morals, while in public their own solemnities inculcated all
wickedness._
Seeing that this is so,--seeing that the filthy and cruel deeds,
the disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether real or
feigned, were at their own request published, and were consecrated,
and dedicated in their honour as sacred and stated solemnities;
seeing they vowed vengeance on those who refused to exhibit them
to the eyes of all, that they might be proposed as deeds worthy of
imitation, why is it that these same demons, who, by taking pleasure
in such obscenities, acknowledge themselves to be unclean spirits,
and by delighting in their own villanies and iniquities, real or
imaginary, and by requesting from the immodest, and extorting from
the modest, the celebration of these licentious acts, proclaim
themselves instigators to a criminal and lewd life;--why, I ask, are
they represented as giving some good moral precepts to a few of their
own elect, initiated in the secrecy of their shrines? If it be so,
this very thing only serves further to demonstrate the malicious
craft of these pestilent spirits. For so great is the influence of
probity and chastity, that all men, or almost all men, are moved by
the praise of these virtues; nor is any man so depraved by vice, but
he hath some feeling of honour left in him. So that, unless the devil
sometimes transformed himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of
light,[110] he could not compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly,
in public, a bold impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy
clamour; in private, a feigned chastity speaks in scarce audible
whispers to a few: an open stage is provided for shameful things, but
on the praiseworthy the curtain falls: grace hides, disgrace flaunts:
a wicked deed draws an overflowing house, a virtuous speech finds
scarce a hearer, as though purity were to be blushed at, impurity
boasted of. Where else can such confusion reign, but in devils'
temples? Where, but in the haunts of deceit? For the secret precepts
are given as a sop to the virtuous, who are few in number; the wicked
examples are exhibited to encourage the vicious, who are countless.
Where and when those initiated in the mysteries of CÅ“lestis received
any good instructions, we know not. What we do know is, that before
her shrine, in which her image is set, and amidst a vast crowd
gathering from all quarters, and standing closely packed together,
we were intensely interested spectators of the games which were
going on, and saw, as we pleased to turn the eye, on this side a
grand display of harlots, on the other the virgin goddess: we saw
this virgin worshipped with prayer and with obscene rites. There we
saw no shamefaced mimes, no actress overburdened with modesty: all
that the obscene rites demanded was fully complied with. We were
plainly shown what was pleasing to the virgin deity, and the matron
who witnessed the spectacle returned home from the temple a wiser
woman. Some, indeed, of the more prudent women turned their faces
from the immodest movements of the players, and learned the art of
wickedness by a furtive regard. For they were restrained, by the
modest demeanour due to men, from looking boldly at the immodest
gestures; but much more were they restrained from condemning with
chaste heart the sacred rites of her whom they adored. And yet this
licentiousness--which, if practised in one's home, could only be done
there in secret--was practised as a public lesson in the temple;
and if any modesty remained in men, it was occupied in marvelling
that wickedness which men could not unrestrainedly commit should be
part of the religious teaching of the gods, and that to omit its
exhibition should incur the anger of the gods. What spirit can that
be, which by a hidden inspiration stirs men's corruption, and goads
them to adultery, and feeds on the full-fledged iniquity, unless it
be the same that finds pleasure in such religious ceremonies, sets in
the temples images of devils, and loves to see in play the images of
vices; that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to deceive the
few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to profligacy,
to gain possession of the millions who are wicked?