a part of this, as it were, chosen an approved theology of the city, so that, though the whole is disgraceful and false and contains in it fictitious gods, one part of it is in the literature of the priests, the other in the songs of the poets. Whether it may have other parts is another question. At present I think I have sufficiently shown on account to the division of Varro that the theology of the city and that of the theater belong to one civil theology. Wherefore, because they are both equally disgraceful, absurd, shameful, false, far be it from religious men to hope for eternal life from either the one or the other. In fine even Varro himself in his account in enumeration of the gods, starts from the moment of a man's conception. He commences the series of those gods who take charge of the man with Janus, carries it on to the death of the man decrepit with age, and terminates it with a goddess Nainia, who is sung at the funerals of the aged. After that he begins to give an account of the other gods whose province is not man himself, but man's belongings, his food, clothing, and all that is necessary for this life. And in the case of all these he explains what is the special office of each and for what each ought to be supplicated. But with all this scrupulous and comprehensive diligence he has not approved the existence nor so much as mentioned the name of any god from whom eternal life is to be sought, the one object for which we are Christians. Who then is so stupid as not to perceive that this man by setting forth and opening up so diligently the civil theology, and by examining its likeness to that fabulous, shameful, and disgraceful theology, and also by teaching that that fabulous sword is also a part of this other, was laboring to obtain a place in the minds of men for none but that natural theology which he says pertains to philosophers, with such subtlety that he censures the fabulous and not daring openly to censure the civil shows its censurable character by simply exhibiting it, and thus both being reprobated by the judgment of men of right understanding the natural alone remains to be chosen. But concerning this in its own place by the help of the true god we have to discuss more diligently. That liberty and truth which this man wanted so that he did not dare to censure that theology of the city which is very similar to the theatrical, so openly as he did the theatrical itself, was, though not fully, yet in part possessed by Aeneas Seneca, whom we have some evidence to show to have flourished in the times of our apostles. It was in part possessed by him, I say, for he possessed it in writing, but not in living. For in that book which he wrote against superstition he more copiously and vehemently censured that civil and urban theology than varo the theatrical and fabulous. For when speaking concerning images he says, they dedicate images of the sacred and inviolable immortals in most worthless and motionless matter. They give them the appearance of man, beasts, and fishes, and some make them of mixed sex and heterogeneous bodies. They call them deities when they are such that if they should get breath and should suddenly meet them they would be held to be monsters. Then a while afterwards when extolling the natural theology he had expounded the sentiments of certain philosophers he opposes to himself a question and says, Here someone says, Shall I believe that the heavens and the earth are gods and that some are above the moon and some below it? Shall I bring forward either Plato or their parapetetic Stratto, one of whom made God to be without a body, the other without a mind? In answer to which he says, And really, what truer do the dreams of Titus Tatius or Romulus or Tullus Hostilius appear to thee? Tatius declared the divinity of the goddess Cloetschina, Romulus that of Picos and Tiberinas, Tullus Hostilius that of Pavor and Palor, the most disagreeable affections of men, the one of which is the agitation of the mind and her fright, the other that of the body, not a disease, indeed, but a change of color. We'll tell her rather believe that these are deities and receive them into heaven. But with what freedom he has written concerning the rites themselves cruel and shameful. One, he says, castrates himself and other cuts his arms. Where will they find room for the fear of these gods when angry, who use such means of gaining their favor when propitious? But gods who wish to be worshipped in this fashion should be worshipped in none. So great is the frenzy of the mind when perturbed and driven from its seat that the gods are propitiated by men in a manner in which not even men of the greatest ferocity and fable renown cruelty vent their rage. Tyrants have lacerated the limbs of some, they never ordered anyone to lacerate his own. For the gratification of royal lust some have been castrated, but no one ever by the command of his lord laid violent hands on himself to emasculate himself. They killed themselves in the temples, they supplicate with their wounds and with their blood. If anyone has time to see the things they do and the things they suffer he will find so many things unseemly for men of respectability, so unworthy of free men, so unlike the doings of sane men that no one would doubt that they are mad had they been mad with the minority, but now the multitude of the insane is the defense of their sanity. He next relates those things which are want to be done in the capital, and with the utmost intrepidity he insists that there are such things as one could only believe to be done by men making sport or by mad men. For having spoken with the derision of this, that in the Egyptian sacred riots of Cirrus being lost is lamented for, but straight way when found is the occasion of great joy by his reappearance, because both the losing and the finding of him are feigned, and yet that grief and that joy which are elicited thereby from those who have lost nothing and found nothing are real. Having I say so spoken of this he says, still there is a fixed time for this frenzy, it is tolerable to go mad once in the year. Go into the capital. One is suggesting divine commands to a god, another is telling the hours to Jupiter, one is a lictor, another is an anointer, who with a mere movement of his arms imitates one anointing. There are women who arrange the hair of Juno in Minerva, standing far away not only from her image, but even from her temple. These move their fingers in the manner of hairdressers. There are some women who hold a mirror, there are some who are calling the gods to assist them in court. There are some who are holding up documents to them and are explaining to them their cases. A learned and distinguished comedian, now old and decrepit, was daily playing the mimic in the capital as though the gods would gladly be spectators of that which men had ceased to care about. Every kind of artificer is working for the immortal gods as dwelling there in idleness. And a little after he says, nevertheless these, though they give themselves up to the gods for purposes superfluous enough, do not do so for any abominable or infamous purpose. There sit certain women in the capital who think they are beloved by Jupiter, nor are they frightened even by the look of the, if you will believe the poet's, most wrathful Juno. This liberty Varo did not enjoy. It was only the poetical theology he seemed to censure. The civil, which this man cuts to pieces, he was not bold enough to impune. But if we attend to the truth the temples where these things are performed are far worse than the theaters where they are represented. Wents with respect to these sacred rites of the civil theology, Seneca preferred as the best course to be followed by a wise man to feign respect for them and act, but to have no real regard for them at heart. All which thinks he says a wise man will observe as being commanded by the laws, but not as being pleasing to the gods. And a little after, he says, and what of this that we unite the gods in marriage, and that not even naturally, for we join brothers and sisters. We marry Bologna to Mars, Venus to Vulcan, Salatia to Neptune. Some of them we leave unmarried, as though there were no match for them, which is surely needless, especially when there are certain unmarried goddesses as Populonia or Fulgora, or the goddess Rumina, for whom I am not astonished that suitors have been wanting. All this ignoble crowd of gods, which the superstition of ages has amassed, we ought, he says, to adore in such a way as to remember all the while that its worship belongs rather to custom than to reality. Wherefore none of those laws nor customs instituted in the civil theology that which was pleasing to the gods or which pertained to reality. But this man whom philosophy had made as it were free, nevertheless, because he was an illustrious senator of the Roman people, worshipped what he censured, did what he condemned, adored what he reproached, because foresoothed philosophy had taught him something great. Namely, not to be superstitious in the world, but on account of the laws of cities and the customs of men to be an actor, not on the stage, but in the temples. Conduct the more to be condemned, that those things which he was deceitfully acting, he so acted that the people thought he was acting sincerely. But a stage actor would rather delight people by acting place than take them in by false pretenses. CHAPTER XI Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology, also found fault with the sacred things of the Jews, and especially the Sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly in keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idleness about the seventh part of their life, and also many things which demand immediate attention are damaged. The Christians, however, who were already most hostile to the Jews, he did not dare to mention, either for praise or blame, lest if he praised them he should do so against the ancient custom of his country, or perhaps if he should blame them he should do so against his own will. When he was speaking concerning those Jews, he said, When, meanwhile, the customs of that most accursed nation have gained such strength that they have been now received in all lands, the conquered have given laws to the conquerors. By these words he expresses his astonishment, and not knowing what the providence of God was leading him to say, subjoins and plain words an opinion by which he showed what he thought about the meaning of those sacred institutions. For, he says, those, however, know the cause of their rights, whilst the greater part of the people know not why they perform theirs. But concerning the salendities of the Jews, either why or how far they were instituted by divine authority, and afterwards in due time but the same authority taken away from the people of God, to whom the mystery of eternal life was revealed, we have both spoken elsewhere, especially when we were retreating against the Manicheans, and also intend to speak in this work in a more suitable place. CHAPTER XII Now since there are three theologies which the Greeks call respectively mythical, physical, and political, in which may be called in Latin fabulous, natural, and civil, and since neither from the fabulous, which even the worshippers of many and false gods of themselves most freely censured, nor from the civil, of which that is convicted of being a part, or even worse than it, can eternal life be hoped for from any of these theologies. If anyone thinks that what has been said in this book is not enough for him, let him also add to it the many and various dissertations concerning God as the giver of felicity contained in the former books, especially the fourth one. For to what but to felicity should men consecrate themselves were a felicity a goddess? However, as it is not a goddess but a gift of God, to what God but the giver of happiness ought way to consecrate ourselves, who piously love eternal life in which there is true and full felicity. But I think from what has been said no one ought to doubt that none of those gods is the giver of happiness who were worshipped with such shame, and who, if they are not so worshipped, are more shamefully enraged, and thus confess that they are most foul spirits. Moreover, how can he give eternal life who cannot give happiness? For we mean by eternal life that life for there is endless happiness. For if the soul live in eternal punishments, by which also those unclean spirits shall be tormented, that is rather eternal death than eternal life. For there is no greater or worse death than when death never dies. But because the soul from its very nature, being created immortal, cannot be without some kind of life, its utmost death is alienation from the life of God in an eternity of punishment. So then he only who gives true happiness gives eternal life, that is, an endlessly happy life. And since those gods whom this civil theology worships have been proved to be unable to give this happiness, they ought not to be worshipped on account of those temporal and terrestrial things as we showed in the Five Former Books, much less on account of eternal life, which is to be after death, as we have sought to show in this one book especially, whilst the other books also lend it their co-operation. But since the strength of inveterate habit has its roots very deep, if anyone thinks that I have not disputed sufficiently to show that this civil theology ought to be rejected and shunned, let him attend to another book which, with God's help, is to be joined to this one. It will be the duty of those who are endowed with quicker and better understandings, in whose case the former books are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to affect their intended object, to bear with me with patience and equanimity, whilst I attempt with more than ordinary diligence to tear up and eradicate depraved and ancient opinions hostile to the truth of piety, which the long-continued error of the human race has fixed very deeply in unenlightened minds. Co-operating also in this, according to my little measure, with the grace of him who, being the true God, is able to accomplish it, and on whose help I depend in my work, and for the sake of others such should not deem superfluous what they feel to be no longer necessary for themselves. A very great matter is at stake when the true and truly holy divinity is commended to men as that which they ought to seek after and to worship. Not, however, on account of the transitory vapor of mortal life, but on account of life eternal, which alone is blessed, although they help necessary for this frail life we are now living, is also afforded us by it. CHAPTER 1 If there is any one whom the sixth book, which I have last finished, has not persuaded that this divinity, or so to speak deity, for this word also our authors do not hesitate to use in order to translate, more accurately, that which the Greeks call Theotes. If there is any one, I say, whom the sixth book has not persuaded that this divinity, or deity, is not to be found in that theology which they call civil, in which Marcus Varro has explained in sixteen books. That is, that the happiness of eternal life is not attainable through the worship of God such as states have established to be worshipped, and that in such a form. Perhaps when he has read this book he will not have anything further to desire in order to clearing up of this question, for it is possible that someone may think that at least the select and chief gods whom Varro comprised in his last book, and of whom we have not spoken sufficiently, are to be worshipped on account of the blessed life which is none other than eternal. In respect to which matter I do not say what Tertullian said, perhaps more wittily than truly, if gods are selected like onions certainly the rest are rejected as bad. I do not say this, for I see that even from among the select some are selected for some greater and more excellent office. As in warfare when recruits have been elected there are some again elected from among those for the performance of some greater military service, and in the church when persons are elected to be overseers certainly the rest are not rejected since all good Christians are deservedly called elect. In the erection of a building cornerstones are elected though the other stones which are destined for other parts of the structure are not rejected. Grapes are elected for eating whilst the others which we leave for drinking are not rejected. There is no need of inducing many illustrations since the thing is evident. Wherefore the selection of certain gods from among many affords no proper reason why either he who wrote on this subject or the worshippers of the gods or the gods themselves should be spurned. We ought rather to seek to know what gods these are and for what purpose they may appear to have been selected. Chapter 2 The following gods certainly Varo signalizes a select devoting one book to this subject. Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, Father Lieber, Telus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta. Of which twenty gods, twelve were males and eight females. What are these deities called select because of their higher spheres of administration in the world or because they have become better known to the people and more worship has been expended on them? If it be on account of the greater works which are performed by them in the world, we ought not to have found them among that as it were plebeian crowd of deities which is assigned to it the charge of minute and trifling things. For first of all at the conception of a fetus from which point all the works commence which have been distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus himself opens the way for the reception of the seed. There also is Saturn on account of the seed itself. There is Lieber who liberates the male by the effusion of the seed. There is Lieber whom they also would have to be Venus who confers the same benefit on the woman, namely that she also be liberated by the emission of the seed. All these are of the number of those who are called select. But there is also the goddess Mena who presides over the Menses, though the daughter of Jupiter ignoble nevertheless. In this province of the Menses the same author in his book on the select gods assigns to Juno herself who is even queen among the select gods, and here as Juno Lucina along with the same Mena, her stepdaughter she presides over the same blood. There also are two gods exceedingly obscure, Vitumnas and Centinas, one of whom imparts life to the fetus and the other sensation, and of the truth they bestow most ignoble though they be, far more than all those noble and select gods bestow. For surely without life and sensation what is the whole fetus which a woman carries in her womb, but a most vile and worthless thing, no better than slime and dust? CHAPTER III What is the cause therefore which has driven so many select gods to these very small works in which they are excelled by Vitumnas and Centinas, although little known and sunk in obscurity in as much as they confer the munificent gifts of life and sensation? For the select Janus bestows an entrance, and as it were a door for the seed, the select Saturn bestows the seed itself, the select Libra bestows on men the emission of the same seed, Libra, who is Ceres or Venus, confers the same on women, the select Juno confers, not alone but together with Mena, the daughter of Jupiter, the Menses for the growth of that which has been conceived, and the obscure and ignoble Vitumnas confers life, whilst the obscure and ignoble Centinas confers sensation, which two last things are as much more excellent than the others as they themselves are excelled by reason and intellect. For as those things which reason and understand are preferable to those which, without intellect and reason, as in the case of cattle, live and feel, so also those things which have been endowed with life and sensation are deservedly preferred to those things which neither live nor feel. Therefore, Vitumnas the life-giver and Centinas the sense-giver ought to have been reckoned among the select gods rather than Janus the admitter of seed, and Saturn the giver or sower of seed, and Libra and Libra the movers and liberators of seed, which seed is not worth a thought unless it attained to life and sensation. Yet these select gifts are not given by select gods, but by certain unknown, and considering their dignity, neglected gods. But if it be replied that Janus has dominion over all beginnings, and therefore the opening of the way for conception is not without reason assigned to him, and that Saturn has dominion over all seeds, and therefore the selling of the seed whereby a human being is generated cannot be excluded from his operation, that Libra and Libra have power over the emission of all seeds, and therefore preside over those seeds which pertain to the procreation of men, that Juno presides over all pregations and births, and therefore she has also charged to the pregations of women and the births of human beings. If they give this reply, let them find an answer to the question concerning Vitumnas and Centenus, whether they are willing that these likewise should have dominion over all things which live and feel. If they grant this, let them observe in how sublime a position they are about to place them. For to spring from seeds is in the earth and of the earth, but to live and feel are supposed to be properties even of the sidereal gods. But if they say that only such things as come to life and flesh, and are supported by senses, or assigned to Centenus, why does not that God who made all things live and feel bestow on flesh also life and sensation in the universality of His operation conferring also on fetus as this gift? And what then is the use of Vitumnas and Centenus? But if these, as it were, extreme and lowest things have been committed by Him who presides universally over life and sense to these gods as to servants, are these select gods then so destitute of servants that they could not find any to whom even they might commit those things, but with all their dignity, for which they are, it seems deemed worthy to be selected, were compelled to perform their work along with ignoble ones. Juno is select queen of the gods and the sister and wife of Jupiter. Nevertheless, she is Itaduka, the conductor to boys, and performs this work along with the most ignoble pair, the goddesses Abiona and Adiona. There they have also placed the goddess Mena, who gives to boys a good mind, and she is not placed among the select gods, as if anything greater could be bestowed on a man that a good mind. But Juno is placed among the select because she is Itaduka and Domiduka, she who conducts one on a journey and who conducts him home again, as if it is of any advantage for one to make a journey and to be conducted home again if his mind is not good. And yet the goddess who bestows that gift has not been placed by the selectors among the select gods, though she ought indeed to have been preferred even to Minerva, to whom, in this minute distribution of work, they have allotted the memory of boys. For who will doubt that it is a far better thing to have a good mind than ever so great a memory? For no one is bad who has a good mind, but some who are very bad are possessed of an admirable memory, and are so much the worse the less they are able to forget the bad things which they think. And yet Minerva is among the select gods whilst the goddess Mena is hidden by a worthless crowd. What shall I say concerning Virtus? What concerning Felicitas? Concerning whom I have already spoken much in the fourth book, to whom, though they held them to be goddesses, they have not thought fit to assign a place among the select gods, among whom they have given a place to Mars and Orcus, the one the causer of death, the other the receiver of the dead. Since therefore we see that even the select gods themselves work together with the others, like a senate with the people, in all those minute works which have been minutely portioned out among many gods, and since we find that far greater and better things are administered by certain gods who have not been reckoned worthy to be selected than by those who are called select, it remains to be supposed that they were called select and chief, not on account of their holding more exalted offices in the world, but because it happened to them to become better known to the people. And even Varro himself says that in the way obscurity has fallen to the lot of some father gods and mother goddesses as it falls to the lot of man. If therefore Felicity ought not perhaps to have been put among the select gods, because they did not attain to that noble position by merit, but by chance, fortune at least should have been placed among them, or rather before them, for they say that that goddess distributes to everyone the gifts she receives, not according to any rational arrangement, but according as chance may determine. She ought to have held the uppermost place among the select gods, for among them chiefly it is that she shows what power she has. For we see that they have been selected, not on account of some eminent virtue or rational happiness, but by that random power of fortune which the worshipers of these gods think that she exerts. For that most eloquent man's solace also may perhaps have the gods themselves in view when he says, but in truth fortune rules in everything, it renders all things famous or obscure according to Caprice rather than according to truth. For they cannot discover a reason why Venus should have been made famous whilst Virtus has been made obscure when the divinity of both of them has been solemnly recognized by them, and their merits are not to be compared. Again, if she has deserved a noble position on account of the fact that she is much sought after, for there are more who seek after Venus than after Virtus, why has Minerva been celebrated whilst Pecunia has been left in obscurity, although throughout the whole human race Averus allures a far greater number than skill? And even among those who are skilled in the arts you will rarely find a man who does not practice his own art for the purpose of Pecunia regain, and that for the sake of which anything is made is always valued more than that which is made for the sake of something else. If then this selection of gods has been made by the judgment of the foolish multitude, why has not the goddess Pecunia been preferred to Minerva since there are many artificers for the sake of money? But if this distinction has been made by the few whys, why has Virtus been preferred to Venus, when reason by far prefers the former? At all events, as I have already said, fortune herself, who according to those who attribute most influence to her, renders all things famous or obscure according to Caprice rather than according to the truth. Since she has been able to exercise so much power even over the gods, as according to her Caprice's judgment, to render those of them famous whom she would and those obscure whom she would, fortune herself ought to occupy the place of preeminence among the select gods, since over them also she has such preeminent power. Or must we suppose that the reason why she is not among the select is simply this, that even fortune herself has had an adverse fortune? She was adverse then to herself since whilst ennobling others she herself has remained obscure. Chapter 4 However, anyone who eagerly seeks for celebrity and renown might congratulate those select gods and called unfortunate were it not that he saw that they had been selected more to their injury than to their honor? For that low crowd of gods had been protected by their very meanness and obscurity for being overwhelmed with infamy. We laugh, indeed, when we see them distributed by the mere fiction of human opinions according to the special works assigned to them, like those who farmed small portions of the public revenue, or like workmen in the street of the silversmiths, where one vessel, in order that it may go out perfect, passes through the hands of many when it might have been finished by one perfect workman. But the only reason why the combined skill of many workmen was thought necessary was that it is better that each part of an art should be learned by a special workman, which can be done speedily and easily, than that they should all be compelled to be perfect in one art throughout all its parts, which they could only attain slowly and with difficulty. Nevertheless, there is scarcely to be found one of the non-select gods who has brought infamy on himself by any crime, whilst there is scarce any one of the select gods who has not received upon himself the brand of notable infamy. These latter have descended to the humble works of the others whilst the others have not come up to their sublime crimes. Concerning Janus, there does not readily occur to my recollection anything infamous, and perhaps he was such and one as lived more innocently than the rest, and further removed from misdeeds and crimes. He kindly received and entertained Saturn when he was fleeing. He divided his kingdom with his guests so that each one of them had a city for himself, the one Yanniculum, the other Saternia. But those seekers, after every kind of unseemliness in the worship of the gods, have disgraced him, whose life they found to be less disgraceful than that of the other gods, with an image of monstrous deformity, making it sometimes with two faces, and sometimes as it were double with four faces. Did they wish that as the most of the select gods had lost shame through the perpetration of shameful crimes, his greater innocence should be marked by a greater number of faces. CHAPTER V But let us hear their own physical interpretations by which they attempt to color, as with the appearance of a profounder doctrine, the baseness of most miserable error. Varo, in the first place, commends these interpretations so strongly as to say that the ancients invented the images, badges, and adornments of the gods, in order that when those who went to the mysteries should see them with their bodily eyes, they might with the eyes of their minds see the soul of the world and its parts, that is, the true gods, and also that the meaning which was intended by those who made their images with the human form seemed to be this, namely that the mind of mortals, which is in a human body, is very like to the immortal mind, just as vessels might be placed to represent the gods, as for instance, a wine vessel might be placed in the temple of Lieber to signify wine, that which is contained being signified by that which contains. Thus by an image which had the human form, the rational soul, was signified, because the human form is the vessel, as it were, in which that nature is a want to be contained, which they attribute to God or to the gods. These are the mysteries of doctrine to which that most learned man penetrated in order that he might bring them forth to the light. But, O thou most acute man, hast thou lost among those mysteries that prudence which led thee to form the sober opinion that those who first established those images for the people took away fear from the citizens and added error, and that the ancient Romans honored the gods more chastely without images? For it was through consideration of them that thou wast emboldened to speak these things against the later Romans. For if those most ancient Romans also had worshipped images, perhaps thou wast have suppressed by the silence of fear all those sentiments, true sentiments nevertheless, concerning the folly of setting up images, and wast have extolled more loftily and more loquaciously those mysterious doctrines consisting of these vain and pernicious fictions. Thy soul so learned and so clever, and for this I grieve much for thee, could never through these mysteries have reached its God, that is, the God by whom, not with whom it was made, of whom it is not a part but a work, that God who is not the soul of all things, but who made every soul, and in whose light alone every soul is blessed if it be not ungrateful for his grace. But the things which follow in this book will show what is the nature of these mysteries and what value is to be set upon them. Meanwhile, this most learned man confesses, as his opinion, that the soul of the world and its parts are the true gods from which we perceive that his theology, to it that same natural theology to which he pays great regard, has been able in its completeness to extend itself even to the nature of the rational soul. For in this book, concerning the select gods, he says a very few things by anticipation concerning the natural theology, and we shall see whether he has been able in that book by means of physical interpretations to refer to this natural theology, that civil theology, concerning which he wrote last when treating of the select gods. Now, if he has been able to do this, the whole is natural, and in that case what need was there for distinguishing so carefully the civil from the natural. But if it has been distinguished by a veritable distinction, then, since not even this natural theology with which he is so much pleased is true, for though it has reached as far as the soul, it has not reached to the true God who made the soul, how much more contemptible and false is that civil theology, which is chiefly occupied about what is corporeal, as will be shown by its very interpretations, which they have with such diligence sought out and nucleated, some of which I must necessarily mention. CHAPTER VI The same Varo, then, still speaking by anticipation, says that he thinks that God is the soul of the world, which the Greeks call cosmos, and that this world itself is God, but as a wise man, though he consists of body and mind, is nevertheless called wise on account of his mind, so the world is called God on account of mind, although it consists of mind and body. Here he seems, in some fashion at least, to acknowledge one God, but that he may introduce more, he adds that the world is divided into two parts, heaven and earth, which are again divided each into two parts, heaven into ether and air, earth into water and land, of all which the ether is the highest, the air second, the water third, and the earth the lowest. All these four parts, he says, are full of souls, those which are in the ether and air being immortal, and those which are in the water and on the earth mortal. From the highest part of the heavens to the orbit of the moon there are souls, namely the stars and planets, and these are not only understood to be gods, but are seen to be such. And between the orbit of the moon and the commencement of the region of clouds and winds there are aerial souls, but these are seen with the mind, not with the eyes, and are called heroes, and larries, and genii. This is the natural theology which is briefly set forth in these anticipatory statements, in which satisfied not Varo only, but many philosophers besides. This I must discuss more carefully when, with the help of God, I shall have completed what I have yet to say concerning the civil theology as far as it concerns the select gods. Chapter 7 Who then is Janus, with whom Varo commences? He is the world. Certainly a very brief and unambiguous reply. Why then do they say that the beginnings of things pertain to him, but the ends to another whom they call terminus? For they say that two months have been dedicated to these two gods, with reference to beginnings and ends, January to Janus and February to terminus, over and above those ten months which commence with March and end with December. And they say that that is the reason why the terminalia are celebrated in the month of February, the same month in which the sacred purification is made, which they call February, and from which the month derives its name. Do the beginnings of things therefore pertain to the world which is Janus, and not also the ends, since another god has been placed over them? Do they not own that all things which they say begin in this world also come to an end in this world? What folly it is to give him only half power in work when in his image they give him two faces? Would it not be a far more elegant way of interpreting the two-faced image to say that Janus and terminus are the same, and that the one face has reference to beginnings, the other is to ends? For one who works ought to have respect to both, for he who in every forth-putting of activity does not look back on the beginning, does not look forward to the end. Wherefore it is necessary that prospective intention be connected with retrospective memory? For how shall one find how to finish anything if he has forgotten what it was which he had begun? But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this world and perfected beyond the world, and for that reason attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power of beginnings, they should certainly have preferred terminus to him, and should not have shut him out from the number of the select gods. Yet even now, when the beginnings and ends of temporal things are represented by these two gods, more on are ought to have been given to terminus. For the greater joy is that which is felt when anything is finished. The things begun are always cause of much anxiety until they are brought to an end, which end he who begins anything very greatly longs for fixes his mind on, expects, desires, nor does anyone ever rejoice over anything he has begun unless it be brought to an end. CHAPTER VIII But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be produced, for they say that it has two faces, one before and one behind, because our gaping mouths seem to resemble the world. Once the Greeks call the palaturanos, and some Latin poets, he says, have called the heavens palatum, and from the gaping mouth they say there is a way out in the direction of the teeth and a way in in the direction of the gullet. See what the world has been brought to on account of a Greek or a poetical word for our palette. Let this God be worshiped only on account of saliva, which has two open doorways under the heavens of the palette, one through which part of it may be spittin' out, the other through which part of it may be swallowed down. Besides, what is more absurd than not to find in the world itself two doorways opposite to each other, through which it may either receive anything into itself, or cast it out from itself, and to seek of our throat and gullet, to which the world has no resemblance, to make up an image of the world and Janus, because the world is said to resemble the palette, to which Janus bears no likeness. But when they make him forefaced and call him double Janus, they interpret this as having reference to the four quarters of the world as though the world looked out on anything like Janus through his four faces. Again, if Janus is the world and the world consists of four quarters, then the image of the two-faced Janus is false. Or if it is true, because the whole world is sometimes understood by the expression east and west, will anyone call the world double when north and south also are mentioned, as they call Janus double when he has four faces. They have no way at all of interpreting in relation to the world four doorways by which to go in and to come out, as they did in the case of the two-faced Janus, where they found, at any rate, in the human mouth something which answered to what they said about him, unless perhaps Neptune come to their aid and had them a fish which, besides the mouth and gullet, has also the openings of the gills one on each side. Nevertheless with all the doors no soul escapes this vanity, but that one which hears the truth saying, I am the door. CHAPTER IX But they also show whom they would have Jo, who is also called Jupiter, understood to be. He is the God, say they, who has the power of the causes by which anything comes to be in the world. And how great a thing this is, that most noble verse of Virgil testifies, happy is he who has learned the causes of things. But why is Janus preferred to him? Let that most acute and most learned man answer us this question, because, says he, Janus has dominion over first things, Jupiter over highest things. Therefore Jupiter is deservedly held to be the king of all things, for highest things are better than first things, for although first things proceed in time, highest things excel by dignity. Now this would have been rightly said had the first parts of things which are done been distinguished from the highest parts, as for instance that is the beginning of a thing done to set out, the highest part to arrive. The commencing to learn is the first part of a thing begun, the requirement of knowledge is the highest part. And so of all things, the beginnings are first, the ends highest. This matter, however, has already been discussed in connection with Janus and Terminus. But the causes which are attributed to Jupiter are things effecting, not things effected, and it is impossible for them to be granted in time by things which are made or done, or by the beginnings of such things, for the thing which makes is always prior to the thing which is made. Therefore, though the beginnings of things which are made or done pertain to Janus, they are nevertheless not prior to the efficient causes which they attribute to Jupiter. For as nothing takes place without being preceded by an efficient cause, so without an efficient cause, nothing begins to take place. Verily, if the people call this God Jupiter, in whose power are all the causes of all natures which have been made, and of all natural things, and worship him with such insults and infamous cremations, they are guilty of more shocking sacrilege than if they should totally deny the existence of any God. It would therefore be better for them to call some other God by the name of Jupiter, someone worthy of base and criminal honors, substituting instead of Jupiter some vain fiction, as Saturn is said to have had a stone given to him to devour instead of his son, which they might make the subject of their blasphemies, rather than speak of that God as both thundering and committing adultery, ruling the whole world and laying himself out for the commission of so many licentious acts, having in his power nature and the highest causes of all natural things, but not having his own causes good. Next, I ask what place they find any longer for this Jupiter among the gods if Janus is the world, for Varro defined the true gods to be the soul of the world and the parts of it, and therefore whatever falls not within this definition is certainly not a true God according to them. Will they then say that Jupiter is the soul of the world and Janus the body, that is this visible world? If they say this, it will not be possible for them to affirm that Janus is a God. Or even according to them the body of the world is not a God but the soul of the world and its parts. Wherefore Varro, seeing this, says that he thinks God is the soul of the world and that this world itself is God, but that as a wise man, though he consists of soul and body, is nevertheless called wise from the soul, so the world is called God from the soul, though it consists of soul and body. Therefore the body of the world alone is not God, but either the soul of it alone or the soul and the body together, yet so as that it is God not by virtue of the body but by virtue of the soul. If therefore Janus is the world and Janus is a God, will they say in order that Jupiter may be a God, that he is some part of Janus? For they are wont rather to attribute universal existence to Jupiter, once to saying all things are full of Jupiter. Therefore they must think Jupiter also in order that he may be a God and especially king of the gods to be the world that he may rule over the other gods, according to them, his parts. To this effect also the same Varro expounds certain verses of Valerius Soranus in that book which he wrote apart from the others concerning the worship of the gods. These are the verses. Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings and things and gods, and eek the mother of the gods, God one and all. But in the same book he expounds these verses by saying that as the male emits seed and the female receives it, so Jupiter whom they believed to be the world both emits all seeds from himself and receives them into himself. For which reason he says Soranus wrote, Jove, progenitor, and mother, and with no less reason said that one and all were the same. For the world is one and in that one are all things. CHAPTER X Since therefore Janus is the world and Jupiter is the world, wherefore Janus and Jupiter two gods while the world is but one, why do they have separate temples, separate altars, different rites, dissimilar images? If it be because the nature of beginnings is one, and the nature of causes another, and one is received in the name of Janus, and the other of Jupiter, is it then the case that if one man has two distinct offices of authority, or two arts, two judges, or two artificers are spoken of, because the nature of the offices or of the arts is different? So also with respect to one God. If he have the power of beginnings and of causes, must he therefore be thought to be two gods, because beginnings and causes are two things? But if they think that this is right, let them also affirm that Jupiter is as many gods as they have given him surnames on account of many powers, for the things from which these surnames are applied to him are many and diverse. I shall mention a few of them. CHAPTER XI They have called him Victor, Invictus, Opetulus, Impulsor, Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis, Teguilus, Almus, Ruminus, and other names which were along to enumerate. But these surnames they have given to one God on account of diverse causes and powers, but yet have not compelled him to be on account of so many things as many gods. They give him these surnames because he conquered all things, because he was conquered by none, because he brought help to the needy, because he had the power of impelling, stopping, establishing, throwing on the back, because as a being he held together and sustained the world, as he nourished all things, because like the pap he nourished animals. Here we perceive are some great things and some small things, and yet it is one who is said to perform them all. I think that the causes and the beginnings of things, on account of which they have thought that the one world is two gods, Jupiter and Janus, are nearer to each other than the holding together of the world and the giving of the pap to animals. And yet on account of these two works so far apart from each other, both in nature and dignity, there has not been any necessity for the existence of two gods, but one Jupiter has been called on account of the one Tegelus on account of the other Ruminus. I am unwilling to say that the giving of the pap to sucking animals might have become Juno rather than Jupiter, especially whether it was the goddess Rumina to help and to serve her in this work, for I think it may be replied that Juno herself is nothing else than Jupiter according to those verses of Valerius Soranus where it has been said, Almighty Job, progenitor of kings and things and gods, and each the mother of the gods, etc. Why then was he called Ruminus when they who may perchance inquire more diligently may find that he is also that goddess Rumina? If then it was rightly thought unworthy of the majesty of the gods that in one ear of corn one god should have the care of the joint, another that of the husk, how much more unworthy of that majesty is it that one thing and that of the lowest kind, even the giving of the pap to animals that they may be nourished, should be under the care of two gods, one of whom is Jupiter himself, the very king of all things, who does this not along with his own wife, but with some ignoble Rumina, unless perhaps he himself is Rumina, being Ruminus for males and Rumina for females. I should certainly have said that they had been unwilling to apply to Jupiter a feminine name, had he not been styled in these verses per genitor and mother, and had I not read among other surnames of his that of Pecunia, money, which we found as a goddess among those petty deities as I have already mentioned in the fourth book. But since both males and females have money, Pecunia, why has he not been called both Pecunius and Pecunia? That is their concern. CHAPTER XII. How elegantly they have accounted for this name. He is also called Pecunia, they say, because all things belong to him. Oh, how grand an explanation of the name of a deity! Yes, he to whom all things belong is most meanly and most contumeliously called Pecunia. In comparison of all things which are contained by heaven and earth, what are all things together which are possessed by men under the name of money? In this name foresooth hath Averus given to Jupiter that whoever was a lover of money might seem to himself to love not an ordinary God, but the very king of all things himself. But it would be a far different thing if he had been called riches, for riches are one thing, money another. For we call rich the wise, the just, the good, who have either no money or very little. For they are more truly rich in possessing virtue, since by it even as respects things necessary for the body, they are content with what they have. But we call the greedy poor, who are always craving and always wanting. For they may possess ever so great an amount of money, but whatever be the abundance of that they are not able but to want. And we properly call God himself rich, not however in money, but in omnipotence. Therefore they who have abundance of money are called rich, but inwardly needy if they are greedy. So also those who have no money are called poor, but inwardly rich if they are wise. What then ought the wise man to think of this theology, in which the king of the gods receives the name of that thing which no wise man has desired? For had there been anything wholesomely taught by this philosophy concerning eternal life, how much more appropriately would that God, who was the ruler of the world, have been called by them, not money, but wisdom, the love of which purges from the filth of avarice, that is, of the love of money? CHAPTER XIII. But why speak more of this Jupiter with whom perchance all the rest, or to be identified, so that he, being all, the opinionist to the existence of many gods, may remain as a mere opinion, empty of all truth? And there all to be referred to him, if his various parts and powers are thought of as so many gods, or if the principle of mind which they think to be diffused through all things has received the names of many gods from the various parts which the mass of this visible world combines in itself and from the manifold administration of nature? For what is Saturn also? One of the principal gods, he says, who has dominion over all sowings. Does not the exposition of the verses of Valerius Soranus teach that Jupiter is the world and that he emits all seeds from himself and receives them into himself? It is he then with whom is the dominion of all sowings? What is genius? He is the God who has set over and has the power of begetting all things. Who else in the world do they believe to have this power to which it has been said Almighty Job, Progenitor, and Mother? And when in another place he says that genius is the rational soul of every one, and therefore exists separately in each individual, but that the corresponding soul of the world is God, he just comes back to this same thing, namely that the soul of the world itself is to be held to be, as it were, the universal genius. This, therefore, is what he calls Jupiter. For if every genius is a God, and the soul of every man a genius, it follows that the soul of every man is a God. But if very absurdity compels even these theologists themselves to shrink from this, it remains that they call that genius God by special and preeminent distinction whom they call the soul of the world and therefore Jupiter. CHAPTER 14 But they have not found how to refer Mercury and Mars to any parts of the world and to the works of God which are in the elements, and therefore they have set them at least over human works, making them assistance in speaking and in carrying on wars. Now Mercury, if he has also the power of the speech of the gods, rules also over the king of the gods himself if Jupiter, as he receives from him the faculty of speech, also speaks according as it is his pleasure to permit him, which surely is absurd. But if it is only the power over human speech which is held to be attributed to him, then we say it is incredible that Jupiter should have condescended to give the path not only to children but also to beasts, from which he has been surnamed Ruminus, and yet should have been unwilling that the care of our speech by which we excel the beasts should pertain to him, and thus speech itself belongs both to Jupiter and his Mercury. But if speech itself is said to be Mercury as those things which are said concerning him by way of interpretation show it to be, for he is said to have been called Mercury, that is, he who runs between, because speech runs between men. They say also that the greats call him Hermes because speech or interpretation, which certainly belongs to speech, is called by them Hermineia. Also he is said to preside over payments because speech passes between sellers and buyers. The wings too, which he has on his head and on his feet, they say mean that speech passes winged through the air. He is also said to have been called the messenger because by means of speech all our thoughts are expressed. If therefore speech itself is Mercury, then even by their own confession he is not a god. But when they make to themselves gods of such as are not even demons, by praying to unclean spirits, they are possessed by such as are not gods but demons. In like manner, because they have not been able to find for Mars any element or part of the world in which he might perform some works of nature of whatever kind, they have said that he is the god of war, which is a work of men, and that not one which is considered desirable by them. If therefore Felicitas should give perpetual peace, Mars would have nothing to do. But if war itself is Mars, as speech is Mercury, I wish it were as true that there were no war to be falsely called a god, as it is true that it is not a god. CHAPTER XV But possibly these stars which have been called by their names are these gods. For they call a certain star Mercury and likewise a certain other star Mars. But among those stars which are called by the names of gods is that one which they call Jupiter, and yet with them Jupiter is the world. There also is that one they call Saturn, and yet they give to him no small property besides, namely all seeds. There also is that brightest of them all which is called by them Venus, and yet they will have this same Venus to be also the moon. Not to mention how Venus and Juno are said by them to contend about that most brilliant star as though about another golden apple. For some say that Lucifer belongs to Venus, and some to Juno, but as usual Venus conquers. For by far the greatest number assigned that star to Venus, so much so that there is scarcely found one of them who thinks otherwise. But since they call Jupiter the king of all, who will not laugh to see his star so far as to pass in brilliancy by the star of Venus? For it ought to have been as much more brilliant than the rest as he himself is more powerful. The answer that it only appears so because it is higher up and very much farther away from the earth. If therefore its greatest dignity is deserved a higher place, why is Saturn higher in the heavens than Jupiter? Was the vanity of the fable which made Jupiter king not able to reach the stars, and has Saturn been permitted to obtain at least in the heavens what he could not obtain in his own kingdom nor in the capital? But why has Janus received no star? If it is because he is the world, and they are all in him, the world is also Jupiter's, and yet he has one. The Janus compromises cases best he could, and instead of the one star which he does not have among the heavenly bodies except so many faces on earth. Again, if they think that on account of the stars alone Mercury and Mars are parts of the world, in order that they may be able to have them for gods, since speech and war are not parts of the world but acts of men, how is it that they have made no altars, established no rites, built no temples for Aries, and Taurus, and Cancer, and Scorpio, and the rest which they number as the celestial signs, in which consist not of single stars but each of them of many stars, which also they say are situated above those already mentioned in the highest part of the heavens, where a more constant motion causes the stars to follow an undeviating course? And why have they not reckoned them as gods? I do not say among those select gods, but not even among those as it were plebeian gods. Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and physician, they have nevertheless given him a place as some part of the world. They have said that he is also the sun, and likewise they have said that Diana, his sister, is the moon, and the guardian of roads. Whence also they will have her be a virgin because a road brings forth nothing. They also make both of them have arrows because those two planets send their rays from the heavens to the earth. They make Vulcan to be the fire of the world, Neptune the waters of the world, Father Dis, that is Orcus the earthly and lowest part of the world. Lieber and Ceres they set over seeds, the former over the seeds of males, the latter over the seeds of females, or the one over the fluid part of seed, but the other over the dry part. And all this together is referred to the world, that is to Jupiter, who is called progenitor and mother because he emitted all seeds from himself and received them into himself. For they also make this same Ceres to be the great mother, who they say is none other than the earth, and call her also Juno. And therefore they assigned to her the second causes of things, notwithstanding that it has been said to Jupiter, progenitor and mother of the gods, because according to them the whole world itself is Jupiters. Minerva also, because they set her over human arts, and did not find even a star in which to place her, has been said by them to be either the highest ether or even the moon. Also Vesta herself, they have thought to be the highest of the goddesses because she is the earth, although they have thought that the milder fire of the world, which is used for the ordinary purposes of human life, not the more violent fire, such as belongs to Vulcan, is to be assigned to her. And thus they will have all those select gods to be the world and its parts, some of them the whole world, others of them its parts, the whole of it Jupiter, its parts genius, matrimonia, soul, and Luna, or rather Apollo and Diana, and so on. And sometimes they make one god many things, sometimes one thing many gods. Many things are one god in the case of Jupiter, for both the whole world is Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and the star alone is said and held to be Jupiter. Juno also is mistress of second causes. Juno is the air, Juno is the earth, and had she wanted over Venus Juno would have been the star. Likewise Minerva is the highest ether, and Minerva is likewise the moon, which they supposed to be in the lowest limit of the ether. And also they make one thing many gods in this way. The world is both Janus and Jupiter. Also the earth is Juno, and matrimonia, and Ceres. CHAPTER XVII And the same is true with respect to all the rest, as is true with respect to those things which I have mentioned for the sake of example. They do not explain them, but rather involve them. They rush hither and thither, to this side or to that, according as they are driven by the impulse of erratic opinion, so that even Varro himself has chosen rather to doubt concerning all things than to affirm anything. For having written the first of the three last books concerning the certain gods, and having commenced in the second of these to speak of the uncertain gods, he says, I ought not to be censured for having stated in this book the doubtful opinions concerning the gods. For he who, when he has read them, shall think that they both ought to be, and can be, conclusively judged of, will do so himself. For my own part I can be more easily led to doubt the things which I have written in the first book than to attempt to reduce all the things I shall write in this one to any orderly system. Thus he makes uncertain not only that book concerning the uncertain gods, but also that other concerning the certain gods. Moreover, in that third book concerning the select gods, after having exhibited by anticipation as much of the natural theology as he deemed necessary, and when about to commence to speak of the vanities and lying and sanities of the civil theology, where he was not only without the guidance of the truth of things, but was also pressed by the authority of tradition, he says, I will write in this book concerning the public gods of the Roman people, to whom they have dedicated themselves, and whom they have conspicuously distinguished by many adornments. But as Xenophon of Colophon writes, I will state what I think, not what I am prepared to maintain, it is for man to think those things, for God to know them. It is not then an account of things comprehended and most certainly believed which he promised when about to write those things which were instituted by man. He only timidly promises an account of things which are but the subject of doubtful opinion. Nor indeed was it possible for him to affirm with the same certainty that Janus was the world and such like things, or to discover with the same certainty such things as how Jupiter was the son of Saturn, while Saturn was made subject to him as king. He could, I say, neither affirm nor discover such things with the same certainty with which he knew such things as that the world existed, that the heavens and earth existed, that the heavens bright with stars and the earth fertile through seeds, or with the same perfect conviction with which he believed that this universal mass of nature is governed and administered by a certain invisible and mighty force. End of Book 7, Preface in Chapters 1-17. Recording by Darren L. Slider, Fort Worth, Texas, www.logoslibrary.org.