have thought about the gods of the nations._
Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for regulating
the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jackdaws.[177] But
it will be said that an academic philosopher, who argues that all
things are uncertain, is unworthy to have any authority in these
matters. In the second book of his _De Natura Deorum_,[178] he
introduces Lucilius Balbus, who, after showing that superstitions
have their origin in physical and philosophical truths, expresses
his indignation at the setting up of images and fabulous notions,
speaking thus: "Do you not therefore see that from true and useful
physical discoveries the reason may be drawn away to fabulous and
imaginary gods? This gives birth to false opinions and turbulent
errors, and superstitions well-nigh old-wifeish. For both the forms
of the gods, and their ages, and clothing, and ornaments, are made
familiar to us; their genealogies, too, their marriages, kinships,
and all things about them, are debased to the likeness of human
weakness. They are even introduced as having perturbed minds; for
we have accounts of the lusts, cares, and angers of the gods. Nor,
indeed, as the fables go, have the gods been without their wars and
battles. And that not only when, as in Homer, some gods on either
side have defended two opposing armies, but they have even carried
on wars on their own account, as with the Titans or with the Giants.
Such things it is quite absurd either to say or to believe: they are
utterly frivolous and groundless." Behold, now, what is confessed by
those who defend the gods of the nations. Afterwards he goes on to
say that some things belong to superstition, but others to religion,
which he thinks good to teach according to the Stoics. "For not only
the philosophers," he says, "but also our forefathers, have made a
distinction between superstition and religion. For those," he says,
"who spent whole days in prayer, and offered sacrifice, that their
children might outlive them, are called superstitious."[179] Who does
not see that he is trying, while he fears the public prejudice, to
praise the religion of the ancients, and that he wishes to disjoin
it from superstition, but cannot find out how to do so? For if
those who prayed and sacrificed all day were called superstitious
by the ancients, were those also called so who instituted (what
he blames) the images of the gods of diverse age and distinct
clothing, and invented the genealogies of gods, their marriages,
and kinships? When, therefore, these things are found fault with
as superstitious, he implicates in that fault the ancients who
instituted and worshipped such images. Nay, he implicates himself,
who, with whatever eloquence he may strive to extricate himself and
be free, was yet under the necessity of venerating these images;
nor dared he so much as whisper in a discourse to the people what
in this disputation he plainly sounds forth. Let us Christians,
therefore, give thanks to the Lord our God,--not to heaven and earth,
as that author argues, but to Him who has made heaven and earth;
because these superstitions, which that Balbus, like a babbler,[180]
scarcely reprehends, He, by the most deep lowliness of Christ, by
the preaching of the apostles, by the faith of the martyrs dying
for the truth and living with the truth, has overthrown, not only
in the hearts of the religious, but even in the temples of the
superstitious, by their own free service.