BOOK VI. 
ARGUMENT. 
HITHERTO THE ARGUMENT HAS BEEN CONDUCTED AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT THE GODS 
ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES, NOW IT IS DIRECTED 
AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF ETERNAL 
LIFE. AUGUSTIN DEVOTES THE FIVE FOLLOWING BOOKS TO THE CONFUTATION OF THIS 
LATTER BELIEF, AND FIRST OF ALL SHOWS HOW MEAN AN OPINION OF THE GODS WAS HELD 
BY VARRO HIMSELF, THE MOST ESTEEMED WRITER ON HEATHEN THEOLOGY. OF THIS THEOLOGY 
AUGUSTIN ADOPTS VARRO'S DIVISION INTO THREE KINDS, MYTHICAL, NATURAL, AND CIVIL; 
AND AT ONCE DEMONSTRATES THAT NEITHER THE MYTHICAL NOR THE CIVIL CAN CONTRIBUTE 
ANYTHING TO THE HAPPINESS OF THE FUTURE LIFE. 
PREFACE. 
IN the five former books, I think I have sufficiently disputed against those who 
believe that the many false gods, which the Christian truth shows to be useless 
images, or unclean spirits and pernicious demons, or certainly creatures, not 
the Creator, are to be worshipped for the advantage of this mortal life, and of 
terrestrial affairs, with that rite and service which the Greeks call 
<greek>latreia</greek>, and which is due to the one true God. And who does not 
know that, in the face of excessive stupidity and obstinacy, neither these five 
nor any other number of books whatsoever could be enough, when it is esteemed 
the glory of vanity to yield to no amount of strength on the side of 
truth,--certainly to his destruction over whom so heinous a vice tyrannizes? 
For, notwithstanding all the assiduity of the physician who attempts to effect a 
cure, the disease remains unconquered, not through any fault of his, but because 
of the incurableness of the sick man. But those who thoroughly weigh the things 
which they read, having understood and considered them, without any, or with no 
great and excessive degree of that obstinacy which belongs to a long-cherished 
error, will more readily judge that, in the five books already finished, we have 
done more than the necessity of the question demanded, than that we have given 
it less discussion than it required. And they cannot have doubted but that all 
the hatred which the ignorant attempt to bring upon the Christian religion on 
account of the disasters of this life, and the destruction and change which 
befall terrestrial things, whilst the learned do not merely dissimulate, but 
encourage that hatred, contrary to their own consciences, being possessed by a 
mad impiety;--they cannot have doubted, I say, but that this hatred is devoid of 
right reflection and reason, and full of most light temerity, and most 
pernicious animosity. 
CHAP. 1.--OF THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THAT THEY WORSHIP THE GODS NOT FOR THE SAKE OF 
TEMPORAL BUT ETERNAL ADVANTAGES. 
Now, as, in the next place (as the promised order demands), those are to be 
refuted and taught who contend that the gods of the nations, which the Christian 
truth destroys, are to be worshipped not on account of this life, but on account 
of that which is to be after death, I shall do well to commence my disputation 
with the truthful oracle of the holy psalm, "Blessed is the man whose hope is 
the Lord God, and who respecteth not vanities and lying follies."(1) 
Nevertheless, in all vanities and lying follies the philosophers are to be 
listened to with far more toleration, who have repudiated those opinions and 
errors of the people; for the people set up images to the deities, and either 
reigned concerning those whom they call immortal gods many false and unworthy 
things, or believed them, already feigned, and, when believed, mixed them up 
with their worship and sacred rites. 
With those men who, though not by free avowal of their convictions, do still 
testify that they disapprove of those things by their muttering disapprobation 
during disputations on the subject, it may not be very far amiss to discuss the 
following question: Whether for the sake of the life which is to be after death, 
we ought to worship, not the one God who made all creatures spiritual and 
corporeal, but those many gods who, as some of these philosophers hold, were 
made by that one God, and placed by Him in their respective sublime spheres, and 
are therefore considered more excellent and more noble than all the others?(1) 
But who will assert that it must be affirmed and contended that those gods, 
certain of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book,(2) to whom are distributed, 
each to each the charges of minute things, do bestow eternal life? But will 
those most skilled and most acute men, who glory in having written for the great 
benefit of men, to teach on what account each god is to be worshipped, and what 
is to be sought from each, lest with most disgraceful absurdity, such as a mimic 
is wont for the sake of merriment to exhibit, water should be sought from Liber, 
wine from the Lymphs,--will those men indeed affirm to any man supplicating the 
immortal gods, that when he shall have asked wine from the Lymphs, and they 
shall have answered him, "We have water, seek wine from Liber," he may rightly 
say, "If ye have not wine, at least give me eternal life?" What more monstrous 
than this absurdity? Will not these Lymphs,--for they are wont to be very easily 
made laugh,(3) --laughing loudly (if they do not attempt to deceive like 
demons), answer the suppliant, "O man, dost thou think that we have life (vitam) 
in our power, who thou hearest have not even the vine (vitem)?" It is therefore 
most impudent folly to seek and hope for eternal life from such gods as are 
asserted so to preside over the separate minute concernments of this most 
sorrowful and short life, and whatever is useful for supporting and propping it, 
as that if anything which is under the care and power of one be sought from 
another, it is so incongruous and absurd that it appears very like to mimic 
drollery,--which, when it is done by mimics knowing what they are doing, is 
deservedly laughed at in the theatre, but when it is done by foolish persons, 
who do not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed in the world. Wherefore, as 
concerns those gods which the states have established, it has been cleverly 
invented and handed down to memory by learned men, what god or goddess is to be 
supplicated in relation to every particular thing,--what, for instance, is to be 
sought from Liber, what from the Lymphs, what from Vulcan, and so of all the 
rest, some of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have thought 
right to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from Ceres, bread from 
Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the Lymphs, how much greater absurdity ought 
it to be thought, if supplication be made to any one of these for eternal life? 
Wherefore, if, when we were inquiring what gods or goddesses are to be believed 
to be able to confer earthly kingdoms upon men, all things having been 
discussed, it was shown to be very far from the truth to think that even 
terrestrial kingdoms are established by any of those many false deities, is it 
not most insane impiety to believe that eternal life, which is, without any 
doubt or comparison, to be preferred to all terrestrial kingdoms, can be given 
to any one by any of these gods? For the reason why such gods seemed to us not 
to be able to give even an earthly kingdom, was not because they are very great 
and exalted, whilst that is something small and abject, which they, in their so 
great sublimity, would not condescend to care for, but because, however 
deservedly any one may, in consideration of human frailty, despise the falling 
pinnacles of an earthly kingdom, these gods have presented such an appearance as 
to seem most unworthy to have the granting and preserving of even those 
entrusted to them; and consequently, if (as we have taught in the two last books 
of our work, where this matter is treated of) no god out of all that crowd, 
either belonging to, as it were, the plebeian or to the noble gods, is fit to 
give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how much less is he able to make immortals of 
mortals? 
And more than this, if, according to the opinion of those with whom we are now 
arguing, the gods are to be worshipped, not on account of the present life, but 
of that which is to be after death, then, certainly, they are not to be 
worshipped on account of those particular things which are distributed and 
portioned out (not by any law of rational truth, but by mere vain conjecture) to 
the power of such gods, as they believe they ought to be worshipped, who contend 
that their worship is necessary for all the desirable things of this mortal 
life, against whom I have disputed sufficiently, as far as I was able, in the 
five preceding books. These things being so, if the age itself of those who 
worshipped the goddess Juventas should be characterized by remarkable vigor, 
whilst her despisers should either die within the years of youth, or should, 
during that period, grow cold as with the torpor of old age; if bearded Fortuna 
should cover the cheeks of her worshippers more handsomely and more gracefully 
than all others, whilst we should see those by whom she was despised either 
altogether beardless or ill-bearded; even then we should most rightly say, that 
thus far these several gods had power, limited in some way by their functions, 
and that, consequently, neither ought eternal life to be sought from Juventas, 
who could not give a beard, nor ought any good thing after this life to be 
expected from Fortuna Barbara, who has no power even in this life to give the 
age itself at which the beard grows. But now, when their worship is necessary 
not even on account of those very things which they think are subjected to their 
power, --for many worshippers of the goddess Juventas have not been at all 
vigorous at that age, and many who do not worship her rejoice in youthful 
strength; and also many suppliants of Fortuna Barbara have either not been able 
to attain to any beard at all, not even an Ugly one, although they who adore her 
in order to obtain a beard are ridiculed by her bearded despisers,--is the human 
heart really so foolish as to believe that that worship of the gods, which it 
acknowledges to be vain and ridiculous with respect to those very temporal and 
swiftly passing gifts, over each of which one of these gods is said to preside, 
is fruitful in results with respect to eternal life? And that they are able to 
give eternal life has not been affirmed even by those who, that they might be 
worshipped by the silly populace, distributed in minute division among them 
these temporal occupations, that none of them might sit idle; for they had 
supposed the existence of n exceedingly great number. 
CHAP. 2.--WHAT WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT VARRO THOUGHT CONCERNING THE GODS OF THE 
NATIONS, WHOSE VARIOUS KINDS AND SACRED RITES HE HAS SHOWN TO BE SUCH THAT HE 
WOULD HAVE ACTED MORE REVERENTLY TOWARDS THEM HAD HE BEEN ALTOGETHER SILENT 
CONCERNING THEM_ 
Who has investigated those things more carefully than Marcus Varro? Who has 
discovered them more learnedly? Who has considered them more attentively? Who 
has distinguished them more acutely? Who has written about them more diligently 
and more fully?--who, though he is less pleasing in his eloquence, is 
nevertheless so full of instruction and wisdom, that in all the erudition which 
we call secular, but they liberal, he will teach the student of things as much 
as Cicero delights the student of words. And even Tully himself renders him such 
testimony, as to say in his Academic books that he had held that disputation 
which is there carried on with Marcus Varro, "a man," he adds, "unquestionably 
the acutest of all men, and, without any doubt, the most learned."(1) He does 
not say the most eloquent or the most fluent, for in reality he was very 
deficient in this faculty, but he says, "of all men the most acute." And in 
those books,--that is, the Academic,--where he contends that all things are to 
be doubted, he adds of him, "without any doubt the most learned." In truth, he 
was so certain concerning this thing, that he laid aside that doubt which he is 
wont to have recourse to in all things, as if, when about to dispute in favor of 
the doubt of the Academics, he had, with respect to this one thing, forgotten 
that he was an Academic. But in the first book, when he extols the literary 
works of the same Varro, he says, "Us straying and wandering in our own city 
like strangers, thy books, as it were, brought home, that at length we might 
come to know of who we were and where we were. Thou has opened up to us the age 
of the country, the distribution of seasons, the laws of sacred things, and of 
the priests; thou hast opened up to us domestic and public discipline; thou hast 
pointed out to us the proper places for religious ceremonies, and hast informed 
us concerning sacred places. Thou hast shown us the names, kinds, offices, 
causes of all divine and human things."(2) 
This man, then, of so distinguished and excellent acquirements, and, as 
Terentian briefly says of him in a most elegant verse, 
"Varro, a man universally informed,"(3) 
who read so much that we wonder when he had time to write, wrote so much that we 
can scarcely believe any one could have read it all,--this man, I say, so great 
in talent, so great in learning, had he had been an opposer and destroyer of the 
so-called divine things of which he wrote, and had he said that they pertained 
to superstition rather than to religion, might perhaps, even in that case, not 
have written so many things which are ridiculous, contemptible, detestable. But 
when he so worshipped these same gods, and so vindicated their worship, as to 
say, in that same literary work of his, that he was afraid lest they should 
perish, not by an assault by enemies, but by the negligence of the citizens, and 
that from this ignominy they are being delivered by him, and are being laid up 
and preserved in the memory of the good by means of such books, with a zeal far 
more beneficial than that through which Metellus is declared to have rescued the 
sacred things of Vesta from the flames, and AEneas to have rescued the Penates 
from the burning of Troy; and when he nevertheless. gives forth such things to 
be read by succeeding ages as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be 
unfit to be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion; what ought we 
to think but that a most acute and learned man,--not, however made free by the 
Holy Spirit,--was overpowered by the custom and laws of his state, and, not 
being able to be silent about those things by which he was influenced, spoke of 
them under pretence of commending religion? 
CHAP. 3.--VARRO'S DISTRIBUTION OF HIS BOOK 
WHICH HE COMPOSED CONCERNING THE ANTIQUITIES OF HUMAN AND DIVINE THINGS. 
He wrote forty-one books of antiquities. These he divided into human and divine 
things. Twenty-five he devoted to human things, sixteen to divine things; 
following this plan in that division,--namely, to give six books to each of the 
four divisions of human things. For he directs his attention to these 
considerations: who perform, where they perform, when they perform, what they 
perform. Therefore in the first six books he wrote concerning men; in the second 
six, concerning places; in the third six, concerning times; in the fourth and 
last six, concerning things. Four times six, however, make only twenty-four. But 
he placed at the head of them one separate work, which spoke of all these things 
conjointly. 
In divine things, the same order he preserved throughout, as far as concerns 
those things which are performed to the gods. For sacred things are performed by 
men in places and times. These four things I have mentioned he embraced in 
twelve books, allotting three to each. For he wrote the first three concerning 
men, the following three concerning places, the third three concerning times, 
and the fourth three concerning sacred rites,--showing who should perform, where 
they should perform, when they should perform, what they should perform, with 
most subtle distinction. But because it was necessary to say--and that 
especially was expected--to whom they should perform sacred rites, he wrote 
concerning the gods themselves the last three books; and these five times three 
made fifteen. But they are in all, as we have said, sixteen. For he put also at 
the beginning of these one distinct book, speaking by way of introduction of all 
which follows; which being finished, he proceeded to subdivide the first three 
in that five-fold distribution which pertain to men, making the first concerning 
high priests, the second concerning augurs, the third concerning the fifteen men 
presiding over the sacred ceremonies.(1) The second three he made concerning 
places, speaking in one of them concerning their chapels, in the second 
concerning their temples, and in the third concerning religious places. The next 
three which follow these, and pertain to times,--that is, to festival days,--he 
distributed so as to make one concerning holidays,the other concerning the 
circus games, and the third concerning scenic plays. Of the fourth three, 
pertaining to sacred things, he devoted one to consecrations, another to 
private, the last to public, sacred rites. In the three which remain, the gods 
themselves follow this pompous train, as it were, for whom all this culture has 
been expended. In the first book are the certain gods, in the second the 
uncertain, in the third, and last of all, the chief and select gods. 
CHAP. 4.--THAT FROM THE DISPUTATION OF VARRO, IT FOLLOWS THAT THE WORSHIPPERS OF 
THE GODS REGARD HUMAN THINGS AS MORE ANCIENT THAN DIVINE THINGS. 
In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle distributions and 
distinctions, it will most easily appear evident from the things we have said 
already, and from what is to be said hereafter, to any man who is not, in the 
obstinacy of his heart, an enemy to himself, that it is vain to seek and to hope 
for, and even most impudent to wish for eternal life. For these institutions are 
either the work of men or of demons,--not of those whom they call good demons, 
but, to speak more plainly, of unclean, and, without controversy, malign 
spirits, who with wonderful slyness and secretness suggest to the thoughts of 
the impious, and sometimes openly present to their understandings, noxious 
opinions, by which the human mind grows more and more foolish, and becomes 
unable to adapt itself to and abide in the immutable and eternal truth, and seek 
tO confirm these opinions by every kind of fallacious attestation in their 
power. This very same Varro testifies that he wrote first concerning human 
things, but afterwards concerning divine things, because the states existed 
first, and afterward these things were instituted by them. But the true religion 
was not instituted by any earthly state, but plainly it established the 
celestial city. It, however, is inspired and taught by the true God, the giver 
of eternal life to His true worshippers. 
The following is the reason Varro gives when he confesses that he had written 
first concerning human things, and afterwards of divine things, because these 
divine things were instituted by men:--"As the painter is before the painted 
tablet, the mason before the edifice, so states are before those things which 
are instituted by states." But he says that he would have written first 
concerning the gods, afterwards concerning men, if he had been writing 
concerning the whole nature of the gods,--as if he were really writing 
concerning some portion of, and not all, the nature of the gods; or as if, 
indeed, some portion of, though not all, the nature of the gods ought not to be 
put before that of men. How, then, comes it that in those three last books, when 
he is diligently explaining the certain, uncertain and select gods, he seems to 
pass over no portion of the nature of the gods? Why, then, does he say, "If we 
had been writing on the whole nature of the gods, we would first have finished 
the divine things before we touched the human?" For he either writes concerning 
the whole nature of the gods, or concerning some portion of it, or concerning no 
part of it at all. If concerning it all, it is certainly to be put before human 
things; if concerning some part of it, why should it not, from the very nature 
of the case, precede human things? Is not even some part of the gods to be 
preferred to the whole of humanity? But if it is too much to prefer a part of 
the divine to all human things, that part is certainly worthy to be preferred to 
the Romans at least. For he writes the books concerning human things, not with 
reference to the whole world, but only to Rome; which books he says he had 
properly placed, in the order of writing, before the books on divine things, 
like a painter before the painted tablet, or a mason before the building, most 
openly confessing that, as a picture or a structure, even these divine things 
were instituted by men. There remains only the third supposition, that he is to 
be understood to have written concerning no divine nature, but that he did not 
wish to say this openly, but left it to the intelligent to infer; for when one 
says "not all," usage understands that to mean "some," but it may be understood 
as meaning none, because that which is none is neither all nor some. In fact, as 
he himself says, if he had been writing concerning all the nature of the gods, 
its due place would have been before human things in the order of writing. But, 
as the truth declares, even though Varro is silent, the divine nature should 
have taken precedence of Roman things, though it were not all, but only some. 
But it is properly put after, therefore it is none. His arrangement, therefore, 
was due, not to a desire to give human things priority to divine things, but to 
his unwillingness to prefer false things to true. For in what he wrote on human 
things, he followed the history of affairs; but in what he wrote concerning 
those things which they call divine, what else did he follow but mere 
conjectures about vain things? This, doubtless, is what, in a subtle manner, he 
wished to signify; not only writing concerning divine things after the human, 
but even giving a reason why he did so; for if he had suppressed this, some, 
perchance, would have defended his doing so in one way, and some in another. But 
in that very reason he has rendered, he has left nothing for men to conjecture 
at will, and has sufficiently proved that he preferred men to the institutions 
of men, not the nature of men to the nature of the gods. Thus he confessed that, 
in writing the books concerning divine things, he did not write concerning the 
truth which belongs to nature, but the falseness which belongs to error; which 
he has elsewhere expressed more openly (as I have mentioned in the fourth 
book(1)), saying that, had he been founding a new city himself, he would have 
written according to the order of nature; but as he had only found an old one, 
he could not but follow its custom. 
CHAP. 5.--CONCERNING THE THREE KINDS OF THEOLOGY ACCORDING TO VARRO, NAMELY, ONE 
FABULOUS, THE OTHER NATURAL, THE THIRD CIVIL. 
Now what are we to say of this proposition of his, namely, that there are three 
kinds of theology, that is, of the account which is given of the gods; and of 
these, the one is called mythical, the other physical, and the third civil? Did 
the Latin usage permit, we should call the kind which he has placed first in 
order fabular,(2) but let us call it fabulous,(3) for mythical is derived from 
the Greek <greek>muqos</greek>, a fable; but that the second should be called 
natural, the usage of speech now admits; the third he himself has designated in 
Latin, calling it civil.(1) Then he says, "they call that kind mythical which 
the poets chiefly use; physical, that which the philosophers use; civil, that 
which the people use. As to the first I have mentioned," says he, "in it are 
many fictions, which are contrary to the dignity and nature of the immortals. 
For we find in it that one god has been born from the head, another from the 
thigh, another from drops of blood; also, in this we find that gods have stolen, 
committed adultery, served men; in a word, in this all manner of things are 
attributed to the gods, such as may befall, not merely any man, but even the 
most contemptible man." He certainty, where he could, where he dared, where he 
thought he could do it with impunity, has manifested, without any of the 
haziness of ambiguity, how great injury was done to the nature of the gods by 
lying fables; for he was speaking, not concerning natural theology, not 
concerning civil, but concerning fabulous theology, which he thought he could 
freely find fault with. 
Let us see, now, what he says concerning the second kind. "The second kind which 
I have explained," he says, "is that concerning which philosophers have left 
many books, in which they treat such questions as these: what gods there are, 
where they are, of what kind and character they are, since what time they have 
existed, or if they have existed from eternity; whether they are of fire, as 
Heraclitus believes; or of number, as Pythagoras; or of atoms, as Epicurus says; 
and other such things, which men's ears can more easily hear inside the walls of 
a school than outside in the Forum." He finds fault with nothing in this kind of 
theology which they call physical, and which belongs to philosophers, except 
that he has related their controversies among themselves, through which there 
has arisen a multitude of dissentient sects. Nevertheless he has removed this 
kind from the Forum, that is, from the populace, but he has shut it up in 
schools. But that first kind, most false and most base, he has not removed from 
the citizens. Oh, the religious ears of the people, and among them even those of 
the Romans, that are not able to bear what the philosophers dispute concerning 
the gods! But when the poets sing and stage-players act such things as are 
derogatory to the dignity and the nature of the immortals, such as may befall 
not a man merely, but the most contemptible man, they not only bear, but 
willingly listen to. Nor is this all, but they even consider that these things 
please the gods, and that they are propitiated by them. 
But some one may say, Let us distinguish these two kinds of theology, the 
mythical and the physical,--that is, the fabulous and the natural,--from this 
civil kind about which we are now speaking. Anticipating this, he himself has 
distinguished them. Let us see now how he explains the civil theology itself. I 
see, indeed, why it should be distinguished as fabulous, even because it is 
false, because it is base, because it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish 
the natural from the civil, what else is that but to confess that the civil 
itself is false? For if that be natural, what fault has it that it should be 
excluded? And if this which is called civil be not natural, what merit has it 
that it should be admitted? This, in truth, is the cause why he wrote first 
concerning human things, and afterwards concerning divine things; since in 
divine things he did not follow nature, but the institution of men. Let us look 
at this civil theology of his. "The third kind," says he, "is that which 
citizens in cities, and especially the priests, ought to know and to administer. 
From it is to be known what god each one may suitably worship, what sacred rites 
and sacrifices each one may suitably perform." Let us still attend to what 
follows. "The first theology," he says, "is especially adapted to the theatre, 
the second to the world, the third to the city." Who does not see to which he 
gives the palm? Certainly to the second, which he said above is that of the 
philosophers. For he testifies that this pertains to the world, than which they 
think there is nothing better. But those two theologies, the first and the 
third,--to wit, those of the theatre and of the city,--has he distinguished them 
or united them? For although we see that the city is in the world, we do not see 
that it follows that any things belonging to the city pertain to the world. For 
it is possible that such things may be worshipped and believed in the city, 
according to false opinions, as have no existence either in the world or out of 
it. But where is the theatre but in the city? Who instituted the theatre but the 
state? For what purpose did it constitute it but for scenic plays? And to what 
class of things do scenic plays belong but to those divine things concerning 
which these books of Varro's are written with so much ability? 
CHAP. 6.--CONCERNING THE MYTHIC, THAT IS, THE FABULOUS, THEOLOGY, AND THE CIVIL, 
AGAINST VARRO. 
O Marcus Varro! thou art the most acute, and without doubt the most learned, but 
still a man, not God,--now lifted up by the Spirit of God to see and to announce 
divine things, thou seest, indeed, that divine things are to be separated from 
human trifles and lies, but thou fearest to offend those most corrupt opinions 
of the populace, and their customs in public superstitions, which thou thyself, 
when thou considerest them on all sides, perceivest, and all your literature 
loudly pronounces to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, even of such gods 
as the frailty of the human mind supposes to exist in the elements of this 
world. What can the most excellent human talent do here? What can human 
learning, though manifold, avail thee in this perplexity? Thou desirest to 
worship the natural gods; thou art compelled to worship the civil. Thou hast 
found some of the gods to be fabulous, on whom thou vomitest forth very freely 
what thou thinkest, and, whether thou wiliest or not, thou wettest therewith 
even the civil gods. Thou sayest, forsooth, that the fabulous are adapted to the 
theatre, the natural to the world, and the civil to the city; though the world 
is a divine work, but cities and theatres are the works of men, and though the 
gods who are laughed at in the theatre are not other than those who are adored 
in the temples; and ye do not exhibit games in honor of other gods than those to 
whom ye immolate victims. How much more freely and more subtly wouldst thou have 
decided these hadst thou said that some gods are natural, others established by 
men; and concerning those who have been so established, the literature of the 
poets gives one account, and that of the priests another,--both of which are, 
nevertheless, so friendly the one to the other, through fellowship in falsehood, 
that they are both pleasing to the demons, to whom the doctrine of the truth is 
hostile. 
That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being put aside for a moment, 
as it is afterwards to be discussed, we ask if any one is really content to seek 
a hope for eternal life from poetical, theatrical, scenic gods? Perish the 
thought! The true God avert so wild and sacrilegious a madness! What, is eternal 
life to be asked from those gods whom these things pleased, and whom these 
things propitiate, in which their own crimes are represented? No one, as I 
think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and furious impiety. So then, 
neither by the fabulous nor by the civil theology does any one obtain eternal 
life. For the one sows base things concerning the gods by feigning them, the 
other reaps by cherishing them; the one scatters lies, the other gathers them 
together; the one pursues divine things with false crimes, the other 
incorporates among divine things the plays which are made up of these crimes; 
the one sounds abroad in human songs impious fictions concerning the gods, the 
other consecrates these for the festivities of the gods themselves; the one 
sings the misdeeds and crimes of the gods, the other loves them; the one gives 
forth or feigns, the other either attests the true or delights in the false. 
Both are base; both are damnable. But the one which is theatrical teaches public 
abomination, and that one which is of the city adorns itself with that 
abomination. Shall eternal life be hoped for from these, by which this short and 
temporal life is polluted? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life if 
they insinuate themselves into our affections, and win our assent? and does not 
the society of demons pollute the life, who are worshipped with their own 
crimes?--if with true crimes, how wicked the demons! if with false, how wicked 
the worship! 
When we say these things, it may perchance seem to some one who is very ignorant 
of these matters that only those things concerning the gods which are sung in 
the songs of the poets and acted on the stage are unworthy of the divine 
majesty, and ridiculous, and too detestable to be celebrated, whilst those 
sacred things which not stage-players but priests perform are pure and free from 
all unseemliness. Had this been so, never would any one have thought that these 
theatrical abominations should be celebrated in their honor, never would the 
gods themselves have ordered them to be performed to them. But men are in nowise 
ashamed to perform these things in the theatres, because similar things are 
carried on in the temples. In short, when the fore-mentioned author attempted to 
distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous and natural, as a sort of third 
and distinct kind, he wished it to be understood to be rather tempered by both 
than separated from either. For he says that those things which the poets write 
are less than the people ought to follow, whilst what the philosophers say is 
more than it is expedient for the people to pry into. "Which," says he, "differ 
in such a way, that nevertheless not a few things from both of them have been 
taken to the account of the civil theology; wherefore we will indicate what the 
civil theology has in common with that of the poet, though it ought to be more 
closely connected with the theology of philosophers." Civil theology is 
therefore not quite disconnected from that of the poets. Nevertheless, in 
another place, concerning the generations of the gods, he says that the people 
are more inclined toward the poets than toward the physical theologists. For in 
this place he said what ought to be done; in that other place, what was really 
done. He said that the latter had written for the sake of utility, but the poets 
for the sake of amusement. And hence the things from the poets' writings, which 
the people ought not to follow, are the crimes of the gods; which, nevertheless, 
amuse both the people and the gods. For, for amusement's sake, he says, the 
poets write, and not for that of utility; nevertheless they write such things as 
the gods will desire, and the people perform. 
CHAP. 7.--CONCERNING THE LIKENESS AND AGREEMENT OF THE FABULOUS AND CIVIL 
THEOLOGIES. 
That theology, therefore, which is fabulous, theatrical, scenic, and full of all 
baseness and unseemliness, is taken up into the civil theology; and part of that 
theology, which in its totality is deservedly judged to be worthy of reprobation 
and rejection, is pronounced worthy to be cultivated and observed;--not at all 
an incongruous part, as I have undertaken to show, and one which, being alien to 
the whole body, was unsuitably attached to and suspended from it, but a part 
entirely congruous with, and most harmoniously fitted to the rest, as a member 
of the same body. For what else do those images, forms, ages, sexes, 
characteristics of the gods show? If the poets have Jupiter with a beard and 
Mercury beardless, have not the priests the same? Is the Priapus of the priests 
less obscene than the Priapus of the players? Does he receive the adoration of 
worshippers in a different form from that in which he moves about the stage for 
the amusement of spectators? Is not Saturn old and Apollo young in the shrines 
where their images stand as well as when represented by actors' masks? Why are 
Forculus, who presides over doors, and Limentinus, who presides over thresholds 
and lintels, male gods, and Cardea between them feminine, who presides over 
hinges. Are not those things found in books on divine things, which grave poets 
have deemed unworthy of their verses? Does the Diana of " the theatre carry 
arms, whilst the Diana of the city is simply a virgin? Is the stage Apollo a 
lyrist, but the Delphic Apollo ignorant of this art? But these things are decent 
compared with the more shameful things. What was thought of Jupiter himself by 
those who placed his wet nurse in the Capitol? Did they not bear witness to 
Euhemerus, who, not with the garrulity of a fable-teller, but with the gravity 
of an historian who had diligently investigated the matter, wrote that all such 
gods had been men and mortals? And they who appointed the Epulones as parasites 
at the table of Jupiter, what else did they wish for but mimic sacred rites. For 
if any mimic had said that parasites of Jupiter were made use of at his table, 
he would assuredly have appeared to be seeking to call forth laughter. Varro 
said it,--not when he was mocking, but when he was commending the gods did he 
say it. His books on divine, not on human, things testify that he wrote 
this,--not where he set forth the scenic games, but where he explained the 
Capitoline laws. In a word, he is conquered, and confesses that, as they made 
the gods with a human form, so they believed that they are delighted with human 
pleasures. 
For also malign spirits were not so wanting to their own business as not to 
confirm noxious opinions in the minds of men by converting them into sport. 
Whence also is that story about the sacristan of Hercules, which says that, 
having nothing to do, he took to playing at dice as a pastime, throwing them 
alternately with the one hand for Hercules, with the other for himself, with 
this understanding, that if he should win, he should from the funds of the 
temple prepare himself a supper, and hire a mistress; but if Hercules should win 
the game, he himself should, at his own expense, provide the same for the 
pleasure of Hercules. Then, when he had been beaten by himself, as though by 
Hercules, he gave to the god Hercules the supper he owed him, and also the most 
noble harlot Larentina. But she, having fallen asleep in the temple, dreamed 
that Hercules had had intercourse with her, and had said to her that she would 
find her payment with the youth whom she should first meet on leaving the 
temple, and that she was to believe this to be paid to her by Hercules. And so 
the first youth that met her on going out was the wealthy Tarutius, who kept her 
a long time, and when he died left her his heir. She, having obtained a most 
ample fortune, that she should not seem ungrateful for the divine hire, in her 
turn made the Roman people her heir, which she thought to be most acceptable to 
the deities; and, having disappeared, the will was found. By which meritorious 
conduct they say that she gained divine honors. 
Now had these things been reigned by the poets and acted by the mimics, they 
would without any doubt have been said to pertain to the fabulous theology, and 
would have been judged worthy to be separated from the dignity of the civil 
theology. But when these shameful things,--not of the poets, but of the people; 
not of the mimics, but of the sacred things; not of the theatres, but of the 
temples, that is, not of the fabulous, but of the civil theology,--are reported 
by so great an author, not in vain do the actors represent with theatrical art 
the baseness of the gods, which is so great; but surely in vain do the priests 
attempt, by rites called sacred, to represent their nobleness of character, 
which has no existence. There are sacred rites of Juno; and these are celebrated 
in her beloved island, Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jupiter. There 
are sacred rites of Ceres, in which Proserpine is sought for, having been 
carried off by Pluto. There are sacred rites of Venus, in which, her beloved 
Adonis being slain by a boar's tooth, the lovely youth is lamented. There are 
sacred rites of the mother of the gods, in which the beautiful youth Atys, loved 
by her, and castrated by her through a woman's jealousy, is deplored by men who 
have suffered the like calamity, whom they call Galli. Since, then, these things 
are more unseemly than all scenic abomination, why is it that they strive to 
separate, as it were, the fabulous fictions of the poet concerning the gods, as, 
forsooth, pertaining to the theatre, from the civil theology which they wish to 
belong to the city, as though they were separating from noble and worthy things, 
things unworthy and base? Wherefore there is more reason to thank the 
stage-actors, who have spared the eyes of men and have not laid bare by 
theatrical exhibition all the things which are hid by the walls of the temples. 
What good is to be thought of their sacred rites which are concealed in 
darkness, when those which are brought forth into the light are so detestable? 
And certainly they themselves have seen what they transact in secret through the 
agency of mutilated and effeminate men. Yet they have not been able to conceal 
those same men miserably and vile enervated and corrupted. Let them persuade 
whom they can that they transact anything holy through such men, who, they 
cannot deny, are numbered, and live among their sacred things. We know not what 
they transact, but we know through whom they transact; for we know what things 
are transacted on the stage, where never, even in a chorus of harlots, hath one 
who is mutilated or an effeminate appeared. And, nevertheless, even these things 
are acted by vile and infamous characters; for, indeed, they ought not to be 
acted by men of good character. What, then, are those sacred rites, for the 
performance of which holiness has chosen such men as not even the obscenity of 
the stage has admitted? 
CHAP. 8.--CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATIONS, CONSISTING OF NATURAL EXPLANATIONS, 
WHICH THE PAGAN TEACHERS ATTEMPT TO SHOW FOR THEIR GODS. 
But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that is, natural 
interpretations, showing their natural meaning; as though in this disputation we 
were seeking physics and not theology, which is the account, not of nature, but 
of God. For although He who is the true God is God, not by opinion, but by 
nature, nevertheless all nature is not God; for there is certainly a nature of 
man, of a beast, of a tree, of a stone,--none of which is God. For if, when the 
question is concerning the mother of the gods, that from which the whole system 
of interpretation starts certainly is, that the mother of the gods is the earth, 
why do we make further inquiry? why do we carry our investigation through all 
the rest of it? What can more manifestly favor them who say that all those gods 
were men? For they are earth-born in the sense that the earth is their mother. 
But in the true theology the earth is the work, not the mother, of God. But in 
whatever way their sacred rites may be interpreted, and whatever reference they 
may have to the nature of things, it is not according to nature, but contrary to 
nature, that men should be effeminates. This disease, this crime, this 
abomination, has a recognized place among those sacred things, though even 
depraved men will scarcely be compelled by torments to confess they are guilty 
of it. Again, if these sacred rites, which are proved to be fouler than scenic 
abominations, are excused and justified on the ground that they have their own 
interpretations, by which they are shown to symbolize the nature of things, why 
are not the poetical things in like manner excused and justified? For many have 
interpreted even these in like fashion, to such a degree that even that which 
they say is the most monstrous and most horrible,--namely, that Saturn devoured 
his own children,--has been interpreted by some of them to mean that length of 
time, which is signified by the name of Saturn, consumes whatever it begets; or 
that, as the same Varro thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds which fall back again 
into the earth from whence they spring. And so one interprets it in one way, and 
one in another. And the same is to be said of all the rest of this theology. 
And, nevertheless, it is called the fabulous theology, and is censured, cast 
off, rejected together with all such interpretations belonging to it. And not 
only by the natural theology, which is that of the philosophers, but also by 
this civil theology, concerning which we are speaking, which is asserted to 
pertain to cities and peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation, because it 
has invented unworthy things concerning the gods. Of which, I wot, this is the 
secret: that those most acute ant learned men, by whom those things were 
written, understood that both theologies ought to be rejected,--to wit, both 
that fabulous and this civil one,--but the former they dared to reject, the 
latter they dared not; the former they set forth to be censured, the latter they 
showed to be very like it; not that it might be chosen to be held in preference 
to the other, but that it might be understood to be worthy of being rejected 
together with it. And thus, without danger to those who feared to censure the 
civil theology, both of them being brought into contempt, that theology which 
they call natural might find a place in better disposed minds; for the civil and 
the fabulous are both fabulous and both civil. He who shall wisely inspect the 
vanities and obscenities of both will find that they are both fabulous; and he 
who shall direct his attention to the scenic plays pertaining to the fabulous 
theology in the festivals of the civil gods, and in the divine rites of the 
cities, will find they are both civil. How, then, can the power of giving 
eternal life be attributed to any of those gods whose own images and sacred 
rites convict them of being most like to the fabulous gods, which are most 
openly reprobated, in forms, ages, sex, characteristics marriages, generations, 
rites; in all which things they are understood either to have been men, and to 
have had their sacred rites and solemnities instituted in their honor according 
to the life or death of each of them, the demons suggesting and confirming this 
error, or certainly most foul spirits, who, taking advantage of some occasion or 
other, have stolen into the minds of men to deceive them? 
CHAP. 9.--CONCERNING THE SPECIAL OFFICES 
OF THE GODS. 
And as to those very offices of the gods, so meanly and so minutely portioned 
out, so that they say that they ought to be supplicated, each one according to 
his special function,--about which we have spoken much already, though not all 
that is to be said concerning it,--are they not more consistent with mimic 
buffoonery than divine majesty? If any one should use two nurses for his infant, 
one of whom should give nothing but food, the other nothing but drink, as these 
make use of two goddesses for this purpose, Educa and Potina, he should 
certainly seem to be foolish, and to do in his house a thing worthy of a mimic. 
They would have Liber to have been named from "liberation," because through him 
males at the time of copulation are liberated by the emission of the seed. They 
also say that Libera (the same in their opinion as Venus) exercises the same 
function in the case of women, because they say that they also emit seed; and 
they also say that on this account the same part of the male and of the female 
is placed in the temple, that of the male to Liber, and that of the female to 
Libera. To these things they add the women assigned to Liber, and the wine for 
exciting lust. Thus the Bacchanalia are celebrated with the utmost insanity, 
with respect to which Varro himself confesses that such things would not be done 
by the Bacchanals except their minds were highly excited. These things, however, 
afterwards displeased a saner senate, and it ordered them to be discontinued. 
Here, at length, they perhaps perceived how much power unclean spirits, when 
held to be gods, exercise over the minds of men. These things, certainly, were 
not to be done in the theatres; for there they play, not rave, although to have 
gods who are delighted with such plays is very like raving. 
But what kind of distinction is this which he makes between the religious and 
the superstitious man, saying that the gods are feared(1) by the superstitious 
man, but are reverenced(2) as parents by the religious man, not feared as 
enemies; and that they are all so good that they will more readily spare those 
who are impious than hurt one who is innocent? And yet he tells us that three 
gods are assigned as guardians to a woman after she has been delivered, lest the 
god Silvanus come in and molest her; and that in order to signify the presence 
of these protectors, three men go round the house during the night, and first 
strike the threshold with a hatchet, next with a pestle, and the third time 
sweep it with a brush, in order that these symbols of agriculture having been 
exhibited, the god Silvanus might be hindered from entering, because neither are 
trees cut down or pruned without a hatchet, neither is grain ground without a 
pestle, nor corn heaped up without a besom. Now from these three things three 
gods have been named: Intercidona, from the cut(3) made by the hatchet; 
Pilumnus, from the pestle; Diverra, from the besom;--by which guardian gods the 
woman who has been delivered is preserved against the power of the god Silvanus. 
Thus the guardianship of kindly-disposed gods would not avail against the malice 
of a mischievous god, unless they were three to one, and fought against him, as 
it were, with the opposing emblems of cultivation, who, being an inhabitant of 
the woods, is rough, horrible, and uncultivated. Is this the innocence of the 
gods? Is this their concord? Are these the health-giving deities of the cities, 
more ridiculous than the things which are laughed at in the theatres? 
When a male and a female are united, the god Jugatinus presides. Well, let this 
be borne with. But the married woman must be brought home: the god Domiducus 
also is invoked. That she may be in the house, the god Domitius is introduced. 
That she may remain with her husband, the goddess Manturnae is used. What more 
is required? Let human modesty be spared. Let the lust of flesh and blood go on 
with the rest, the secret of shame being respected. Why is the bed-chamber 
filled with a crowd of deities, when even the groomsmen(1) have departed? And, 
moreover, it is so filled, not that in consideration of their presence more 
regard may be paid to chastity, but that by their help the woman, naturally of 
the weaker sex, and trembling with the novelty of her situation, may the more 
readily yield her virginity. For there are the goddess Virginiensis, and the 
god-father Subigus, and the goddess-mother Prema, and the goddess Pertunda, and 
Venus, and Priapus.(2) What is this? If it was absolutely necessary that a man, 
laboring at this work, should be helped by the gods, might not some one god or 
goddess have been sufficient? Was Venus not sufficient alone, who is even said 
to be named from this, that without her power a woman does not cease to be a 
virgin? If there is any shame in men, which is not in the deities, is it not the 
case that, when the married couple believe that so many gods of either sex are 
present, and busy at this work, they are so much affected with shame, that the 
man is less moved, and the woman more reluctant? And certainly, if the goddess 
Virginiensis is present to loose the virgin's zone, if the god Subigus is 
present that the virgin may be got under the man, if the goddess Prema is 
present that, having been got under him, she may be kept down, and may not move 
herself, what has the goddess Pertunda to do there? Let her blush; let her go 
forth. Let the husband himself do something. It is disgraceful that any one but 
himself should do that from which she gets her name. But perhaps she is 
tolerated because she is said to be a goddess, and not a god. For if she were 
believed to be a male, and were called Pertundus, the husband would demand more 
help against him for the chastity of his wife than the newly-delivered woman 
against Silvanus. But why am I saying this, when Priapus, too, is there, a male 
to excess, upon whose immense and most unsightly member the newly-married bride 
is commanded to sit, according to the most honorable and most religious custom 
of matrons? 
Let them go on, and let them attempt with all the subtlety they can to 
distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous, the cities from the theatres, 
the temples from the stages, the sacred things of the priests from the songs of 
the poets, as honorable things from base things, truthful things from 
fallacious, grave from light, serious from ludicrous, desirable things from 
things to be rejected, we understand what they do. They are aware that that 
theatrical and fabulous theology hangs by the civil, and is reflected back upon 
it from the songs of the poets as from a mirror; and thus, that theology having 
been exposed to view which they do not dare to condemn, they more freely assail 
and censure that picture of it, in order that those who perceive what they mean 
may detest this very face itself of which that is the picture,--which, however, 
the gods themselves, as though seeing themselves in the same mirror, love so 
much, that it is better seen in both of them who and what they are. Whence, 
also, they have compelled their worshippers, with terrible commands, to dedicate 
to them the uncleanness of the fabulous theology, to put them among their 
solemnities, and reckon them among divine things; and thus they have both shown 
themselves more manifestly to be most impure spirits, and have made that 
rejected and reprobated theatrical theology a member and a part of this, as it 
were, chosen and ap-proved theology of the city, so that, though the whole is 
disgraceful and false, and contains in it fictitious gods, one part of it is in 
the literature of the priests, the other in the songs of the poets. Whether it 
may have other parts is another question. At present, I think, I have 
sufficiently shown, on account of the division of Varro, that the theology of 
the city and that of the theatre belong to one civil theology. Wherefore, 
because they are both equally disgraceful, absurd, shameful, false, far be it 
from religious men to hope for eternal life from either the one or the other In 
fine, even Varro himself, in his account and enumeration of the gods, starts 
from the moment of a man's conception. He commences the series of those gods who 
take charge of man with Janus, carries it on to the death of the man decrepit 
with age, and terminates it with the goddess Naenia, who is sung at the funerals 
of the aged. After that, he begins to give an account of the other gods, whose 
province is not man himself, but man's belongings, as food, clothing, and all 
that is necessary for this life; and, in the case of all these, he explains what 
is the special office of each, and for what each ought to be supplicated. But 
with all this scrupulous and comprehensive diligence, he has neither proved the 
existence, nor so much as mentioned the name, of any god from whom eternal life 
is to be sought,--the one object for which we are Christians. Who, then, is so 
stupid as not to perceive that this man, by setting forth and opening up so 
diligently the civil theology, and by exhibiting its likeness to that fabulous, 
shameful, and disgraceful theology, and also by teaching that that fabulous sort 
is also a part of this other, was laboring to obtain a place in the minds of men 
for none but that natural theology, which he says pertains to philosophers, with 
such subtlety that he censures the fabulous, and, not daring openly to censure 
the civil, shows its censurable character by simply exhibiting it; and thus, 
both being reprobated by the judgment of men of right understanding, the natural 
alone remains to be chosen? But concerning this in its own place, by the help of 
the true God, we have to discuss more diligently. 
CHAP. 10.--CONCERNING THE LIBERTY OF SENECA, WHO MORE VEHEMENTLY CENSURED THE 
CIVIL THEOLOGY THAN VARRO DID THE FABULOUS. 
That liberty, in truth, which this man wanted, so that he did not dare to 
censure that theology of the city, which is very similar to the theatrical, so 
openly as he did the theatrical itself, was, though not fully, yet in part 
possessed by Annaeus Seneca, whom we have some evidence to show to have 
flourished in the times of our apostles. It was in part possessed by him, I say, 
for he possessed it in writing, but not in living. For in that book which he 
wrote against superstition,(1) he more copiously and vehemently censured that 
civil and urban theology than Varro the theatrical and fabulous. For, when 
speaking concerning images, he says, "They dedicate images of the sacred and 
inviolable immortals in most worthless and motionless matter. They give them the 
appearance of man, beasts, and fishes, and some make them of mixed sex, and 
heterogeneous bodies. They call them deities, when they are such that if they 
should get breath and should suddenly meet them, they would be held to be 
monsters." Then, a while afterwards, when extolling the natural theology, he had 
expounded the sentiments of certain philosophers, he opposes to himself a 
question, and says, "Here some one says, Shall I believe that the heavens and 
the earth are gods, and that some are above the moon and some below it? Shall I 
bring forward either Plato or the peripatetic Strato, one of whom made God to be 
without a body, the other without a mind?" In answer to which he says, "And, 
really, what truer do the dreams of Titus Tatius, or Romulus, or Tullus 
Hostilius appear to thee? Tatius declared the divinity of the goddess Cloacina; 
Romulus that of Picus and Tiberinus; Tullus Hostilius that of Pavor and Pallor, 
the most disagreeable affections of men, the one of which is the agitation of 
the mind under fright, the other that of the body, not a disease, indeed, but a 
change of color." Wilt thou rather believe that these are deities, and receive 
them into heaven? But with what freedom he has written concerning the rites 
themselves, cruel and shameful ! "One," he says, "castrates himself, another 
cuts his arms. Where will they find room for the fear of these gods when angry, 
who use such means of gaining their favor when propitious? But gods who wish to 
be worshipped in this fashion should be worshipped in none. So great is the 
frenzy of the mind when perturbed and driven from its seat, that the gods are 
propitiated by men in a manner in which not even men of the greatest ferocity 
and fable-renowned cruelty vent their rage. Tyrants have lacerated the limbs of 
some; they never ordered any one to lacerate his own. For the gratification of 
royal lust, some have been castrated; but no one ever, by the command of his 
lord, laid violent hands on himself to emasculate himself. They kill themselves 
in the temples. They supplicate with their wounds and with their blood. If any 
one has time to see the things they do and the things they suffer, he will find 
so many things unseemly for men of respectability, so unworthy of freemen, so 
unlike the doings of sane men, that no one would doubt that they are mad, had 
they been mad with the minority; but now the multitude of the insane is the 
defence of their sanity." 
He next relates those things which are wont to be done in the Capitol, and with 
the utmost intrepidity insists that they are such things as one could only 
believe to be done by men making sport, or by madmen. For having spoken with 
derision of this, that in the Egyptian sacred rites Osiris, being lost, is 
lamented for, but straightway, when found, is the occasion of great joy by his 
reappearance, because both the losing and the finding of him are reigned; and 
yet that grief and that joy which are elicited thereby from those who have lost 
nothing and found nothing are real;--having I say, so spoken of this, he says, 
"Still there is a fixed time for this frenzy. It is tolerable to go mad once in 
the year. Go into the Capitol. One is suggesting divine commands(1) to a god; 
another is telling the hours to Jupiter; one is a lictor; another is an 
anointer, who with the mere movement of his arms imitates one anointing. There 
are women who arrange the hair of Juno and Minerva, standing far away not only 
from her image, but even from her temple. These move their fingers in the manner 
of hairdressers. There are some women who hold a mirror. There are some who are 
calling the gods to assist them in court. There are some who are holding up 
documents to them, and are explaining to them their cases. A learned and 
distinguished comedian, now old and decrepit, was daily playing the mimic in the 
Capitol, as though the gods would gladly be spectators of that which men had 
ceased to care about. Every kind of artificers working for the immortal gods is 
dwelling there in idleness." And a little after he says, "Nevertheless these, 
though they give themselves up to the gods for purposes superflous enough, do 
not do so for any abominable or infamous purpose. There sit certain women in the 
Capitol who think they are beloved by Jupiter; nor are they frightened even by 
the look of the, if you will believe the poets, most wrathful Juno." 
This liberty Varro did not enjoy. It was only the poetical theology he seemed to 
censure. The civil, which this man cuts to pieces, he was not bold enough to 
impugn. But if we attend to the truth, the temples where these things are 
performed are far worse than the theatres where they are represented. Whence, 
with respect to these sacred rites of the civil theology, Seneca preferred, as 
the best course to be followed by a wise man, to feign respect for them in act, 
but to have no real regard for them at heart. "All which things," he says, "a 
wise man will observe as being commanded by the laws, but not as being pleasing 
to the gods." And a little after he says, "And what of this, that we unite the 
gods in marriage, and that not even naturally, for we join brothers and sisters? 
We marry Bellona to Mars, Venus to Vulcan, Salacia to Neptune. Some of them we 
leave unmarried, as though there were no match for them, which is surely 
needless, especially when there are certain unmarried goddesses, as Populonia, 
or Fulgora, or the goddess Rumina, for whom I am not astonished that suitors 
have been awanting. All this ignoble crowd of gods, which the superstition of 
ages has amassed, we ought," he says, "to adore in such a way as to remember all 
the while that its worship belongs rather to custom than to reality." Wherefore, 
neither those laws nor customs instituted in the civil theology that which was 
pleasing to the gods, or which pertained to reality. But this man, whom 
philosophy had made, as it were, free, nevertheless, because he was an 
illustrious senator of the Roman people, worshipped what he censured, did what 
he condemned, adored what he reproached, because, forsooth, philosophy had 
taught him something great,--namely, not to be superstitious in the world, but, 
on account of the laws of cities and the customs of men, to be an actor, not on 
the stage, but in the temples,--conduct the more to be condemned, that those 
things which he was deCeitfully acting he so acted that the people thought he 
was acting sincerely. But a stage-actor would rather delight people by acting 
plays than take them in by false pretences. 
CHAP. 11.--WHAT SENECA THOUGHT CONCERNING THE JEWS. 
Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology, also found fault with 
the sacred things of the Jews, and especially the sabbaths, affirming that they 
act uselessly in keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idleness 
about the seventh part of their life, and also many things which demand 
immediate attention are damaged. The Christians, however, who were already most 
hostile to the Jews, he did not dare to mention, either for praise or blame, 
lest, if he praised them, he should do so against the ancient custom of his 
country, or, perhaps, if he should blame them, he should do so against his own 
will. 
When he was speaking concerning those Jews, he said, "When, meanwhile, the 
customs of that most accursed nation have gained such strength that they have 
been now received in all lands, the conquered have given laws to the 
conquerors." By these words he expresses his astonishment; and, not knowing what 
the providence of God was leading him to say, subjoins in plain words an opinion 
by which he showed what he thought about the meaning of those sacred 
institutions: "For," he says, "those, however, know the cause of their rites, 
whilst the greater part of the people know not why they perform theirs." But 
concerning the solemnities of the Jews, either why or how far they were 
instituted by divine authority, and afterwards, in due time, by the same 
authority taken away from the people of God, to whom the mystery of eternal life 
was revealed, we have both spoken elsewhere, especially when we were treating 
against the Manichaeans, and also intend to speak in this work in a more 
suitable place. 
CHAP. 12.--THAT WHEN ONCE THE VANITY OF THE GODS OF THE NATIONS HAS BEEN 
EXPOSED, IT CANNOT BE DOUBTED THAT THEY ARE UNABLE TO BESTOW ETERNAL LIFE ON ANY 
ONE, WHEN THEY CANNOT AFFORD HELPEVEN WITH RESPECTTO THE THINGS OFTHIS TEMPORAL 
LIFE. 
Now, since there are three theologies, which the Greeks call respectively 
mythical, physical, and political, and which may be called in Latin fabulous, 
natural, and civil; and since neither from the fabulous, which even the 
worshippers of many and false gods have themselves most freely censured, nor 
from the civil, of which that is convicted of being a part, or even worse than 
it, can eternal life be hoped for from any of these theologies,--if any one 
thinks that what has been said in this book is not enough for him, let him also 
add to it the many and various dissertations concerning God as the giver of 
felicity, contained in the former books, especially the fourth one. 
For to what but to felicity should men consecrate themselves, were felicity a 
goddess? However, as it is not a goddess, but a gift of God, to what God but the 
giver of happiness ought we to consecrate ourselves, who piously love eternal 
life, in which there is true and full felicity? But I think, from what has been 
said, no one ought to doubt that none of those gods is the giver of happiness, 
who are worshipped with such shame, and who, if they are not so worshipped, are 
more shamefully enraged, and thus confess that they are most foul spirits. 
Moreover, how can he give eternal life who cannot give happiness? For we mean by 
eternal life that life where there is endless happiness. For if the soul live in 
eternal punishments, by which also those unclean spirits shall be tormented, 
that is rather eternal death than eternal life. For there is no greater or worse 
death than when death never dies. But because the soul from its very nature, 
being created immortal, cannot be without some kind of life, its utmost death is 
alienation from the life of God in an eternity of punishment. So, then, He only 
who gives true happiness gives eternal life, that is, an endlessly happy life. 
And since those gods whom this civil theology worships have been proved to be 
unable to give this happiness, they ought not to be worshipped on account of 
those temporal and terrestrial things, as we showed in the five former books, 
much less on account of eternal life, which is to be after death, as we have 
sought to show in this one book especially, whilst the other books also lend it 
their co-operation. But since the strength of inveterate habit has its roots 
very deep, if any one thinks that I have not disputed sufficiently to show that 
this civil theology ought to be rejected and shunned, let him attend to another 
book which, with God's help, is to be joined to this one.