How long therefore, O most unjust heathen, will you refuse to acknowledge us, and (what is more) to execrate your own (worthies), since between us no distinction has place, be- cause we are one and the same? Since you do not (of course) hate what you yourselves are, give us rather your right hands in fellow- ship, unite your salutations," mingle your embraces, sanguinary with the sanguinary, in- cestuous with the incestuous, conspirators with conspirators, obstinate and vain with those of the selfsame qualities. In company with each other, we have been traitors to the majesty of the gods; and together do we pro- voke their indignation. You too have your " third race; " ^^ not indeed third in the way of religious rite, '^ but a third race in sex, and, made up as it is of male and female in one, it is more fitted to men and women (for offices of lust).'^ Well, then, do we offend you by the very fact of our approximation and agree- ment? Being on a par is apt to furnish un- consciously the materials for rivalry. Thus "a potter envies a potter, and a smith a smith." '* But we must now discontinue this imaginary confession. '^ Our conscience has returned to the truth, and to the consistency of truth. For all those points which you allege '^ (against us) will be really found in ourselves alone; and we alone can rebut them, against whom they are adduced, by getting you to listen '^ to the other side of the ques- tion, whence that full knowledge is learnt which both inspires counsel and directs the judgment. Now it is in fact your own maxim, that no one should determine a cause without hearing both sides of it; and it is only in our own case that you neglect (the equitable prin- ciple). You indulge to the full '^ that fault of human nature, that those things which you do not disallow in yourselves you condemn in others, or you boldly charge '' against others those things the guilt of which ^ you retain a lasting consciousness of =' in yourselves. The course of life in which you will choose to occupy yourselves is different from ours: whilst chaste in the eyes of others, you are 'I Compingite oscula. '= Eunuchs (Rigalt.).
13 As the Christians were held to be; coming after (i) the heathen, (2) the Jews. See above, c. viii., and Scorpiace, c. x.
14 An oft-quoted proverb in ancient writers. It occurs in Hesiod (Opp. et Dies) 25.
15 Literally, "cease henceforth, O, simulated confession." '* Omnia ista.
17 This seems to be the force of the "agnitione," which Oehler renders 'auditione."
18 Satisfacitis. '9 Jactetis.
20 Quorum reatum. 2' Memineritis.
AD NATIONES.
[book I.
unchaste towards your own selves; whilst vig- orous against vice out of doors, you succumb to it at home. This is the injustice (which we have to suffer), that, knowing truth, we are condemned by those who know it not; free from guilt, we are judged by those who are implicated in it. Remove the mote, or rather the beam, out of your own eye, that you may be able to extract the mote from the eyes of others. Amend your own lives first, that you may be able to punish the Christians. Only so far as you shall have effected your own reformation, will you refuse to inflict punishment on them — nay, so far will you have become Christians yourselves; and as you shall have become Christians, so far will you have compassed your own amendment of life. Lcam what that is which you accuse in us, and you will accuse no longer; search out what that is which you do not accuse in your- selves, and you will become self-accusers. From these very few and humble remarks, so far as we have been able to open out the sub- ject to you, you will plainly get some insight into (your own) error, and some discovery of our truth. Condemn that truth if you have the heart,' but only after you have examined it; and approve the error still, if you are so minded,* only first explore it. But if your prescribed rule is to love error and hate truth, why, (let me ask,) do you not probe to a full discovery the objects both of your love and your hatred?
' Si potestis. 3 Si putatis.
AD NATIONES.
Book II.'
CHAP. I. — THE HEATHEN GODS FROM HEATHEN AUTHORITIES, VARRO HAS WRITTEN A WORK ON THE SUBJECT. HIS THREEFOLD CLASSI- FICATION. THE CHANGEABLE CHARACTER OF THAT WHICH OUGHT TO BE FIXED AND CERTAIN, Our defence requires that we should at this point discuss with you the character of your gods, O ye heathen, fit objects of our pity,=' appealing even to your own conscience to de- termine whether they be truly gods, as you would have it supposed, or falsely, as you are unwilling to have proved. ^ Now this is the ma- terial part of human error, owing to the wiles of its author, that it is never free from the igno- rance of error,* whence your guilt is all the greater. Your eyes are open, yet they see not; your ears are unstopped, yet they hear not; though your heart beats, it is yet dull, nor does your mind understand s that of which it is cognizant.* If indeed the enormous per- verseness (of your worship) could ^ be broken up ^ by a single demurrer, we should have our objection ready to hand in the declaration ^ that, as we know all those gods of yours to have been instituted by men, all belief in the true Deity is by this very circumstance brought to nought; "because, of course, nothing which some time or other had a beginning can rightly seem to be divine. But the fact is," there are many things by which tenderness of conscience ' In this part of his work the author reviews the heathen mythology, and exposes the absurdity of the polytheistic worship in the various classes of the gods, according to the distribution of Varro.
» Miserands.
3 Literally, " unwilling to know."
4 i.e., it does not know that it is error. sNescit.
' Agnoscit.
7 Liceret.
* Discuti, or, in the logical sense, " be tested.''
9 Nunciatto (legally, this is " an information lodged ag^nst a wrong.") "Excidere, " falls through." " Sed enim.
9 is hardened into the callousness of wilful error. Truth is beleaguered with the vast force (of the enemy), and yet how secure she is in her own inherent strength! And naturally enough " when from her very adversaries she gains to her side whomsoever she will, as her friends and protectors, and prostrates the entire host of her assailants. It is therefore against these things that our contest lies — against the in- stitutions of our ancestors, against the author- ity of tradition, '3 the laws of our governors, and the reasonings of the wise; against antiqui- ty, custom, submission;'" against precedents, prodigies, miracles, — all which things have had their part in consolidating that spurious '^ system of your gods. Wishing, then, to (oU low step by step your own commentaries which you have drawn out of your theology of every sort (because the authority of learned men goes further with you in matters of this kind than the testimony of facts), I have taken and abridged the works of Varro;'* for he in his treatise Concerning Divine Things, collected out of ancient digests, has shown himself a serviceable guide '^ for us. Now, if I inquire of him who were the subtle inventors '* of the gods, he points to either the philosophers, the peoples, or the poets. For he has made a threefold distinction in classifying the gods: one being the physical class, of which the philosophers treat; another the mythic class, which is the constant burden of '» the poets; the third, the gentile class, which the nations have adopted each one for itself. When, therefore, the philosophers have ingeniously composed their physical (theology) out of their "Quidni? '3 Receptorum.
'4 Necessitatem, answering to the " leges doininantium." »S Adulterinam.
'6 St. Augustine, in his de Civit. Dei, makes similar uae of Varro's work on the heathen Rods, Liber Divinarum. '7 Scopum, perhaps "mark." •8 Insinuatores. 19 Volutetur.
AD NATIONES.
[book ii.
own conjectures, when the poets have drawn therr mythical from fables, and the (several) nations have forged their gentile (polytheism) according to their own will, where in the world must truth be placed? In the conjectures? WeJl, but these are only a doubtful conception. In the fables? But they are at best an absurd story. In the popular accounts? ' This sort of opinion,^ however, is only promiscuous ^ and municipal. Now all things with the philoso- phers are uncertain, because of their variation; with the poets all is worthless, because im- moral; with the nations all is irregular and con- fused,because dependent on their mere choice. The nature of God, however, if it be the true one with which you are concerned, is of so definite a character as not to be derived from uncertain speculations,'* nor contaminated with worthless fables, nor determined by promiscu- ous conceits. It ought indeed to be regarded, as it really is, as certain, entire, universal, because it is in truth the property of all. Now, what god shall I believe? One that has been gauged by vague suspicion? One that history s has divulged? One that a community has in- vented? It would be a far worthier thing if I believed no god, than one which is open to doubt, or full of shame, or the object of arbitrary selection.^ CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHERS HAD NOT SUCCEEDED IN DISCOVERING GOD. THE UNCERTAINTY AND CONFUSION OF THEIR SPECULATIONS.
But the authority of the physical philoso- phers is maintained among you '^ as the special property* of wisdom. You mean of course, that pure and simple wisdom of the philoso- phers which attests its own weakness mainly by that variety of opinion which proceeds from an ignorance of the truth. Now what wise man is so devoid of truth, as not to know that God is the Father and Lord of wisdom itself and truth? Besides, there is that divine oracle uttered by Solomon: " The fear of the Lord," says he," is the beginning of wisdom." ' But'° fear has its origin in knowledge; for how will a man fear that of which he knows nothing? Therefor* he who shall have the fear of God, even if he be ignorant of all things else, if he has attained to the knowledge and truth of * Adoptionibus. ^ Adoptatio.
* Argumentationibus.
5 Historia. This word seems to refer to the class of mythicdl divinity above mentioned. It therefore means " fable " or " ab- surd story " (see above).
* Adoptivum.
7 Patrocjnatur.
" Mancipium.
9 Prov. IX. lo; Ps. cxi. lo.
" Porro.
God," will possess full and perfect wisdom. This, however, is what philosophy has not clearly realized. For although, in their in- quisitive disposition to search into all kinds of learning, the philosophers may seem to have investigated the sacred Scriptures themselves for their antiquity, and to have derived thence some of their opinions; yet because they have interpolated these deductions they prove that they have either despised them wholly or have not fully believed them, for in other cases also the simplicity of truth is shaken " by the over-scrupulousness of an irregular belief,'3 and that they therefore changed them, as their desire of glory grew, into products of their own mind. The consequence of this is, that even that which they had discovered degenerated into uncertainty, and there arose from one or two drops of truth a perfect flood of argumen- tation. For after they had simply "* found God, they did not expound Him as they found Him, but rather disputed about His quality, and His nature, and even about His abode. The Platonists, indeed, (held) Him to care about wordly things, both as the disposer and judge thereof. The Epicureans regarded Him as apathetic '^ and inert, and (so to say) a non- entity.'* The Stoics believed Him to be outside of the world; the Platonists, within the world. The God whom they had so imper- fectly admitted, they could neither know nor fear; and therefore they could not be wise, since they wandered away indeed from " the begin- ning of wisdom," that is, "the fear of God." Proofs are not wanting that among the philoso- phers there was not only an ignorance, but actual doubt, about the divinity. Diogenes, when asked what was taking place in heaven, answered by saying, " I have never been up there." Again, whether there were any gods, he replied, " I do not know; only there ought to be gods."'^ When Croesus inquired of Thales of Miletus what he thought of the gods, the latter having taken some time'Ho consider, answered by the word "Nothing." Even Socrates denied with an air of certainty '« those gods of yours. ^° Yet he with a like certainty requested that a cock should be sacrificed to ^sculapius. And therefore when philosophy, in Its practice of defining about God, is de- tected in such uncertainty and inconsistency.
'I Deum omnium notititam et veritatem adsecutus, Le., lowing the God of all as knowledge and truth." i2Nutat. '3 Passivae fidei. '4 Solummodo. '5 Otiosum. "5 " A nobody." '7 Nisi ut sint expedir*. >8 Aliquot commeatus. «9 Quasi certus. 20 Istos deos.
'foU CHAP. III.]
AU NA'llONKS.
what " fear " could it possibly have had of Him whom it was not competent' clearly to determine? We have been taught to believe of the world that it is god.= For such the physical class of theologizers conclude it to be, since they have handed down such views about the gods that Dionysius the Stoic divides them into three kinds. The first, he supposes, includes those gods which are most obvious, as the Sun, Moon, a7id Stars; the next, those which are not apparent, as Neptune; the re- maining one, those which are said to have passed from the human state to the divine, as Hercules aw^Amphiaraus. In like manner, Arcesilaus makes a threefold form of the divinity — the Olympian, the Astral, the Tita- nian — sprung from Coelus and Terra; from which through Saturn and Ops came Neptune, Jupiter, and Orcus, and their entire progeny. Xenocrates, of the Academy, makes a two- fold division — the Olympian and the Titanian, which descend from Coelus and Terra. Most of the Egyptians believe that there are four gods — the Sun and the Moon, the Heaven and the Earth. Along with all the supernal fire Democritus conjectures that the gods arose. Zeno, too, will have it that their na- ture resembles it. Whence Varro also makes fire to be the soul of the world, that in the world fire governs all things, just as the soul does in ourselves. But all this is most absurd. For he says, Whilst it is in us, we have ex- istence; but as soon as it has left us, we die. Therefore, when fire quits the world in light- ning, the world comes to its end.
CHAP. III. THE PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHERS MAIN- TAINED THE DIVINITY OF THE ELEMENTS; THE ABSURDITY OF THE TENET EXPOSED.
From these developments of opinion, we see that your^ physical class of philosophers are driven to the necessity of contending that the elements are gods, since it alleges that other gods are sprung from them; for it is only from gods that gods could be born. Now, although we shall have to examine these other gods more fully in the proper place, in the mythic section of the poets, yet, inasmuch as we must meanwhile treat of them in their con- nection with the present class," we shall prob- ably even from their present class, ^ when once we turn to the gods themselves, succeed in showing that they can by no means appear to be gods who are said to be sprung from ' Non tenebat.
2 De mundo deo didicimus.
3 Istad.
■« Ad prassentem speciem, the physical class. S Or, classification.
the elements; so that we have at once a pre- sumption* that the elements are not gods, since they which are born of the elements are not gods. In like manner, whilst we show that the elements are not gods, we shall, ac- cording to the law of natural relationship,' get a presumptive argument that they cannot rightly be maintained to be gods whose parents (in this case the elements) are not gods. It is a settled point ^ that a god is born of a god, and that what lacks divinity' is born of what is not divine. Now, so far as'° the world of which your philosophers treat" (for I apply this term to the universe in the most compre- hensive sense ") contains the elements, min- istering to them as its component parts (for whatever its own condition may be, the same of course will be that of its elements and con- stituent portions), it must needs have been formed either by some being, according to the enlightened view'^ of Plato, or else by none, according to the harsh opinion'-* of Epicurus; and since it was formed, by having a beginning, it must also have an end. That, therefore, which at one time before its begin- ning had no existence, and will by and by after its end cease to have an existence, cannot of course, by any possibility, seem to be a god, wanting as it does that essential character of divinity, eternity, which is reckoned to be '^ without beginning, and without end. If, however, it '* is in no wise formed, and there- fore ought to be accounted divine — since, as divine, it is subject neither to a beginning nor an end of itself — how is it that some as- sign generation to the elements, which they hold to be gods, when the Stoics deny that anything can be born of a god? Likewise, how is it that they wish those beings, whom they suppose to be born of the elements, to be regarded as gods, when they deny that a god can be born? Now, what must hold good of the universe '7 will have to be predicated of the elements, I mean of heaven, and of earth, and of the stars, and of fire, which Varro has vainly proposed that you should believe '^ to be gods, and the parents of gods, contrary to that generation and nativity which he had de- clared to be impossible in a god. Now this same Varro had shown that the earth and the 6 Ut jam hinc praejudicatura sit.
7 Ad illam agnatorum speciem. sScitum.
9 Non-deum.
10 " Quod," with a subj, mood. " Mundus iste. I- Summaliter.
13 Humanitas.
14 Duritia.
15 Censetur.
17 Mundi, i.e., the universe; see above.
18 The best reading is " vobis credi; " this is one of Tertulliaa's '_/?«(«/ infinitives."
AD NATIONES.
[book II.
stars were animated.' But if this be the case, they must needs be also mortal, according to the condition ^^ of animated nature; for al- though the soul is evidently immortal, this attribute is limited to it alone: it is not ex- tended to that with which it is associated, that is, the body. Nobody, however, will deny that the elements have body, since we both touch them and are touched by them, and we see certain bodies fall down from them. If, therefore, they are animated, laying aside the principle ^ of a soul, as befits their condition as bodies, they are mortal — of course not im- mortal. And yet whence is it that the ele- ments appear to Varro to be animated? Be- cause, forsooth, the elements have motion. And then, in order to anticipate what may be objected on the other side, that many things else have motion — as wheels, as carriages, as several other machines — he volunteers the statement that he believes only such things to be animated as move of themselves, without any apparent mover or impeller from without, like the apparent mover of the wheel, or pro- peller of the carriage, or director of the ma- chine. If, then, they are not animated, they have no motion of themselves. Now, when he thus alleges a power which is not apparent, he points to what it was his duty to seek after, even the creator and controller of the motion; for it does not at once follow that, because we do not see a thing, we believe that it does not exist. Rather, it is necessary the more profoundly to investigate what one does not see, in order the better to understand the character of that which is apparent. Besides, if (you admit) only the existence of those things which appear and are supposed to exist simply because they appear, how is it that you also admit them to be gods which do not appear? If, moreover, those things seem to have existence which have none, why may they not have existence also which do not seem to have it? Such, for instance, as the Mover* of the heavenly beings. Granted, then, that things are animated because they move of themselves, and that they move of themselves when they are not moved by an- other: still it does not follow that they must straightway be gods, because they are ani- mated, nor even because they move of them- selves; else what is to prevent all animals whatever being accounted gods, moving as they do of themselves? This, to be sure, is allowed to the Egyptians, but their supersfi- Hous vanity has another basis. s » Compare Augustine, de Civit. Dei, yii. 6, 23, 34, 28.
2 Formam.
S Alia sane vanitate.
CHAP. IV. WRONG DERIVATION OF THE WORD &iOZ. THE NAME INDICATIVE OF THE TRUE DEITY. GOD WITHOUT SHAPE AND IMMATERIAL. ANECDOTE OF THALES.
Some affirm that the gods {i.e. ezoi) were so called because the verbs Oinv and cdodai signify to ru7i and to be t?ioved.^ This term, then, is not indicative of any majesty, for it is derived from rufinitig and motioti, not from any do- minion ^ of godhead. But inasmuch as the Supreme God whom we worship is also desig- nated ee(5f, without however the appearance of any course or motioti in Him, because He is not visible to any one, it is clear that that word must have had some other derivation, and that the property of divinity, innate in Himself, must have been discovered. Dis- missing, then, that ingenious interpretation, it is more likely that the gods were not called deoi from rimnitig and moti&n, but that the term was borrowed from the designation of the true God; so that you gave the name deoi to the gods, whom you had in like manner forged for yourselves. Now, that this is the case, a plain proof is afforded in the fact that you actually give the common appellation deoi to all those gods of yours, in whom there is no attribute of course or motion indicated. When, therefore, you call them both Oeol and ifnmove- able with equal readiness, there is a devia- tion as well from the meaning of the word as from the idea® of godhead, which is set aside ^ if measured by the notion of course and motioti. But if that sacred name be peculiarly significant of deity, and be simply true and not of a forced interpretation '° in the case of the true God, but transferred in a borrowed sense " to those other objects which you choose to call gods, then you ought to show to us " that there is also a community of character between them, so that their common designa- tion may rightly depend on their union of es- sence. But the true God, on the sole ground that He is not an object of sense, is incapable of being compared with those false deities which are cognizable to sight and sense (to sense indeed is sufficient); for this amounts to a clear statement of the difference between an obscure proof and a manifest one. Now, since the elements are obvious to all, (and) since God, on the contrary, is visible to none, how will it be in your power from that part 6 This seems to mean: " because 6iiiv has also the sense of <jiif<i6ai. (motion as well as proKfession)."
7 " Dominatione " is Oehler's reading, but he approves of " de- nominatione" (Rigault's reading); this would signify " </M(^K<z^i<7M of godhead.'* ** Opinione.
9 Rescinditur. '<> Interpretatoriura. " Reprehensura, '2 Docete.
CHAP, v.]
AD NATIONES.
which you have not seen to pass to a decision on the objects which you see? Since, there- fore, you have not to combine them in your perception or your reason, why do you com- bine them in name with the purpose of com- bining them also in power? For see how even Zeno separates the matter of the world from God: he says that the latter has percolated through the former, like honey through the comb. God, therefore, and Matter are two words (and) two things. Proportioned to the difference of the words is the diversity of the things; the condition also of matter follows its designation. Now if matter is not God, because its very appellation teaches us so, how can those things which are inherent in matter — that is, the elements — be regarded as gods, since the component members cannot possibly be heterogeneous from the body? But what concern have I with physiological conceits? It were better for one's mind to ascend above the state of the world, not to stoop down to uncertain speculations. Plato's form for the world was round. Its square, angular shape, such as others had conceived it to be, he rounded off, I suppose, with com- passes, from his labouring to have it believed to be simply without a beginning.' Epicurus,