Against the Heathen, Book V

Book V

• Against the Heathen V.1 — 1. Admitting that all these things which do the immortal gods dishonour, have been put forth by poets merely in sport, what of those found in grave, serious, and careful histories, and handed down by you in hidden…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.2 — 2. What the mind should take up first, what last, or what it should pass by silently, it is not easy to say, nor is it made clear by any amount of reflection; for all have been so devised and fitted to be laughed at,…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.3 — 3. But let us admit that, as is said, Jupiter has himself appointed against himself ways and means by which his own declared purposes might fittingly be opposed: are we also to believe that a deity of so great…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.4 — 4. But you will perhaps say that the king was a diviner. Could he be more so than Jupiter himself? But for a mortal’s anticipating what Jupiter—whom he overreached—was going to say, could the god not know in what…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.5 — 5. In Timotheus, who was no mean mythologist, and also in others equally well informed, the birth of the Great Mother of the gods, and the origin of her rites, are thus detailed, being derived—as he himself writes…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.6 — 6. Now, when it had been often considered in the councils of the gods, by what means it might be possible either to weaken or to curb his audacity, Liber, the rest hanging back, takes upon himself this task. With the…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.7 — 7. Then Midas, king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the youth from so disgraceful an intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in marriage, and caused the gates of the town to be closed, that no one of evil…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.8 — 8. If some one, despising the deities, and furious with a savagely sacrilegious spirit, had set himself to blaspheme your gods, would he dare to say against them anything more severe than this tale relates, which you…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.9 — 9. But why do we speak of your having bemired the Great Mother of the gods with the filth of earth, when you have not been able for but a little time even to keep from speaking evil of Jupiter himself? While the…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.10 — 10. But you will perhaps say the human race shuns and execrates such unions; among the gods there is no incest. And why, then, did his mother resist with the greatest vehemence her son when he offered her violence?…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.11 — 11. There was doubt in the councils of the gods how that unyielding and fierce violence was to be subdued; and when there was no other way, they had recourse to one means, that he should be soaked with much wine, and…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.12 — 12. Would any one say this about the gods who had even a very low opinion of them? or, if they were taken up with such affairs, considerations, cares, would any man of wisdom either believe that they are gods, or…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.13 — 13. Through her bosom, we are told, Nana conceived a son by an apple. The opinion is self-consistent; for where rocks and hard stones bring forth, there apples must have their time of generating. The Berecyntian…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.14 — 14. What say you, O races and nations, given up to such beliefs? When these things are brought forward, are you not ashamed and confounded to say things so indecent? We wish to hear or learn from you something…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.15 — 15. We might long ago have urged you to ponder this, were it not foolish to ask proofs of such things, as well as to say them. But this story is false, and is wholly untrue. It is no matter to us, indeed, because of…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.16 — 16. And yet how can you assert the falsehood of this story, when the very rites which you celebrate throughout the year testify that you believe these things to be true, and consider them perfectly trustworthy? For…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.17 — 17. Or if the things which we say are not so, declare, say yourselves—those effeminate and delicate men whom we see among you in the sacred rites of this deity—what business, what care, what concern have they there;…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.18 — 18. The greatness of the subject, and our duty to those on their defence also, demand that we should in like manner hunt up the other forms of baseness, whether those which the histories of antiquity record, or those…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.19 — 19. We shall pass by the wild Bacchanalia also, which are named in Greek Omophagia, in which with seeming frenzy and the loss of your senses you twine snakes about you; and, to show yourselves full of the divinity…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.20 — 20. It was our purpose to leave unnoticed those mysteries also into which Phrygia is initiated, and all that race, were it not that the name of Jupiter, which has been introduced by them, would not suffer us to pass…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.21 — 21. Jupiter is troubled enough, being overwhelmed with fear, and cannot find means to soothe the rage of his violated mother. He pours forth prayers, and makes supplication; her ears are closed by grief. The whole…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.22 — 22. I do not think it necessary here also with many words to go through each part, and show how many base and unseemly things there are in each particular. For what mortal is there, with but little sense even of what…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.23 — 23. I should wish, therefore, to see Jupiter, the father of the gods, who ever controls the world and men, adorned with the horns of an ox, shaking his hairy ears, with his feet contracted into hoofs, chewing green…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.24 — 24. But, my opponent says, these are not the rites of our state. Who, pray, says this, or who repeats it? Is he Roman, Gaul, Spaniard, African, German, or Sicilian? And what does it avail your cause if these stories…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.25 — 25. In her wanderings on that quest, she reaches the confines of Eleusis as well as other countries—that is the name of a canton in Attica. At that time these parts were inhabited by aborigines named Baubo,…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.26 — 26. If any one perchance thinks that we are speaking wicked calumnies, let him take the hooks of the Thracian soothsayer, which you speak of as of divine antiquity; and he will find that we are neither cunningly…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.27 — 27. Are then your deities carried off by force, and do they seize by violence, as their holy and hidden mysteries relate? do they enter into marriages sought stealthily and by fraud? is their honour snatched from…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.28 — 28. I confess that I have long been hesitating, looking on every side, shuffling, doubling Tellene perplexities; while I am ashamed to mention those Alimontian mysteries in which Greece erects phalli in honour of…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.29 — 29. Now, to prevent any one from thinking that we have devised what is so impious, we do not call upon him to believe Heraclitus as a witness, nor to receive from his account what he felt about such mysteries. Let…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.30 — 30. I confess that, in reflecting on such monstrous stories in my own mind, I have long been accustomed to wonder that you dare to speak of those as atheists, impious, sacrilegious, who either deny that there are any…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.31 — 31. But you who assert that you are the defenders and propagators of their immortality, have you passed by, have you left untouched, any one of them, without assailing him with your abuse? or is there any kind of…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.32 — 32. But you err, says my opponent, and are mistaken, and show, even in criticising these things, that you are rather ignorant, unlearned, and boorish. For all those stories which seem to you disgraceful, and tending…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.33 — 33. These are all quirks, as is evident, and quibbles with which they are wont to bolster up weak cases before a jury; nay, rather, to speak more truly, they are pretences, such as are used in sophistical reasonings,…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.34 — 34. But, agreeing with you that in all these stories stags are spoken of instead of Iphigenias, yet, how are you sure, when you either explain or unfold these allegories, that you give the same explanations or have…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.35 — 35. Finally, if you think it right, returning to our inquiry, we ask this of you, whether you think that all stories about the gods, that is, without any exception, have been written throughout with a double meaning…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.36 — 36. But you will perhaps say that these allegories are not found in the whole body of the story, but that some parts are written so as to be understood by all, while others have a double meaning, and are veiled in…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.37 — 37. Let us examine, then, what is said in this way. In the grove of Henna, my opponent says, the maiden Proserpine was once gathering flowers: this is as yet uncorrupted, and has been told in a straightforward…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.38 — 38. Either, then, they must all have been written and put forward allegorically, and the whole should be pointed out to us; or nothing has been so written, since what is supposed to be allegorical does not seem as if…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.39 — 39. Whence, then, do we prove that all these narratives are records of events? From the solemn rites and mysteries of initiation, it is clear, whether those which are celebrated at fixed times and on set days, or…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.40 — 40. And yet, even if we grant you that this is the case, that is, even if the narratives give utterance to one thing in words, but mean something else, after the manner of raving seers, do you not observe in this…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.41 — 41. It was once usual, in speaking allegorically, to conceal under perfectly decent ideas, and clothe with the respectability of decency, what was base and horrible to speak of openly; but now venerable things are at…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.42 — 42. But you will perhaps say, for this only is left which you may think can be brought forward by you, that the gods do not wish their mysteries to be known by men, and that the narratives were therefore written with…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.43 — 43. But what the meaning of this is, is already clear to all. For because you are ashamed of such writers and histories, and do not see that these things can be got rid of which have once been committed to writing in…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.44 — 44. But if you come to the conclusion that these fables have been written allegorically, what is to be done with the rest, which we see cannot be forced into such changes of sense? For what are we to substitute for…vatican.va
• Against the Heathen V.45 — 45. Judge fairly, and you are deserving of censure in this, that in your common conversation you name Mars when you mean fighting, Neptune when you mean the seas, Ceres when you mean bread, Minerva when you mean…vatican.va