concerning the physical interpretations._
But let us hear their own physical interpretations by which they
attempt to colour, as with the appearance of profounder doctrine,
the baseness of most miserable error. Varro, in the first place,
commends these interpretations so strongly as to say, that the
ancients invented the images, badges, and adornments of the gods,
in order that when those who went to the mysteries should see them
with their bodily eyes, they might with the eyes of their mind see
the soul of the world, and its parts, that is, the true gods; and
also that the meaning which was intended by those who made their
images with the human form, seemed to be this,--namely, that the mind
of mortals, which is in a human body, is very like to the immortal
mind,[259] just as vessels might be placed to represent the gods,
as, for instance, a wine-vessel might be placed in the temple of
Liber, to signify wine, that which is contained being signified by
that which contains. Thus by an image which had the human form the
rational soul was signified, because the human form is the vessel,
as it were, in which that nature is wont to be contained which they
attribute to God, or to the gods. These are the mysteries of doctrine
to which that most learned man penetrated in order that he might
bring them forth to the light. But, O thou most acute man, hast thou
lost among those mysteries that prudence which led thee to form the
sober opinion, that those who first established those images for the
people took away fear from the citizens and added error, and that
the ancient Romans honoured the gods more chastely without images?
For it was through consideration of them that thou wast emboldened
to speak these things against the later Romans. For if those most
ancient Romans also had worshipped images, perhaps thou wouldst
have suppressed by the silence of fear all those sentiments (true
sentiments, nevertheless) concerning the folly of setting up images,
and wouldst have extolled more loftily, and more loquaciously,
those mysterious doctrines consisting of these vain and pernicious
fictions. Thy soul, so learned and so clever (and for this I grieve
much for thee), could never through these mysteries have reached its
God; that is, the God by whom, not with whom, it was made, of whom
it is not a part, but a work,--that God who is not the soul of all
things, but who made every soul, and in whose light alone every soul
is blessed, if it be not ungrateful for His grace.
But the things which follow in this book will show what is the nature
of these mysteries, and what value is to be set upon them. Meanwhile,
this most learned man confesses as his opinion that the soul of the
world and its parts are the true gods, from which we perceive that
his theology (to wit, that same natural theology to which he pays
great regard) has been able, in its completeness, to extend itself
even to the nature of the rational soul. For in this book (concerning
the select gods) he says a very few things by anticipation concerning
the natural theology; and we shall see whether he has been able in
that book, by means of physical interpretations, to refer to this
natural theology that civil theology, concerning which he wrote last
when treating of the select gods. Now, if he has been able to do
this, the whole is natural; and in that case, what need was there for
distinguishing so carefully the civil from the natural? But if it
has been distinguished by a veritable distinction, then, since not
even this natural theology with which he is so much pleased is true
(for though it has reached as far as the soul, it has not reached
to the true God who made the soul), how much more contemptible and
false is that civil theology which is chiefly occupied about what is
corporeal, as will be shown by its very interpretations, which they
have with such diligence sought out and enucleated, some of which I
must necessarily mention!