neither worship the true divinity, nor perform the worship
wherewith the true divinity should be served._
We see that these select gods have, indeed, become more famous than
the rest; not, however, that their merits may be brought to light,
but that their opprobrious deeds may not be hid. Whence it is more
credible that they were men, as not only poetic but also historical
literature has handed down. For this which Virgil says,
"Then from Olympus' heights came down
Good Saturn, exiled from his throne
By Jove, his mightier heir;"[286]
and what follows with reference to this affair, is fully related
by the historian Euhemerus, and has been translated into Latin by
Ennius. And as they who have written before us in the Greek or in the
Latin tongue against such errors as these have said much concerning
this matter, I have thought it unnecessary to dwell upon it. When I
consider those physical reasons, then, by which learned and acute men
attempt to turn human things into divine things, all I see is that
they have been able to refer these things only to temporal works and
to that which has a corporeal nature, and even though invisible still
mutable; and this is by no means the true God. But if this worship
had been performed as the symbolism of ideas at least congruous
with religion, though it would indeed have been cause of grief that
the true God was not announced and proclaimed by its symbolism,
nevertheless it could have been in some degree borne with, when
it did not occasion and command the performance of such foul and
abominable things. But since it is impiety to worship the body or the
soul for the true God, by whose indwelling alone the soul is happy,
how much more impious is it to worship those things through which
neither soul nor body can obtain either salvation or human honour?
Wherefore if with temple, priest, and sacrifice, which are due to
the true God, any element of the world be worshipped, or any created
spirit, even though not impure and evil, that worship is still evil,
not because the things are evil by which the worship is performed,
but because those things ought only to be used in the worship of
Him to whom alone such worship and service are due. But if any one
insist that he worships the one true God,--that is, the Creator of
every soul and of every body,--with stupid and monstrous idols, with
human victims, with putting a wreath on the male organ, with the
wages of unchastity, with the cutting of limbs, with emasculation,
with the consecration of effeminates, with impure and obscene plays,
such a one does not sin because he worships One who ought not to be
worshipped, but because he worships Him who ought to be worshipped
in a way in which He ought not to be worshipped. But he who worships
with such things,--that is, foul and obscene things,--and that not
the true God, namely, the maker of soul and body, but a creature,
even though not a wicked creature, whether it be soul or body, or
soul and body together, twice sins against God, because he both
worships for God what is not God, and also worships with such things
as neither God nor what is not God ought to be worshipped with.
It is, indeed, manifest how these pagans worship,--that is, how
shamefully and criminally they worship; but what or whom they worship
would have been left in obscurity, had not their history testified
that those same confessedly base and foul rites were rendered in
obedience to the demands of the gods, who exacted them with terrible
severity. Wherefore it is evident beyond doubt that this whole civil
theology is occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and
most impure spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and
through these to take possession of stupid hearts.