the civil, against Varro._
O Marcus Varro! thou art the most acute, and without doubt the most
learned, but still a man, not God,--now lifted up by the Spirit of
God to see and to announce divine things, thou seest, indeed, that
divine things are to be separated from human trifles and lies, but
thou fearest to offend those most corrupt opinions of the populace,
and their customs in public superstitions, which thou thyself, when
thou considerest them on all sides, perceivest, and all your literature
loudly pronounces to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, even
of such gods as the frailty of the human mind supposes to exist in
the elements of this world. What can the most excellent human talent
do here? What can human learning, though manifold, avail thee in
this perplexity? Thou desirest to worship the natural gods; thou art
compelled to worship the civil. Thou hast found some of the gods to be
fabulous, on whom thou vomitest forth very freely what thou thinkest,
and, whether thou willest or not, thou wettest therewith even the civil
gods. Thou sayest, forsooth, that the fabulous are adapted to the
theatre, the natural to the world, and the civil to the city; though
the world is a divine work, but cities and theatres are the works of
men, and though the gods who are laughed at in the theatre are not
other than those who are adored in the temples; and ye do not exhibit
games in honour of other gods than those to whom ye immolate victims.
How much more freely and more subtly wouldst thou have decided these
hadst thou said that some gods are natural, others established by men;
and concerning those who have been so established, the literature of
the poets gives one account, and that of the priests another,--both
of which are, nevertheless, so friendly the one to the other, through
fellowship in falsehood, that they are both pleasing to the demons, to
whom the doctrine of the truth is hostile.
That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being put aside
for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed, we ask if any one
is really content to seek a hope for eternal life from poetical,
theatrical, scenic gods? Perish the thought! The true God avert so
wild and sacrilegious a madness! What, is eternal life to be asked
from those gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things
propitiate, in which their own crimes are represented? No one, as I
think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and furious impiety.
So then, neither by the fabulous nor by the civil theology does any
one obtain eternal life. For the one sows base things concerning
the gods by feigning them, the other reaps by cherishing them; the
one scatters lies, the other gathers them together; the one pursues
divine things with false crimes, the other incorporates among divine
things the plays which are made up of these crimes; the one sounds
abroad in human songs impious fictions concerning the gods, the other
consecrates these for the festivities of the gods themselves; the
one sings the misdeeds and crimes of the gods, the other loves them;
the one gives forth or feigns, the other either attests the true or
delights in the false. Both are base; both are damnable. But the one
which is theatrical teaches public abomination, and that one which
is of the city adorns itself with that abomination. Shall eternal
life be hoped for from these, by which this short and temporal life
is polluted? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life if they
insinuate themselves into our affections, and win our assent? and
does not the society of demons pollute the life, who are worshipped
with their own crimes?--if with true crimes, how wicked the demons!
if with false, how wicked the worship!
When we say these things, it may perchance seem to some one who is
very ignorant of these matters that only those things concerning
the gods which are sung in the songs of the poets and acted on
the stage are unworthy of the divine majesty, and ridiculous, and
too detestable to be celebrated, whilst those sacred things which
not stage-players but priests perform are pure and free from all
unseemliness. Had this been so, never would any one have thought that
these theatrical abominations should be celebrated in their honour,
never would the gods themselves have ordered them to be performed to
them. But men are in nowise ashamed to perform these things in the
theatres, because similar things are carried on in the temples. In
short, when the fore-mentioned author attempted to distinguish the
civil theology from the fabulous and natural, as a sort of third and
distinct kind, he wished it to be understood to be rather tempered by
both than separated from either. For he says that those things which
the poets write are less than the people ought to follow, whilst what
the philosophers say is more than it is expedient for the people to
pry into. "Which," says he, "differ in such a way, that nevertheless
not a few things from both of them have been taken to the account
of the civil theology; wherefore we will indicate what the civil
theology has in common with that of the poet, though it ought to be
more closely connected with the theology of philosophers." Civil
theology is therefore not quite disconnected from that of the poets.
Nevertheless, in another place, concerning the generations of the
gods, he says that the people are more inclined toward the poets
than toward the physical theologists. For in this place he said what
ought to be done; in that other place, what was really done. He said
that the latter had written for the sake of utility, but the poets
for the sake of amusement. And hence the things from the poets'
writings, which the people ought not to follow, are the crimes of the
gods; which, nevertheless, amuse both the people and the gods. For,
for amusement's sake, he says, the poets write, and not for that of
utility; nevertheless they write such things as the gods will desire,
and the people perform.