explanations, which the pagan teachers attempt to show for
their gods._
But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that is,
natural interpretations, showing their natural meaning; as though
in this disputation we were seeking physics and not theology, which
is the account, not of nature, but of God. For although He who is
the true God is God, not by opinion, but by nature, nevertheless
all nature is not God; for there is certainly a nature of man, of a
beast, of a tree, of a stone,--none of which is God. For if, when the
question is concerning the mother of the gods, that from which the
whole system of interpretation starts certainly is, that the mother
of the gods is the earth, why do we make further inquiry? why do we
carry our investigation through all the rest of it? What can more
manifestly favour them who say that all those gods were men? For they
are earth-born in the sense that the earth is their mother. But in
the true theology the earth is the work, not the mother, of God. But
in whatever way their sacred rites may be interpreted, and, whatever
reference they may have to the nature of things, it is not according
to nature, but contrary to nature, that men should be effeminates.
This disease, this crime, this abomination, has a recognised place
among those sacred things, though even depraved men will scarcely
be compelled by torments to confess they are guilty of it. Again,
if these sacred rites, which are proved to be fouler than scenic
abominations, are excused and justified on the ground that they have
their own interpretations, by which they are shown to symbolize the
nature of things, why are not the poetical things in like manner
excused and justified? For many have interpreted even these in like
fashion, to such a degree that even that which they say is the most
monstrous and most horrible,--namely, that Saturn devoured his own
children,--has been interpreted by some of them to mean that length
of time, which is signified by the name of Saturn, consumes whatever
it begets; or that, as the same Varro thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds
which fall back again into the earth from whence they spring. And so
one interprets it in one way, and one in another. And the same is to
be said of all the rest of this theology.
And, nevertheless, it is called the fabulous theology, and is
censured, cast off, rejected, together with all such interpretations
belonging to it. And not only by the natural theology, which is that
of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology, concerning
which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain to cities and
peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation, because it has invented
unworthy things concerning the gods. Of which, I wot, this is
the secret: that those most acute and learned men, by whom those
things were written, understood that both theologies ought to be
rejected,--to wit, both that fabulous and this civil one,--but the
former they dared to reject, the latter they dared not; the former
they set forth to be censured, the latter they showed to be very
like it; not that it might be chosen to be held in preference to the
other, but that it might be understood to be worthy of being rejected
together with it. And thus, without danger to those who feared to
censure the civil theology, both of them being brought into contempt,
that theology which they call natural might find a place in better
disposed minds; for the civil and the fabulous are both fabulous and
both civil. He who shall wisely inspect the vanities and obscenities
of both will find that they are both fabulous; and he who shall
direct his attention to the scenic plays pertaining to the fabulous
theology in the festivals of the civil gods, and in the divine rites
of the cities, will find they are both civil. How, then, can the
power of giving eternal life be attributed to any of those gods whose
own images and sacred rites convict them of being most like to the
fabulous gods, which are most openly reprobated, in forms, ages, sex,
characteristics, marriages, generations, rites; in all which things
they are understood either to have been men, and to have had their
sacred rites and solemnities instituted in their honour according
to the life or death of each of them, the demons suggesting and
confirming this error, or certainly most foul spirits, who, taking
advantage of some occasion or other, have stolen into the minds of
men to deceive them?