 Book 7. CHAPTER XVIII A far more credible account of these gods is given, when it is said that they were men, and that to each one of them sacred rites and solemnities were instituted according to his particular genius, manners, actions, circumstances, which rites and solemnities, by gradually creeping through the souls of men which are like demons, and eager for things which yield them sport, were spread far and wide. The poets adorning them with lies and false spirits seducing men to receive them. For it is far more likely that some youth, either impious himself or afraid of being slain by an impious father, being desirous to reign, dethroned his father, than that, according to Vara's interpretation, Saturn was overthrown by his son Jupiter, for cause which belongs to Jupiter is before seed which belongs to Saturn. For had this been so, Saturn would never have been before Jupiter, nor would he have been the father of Jupiter, for cause always precedes seed and is never generated from seed. But when they seek to honor by natural interpretation most vain fables or deeds of men, even the acutus men are so perplexed that we are compelled to grieve for their folly also. CHAPTER XIX They said, says Vara, that Saturn was want to devour all that sprang from him because seeds returned to the earth from whence they sprang. And when it is said that a lump of earth was put before Saturn to be devoured instead of Jupiter, it is signified, he says, that before the art of plowing was discovered seeds were buried in the earth by the hands of men. The earth itself then, and not seeds, should have been called Saturn, because it, in a manner devours what it has brought forth when the seeds which have sprung from it returned again into it. And what has Saturn's receiving of a lump of earth instead of Jupiter to do with this, that the seeds were covered in the soil by the hands of men? Was the seed kept from being devoured, like other things, by being covered with the soil? For what they say would imply that he who put on the soil took away the seed, as Jupiter is said to have been taken away, when the lump of soil was offered to Saturn instead of him, and not rather that the soil, by covering the seed, only caused it to be devoured more eagerly? Then, in that way, Jupiter is the seed, and not the cause of the seed, as was said a little before. But what shall men do who cannot find anything wise to say because they are interpreting foolish things? Saturn has a pruning knife. That, says Vara, is on account of agriculture. Certainly, in Saturn's rain there has yet existed no agriculture, and therefore the former times of Saturn are spoken of, because, as the same Varo interprets the fables, the primeval man lived on those seeds which the earth produced spontaneously. Perhaps he received a pruning knife when he had lost his scepter, that he who had been a king and lived at ease during the first part of his time should become a laborious workman whilst his son occupied the throne. Then he says that boys were want to be immolated to him by certain peoples, the Carthaginians, for instance, and also that adults were immolated by some nations, for example the Gauls, because of all seeds the human race is the best. What need we say more concerning this most true vanity? Let us rather attend to and hold by this that these interpretations are not carried up to the true God, a living, incorporeal, unchangeable nature from whom a blessed life enduring forever may be obtained, but that they end in things which are incorporeal, temporal, mutable, and mortal. And whereas it is said in the fables that Saturn castrated his father Celloose, this signifies, says Varo, that the divine seed belongs to Saturn and not to Celloose, for this reason, as far as a reason can be discovered, namely that in heaven nothing is born from seed. But lo, Saturn, if he is the son of Celloose, is the son of Jupiter, for they affirm times without number and not emphatically that the heavens are Jupiter. Thus those things which come not of the truth do very often without being impelled by any one themselves overthrow one another. He says that Saturn was called Kronos, which in the Greeks tongue signifies a space of time, because without that seed cannot be productive. These and many other things are said concerning Saturn, and they are all referred to seed. But Saturn truly, with all that great power, might have sufficed for seed. Why are other gods demanded for it, especially Libra and Libra, that is Ceres, concerning whom again, as far as seed is concerned, he says as many things as if he had said nothing concerning Saturn? CHAPTER XX Now among the rites of Ceres, those Eleusinian rites are much feigned which were in the highest repute among the Athenians, of which Varo offers no interpretation except with respect to Korn, which Ceres discovered, and with respect to Prosopin, whom Ceres lost, Orcus having carried her away. And this Prosopin herself, he says, signifies the fecundity of seeds. But as this fecundity departed at a certain season, whilst the earth wore an aspect of sorrow through the consequent sterility, there arose an opinion that the daughter of Ceres, that is, fecundity itself, who was called Prosopin, from Prasarperae to Creteforth to Spring, had been carried away by Orcus and detained among the inhabitants of the Netherworld, which circumstance was celebrated with public mourning. But since the same fecundity again returned, there arose joy because Prosopin had been given back by Orcus, and thus these rites were instituted. Then Varo adds that many things are taught in the mysteries of Ceres which only refer to the discovery of fruits. CHAPTER XXI Now as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over liquid seeds and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits, among which wine holds, so to speak, the primacy, but also over the seeds of animals. As to these rites, I am unwilling to undertake to show to what excess of turpitude they had reached, because that would entail a lengthened discourse, though I am not unwilling to do so as a demonstration of the proud stupidity of those who practice them. Among other rites which I am compelled from the greatness of their number to omit, Varo says that in Italy, at the places where roads crossed each other, the rites of Liber were celebrated with such unrestrained turpitude that the private parts of a man were worshipped in his honor. Nor was this abomination transacted in secret that some regard at least might be paid to modesty, but was openly and wantonly displayed. For during the festival of Liber, this obscene member, placed on a car, was carried with great honor, first over the crossroads in the country, and then into the city. But in the town of Lavinium a whole month was devoted to Liber alone, during the days of which all the people gave themselves up to the most disillute conversation until that member had been carried through the forum and brought to rest in its own place, on which unseemly member it was necessary that the most honorable matron should place a wreath in the presence of all the people. Thus forsooth was the God Liber to be appeased in order to the growth of seeds. Thus was enchantment to be driven away from fields, even by a matron's being compelled to do in public what not even a harlot ought to be permitted to do in a theater if there were matrons among the spectators. For these reasons then Saturn alone was not believed to be sufficient for seeds, namely that the impure mind might find occasions for multiplying the gods, and that being righteously abandoned to uncleanness by the one true God, and being prostituted to the worship of many false gods, through an avidity for ever greater and greater uncleanness, it should call these sacrilegious rights sacred things, and should abandon itself to be violated and polluted by crowds of foul demons. CHAPTER XXII Now Neptune had Silesia to wife, who they say is the nether waters of the sea. Wherefore was Vanilla also joined to him? Was it not simply through the lust of the soul desiring a greater number of demons to whom to prostitute itself, and not because this goddess was necessary to the perfection of their sacred rights? But let the interpretation of this illustrious theology be brought forward to restrain us from this censuring by rendering a satisfactory reason. Vanilla says this theology is the way which comes to the shore, Silesia the way which returns into the sea. Why then are there two goddesses when it is one way which comes and returns? Certainly it is mad lust itself, which in its eagerness for many deities resembles the waves which break on the shore. For though the water which goes is not different from that which returns, still the soul which goes and returns not is defiled by two demons whom it has taken occasion by this false pretext to invite. I ask thee, O Varro, and you who have read such works have learned men, and think ye have learned something great. I ask you to interpret this. I do not say in a manner consistent with the eternal and unchangeable nature which alone is God, but only in a manner consistent with a doctrine concerning the soul of the world and its parts which ye think to be the true gods. It is a somewhat more tolerable thing that ye have made that part of the soul of the world which pervades to see your God Neptune. Is the wave then which comes to the shore and returns to the main, two parts of the world, or two parts of the soul of the world? Who of you is so silly as to think so? Why then have they made to you two goddesses? The only reason seems to be that your wise ancestors have provided not that many gods should rule you, but that many of such demons as are delighted with those vanities and falsehoods should possess you. But why has that salacea, according to this interpretation, lost to the lower part of the sea, seeing that she was represented as subject to her husband? For in saying that she is the receding wave, ye have put her on the surface. Was she enraged at her husband for taking Vanilla as a concubine, and thus drove him from the upper part of the sea? CHAPTER XXIII Surely the earth, which we see full of its own living creatures, is one, but for all that it is but a mighty mass among the elements in the lowest part of the world. Why then would they have it to be a goddess? Is it because it is fruitful? Why then are not men rather held to be gods who render it fruitful by cultivating it, but though they plow it, do not adore it? But they say the part of the soul of the world which pervades it makes it a goddess. As if it were not a far more evident thing, nay, a thing which is not cold in question that there is a soul in man. And yet men are not held to be gods, but a thing to be sadly lamented, with wonderful and pitiful delusion are subjected to those who are not gods, and then whom they themselves are better as the objects of deserved worship and adoration. And certainly the same Varo and the book concerning the select gods affirms that there are three grades of soul in universal nature. One which pervades all the living parts of the body and has not sensation but only the power of life, that principle which penetrates into the bones, nails, and hair. By this principle in the world trees are nourished and grow without being possessed of sensation and live in a manner peculiar to themselves. The second grade of soul is that in which there is sensation. This principle penetrates into the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouths, and the organs of sensation. The third grade of soul is the highest and is called mind, where intelligence has its throne. This grade of soul no mortal creatures except man are possessed of. Now this part of the soul of the world, Varo says, is called God, and in us is called genius. In the stones and earth in the world which we see and which are not pervaded by the power of sensation are, as it were, the bones and nails of God. Again, the sun, moon, and stars which we perceive and by which he perceives are his organs of perception. Moreover the ether is his mind, and by the virtue which is in it which penetrates into the stars it also makes them gods. And because it penetrates through them into the earth it makes it that God is Telus. Once again it enters and permeates the sea and ocean, making them the God Neptune. Let him return from this which he thinks to be natural theology, back to that from which he went out in order to rest from the fatigue occasioned by the many turnings and whinings of his path. Let him return, I say, let him return to the civil theology. I wish to detain him there a while. I have somewhat to say which has to do with that theology. I am not yet saying that if the earth and stones are similar to our bones and nails they are in like manner devoid of intelligence as they are devoid of sensation. Nor am I saying that if our bones and nails are said to have intelligence because they are in a man who has intelligence, he who says that the things analogous to these in the world or gods is as stupid as he is who says that our bones and nails are men. We shall perhaps have occasion to dispute these things with the philosophers. At present, however, I wish to deal with Varro as a political theologian. For it is possible that though he may seem to have wished to lift up his head as it were into the liberty of natural theology, the consciousness that the book with which he was occupied was one concerning a subject belonging to civil theology may have caused him to relapse into the point of view of that theology, and to say this in order that the ancestors of his nation and other states might not be believed to have bestowed on Neptune an irrational worship. What I am to say is this. Since the earth is one, why has not that part of the soul of the world which permeates the earth made it that one goddess which he calls Teluz? But had it done so, what then had become of Orcus, the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, whom they call Father Dis? And where, in that case, had been his wife Proserpene, who according to another opinion given in the same book, is called not the fecundity of the earth, but its lower part. But if they say that part of the soul of the world when it permeates the upper part of the earth makes the god Father Dis, but when it pervades the nether part of the same, the goddess Proserpene, what in that case will that Teluz be? For all that which she was has been divided into these two parts and these two gods, so that it is impossible to find what to make or where to place her as a third goddess, except it be said that those divinities Orcus and Proserpene are the one goddess Teluz, and that they are not three gods, but one or two, whilst notwithstanding they are called three, held to be three, worshiped as three, having their own several altars, their own shrines, rites, images, priests, whilst their own false demons also through these things defile the prostituted soul. Let this further question be answered. What part of the earth is a part of the soul of the world permeate in order to make the god Telumo? No, says he, but the earth being one and the same has a double life, the masculine which produces seed, and the feminine which receives and nourishes the seed. Hence it has been called Teluz from the feminine principle and Telumo from the masculine. Why then do the priests, as he indicates, perform divine service to four gods, two others being added, namely to Teluz, Telumo, Altor, and Rusor? We have already spoken concerning Teluz and Telumo, but why do they worship Altor? Because, says he, all that springs of the earth is nourished by the earth. Wherefore, do they worship Rusor? Because all things will turn back again to the place once they preceded. Chapter 24 The one earth, then, on account of this fourfold virtue, ought to have had four surnames, but not to have been considered as four gods. As Jupiter and Juno, they have so many surnames, or for all that, only single deities. For by all these surnames it is signified that a manifold virtue belongs to one god or to one goddess, but the multitude of surnames does not imply a multitude of gods. But as sometimes even the vilest women themselves grow tired of those crowds which they have sought after under the impulse of wicked passion, so also the soul, become vile and prostituted to impure spirits, sometimes begins to loathe the multiply to itself gods to whom to surrender itself to be polluted by them, as much as is once delighted in so doing. For Varro himself, as if ashamed of that crowd of gods, would make Telus to be one goddess. They say, says he, that whereas the one great mother has a tympanum, it is signified that she is the orb of the earth, whereas she has towers on her head, towns are signified, and whereas seats are fixed round about her, it is signified that whilst all things move, she moves not. And there having made the galley to serve this goddess signifies that they who are in need of seed ought to follow the earth, for in it all seeds are found. By their throwing themselves down before her it is taught, as he says, that they who cultivate the earth should not sit idle, for there is always something for them to do. The sound of the symbol signifies the noise made by the throwing of iron utensils and by men's hands, and all other noises connected with agricultural operations. And these symbols are of brass, because the ancients used brazen utensils in their agriculture before iron was discovered. They placed beside the goddess an unbound and tame lion to show that there is no kind of land so wild and so excessively barren as that it would be profitless to attempt to bring it in and cultivate it. Then he adds that because they gave many names and surnames to Mother Telus it came to be thought that these signified many gods. They think, says he, that Telus is ops because the earth is improved by labor, mother because it brings forth much, great because it brings forth seed, prosopene because fruits creep forth from it, vesta because it is invested with herbs, and thus, says he, they not at all absurdly identify other goddesses with the earth. If then it is one goddess, though if the truth were consulted it is not even that, why do they nevertheless separate it into many? Let there be many names of one goddess, and let there not be as many goddesses as there are names. But the authority of the erring ancients weighs heavily on Varro and compels him after having expressed this opinion to show signs of uneasiness, for he immediately adds, with which things the opinion of the ancients who thought that there were really many goddesses does not conflict. How does it not conflict when it is entirely a different thing to say that one goddess has many names and to say that there are many goddesses? But it is possible, he says, that the same thing may both be one and yet have in it a plurality of things. I grant that there are many things in one man, are there therefore in him many men? In like manner in one goddess there are many things, are there therefore also many goddesses? But let them divide, unite, multiply, reduplicate, and implicate as they like. These are the famous mysteries of Telos and the Great Mother, all of which are shown to have reference to mortal seeds and to agriculture. Do these things, then, namely the tepanum, the towers, the galley, the tossing to and fro of limbs, the noise of symbols, the images of lions? Do these things, having this reference and this end, promise eternal life? Do the mutilated galley then serve this great mother in order to signify that they who are in need of seed should follow the earth, as though it were not rather the case that this very service caused them to want seed? For what do they, by following this goddess, acquire seed being in want of it, or by following her lose seed when they have it? Is this to interpret or to deprecate? Nor is it considered to what a degree maligned demons have gained the upper hand in as much as they have been able to exact such cruel rites without having dared to promise any great things and return for them. Had the earth not been a goddess, men would have by laboring laid their hands on it in order to obtain seed through it, and would not have laid violent hands on themselves in order to lose seed on account of it. Had it not been a goddess, it would have become so fertile by the hands of others that it would not have compelled a man to be rendered barren by his own hands. Nor that in the festival of labor an honorable matron put a wreath on the private parts of a man in the sight of the multitude, where perhaps her husband was standing by blushing and perspiring, if there is any shame left in men, and that in the celebration of marriages the newly married bride was ordered to sit upon pryabas. These things are bad enough, but they are small and contemptible in comparison with that most cruel abomination or most abominable cruelty by which either said is so deluded that neither perishes of its wound. There the enchantment of fields is feared, here the amputation of members is not feared. There the modesty of the bride is outraged, but in such a manner as that neither her fruitfulness nor even her virginity is taken away, here a man is so mutilated that he is neither changed into a woman nor remains a man. CHAPTER XXV Varro has not spoken of that Attis, nor sought out any interpretation for him in memory of whose being loved by Ceres the Gallus is mutilated. But the learned and wise Greeks have by no means been silent about an interpretation so holy and so illustrious. The celebrated philosopher Porphyry has said that Attis signifies the flowers of spring which is the most beautiful season and therefore was mutilated because the flower falls before the fruit appears. They have not then compared the man himself or rather that semblance of a man they called Attis to the flower but his male organs. These indeed fell whilst he was living. Did I say fell? Nay, truly they did not fall, nor were they plucked off but torn away. Nor when that flower was lost did any fruit follow but rather a sterility. What then do they say is signified by the castrated Attis himself and whatever remained to him after his castration? To what do they refer that? What interpretation does that give rise to? Do they, after vain endeavors to discover an interpretation, seek to persuade men that that is rather to be believed which report has been made public and which also has been written concerning his having been a mutilated man? Arvarov has very properly opposed this and has been unwilling to state it for it certainly was not unknown to that most learned man. Chapter 26 Concerning the effeminates consecrated to the same great mother in defiance of all the modesty which belongs to men and women, Varro has not wished to say anything nor do I remember to have read anywhere ought concerning them. These effeminates, no later than yesterday, were going through the streets and places of carthage with anointed hair, whitened faces, relaxed bodies, and feminine gait, exacting from the people the means of maintaining their ignominious lives. Nothing has been said concerning them. Interpretation failed, reason blushed, speech was silent. The great mother has surpassed all her sons not in greatness of deity but of crime. To this monster not even the monstrosity of Janus is to be compared. His deformity was only in his image, hers was the deformity of cruelty in her sacred rites. He has a redundancy of members in stone images, she inflicts the loss of members on men. This abomination is not surpassed by the licentious deeds of Jupiter, so many and so great. He, with all his seductions of women, only disgraced heaven with one ganameed. She, with so many avowed and public effeminates, has both defiled the earth and outraged heaven. Perhaps we may either compare Saturn to this mania mater, or even set him before her in this kind of abominable cruelty for he mutilated his father. But at the festivals of Saturn men could rather be slain by the hands of others than mutilated by their own. He devoured his sons as the poets say, and the natural theologists interpret this as they list. History says he slew them. But the Romans have never received, like the Carthaginians, the custom of sacrificing their sons to him. This great mother of the gods, however, has brought mutilated men into Roman temples, and has preserved that cruel custom, being believed to promote the strength of the Romans by emasculating their men. Compared with this evil, what are the thefts of Mercury, the wantonness of Venus, and the base and flagitious deeds of the rest of them, which we might bring forward from books, were it not that they are daily sung and danced in the theaters? But what are those things to sow great and evil, an evil whose magnitude was only proportioned to the greatness of the great mother, especially as these are said to have been invented by the poets, as if the poets had also invented this, that they are acceptable to the gods. Let it be imputed then to the audacity and impudence of the poets that these things have been sung and written of, but that they have been incorporated into the body of divine rites and honors, the deities themselves demanding and extorting that incorporation, what is that but the crime of the gods, nay more the confession of demons than the deception of wretched men. But as to this that the great mother is considered to be worshipped in the appropriate form when she is worshipped by the consecration of mutilated men, this is not an invention of the poets, nay they have rather shrunk from it with horror than sung of it. What any one, then, to be consecrated to these select gods that he may live blessedly after death, consecrated to whom he could not live decently before death, being subjected to such foul superstitions and bound over to unclean demons. But all these things said faro are to be referred to the world. Let them consider if it be not rather to the unclean. But why not refer that to the world which is demonstrated to be in the world? We, however, seek for a mind which, trusting to true religion, does not adore the world as its god, but for the sake of God praises the world as a work of God, and purified from mundane defilements, comes pure to God himself who founded the world. Chapter 27 We see that these select gods have indeed become more famous than the rest. Not, however, that their merits may be brought to light, but that their approbrious deeds may not be hid. Once it is more credible that they were men, as not only poetic, but also historical literature has handed down. For this which Virgil says, then from Olympus Heights came down good Saturn, exiled from his throne by Jove, his mightier heir. And what follows with reference to this affair is fully related by the historian Euhemerus, and has been translated into Latin by Aeneos. And as they have written before us in the Greek or in the Latin tongue, against such errors as these, have said much concerning this matter, I have thought it unnecessary to dwell upon it. When I consider those physical reasons, then, by which learned and acute men attempt to turn human things into divine things, all I see is that they have been able to refer these things only to temporal works, and to that which has a corporeal nature, and even though invisible, still mutable, and this is by no means the true God. But if this worship had been performed as the symbolism of ideas at least congruous for the religion, though it would indeed have been cause of grief that the true God was not announced and proclaimed by its symbolism, nevertheless it could have been in some degree borne with when it did not occasion and command the performance of such foul and abominable things. But since it is impiety to worship the body or the soul for the true God, by whose indwelling alone the soul is happy, how much more impious is it to worship those things through which neither soul nor body can obtain either salvation or human honor? Wherefore, if with temple, priest, and sacrifice which are due to the true God, any element of the world be worshiped, or any created spirit, even though not impure and evil, that worship is still evil, not because the things are evil by which the worship is performed, but because those things ought only to be used in the worship of him to whom alone such worship and service are due. But if anyone insists that he worships the one true God, that is, the creator of every soul and of every body, with stupid and monstrous idols, with human victims, with putting a wreath on the male organ, with the wages of unchastity, with the cutting of limbs, with emasculation, with the consecration of effeminence, with impure and obscene place, such a one does not sin because he worships one who ought not to be worshiped, but because he worships him who ought to be worshiped in a way in which he ought not to be worshiped. But he who worships with such things, that is, foul and obscene things, and that not the true God, namely the maker of soul and body, but a creature, even though not a wicked creature, whether it be soul or body, or soul and body together, twice sins against God, because he both worships for God what is not God, and also worships with such things as neither God nor what is not God ought to be worshiped with. It is indeed manifest how these pagans worship, that is, how shamefully and criminally they worship, but what or whom they worship would have been left in obscurity, had not their history testified that those same confessedly base and foul rites were rendered in obedience to the demands of the gods who exacted them with terrible severity. Wherefore it is evident beyond doubt that this whole civil theology is occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and most impure spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and through these to take possession of stupid hearts. CHAPTER XXVIII To what purpose, then, is it that this most learned and most acute manvaro attempts, as it were, was subtle disputation to reduce and refer all these gods to heaven and earth? He cannot do it. They go out of his hands like water. They shrink back. They slip down and fall. For when about to speak of the females, that is, the goddesses, he says, since as I observed in the first book concerning places heaven and earth are the two origins of the gods, on which account they are called celestials and terrestrials, and as I began in the former books with heaven, speaking of Janus, whom some have said to be heaven and others the earth, so I now commence with Telus in speaking concerning the goddesses. I can understand what embarrassment so great a mind was experiencing, for he is influenced by the perception of a certain plausible resemblance when he says that the heaven is that which does, and the earth that which suffers, and therefore attributes the masculine principle to the one and the feminine to the other, not considering that it is rather he who made both heaven and earth who is the maker of both activity and passivity. On this principle he interprets the celebrated mysteries of the Samothrations, and promises with an air of great devoutness that he will by writing expound these mysteries which have not been so much as known to his countrymen and will send them his exposition. Then he says that he had for many proofs gathered that in those mysteries among the images one signifies heaven, another the earth, another the patterns of things which Plato calls ideas. He makes Jupiter to signify heaven, Juno the earth, Minerva the ideas, heaven by which anything is made, the earth from which it is made, and the pattern according to which it is made. But with respect to the last I am forgetting to say that Plato attributed so great an importance to these ideas as to say not that anything was made by heaven according to them, but that according to them heaven itself was made. To return, however, it is to be observed that Varo has in the book on the select gods lost that theory of these gods in whom he has, as it were, embraced all things. For he assigns the male gods to heaven, the females to earth, among which latter he has placed Minerva, whom he had before placed above heaven itself. Then the male god Neptune is in the sea which pertains rather to earth than to heaven. Last of all, Father Dis, who is called in Greek Pluton, another male god, brother of both Jupiter and Neptune, is also held to be a god of the earth, holding the upper region of the earth himself and allotting the nether region to his wife Prosopene. How then do they attempt to refer the gods to heaven and the goddesses to earth? What solidity, what consistency, what sobriety has this disputation? But the Telus is the origin of the goddesses, the great mother to it, beside whom there is continually the noise of the mad and abominable reverie of effeminates and mutilated men, and men who cut themselves and indulge in frantic gesticulations. How is it then that Janus is called the head of the gods and Telus the head of the goddesses? In the one case, error does not make one head, and in the other frenzy does not make a sane one. Why do they vainly attempt to refer these to the world? Even if they could do so, no pious person worships the world for the true God. Nevertheless, plain truth makes it evident that they are not able even to do this. Let them rather identify them with dead men and most wicked demons and no further question will remain. Chapter 29 For all those things which, according to the account given of those gods, are referred to the world by so-called physical interpretation, may without any religious scruble be rather assigned to the true God who made heaven and earth and created every soul and every body. And the following is the manner in which we see that this may be done. We worship God, not heaven and earth of which two parts this world consists, nor the soul or souls diffused through all living things, but God who made heaven and earth and all things which are in them, who made every soul whatever be the nature of its life, whether it have life without sensation and reason, or life with sensation, or life with both sensation and reason. Chapter 30 And now to begin to go over those works of the one true God, on account of which these have made to themselves many and false gods, whilst they attempt to give an honorable interpretation to their many most abominable and most infamous mysteries. We worship that God who is appointed to the natures created by him, both the beginnings and the end of their existing and moving, who holds, knows, and disposes the causes of things, who has created the virtue of seeds, who has given to what creatures he would a rational soul which is called mind, who has bestowed the faculty and use of speech, who has imparted the gift of foretelling future things to whatever spirits that seemed to him good, who also himself predicts future things through whom he pleases and through whom he will removes diseases, who when the human race is to be corrected and chastised by wars, regulates also the beginnings, progress, and ends of these wars, who has created and governs the most vehement and most violent fire of this world in due relation and proportion to the other elements of immense nature, who is the governor of all the waters, who has made the sun brightest of all material lights, and has given him suitable power and motion, who has not withdrawn even from the inhabitants of the nether world his dominion and power, who has appointed to mortal natures their suitable seed in nourishment, dry or liquid, who establishes and makes fruitful the earth, who bestows bountifully its fruits on animals and on men, who knows and ordains not only principal causes but also subsequent causes, who hath determined for the moon her motion, who affords ways in heaven and on earth for passage from one place to another, who hath granted also to human minds which he hath created the knowledge of the various arts for the help of life and nature, who hath appointed the union of male and female for the propagation of offspring, who hath favored the societies of men with the gift of terrestrial fire for the simplest and most familiar purposes to burn on the hearth and to give light. These are, then, the things which that most acute and most learned manvaro has labored to distribute among the select gods by, know not what, physical interpretation which he has got from other sources and also conjectured for himself. But these things the one true god makes and does, but as the same god, that is, as he who is wholly everywhere, included in no space, bound by no chains, mutable in no part of his being, filling heaven and earth with omnipresent power, not with a needy nature. Therefore he governs all things in such a manner as to allow them to perform and exercise their own proper movements. For although they can be nothing without him, they are not what he is. He does also many things through angels, but only from himself does he beatify angels. So also, though he sent angels to men for certain purposes, he does not, for all that, beatify men by the good inherent in the angels, but by himself, as he does the angels themselves. CHAPTER XXI For besides such benefits as according to this administration of nature of which we have made some mention, he lavishes on good and bad alike, we have from him a great manifestation of great love which belongs only to the good. For although we can never sufficiently give thanks to him that we are, that we live, that we behold heaven and earth, that we have mind and reason by which to seek after him who made all these things, nevertheless what hearts, what number of tongues shall affirm that they are sufficient to render thanks to him for this, that he hath not wholly departed from us, laden in overwhelmless sins, averse to the contemplation of his light, and blinded by the love of darkness, that is, of iniquity, but hath sent to us his own word, who is his only son, that by his birth and suffering for us in the flesh, which he assumed, we might know how much God valued man, and that by that unique sacrifice we might be purified from all our sins, and that love being shed abroad in our hearts by his spirit, we might, having surmounted all difficulties, come into eternal rest and the ineffable sweetness of the contemplation of himself. CHAPTER XXXII This mystery of eternal life, even from the beginning of the human race, was, by certain signs and sacraments suitable to the times, announced through angels to those to whom it was meet. Then the Hebrew people was congregated into one republic, as it were, to perform this mystery, and in that republic was foretold, sometimes through men who understood what they spake, and sometimes through men who understood not, all that had transpired since the advent of Christ until now, and all that will transpire. This same nation, too, was afterwards dispersed through the nations in order to testify to the scriptures in which eternal salvation in Christ had been declared. For not only the prophecies which are contained in words, nor only the precepts for the right conduct of life, which teach morals and piety, and are contained in the sacred writings, not only these, but also the rites, priesthood, tabernacle, or temple, altars, sacrifices, ceremonies, and whatever else belongs to that service which is due to God, in which in Greek is properly called letreia. All these signified and foreannounced those things which we who believe in Jesus Christ and eternal life believe to have been fulfilled, or behold, in process of fulfillment, or confidently believe shall yet be fulfilled. CHAPTER 33 This the only true religion has alone been able to manifest that the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who desire to be thought gods, availing themselves of the names of certain defunct souls, with the appearance of mundane creatures, and with proud impurity rejoicing in things most base and infamous as though in divine honors, in envying human souls their conversion to the true God. From whose most cruel and most impious dominion a man is liberated when he believes on him who was afforded an example of humility, following which men may rise as great as was that pride by which they fell. Hence are not only those gods, concerning whom we have already spoken much, and many others belonging to different nations and lands, but also those of whom we are now treating, who have been selected as it were into the senate of the gods, created, however, on account of the notoriousness of their crimes, not on account of the dignity of their virtues, whose sacred things Varo attempts to refer to certain natural reasons, seeking to make base things honorable, but cannot find how to square and agree with these reasons, because these are not the causes of those rites which he thinks, or rather wishes to be thought to be so. For had not only these, but also all others of this kind been real causes, even though they had nothing to do with the true God and eternal life, which is to be sought in religion, they would, by affording some sort of reason drawn from the nature of things, have mitigated in some degree that offense which was occasioned by some turpitude or absurdity in the sacred rites which was not understood. This he attempted to do in respect to certain fables of the theaters or mysteries of the shrines, but he did not acquit the theaters of likeness to the shrines, but rather condemn the shrines for likeness to the theaters. However, he in some way made the attempt to soothe the feelings shocked by horrible things by rendering what he would have to be natural interpretations. CHAPTER 34 But on the other hand we find, as the same most learned man has related, that the causes of the sacred rites which were given from the books of Pneuma Pompilius could by no means be tolerated and were considered unworthy not only to become known to the religious by being read, but even to lie written in the darkness in which they had been concealed. For now let me say what I promised in the third book of this work to say in its proper place. For as we read in the same borrows book on the worship of the gods, a certain one Terentius had a field at the geniculum, and once, when his ploughman was passing the plough near to the tomb of Pneuma Pompilius, he turned up from the ground the books of Pneuma in which were written the causes of the sacred institutions, which books he carried to the Praetor, who, having read the beginnings of them, referred to the senate was seemed to be a matter of so much importance. And when the chief senators had read certain of the causes why this or that rite was instituted, the senate assented to the dead Pneuma, and the conscript fathers, as though concerned for the interests of religion, ordered the Praetor to burn the books. Let each one believe what he thinks, nay, let every champion of such impiety say whatever mad contention may suggest. For my part, let it suffice to suggest that the causes of those sacred things which were written down by King Pneuma Pompilius, the institute of the Roman rites, ought never to have become known to people or senate, or even to the priests themselves, and also that Pneuma himself attained to these secrets of demons by an illicit curiosity in order that he might rite them down so as to be able by reading to be reminded of them. However, though he was king, and had no cause to be afraid of anyone, he neither dared to teach them to anyone, nor to destroy them by obliteration or any other form of destruction. Therefore, because he was unwilling that anyone should know them, lest men should be taught infamous things, and because he was afraid to violate them, lest he should enrage the demons against himself, he buried them in what he thought a safe place, believing that a plow could not approach his sepulcher. But the senate, fearing to condemn the religious salendities of their ancestors, and therefore compelled to assent to Pneuma, were nevertheless so convinced that those books were pernicious that they did not order them to be buried again, knowing that human curiosity would thereby be excited to seek with far greater eagerness after the matter already divulged, that ordered the scandalous relics to be destroyed with fire. Because, as they thought it was now a necessity to perform those sacred rites, they judged that the error arising from ignorance of their causes was more tolerable than the disturbance which the knowledge of them would occasion the state. CHAPTER 35 For Pneuma himself also, to whom no prophet of God, no holy angel was sent, was driven to have recourse to hydromancy that he might see the images of the gods in the water, or rather appearances whereby the demons made sport of him, and might learn from them what he ought to ordain and observe in the sacred rites. This kind of divination, says Varo, was introduced by the Persons, and was used by Pneuma himself, and at an after-time by the philosopher Pythagoras. In this divination, he says, they also inquire at the inhabitants of the netherworld and make use of blood, and this the Greeks call Necromanteon. But whether it be called Necromancy or hydromancy it is the same thing, for in either case the dead are supposed to foretell future things. But by what artifices these things are done, let themselves consider, for I am unwilling to say that these artifices were want to be prohibited by the laws, and to be very severely punished even in the Gentile states before the advent of our Saviour. I am unwilling, I say, to affirm this, for perhaps even such things were then allowed. However, it was by these arts that Pompeilius learned those sacred rites which he gave forth as facts, whilst he concealed their causes, for even he himself was afraid of that which he had learned. The Senate also caused the books in which those causes were recorded to be burned. What is it, then, to me that Varro attempts to adduce all sorts of fanciful physical interpretations which if these books had contained they would certainly not have been burned? For otherwise the conscript fathers would also have burned those books which Varro published and dedicated to the High Priest Caesar. Now Numaus had to have married the Nymph Ageria, because, as Varro explains it in the mentioned book, he carried forth water wherewith to perform his hydromancy. Thus facts are want to be converted into fables through false colorings. It was by that hydromancy, then, that that over-curious Roman king learned both the sacred rites which were to be written in the books of the priests, and also the causes of those rites, which latter, however, he was unwilling that anyone besides himself should know. Wherefore he made these causes, as it were, to die along with himself, taking care to have them written by themselves, and removed from the knowledge of men by being buried in the earth. Wherefore the things which are written in those books were either abominations of demons so foul and noxious as to render that whole civil theology execrable, even in the eyes of such men as those senators, who had accepted so many shameful things in the sacred rites themselves, or they were nothing else than the accounts of dead men, whom through the lapse of ages almost all the gentile nations had come to believe to be immortal gods. Whilst those same demons were delighted even with such rites, having presented themselves to receive worship under pretense of being those very dead men whom they had caused to be thought immortal gods by certain fallacious miracles, performed in order to establish that belief. But by the hidden providence of the true god these demons were permitted to confess these things to their friend Numa, having been gained by those arts through which necromancy could be performed, and yet were not constrained to admonish him rather at his death to burn than to bury the books in which they were written. But in order that these books might be unknown the demons could not resist the plow by which they were thrown up, or the pen of borrow, through which the things that were done in reference to this matter have come down even to our knowledge. For they are not able to effect anything which they are not allowed, but they are permitted to influence those whom God, in his deep and just judgment, according to their desserts, gives over either to be simply afflicted by them, or to be also subdued and deceived. But how pernicious these writings were judged to be, or how alien from the worship of the true divinity, may be understood from the fact that the Senate preferred to burn what Pompilius had hid rather than to fear what he feared so that he could not dare to do that. Wherefore, let him who does not desire to live a pious life even now seek eternal life by means of such rites. But let him who does not wish to have fellowship with maligned demons have no fear for the noxious superstition were with they are worshiped, but let him recognize the true religion by which they are unmasked and vanquished. We shall require to apply our mind with far greater intensity to the present question than was requisite in the solution and unfolding of the questions handled in the preceding books, for it is not with ordinary men, but with philosophers that we must confer concerning the theology which they call natural. For it is not like the fabulous, that is, the theatrical, nor the civil, that is, the urban theology, the one of which displays the crimes of the gods whilst the other manifests their criminal desires which demonstrate them to be rather maligned demons than gods. It is, we say, with philosophers we have to confer with respect to this theology, men whose very name, if rendered into Latin, devise those who profess the love of wisdom. Now, if wisdom is God who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth, then the philosopher is a lover of God. But since the thing itself which is called by this name exists not in all who glory in the name, for it does not follow, of course, that all who are called philosophers are lovers of true wisdom. We must need select from the number of those with whose opinions we have been able to acquaint ourselves by reading, some with whom we may not unworthily engage in the treatment of this question. For I have not in this work undertaken to refute all the vain opinions of the philosophers, but only such as pertain to theology, which Greek word we understand to mean an account or explanation of the divine nature. Nor, again, have I undertaken to refute all the vain theological opinions of all the philosophers, but only of such of them as agreeing in the belief that there is a divine nature, and that this divine nature is concerned about human affairs, do nevertheless deny that the worship of the one unchangeable God is sufficient for the obtaining of a blessed life after death, as well as at the present time, and hold that in order to obtain that life, many gods created indeed and appointed to their several spheres by that one God are to be worshipped. These approach nearer to the truth than even Varo. For whilst he saw no difficulty in extending natural theology in its entirety even to the world and the soul of the world, these acknowledged God is existing above all that is of the nature of soul, and as the creator not only of this visible world, which is often called heaven and earth, but also of every soul whatsoever, and as him who gives blessedness to the rational soul, of which kind is the human soul, by participation in his own unchangeable and incorporeal light. There is no one who has even a slender knowledge of these things who does not know of the platonic philosophers who derive their name from their master Plato. Using this Plato, then, I will briefly state such things as I deem necessary to the present question, mentioning beforehand those who preceded him in time in the same Department of Literature. CHAPTER II As far as concerns the literature of the Greeks, whose language holds a more illustrious place than any of the languages of the other nations, history mentions two schools of philosophers, the one called the Italic school, originating in that part of Italy, which was formerly called Magna Grecia, the other called the Ionic school, having its origin in those regions which are still called by the name of Greece. The Italic school had for its founder Pythagoras of Samos, to whom also the term philosophy is said to owe its origin. For whereas formerly those who seemed to excel others by the laudable manner in which they regulated their lives were called sages, Pythagoras, on being asked what he professed, replied that he was a philosopher, that is a student or lover of wisdom, for it seemed to him to be the height of arrogance to profess oneself a sage. The founder of the Ionic school, again, was Thales of Miletus, one of those seven who were styled the seven sages, of whom six were distinguished by the kind of life they lived, and by certain maxims which they gave forth for the proper conduct of life. Thales was distinguished as an investigator into the nature of things, and in order that he might have successors in his school he committed his dissertations to writing. That, however, which especially rendered him eminent was his ability, by means of astronomical calculations, even to predict eclipses of the sun and moon. He thought, however, that water was the first principle of things, and that of it all the elements of the world, the world itself, and all things which are generated in it ultimately consist. Over all this work, however, which, when we consider the world, appears so admirable, he set nothing of the nature of divine mind. To him succeeded Anneximander, his pupil, who held a different opinion concerning the nature of things, for he did not hold that all things spring from one principle, as Thales did, who held that principle to be water, but thought that each thing springs from its own proper principle. These principles of things he believed to be infinite in number, and thoughts that they generated innumerable worlds and all the things which arise in them. He thought also that these worlds are subject to a perpetual process of alternate dissolution and regeneration, each one continuing for a longer or shorter period of time, according to the nature of the case, nor did he any more than Thales attribute anything to a divine mind in the production of all this activity of things. Anneximander left as his successor his disciple Anneximonies, who attributed all the causes of things to an infinite air. He neither denied nor ignored the existence of gods, but so far for believing that the air was made by them he held on the contrary that they sprang from the air. Annexagoras, however, who was his pupil, perceived that a divine mind was the productive cause of all things which we see, and said that all the various kinds of things, according to their several modes and species, were produced out of an infinite matter consisting of homogeneous particles, but by the efficiency of a divine mind. Diogenes also, and other pupil of Anneximonies, said that a certain air was the original substance of things out of which all things were produced, but that it was possessed of a divine reason without which nothing could be produced from it. Annexagoras was succeeded by his disciple Arceleus, who also thought that all things consisted of homogeneous particles of which each particular thing was made, but that those particles were pervaded by a divine mind which perpetually energized all the eternal bodies, namely those particles, so that they are alternately united and separated. Socrates, the master of Plato, is said to have been the disciple of Arceleus, and on Plato's account it is that I have given this brief historical sketch of the whole history of these schools. CHAPTER III Socrates is said to have been the first who directed the entire effort of philosophy to the correction and regulation of manners, all who went before him having expended their greatest efforts in the investigation of physical, that is, natural phenomena. However, it seems to me that it cannot be certainly discovered whether Socrates did this because he was worried of obscure and uncertain things, and so wished to direct his mind to the discovery of something manifest and certain which was necessary in order to the obtaining of a blessed life, that one great object toward which the labor, vigilance, and industry of all philosophers seemed to have been directed, or whether, as some yet more favorable to him suppose, he did it because he was unwilling that minds defiled with earthly desires should a say to raise themselves upward to divine things. For he saw that the causes of things were sought for by them which causes he believed to be ultimately reducible to nothing else than the will of the one true and supreme God, and on this account he thought they could only be comprehended by a purified mind, and therefore that all diligence ought to be given to the purification of the life by good morals in order that the mind, delivered from the depressing weight of lusts, might raise itself upward by its native vigor to eternal things, and might with purified understanding contemplate that nature which is incorporeal and unchangeable light, where live the causes of all created natures. It is evident, however, that he hunted out and pursued with a wonderful pleasantness of style and argument, and with a most pointed and insinuating urbanity the foolishness of ignorant men who thought that they knew this or that, sometimes confessing his own ignorance and sometimes dissimulating his knowledge, even in those very moral questions to which he seems to have directed the whole force of his mind. And hence there arose hostility against him which ended in his becoming columnarously impeached and condemned to death. Afterwards, however, that very city of the Athenians which had publicly condemned him, did publicly bewail him, the popular indignation having turned with such vehemence on his accusers that one of them perished by the violence of the multitude, whilst the other only escaped a like punishment by voluntary and perpetual exile. Illustrious therefore both in his life and in his death, Socrates left very many disciples of his philosophy who vied with one another in desire for proficiency in handling those moral questions which concern the chief good, sumum bonum, the possession of which can make a man blessed. And because in the disputations of Socrates, where he raises all manner of questions, makes assertions, and then demolishes them, it did not evidently appear what he held to be the chief good. Everyone took from these disputations what pleased him best, and everyone placed the final good in whatever it appeared to himself to consist. Now that which is called the final good is that at which, when one has arrived, he is blessed. But so diverse were the opinions held by those followers of Socrates concerning this final good, that, a thing scarcely to be credited with respect to the followers of one master, some placed the chief good in pleasure, as Aris Titus, others in virtue, as Antisthenes. Indeed, it were tedious to recount the various opinions of various disciples. CHAPTER IV But among the disciples of Socrates Plato was the one who shone with a glory which far excelled that of the others, and who not unjustly eclipsed them all. By birth and Athenian of honourable parentage he far surpassed his fellow disciples in natural endowments of which he was possessed in a wonderful degree. Yet, deeming himself in the Socratic discipline far from sufficient for bringing philosophy to perfection, he travels extensively as he was able, going to every place famed for the cultivation of any science of which he can make himself master. Thus he learned from the Egyptians whatever they held and taught is important, and from Egypt, passing into those parts of Italy which were filled with the fame of the Pythagoreans, he mastered with the greatest facility and under the most eminent teachers all the Italic philosophy which was then in vogue. And as he had a peculiar love for his master Socrates he made him the speaker in all his dialogues, putting into his mouth whatever he had learned, either from others or from the efforts of his own powerful intellect, tempering even his moral disputations with the grace and politeness of the Socratic style. And as the study of wisdom consists in action and contemplation so that one part of it may be called active, the other contemplative, the active part having reference to the conduct of life, that is to the regulation of morals, and the contemplative part to the investigation into the causes of nature and into pure truth, Socrates is said to have excelled in the active part of that study, while Pythagoras gave more attention to its contemplative part on which he brought to bear all the force of his great intellect. To Plato is given the praise of having perfected philosophy by combining both parts into one. He then divides it into three parts, the first moral which is chiefly occupied with action, the second natural of which the object is contemplation, and the third rational which discriminates between the true and the false. And though this last is necessary both to action and contemplation, it is contemplation, nevertheless, which lays peculiar claim to the office of investigating the nature of truth. Thus this tripartite division is not contrary to that which made the study of wisdom to consist in action and contemplation. Now as to what Plato thought with respect to each of these parts, that is what he believed to be the end of all actions, the cause of all natures, and the light of all intelligences, it would be a question too long to discuss, and about which we ought not to make any rash affirmation. For as Plato liked and constantly affected the well-known method of his master Socrates, namely that of dissimulating his knowledge or his opinions, it is not easy to discover clearly what he himself thought on various matters any more than it is to discover what were the real opinions of Socrates. We must nevertheless insert into our work certain of those opinions which he expresses in his writings, whether he himself uttered them or narrates them as expressed by others, and seems himself to approve of, opinions sometimes favorable to the true religion, which our faith takes up and defends, and sometimes contrary to it, as for example in the questions concerning the existence of one God or of many as it relates to the truly blessed life which is to be after death. For those who are praised as having most closely followed Plato, who is justly preferred to all the other philosophers of the Gentiles, and who are said to have manifested the greatest acuteness in understanding him, do perhaps entertain such an idea of God as to admit that in him are to be found the cause of existence the ultimate reason for the understanding and the end in reference to which the whole life is to be regulated. Of which three things the first is understood to pertain to the natural, the second to the rational, and the third to the moral part of philosophy? For if man has been so created as to attain, through that which is most excellent in him, to that which excels all things, that is to the one true and absolutely good God without whom no nature exists, no doctrine instructs, no exercised prophets, let him be sought in whom all things are secure to us, let him be discovered in whom all truth becomes certain to us, let him be loved in whom all becomes right to us. CHAPTER V If then Plato defines the wise man as one who imitates, knows, loves this God, and who is rendered blessed through fellowship with him and his own blessedness, why discuss with the other philosophers? It is evident that none come nearer to us than the Platonists. To them, therefore, let that fabulous theology give place which delights the minds of men with the crimes of the gods. And that civil theology also in which impure demons under the name of gods have seduced the peoples of the earth given up to earthly pleasures, desiring to be honored by the errors of men, and by filling the minds of their worshippers with impure desires, exciting them to make the representation of their crimes one of the rites of their worship, while they themselves found in the spectators of these exhibitions a most pleasing spectacle, a theology in which whatever was honorable in the temple was defiled by its mixture with the obscenity of the theater, and whatever was base in the theater was vindicated by the abominations of the temples. To these philosophers also the interpretations of Varo must give place in which he explains the sacred rites as having reference to heaven and earth, and to the seeds and operations of perishable things. However in the first place those rites have not the signification which he would have men believe is attached to them, and therefore truth does not follow him and his attempts so to interpret them. And even if they had this signification, still those things ought not to be worshipped by the rational soul as its god, which are placed below it in the scale of nature, nor ought the soul to prefer to itself as gods, things to which the true god is given at the preference. The same must be said of those writings pertaining to the sacred rites, which Numo Pompilius took care to conceal by causing them to be buried along with himself, in which when they were afterwards turned up by the plough, were burned by order of the Senate. And to treat Numo with all honor let us mention his belonging to the same rank as these writings that which Alexander of Macedon wrote to his mother as communicated to him by Leo in Egyptian High Priest. In this letter not only Picus and Faunus and Aeneas and Romulus or even Hercules and Nescolepius and Libur, born of Semeli and the twin sons of Tendarius, or any other mortals who have been deified, but even the principal gods themselves, to whom Cicero and his Tusculin questions alludes without mentioning their names, Jupiter, Juno, Saturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and many others whom Varo attempts to identify with the parts or the elements of the world, are shown to have been men. There is, as we have said, a similarity between this case and that of Numo, for the priest being afraid because he had revealed a mystery earnestly begged of Alexander to command his mother to burn the letter which conveyed those communications to her. Let these two theologies, then, the fabulous and the civil, give place to the platonic philosophers who have recognized the true God as the author of all things, the source of the light of truth, and the bountiful bestower of all blessedness. And not these only, but to these great acknowledges of so great a God those philosophers must yield, who, having their mind enslaved to their body, suppose the principles of all things to be material, as Thales, who held that the first principle of all things was water, and Eximonies that it was air, the Stoics that it was fire, Epicurus, who affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that is to say, of minute corpuscules, and many others whom it is needless to enumerate, but who believed that bodies, simple or compound, animate or inanimate, but nevertheless bodies were the cause and principle of all things. For some of them, as for instance the Epicureans, believed that living things could originate from things without life. Others held that all things living or without life spring from a living principle, but that nevertheless all things being material spring from a material principle. For the Stoics thought that fire, that is one of the four material elements of which this visible world is composed, was both living and intelligent, the maker of the world and of all things contained in it, that it was in fact God. These and others like them have only been able to suppose that which their hearts enslaved to sense have vainly suggested to them, and yet they have within themselves something which they could not see. They are represented to themselves inwardly things which they had seen without, even when they were not seeing them but only thinking of them. But this representation and thought is no longer a body but only the similitude of a body, and that faculty of the mind by which this similitude of a body is seen is neither a body nor the similitude of a body, and the faculty which judges what the representation is beautiful or ugly is without doubt superior to the object judged of. This principle is the understanding of man, the rational soul, and it is certainly not a body, since that similitude of a body which it beholds and judges of is itself not a body. The soul is neither earth nor water nor air nor fire, of which four bodies, called the four elements, we see that this world is composed. And if the soul is not a body, how should God its Creator be a body? Let all those philosophers then give place, as we have said to the Platonists, and those also who have been ashamed to say that God is a body, but yet have thought that our souls are of the same nature as God. They have not been staggered by the great changefulness of the soul, an attribute which it would be impious to ascribe to the divine nature, but they say it is the body which changes the soul, for in itself it is unchangeable. As well might they say, flesh is wounded by some body, for in itself it is invulnerable. In a word, that which is unchangeable can be changed by nothing, so that that which can be changed by the body cannot properly be said to be immutable. CHAPTER VI These philosophers, then, whom we see not undeservedly exalted above the rest, and fame, and glory, have seen that no material body is God, and therefore they have transcended all bodies and seeking for God. They have seen that whatever is changeable is not the most high God, and therefore they have transcended every soul and all changeable spirits in seeking the Supreme. They have seen also that in every changeable thing the form which makes it that which it is, whatever be its mode or nature, can only be through him who truly is, because he is unchangeable. And therefore, whether we consider the whole body of the world, its figure, qualities, and orderly movement, and also all the bodies which are in it, or whether we consider all life, other that which nourishes and maintains as the life of trees, or that which besides this has also sensation as the life of beasts, or that which adds to all these intelligence as the life of man, or that which does not need the support of nutriment but only maintains, feels, understands as the life of angels, all can only be through him who absolutely is. For to him it is not one thing to be and another to live as though he could be not living, nor is it to him one thing to live and another thing to understand as though he could live not understanding, nor is it to him one thing to understand, another thing to be blessed as though he could understand and not be blessed. But to him to live, to understand, to be blessed, are to be. They have understood from this unchangeableness and this simplicity that all things must have been made by him, and that he could himself have been made by none. For they have considered that whatever is is either body or life, and that life is something better than body and that the nature of body is sensible and that of life intelligible. Therefore they have preferred the intelligible nature to the sensible. We mean by sensible things such things as can be perceived by the sight and touch of the body, by intelligible things such as can be understood by the sight of the mind. For there is no corporeal beauty, whether in the condition of a body, as figure, or in its movement, as in music, of which it is not the mind that judges. But this could never have been had there not existed in the mind itself a superior form of these things without bulk, without the noise of voice, without space and time. But even in respect of these things, had the mind not been mutable, it would not have been possible for one to judge better than another with regard to sensible forms. He who is clever judges better than he who is slow, he who is skilled, than he who is unskillful, he who is practiced, than he who is unpracticed, and the same person judges better after he has gained experience than he did before. But that which is capable of more and less is mutable, whence able men, who have thought deeply on these things, have gathered that the first form is not to be found in those things whose form is unchangeable. Since therefore they saw that body and mind might be more or less beautiful in form, and that if they wanted form they could have no existence, they saw that there is some existence in which is the first form unchangeable, and therefore not admitting of degrees of comparison, and in that they most rightly believed was the first principle of things which was not made, and by which all things were made. Therefore that which is known of God he manifested to them when his invisible things were seen by them, being understood by those things which have been made. Also his eternal power and Godhead by whom all visible and temporal things have been created. We have said enough upon that part of theology which they call physical, that is, natural. CHAPTER VII Then again as far as regards the doctrine which treats of that which they call logic, that is, rational philosophy, far be it from us to compare them with those who attributed to the bodily senses the faculty of discriminating truth, and thought that all we learn is to be measured by their untrustworthy and fallacious rules. Such were the Epicureans and all of the same school. Such also were the Stoics who ascribed to the bodily senses that expertness and disputation which they so ardently love, called by them dialectic, asserting that from the senses the mind conceives the notions, annoye, of those things which they explicate by definition. And hence is developed the whole plan and connection of their learning and teaching. I often wonder, with respect to this, how they can say that none are beautiful but the wise. For by what bodily sense have they perceived that beauty? By what eyes of the flesh have they seen wisdom's comeliness of form? Those, however, whom we justly ranked before all others, have distinguished those things which are conceived by the mind from those which are perceived by the senses, neither taking away from the senses anything to which they are competent, nor attributing to them anything beyond their competency. And the light of our understandings by which all things are learned by us, they have affirmed to be that self-same God by whom all things were made. CHAPTER VIII The remaining part of philosophy is morals, or what is called by the Greek's ethike, in which is discussed the question concerning the chief good, that which will leave us nothing further to seek in order to be blessed, if only we make all our actions refer to it, and seek it not for the sake of something else, but for its own sake. Therefore it is called the end, because we wish other things on account of it, but itself only for its own sake. This beatific good, therefore, according to some, comes to a man from the body, according to others from the mind, and according to others from both together. For they saw that man himself consists of soul and body, and therefore they believe that from either of these two, or from both together, their well-being must proceed, consisting in a certain final good which could render them blessed, and to which they might refer all their actions, not requiring anything ulterior to which to refer that good itself. This is why those who have added a third kind of good things, which they call extrinsic, as honor, glory, wealth, and the like, have not regarded them as part of the final good, that is, to be sought after for their own sake, but as things which are to be sought for the sake of something else, affirming that this kind of good is good to the good, and evil to the evil. Therefore, whether they have sought the good of man from the mind, or from the body, or from both together, it is still only for man they have supposed that it must be sought. But they who have sought it from the body have sought it from the inferior part of man, they who have sought it from the mind from the superior part, and they who have sought it from both, from the whole man. Whether therefore they have sought it from any part, or from the whole man, still they have only sought it from man. Nor have these differences, being three, given rise to only three dissentient sects of philosophers, but to many. For diverse philosophers have held diverse opinions both concerning the good of the body, and the good of the mind, and the good of both together. Let therefore all these give place to those philosophers who have not affirmed that a man is blessed by the enjoyment of the body, or by the enjoyment of the mind, but by the enjoyment of God. Enjoying him, however, not as the mind does the body, or itself, or as one friend enjoys another, but as the eye enjoys light, if indeed we may draw any comparison between these things. But what the nature of this comparison is, will, if God help me, be shown in another place to the best of my ability? At present it is sufficient to mention that Plato determined the final good to be to live according to virtue, and affirmed that he only can attain to virtue who knows and imitates God, which knowledge and imitation are the only cause of blessedness. Therefore he did not doubt that to philosophize is to love God, whose nature is incorporeal. Once it certainly follows that the student of wisdom, that is, the philosopher, will then become blessed when he shall have begun to enjoy God. For though he is not necessarily blessed who enjoys that which he loves, for many are miserable by loving that which ought not to be loved, and still more miserable when they enjoy it. Nevertheless, no one is blessed who does not enjoy that which he loves. For even they who love things which ought not to be loved do not count themselves blessed by loving merely, but by enjoying them. Who then but the most miserable will deny that he is blessed who enjoys that which he loves and loves the true and highest good? But the true and highest good, according to Plato, is God, and therefore he would call him a philosopher who loves God, for philosophy is directed to the obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed in the enjoyment of God. CHAPTER IX Whatever philosophers therefore thought concerning the Supreme God that he is both the maker of all created things, the light by which things are known, and the good in reference to which things are to be done, that we have in him the first principle of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happiness of life. Whether these philosophers may be more suitably called Platonists, or whether they may give some other name to their sect. Whether we say that only the chief men of the Ionic school, such as Plato himself, and they who have well understood him, have thought thus. Or whether we also include the Italic school on account of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, and all who may have held like opinions. And lastly, whether also we include all who have been held wise men and philosophers among all nations, who were discovered to have seen and taught this, be they Atlantics, Libyans, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Goals, Spaniards, or of other nations. We prefer these to all other philosophers and confess that they approach nearest to us. CHAPTER X For although a Christian man instructed only in ecclesiastical literature may perhaps be ignorant of the very name of Platonists, and may not even know that there have existed two schools of philosophers speaking the Greek tongue to wit the Ionic and the Italic, he is nevertheless not so deaf with respect to human affairs as not to know that philosophers profess the study and even the possession of wisdom. He is on his guard, however, with respect to those who philosophize according to the elements of this world, not according to God by whom the world itself was made, for he is warned by the precept of the apostle, and faithfully hears what has been said, beware that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit according to the elements of the world. Then that he may not suppose that all philosophers are such as do this, he hears the same apostle say concerning certain of them, because that which is known of God has manifest among them, for God has manifested it to them, for his invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things which are made, also his eternal power and Godhead. And when speaking to the Athenians after having spoken a mighty thing concerning God which few are able to understand, in him we live and move and have our being, he goes on to say, as certain also of your own have said. He knows well too to be on his guard against even these philosophers and their errors, for where it has been said by him that God has manifested to them by those things which are made, his invisible things that they might be seen by the understanding, there it has also been said that they did not rightly worship God himself because they paid divine honors, which are due to him alone, to other things also to which they ought not to have paid them. Because knowing God they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Where the apostle would have us understand him is meaning the Romans and Greeks and Egyptians who gloried in the name of wisdom, but concerning this we will dispute with them afterwards. With respect however to that wherein they agree with us we prefer them to all others, namely concerning the one God, the author of this universe, who is not only above every body, being incorporeal, but also above all souls being incorruptible. Our principle, our light, our good. And though the Christian man, being ignorant of their writings, does not use in disputation words which he has not learned, not calling that part of philosophy natural, which is the Latin term or physical, which is the Greek one, which treats of the investigation of nature, or that part rational or logical, which deals with the question how truth may be discovered, or that part moral or ethical which concerns morals and shows how good is to be sought and evil to be shunned. He is not therefore ignorant that it is from the one true and supremely good God that we have that nature in which we are made in the image of God, and that doctrine by which we know him and ourselves, and that grace through which by cleaving to him we are blessed. This therefore is the cause why we prefer these to all the others, because whilst other philosophers have worn out their minds and powers in seeking the causes of things, and endeavoring to discover the right mode of learning and of living, these, by knowing God, have found where resides the cause by which the universe has been constituted, and the light by which truth is to be discovered, and the fountain at which felicity is to be drunk. All philosophers, then, who have had these thoughts concerning God, whether Platonists or others, agree with us. But we have thought it better to plead our cause with the Platonists because their writings are better known. For the Greeks, whose tongue holds the highest place among the languages of the Gentiles, are loud in their praises of these writings, and the Latins, taken with their excellence or their renown, have studied them more heartily than other writings, and by translating them into our tongue have given them greater celebrity and notoriety. Chapter 11 Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ wonder when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in which they recognize considerable agreement with the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this that when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jeremiah, or whilst traveling in the same country, had read the prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself have expressed in certain of my writings. But a careful calculation of dates contained in chronological history shows that Plato was born about 100 years after the time in which Jeremiah prophesied, and as he lived 81 years, there are found to have been about 70 years from his death, to that time when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scriptures of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea, and committed them to 70 Hebrews, who also knew the Greek tongue to be translated and kept. Therefore, on that voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who was dead so long before, nor have read those same scriptures which had not yet been translated into the Greek language of which he was a master, unless indeed we say that as he was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge he also studied those writings through an interpreter as he did those of the Egyptians. Not indeed writing a translation of them, the facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy in return for munificent acts of kindness, though fear of his kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive. But learning as much as he possibly could concerning their contents by means of conversation. What warrants this supposition are the opening verses of Genesis. In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and the earth was invisible and without order, and darkness was over the abyss, and the spirit of God moved over the waters. For in the Timaeus, when writing on the formation of the world, he says that God first united earth and fire, from which it is evident that he assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain resemblance to the statement, in the beginning God made heaven and earth. Plato next speaks of those two intermediary elements, water and air, by which the other two extremes, namely earth and fire, were mutually united, from which circumstance he is thought to so understood the words, the spirit of God moved over the waters. For not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by those scriptures to the spirit of God, he may have thought that the four elements are spoken of in that place because the air also is called spirit. Then as to Plato's saying that the philosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking thing in this connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was given to the question elicited from the Holy Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel. For when he asked what was the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given. I am who am, and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you, as though compared with him that truly is, because he is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not, a truth which Plato zealously held and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that book were it is said, I am who am, and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Who is sent me unto you. But we need not determine from what source he learned these things, whether it was from the books of the ancients who preceded him or as is more likely from the words of the apostle, because that which is known of God has been manifested among them, for God hath manifested it to them, for his invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by those things which have been made, also his eternal power and Godhead. From whatever source he may have derived this knowledge then, I think I have made it sufficiently plain that I have not chosen the Platonic philosophers undeservedly as the parties with whom to discuss, because the question we have just taken up concerns the natural theology, the question namely whether sacred rites are to be performed to one God or to many for the sake of the happiness which is to be after death. I have specially chosen them because their juster thoughts concerning the one God who made heaven and earth have made them illustrious among philosophers. This has given them such superiority to all others in the judgment of posterity that though Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, a man of eminent abilities, inferior in eloquence to Plato, yet far superior to many in that respect, had founded the peripatetic sect, so called because they were in the habit of walking about during their disputations, and though he had, through the greatness of his fame, gathered very many disciples into his school even during the life of his master, and though Plato at his death was succeeded in his school, which was called the Academy by Speosipus, his sister's son, and Xenocrates, his beloved disciple, who together with their successors were called from this name of the school, academics. Nevertheless, the most illustrious recent philosophers who have chosen to follow Plato have been unwilling to be called peripatetics or academics, but have preferred the name of Platonists. Among these were the renowned Platonists, Iamblichus, and Porphyry, who were Greeks, and the African Apolaus, who was learned both in the Greek and Latin tongues. All these, however, and the rest who were of the same school, and also Plato himself, thought that sacred rites ought to be performed in honor of many gods. CHAPTER XIII Therefore, although in many other important respects they differ from us, nevertheless with respect to this particular point of difference which I have just stated, as it is of great moment, and the question on hand concerns it, I will first ask them to what gods they think that sacred rites are to be performed, to the good or to the bad, or both the good and the bad? But we have the opinion of Plato affirming that all the gods are good, and that there is not one of the gods bad. It follows, therefore, that these are to be performed to the good, for then they are performed to gods, for if they are not good, neither are they gods. Now if this be the case, for what else ought we to believe concerning the gods, certainly it explodes the opinion that the bad gods are to be appreciated by sacred rites in order that they may not harm us, but the good gods are to be invoked in order that they may assist us. For there are no bad gods, and it is to the good that as they say the due honor of such rites is to be paid. Of what character, then, are those gods who love scenic displays, even demanding that a place be given them among divine things, and that they be exhibited in their honor? The power of these gods proves that they exist, but their liking such things proves that they are bad. For it is well known what Plato's opinion was concerning scenic plays. He thinks that the poets themselves, because they have composed songs so unworthy of the majesty and goodness of the gods, ought to be banished from the state. Of what character, therefore, are those gods who contend with Plato himself about those scenic plays? He does not suffer the gods to be defamed by false crimes, the gods command those same crimes to be celebrated in their own honor. In fine, when they ordered these plays to be inaugurated, they not only demanded base things, but also did cruel things, taking from Titus Latinius his son, and sending a disease upon him because he had refused to obey them, which they removed when he had fulfilled their commands. Plato, however, bad though they were, did not think they were to be feared, but holding to his opinion with the utmost firmness and constancy, does not hesitate to remove from a well-ordered state all the sacrilegious follies of the poets, with which these gods are delighted because they themselves are impure. But Labéo places this same Plato, as I have mentioned already in the second book, among the demigods. Now Labéo thinks that the bad deities are to be propitiated with bloody victims, and by fasts accompanied with the same, but the good deities with plays, and all other things which are associated with joyfulness. How comes it, then, that the demigod Plato so persistently dares to take away those pleasures because he deems them base, not from the demigods, but from the gods, and these the good gods? And, moreover, those very gods themselves do certainly refute the opinion of Labéo, for they showed themselves, in the case of Latinias, not to be only wanton and sportive, but also cruel and terrible. Let the Platonists, therefore, explain these things to us, since following the opinion of their master they think that all the gods are good and honorable, and friendly to the virtues of the wise, holding it unlawful to think otherwise concerning any of the gods. We will explain it, they say. Let us then attentively listen to them. CHAPTER XIV There is, say they, a threefold division of all animals endowed with a rational soul, namely into gods, men, and demons. The gods occupy the loftiest region, men the lowest, the demons the middle region. For the abode of the gods is heaven, that of men the earth, that of the demons the air. As the dignity of their regions is diverse, so also is that of their natures. Therefore the gods are better than men and demons. Men have been placed below the gods and demons, both in respect of the order of the regions they inhabit, and the differences of their merits. The demons, therefore, who hold the middle place, as they are inferior to the gods, than whom they inhabit a lower region, so they are superior to men, than whom they inhabit a loftier one. For they have immortality of body in common with the gods, but passions of the mind in common with men. On which account, say they, it is not wonderful that they are delighted with the obscenities of the theater and the fictions of the poets, since they are also subject to human passions, from which the gods are far removed, into which they are altogether strangers. Once we conclude that it was not the gods who were all good and highly exalted, that Plato deprived of the pleasure of theatric plays by reprobating and prohibiting the fictions of the poets but the demons. Of these things many have written, among others Apolaus, the Platonist of Mandara, who composed a whole work on the subject, entitled, Concerning the God of Socrates. He there discusses and explains of what kind that deity was who attended on Socrates, a sort of familiar, by whom it is said he was admonished to desist from any action which would not turn out to his advantage. He asserts most distinctly and proves at great length that it was not a god but a demon, and he discusses with great diligence the opinion of Plato concerning the loftiest state of the gods, the lowliest state of men, and the middle state of demons. These things being so, how did Plato dare to take away, if not from the gods whom he removed from all human contagion, certainly from the demons, all the pleasures of the theatre by expelling the poets from the state? Evidently in this way he wished to admonish the human soul, although still confined in these moribund members, to despise the shameful commands of the demons and to detest their impurity, and to choose rather the splendour of virtue. But if Plato showed himself virtuous in answering and prohibiting these things, then certainly it was shameful of the demons to command them. Therefore either Apolaus is wrong, and Socrates is familiar, did not belong to this class of deities, or Plato held contradictory opinions, now honoring the demons, now removing from the well-regulated state the things in which they delighted, or Socrates is not to be congratulated on the friendship of the demon, of which Apolaus was so ashamed that he entitled his book On the God of Socrates, whilst according to the tenor of his discussion wherein he so diligently, and at such length, distinguishes gods from demons, he ought not to have entitled it concerning the god, but concerning the demon of Socrates. But he preferred to put this into the discussion itself rather than into the title of his book. For through the sound doctrine which has illuminated human society, all, or almost all, men have such a horror at the name of demons that everyone who before reading the dissertation of Apolaus, which sets forth the dignity of demons, should have read the title of the book On the Demon of Socrates, would certainly have thought that the author was not a sane man. But what did even Apolaus find a praise in the demons except subtlety and strength of body, and a higher place of habitation? For when he spoke generally concerning their manners, he said nothing that was good, but very much that was bad. Finally no one, when he has read that book, wonders that they desired to have even the obscenity of the stage among divine things, or that wishing to be thought gods they should be delighted with the crimes of the gods, or that all those sacred salendities whose obscenity occasions laughter and whose shameful cruelty causes horror should be in agreement with their passions.