malign spirits, who rejoice in the errors of men, have been
manifested._
This, the only true religion, has alone been able to manifest that
the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who desire to be
thought gods, availing themselves of the names of certain defunct
souls, or the appearance of mundane creatures, and with proud
impurity rejoicing in things most base and infamous, as though in
divine honours, and envying human souls their conversion to the
true God. From whose most cruel and most impious dominion a man is
liberated when he believes on Him who has afforded an example of
humility, following which men may rise as great as was that pride
by which they fell. Hence are not only those gods, concerning whom
we have already spoken much, and many others belonging to different
nations and lands, but also those of whom we are now treating, who
have been selected as it were into the senate of the gods,--selected,
however, on account of the notoriousness of their crimes, not on
account of the dignity of their virtues,--whose sacred things Varro
attempts to refer to certain natural reasons, seeking to make base
things honourable, but cannot find how to square and agree with
these reasons, because these are not the causes of those rites,
which he thinks, or rather wishes to be thought to be so. For had
not only these, but also all others of this kind, been real causes,
even though they had nothing to do with the true God and eternal
life, which is to be sought in religion, they would, by affording
some sort of reason drawn from the nature of things, have mitigated
in some degree that offence which was occasioned by some turpitude
or absurdity in the sacred rites, which was not understood. This
he attempted to do in respect to certain fables of the theatres,
or mysteries of the shrines; but he did not acquit the theatres
of likeness to the shrines, but rather condemned the shrines for
likeness to the theatres. However, he in some way made the attempt to
soothe the feelings shocked by horrible things, by rendering what he
would have to be natural interpretations.