Since they held the male to be the one who emits seed and the female the one who receives it, and that Jupiter is the world, and that he emits all seeds from himself and receives them back into himself: 'With good reason,' he says, 'did Soranus write that Jupiter is progenitor and genetrix; and with no less reason that the one and the all are the same; for the world is one, and in that one all things exist.' If, then, both Janus is the world and Jupiter is the world, and there is but one world, why are Janus and Jupiter two gods? Why do they have temples apart, altars apart, different rites, unlike images? If it is because the power of first beginnings is one thing and the power of causes another, and the former received the name of Janus, the latter the name of Jupiter:
if one man should have two powers or two skills in different matters, would he, because the power of each is distinct, therefore be called two judges or two craftsmen? So likewise, though one God himself possess the power over first beginnings and himself the power over causes, is he therefore of necessity to be thought two gods, because first beginnings and causes are two things? But if they hold this to be just, let them then say that Jupiter himself is as many gods as the surnames they have given him on account of his many powers, since all the things from which those surnames are drawn are many and various — of which I recall but a few.
They called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor, Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Ruminus, and others which it would be tedious to enumerate. But these surnames they imposed upon one god on account of diverse causes and powers, and yet they did not on account of so many things compel him to be so many gods: because he conquered all things, because he was conquered by none, because he brought help to the needy, because he had the power of driving forward, of halting, of making firm, of laying prostrate, because like a little beam he held together and upheld the world, because he nourished all things, because with the 'ruma,' that is, the teat, he nourished the animals. Among these, as we observe, some are great, some trifling; and yet one and the same is said to do both.
I think the causes of things and their first beginnings are more nearly akin to each other — on account of which they willed the one world to be two gods, Jupiter and Janus — than are the holding together of the world and the giving of the teat to animals; and yet on account of these two works, so widely differing between themselves in power and dignity, they were not forced to be two gods; but one Jupiter was called Tigillus on account of the one, and Ruminus on account of the other. I will not say that to offer the teat to sucking animals might have better befitted Juno than Jupiter — especially since there was also the goddess Rumina, who might lend him aid or service in this task. For I reflect that it could be answered that Juno herself is nothing else than Jupiter, according to those verses of Valerius Soranus, where it is said:
'Jupiter almighty, progenitor and genetrix of kings and things and gods.' Why then was he also called Ruminus, when to those who inquire more diligently he may perhaps be found to be also that goddess Rumina herself? For if it seemed rightly unworthy of the majesty of the gods that in one ear of grain one should attend to the care of the little joint of the stalk and another to that of the husk: how much more unworthy is it that one lowly thing — namely, that animals be nourished at the teat — should be cared for by the power of two gods, of whom one is Jupiter, the very king of all, and that he should do this not even with his own consort, but with some ignoble Rumina or other — unless it be that he himself is also Rumina herself; Ruminus perhaps for the sucking males, Rumina for the females.
I might indeed say that they were unwilling to impose a feminine name on Jupiter, were it not that in those verses he is called 'progenitor and genetrix,' and that among his other surnames I read that he was also called Pecunia (Money) — a goddess whom we find among their lesser deities and mentioned in the fourth book. But since both males and females possess money, why he was not called both Pecunia and Pecunius, just as Rumina and Ruminus, let them see to it. How elegantly, forsooth, they rendered the reason of this name! 'And he is called Pecunia (Money),' he says, 'because all things are his.' O grand reason for a divine name! Nay rather, he whose all things are is most basely and most insultingly styled Money.
For in comparison with all that is contained in heaven and earth, what is money among all things whatsoever that are possessed by men under the name of money? But doubtless it was avarice that imposed this name upon Jupiter, so that whoever loves money might seem to himself to be loving not just any god, but the very king of all. It would be a far different thing, however, if he were called Riches. For riches are one thing, money another. For we call wise, just, and good men rich, though they have no money or but little; for they are rather rich in virtues, through which even in the very necessities of bodily things what they have is enough for them: but we call the covetous poor, ever gaping and needy;
for they may possess money never so great, yet in whatever abundance of it they cannot fail to be in want. And we rightly call the true God himself rich, yet not in money, but in omnipotence. And so the moneyed are called rich; but inwardly they are needy, if they are covetous: likewise those lacking money are called poor; but inwardly they are rich, if they are wise. Of what sort, then, ought this theology to be to a wise man, wherein the king of the gods received the name of that thing 'which no wise man has ever coveted'? For how much more easily, if by this doctrine something were profitably learned that pertained to eternal life, would the god who rules the world be called by them not Money but Wisdom, the love of which purges from the filth of avarice, that is, from the love of money!
But why say more of this Jupiter, to whom perhaps the rest are to be referred, so that the opinion of a multitude of gods may remain empty, since he himself is all of them — whether when they are reckoned his parts or his powers, or when the force of the soul, which they suppose to be diffused through all things, received as it were the names of many gods from the parts of this mass into which this visible world rises up, and from the manifold administration of nature? For what is Saturn too? 'One of the chief gods,' he says, 'in whose keeping is the dominion over all sowings.' Is not the exposition of those verses of Valerius Soranus to this effect, that Jupiter is the world, and that he emits all seeds from himself and receives them back into himself? He, then, it is in whose keeping is the dominion over all sowings.
What is Genius? 'A god,' he says, 'who is set over and has power over all things that are to be begotten.' Whom else do they believe to have this power than the world, to which it was said, 'Jupiter, progenitor and genetrix'? And when in another place he says that a genius is the rational soul of each individual, and therefore there are single ones for single persons, but that such a soul of the world is God: he brings it back to this very same point, namely that the soul of the world itself is to be believed to be, as it were, the universal genius. This, therefore, is he whom they call Jupiter. For if every genius is a god, and every man's soul is a genius, it follows that every man's soul is a god;
but if the very absurdity of this compels even them to shrink from it, it remains that they call singularly and pre-eminently God the Genius whom they call the soul of the world, and thereby Jupiter. But Mercury and Mars they could not find how to refer to any parts of the world and works of God that are in the elements, and therefore they set them at least over the works of men, as ministers of speaking and of waging war. Of these, if Mercury wields power over the speech even of the gods, then he lords it over the very king of the gods too, if Jupiter speaks according to his will, or received from him the faculty of speaking; which is surely absurd.
But if to him is ascribed power over human speech only, it is not credible that Jupiter should have been willing to descend to suckling with the teat not only children but also cattle — whence he was surnamed Ruminus — and yet should have been unwilling that the care of our speech, whereby we excel the cattle, should pertain to him; and thus one and the same is Jupiter and Mercury. But if speech itself is said to be Mercury, as those things which they interpret concerning him show (for he is said to be called Mercury as it were 'medius currens' — running between — because speech runs midway between men; hence Hermes in Greek, because speech, or interpretation, which surely pertains to speech, is called hermeneia;
hence too he presides over merchandise, because between sellers and buyers speech passes as a go-between; the wings on his head and feet signify that speech is borne winged through the air; he is called a messenger, because through speech all thoughts are announced — if, then, Mercury is speech itself, then even by their own confession he is not a god. But when they make gods for themselves of those who are not even demons, by supplicating unclean spirits they become possessed by those who are not gods but demons. Likewise, because they could not find for Mars either any element or part of the world where he might do works of nature of whatever sort, they said he was the god of war, which is a work of men, and not a thing to be desired. If, therefore, Felicity should give perpetual peace, Mars would have nothing to do.
But if war itself is Mars, as speech is Mercury: would that, as it is manifest that he is not a god, so likewise there might be no war, which is even falsely called a god. Unless perchance these gods are those stars which they have called by their names. For a certain star they call Mercury, and likewise a certain one Mars. But there also is that one which they call Jupiter, and yet to them the world is Jupiter; there is the one they call Saturn, and yet to him they besides assign no small substance, namely of all seeds; there too is that most brilliant of all, which is called by them Venus, and yet they hold this same Venus to be also the Moon; although concerning that most resplendent star Juno and Venus contend among them as over a golden apple.
For Lucifer (the morning star) some say belongs to Venus, some to Juno; but, as is usual, Venus prevails. For far more attribute that star to Venus, so that scarcely any of them is found who thinks otherwise. But who would not laugh, when they call Jupiter the king of all, seeing that his star is surpassed in brilliance by so great a degree by the star of Venus? For it ought to have been more resplendent than the rest by as much as he himself is more powerful. They reply that it seems so because that star which is thought dimmer is higher and far more remote from the earth. If, then, a greater dignity has merited a higher place, why is Saturn there higher than Jupiter?
Or could the vanity of the fable, which makes Jupiter king, not reach even to the stars, and was Saturn — who could not prevail in his own kingdom nor in the Capitol — at least permitted to hold sway in heaven? But why did Janus not receive some star? If it be because he is the world and all are in him: Jupiter's too is the world, and yet he has one. Or did the fellow arrange his own case as best he could, and in place of the one star which he does not have among the constellations, receive so many faces on earth? Then, if it is only on account of the stars that they suppose Mercury and Mars to be parts of the world — that they might be able to hold them as gods, since speech and war are surely not parts of the world but acts of men:
why for Aries and Taurus and Cancer and Scorpio and the rest of this kind, which they count as celestial signs and which consist not of single stars but each of several, and which they declare to be placed higher than these in the summit of heaven, where a more constant motion affords the stars an unwandering course — why for these did they make no altars, no rites, no temples, nor hold them as gods, not, I say, among these select ones, but not even among those, as it were, plebeian ones?
Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and physician, yet in order to place him in some part of the world, they said he was also the sun itself; and Diana his sister they likewise made the moon and the guardian of ways (whence they also would have her a virgin, because a way brings forth nothing); and therefore both have arrows, because these two heavenly bodies stretch their rays from heaven all the way to the earth. Vulcan they would have to be the fire of the world, Neptune the waters of the world, the father Vitis — that is, Orcus — the earthly and lowest part of the world. Liber and Ceres they set over seeds, the one over the masculine, the other over the feminine; or the one over the moisture, the other over the dryness of seeds.
And all this, of course, is referred wholly to the world, that is, to Jupiter, who was for that reason called 'progenitor and genetrix,' because he emits all seeds from himself and receives them back into himself. Since indeed they would have the same Ceres to be also the Great Mother, whom they say is nothing else than the earth, and they hold her to be Juno as well, and therefore assign to her the secondary causes of things, although to Jupiter it was said 'progenitor and genetrix of the gods,' because according to them the whole world itself is Jupiter's; Minerva too, because they set her over human arts and could not find even a star where they might place her, they said was either the highest aether or even the moon.
Vesta too they for that reason held to be the greatest of goddesses, because she is the earth herself; although they believed that the lighter fire of the world — which pertains to the easy uses of men, and not the more violent, such as is Vulcan's — was to be assigned to her. And by all this they would have all these select gods to be this world: in some cases the whole, in some cases parts of it — the whole, as Jupiter; parts of it, as Genius, as the Great Mother, as the Sun and Moon, or rather Apollo and Diana. And sometimes they make one god many things, sometimes one thing many gods. For one god is many things, as Jupiter himself; for the whole world is held and called Jupiter, and heaven alone is Jupiter, and a single star alone is held and called Jupiter;
and likewise Juno is the mistress of secondary causes, and Juno is the air, and Juno is the earth, and, if she should prevail over Venus, Juno is the star. Similarly Minerva is the highest aether, and Minerva is likewise the moon, which they suppose to be at the lowest limit of the aether. But they make one thing many gods thus: both Janus is the world and Jupiter is; so too Juno is the earth and the Great Mother and Ceres. And just as these things which I have mentioned by way of example, so they do not explain the rest but rather entangle it; as the impulse of a wandering opinion has driven them, so hither and thither, this way and that, they leap in and leap back, so that Varro himself preferred to doubt of everything rather than to affirm anything.
For of the last three books, having finished the first concerning the certain gods, when he had entered upon speaking of the uncertain gods in the second, he says: 'Since in this little book I shall set down doubtful opinions concerning the gods, I ought not to be blamed. For whoever shall think that judgment ought and can be passed, when he has heard, will do it himself. I can more readily be brought to call into doubt what I said in the first book, than to direct toward some sum-total all that I shall write down in this one.' Thus he made uncertain not only this book concerning the uncertain gods, but also that one concerning the certain.
Moreover, in this third book concerning the select gods, after he had prefaced what he thought ought to be prefaced from natural theology, being about to enter upon the vanities and lying insanities of this civil theology, where not only did the truth of things not lead him, but even the authority of his forefathers pressed upon him, he says: 'Concerning the public gods of the Roman people, to whom they dedicated shrines and marked them out adorned with many statues, I shall write in this book — but, as Xenophanes of Colophon writes, I shall set down what I think, not what I would maintain. For it belongs to man to hold such opinions, to God to know.' Trembling, therefore, he promises a discourse of things not comprehended nor most firmly believed, but merely opined and to be doubted, being about to speak of those things which were instituted by men.
For not as he knew that the world exists, that heaven and earth exist, heaven gleaming with stars, earth fertile with seeds, and other such things, and just as he believed with a firm steadfastness of mind that this whole mass and nature is ruled and administered by a certain invisible and all-powerful force — so could he not affirm concerning Janus that he was the world itself, nor discover concerning Saturn how he was both the father of Jupiter and made subject to Jupiter's reign, and other such things.
Concerning these things a more credible account is given when they are declared to have been men, and to each of them, by those who wished them to be gods by flattery, out of his character, morals, deeds, and fortunes sacred and solemn rites were established — and these, gradually creeping in through the souls of men, who are like the demons and greedy of frivolous things, were spread far and wide, the lies of poets adorning them and deceitful spirits seducing men toward them. For it could more easily have come to pass that an impious youth, fearing to be slain by an impious father and greedy of kingship, should have driven his father from the kingdom, than that which this man interprets — namely that Saturn the father was overcome by Jupiter the son because the cause, which pertains to Jupiter, is prior to the seed, which pertains to Saturn.
For if this were so, Saturn would never have been prior, nor would he be the father of Jupiter. For the seed always precedes the cause — no, the cause precedes the seed, and is never begotten of the seed. But when they endeavor to honor most empty fables, or the deeds of men, with as it were natural interpretations, even the most acute men suffer such straits that we are compelled to grieve over their vanity too. 'They said,' he tells us, 'that Saturn was wont to devour what was born of him, because the seeds return to the place whence they were born. And that a clod was cast to him to be devoured in place of Jupiter, signifies,' he says, 'that when men began to sow, the fruits were covered over by human hands before the usefulness of plowing was discovered.' Saturn, then, ought to have been called the earth itself, not the seeds;
for it is she who in a certain manner devours what she has begotten, since the seeds born of her return to be received back into her. And as for his being said to have received a clod in place of Jupiter, what does this avail toward the fact that the seed was covered with a clod by the hands of men? Was it therefore not, like the rest, devoured, because it was covered with a clod? For this is stated as though he who set the clod against it had taken away the seed — just as they report that when the clod was offered to Saturn, Jupiter was taken away — and not rather that the clod, by covering the seed, made it be devoured the more diligently. Then in this way the seed is Jupiter, not the cause of the seed, as was being said a little before. But what are men to do who, when they interpret foolish things, do not find what may be said wisely?
'He has a sickle,' he says, 'on account of agriculture.' Surely during his reign there was as yet no agriculture, and therefore his earlier times are spoken of, as this same man interprets the little fables, because the first men lived on those seeds which the earth brought forth of its own accord. Or did he receive a sickle after losing his scepter, so that he who in the first times had been an idle king, when his son reigned, might become a toilsome laborer? Then he says that by some, boys were wont to be sacrificed to him, as by the Carthaginians, and by some even grown men, as by the Gauls, because of all seeds the best kind is the human race. Of this most cruel vanity what need is there to say more?
Let us rather observe and hold fast to this: that these interpretations are not to be referred to the true God, the living, incorporeal, and unchangeable nature, from whom eternal blessed life is to be sought; but that their ends lie in things corporeal, temporal, changeable, and mortal. 'That Saturn is said in the fables to have castrated his father Heaven,' he says, 'signifies that the divine seed is in Saturn's keeping, not in Heaven's.' This is so, as far as can be understood, because nothing is born in the heaven from seeds. But lo — if Saturn is the son of Heaven, he is the son of Jupiter. For they affirm innumerable times and diligently that Jupiter is Heaven. Thus these things, which do not come from the truth, for the most part overthrow themselves with none to push them.
He says he was called Chronos, which by a Greek word signifies a span of time, without which, he says, seed cannot be fruitful. These and many other things are said concerning Saturn, and all are referred to seed. But at least Saturn, with such great power as this, would suffice for seeds; what need is there for other gods besides toward these matters, especially Liber and Libera, that is, Ceres? Concerning whom again, so far as pertains to seed, he says as much as if he had said nothing of Saturn. But in the rites of Ceres those Eleusinian mysteries are celebrated, which among the Athenians were the most renowned. Of these this man interprets nothing, save what pertains to the grain which Ceres discovered, and to Proserpine, whom she lost when Orcus carried her off;
and this very Proserpine, he says, signifies the fecundity of seeds; which, when at a certain time it had been lacking and the earth mourned with that same barrenness, there arose the opinion that Orcus had carried off the daughter of Ceres — that is, fecundity itself, which was called Proserpine from 'creeping forth' (proserpere) — and had detained her among the dead; and since this matter had been solemnized with public mourning, then, because that same fecundity returned, joy arose at Proserpine's restoration, and from this solemn rites were established. He says, moreover, that many things are handed down in her mysteries which pertain to nothing but the discovery of crops.
But now, to what depth of foulness the rites of Liber have descended — whom they set over the liquid seeds, and thereby not only over the juices of fruits, of which wine in a certain manner holds the primacy, but also over the seeds of animals — it irks me indeed to tell, on account of the length of the discourse; but on account of the proud dullness of these men it irks me not. Among other things, which I am forced to pass over since they are many, he says that in the crossroads of Italy certain rites of Liber were celebrated with such license of foulness that in his honor the shameful male parts were worshiped — not even with any somewhat more modest secrecy, but with wantonness exulting in the open.
For this shameful member, during the festival days of Liber, was placed with great honor upon little carts and carried about, first in the country at the crossroads, and afterward even into the city. But in the town of Lavinium a whole month was assigned to Liber, during whose days all used the most disgraceful words, until that member had been carried across the forum and came to rest in its own place. Upon this dishonorable member it was necessary for a most honorable matron publicly to place a crown. Thus, forsooth, the god Liber had to be appeased for the success of the seeds; thus was enchantment to be driven off from the fields — so that a matron was compelled to do in public what not even a harlot should have been permitted to do in the theater, if matrons were looking on.
On account of these things Saturn alone was not believed able to suffice for the seeds, so that the unclean soul might find occasions for multiplying gods, and — deservedly forsaken by the one true God because of its uncleanness, and prostituted through many false gods out of a greed for greater uncleanness — might name these sacrileges as sacred rites, and might offer itself to be violated and polluted by the throngs of filthy demons. Now surely Neptune already had Salacia as his wife, whom they said to be the lower water of the sea: to what end was Venilia also joined to him, unless that, without any cause of necessary rites, by the mere lust of a prostituted soul, the inviting of demons might be multiplied?
But let the interpretation of that illustrious theology be brought forth, which by the reason it renders may check us from this reproach. 'Venilia,' he says, 'is the wave which comes to the shore; Salacia, that which returns to the deep.' Why, then, are two goddesses made, when it is one wave that comes and returns? Assuredly it is the very lust, boiling over into many divinities, that is mad. For although the water is not doubled which goes and returns, yet by occasion of this vanity, with two demons invited, the soul is the more befouled — the soul which goes and does not return.
I beseech you, Varro, or you others who have read such writings of men so learned and boast that you have learned something great — interpret this for me: I will not say according to that eternal and unchangeable nature, who alone is God, but at least according to the soul of the world and its parts, which you suppose to be true gods. That you have made Neptune a god for us — the part of the soul of the world that pervades the sea — is an error of a more or less tolerable kind. Are then the wave coming to the shore and returning to the deep two parts of the world, or two parts of the soul of the world? Who among you is so foolish as to think this wise?
Why, then, did they make you two goddesses, unless because it was provided by your wise forefathers, not that more gods should rule you, but that more demons — which rejoice in these vanities and falsehoods — should possess you? But why did that Salacia, by this interpretation, lose the lower part of the sea, in which she was subject 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, enraged, she shut out her own husband from the upper regions of the sea? Surely there is one earth, which indeed Ditanus filled with his own evils, yet is itself a great body among the elements and the lowest part of the world. Why do they will her to be a goddess? Is it because she is fertile?
Why, then, are not rather those men gods who make her more fertile by cultivation — but when they plow, not when they adore? But, they say, the part of the soul of the world which pervades her makes her a goddess. As though the soul were not more evident in men — concerning which it is no question whether it exists; and yet men are not held to be gods, and, what is grievously to be lamented, they are by a wonderful and wretched error made subject to worshiping and adoring those who are not gods and than whom they themselves are better. 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 vigor for living;
this force, he says, permeates in our body into the bones, nails, and hair; just as in the world trees are nourished without sensation and grow and in a certain manner of their own live: the second grade of soul, in which there is sensation; this force reaches into the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and touch: the third grade is the highest of soul, which is called the mind (animus), in which intelligence pre-eminently resides; of this all mortals except man are devoid. This part of the soul of the world, he says, is God, but in us it is called Genius. And there are in the world stones and the earth which we see, into which sensation does not permeate, like the bones and nails of God; but the sun, moon, and stars, which we perceive and by which he himself perceives, are his senses; and the aether, moreover, is his mind;