Why, then, did they make two goddesses for you, except because it was provided by your wise forefathers, not that more gods might rule you, but that more demons — which rejoice in these vanities and falsehoods — might possess you? But why did that Salacia, by this interpretation, lose the lower part of the sea, by which she was subjected to her husband? For just now, when you declare her to be the refluent wave, you placed her on the surface. Or was it because he took Venilia as a concubine, that she, in anger, shut her husband out from the upper parts of the sea? CHAPTER XXIII. On the Earth, which Varro confirms to be a goddess, because that soul of the world which he supposes to be God pervades even this lowest part of his own body and imparts to it a divine force.
Surely the earth is one, which indeed we see full of its own living creatures; yet nonetheless, this great body among the elements and the lowest part of the world — why do they wish it to be a goddess? Is it because it is fruitful? Why, then, are not men rather gods, who make it more fruitful by cultivating it — but when they plow, not when they adore? But it is a part of the soul of the world, they say, which pervades it, that makes it a goddess. As though the soul were not more evident in men — about which there is no question whether it exists; and yet men are not held to be gods, and, what is grievously to be lamented, they are subjected, by a marvelous and miserable error, to the worshipping and adoring of those who are not gods and to whom they themselves are superior.
And certainly the same Varro, in the same book on the select gods, affirms that there are three grades of soul in all and the whole of nature: one, which passes through all the parts of the body that live and has no sensation, but only the vital power for living — this force he says permeates in our body into the bones, the nails, the hairs; just as in the world trees are nourished and grow without sensation and live in a certain manner of their own: the second grade of soul, in which there is sensation — this force reaches into the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the sense of touch: the third grade, the highest of soul, which is called mind (animus), in which intelligence is preeminent — of this all mortals except man are devoid. This part of the soul of the world he calls God, but in us he calls it the genius.
And that there are in the world stones and the earth which we see, into which sensation does not permeate, as into the bones and nails of God; but that the sun, the moon, and the stars, which we perceive and by which He Himself perceives, are His senses; and further that the ether is His mind (animus), whose force, which reaches into the heavenly bodies, makes these too gods, and through that which permeates into the earth makes the goddess Tellus; but that which from there permeates into the sea and ocean is the god Neptune. Let him then return from this, which he thinks is natural theology, to which, as if for the sake of resting, wearied by these windings and turnings, he had withdrawn; let him return, I say, let him return to the civil; here I still hold him, and meanwhile I treat of this.
I do not yet say that, if the earth and the stones are like our bones and nails, they likewise do not have intelligence, just as they lack sensation; or that, if our bones and nails are said to have intelligence on this ground — that they are in a man who has intelligence — then he who calls these things in the world gods is as foolish as he is foolish who in us calls the bones and nails men. But these things must perhaps be dealt with among the philosophers; for now, however, I still want this political theologian.
For it can be that, although he seems to have wished to raise his head a little into that, as it were, liberty of natural theology, yet still, while handling this book and thinking himself occupied in it, he looked back even from there to the civil, and said this for that reason — lest his forefathers or other states be believed to have worshipped Tellus and Neptune in vain. But this I say: the part of the world-soul which permeates through the earth, just as the earth is one, why did it not also make one goddess, whom he says to be Tellus? And if it did so, where will Orcus be — the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, whom they call Father Dis? Where his consort Proserpina, who, according to another opinion set down in the same books, is declared to be not the fruitfulness of the earth, but its lower part?
But if they say that the part of the world-soul, when it permeates the upper part of the earth, makes the god Father Dis; but when it permeates the lower part, makes the goddess Proserpina — what then will that Tellus be? For the whole of what she herself was has been so divided into these two parts and gods that it cannot be found what she herself, as a third, may be, or where she may be; unless someone should say that those gods Orcus and Proserpina together are the one goddess Tellus, and that there are no longer three but either one or two; and yet three are spoken of, three are held, three are worshipped at their own altars, their own shrines, with their own rites, images, and priests, and through these also by their own deceiving demons that defile a prostituted soul.
Let it still further be answered: which part of the earth does the part of the world-soul permeate, so as to make the god Tellumo? 'Not so,' he says, 'but one and the same earth has a twofold force, both masculine, in that it produces seeds, and feminine, in that it receives and nourishes them; thence from the force of the female it was called Tellus, from that of the male Tellumo.' Why, then, do the pontiffs, as he himself indicates, with two others also added, perform a divine rite to four gods — to Tellus, Tellumo, Altor, and Rusor? Of Tellus and Tellumo it has already been said. Why Altor? 'Because,' he says, 'from the earth all things that are born are nourished (aluntur).' Why Rusor? 'Because,' he says, 'all things are rolled back (rursus revolvuntur) to the same point.' CHAPTER XXIV.
On the surnames of Tellus and their significations, which, even if they were indicators of many things, ought not to have established the opinions of many gods. The one earth, therefore, on account of that fourfold force, ought to have had four surnames, not to have made four gods; just as by so many surnames there is one Jupiter, and by so many surnames one Juno — in all of which a manifold force is said to be, pertaining to one god or one goddess, the multitude of surnames not also making a multitude of gods. But assuredly, just as sometimes even the basest women grow weary and repent of the crowds of those whom they have sought through lust:
Thus the soul, made worthless and prostituted to unclean spirits, multiplied gods for itself, before whom, to be defiled, it prostrated itself; and just as it pleased it greatly to do so, so at length it also grew weary of it. For Varro himself, as though ashamed of that very crowd, would have Tellus to be one single goddess. 'They call her,' he says, 'the Great Mother as well; that she holds a drum signifies that she is the orb of the earth; that she has towers upon her head signifies cities; that she is fashioned sitting signifies that, while all things move about her, she herself does not move. That they made the Galli serve this goddess signifies that those who lack seed ought to follow the earth, for in it all things are found. That men cast themselves about before her enjoins, he says, that those who till the earth should not sit idle, for there is always something to be done.'
The sound of cymbals signifies the clashing of iron tools and the clatter of hands and of that work which is done in tilling the field; therefore of bronze, because the ancients tilled with bronze before iron was discovered. 'They add,' he says, 'a lion, unbound and tamed, to show that there is no kind of land so remote and fiercely wild that it is not fitting to be subdued and cultivated.' Then he adds and says that, because they have named mother Tellus by many names and surnames, she was reckoned to be several gods. (They think, he says, that Tellus is Ops, because by work she is made better; that she is Mother, because she brings forth very many things; the Great, because she brings forth food; Proserpine, because from her the crops creep forth; Vesta, because she is clothed with herbs.)
'And so,' he says, 'they refer the other goddesses to this one, not without reason.' If, then, there is one goddess—who indeed, when the truth is consulted, is not even a goddess at all—why meanwhile is recourse had to many? Let these be the many names of one being, not so much many goddesses as many names. But the authority of erring forebears bears him down and compels Varro himself, after this opinion, to falter. For he adds and says: 'With these things the opinion of our forebears about these goddesses, namely that they thought them to be several, does not conflict.' How does it not conflict, when it is a very different thing for one goddess to have many names, and for there to be many goddesses? 'But it can come about,' he says, 'that the same thing be both one, and that within it there be several things.' I grant that within one man there are several things; are there for that reason also several men?
Thus within one goddess there are many things; are there for that reason also many goddesses? But let them, as they please, divide, fuse, multiply, refold, and entangle. These are the renowned mysteries of Tellus and of the Great Mother, whence all things are referred back to mortal seeds and to the practice of agriculture. Do these things, then, that are referred to such ends and have this very purpose—the drum, the towers, the Galli, the insane tossing of limbs, the clatter of cymbals, the fiction of lions—promise anyone eternal life? Do the castrated Galli therefore serve this Great goddess, in order to signify that those who lack seed ought to follow the earth?—as though it were not rather that very servitude which makes them lack seed!
For which is it: by following this goddess do they, when they lack seed, acquire it? Or rather, by following this goddess do they, when they have seed, lose it? Is this to interpret, or to abhor? Nor is it noted how greatly the malignant demons have prevailed, who in these rites did not dare to promise their followers anything great, yet were able to exact such cruel things. If the earth were not a goddess, men would lay their hands upon her by working, that they might obtain seeds through her—not also by raging against themselves, that they might lose seed because of her. If she were not a goddess, she would become fruitful by the hands of others, in such a way that she would not compel a man to become barren by his own hands.
Now as for the fact that in the rites of Liber a respectable matron would crown the shameful male organ while a multitude looked on, where—blushing and sweating, if there is any shame at all in men—perhaps even her own husband stood by; and that in the celebration of weddings the new bride was bidden to sit upon the member of Priapus: these things are far more contemptible and trifling compared with that most cruel foulness, or that foulest cruelty, in which by demonic rites both sexes are so mocked that neither perishes by its own wound. There the bewitching of fields is feared; here the amputation of members is not feared. There the modesty of the new bride is so dishonored that not fecundity only, but not even virginity, is taken away; here manhood is so cut off that the man is neither turned into a woman nor left a man.
CHAPTER XXV. What interpretation of the castration of Attis the teaching of the wise Greeks devised. And that Attis himself is not mentioned, nor is any interpretation of him sought by this man—Attis, in memory of whose love a Gallus is castrated. But the learned and wise Greeks by no means kept silent so holy and renowned an explanation. For on account of the springtime aspect of the earth, which is more beautiful than at other seasons, Porphyry, a noble philosopher, declared that Attis signifies flowers, and that he was therefore castrated because the flower falls before the fruit. They compared, then, not the man himself, or the seeming man, who was called Attis, but his male organs, to the flower. For these indeed fell off while he was yet alive;
nay rather, they did not fall off, nor were they plucked, but were plainly torn off; and after that flower was lost, no fruit at all followed afterward, but rather barrenness ensued. What, then, is that which remained, and whatever was left after the castration? what is it said to signify? to what is it referred? what interpretation is drawn from it? Or do they, by laboring at this in vain and finding nothing, persuade us that what should rather be believed is what rumor has spread abroad about a castrated man and committed to writing? Deservedly did our Varro turn away from this, nor would he speak it; for it did not escape so very learned a man. CHAPTER XXVI. On the foulness of the rites of the Great Mother.
Likewise concerning the effeminates consecrated to this same Great Mother against all the modesty of men and women, who up to this very day, with dripping hair and whitened faces, with languid limbs and a womanish gait, would go through the squares and streets of Carthage demanding from the shopkeepers the means by which they might live shamefully—about these Varro would say nothing, nor do I recall having read of it anywhere. Interpretation failed, reasoning blushed, speech fell silent. The Great Mother overcame all the gods her sons, not by the greatness of her divinity, but by the greatness of her crime. To this monster not even the monstrosity of Janus is to be compared. He had in his images mere deformity; she has in her rites deformed cruelty; he had limbs added in stone, she has limbs destroyed in men.
This disgrace not even the many and so great debaucheries of Jupiter himself surpass. He, amid his female corruptions, disgraced heaven with one Ganymede; she, with so many openly professed and public effeminates, both polluted the earth and did injury to heaven. Saturn perhaps we might in this kind of most foul cruelty either compare with her or set above her, who is said to have castrated his father; but in the rites of Saturn men could be slain by others' hands rather than castrated by their own. He devoured his sons, as the poets relate, and the natural philosophers interpret this as they please; but as history records, he slew them; yet the fact that the Phoenicians sacrificed their own sons to him the Romans did not accept.
But this Great Mother of the gods brought even into Roman temples men who had been castrated, and preserved this savagery and custom, being believed to aid the strength of the Romans by the cutting-off of men's manhood. What, compared with this evil, are the thefts of Mercury, the wantonness of Venus, the debaucheries and foulnesses of the rest, which we might bring forward from books—were they not daily sung and danced in the theaters? But what are these compared with so great an evil, the magnitude of which befitted the Great Mother alone? Especially since those things are said by the poets to be fabricated—as if the poets had also feigned that they are pleasing and acceptable to the gods. Granted, then, that it be the audacity or wantonness of the poets that such things were sung or written down;
but that they should be added to divine matters and to the same honors, while the deities themselves command and extort them—what is this but the crime of the gods, nay rather the confession of demons and the deception of wretched men? But that very thing—that by the consecration of the castrated the Mother of the gods deserved to be worshiped—the poets did not invent, but chose rather to shudder at than to sing. Is anyone to be consecrated to these select gods, that after death he may live blessedly—gods to whom he, when consecrated before death, cannot live honorably, being subjected to such foul superstitions and bound to unclean demons? 'But all these things,' he says, 'are referred to the world.' Let him see whether they are rather referred to the unclean. But what cannot be referred to the world, which is shown to exist in the world?
But we for our part seek a soul which, trusting in true religion, does not adore the world as its god, but praises the world as the work of God for God's sake; and which, cleansed from worldly defilements and made clean, may attain to God, who founded the world. CHAPTER XXVII. On the fictions of the natural philosophers, who neither worship the true divinity, nor worship it with that worship by which the true divinity ought to be worshiped. But these select gods we see indeed have become more conspicuously known than the rest—not, however, that their merits might be made illustrious, but that their disgraces might not be hidden; whence it is the more credible that they were men, as not only poetic but also historical writings have handed down. For as Virgil says:
'First from the ethereal heaven came Saturn, fleeing the arms of Jove and an exile from his realms now taken away,' and the things which follow that pertain to this matter—the whole history of this Euhemerus sets forth, which Ennius turned into Latin speech; and since those who before us wrote against errors of this kind, whether in the Greek or the Latin tongue, have set down very much, it has not pleased me to linger upon it. When I consider those very natural-philosophy interpretations by which learned and acute men try to turn these human affairs into divine ones, I see nothing except that things could be brought back to temporal and earthly works and to corporeal nature, or even to a nature which, though invisible, is nevertheless mutable; which in no way is the true God.
But if this at least were done with significations befitting religiosity, it would indeed be a thing to grieve over, that the true God is not announced and proclaimed by them; yet it would be in some way bearable that things so foul and base were neither done nor commanded. But as it is, since in place of the true God—by whom alone, dwelling within it, the soul becomes happy—it is wicked to worship either body or soul, how much more abominable is it to worship these things in such a way that the body or soul of the worshiper obtains neither salvation nor human dignity! Wherefore, if with temple, priest, and sacrifice—which is owed to the true God—some element of the world or some created spirit be worshiped, even if not unclean and evil:
it is evil not because those things by which it is worshiped are evil, but because those things are of such a kind as is owed only to Him alone, to whom such worship and service are due. But if by the stupidity or monstrousness of images, by sacrifices of murders, by the crowning of the shameful male organs, by the wage of debaucheries, by the cutting of members, by the castration of the genitals, by the consecration of effeminates, by the festivals of impure and obscene shows, anyone should contend that he worships the one true God, that is, the creator of every soul and body: he sins not because He whom he worships is not to be worshiped, but because he worships Him who ought to be worshiped, not as He ought to be worshiped.
But he who both worships with such things—that is, foul and wicked things—and worships not the true God, that is, the maker of soul and body, but a creature, however not vicious, whether it be soul or body or soul and body together: he sins twice against God, in that he worships, in place of Him, that which is not He, and worships Him with such things as neither He ought to be worshiped with, nor even that which is not He. But how—that is, how foully and wickedly—these men worshiped, is plain to see; but what, or whom, they worshiped, would be obscure, were not their own history a witness to it—that very history which confesses that things foul and base were rendered to deities terribly demanding them;
whence, with all ambiguities removed, it is established that wicked demons and most unclean spirits were invited by all this civil theology to inhabit dull images and through them to possess even foolish hearts. CHAPTER XXVIII. That Varro's teaching about theology does not agree with itself in any part. What avails it, then, that Varro, a man most learned and most acute, attempts by a kind of subtle disputation to reduce and refer all these gods to heaven and to earth? He cannot; they flow from his hands, they rebound, they slip and fall away. For about to speak of the females, that is, the goddesses, he says: 'Since, as I said in the first book about places, two principles of the gods have been observed, from heaven and from earth, whence some gods are called celestial, some terrestrial:
so as in the foregoing we made a beginning from heaven, when we spoke of Janus, whom some have called heaven, others the world, so concerning the females we make a beginning of our writing from Tellus.' I feel how great a difficulty so great a genius suffers. For he is led by a certain plausible reasoning that heaven is that which acts, earth that which is acted upon, and therefore he attributes to the former the masculine force, to the latter the feminine quality, and does not notice that it is rather He who does these things, who made both. Hence too he interprets in the earlier book the renowned mysteries of the Samothracians in this way, and promises, as it were most religiously, that he will set forth in writing things not even known to his own people, and send them to them.
For he says that he there gathered from many indications that in the images one thing signifies heaven, another earth, another the patterns of things which Plato calls Ideas; he would have heaven understood as Jupiter, earth as Juno, the Ideas as Minerva: heaven, from which something is made; earth, from which it is made; the pattern, according to which it is made. In this matter I forbear to say that Plato declares those Ideas to have such power that not only did heaven not make anything according to them, but heaven itself was made according to them. This I say: that this man, in this book of select gods, has lost that reckoning of the three gods, by whom he had embraced, as it were, all things. For to heaven he attributed the male gods, to earth the females; among whom he placed Minerva, whom he had above set higher than heaven itself.
Then the male god Neptune is in the sea, which pertains rather to earth than to heaven. Finally Father Dis, who in Greek is called Pluto, himself also a male and brother of both, is declared to be an earthly god, holding the upper earth, having in the lower earth Proserpine as his wife. In what manner, then, do they try to refer the gods to heaven, the goddesses to earth? What solid, what consistent, what sober, what definite thing has this disputation? But Tellus is the beginning of the goddesses, namely the Great Mother, with whom the insane foulness of effeminates and of the castrated and of those cutting and tossing themselves about resounds. What is it, then, that is said—that Janus is the head of the gods, Tellus the head of the goddesses? Neither there does error make one head, nor here does madness make a sound one.
Why do they strive in vain to refer these things to the world? For even if they could, no pious man worships the world in place of the true God; and yet open truth convinces them that they cannot do even this. Let them rather refer these things to dead men and to the worst demons, and no question will remain. CHAPTER XXIX. That all things which the natural philosophers referred to the world and its parts, they ought rather to have referred to the one true God. For let us observe in this manner all those things which by them, out of the theology of these gods, are referred as it were by physical reasonings to the world—how, without any scruple of sacrilegious opinion, they ought rather to be attributed to the true God, who made the world, the founder of every soul and every body:
We worship God, not heaven and earth, of which two parts this world consists; nor the soul or souls diffused through whatever living things, but God, who made heaven and earth and all that is in them; who made every soul, whether living in whatever manner and lacking sense and reason, or even perceiving, or even understanding. CHAPTER XXX. With what piety the Creator is to be distinguished from creatures, lest as many gods be worshiped for one as there are works of the one Author. And that I may now begin to run through those works of the one and true God, on account of which these men, while they try, as it were honorably, to interpret most foul and most wicked rites, have made for themselves many false gods:
we worship that God who established for the natures created by Him the beginnings and ends both of subsisting and of moving; who holds, knows, and disposes the causes of things; who founded the power of seeds; who gave the rational soul, which is called mind, to whatever living things He willed; who bestowed the faculty and use of speech; who imparted to such spirits as He pleased the gift of foretelling the future, and through whom He pleases Himself foretells the future, and through whom He pleases drives away ill health; who governs also the beginnings, progress, and ends of wars themselves, when the human race is thus to be amended and chastised; who both created and rules the most vehement and most violent fire of this world according to the tempering of its immense nature;
who is the creator and governor of all the waters; who made the sun, the brightest of corporeal lights, and gave it a fitting power and motion; who does not withdraw His dominion and power even from the lower regions themselves; who supplies the seeds and nourishments of mortals, whether dry or liquid, assigned to their fitting natures; who founds and makes fruitful the earth; who lavishes its fruits upon animals and men; who knows and orders not only the principal causes, but also those which follow after; who appointed to the moon its measure; who provides the heavenly and earthly ways by changes of places; who granted to human minds, which He created, even the sciences of various arts for the helping of life and nature;
who instituted the union of male and female for the help of propagating offspring; who, for the gatherings of men, granted the boon of earthly fire, for easiest uses, which they might apply to hearths and lights. These things assuredly are what that most acute and most learned man Varro, by means of I know not what physical interpretations, labored to distribute among the select gods—whether things he received from elsewhere, or things he himself conjectured. But these things one true God does and performs, yet as God, that is, everywhere whole, enclosed in no places, bound by no chains, divisible into no parts, mutable in no part, filling heaven and earth by His present power, not by a needy nature.
Thus, therefore, He administers all things which He created, in such a way that He also allows them to exert and carry out their own proper motions. For although they can be nothing without Him, they are not what He is. He does many things also through angels; but only from Himself does He beatify the angels. Thus, although for certain causes He sends angels to men, yet He beatifies men not from the angels, but from Himself, just as He beatifies the angels. From this one and true God we hope for eternal life. CHAPTER XXXI. With what benefits, properly speaking—apart from His general bounty—the followers of truth are favored.
For we have from Him, besides benefits of this kind, which out of that administration of nature (concerning which we have said something) He lavishes upon good and evil alike, a great gift, proper to the good, and a token of His great love. For although what we are, that we live, that we behold heaven and earth, that we have mind and reason, by which we may seek out Him very One who founded all these things—although for these we can by no means suffice for the rendering of thanks:
yet that, when we were burdened and overwhelmed by sins, turned away from the contemplation of His light, and blinded by the love of darkness, that is, of iniquity, He did not utterly forsake us, but sent to us His Word, who is His only Son, by whose being born for us in the flesh He had assumed, and by His suffering, we might know how greatly God valued man, and by that singular sacrifice be cleansed from all sins, and, His love being shed abroad in our hearts by His Spirit, all difficulties being overcome, we might come into eternal rest and the unspeakable sweetness of the contemplation of Him—what hearts, how many tongues, would claim to be enough to render Him thanks? CHAPTER XXXII.