Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 20/87

As I strive more diligently to root out and extirpate the depraved and ancient opinions, hostile to the truth of piety, which the long-standing error of the human race has fixed more deeply and more tenaciously in darkened minds, and as, according to my small measure, I cooperate by His help with the grace of Him who, as the true God, is able to do this—those quicker and better minds, for whom the preceding books are more than sufficient for this matter, ought to bear with me patiently and with equanimity, and not to deem superfluous, for the sake of others, what they already feel to be unnecessary for themselves.

A very great matter is being treated, when it is proclaimed that the true and truly holy divinity—although by it the supports necessary even for this frailty which we now bear are afforded to us—is nevertheless to be sought and worshiped, not on account of the transitory vapor of mortal life, but on account of the blessed life, which is none other than eternal. CHAPTER I. Whether, since it has been established that there is no deity in civil theology, it ought to be believed that it can be found in the select gods.

This divinity, or, if I may so speak, this "deity" (for it does not now displease our writers to use this word, that they may more expressly render from the Greek what they call theotes)—this divinity, then, or deity, is not in that theology which they call civil, which has been explained by Marcus Varro in sixteen volumes; that is, one does not attain to the felicity of eternal life by the worship of such gods, and in such manner, as the cities have appointed them to be worshiped. To anyone whom the sixth book, which we have just completed, has not yet persuaded of this, when perhaps he has read this present book, he will have nothing further to desire toward the dispatching of this question.

For it may happen that someone should suppose that at least the select and chief gods, whom Varro embraced in his last volume, of whom we have said little, are to be worshiped on account of the blessed life, which is none other than eternal. In which matter I do not say what Tertullian says, perhaps more wittily than truly: "If gods are chosen like onions, surely the rest are judged reprobate." This I do not say: for I see that even from the select some are selected for something greater and more excellent, as in military service, when recruits have been chosen, from these too some are chosen for some greater work of arms; and when in the church those are chosen who are to be made overseers, the rest are not at all reprobated, since all good faithful are deservedly called the elect.

Corner stones are chosen in a building, the rest not being reprobated, which are assigned to other parts of the structure. Grapes are chosen for eating, nor are others reprobated which we leave for drinking. There is no need to run through many examples, since the matter is plain. Wherefore, not from this, that certain gods have been selected out of many, are either he who wrote, or their worshipers, or the gods themselves to be blamed; but rather it is to be observed who these are, and for what purpose they seem to have been selected. CHAPTER II. Who the select gods are, and whether they are exempted from the offices of the meaner gods. These select gods, certainly, Varro commends by the texture of a single book:

Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, Father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta; in all of which, about twenty, twelve are males and eight are females. Are these deities said to be select on account of their greater administrations in the world, or because they have become more widely known to the peoples and a greater worship has been exhibited to them? If it is because greater works are administered by them in the world, we ought not to have found them among that, as it were, plebeian multitude of deities assigned to petty little tasks.

For Janus himself is the first, when the conception of an offspring is begun—from which all those works take their starting-point, parceled out little by little among petty deities—he opens the entrance to receive the seed. There too is Saturn, on account of the seed itself; there is Liber, who frees the male by the emission of his seed; there is Libera, whom they also call Venus, who confers this same benefit upon the woman, that she too may be freed by the discharge of her seed. All these belong to those who are called the select gods. But there too is the goddess Mena, who presides over the menstrual flows—though a daughter of Jupiter, she is nonetheless of no renown.

And this province of the menstrual flows the same author, in his book on the select gods, assigns to Juno herself, who among the select gods is even queen; and here, as Juno Lucina, together with this same Mena her stepdaughter, she presides over the same blood. There too are two others, I know not whom, most obscure—Vitumnus and Sentinus—of whom the one bestows life, the other the senses, upon the offspring. And no doubt, although they are most ignoble, they furnish far more than all those many nobles and select ones. For surely, without life and sense, what is that whole thing carried in a woman's womb but something most abject, to be compared with mud and dust? CHAPTER III.

How no reason can be shown for the selection of certain gods, since a more excellent administration is assigned to many inferior ones. What cause, then, drove so many select gods to these tiniest of works, where they are surpassed by Vitumnus and Sentinus—whom an obscure fame keeps hidden—in the sharing of this bounty? For the select Janus furnishes the entrance and, as it were, the gate for the seed; the select Saturn furnishes the seed itself; the select Liber furnishes the emission of that same seed in men; the same is furnished by Libera, who is Ceres or Venus, in women; the select Juno furnishes—and this not alone, but together with Mena, daughter of Jupiter—the menstrual flows for the increase of that which has been conceived; and the obscure and ignoble Vitumnus furnishes life;

the obscure and ignoble Sentinus furnishes sense—two things so much more excellent than those others, by as much as they themselves surpass them in understanding and reason. For just as those things which reason and understand are surely superior to those which, without understanding and reason, live and feel like cattle: so too those things which are endowed with life and sense are rightly preferred to those which neither live nor feel. Among the select gods, therefore, Vitumnus the giver of life and Sentinus the giver of sense ought to have been held in higher esteem than Janus the admitter of the seed, and Saturn the giver or sower of the seed, and Liber and Libera the stirrers or emitters of the seeds;

for it is unworthy to think of those seeds at all, unless they have come to life and sense—gifts which are not given by the select gods, but by certain unknown ones, neglected in comparison with the dignity of those others. But if it is answered that Janus has power over all beginnings, and therefore not undeservedly the opening for conception is also attributed to him; and that Saturn has power over all seeds, and therefore the human seeding too cannot be separated from his operation; that Liber and Libera have power over all the emitting of seeds, and therefore preside over these things too which pertain to the propagation of men; that Juno has power over all purgings and birthings, and therefore is not absent from the purgations of women and the births of men:

let them seek what they may answer concerning Vitumnus and Sentinus—whether they wish these also to have power over all things that live and feel. If they grant this, let them mark how much more sublimely they will place them. For to be born from seeds is in the earth and from the earth; but to live and to feel they hold belongs even to the starry gods. But if they say that to Vitumnus and Sentinus only these things are attributed, which quicken in the flesh and serve the senses, why should not that God who makes all things live and feel grant life and sense to the flesh as well, bestowing this gift even upon births by a universal operation? And what need is there of Vitumnus and Sentinus?

But if these fleshly matters, as if outermost and lowest, were committed by Him who universally presides over life and the senses to these as if to servants: were those select gods so destitute of a household that they could not find any to whom they too might commit these things, but were compelled, with all their nobility—for which they seemed worthy of selection—to do the work along with ignoble ones? Juno is select, and queen, and both sister and wife of Jupiter; yet she is Interduca for boys and does her work with the most ignoble goddesses Abeona and Adeona. There too they placed the goddess Mens, who is to give boys a good mind, and among the select gods she is not placed—as if anything greater could be furnished to a man;

yet Juno is placed there, because she is Interduca and Domiduca—as if it profited anything to go on a journey or to be led home, if the mind is not good, the goddess of which gift these selectors by no means placed among the select deities. She certainly ought to have been preferred even to Minerva, to whom by these petty works they assigned the memory of boys. For who would doubt that it is much better to have a good mind than a memory however vast? For no one is wicked who has a good mind; whereas certain most wicked men have a marvelous memory, the worse by so much as they are less able to forget what they wickedly devise. And yet Minerva is among the select gods; but the goddess Mens a base crowd has buried. What shall I say of Virtue? what of Felicity?

about whom we have already said much in the fourth book; though they held these as goddesses, they were unwilling to give them any place among the select gods, where they gave a place to Mars and Orcus, the one the worker of deaths, the other the receiver of them. Since therefore in these petty works, which are parceled out piece by piece among many gods, we see even the select gods working together with the common rabble like a senate alongside the plebs, and we find that by certain gods, who were by no means thought worthy of selection, many greater and better things are administered than by those who are called select: it remains to conclude that they were named select and pre-eminent not on account of more excellent administrations in the world, but because it happened that they became better known to the peoples.

Whence even Varro himself says that ignobility befell certain gods as fathers and goddesses as mothers, just as it does men. If, then, Felicity perhaps for this reason ought not to be among the select gods, because those others attained that nobility not by merit but by chance: at least among them, or rather before them, Fortune should be placed, who they say is a goddess that bestows her gifts on each not by rational arrangement but as it falls out by chance. She ought to have held the summit among the select gods, in whom she most of all showed what she could do; since we see them selected not by pre-eminent virtue, not by rational felicity, but, as their worshippers think of her, by the rash power of Fortune.

For even Sallust, that most eloquent man, perhaps had the gods themselves in view when he said: 'But surely fortune rules in every matter; she makes all things famous or obscure by caprice rather than by truth.' For they cannot find a reason why Venus was made famous and Virtue obscured, since the divine powers of both were consecrated by these men, and their merits are not to be compared. Or if Venus deserved to be ennobled because more people desire her—for more desire Venus than Virtue—why was the goddess Minerva made famous and the goddess Pecunia (Money) obscured?

since in the human race greed allures more people than skill, and even among those who are skilled artificers, you would rarely find a man who does not have his art for sale at a money price; and that for the sake of which something is done is always valued more highly than that which is done for the sake of something else. If, then, this selection of the gods was made by the judgment of the foolish multitude, why was the goddess Pecunia not preferred to Minerva, since on account of money there are many craftsmen? But if this distinction belongs to the few wise, why was Virtue not preferred to Venus, since reason far prefers her?

At least surely, as I said, Fortune herself, who—as those think who attribute most to her—rules in every matter and makes all things famous or obscure by caprice rather than by truth: if she had such power even over the gods that by her rash judgment she made famous whom she would and obscured whom she would, she ought to hold a pre-eminent place among the select gods, since she is of such pre-eminent power even over the gods themselves. Or, in order that she might not be able to be there, is Fortune herself to be thought to have had nothing else than adverse fortune? Therefore she opposed herself, who, while making others noble, was not herself ennobled. CHAPTER IV. That it fared better with the inferior gods, who are defamed by no reproaches, than with the select gods, whose disgraces are so notorious.

Now would any seeker after nobility and renown congratulate these select gods and call them fortunate, if he did not see them selected rather for insults than for honors? For their very ignobility cloaked that lowest rabble, lest it be overwhelmed with reproaches. We laugh indeed when we see them, by the fictions of human opinions, distributed with their works parceled out among themselves, like petty tax-farmers, or like craftsmen in the silversmiths' street, where a single little vessel, that it may come out finished, passes through many craftsmen, when it could be finished by one finished craftsman.

But it was not thought otherwise that provision should be made for the multitude of workers, except that each should learn the single parts of an art quickly and easily, lest all should be forced to become slowly and with difficulty proficient in one whole art. Yet hardly any of the non-select gods is to be found who has drawn an infamous reputation by some crime; while hardly any of the select gods is to be found who has not received upon himself the brand of some notable disgrace. The latter descended to the lowly works of the former; the former did not come into the lofty crimes of the latter. Concerning Janus, indeed, nothing readily occurs to me that pertains to reproach. And perhaps he was such a one—that he lived more innocently and more remote from outrages and crimes. He kindly received Saturn when fleeing;

with his guest he divided the kingdom, so that they even founded separate cities, the one Janiculum, the other Saturnia. But these men, who in the worship of the gods are seekers after every kind of disgrace, defiled with monstrous deformity of his image the one whose life they found less shameful, making him now two-faced, now even four-faced, as it were a twin. Or did they perhaps wish that, since very many of the select gods had lost face by perpetrating shameful deeds, the more innocent this one was, the more full-faced he should appear? CHAPTER V. Concerning the more secret doctrine of the pagans and their physical explanations. But let us rather hear their own physical interpretations, by which they try to color over the foulness of their most wretched error with a semblance, as it were, of a loftier doctrine.

First, Varro commends these interpretations in such a way as to say that the ancients fashioned the images, insignia, and adornments of the gods, so that those who had approached the mysteries of the doctrine might, when they had observed them with their eyes, behold with their mind the soul of the world and its parts, that is, the true gods; and that those who made their images in the form of a man seemed to have followed this consideration, that the mortal mind, which is in the human body, is most like the immortal mind; just as if vessels were set out for the purpose of marking the gods, and in the temple of Liber a wine-jar were placed, which would signify wine, through that which contains it that which is contained;

so by an image, which had the human form, the rational soul is signified, because in that, as in a vessel, this nature is wont to be contained—of which nature they wish God or the gods to be. These are the mysteries of doctrine which that most learned man had penetrated, that he might bring them forth into light. But, O most acute man, have you in these mysteries of doctrine lost that prudence by which it soberly seemed to you that those who first set up images for the peoples both took away fear from their fellow citizens and added error, and that the ancient Romans more chastely observed the gods without images? For these were your authorities, that you dared to say these things against the later Romans.

For if those most ancient men too had worshipped images, perhaps you would have suppressed in the silence of fear that whole sentiment about images not being set up—true for the moment—and you would have proclaimed these mysteries of doctrine more loquaciously and loftily amid such pernicious and empty fictions. Yet your soul, so learned and ingenious (in which we grieve much for you), through these mysteries of doctrine could in no way arrive at its own God—that is, at Him by whom it was made, not with whom it was made; whose portion it is not, but whose creation it is; who is not the soul of all things, but who made every soul; by whose illumination alone the soul becomes blessed, if it is not ungrateful to His grace. But what these mysteries of doctrine are, and how much they are to be valued, the things that follow will show.

Meanwhile this most learned man confesses that the soul of the world and its parts are true gods; whence it is understood that his whole theology—that very natural theology, to which he attributes most—was able to extend itself as far as the nature of the rational soul. For of the natural he prefaces very little in this book, which he wrote last about the select gods; in which we shall see whether through physiological interpretations he can refer this civil theology to the natural. And if he can, the whole will be natural: and what need was there to sunder the civil from it with such care of distinction? But if it is separated by a correct distinction:

since not even that which pleases him as natural is true (for it reaches only as far as the soul, not as far as the true God who made even the soul), how much more abject and false is this civil theology, which is occupied chiefly about the nature of bodies, as its very interpretations—of which it behooves me to recall certain necessary ones—will demonstrate, sought out and unfolded by them with such diligence. CHAPTER VI. Concerning Varro's opinion, by which he judged that God is the soul of the world, which nevertheless has in its parts many souls whose nature is divine. The same Varro says, then, still prefacing concerning natural theology, that he judges God to be the soul of the world, which the Greeks call kosmos, and that this very world is God;

but just as a wise man, though he consists of body and mind, is nevertheless called wise from the mind, so the world is called God from the mind, though it consists of mind and body. Here he seems in some way to confess one God; but in order to introduce many also, he adds that the world is divided into two parts, heaven and earth; and heaven in two ways, into ether and air; and the earth into water and land; of which the highest is the ether, the second the air, the third the water, the lowest the earth; and that all these parts are full of souls—in the ether and air immortal, in the water and earth mortal. From the highest circuit of heaven to the circle of the moon there are ethereal souls, the stars and constellations; and that these heavenly gods are not only understood to be, but also are seen;

but between the moon's orbit and the tops of the clouds and winds there are aerial souls, but these are seen by the mind, not by the eyes, and are called heroes and lares and genii. This, plainly, is the natural theology proposed briefly in that preface, which pleased not only this man but many philosophers; concerning which a more diligent discussion must then be made, when, with the help of the true God, I shall have completed what remains concerning the civil theology, as far as it pertains to the select gods. CHAPTER VII. Whether it was reasonable to separate Janus and Terminus into two deities. Janus, therefore, from whom he took his beginning, I ask who he is. The answer is given: He is the World. This answer is plainly brief and open.

Why, then, are the beginnings of things said to pertain to him, but the ends to another, whom they call Terminus? For on account of beginnings and endings they declare two months dedicated to these two gods, besides those ten in which, up to December, March is the head: January to Janus, February to Terminus. Therefore they say the Terminalia are celebrated in that same month of February, when the purgatorial rite is performed which they call Februm, whence the month took its name. Do, then, the beginnings of things pertain to the world, which is Janus, but not the endings, so that another god should be set over them? Do they not confess that all things which they say come to be in this world are also brought to an end in this same world? What vanity is this, to give him half power in the work, a double face in the image?

Would they not interpret that two-faced figure much more elegantly, if they said that the same one is both Janus and Terminus, and gave one face to beginnings, the other to endings? For he who works ought to attend to both; for in every motion of his action, he who does not look back to the beginning does not look forward to the end. Hence it is necessary that forward-looking intention be connected with backward-looking memory; for he from whose mind has slipped what he began will not find how to finish it. But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this world and perfected outside the world, and therefore attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power over beginnings: surely they would set Terminus above him and would not alienate him from the select gods.

Although even now, when in these two gods the beginnings and endings of temporal things are treated, more honor ought to have been given to Terminus. For the joy is greater when each thing is completed; whereas beginnings are full of anxiety until they are brought to their end, which he who begins anything most of all desires, intends, awaits, longs for, and does not exult over a thing begun unless it be terminated. CHAPTER VIII. For what cause the worshippers of Janus fashioned his image two-faced, which nevertheless they wish to be seen also as four-faced. But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be brought forth. They say he has two faces, before and behind, because the gap of our mouth, when we open it, seems like the world;

whence the Greeks call the palate ouranos, and some—he says—Latin poets called the palate 'heaven'; and from this gap of the mouth there is an entrance both outward toward the teeth and inward toward the throat. Behold to what the world has been brought on account of the name of our palate, whether Greek or poetic! But what has this to do with the soul, what with eternal life? For the sake of saliva alone is this god worshipped, in the swallowing of part and the spitting out of part of which, under the heaven of the palate, both doors are laid open. What, moreover, is more absurd than, in the world itself, not to find two doors set opposite each other, through which it may either admit something into itself within, or send something out of itself without—

and yet, from our mouth and throat, the likeness of which the world does not have, to wish to compose an image of the world in Janus on account of the palate alone, the likeness of which Janus does not have? But when they make him four-faced and call him 'Janus geminus,' they interpret this with reference to the four parts of the world, as if the world looks outward, as Janus does through all his faces. Then, if Janus is the world, and the world consists of four parts, the image of the two-faced Janus is false;

or if it is true on this account, because by the name of East and West too the whole world is wont to be understood, surely when we name two other parts, North and South, just as they call that four-faced one 'Janus geminus,' will anyone in like manner call the world 'twin'? They have no means at all whereby they might interpret four doors, which would lie open to those entering and going out, after the likeness of the world, just as in the case of the two-faced one they found at least in a man's mouth something they might allege—unless Neptune perhaps come to the rescue and hold out a fish, which, besides the gap of the mouth and throat, has its gills open on the right and the left. And yet from this vanity, through so many doors, no soul escapes, except the one which hears Truth saying: I am the door. CHAPTER IX.

Concerning the power of Jupiter and his comparison with Janus. But who they wish Jove—who is also called Jupiter—to be understood as, let them expound. 'He is a god,' they say, 'having power over the causes by which anything comes to be in the world.' How great this is, that most noble verse of Virgil testifies: 'Happy he who could come to know the causes of things.' But why is Janus preferred to him? Let that most acute and learned man answer us this. 'Because,' he says, 'with Janus are the first things, with Jove the highest. Deservedly therefore is Jupiter held king of all. For the first things are surpassed by the highest, because, although the first precede in time, the highest excel in dignity.' But this would be rightly said if the first of deeds were distinguished from the highest;

just as the beginning of a deed is to set out, the highest to arrive; the beginning of a deed is the commencement of learning, the highest the attainment of doctrine; and thus in all things the beginnings are first and the ends are highest. But this matter has already been discussed between Janus and Terminus. The causes, however, which are given to Jove, are efficient, not effected; nor can it in any way happen that they should be preceded in time by deeds or by the beginnings of deeds. For always the thing which makes is prior to that which is made. Wherefore, if the beginnings of deeds pertain to Janus, they are not on that account prior to the efficient causes which they attribute to Jove. For just as nothing comes to be, so nothing is begun in order to come to be, which a making cause has not preceded.

This god, indeed, in whose keeping are all the causes of all created natures and natural things, if the peoples call him Jupiter and worship him with such great insults and such wicked accusations, they bind themselves with a fouler sacrilege than if they thought there were no god at all. Whence it would be better for them to call some other one by the name of Jupiter, one worthy of base and shameful honors, with an empty figment substituted which they might rather blaspheme (just as a stone is said to have been substituted to Saturn, which he might devour in place of his son), than to call him a god both thundering and committing adultery, both ruling the whole world and dissolving in so many debaucheries, both having the highest causes of all natural things and natures, and not having his own good causes.

Next I ask what place among the gods they now assign to this Jupiter, if Janus is the world. For he defined the true gods to be the soul of the world and its parts; and by this, whatever is not this, is certainly, according to them, not a true god. Are they then going to say that Jupiter is the soul of the world, so that Janus is its body, that is, this visible world? If they say this, there will be no way in which they can call Janus a god, since the body of the world is not a god even according to them, but the soul of the world and its parts. Whence the same author most plainly says that he judges God to be the soul of the world, and that this very world is God;