Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 18/87

Wherefore, if, when we were inquiring concerning the earthly kingdom — which gods or goddesses it was to be believed could confer it upon men — after all had been discussed, it was shown to be far removed from the truth to suppose that even earthly kingdoms are appointed by any one of those many and false divinities: is it not of the maddest impiety, if eternal life — which is without any doubt or comparison to be preferred to all earthly kingdoms — be believed capable of being given to anyone by any one of these? Nor did such gods seem unable to give even an earthly kingdom because they are great and exalted, while this is something small and abject which they would not deign to care for in such sublimity;

but however much anyone, in consideration of human frailty, may rightly despise the fleeting summits of an earthly kingdom, those gods appeared so unworthy that they seemed most unfit to have even these things committed to be given and preserved by them. And by this, if (as the foregoing, treated in the two preceding books, has taught) no god out of that throng — whether of plebeian gods, as it were, or of noble ones — is fit to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how much less can he make immortals out of mortals!

To this it is added that, if we are now dealing with those who think the gods are to be worshipped not for the sake of this life, but for the sake of the life that is to be after death, then they are by no means to be worshipped even for the sake of those things which are attributed to the power of such gods as it were apportioned and proper to them — not by reason of truth, but by an opinion of vanity — as those believe who contend that their worship is necessary for the usefulness of this mortal life; against whom I have already disputed sufficiently, as far as I could, in the five preceding volumes. Since these things are so, if the very age of those who worshipped the goddess Juventas (Youth) flourished more notably, while her despisers either died within the years of youth, or grew cold in it as in a senile torpor;

if bearded Fortuna clothed the cheeks of her worshippers more comely and more festively, while those by whom she was scorned we should see smooth-faced or ill-bearded: even so we should most rightly say that these single goddesses can avail only thus far, limited as it were to their own offices, and that therefore eternal life is not to be sought from Juventas, who would not give a beard, nor is any good thing after this life to be hoped for from bearded Fortuna, whose power in this life would be none, that she might at least furnish that same age which is clothed with a beard.

But now, since the worship of these deities is not even necessary for those very things which men suppose to be subject to them — for many who worship the goddess Youth have by no means flourished in that time of life, and many who do not worship her enjoy the strength of youth; and likewise many suppliants of bearded Fortune have attained to no beard at all, or to an ugly one, and if any venerate her for the obtaining of a beard, they are mocked by her bearded despisers — is the human heart then so foolish that, although it recognizes the worship of those gods to be empty and ridiculous even for the sake of these temporal and swiftly passing gifts over which they are individually said to preside, it should yet believe such worship to be fruitful for the sake of life eternal?

That these gods can bestow eternal life, not even those have dared to say who, in order that they might be worshipped by ignorant peoples, assigned to them these temporal works parcelled out minutely — since they thought them far too many, lest any one of them should sit idle. CHAPTER II. What is to be believed concerning Varro's opinion of the gods of the nations, whose kinds and rites he so laid bare that he would have dealt more reverently with them had he kept utter silence about them. Who inquired into these matters more carefully than Marcus Varro? Who discovered them more learnedly? Who considered them more attentively? Who distinguished them more acutely? Who wrote of them more diligently and more fully?

Although he is less pleasing in eloquence, yet he is so replete with learning and judgement that, in all that erudition which we call secular and they call liberal, he instructs the student of facts as much as Cicero delights the student of words. Indeed Cicero himself bears him such testimony that in his Academic books he says he held the discussion there treated with Marcus Varro, 'a man,' he says, 'easily the most acute of all and beyond any doubt the most learned.' He does not say 'the most eloquent' or 'the most fluent,' since in truth in that faculty he is much inferior; but 'easily,' he says, 'the most acute of all'; and in those books —

that is, in the Academic books, where he contends that all things are to be doubted, he added 'beyond any doubt the most learned.' Assuredly he was so certain about this matter that he set aside the doubt which he was wont to bring to bear upon everything, as though, being about to dispute on this one point even on behalf of the Academics' doubt, he had forgotten that he was an Academic. But in the first book, when he was praising the same Varro's literary labours, he says: 'We, wandering and straying as strangers in our own city, were as it were led home by your books, so that we might at last recognize who and where we were. You have revealed the age of our country, the divisions of its periods, the laws of its sacred rites,

the discipline of the priests, the domestic discipline, the public discipline, the seat of regions and places, the names, kinds, functions, and causes of all things divine and human, you have laid open.' This man, then, of such notable and surpassing skill — and as Terentianus too says of him briefly in a most elegant little verse: 'Varro, a man most learned on every side' — who read so much that we marvel he had any leisure to write anything, and wrote so much that we can scarcely believe anyone could have read it all:

this man, I say, so great in genius and so great in learning, had he been an assailant and demolisher of those things which, as it were, divine, of which he writes, and had he declared that they pertained not to religion but to superstition, I know not whether he would have written down in them so many things to be laughed at, despised, and abominated. But seeing that he so worshipped these same gods, and judged them worthy to be worshipped, that in that very work of his writings he says he fears lest they perish, not by hostile assault but through the negligence of the citizens — from which negligence, as from a kind of ruin, he says they are delivered by him, and stored up and preserved in the memory of the good through books of this sort by a more useful care than that by which Metellus is said to have rescued the sacred things of Vesta from the fire, and Aeneas the household gods from the destruction of Troy;

and yet he hands down to the ages, to be read, those very things which by the wise and the foolish alike are rightly judged to be cast away and most hostile to the truth of religion: what then ought we to think, except that he was a most keen-witted and most learned man, yet not free by the Holy Spirit, oppressed by the custom and laws of his city, and yet unwilling, under the pretext of commending religion, to keep silent about those things by which he was moved? CHAPTER III. What is the division of Varro's books, which he composed concerning the antiquities of human and divine things. He wrote forty-one books of antiquities;

these he divided into human and divine affairs, assigning twenty-five to human affairs and sixteen to divine, following in that division this plan: that he should give six books each to four parts of human affairs. For he gave heed to who act, where they act, when they act, what they act. In the first six therefore he wrote concerning men, in the second six concerning places, in the third six concerning times, and in the fourth six and last he treated of deeds. Now four times six make twenty-four. But he set at the head one single book, which should speak in general of all things beforehand. In divine affairs likewise the same form of division was preserved by him, as far as pertains to those things which are to be rendered to the gods.

For sacred rites are rendered by men, in places and at times. These four things which I have mentioned he embraced in three books each: for the first three he wrote concerning men, the following concerning places, the third concerning times, the fourth concerning sacred rites — here too commending by a most subtle distinction those who render them, where they render them, when they render them, what they render. But because it was needful to say, and this was chiefly expected, to whom they render them, he wrote three last books concerning the gods themselves, so that five times three should make fifteen. But they are all, as we have said, sixteen, because at the beginning of these too he set one single book which should speak first concerning all things.

This being completed, he then consequently subdivided, out of that fivefold distribution, the three preceding books which pertain to men, so that the first should be concerning the pontiffs, the second concerning the augurs, the third concerning the quindecimviri of sacred rites; the second three pertaining to places, so that in one of them he should speak concerning the shrines, in another concerning the sacred buildings, in the third concerning religious places; the three further which follow these and pertain to times — that is, to festal days — so that he should make one of them concerning the holidays, another concerning the circus games, the third concerning the stage games; of the fourth three pertaining to sacred rites he gave one to consecrations, another to private rites, the last to public.

This procession, as it were, of services the gods themselves follow last in the three books that remain, on whom all this worship was expended: in the first the certain gods, in the second the uncertain, in the third and last of all the chief and select gods. CHAPTER IV. That from Varro's discussion human affairs are found to be more ancient than divine among the worshippers of the gods. In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle arrangement and distinction, that eternal life is sought and hoped for in vain, and most shamelessly even longed for, appears most easily — from the things we have already said and those which are next to be said — to any man who has not become his own enemy with an obstinate heart.

For these institutions are either of men or of demons — not such as they call good demons, but, to speak more plainly, of unclean and beyond dispute malignant spirits, who with marvellous and hidden envy implant noxious opinions in the thoughts of the impious — opinions by which the human soul grows more and more vain and cannot be fitted to, or cleave to, the immutable and eternal truth — and sometimes openly thrust them into men's senses and confirm them by whatever deceitful attestation they can. This very Varro testifies that for this reason he wrote first concerning human things and afterward concerning divine, namely because cities existed first, and then these institutions were established by them.

But the true religion was not instituted by any earthly city; rather it itself plainly instituted the heavenly city. And it is the true God, the giver of eternal life, who inspires and teaches it to His true worshippers. The reason, then, of Varro, who confesses that he wrote first of human things and afterward of divine because these divine things were instituted by men, is this: 'Just as,' he says, 'the painter is prior to the painted tablet, and the builder prior to the building, so cities are prior to those things which are instituted by cities.'

But he says that he would have written first concerning the gods, and afterward concerning men, if he were writing of the whole nature of the gods — as though here he writes of some part of it and not of the whole; or as though even some part of the divine nature, though not the whole, ought not to be prior to that of men. For what of the fact that in those three last books, while diligently expounding the certain and uncertain and select gods, he seems to pass over no nature of the gods? What then does he mean when he says: 'If we were writing of the whole nature of gods and men, we should have finished the divine things before we touched upon the human'? For either he writes of the whole nature of the gods, or of some part, or of none at all. If of the whole, it is certainly to be set before human affairs; if of some part, why should not even that part precede human affairs?

Or is some part of the gods unworthy to be set even before the whole nature of men? But if it is too much that some divine part should be set before all human affairs, at least it is worthy to be set before the Roman ones. For he wrote his books of human affairs, not as concerning the whole world, but only as concerning Rome; and yet he said that he rightly preferred these in the order of writing to the books of divine affairs, just as the painter to the painted tablet, just as the builder to the building, confessing most openly that these divine things too, like a painting, like a structure, were instituted by men. It remains that he be understood to have written of no nature of the gods, and to have been unwilling to say this openly, but to have left it to be understood by the intelligent.

For when it is said 'not all,' it is indeed commonly understood as 'some'; but it can also be understood as 'none,' since that which is none is neither all nor some. For, as he himself says, if the nature of the gods of which he was writing were the whole, it ought in the order of writing to be set before human affairs; but as truth cries out even while he is silent, it ought certainly to be set before Roman affairs, even if it were not the whole, but at least some. Yet it is rightly set after; therefore it is none. Thus he did not wish to prefer human things to divine, but he was unwilling to prefer false things to true. For in those things which he wrote of human affairs, he followed the history of deeds done; but in those which he writes of the things he calls divine, what did he follow but the opinions of vain things?

This, no doubt, is what he wished to show by a subtle hint — not only by writing of these things later than of those, but also by giving the reason why he did so. For had he kept silent about it, perhaps this deed of his might have been defended by others in another way. But in that very reason which he gave, he left nothing for others to surmise at their own pleasure, and sufficiently proved that he had set men before the institutions of men, not the nature of men before the nature of the gods. Thus he confessed that he had written his books of divine affairs not concerning the truth which pertains to nature, but concerning the falsehood which pertains to error. This he set down more openly elsewhere, as I recalled in the fourth book: that he would have written according to the rule of nature, if he himself were founding a new city;

but since he had found an old one already in being, he could do nothing but follow its custom. CHAPTER V. Concerning the three kinds of theology according to Varro, that is, one mythical, another natural, and a third civil. Then what is the meaning of this, that he says there are three kinds of theology — that is, of the reason which is set forth concerning the gods — one of which is called mythical, another physical, the third civil? If Latin usage allowed, we should call the kind which he set first 'fabular'; but let us say 'fabulous'; for from the fables (fabulae) it was called mythical, since μῦθος in Greek means a fable. But that the second be called natural, the very custom of speech now allows. The third he himself also expressed in Latin, which is called civil. Then he says:

'The mythical they call that which the poets chiefly use; the physical, that which the philosophers use; the civil, that which the peoples use. The first,' he says, 'which I have mentioned, contains many things feigned contrary to the dignity and nature of the immortals. For in it there is the story that one god was born from the head, another from the thigh, another from drops of blood; in it, that gods committed thefts, that they committed adulteries, that they served a man; in short, in it all things are attributed to the gods which can befall not only a man, but even the most contemptible man.' Here at least, where he could, where he dared, where he thought it would go unpunished, he expressed without any cloud of ambiguity how great an injury was done to the nature of the gods by these most lying fables.

For he was speaking not of natural theology, nor of civil, but of the fabulous, which he thought he might freely censure. Let us see what he says of the other. 'The second kind,' he says, 'is that which I have shown, concerning which the philosophers have left many books; in which is treated: who the gods are, where, of what kind, of what character; whether the gods existed from a certain time or from everlasting; whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus believes, or of numbers, as Pythagoras, or of atoms, as Epicurus says. And so other matters, which ears can more easily bear within the walls in a school than outside in the forum.'

In this kind which they call physical and which pertains to the philosophers, he censured nothing — only that he recalled their controversies among themselves, through whom there was made a multitude of dissenting sects. Yet he removed this kind from the forum, that is, from the peoples, and shut it up in schools and within walls. But that first kind, most lying and most base, he did not remove from the cities. O ye religious popular ears, and among these the Roman too! What the philosophers dispute concerning the immortal gods, you cannot bear; but what the poets sing and the players act, because they are feigned contrary to the dignity and nature of the immortals, because they can befall not only a man but even the most contemptible man, you not only bear, but even gladly hear.

And not only that, but they decree that these things even please the gods themselves, and that by these the gods are to be appeased. Someone may say: Let us distinguish these two kinds, the mythical and the physical — that is, the fabulous and the natural — from this civil one, of which we are now treating, from which he himself also distinguished them, and now let us see how he expounds the civil kind itself. I see indeed why the fabulous ought to be distinguished: because it is false, because it is base, because it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish the natural from the civil — what else is this than to confess that the civil too is faulty? For if that is natural, what has it of reproach, that it should be excluded? But if this which is called civil is not natural, what has it of merit, that it should be admitted?

This, surely, is the cause why he wrote first of human things and afterward of divine, since in divine matters he followed not nature but the institutions of men. Let us indeed look at the civil theology. 'The third kind,' he says, 'is that which the citizens in the cities, and especially the priests, ought to know and to administer. In it is contained what gods are to be worshipped publicly, what sacred rites and sacrifices it is fitting for each to perform.' Let us further attend to what follows. 'The first theology,' he says, 'is especially suited to the theatre, the second to the world, the third to the city.' Who does not see to which he has given the palm? Surely to the second, which he said above is the philosophers'.

For he testifies that this pertains to the world, than which these men suppose nothing to be more excellent among things. But those two theologies, the first and the third — namely of the theatre and of the city — did he distinguish or join them? For we see that what belongs to the city does not straightway also pertain to the world, although we see that cities exist in the world; for it can come to pass that in a city, according to false opinions, those things be worshipped and those be believed whose nature is nowhere either in the world or beyond the world. But the theatre — where is it but in the city? Who instituted the theatre but the state? For the sake of what did it institute it but for the sake of stage games? Where are the stage games but in those divine matters, concerning which these books are written with so great skill? CHAPTER VI.

Concerning the mythical theology, that is, the fabulous, and the civil, against Varro. O Marcus Varro, since you are a man the most acute of all and beyond any doubt the most learned, yet a man, not God, nor borne up by the Spirit of God to see and announce things divine in truth and freedom — you do indeed discern how greatly things divine are to be separated from human trifles and lies; but you fear to offend the most vicious opinions and customs of the peoples in their public superstitions, which you yourself perceive — when you consider them on every side — to shrink away from the nature of the gods, or even of such beings as the weakness of the human mind surmises among the elements of this world; and all your literature resounds with it round about.

What here does human genius, however excellent, accomplish? What does human learning, however manifold and vast, avail you in these straits? You desire to worship the natural gods, you are compelled to worship the civil ones. You have found others, the fabulous ones, into whom you may more freely vomit forth what you think, whence too, willy-nilly, you sprinkle even these civil ones. For you say indeed that the fabulous are suited to the theatre, the natural to the world, the civil to the city — whereas the world is a divine work, but cities and theatres are works of men; and none other are derided in the theatres than those who are adored in the temples, nor do you exhibit games to any others than those to whom you immolate victims.

How much more freely and subtly would you have made these divisions, by saying that some gods are natural, others instituted by men, but that concerning those instituted ones the writings of the poets have one account, those of the priests another, both nevertheless being so friendly to each other in the partnership of falsehood that both are pleasing to the demons, to whom the teaching of the truth is hostile! Setting aside, then, for a little while the theology which they call natural — of which we must treat afterward — does it at last please you that eternal life should be sought or hoped for from the poetic, theatrical, sportive, scenic gods? God forbid; nay, may the true God avert so monstrous and sacrilegious a madness. What? From those gods to whom these things are pleasing and whom these things appease, since their own crimes are rehearsed there, is eternal life to be demanded?

No one, I think, is so insane as to rush to so great a precipice of the most furious impiety. Therefore by neither the fabulous nor the civil theology does anyone attain everlasting life. For the one sows by feigning base things concerning the gods, the other reaps by favouring them; the one scatters lies, the other gathers them; the one assails things divine with false crimes, the other embraces the games of those crimes among things divine; the one makes the abominable fictions of men concerning the gods to resound in songs, the other consecrates them at the very festivals of the gods themselves; the one sings the misdeeds and outrages of the deities, the other loves them; the one betrays or feigns, the other either attests them as true or takes delight in them as false. Both are base and both are damnable;

but the one, which is theatrical, professes public baseness; the other, which is urban, is adorned by the baseness of the former. Is eternal life then to be hoped for from that whence this brief and temporal life is polluted? Or does the fellowship of wicked men pollute life, if they insinuate themselves into our affections and assents, and does not the society of demons pollute life — demons who are worshipped by means of their own crimes? If by true crimes, how wicked they are! if by false, how wickedly are they worshipped! When we say these things, it can perhaps seem to someone too ignorant of these matters that those things alone are unworthy of divine majesty, and ridiculous and detestable, which are sung in poetic songs and acted in stage games;

but that those sacred rites, which not the players but the priests perform, are purged and free from all dishonour. If this were so, no one would ever have judged that theatrical basenesses ought to be celebrated in their honour, nor would the gods themselves ever have commanded such things to be exhibited to them. But for this reason men are not at all ashamed to perform such things in the theatres for the homage of the gods, because the like are performed in the temples. Finally, when the aforesaid author endeavoured to distinguish the civil theology, as a third kind of its own, from the fabulous and the natural, he wished it to be understood rather as tempered out of both than as separated from both. For he says that the things which the poets write are less than that the peoples ought to follow them; but the things which the philosophers write are more than that it is expedient for the common crowd to scrutinize them.

'Which differ so widely,' he says, 'that nevertheless not a few things from each kind have been taken up into the civil reckonings. Wherefore the things which will be common we shall write down together with the things proper to the civil; of which there ought to be a greater fellowship for us with the philosophers than with the poets.' Therefore none at all with the poets. And yet in another place he says that concerning the generations of the gods the peoples were more inclined toward the poets than toward the natural philosophers. For here he said what ought to be done, there what is done. He said that the natural philosophers wrote for the sake of usefulness, the poets for the sake of delight. And through this, those things which were written by the poets, and which the peoples ought not to follow, are crimes of the gods, which nevertheless delight both the peoples and the gods. For the poets, as he says, write for the sake of delight, not of usefulness;

yet they write those things which the gods desire and the peoples exhibit. CHAPTER VII. Concerning the likeness and concord of the fabulous and civil theology. The fabulous, theatrical, scenic theology, full of unworthiness and baseness, is therefore brought back to the civil theology; and this whole, which is rightly judged to be blamed and rejected, is a part of that which is judged to be worshipped and observed — not, indeed, an incongruous part, as I have undertaken to show, and one foreign to the whole body, unfittingly connected and hung upon it, but altogether consonant, and joined most suitably as a member of the same body. For what else do those images, forms, ages, sexes, attire of the gods show?

Do the poets have a bearded Jupiter, a beardless Mercury, and the pontiffs not have them? Did only the mimes, and not also the priests, make for Priapus those enormous private parts? Does he stand differently to be adored in sacred places than he comes forth to be laughed at in the theatres? Are Saturn the old man and Apollo the youth so the masks of the actors that they are not also the statues of the shrines? Why are Forculus, who presides over doors, and Limentinus, who over the threshold, male gods, while among these Cardea is a female who guards the hinge? Are not those things found in the books of divine affairs which grave poets deemed unworthy of their songs? Does the theatrical Diana carry arms, while the urban one is simply a virgin?

Is the scenic Apollo a citharist, and is the Delphic Apollo free from this art? But these things are more honourable in comparison with baser ones. What did they think of Jupiter himself, who placed his nurse in the Capitol? Did they not bear witness to Euhemerus, who wrote that all such gods had been men and mortals, not by fabulous garrulity but by historical diligence? Those who established banqueting gods, parasites of Jupiter, at his table — what else did they wish than that the sacred rites should be mimic? For if a mime had said that parasites of Jupiter were admitted to his banquet, he would certainly have seemed to be seeking a laugh. Varro said it! and he said this not when he was mocking the gods, but when he was commending them;