censured the civil theology than Varro did the fabulous._
That liberty, in truth, which this man wanted, so that he did not
dare to censure that theology of the city, which is very similar
to the theatrical, so openly as he did the theatrical itself, was,
though not fully, yet in part possessed by Annæus Seneca, whom we
have some evidence to show to have flourished in the times of our
apostles. It was in part possessed by him, I say, for he possessed
it in writing, but not in living. For in that book which he wrote
against superstition,[243] he more copiously and vehemently censured
that civil and urban theology than Varro the theatrical and fabulous.
For, when speaking concerning images, he says, "They dedicate
images of the sacred and inviolable immortals in most worthless and
motionless matter. They give them the appearance of man, beasts, and
fishes, and some make them of mixed sex, and heterogeneous bodies.
They call them deities, when they are such that if they should get
breath and should suddenly meet them, they would be held to be
monsters." Then, a while afterwards, when extolling the natural
theology, he had expounded the sentiments of certain philosophers, he
opposes to himself a question, and says, "Here some one says, Shall
I believe that the heavens and the earth are gods, and that some are
above the moon and some below it? Shall I bring forward either Plato
or the peripatetic Strato, one of whom made God to be without a body,
the other without a mind?" In answer to which he says, "And, really,
what truer do the dreams of Titus Tatius, or Romulus, or Tullus
Hostilius appear to thee? Tatius declared the divinity of the goddess
Cloacina; Romulus that of Picus and Tiberinus; Tullus Hostilius that
of Pavor and Pallor, the most disagreeable affections of men, the one
of which is the agitation of the mind under fright, the other that
of the body, not a disease, indeed, but a change of colour." Wilt
thou rather believe that these are deities, and receive them into
heaven? But with what freedom he has written concerning the rites
themselves, cruel and shameful! "One," he says, "castrates himself,
another cuts his arms. Where will they find room for the fear of
these gods when angry, who use such means of gaining their favour
when propitious? But gods who wish to be worshipped in this fashion
should be worshipped in none. So great is the frenzy of the mind when
perturbed and driven from its seat, that the gods are propitiated by
men in a manner in which not even men of the greatest ferocity and
fable-renowned cruelty vent their rage. Tyrants have lacerated the
limbs of some; they never ordered any one to lacerate his own. For
the gratification of royal lust, some have been castrated; but no
one ever, by the command of his lord, laid violent hands on himself
to emasculate himself. They kill themselves in the temples. They
supplicate with their wounds and with their blood. If any one has
time to see the things they do and the things they suffer, he will
find so many things unseemly for men of respectability, so unworthy
of freemen, so unlike the doings of sane men, that no one would
doubt that they are mad, had they been mad with the minority; but now
the multitude of the insane is the defence of their sanity."
He next relates those things which are wont to be done in the Capitol,
and with the utmost intrepidity insists that they are such things as
one could only believe to be done by men making sport, or by madmen.
For, having spoken with derision of this, that in the Egyptian sacred
rites Osiris, being lost, is lamented for, but straightway, when found,
is the occasion of great joy by his reappearance, because both the
losing and the finding of him are feigned; and yet that grief and that
joy which are elicited thereby from those who have lost nothing and
found nothing are real;--having, I say, so spoken of this, he says,
"Still there is a fixed time for this frenzy. It is tolerable to go
mad once in the year. Go into the Capitol. One is suggesting divine
commands[244] to a god; another is telling the hours to Jupiter;
one is a lictor; another is an anointer, who with the mere movement
of his arms imitates one anointing. There are women who arrange the
hair of Juno and Minerva, standing far away not only from her image,
but even from her temple. These move their fingers in the manner of
hair-dressers. There are some women who hold a mirror. There are some
who are calling the gods to assist them in court. There are some who
are holding up documents to them, and are explaining to them their
cases. A learned and distinguished comedian, now old and decrepit,
was daily playing the mimic in the Capitol, as though the gods would
gladly be spectators of that which men had ceased to care about. Every
kind of artificers working for the immortal gods is dwelling there in
idleness." And a little after he says, "Nevertheless these, though they
give themselves up to the gods for purposes superfluous enough, do not
do so for any abominable or infamous purpose. There sit certain women
in the Capitol who think they are beloved by Jupiter; nor are they
frightened even by the look of the, if you will believe the poets, most
wrathful Juno."
This liberty Varro did not enjoy. It was only the poetical theology he
seemed to censure. The civil, which this man cuts to pieces, he was
not bold enough to impugn. But if we attend to the truth, the temples
where these things are performed are far worse than the theatres where
they are represented. Whence, with respect to these sacred rites of the
civil theology, Seneca preferred, as the best course to be followed
by a wise man, to feign respect for them in act, but to have no real
regard for them at heart. "All which things," he says, "a wise man will
observe as being commanded by the laws, but not as being pleasing to
the gods." And a little after he says, "And what of this, that we unite
the gods in marriage, and that not even naturally, for we join brothers
and sisters? We marry Bellona to Mars, Venus to Vulcan, Salacia to
Neptune. Some of them we leave unmarried, as though there were no match
for them, which is surely needless, especially when there are certain
unmarried goddesses, as Populonia, or Fulgora, or the goddess Rumina,
for whom I am not astonished that suitors have been awanting. All this
ignoble crowd of gods, which the superstition of ages has amassed, we
ought," he says, "to adore in such a way as to remember all the while
that its worship belongs rather to custom than to reality." Wherefore,
neither those laws nor customs instituted in the civil theology that
which was pleasing to the gods, or which pertained to reality. But this
man, whom philosophy had made, as it were, free, nevertheless, because
he was an illustrious senator of the Roman people, worshipped what he
censured, did what he condemned, adored what he reproached, because,
forsooth, philosophy had taught him something great,--namely, not to
be superstitious in the world, but, on account of the laws of cities
and the customs of men, to be an actor, not on the stage, but in the
temples,--conduct the more to be condemned, that those things which
he was deceitfully acting he so acted that the people thought he was
acting sincerely. But a stage-actor would rather delight people by
acting plays than take them in by false pretences.