BOOK VII. 
ARGUMENT. 
IN THIS BOOK IT IS SHOWN THAT ETERNAL LIFE IS NOT OBTAINED BY THE WORSHIP OF 
JANUS, 
JUPITER, SATURN, AND THE OTHER "SELECT GODS" OF THE CIVIL THEOLOGY. 
PREFACE. 
IT will be the duty of those who are endowed with quicker and better 
understandings, in whose case the former books are sufficient, and more than 
sufficient, to effect their intended object, to bear with me with patience and 
equanimity whilst I attempt with more than ordinary diligence to tear up and 
eradicate depraved and ancient opinions hostile to the truth of piety, which the 
long-continued error of the human race has fixed very deeply in unenlightened 
minds; co-operating also in this, according to my little measure, with the grace 
of Him who, being the true God, is able to accomplish it, and on whose help I 
depend in my work; and, for the sake of others, such should not deem superfluous 
what they feel to be no longer necessary for themselves. A very great matter is 
at stake when the true and truly holy divinity is commended to men as that which 
they ought to seek after and to worship; not, however, on account of the 
transitory vapor of mortal life, but on account of life eternal, which alone is 
blessed, although the help necessary for this frail life we are now living is 
also afforded us by it. 
CHAP. 1.-- WHETHER, SINCE IT IS EVIDENT THAT DEITY IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE 
CIVIL THEOLOGY, WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS TO BE FOUND IN THE SELECT GODS. 
If there is any one whom the sixth book, which I have last finished, has not 
persuaded that this divinity, or, so to speak, deity--for this word also our 
authors do not hesitate to use, in order to translate more accurately that which 
the Greeks call <greek>qeoths</greek>;--if there is any one, I say, whom the 
sixth book has not persuaded that this divinity or deity is not to be found in 
that theology which they call civil, and which Marcus Varro has explained in 
sixteen books,--that is, that the happiness of eternal life is not attainable 
through the worship of gods such as states have established to be worshipped, 
and that in such a form,--perhaps, when he has read this book, he will not have 
anything further to desire in order to the clearing up of this question. For it 
is possible that some one may think that at least the select and chief gods, 
whom Varro comprised in his last book, and of whom we have not spoken 
sufficiently, are to be worshipped on account of the blessed life, which is none 
other than eternal. In respect to which matter I do not say what Tertullian 
said, perhaps more wittily than truly, "If gods are selected like onions, 
certainly the rest are rejected as bad."(1) I do not say this, for I see that 
even from among the select, some are selected for some greater and more 
excellent office: as in warfare, when recruits have been elected, there are some 
again elected from among those for the performance of some greater military 
service; and in the church, when persons are elected to be overseers, certainly 
the rest are not rejected, since all good Christians are deservedly called 
elect; in the erection of a building corner-stones are elected, though the other 
stones, which are destined for other parts of the structure, are not rejected; 
grapes are elected for eating, whilst the others, which we leave for drinking, 
are not rejected. There is no need of adducing many illustrations, since the 
thing is evident. Wherefore the selection of certain gods from among many 
affords no proper reason why either he who wrote on this subject, or the 
worshippers of the gods, or the gods themselves, should be spurned. We ought 
rather to seek to know what gods these are, and for what purpose they may appear 
to have been selected 
CHAP. 2.--WHO ARE THE SELECT GODS, AND WHETHER THEY ARE HELD TO BE EXEMPT FROM 
THE OFFICES OF THE COMMONER GODS. 
The following gods, certainly, Varro signalizes as select, devoting one book to 
this subject: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, 
Neptune, Sol, Orcus, father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, 
Venus, Vesta; of which twenty gods, twelve are males, and eight females. Whether 
are these deities called select, because of their higher spheres of 
administration in the world, or because they have become better known to the 
people, and more worship has been expended on them ? If it be on account of the 
greater works which are performed by them in the world, we ought not to have 
found them among that, as it were, plebeian crowd of deities, which has assigned 
to it the charge of minute and trifling things. For, first of all, at the 
conception of a foetus, from which point all the works commence which have been 
distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus himself opens the way for 
the reception of the seed; there also is Saturn, on account of the seed itself; 
there is Liber," who liberates the male by the effusion of the seed; there is 
Libera, whom they also would have to be Venus, who confers this same benefit on 
the woman, namely, that she also be liberated by the emission of the seed;--all 
these are of the number of those who are called select. But there is also the 
goddess Mena, who presides over the menses; though the daughter of Jupiter, 
ignoble nevertheless. And this province of the menses the same author, in his 
book on the select gods, assigns to Juno herself, who is even queen among the 
select gods; and here, as Juno Lucina, along with the same Mena, her 
stepdaughter, she presides over the same blood. There also are two gods, 
exceedingly obscure, Vitumnus and Sentinus--the one of whom imparts life to the 
foetus, and the other sensation; and, of a truth, they bestow, most ignoble 
though they be, far more than alI those noble and select gods bestow. For, 
surely, without life and sensation, what is the whole foetus which a woman 
carries in her womb, but a most vile and worthless thing, no better than slime 
and dust ? 
CHAP. 3.--HOW THERE IS NO REASON WHICH CAN BE SHOWN FOR THE SELECTION OF CERTAIN 
GODS, WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION OF MORE EXALTED OFFICES IS ASSIGNED TO MANY 
INFERIOR GODS. 
What is the cause, therefore, which has driven so many select gods to these very 
small works, in which they are excelled by Vitumnus and Sentinus, though little 
known and sunk in obscurity, inasmuch as they confer the munificent gifts of 
life and sensation? For the select Janus bestows an entrance, and, as it were, a 
door(2) for the seed; the select Saturn bestows the seed itself; the select 
Liber bestows on men the emission of the same seed; Libera, who is Ceres or 
Venus, confers the same on women; the select Juno confers (not alone, but 
together with Mena, the daughter of Jupiter) the menses, for the growth of that 
which has been conceived; and the obscure and ignoble Vitumnus confers life, 
whilst the obscure and ignoble Sentinus confers sensation;--which two last 
things are as much more excellent than the others, as they themselves are 
excelled by reason and intellect. For as those things which reason and 
understand are preferable to those which, without intellect and reason, as in 
the case of cattle, live and feel; so also those things which have been endowed 
with life and sensation are deservedly preferred to those things which neither 
live nor feel. Therefore Vitumnus the life-giver,(3) and Sentinus the 
sense-giver,(4) ought to have been reckoned among the select gods, rather than 
Janus the admitter of seed, and Saturn the giver or sewer of seed, and Liber and 
Libera the movers and liberators of seed; which seed is not worth a thought, 
unless it attain to life and sensation. Yet these select gifts are not given by 
select gods, but by certain unknown, and, considering their dignity, neglected 
gods. But if it be replied that Janus has dominion over all beginnings, and 
therefore the opening of the way for conception is not without reason assigned 
to him; and that Saturn has dominion over all seeds, and therefore the sowing of 
the seed whereby a human being is generated cannot be excluded from his 
operation; that Liber and Libera have power over the emission of all seeds, and 
therefore preside over those seeds which pertain to the procreation of men; that 
Juno presides over all purgations and births, and therefore she has also charge 
of the purgations of women and the births of human beings;--if they give this 
reply, let them find an answer to the question concerning Vitumnus and Sentinus, 
whether they are willing that these likewise should have dominion over all 
things which live and feel. If they grant this, let them observe in how sublime 
a position they are about to place them. For to spring from seeds is in the 
earth and of the earth, but to live and feel are supposed to be properties even 
of the sidereal gods. But if they say that only such things as come to life in 
flesh, and are supported by senses, are assigned to Sentinus, why does not that 
God who made all things live and feel, bestow on flesh also life and sensation, 
in the universality of His operation conferring also on foe-ruses this gift? And 
what, then, is the use of Vitumnus and Sentinus? But if these, as it were, 
extreme and lowest things have been committed by Him who presides universally 
over life and sense to these gods as to servants, are these select gods then so 
destitute of servants, that they could not find any to whom even they might 
commit those things, but with all their dignity, for which they are, it seems, 
deemed worthy to be selected, were compelled to perform their work along with 
ignoble ones? Juno is select queen of the gods, and the sister and wife of 
Jupiter; nevertheless she is Iterduca, the conductor, to boys, and performs this 
work along with a most ignoble pair--the goddesses Abeona and Adeona. There they 
have also placed the goddess Mena, who gives to boys a good mind, and she is not 
placed among the select gods; as if anything greater could be bestowed on a man 
than a good mind. But Juno is placed among the select because she is Iterduca 
and Domiduca (she who conducts one on a journey, and who conducts him home 
again); as if it is of any advantage for one to make a journey, and to be 
conducted home again, if his mind is not good. And yet the goddess who bestows 
that gift has not been placed by the selectors among the select gods, though she 
ought indeed to have been preferred even to Minerva, to whom, in this minute 
distribution of work, they have allotted the memory of boys. For who will doubt 
that it is a far better thing to have a good mind, than ever so great a memory? 
For no one is bad who has a good mind;(1) but some who are very bad are 
possessed of an admirable memory, and are so much the worse, the less they are 
able to forget the bad things which they think. And yet Minerva is among the 
select gods, whilst the goddess Mena is hidden by a worthless crowd. What shall 
I say concerning Virtus? What concerning Felicitas?--concerning whom I have 
already spoken much in the fourth book;(2) to whom, though they held them to be 
goddesses, they have not thought fit to assign a place among the select gods, 
among whom they have given a place to Mars and Orcus, the one the causer of 
death, the other the receiver of the dead. 
Since, therefore, we see that even the select gods themselves work together with 
the others, like a senate with the people, in all those minute works which have 
been minutely portioned out among many gods; and since we find that far greater 
and better things are administered by certain gods who have not been reckoned 
worthy to be selected than by those who are called select, it remains that we 
suppose that they were called select and chief, not on account of their holding 
more exalted offices in the world, but because it happened to them to become 
better known to the people. And even Varro himself says, that in that way 
obscurity had fallen to the lot of some father gods and mother goddesses,(3) as 
it fails to the lot of man. If, therefore, Felicity ought not perhaps to have 
been put among the select gods, because they did not attain to that noble 
position by merit, but by chance, Fortune at least should have been placed among 
them, or rather before them; for they say that that goddess distributes to every 
one the gifts she receives, not according to any rational arrangement, but 
according as chance may determine. She ought to have held the uppermost place 
among the select gods, for among them chiefly it is that she shows what power 
she has. For we see that they have been selected not on account of some eminent 
virtue or rational happiness, but by that random power of Fortune which the 
worshippers of these gods think that she exerts. For that most eloquent man 
Sallust also may perhaps have the gods themselves in view when he says: "But, in 
truth, fortune rules in everything; it renders all things famous or obscure, 
according to caprice rather than according to truth."(4) For they cannot 
discover a reason why Venus should have been made famous, whilst Virtus has been 
made obscure, when the divinity of both of them has been solemnly recognized by 
them, and their merits are not to be compared. Again, if she has deserved a 
noble position on account of the fact that she is much sought after--for there 
are more who seek after Venus than after Virtus--why has Minerva been celebrated 
whilst Pecunia has been left in obscurity, although throughout the whole human 
race avarice allures a far greater number than skill? And even among those who 
are skilled in the arts, you will rarely find a man who does not practise his 
own art for the purpose of pecuniary gain; and that for the sake of which 
anything is made, is always valued more than that which is made for the sake of 
something else. If, then, this selection ofs has been made by the judgment of 
the foolish multitude, why has not the goddess Pecunia been preferred to 
Minerva, since there are many artificers for the sake of money? But if this 
distinction has been made by the few. wise, why has Virtus been preferred to 
Venus, when reason by far prefers the former ? At all events, as I have already 
said, Fortune herself--who, according to those who attribute most influence to 
her, renders all things famous or obscure according to caprice rather than 
according to the truth--since she has been able to exercise so much power even 
over the gods, as, according to her capricious judgment, to render those of them 
famous whom she would, and those obscure whom she would; Fortune herself ought 
to occupy the place of pre-eminence among the select gods, since over them also 
she has such pre-eminent power. Or must we suppose that the reason why she is 
not among the select is simply this, that even. Fortune herself has had an 
adverse fortune? She was adverse, then, to herself, since, whilst ennobling 
others, she herself has remained obscure. 
CHAP. 4.--THE INFERIOR GODS, WHOSE NAMES ARE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH INFAMY, HAVE 
BEEN BETTER DEALT WITH THAN THE SELECT GODS, WHOSE INFAMIES ARE CELEBRATED. 
However, any one who eagerly seeks for celebrity and renown, might congratulate 
those select gods, and call them fortunate, were it not that he saw that they 
have been selected more to their injury than to their honor. For that low crowd 
of gods have been protected by their very meanness and obscurity from being 
overwhelmed with infamy. We laugh, indeed, when we see them distributed by the 
mere fiction of human opinions, according to the special works assigned to them, 
like those who farm small portions of the public revenue, or like workmen in the 
street of the silversmiths,(1) where one vessel, in order that it may go out 
perfect, passes through the hands of many, when it might have been finished by 
one perfect workman. But the only reason why the combined skill of many workmen 
was thought necessary, was, that it is better that each part of an art should be 
learned by a special workman, which can be done speedily and easily, than that 
they should all be compelled to be perfect in one art throughout all its parts, 
which they could only attain slowly and with difficulty. Nevertheless there is 
scarcely to be found one of the non-select gods who has brought infamy on 
himself by any crime, whilst there is scarce any one of the select gods who has 
not received upon himself the brand of notable infamy. These latter have 
descended to the humble works of the others, whilst the others have not come up 
to their sublime crimes. Concerning Janus, there does not readily occur to my 
recollection anything infamous; and perhaps he was such an one as lived more 
innocently than the rest, and further removed from misdeeds and crimes. He 
kindly received and entertained Saturn when he was fleeing; he divided his 
kingdom with his guest, so that each of them had a city for himself,(2) the one 
Janiculum, and the other Saturnia. But those seekers after every kind of 
unseemliness in the worship of the gods have disgraceed him, whose life they 
found to be less disgracful than that of the other gods, with an image of 
monstrous deformity, making it sometimes with two faces, and sometimes, as it 
were, double, with four faces.(3) Did they wish that, as the most of the select 
gods had lost shame(4) through the perpetration of shameful crimes, his greater 
innocence should be marked by a greater number of faces?(5) 
CHAP. 5 .--CONCERNING THE MORE SECRET DOCTRINE OF THE PAGANS, AND CONCERNING THE 
PHYSICAL INTERPRETATIONS. 
But let us hear their own physical interpretations by which they attempt to 
color, as with the appearance of profounder doctrine, the baseness of most 
miserable error. Varro, in the first place, commends these interpretations so 
strongly as to say, that the ancients invented the images, badges, and 
adornments of the gods, in order that when those who went to the mysteries 
should see them with their bodily eyes, they might with the eyes of their mind 
see the soul of the world, and its parts, that is, the true gods; and also that 
the meaning which was intended by those who made their images with the human 
form, seemed to be this,--namely, that the mind of mortals, which is in a human 
body, is very like to the immortal mind,(6) just as vessels might be placed to 
represent the gods, as, for instance, a wine-vessel might be placed in the 
temple of Liber, to signify wine, that which is contained being signified by 
that which contains. Thus by an image which had the human form the rational soul 
was signified, because the human form is the vessel, as it were, in which that 
nature is wont to be contained which they attribute to God, or to the gods. 
These are the mysteries of doctrine to which that most learned man penetrated in 
order that he might bring them forth to the light. But, O thou most acute man, 
hast thou lost among those mysteries that prudence which led thee to form the 
sober opinion, that those who first established those images for the people took 
away fear from the citizens and added error, and that the ancient Romans honored 
the gods more chastely without images? For it was through consideration of them 
that thou wast emboldened to speak these things against the later Romans. For if 
those most ancient Romans also had worshipped images, perhaps thou wouldst have 
suppressed by the silence of fear all those sentiments (true sentiments, 
nevertheless) concerning the folly of setting up images, and wouldst have 
extolled more loftily, and more loquaciously, those mysterious doctrines 
consisting of these vain and pernicious fictions. Thy soul, so learned and so 
clever (and for this I grieve much for thee), could never through these 
mysteries have reached its God; that is, the God by whom, not with whom, it was 
made, of whom it is not a part, but a work,--that God who is not the soul of all 
things, but who made every soul, and in whose light alone every soul is blessed, 
if it be not ungrateful for His grace. 
But the things which follow in this book will show what is the nature of these 
mysteries, and what value is to be set upon them. Meanwhile, this most learned 
man confesses, as his opinion that the soul of the world and its parts are the 
true gods, from which we perceive that his theology (to wit, that same natural 
theology to which he pays great regard) has been able, in its completeness, to 
extend itself even to the nature of the rational soul. For in this book 
(concerning the select gods) he says a very few things by anticipation 
concerning the natural theology; and we shall see whether he has been able in 
that book, by means of physical interpretations, to refer to this natural 
theology that civil theology, concerning which he wrote last when treating of 
the select gods. Now, if he has been able to do this, the whole is natural; and 
in that case, what need was there for distinguishing so carefully the civil from 
the natural? But if it has been distinguished by a veritable distinction, then, 
since not even this natural theology with which he is so much pleased is true 
(for though it has reached as far as the soul, it has not reached to the true 
God who made the soul), how much more contemptible and false is that civil 
theology which is chiefly occupied about what is corporeal, as will be shown by 
its very interpretations, which they have with such diligence sought out and 
enucleated, some of which I must necessarily mention ! 
CHAP. 6.--CONCERNING THE OPINION OF VARRO, THAT GOD IS THE SOUL OF THE WORLD, 
WHICH NEVERTHELESS, IN ITS VARIOUS PARTS, HAS MANY SOULS WHOSE NATURE IS DIVINE. 

The same Varro, then, still speaking by anticipation, says that he thinks that 
God is the soul of the world (which the Greeks call 
<s,220><greek>osmos</greek>), and that this world itself is God; but as a wise 
man, though he consists of body and mind, is nevertheless called wise on account 
of his mind, so the world is called God on account of mind, although it consists 
of mind and body. Here he seems, in some fashion at least, to acknowledge one 
God; but that he may introduce more, he adds that the world is divided into two 
parts, heaven and earth, which are again divided each into two parts, heaven 
into ether and air, earth into water and land, of all which the ether is the 
highest, the air second, the water third, and the earth the lowest. All these 
four parts, he says, are full of souls; those which are in the ether and air 
being immortal, and those which are in the water and on the earth mortal. From 
the highest part of the heavens to the orbit of the moon there are souls, 
namely, the stars and planets; and these are not only understood to be gods, but 
are seen to be such. And between the orbit of the moon and the commencement of 
the region of clouds and winds there are aerial souls; but these are seen with 
the mind, not with the eyes, and are called Heroes, and Lares, and Genii. This 
is the natural theology which is briefly set forth in these anticipatory 
statements, and which satisfied not Varro only, but many philosophers besides. 
This I must discuss more carefully, when, with the help of God, I shall have 
completed what I have yet to say concerning the civil theology, as far as it 
concerns the select gods. 
CHAP. 7.--WHETHER IT IS REASONABLE TO SEPARATE JANUS AND TERMINUS AS TWO 
DISTINCT DEITIES. 
Who, then, is Janus, with whom Varro commences? He is the world. Certainly a 
very brief and unambiguous reply. Why, then, do they say that the beginnings of 
things pertain to him, but the ends to another whom they call Terminus? For they 
say that two months have been dedicated to these two gods, with reference to 
beginnings and ends--January to Janus, and February to Terminus-over and above 
those ten months which commence with March and end with December. And they say 
that that is the reason why the Terminalia are celebrated in the month of 
February, the same month in which the sacred purification is made which they 
call Februum, and from which the month derives its name.[1] Do the beginnings of 
things, therefore, pertain to the world, which is Janus, and not also the ends, 
since another god has been placed over them? Do they not own that all things 
which they say begin in this world also come to an end in this world? What folly 
it is, to give him only half power in work, when in his image they give him two 
faces! Would it not be a far more elegant way of interpreting the two-faced 
image, to say that Janus and Terminus are the same, and that the one face has 
reference to beginnings, the other to ends? For one who works ought to have 
respect to both. For he who in every forthputting of activity does not look back 
on the beginning, does not look forward to the end. Wherefore it is necessary 
that prospective intention be connected with retrospective memory. For how shall 
one find how to finish anything, if he has forgotten what it was which he had 
begun? But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this world, and 
perfected beyond the world, and for that reason attributed to Janus, that is, to 
the world, only the power of beginnings, they should certainly have preferred 
Terminus to him, and should not have shut him out from the number of the select 
gods. Yet even now, when the beginnings and ends of temporal things are 
represented by these two gods, more honor ought to have been given to Terminus. 
For the greater joy is that which is felt when anything is finished; but things 
begun are always cause of much anxiety until they are brought to an end, which 
end he who begins anything very greatly longs for, fixes his mind on, expects, 
desires; nor does any one ever rejoice over anything he has begun, unless it be 
brought to an end. 
CHAP. 8.--FOR WHAT REASON THE WORSHIPPERS OF JANUS HAVE MADE HIS IMAGE WITH TWO 
FACES, WHEN THEY WOULD SOMETIMES HAVE IT BE SEEN WITH FOUR. 
But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be produced. For they say 
that it has two faces, one before and one behind, because our gaping mouths seem 
to resemble the world: whence the Greeks call the palate 
<greek>ou?rno?s</greek>, and some Latin poets,[2] he says, have called the 
heavens palatum [the palate]; and from the gaping mouth, they say, there is a 
way out in the direction of the teeth, and a way in in the direction of the 
gullet. See what the world has been brought to on account of a Greek or a 
poetical word for our palate! Let this god be worshipped only on account of 
saliva, which has two open doorways under the heavens of the palate,--one 
through which part of it may be spitten out, the other through which part of it 
may be swallowed down. Besides, what is more absurd than not to find in the 
world itself two doorways opposite to each other, through which it may either 
receive anything into itself, or cast it out from itself; and to seek of our 
throat and gullet, to which the world has no resemblance, to make up an image of 
the world in Janus, because the world is said to resemble the palate, to which 
Janus bears no likeness? But when they make him four-faced, and call him double 
Janus, they interpret this as having reference to the four quarters of the 
world, as though the world looked out on anything, like Janus through his four 
faces. Again, if Janus is the world, and the world consists of four quarters, 
then the image of the two-faced Janus is false. Or if it is true, because the 
whole world is sometimes understood by the expression east and west, will any 
one call the world double when north and south also are mentioned, as they call 
Janus double when he has four faces? They have no way at all of interpreting, in 
relation to the world, four doorways by which to go in and to come out as they 
did in the case of the two-faced Janus, where they found, at any rate in the 
human mouth, something which answered to what they said about him; unless 
perhaps Neptune come to their aid, and hand them a fish, which, besides the 
mouth and gullet, has also the openings of the gills, one on each side. 
Nevertheless, with all the doors, no soul escapes this vanity but that one which 
hears the truth saying, "I am the door. "[3] 
CHAP. 9.--CONCERNING THE POWER OF JUPITER, AND A COMPARISON OF JUPITER WITH 
JANUS. 
But they also show whom they would have Jove (who is also called Jupiter) 
understood to be. He is the god, say they, who has the power of the causes by 
which anything comes to be in the world. And how great a thing this is, that 
most noble verse of Virgil testifies: 
"Happy is he who has learned the causes of things."[4] 
But why is Janus preferred to him? Let that most acute and most learned man 
answer us this question. "Because," says he, "Janus has dominion over first 
things, Jupiter over highest[1] things. Therefore Jupiter is deservedly held to 
be the king of all things; for highest things are better than first things: for 
although first things precede in time, highest things excel by dignity." 
Now this would have been rightly said had the first parts of things which are 
done been distinguished from the highest parts; as, for instance, it is the 
beginning of a thing done to set out, the highest part to arrive. The commencing 
to learn is the first part of a thing begun, the acquirement of knowledge is the 
highest part. And so of all things: the beginnings are first, the ends highest. 
This matter, however, has been already discussed in connection with Janus and 
Terminus. But the causes which are attributed to Jupiter are things effecting, 
not things effected; and it is impossible for them to be prevented in time by 
things which are made or done, or by the beginnings of such things; for the 
thing which makes is always prior to the thing which is made. Therefore, though 
the beginnings of things which are made or done pertain to Janus, they are 
nevertheless not prior to the efficient causes which they attribute to Jupiter. 
For as nothing takes place without being preceded by an efficient cause, so 
without an efficient cause nothing begins to take place. Verily, if the people 
call this god Jupiter, in whose power are all the causes of all natures which 
have been made, and of all natural things, and worship him with such insults and 
infamous criminations, they are guilty of more shocking sacrilege than if they 
should totally deny the existence of any god. It would therefore be better for 
them to call some other god by the name of Jupiter--some one worthy of base and 
criminal honors; substituting instead of Jupiter some vain fiction (as Saturn is 
said to have had a stone given to him to devour instead of his son,) which they 
might make the subject of their blasphemies, rather than speak of that god as 
both thundering and committing adultery, -- ruling the whole world, and laying 
himself out for the commission of so many licentious acts,-having in his power 
nature and the highest causes of all natural things, but not having his own 
causes good. 
Next, I ask what place they find any longer for this Jupiter among the gods, if 
Janus is the world; for Varro defined the true gods to be the soul of the world, 
and the parts of it. And therefore whatever falls not within this definition, is 
certainly not a true god, according to them. Will they then say that Jupiter is 
the soul of the world, and Janus the body --that is, this visible world? If they 
say this, it will not be possible for them to affirm that Janus is a god. For 
even, according to them, the body of the world is not a god, but the soul of the 
world and its parts. Wherefore Varro, seeing this, says that he thinks God is 
the soul of the world, and that this world itself is God; but that as a wise man 
though he consists of soul and body, is nevertheless called wise from the soul, 
so the world is called God from the soul, though it consists of soul and body. 
Therefore the body of the world alone is not God, but either the soul of it 
alone, or the soul and the body together, yet so as that it is God not by virtue 
of the body, but by virtue of the soul. If, therefore, Janus is the world, and 
Janus is a god, will they say, in order that Jupiter may be a god, that he is 
some part of Janus? For they are wont rather to attribute universal existence to 
Jupiter; whence the saying, "All things are full of Jupiter."[2] Therefore they 
must think Jupiter also, in order that he may be a god, and especially king of 
the gods, to be the world, that he may rule over the other gods--according to 
them, his parts. To this effect, also, the same Varro expounds certain verses of 
Valerius Soranus[3] in that book which he wrote apart from the others concerning 
the worship of the gods. These are the verses: 
"Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and 
gods, And eke the mother of the gods, god one and all." 
But in the same book he expounds these verses by saying that as the male emits 
seed, and the female receives it, so Jupiter, whom they believed to be the 
world, both emits all seeds from himself and receives them into himself. For 
which reason, he says, Soranus wrote, "Jove, progenitor and mother;" and with no 
less reason said that one and all were the same. For the world is one, and in 
that one are all things. 
CHAP. 10.--WHETHER THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN JANUS AND JUPITER IS A PROPER ONE. 
Since, therefore, Janus is the world, and Jupiter is the world, wherefore are 
Janus and Jupiter two gods, while the world is but one? Why do they have 
separate temples, separate altars, different rites, dissimilar images? If it be 
because the nature of beginnings is one and the nature of causes another, and 
the one has received the name of Janus, the other of Jupiter; is it then the 
case, that if one man has two distinct offices of authority, or two arts, two 
judges or two artificers are spoken of, because the nature of the offices or the 
arts is different? So also with respect to one god: if he have the power of 
beginnings and of causes, must he therefore be thought to be two gods, because 
beginnings and causes are two things? But if they think that this is right, let 
them also affirm that Jupiter is as many gods as they have given him surnames, 
on account of many powers; for the things from which these surnames are applied 
to him are many and diverse. I shall mention a few of them. 
CHAP. 11 -- CONCERNING THE SURNAMES OF JUPITER, WHICH ARE REFERRED NOT TO MANY 
GODS, BUT TO ONE AND THE SAME GOD. 
They have called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor, Stator, Centumpeda, 
Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Ruminus, and other names which it were long to 
enumerate. But these surnames they have given to one god on account of diverse 
causes and powers, but yet have not compelled him to be, on account of so many 
things, as many gods. They gave him these surnames because he conquered all 
things; because he was conquered by none; because he brought help to the needy; 
because he had the power of impelling, stopping, stablishing, throwing on the 
back; because as a beam[1] he held together and sustained the world; because he 
nourished all things; because, like the pap,[2] he nourished animals. Here, we 
perceive, are some great things and some small things; and yet it is one who is 
said to perform them all. I think that the causes and the beginnings of things, 
on account of which they have thought that the one world is two gods, Jupiter 
and Janus, are nearer to each other than the holding together of the world, and 
the giving of the pap to animals; and yet, on account of these two works so far 
apart from each other, both in nature and dignity, there has not been any 
necessity for the existence of two gods; but one Jupiter has been called, on 
account of the one Tigillus, on account of the other Ruminus. I am unwilling to 
say that the giving of the pap to sucking animals might have become Juno rather 
than Jupiter, especially when there was the goddess Rumina to help and to serve 
her in this work; for I think it may be replied that Juno herself is nothing 
else than Jupiter, according to those verses of Valerius Soranus, where it has 
been said: 
"Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and 
gods, And eke the mother of the gods," etc. 
Why, then, was he called Ruminus, when they who may perchance inquire more 
diligently may find that he is also that goddess Rumina? 
If, then, it was rightly thought unworthy of the majesty of the gods, that in 
one ear of corn one god should have the care of the joint, another that of the 
husk, how much more unworthy of that majesty is it, that one thing, and that of 
the lowest kind, even the giving of the pap to animals that they may be 
nourished, should be under the care of two gods, one of whom is Jupiter himself, 
the very king of all things, who does this not along with his own wife, but with 
some ignoble Rumina (unless perhaps he himself is Rumina, being Ruminus for 
males and Rumina for females) ! I should certainly have said that they had been 
unwilling to apply to Jupiter a feminine name, had he not been styled in these 
verses "progenitor and mother," and had I not read among other surnames of his 
that of Pecunia [money], which we found as a goddess among those petty deities, 
as I have already mentioned in the fourth book. But since both males and females 
have money [pecuniam], why has he not been called both Pecunius and Pecunia? 
That is their concern. 
CHAP. 12.--THAT JUPITER IS ALSO CALLED PE- 
CUNIA. 
How elegantly they have accounted for this name! "He is also called Pecunia," 
say they, "because all things belong to him." Oh how grand an explanation of the 
name of a deity! Yes; he to whom all things belong is most meanly and most 
contumeliously called Pecunia. In comparison of all things which are contained 
by heaven and earth, what are all things together which are possessed by men 
under the name of money?[3] And this name, forsooth, hath avarice given to 
Jupiter, that whoever was a lover of money might seem to himself to love not an 
ordinary god, but the very king of all things himself. But it would be a far 
different thing if he had been called Riches. For riches are one thing, money 
another. For we call rich the wise, the just, the good, who have either no money 
or very little. For they are more truly rich in possessing virtue, since by it, 
even as respects things necessary for the body, they are content with what they 
have. But we call, the greedy poor, who are always craving and always wanting. 
For they may possess ever so great an amount of money; but whatever be the 
abundance of that, they are not able but to want. And we properly call God 
Himself rich; not, however, in money, but in omnipotence. Therefore they who 
have abundance of money are called rich, but inwardly needy if they are greedy. 
So also, those who have no money are called poor, but inwardly rich if they are 
wise. 
What, then, ought the wise man to think of this theology, in which the king of 
the gods receives the name of that thing "which no wise man has desired?"[1] For 
had there been anything wholesomely taught by this philosophy concerning eternal 
life, how much more appropriately would that god who is the ruler of the world 
have been called by them, not money, but wisdom, the love of which purges from 
the filth of avarice, that is, of the love of money! 
CHAP. 13. -- THAT WHEN IT IS EXPOUNDED WHAT SATURN IS, WHAT GENIUS IS, IT COMES 
TO THIS, THAT BOTH OF THEM ARE SHOWN TO BE JUPITER. 
But why speak more of this Jupiter, with whom perchance all the rest are to be 
identified; so that, he being all, the opinion as to the existence of many gods 
may remain as a mere opinion, empty of all truth? And they are all to be 
referred to him, if his various parts and powers are thought of as so many gods, 
or if the principle of mind which they think to be diffused through all things 
has received the names of many gods from the various parts which the mass of 
this visible world combines in itself, and from the manifold administration of 
nature. For what is Saturn also? "One of the principal gods," he says, "who has 
dominion over all sowings." Does not the exposition of the verses of Valerius 
Soranus teach that Jupiter is the world, and that he emits all seeds from 
himself, and receives them into himself? 
It is he, then, with whom is the dominion of all sowings. What is Genius? "He is 
the god who is set over, and has the power of begetting, all things." Who else 
than the world do they believe to have this power, to which it has been said: 
"Almighty Jove, progenitor and mother?" 
And when in another place he says that Genius is the rational soul of every one, 
and therefore exists separately in each individual, but that the corresponding 
soul of the world is God, he just comes back to this same thing, --namely, that 
the soul of the world itself is to be held to be, as it were, the universal 
genius. This, therefore, is what he calls Jupiter. For if every genius is a god, 
and the soul of every man a genius, it follows that the soul of every man is a 
god. But if very absurdity compels even these theologists themselves to shrink 
from this, it remains that they call that genius god by special and pre-eminent 
distinction, whom they call the soul of the world, and therefore Jupiter. 
CHAP. 14.--CONCERNING THE OFFICES OF MERCURY AND MARS. 
But they have not found how to refer Mercury and Mars to any parts of the world, 
and to the works of God which are in the elements; and therefore they have set 
them at least over human works, making them assistants in speaking and in 
carrying on wars. Now Mercury, if he has also the power of the speech of the 
gods, rules also over the king of the gods himself, if Jupiter, as he receives 
from him the faculty of speech, also speaks according as it is his pleasure to 
permit him --which surely is absurd; but if it is only the power over human 
speech which is held to be attributed to him, then we say it is incredible that 
Jupiter should have condescended to give the pap not only to children, but also 
to beasts--from which he has been surnamed Ruminus--and yet should have been 
unwilling that the care of our speech, by which we excel the beasts, should 
pertain to him. And thus speech itself both belongs to Jupiter, and is Mercury. 
But if speech itself is said to be Mercury, as those things which are said 
concerning him by way of interpretation show it to be;--for he is said to have 
been called Mercury, that is, he who runs between,[2] because speech runs 
between men: they say also that the Greeks call him 'E<greek>rmhs</greek>, 
because speech, or interpretation, which certainly belongs to speech, is called 
by them <greek>e?rmhnei?a</greek>: also he is said to preside over payments, 
because speech passes between sellers and buyers: the wings, too, which he has 
on his head and on his feet, they say mean that speech passes winged through the 
air: he is also said to have been called the messenger,[3] because by means of 
speech all our thoughts are expressed;[4]--if, therefore, speech itself is 
Mercury, then, even by their own confession, he is not a god. But when they make 
to themselves gods of such as are not even 
demons, by praying to unclean spirits, they are possessed by such as are not 
gods, but demons. In like manner, because they have not been able to find for 
Mars any element or part of the world in which he might perform some works of 
nature of whatever kind, they have said that he is the god of war, which is a 
work of men, and that not one which is considered desirable by them. If, 
therefore, Felicitas should give perpetual peace, Mars would have nothing to do. 
But if war itself is Mars, as speech is Mercury, I wish it were as true that 
there were no war to be falsely called a god, as it is true that it is not a 
god. 
CHAP. 15.--CONCERNING CERTAIN STARS WHICH THE PAGANS HAVE CALLED BY THE NAMES OF 
THEIR GODS. 
But possibly these stars which have been called by their names are these gods. 
For they call a certain star Mercury, and likewise a certain other star Mars. 
But among those stars which are called by the names of gods, is that one which 
they call Jupiter, and yet with them Jupiter is the world. There also is that 
one they call Saturn, and yet they give to him no small property 
besides,--namely, all seeds. There also is that brightest of them all which is 
called by them Venus, and yet they will have this same Venus to be also the 
moon:--not to mention how Venus and Juno are said by them to contend about that 
most brilliant star, as though about another golden apple. For some say that 
Lucifer belongs to Venus, and some to Juno. But, as usual, Venus conquers. For 
by far the greatest number assign that star to Venus, so much so that there is 
scarcely found one of them who thinks otherwise. But since they call Jupiter the 
king of all, who will not laugh to see his star so far surpassed in brilliancy 
by the star of Venus? For it ought to have been as much more brilliant than the 
rest, as he himself is more powerful. They answer that it it only appears so 
because it is higher up, and very much farther away from the earth. If, 
therefore, its greater dignity has deserved a higher place, why is Saturn higher 
in the heavens than Jupiter? was the vanity of the fable which made Jupiter king 
not able to reach the stars? And has Saturn been permitted to obtain at least in 
the heavens, what he could not obtain in his own kingdom nor in the Capitol? 
But why has Janus received no star? If it is because he is the world, and they 
are all in him, the world is also Jupiter's, and yet he has one. Did Janus 
compromise his case as best he could, and instead of the one star which he does 
not have among the heavenly bodies, accept so many faces on earth? Again, if 
they think that on account of the stars alone Mercury and Mars are parts of the 
world, in order that they may be able to have them for gods, since speech and 
war are not parts of the world, but acts of men, how is it that they have made 
no altars, established no rites, built no temples for Aries, and Taurus, and 
Cancer, and Scorpio, and the rest which they number as the celestial signs, and 
which consist not of single stars, but each of them of many stars, which also 
they say are situated above those already mentioned in the highest part of the 
heavens, where a more constant motion causes the stars to follow an undeviating 
course? And why have they not reckoned them as gods, I do not say among those 
select gods, but not even among those, as it were, plebeian gods? 
CHAP. 16.--CONCERNING APOLLO AND DIANA, AND THE OTHER SELECT GODS WHOM THEY 
WOULD HAVE TO BE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 
Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and physician, they have 
nevertheless given him a place as some part of the world. They have said that he 
is also the sun; and likewise they have said that Diana, his sister, is the 
moon, and the guardian of roads. Whence also they will have her be a virgin, 
because a road brings forth nothing. They also make both of them have arrows, 
because those two planets send their rays from the heavens to the earth. They 
make Vulcan to be the fire of the world; Neptune the waters of the world; Father 
Dis, that is, Orcus, the earthy and lowest part of the world. Liber and Ceres 
they set over seeds,--the former over the seeds of males, the latter over the 
seeds of females; or the one over the fluid part of seed, but the other over the 
dry part. And all this together is referred to the world, that is, to Jupiter, 
who is called "progenitor and mother," because he emitted all seeds from 
himself, and received them into himself. For they also make this same Ceres to 
be the Great Mother, who they say is none other than the earth, and call her 
also Juno. And therefore they assign to her the second causes of things, 
notwithstanding that it has been said to Jupiter, "progenitor and mother of the 
gods;" because, according to them, the whole world itself is Jupiter's. Minerva, 
also, because they set her over human arts, and did not find even a star in 
which to place her, has been said by them to be either the highest ether, or 
even the moon. Also Vesta herself they have thought to be the highest of the 
goddesses, because she is the earth; although they have thought that the milder 
fire of the world, which is used for the ordinary purposes of human life, not 
the more violent fire, such as belongs to Vulcan, is to be as- signed to her. 
And thus they will have all those select gods to be the world and its parts, 
--some of them the whole world, others  of them its parts; the whole of it 
Jupiter,--its parts, Genius, Mater Magna, Sol and Luna, or rather Apollo and 
Diana, and so on. And sometimes they make one god many things; sometimes one 
thing many gods. Many things are one god in the case of Jupiter; for both the 
whole world is Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and the star alone is said 
and held to be Jupiter. Juno also is mistress of second causes,--Juno is the 
air, Juno is the earth; and had she won it over Venus, Juno would have been the 
star. Likewise Minerva is the highest ether, and Minerva is likewise the moon, 
which they suppose to be in the lowest limit of the ether. And also they make 
one thing many gods in this way. The world is both Janus and Jupiter; also the 
earth is Juno, and Mater Magna, and Ceres. 
CHAP. 17. --THAT EVEN VARRO HIMSELF PRONOUNCED HIS OWN OPINIONS REGARDING THE 
GODS AMBIGUOUS, 
And the same is true with respect to all the rest, as is true with respect to 
those things which I have mentioned for the sake of example. They do not explain 
them, but rather involve them. They rush hither and thither, to this side or to 
that, according as they are driven by the impulse of erratic opinion; so that 
even Varro himself has chosen rather to doubt concerning all things, than to 
affirm anything. For, having written the first of the three last books 
concerning the certain gods, and having commenced in the second of these to 
speak of the uncertain gods, he says: "I ought not to be censured for having 
stated in this book the doubtful opinions concerning the gods. For he who, when 
he has read them, shall think that they both ought to be, and can be, 
conclusively judged of, will do so himself. For my own part, I can be more 
easily led to doubt the things which I have written in the first book, than to 
attempt to reduce all the things I shall write in this one to any orderly 
system." Thus he makes uncertain not only that book concerning the uncertain 
gods, but also that other concerning the certain gods. Moreover, in that third 
book concerning the select gods, after having exhibited by anticipation as much 
of the natural theology as he deemed necessary, and when about to commence to 
speak of the vanities and lying insanities of the civil theology, where he was 
not only without the guidance of the truth of things, but was also pressed by 
the authority of tradition, he says: "I will write in this book concerning the 
public gods of the Roman people, to whom they have dedicated temples, and whom 
they have conspicuously distinguished by many adornments; but, as Xenophon of 
Colophon writes, I will state what I think, not what I am prepared to maintain: 
it is for man to think those things, for God to know them." 
It is not, then, an account of things comprehended and most certainly believed 
which he promised, when about to write those things which were instituted by 
men. He only timidly promises an account of things which are but the subject of 
doubtful opinion. Nor, indeed, was it possible for him to affirm with the same 
certainty that Janus was the world, and such like things; or to discover with 
the same certainty such things as how Jupiter was the son of Saturn, while 
Saturn was made subject to him as king:--he could, I say, neither affirm nor 
discover such things with the same certainty with which he knew such things as 
that the world existed, that the heavens and earth existed, the heavens bright 
with stars, and the earth fertile through seeds; or with the same perfect 
conviction with which he believed that this universal mass of nature is governed 
and administered by a certain invisible and mighty force. 
CHAP. 18.--A MORE CREDIBLE CAUSE OF THE 
RISE OF PAGAN ERROR. 
A far more credible account of these gods is given, when it is said that they 
were men, and that to each one of them sacred rites and solemnities were 
instituted, according to his particular genius, manners, actions, circumstances; 
which rites and solemnities, by gradually creeping through the souls of men, 
which are like demons, and eager for things which yield them sport, were spread 
far and wide; the poets adorning them with lies, and false spirits seducing men 
to receive them. For it is far more likely that some youth, either impious 
himself, or afraid of being slain by an impious father, being desirous to reign, 
dethroned his father, than that (according to Varro's interpretation) Saturn was 
overthrown by his son Jupiter: for cause, which belongs to Jupiter, is before 
seed, which belongs to Saturn. For had this been so, Saturn would never have 
been before Jupiter, nor would he have been the father of Jupiter. For cause 
always precedes seed, and is never generated from seed. But when they seek to 
honor by natural interpretation most vain fables or deeds of men, even the 
acutest men are so perplexed that we are compelled to grieve for their folly 
also. 
CHAP. 19.--CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATIONS WHICH COMPOSE THE REASON OF THE 
WORSHIP OF SATURN. 
They said, says Varro, that Saturn was wont to devour all that sprang from him, 
because seeds returned to the earth from whence they sprang. And when it is said 
that a lump of earth was put before Saturn to be devoured instead of Jupiter, it 
is signified, he says, that before the art of ploughing was discovered, seeds 
were buried in the earth by the hands of men. The earth itself, then, and not 
seeds, should have been called Saturn, because it in a manner devours what it 
has brought forth, when the seeds which have sprung from it return again into 
it. And what has Saturn's receiving of a lump of earth instead of Jupiter to do 
with this, that the seeds were covered in the soil by the hands of men? Was the 
seed kept from being devoured, like other things, by being covered with the 
soil? For what they say would imply that he who put on the soil took away the 
seed, as Jupiter is said to have been taken away when the lump of soil was 
offered to Saturn instead of him, and not rather that the soil, by covering the 
seed, only caused it to be devoured the more eagerly. Then, in that way, Jupiter 
is the seed, and not the cause of the seed, as was said a little before. 
But what shall men do who cannot find anything wise to say, because they are 
interpreting foolish things? Saturn has a pruning-knife. That, says Varro, is on 
account of agriculture. Certainly in Saturn's reign there as yet existed no 
agriculture, and therefore " the former times of Saturn are spoken of, because, 
as the same Varro interprets the fables, the primeval men lived on those seeds 
which the earth produced spontaneously. Perhaps he received a pruning-knife when 
he had lost his sceptre; that he who had been a king, and lived at ease during 
the first part of his time, should become a laborious workman whilst his son 
occupied the throne. Then he says that boys were wont to be immolated to him by 
certain peoples, the Carthaginians for instance; and also that adults were 
immolated by some nations, for example the Gauls--because, of all seeds, the 
human race is the best. What need we say more concerning this most cruel vanity. 
Let us rather attend to and hold by this, that these interpretations are not 
carried up to the true God,--a living, incorporeal, unchangeable nature, from 
whom a blessed life enduring for ever may be obtained,--but that they end in 
things which are corporeal, temporal, mutable, and mortal. And whereas it is 
said in the fables that Saturn castrated his father Coelus, this signifies, says 
Varro, that the divine seed belongs to Saturn, and not to Coelus; for this 
reason, as far as a reason can be discovered, namely, that in heaven(1) nothing 
is born from seed. But, lo! Saturn, if he is the son of Coelus, is the son of 
Jupiter. For they affirm times without number, and that emphatically, that the 
heavens(2) are Jupiter. Thus those things which come not of the truth, do very 
often, without being impelled by any one, themselves overthrow one another. He 
says that Saturn was called <greek>kronos</greek>, which in the Greek tongue 
signifies a space of time,(3) because, without that, seed cannot be productive. 
These and many other things are said concerning Saturn, and they are all 
referred to seed. But Saturn surely, with all that great power, might have 
sufficed for seed. Why are other gods demanded for it, especially Liber and 
Libera, that is, Ceres?--concerning whom again, as far as seed is concerned, he 
says as many things as if he had said nothing concerning Saturn. 
CHAP. 20.--CONCERNING THE RITES OF ELEUSINIAN CERES. 
Now among the rites of Ceres, those Eleusinian rites are much famed which were 
in the highest repute among the Athenians, of which Varro offers no 
interpretation except with respect to corn, which Ceres discovered, and with 
respect to Proserpine, whom Ceres lost, Orcus having carried her away. And this 
Proserpine herself, he says, signifies the fecundity of seeds. But as this 
fecundity departed at a certain season, whilst the earth wore an aspect of 
sorrow through the consequent sterility, there arose an opinion that the 
daughter of Ceres, that is, fecundity itself, who was called Proserpine, from 
proserpere (to creep forth, to spring), had been carried away by Orcus, and 
detained among the inhabitants of the nether world; which circumstance was 
celebrated with public mourning. But since the same fecundity again returned, 
there arose joy because Proserpine had been given back by Orcus, and thus these 
rites were instituted. Then Varro adds, that many things are taught in the 
mysteries of Ceres which only refer to the discovery of fruits 
CHAP. 21.--CONCERNING THE SHAMEFULNESS OF THE RITES WHICH ARE CELEBRATED IN 
HONOR OF LIBER. 
Now as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over liquid seeds, and 
therefore not only over the liquors of fruits, among which wine holds, so to 
speak, the primacy, but also over the seeds of animals:--as to these rites, I am 
unwilling to undertake to show to what excess of turpitude they had reached, 
because that would entail a lengthened discourse, though I am not unwilling to 
do so as a demonstration of the proud stupidity of those who practise them. 
Among other rites which I am compelled from the greatness of their number to 
omit, Varro says that in Italy, at the places where roads crossed each other the 
rites of Liber were celebrated with such unrestrained turpitude, that the 
private parts of a man were worshipped in his honor. Nor was this abomination 
transacted in secret that some regard at least might be paid to modesty, but was 
openly and wantonly displayed. For during the festival of Liber this obscene 
member, placed on a car, was carried with great honor, first over the crossroads 
in the country, and then into the city. But in the town of Lavinium a whole 
month was devoted to Liber alone, during the days of which all the people gave 
themselves up to the must dissolute conversation, until that member had been 
carried through the forum and brought to rest in its own place; on which 
unseemly member it was necessary that the most honorable matron should place a 
wreath in the presence of all the people. Thus, forsooth, was the god Liber to 
be appeased in order to the growth of seeds. Thus was enchantment to be driven 
away from fields, even by a matron's being compelled to do in public what not 
even a harlot ought to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons 
among the spectators. For these reasons, then, Saturn alone was not believed to 
be sufficient for seeds,--namely, that the impure mind might find occasions for 
multiplying the gods; and that, being righteously abandoned to uncleanness by 
the one true God, and being prostituted to the worship of many false gods, 
through an avidity for ever greater and greater uncleanness, it should call 
these sacrilegious rites sacred things, and should abandon itself to be violated 
and polluted by crowds of foul demons. 
CHAP. 22.--CONCERNING NEPTUNE, AND SALACIA AND VENILIA. 
Now Neptune had Salacia to wife, who they say is the nether waters of the sea. 
Wherefore was Venilia also joined to him? Was it not simply through the lust of 
the soul desiring a greater number of demons to whom to prostitute itself, and 
not because this goddess was necessary to the perfection of their sacred rites? 
But let the interpretation of this illustrious theology be brought forward to 
restrain us from this censuring by rendering a satisfactory reason. Venilia, 
says this theology, is the wave which comes to the shore, Salacia the wave which 
returns into the sea. Why, then, are there two goddesses, when it is one wave 
which comes and returns? Certainly it is mad lust itself, which in its eagerness 
for many deities resembles the waves which break on the shore. For though the 
water which goes is not different from that which returns, still the soul which 
goes and returns not is defiled by two demons, whom it has taken occasion by 
this false pretext to invite. I ask thee, O Varro, and you who have read such 
works of learned men, and think ye have learned something great,--I ask you to 
interpret this, I do not say In a manner consistent with the eternal and 
unchangeable nature which alone is God, but only in a manner consistent with the 
doctrine concerning the soul of the world and its parts, which ye think to be 
the true gods. It is a somewhat more tolerable thing that ye have made that part 
of the soul of the world which pervades the sea your god Neptune. Is the wave, 
then, which comes to the shore and returns to the main, two parts of the world, 
or two parts of the soul of the world? Who of you is so silly as to think so? 
Why, then, have they made to you two goddesses? The only reason seems to be, 
that your wise ancestors have provided, not that many gods should rule you, but 
that many of such demons as are delighted with those vanities and falsehoods 
should possess you. But why has that Salacia, according to this interpretation, 
lost the lower part of the sea, seeing that she was represented as subject to 
her husband? For in saying that she is the receding wave, ye have put her on the 
surface. Was she enraged at her husband for taking Venilia as a concubine, and 
thus drove him from the upper part of the sea? 
CHAP. 23.--CONCERNING THE EARTH, WHICH VARRO AFFIRMS TO BE A GODDESS, BECAUSE 
THAT SOUL OF THE WORLD WHICH HE THINKS TO BE GOD PERVADES ALSO THIS LOWEST PART 
OF HIS BODY, AND IMPARTS TO IT A DIVINE FORCE. 
Surely the earth, which we see full of its own living creatures, is one; but for 
all that, it is but a mighty mass among the elements and the lowest part of the 
world. Why, then, would they have it to be a goddess? Is it because it is 
fruitful? Why, then, are not men rather held to be gods, who render it fruitful 
by cultivating it; but though they plough it, do not adore it? But, say they, 
the part of the soul of the world which pervades it makes it a goddess. As if it 
were not a far more evident thing, nay, a thing which is not called in question, 
that there is a soul in man. And yet men are not held to be gods, but (a thing 
to be sadly lamented), with wonderful and pitiful delusion, are subjected to 
those who are not gods, and than whom they themselves are better, as the objects 
of deserved worship and adoration. And certainly the same Varro, in the book 
concerning the select gods, affirms that there are three grades of soul in 
universal nature. One which pervades all the living parts of the body, and has 
not sensation, but only the power of life,--that principle which penetrates into 
the bones, nails and hair. By this principle in the world trees are nourished, 
and grow without being possessed of sensation, and live in a manner peculiar to 
themselves. The second grade of soul is that in which there is sensation. This 
principle penetrates into the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and the organs of 
sensation. The third grade of soul is the highest, and is called mind, where 
intelligence has its throne. This grade of soul no mortal creatures except man 
are possessed of. Now this part of the soul of the world, Varro says, is called 
God, and in us is called Genius. And the stones and earth in the world, which we 
see, and which are not pervaded by the power of sensation, are, as it were, the 
bones and nails of God Again, the sun, moon, and stars, which we perceive, and 
by which He perceives, are His organs of perception. Moreover, the ether is His 
mind; and by the virtue which is in it, which penetrates into the stars, it also 
makes them gods; and because it penetrates through them into the earth, it makes 
it the goddess Tellus, whence again it enters and permeates the sea and ocean, 
making them the god Neptune. 
Let him return from this, which he thinks to be natural theology, back to that 
from which he went out, in order to rest from the fatigue occasioned by the many 
turnings and windings of his path. Let him return, I say, let him return to the 
civil theology. I wish to detain him there a while. I have somewhat to say which 
has to do with that theology. I am not yet saying, that if the earth and stones 
are similar to our bones and nails, they are in like manner devoid of 
intelligence, as they are devoid of sensation. Nor am I saying that, if our 
bones and nails are said to have intelligence, because they are in a man who has 
intelligence, he who says that the things analogous to these in the world are 
gods, is as stupid as he is who says that our bones and nails are men. We shall 
perhaps have occasion to dispute these things with the philosophers. At present, 
however, I wish to deal with Varro as a political theologian. For it is possible 
that, though he may seem to have wished to lift up his head, as it were, into 
the liberty of natural theology, the consciousness that the book with which he 
was occupied was one concerning a subject belonging to civil theology, may have 
caused him to relapse into the point of view of that theology, and to say this 
in order that the ancestors of his nation, and other states, might not be 
believed to have bestowed on Neptune an irrational worship. What I am to say is 
this: Since the earth is one, why has not that part of the soul of the world 
which permeates the earth made it that one goddess which he calls Tellus? But 
had it done so, what then had become of Orcus, the brother of Jupiter and 
Neptune, whom they call Father Dis?(1) And where, in that case, had been his 
wife Proserpine, who, according to another opinion given in the same book, is 
called, not the fecundity of the earth, but its lower part?(2) But if they say 
that part of the soul of the world, when it permeates the upper part of the 
earth, makes the god Father Dis, but when it pervades the nether part of the 
same the goddess Proserpine; what, in that case, will that Tellus be? For all 
that which she was has been divided into these two parts, and these two gods; so 
that it is impossible to find what to make or where to place her as a third 
goddess, except it be said that those divinities Orcus and Proserpine are the 
one goddess Tellus, and that they are not three gods, but one or two, whilst 
notwithstanding they are called three, held to be three, worshipped as three, 
having their own several altars, their own shrines, rites, images, priests, 
whilst their own false demons also through these things defile the prostituted 
soul. Let this further question be answered: What part of the earth does a part 
of the soul of the world permeate in order to make the god Tellumo? No, says he; 
but the earth being one and the same, has a double life,--the masculine, which 
produces seed, and the feminine, which receives and nourishes the seed. Hence it 
has been called Tellus from the feminine principle, and Tellumo from the 
masculine. Why, then, do the priests, as he indicates, perform divine service to 
four gods, two others being added,--namely, to Tellus, Tellumo, Altor, and 
Rusor? We have already spoken concerning Tellus and Tellumo. But why do they 
worship Altor?(1) Because, says he, all that springs of the earth is nourished 
by the earth. Wherefore do they worship Rusor?(2) Because all things return back 
again to the place whence they proceeded. 
CHAP. 24.--CONCERNING THE SURNAMES OF TELLUS AND THEIR SIGNIFICATIONS, WHICH, 
ALTHOUGH THEY INDICATE MANY PROPERTIES, OUGHT NOT TO HAVE ESTABLISHED THE 
OPINION THAT THERE IS A CORRESPONDING NUMBER OF GODS. 
The one earth, then, on account of this fourfold virtue, ought to have had four 
surnames, but not to have been considered as four gods,--as Jupiter and Juno, 
though they have so many surnames, are for all that only single deities,--for by 
all these surnames it is signified that a manifold virtue belongs to one god or 
to one goddess; but the multitude of surnames does not imply a multitude of 
gods. But as sometimes even the vilest women themselves grow tired of those 
crowds which they have sought after under the impulse of wicked passion, so also 
the soul, become vile, and prostituted to impure spirits, sometimes begins to 
loathe to multiply to itself gods to whom to surrender itself to be polluted by 
them, as much as it once delighted in so doing. For Varro himself, as if ashamed 
of that crowd of gods, would make Tellus to be one goddess. "They say," says he, 
"that whereas the one great mother has a tympanum, it is signified that she is 
the orb of the earth; whereas she has towers on her head, towns are signified; 
and whereas seats are fixed round about her, it is signified that whilst all 
things move, she moves not. And their having made the Galli to serve this 
goddess, signifies that they who are in need of seed ought to follow the earth 
for in it all seeds are found. By their throwing themselves down before her, it 
is taught," he says, "that they who cultivate the earth should not sit idle, for 
there is always something for them to do. The sound of the cymbals signifies the 
noise made by the throwing of iron utensils, and by men's hands, and all other 
noises connected with agricultural operations; and these cymbals are of brass, 
because the ancients used brazen utensils in their agriculture before iron was 
discovered. They place beside the goddess an unbound and tame lion, to show that 
there is no kind of land so wild and so excessively barren as that it would be 
profitless to attempt to bring it in and cultivate it." Then he adds that, 
because they gave many names and surnames to mother Tellus, it came to be 
thought that these signified many gods. "They think," says he, "that Tellus is 
Ops, because the earth is improved by labor; Mother, because it brings forth 
much; Great, because it brings forth seed; Proserpine, because fruits creep 
forth from it; Vesta, because it is invested with herbs. And thus," says he, 
"they not at all absurdly identify other goddesses with the earth." If, then, it 
is one goddess (though, if the truth were consulted, it is not even that), why 
do they nevertheless separate it into many? Let there be many names of one 
goddess, and let there not be as many goddesses as there are names. 
But the authority of the erring ancients weighs heavily on Varro, and compels 
him, after having expressed this opinion, to show signs of uneasiness; for he 
immediately adds, "With which things the opinion of the ancients, who thought 
that there were really many goddesses, does not conflict." How does it not 
conflict, when it is entirely a different thing to say that one goddess has many 
names, and to say that there are many goddesses? But it is possible, he says, 
that the same thing may both be one, and yet have in it a plurality of things. I 
grant that there are many things in one man; are there therefore in him many 
men? In like manner, in one goddess there are many things; are there therefore 
also many goddesses? But let them divide, unite, multiply, reduplicate, and 
implicate as they like. 
These are the famous mysteries of Tellus and the Great Mother, all of which are 
shown to have reference to mortal seeds and to agriculture. Do these things, 
then,--namely, the tympanum, the towers, the Galli, the tossing to and fro of 
limbs, the noise of cymbals, the images of lions,--do these things, having this 
reference and this end, promise eternal life? Do the mutilated Galli, then, 
serve this Great Mother in order to signify that they who are in need of seed 
should follow the earth, as though it were not rather the case that this very 
service caused them to want seed? For whether do they, by following this 
goddess, acquire seed, being in want of it, or, by following her, lose seed when 
they have it? Is this to interpret or to deprecate? Nor is it considered to what 
a degree malign demons have gained the upper hand, inasmuch as they have been 
able to exact such cruel rites without having dared to promise any great things 
in return for them. Had the earth not been a goddess, men would have, by 
laboring, laid their hands on it in order to obtain seed through it, and would 
not have laid violent hands on themselves in order to lose seed on account of 
it. Had it not been a goddess, it would have become so fertile by the hands of 
others, that it would not have compelled a man to be rendered barren by his own 
hands; nor that in the festival of Liber an honorable matron put a wreath on the 
private parts of a man in the sight of the multitude, where perhaps her husband 
was standing by blushing and perspiring, if there is any shame left in men; and 
that in the celebration of marriages the newly-married bride was ordered to sit 
upon Priapus. These things are bad enough, but they are small and contemptible 
in comparison with that most cruel abomination, or most abominable cruelty, by 
which either set is so deluded that neither perishes of its wound. There the 
enchantment of fields is feared; here the amputation of members is not feared. 
There the modesty of the bride is outraged, but in such a manner as that neither 
her fruitfulness nor even her virginity is taken away; here a man is so 
mutilated that he is neither changed into a woman nor remains a man. 
CHAP. 25.--THE INTERPRETATION OF THE MUTILATION OF ATYS WHICH THE DOCTRINE OF 
THE GREEK SAGES SET FORTH. 
Varro has not spoken of that Atys, nor sought out any interpretation for him, in 
memory of whose being loved by Ceres the Gallus is mutilated. But the learned 
and wise Greeks have by no means been silent about an interpretation so holy and 
so illustrious. The celebrated philosopher Porphyry has said that Atys signifies 
the flowers of spring, which is the most beautiful season, and therefore was 
mutilated because the flower falls before the fruit appears.(1) They have not, 
then, compared the man himself, or rather that semblance of a man they called 
Atys, to the flower, but his male organs,--these, indeed, fell whilst he was 
living. Did I say fell? nay, truly they did not fall, nor were they plucked off, 
but tom away. Nor when that flower was lost did any fruit follow, but rather 
sterility. What, then, do they say is signified by the castrated Atys himself, 
and whatever remained to him after his castration? To what do they refer that? 
What interpretation does that give rise to? Do they, after vain endeavors to 
discover an interpretation, seek to persuade men that that is rather to be 
believed which report has made public, and which has also been written 
concerning his having been a mutilated man? Our Varro has very properly opposed 
this, and has been unwilling to state it; for it certainly was not unknown to 
that most learned man. 
CHAP. 26.--CONCERNING THE ABOMINATION OF THE SACRED RITES OF THE GREAT MOTHER. 
Concerning the effeminates consecrated to the same Great Mother, in defiance of 
all the modesty which belongs to men and women, Varro has not wished to say 
anything, nor do I remember to have read anywhere aught concerning them. These 
effeminates, no later than yesterday, were going through the streets and places 
of Carthage with anointed hair, whitened faces, relaxed bodies, and feminine 
gait, exacting from the people the means of maintaining their ignominious lives. 
Nothing has been said concerning them. Interpretation failed, reason blushed, 
speech was silent. The Great Mother has surpassed all her sons, not in greatness 
of deity, but of crime. To this monster not even the monstrosity of Janus is to 
be compared. His deformity was only in his image; hers was the deformity of 
cruelty in her sacred rites. He has a redundancy of members in stone images; she 
inflicts the loss of members on men. This abomination is not surpassed by the 
licentious deeds of Jupiter, so many and so great. He, with all his seductions 
of women, only disgraced heaven with one Ganymede; she, with so many avowed and 
public effeminates, has both defiled the earth and outraged heaven. Perhaps we 
may either compare Saturn to this Magna Mater, or even set him before her in 
this kind of abominable cruelty, for he mutilated his father. But at the 
festivals of Saturn, men could rather be slain by the hands of others than 
mutilated by their own. He devoured his sons, as the poets say, and the natural 
theologists interpret this as they list. History says he slew them. But the 
Romans never received, like the Carthaginians, the custom of sacrificing their 
sons to him. This Great Mother of the gods, however, has brought mutilated men 
into Roman temples, and has preserved that cruel custom, being believed to 
promote the strength of the Romans by emasculating their men. Compared with this 
evil, what are the thefts of Mercury, the wantonness of Venus, and the base and 
flagitious deeds of the rest of them, which we might bring forward from books, 
were it not that they are daily sung and danced in the theatres? But what are 
these things to so great an evil,--an evil whose magnitude was only proportioned 
to the greatness of the Great Mother,--especially as these are said to have been 
invented by the poets? as if the poets had also invented this that they are 
acceptable to the gods. Let it be imputed, then, to the audacity and impudence 
of the poets that these things have been sung and written of. But that they have 
been incorporated into the body of divine rites and honors, the deities 
themselves demanding and extorting that incorporation, what is that but the 
crime of the gods? nay more, the confession of demons and the deception of 
wretched men? But as to this that the Great Mother is considered to be 
worshipped in the appropriate form when she is worshipped by the consecration of 
mutilated men, this is not an invention of the poets, nay, they have rather 
shrunk from it with horror than sung of it. Ought any one, then, to be 
consecrated to these select gods, that he may live blessedly after death, 
consecrated to whom he could not live decently before death, being subjected to 
such foul superstitions, and bound over to unclean demons? But all these things, 
says Varro, are to be referred to the world.(1) Let him consider if it be not 
rather to the unclean.(2) But why not refer that to the world which is 
demonstrated to be in the world? We, however, seek for a mind which, trusting to 
true religion, does not adore the world as its god, but for the sake of God 
praises the world as a work of God, and, purified from mundane defilements, 
comes pure(3) to God Himself who rounded the world.(4) 
CHAP. 27.--CONCERNING THE FIGMENTS OF THE PHYSICAL THEOLOGISTS, WHO NEITHER 
WORSHIP THE TRUE DIVINITY, NOR PERFORM THE WORSHIP WHEREWITH THE TRUE DIVINITY 
SHOULD BE SERVED. 
We see that these select gods have, indeed, become more famous than the rest; 
not, however, that their merits may be brought to light, but that their 
opprobrious deeds may not be hid. Whence it is more credible that they were men, 
as not only poetic but also historical literature has handed down. For this 
which Virgil says, 
"Then from Olympus' heights came down Good Saturn, exiled from his throne By 
Jove, his mightier heir;"(5) 
and what follows with reference to this affair, is fully related by the 
historian Euhemerus, and has been translated into Latin by Ennius. And as they 
who have written before us in the Greek or in the Latin tongue against such 
errors as these have said much concerning this matter, I have thought it 
unnecessary to dwell upon it. When I consider those physical reasons, then, by 
which learned and acute men attempt to turn human things into divine things, all 
I see is that they have been able to refer these things only to temporal works 
and to that which has a corporeal nature, and even though invisible still 
mutable; and this is by no means the true God. But if this worship had been 
performed as the symbolism of ideas at least congruous with religion, though it 
would indeed have been cause of grief that the true God was not announced and 
proclaimed by its symbolism, nevertheless it could have been in some degree 
borne with, when it did not occasion and command the performance of such foul 
and abominable things. But since it is impiety to worship the body or the soul 
for the true God, by whose indwelling alone the soul is happy, how much more 
impious is it to worship those things through which neither soul nor body can 
obtain either salvation or human honor? Wherefore if with temple, priest, and 
sacrifice, which are due to the true God, any element of the world be 
worshipped, or any created spirit, even though not impure and evil, that worship 
is still evil, not because the things are evil by which the worship is 
performed, but because those things ought only to be used in the worship of Him 
to whom alone such worship and service are due. But if any one insist that he 
worships the one true God,--that is, the Creator of every soul and of every 
body,--with stupid and monstrous idols, with human victims, with putting a 
wreath on the male organ, with the wages of unchastity, with the cutting of 
limbs, with emasculation, with the consecration of effeminates, with impure and 
obscene plays, such a one does not sin because he worships One who ought not to 
be worshipped, but because he worships Him who ought to be worshipped in a way 
in which He ought not to be worshipped. But he who worships with such 
things,--that is, foul and obscene things,--and that not the true God, namely, 
the maker of soul and body, but a creature, even though not a wicked creature, 
whether it be soul or body, or soul and body together, twice sins against God, 
because he both worships for God what is not God, and also worships with such 
things as neither God nor what is not God ought to be worshipped with. It is, 
indeed, manifest how these pagans worship,--that is, how shamefully and 
criminally they worship; but what or whom they worship would have been left in 
obscurity, had not their history testifled that those same confessedly base and 
foul rites were rendered in obedience to the demands of the gods, who exacted 
them with terrible severity. Wherefore it is evident beyond doubt that this 
whole civil theology is occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and 
most impure spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and through these 
to take possession of stupid hearts. 
CHAP. 28.--THAT THE DOCTRINE OF VARRO CONCERNING THEOLOGY IS IN NO PART 
CONSISTENT WITH ITSELF. 
To what purpose, then, is it that this most learned and most acute man Varro 
attempts, as it were, with subtle disputation, to reduce and refer all these 
gods to heaven and earth? He cannot do it. They go out of his hands like water; 
they shrink back; they slip down and fall. For when about to speak of the 
females, that is, the goddesses, he says, "Since, as I observed in the first 
book concerning places, heaven and earth are the two origins of the gods, on 
which account they are called celestials and terrestrials, and as I began in 
tile former books with heaven, speaking of Janus, whom some have said to be 
heaven, and others the earth, so I now commence with Tellus in speaking 
concerning the goddesses." I can understand what embarrassment so great a mind 
was experiencing. For he is influenced by the perception of a certain plausible 
resemblance, when he says that the heaven is that which does, and the earth that 
which suffers, and therefore attributes the masculine principle to the one, and 
the feminine to the other, not considering that it is rather He who made both 
heaven and earth who is the maker of both activity and passivity. On this 
principle he interprets the celebrated mysteries of the Samothracians, and 
promises, with an air of great devoutness, that he will by writing expound these 
mysteries, which have not been so much as known to his countrymen, and will send 
them his exposition. Then he says that he had from many proofs gathered that, in 
those mysteries, among the images one signifies heaven, another the earth, 
another the patterns of things, which Plato calls ideas. He makes Jupiter to 
signify heaven, Juno the earth, Minerva the ideas. Heaven, by which anything is 
made; the earth, from which it is made; and the pattern, according to which it 
is made. But, with respect to the last, I am forgetting to say that Plato 
attributed so great an importance to these ideas as to say, not that anything 
was made by heaven according to them, but that according to them heaven itself 
was made.(1) To return, however,--it is to be observed that Varro has, in the 
book on the select gods, lost that theory of these gods, in whom he has, as it 
were, embraced all things. For he assigns the male gods to heaven, the females 
to earth; among which latter he has placed Minerva, whom he had before placed 
above heaven itself. Then the male god Neptune is in the sea, which pertains 
rather to earth than to heaven. Last of all, father Dis, who is called in Greek 
II<greek>loutwn</greek>, another male god, brother of both (Jupiter and 
Neptune), is also held to be a god of the earth, holding the upper region of the 
earth himself, and allotting the nether region to his wife Proserpine. How, 
then, do they attempt to refer the gods to heaven, and the goddesses to earth? 
What solidity, what consistency,what sobriety has this disputation? But that 
Tellus is the origin of the goddesses,--the great mother, to wit, beside whom 
there is continually the noise of the mad and abominable revelry of effeminates 
and mutilated men, and men who cut themselves, and indulge in frantic 
gesticulations,--how is it, then, that Janus is called the head of the gods, and 
Tellus the head of the goddesses? In the one case error does not make one head, 
and in the other frenzy does not make a sane one. Why do they vainly attempt to 
refer these to the world? Even if they could do so, no pious person worships the 
world for the true God. Nevertheless, plain truth makes it evident that they are 
not able even to do this. Let them rather identify them with dead men and most 
wicked demons, and no further question will remain. 
CHAP. 29.--THAT ALL THINGS WHICH THE PHYSICAL THEOLOGISTS HAVE REFERRED TO THE 
WORLD AND ITS PARTS, THEY OUGHT TO HAVE REFERRED TO THE ONE TRUE GOD. 
For all those things which, according to the account given of those gods, are 
referred to the world by so-called physical interpretation, may, without any 
religious scruple, be rather assigned to the true God, who made heaven and 
earth, and created every soul and every body; and the following is the manner in 
which we see that this may be done. We worship God,--not heaven and earth, of 
which two parts this world consists, nor the soul or souls diffused through all 
living things,--but God who made heaven and earth, and all things which are in 
them; who made every soul, whatever be the nature of its life, whether it have 
life without sensation and reason, or life with sensation, or life with both 
sensation and reason 
CHAP. 30.--HOW PIETY DISTINGUISHES THE CREATOR FROM THE CREATURES, SO THAT, 
INSTEAD OF ONE GOD, THERE ARE NOT WORSHIPPED AS MANY GODS AS THERE ARE WORKS OF 
THE ONE AUTHOR. 
And now, to begin to go over those works of the one true God, on account of 
which these have made to themselves many and false gods, whilst they attempt to 
give an honorable interpretation to their many most abominable and most infamous 
mysteries,--We worship that God who has appointed to the natures created by Him 
both the beginnings and the end of their existing and moving; who holds, knows, 
and disposes the causes of things; who hath created the virtue of seeds; who 
hath given to what creatures He would a rational soul, which is called mind; who 
hath bestowed the faculty and use of speech; who hath imparted the gift of 
foretelling future things to whatever spirits it seemed to Him good; who also 
Himself predicts future things, through whom He pleases, and through whom He 
will, removes diseases who, when the human race is to be corrected and chastised 
by wars, regulates also the beginnings, progress, and ends of these wars who 
hath created and governs the most vehement and most violent fire of this world, 
in due relation and proportion to the other elements of immense nature; who is 
the governor of all the waters; who hath made the sun brightest of all material 
lights, and hath given him suitable power and motion; who hath not withdrawn, 
even from the inhabitants of the nether world, His dominion and power; who hath 
appointed to mortal natures their suitable seed and nourishment, dry or liquid; 
who establishes and makes fruitful the earth; who bountifully bestows its fruits 
on animals and on men; who knows and ordains, not only principal causes, but 
also subsequent causes who hath determined for the moon her motion; who affords 
ways in heaven and on earth for passage from one place to another; who hath 
granted also to human minds, which He hath created, the knowledge of the various 
arts for the help of life and nature; who hath appointed the union of male and 
female for the propagation of offspring; who hath favored the societies of men 
with the gift of terrestrial fire for the simplest and most familiar purposes, 
to burn on the hearth and to give light. These are, then, the things which that 
most acute and most learned man Varro has labored to distribute among the select 
gods, by I know not what physical interpretation, which he has got from other 
sources, and also conjectured for himself. But these things the one true God 
makes and does, but as the same God,--that is, as He who is wholly everywhere, 
included in no space, bound by no chains, mutable in no part of His being, 
filling heaven and earth with omnipresent power, not with a needy nature. 
Therefore lie governs all things in such a manner as to allow them to perform 
and exercise their own proper movements. For although they can be nothing 
without Him, they are not what He is. He does also many things through angels; 
but only from Himself does He beatify angels. So also, though He send angels to 
men for certain purposes, He does not for all that beatify men by the good 
inherent in the angels, but by Himself, as He does the angels themselves. 
CHAP. 31.--WHAT BENEFITS GOD GIVES TO THE FOLLOWERS OF THE TRUTH TO ENJOY OVER 
AND ABOVE HIS GENERAL BOUNTY. 
For, besides such benefits as, according to this administration of nature of 
which we have made some mention, He lavishes on good and bad alike, we have from 
Him a great manifestation of great love, which belongs only to the good. For 
although we can never sufficiently give thanks to Him, that we are, that we 
live, that we behold heaven and earth, that we have mind and reason by which to 
seek after Him who made all these things, nevertheless, what hearts, what number 
of tongues, shall affirm that they are sufficient to render thanks to Him for 
this, that He hath not wholly departed from us, laden and overwhelmed with sins, 
averse to the contemplation of His light, and blinded by the love of darkness, 
that is, of iniquity, but hath sent to us His own Word, who is His only Son, 
that by His birth and suffering for us in the flesh, which He assumed, we might 
know how much God valued man, and that by that unique sacrifice we might be 
purified from all our sins, and that, love being shed abroad in our hearts by 
His Spirit, we might, having surmounted all difficulties, come into eternal 
rest, and the ineffable sweetness of the contemplation of Himself? 
CHAP. 32.--THAT AT NO TIME IN THE PAST WAS THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST'S REDEMPTION 
AWANTING, BUT WAS AT ALL TIMES DECLARED, THOUGH IN VARIOUS FORMS. 
This mystery of eternal life, even from the beginning of the human race, was, by 
certain signs and sacraments suitable to the times, announced through angels to 
those to whom it was meet. Then the Hebrew people was congregated into one 
republic, as it were, to perform this mystery; and in that republic was 
foretold, sometimes through men who understood what they spake, and sometimes 
through men who understood not, all that had transpired since the advent of 
Christ until now, and all that will transpire. This same nation, too, was 
afterwards dispersed through the nations, in order to testify to the scriptures 
in which eternal salvation in Christ had been declared. For not only the 
prophecies which are contained in words, nor only the precepts for the right 
conduct of life, which teach morals and piety, and are contained in the sacred 
writings,--not only these, but also the rites, priesthood, tabernacle or temple, 
altars, sacrifices, ceremonies, and whatever else belongs to that service which 
is due to God, and which in Greek is properly called 
<greek>latreia</greek>,--all these signified and fore-announced those things 
which we who believe in Jesus Christ unto eternal life believe to have been 
fulfilled, or behold in process of fulfillment, or confidently believe shall yet 
be fulfilled. 
CHAP. 33.--THAT ONLY THROUGH THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION COULD THE DECEIT OF MALIGN 
SPIRITS, WHO REJOICE IN THE ERRORS OF MEN, HAVE BEEN MANIFESTED. 
This, the only true religion, has alone been able to manifest that the gods of 
the nations are most impure demons, who desire to be thought gods, availing 
themselves of the names of certain defunct souls, or the appearance of mundane 
creatures, and with proud impurity rejoicing in things most base and infamous, 
as though in divine honors, and envying human souls their conversion to the true 
God. From whose most cruel and most impious dominion a man is liberated when he 
believes on Him who has afforded an example of humility, following which men may 
rise as great as was that pride by which they fell. Hence are not only those 
gods, concerning whom we have already spoken much, and many others belonging to 
different nations and lands, but also those of whom we are now treating, who 
have been selected as it were into the senate of the gods,--selected, however, 
on account of the notoriousness of their crimes, not on account of the dignity 
of their virtues,--whose sacred things Varro tempts to refer to certain natural 
reasons, seeking to make base things honorable, but cannot find how to square 
and agree with these reasons, because these are not the causes of those rites, 
which he thinks, or rather wishes to be thought to be so. For had not only 
these, but also all others of this kind, been real causes, even though they had 
nothing to do with the true God and eternal life, which is to be sought in 
religion, they would, by affording some sort of reason drawn from the nature of 
things, have mitigated in some degree that offence which was occasioned by some 
turpitude or absurdity in the sacred rites, which was not understood. This he 
attempted to do in respect to certain fables of the theatres, or mysteries of 
the shrines; but he did not acquit the theatres of likeness to the shrines, but 
rather condemned the shrines for likeness to the theatres. However, he in some 
way made the attempt to soothe the feelings shocked by horrible things, by 
rendering what he would have to be natural interpretations. 
CHAP. 34.--CONCERNING THE BOOKS OF NUMA POMPILIUS, WHICH THE SENATE ORDERED TO 
BE BURNED, IN ORDER THAT THE CAUSES OF SACRED RIGHTS THEREIN ASSIGNED SHOULD NOT 
BECOME KNOWN. 
But, on the other hand, we find, as the same most learned man has related, that 
the causes of the sacred rites which were given from the books of Numa Pompilius 
could by no means be tolerated, and were considered unworthy, not only to become 
known to the religious by being read, but even to lie written in the darkness in 
which they had been concealed. For now let me say what I promised in the third 
book of this work to say in its proper place. For, as we read in the same 
Varro's book on the worship of the gods, "A certain one Terentius had a field at 
the Janiculum, and once, when his ploughman was passing the plough near to the 
tomb of Numa Pompilius, he turned up from the ground the books of Numa, in which 
were written the causes of the sacred institutions; which books he carried to 
the praetor, who, having read the beginnings of them, referred to the senate 
what seemed to be a matter of so much importance. And when the chief senators 
had read certain of the causes why this or that rite was instituted, the senate 
assented to the dead Numa, and the conscript fathers, as though concerned for 
the interests of religion, ordered the praetor to burn the books."(1) Let each 
one believe what he thinks; nay, let every champion of such impiety say whatever 
mad contention may suggest. For my part, let it suffice to suggest that the 
causes of those sacred things which were written down by King Numa Pompilius, 
the institutor of the Roman rites, ought never to have become known to people or 
senate, or even to the priests themselves; and also that Numa himself attained 
to these secrets of demons by an illicit curiosity, in order that he might write 
them down, so as to be able, by reading, to be reminded of them. However, though 
he was king, and had no cause to be afraid of any one, he neither dared to teach 
them to any one, nor to destroy them by obliteration, or any other form of 
destruction. Therefore, because he was unwilling that any one should know them, 
lest men should be taught infamous things, and because he was afraid to violate 
them, lest he should enrage the demons against himself, he buried them in what 
he thought a safe place, believing that a plough could not approach his 
sepulchre. But the senate, fearing to condemn the religious solemnities of their 
ancestors, and therefore compelled to assent to Numa, were nevertheless so 
convinced that those books were pernicious, that they did not order them to be 
buried again, knowing that human curiosity would thereby be excited to seek with 
far greater eagerness after the matter already divulged, but ordered the 
scandalous relics to be destroyed with fire; because, as they thought it was now 
a necessity to perform those sacred rites, they judged that the error arising 
from ignorance of their causes was more tolerable than the disturbance which the 
knowledge of them would occasion the state. 
CHAP. 35.--CONCERNING THE HYDROMANCY THROUGH WHICH NUMA WAS BEFOOLED BY CERTAIN 
IMAGES OF DEMONS SEEN IN THE WATER. 
For Numa himself also, to whom no prophet, of God, no holy angel was sent, was 
driven to have recourse to hydromancy, that he might see the images of the gods 
in the water (or, rather, appearances whereby the demons made sport of him), and 
might learn from them what he ought to ordain and observe in the sacred rites. 
This kind of divination, says Varro, was introduced from the Persians, and was 
used by Numa himself, and at an after time by the philosopher Pythagoras. In 
this divination, he says, they also inquire at the inhabitants of the nether 
world, and make use of blood; and this the Greeks call 
<greek>nekromanteian</greek>. But whether it be called necromancy or hydromancy 
it is the same thing, for in either case the dead are supposed to foretell 
future things. But by what artifices these things are done, let themselves 
consider; for I am unwilling to say that these artifices were wont to be 
prohibited by the laws, and to be very severely punished even in the Gentile 
states, before the advent of our Saviour. I am unwilling, I say, to affirm this, 
for perhaps even such things were then allowed. However, it was by these arts 
that Pompilius learned those sacred rites which he gave forth as facts, whilst 
he concealed their causes; for even he himself was afraid of that which he had 
learned. The senate also caused the books in which those causes were recorded to 
be burned. What is it, then, to me, that Varro attempts to adduce all sorts of 
fanciful physical interpretations, which if these books had contained, they 
would certainly not have been burned? For otherwise the conscript fathers would 
also have burned those books which Varro published and dedicated to the high 
priest Caesar.(1) Now Numa is said to have married the nymph Egeria, because (as 
Varro explains it in the forementioned book) he carried forth(2) water wherewith 
to perform his hydromancy. Thus facts are wont to he converted into fables 
through false colorings. It was by that hydromancy, then, that that over-curious 
Roman king learned both the sacred rites which were to be written in the books 
of the priests, and also the causes of those rites,--which latter, however, he 
was unwilling that any one besides himself should know. Wherefore he made these 
causes, as it were, to die along with himself, taking care to have them written 
by themselves, and removed from the knowledge of men by being buried in the 
earth. Wherefore the things which are written in those books were either 
abominations of demons, so foul and noxious as to render that whole civil 
theology execrable even in the eyes of such men as those senators, who had 
accepted so many shameful things in the sacred rites themselves, or they were 
nothing else than the accounts of dead men, whom, through the lapse of ages, 
almost all the Gentile nations had come to believe to be immortal gods; whilst 
those same demons were delighted even with such rites, having presented 
themselves to receive worship under pretence of being those very dead men whom 
they had caused to be thought immortal gods by certain fallacious miracles, 
performed in order to establish that belief. But, by the hidden providence of 
the true God, these demons were permitted to confess these things to their 
friend Numa, having been gained by those arts through which necromancy could be 
performed, and yet were not constrained to admonish him rather at his death to 
burn than to bury the books in which they were written. But, in order that these 
books might be unknown, the demons could not resist the plough by which they 
were thrown up, or the pen of Varro, through which the things which were done in 
reference to this matter have come down even to our knowledge. For they are not 
able to effect anything which they are not allowed; but they are permitted to 
influence those whom God, in His deep and just judgment, according to their 
deserts, gives over either to be simply afflicted by them, or to be also subdued 
and deceived. But how pernicious these writings were judged to be, or how alien 
from the worship of the true Divinity, may be understood from the fact that the 
senate preferred to burn what Pompilius had hid, rather than to fear what he 
feared, so that he could not dare to do that. Wherefore let him who does not 
desire to live a pious life even now, seek eternal life by means of such rites. 
But let him who does not wish to have fellowship with malign demons have no fear 
for the noxious superstition wherewith they are worshipped, but let him 
recognize the true religion by which they are unmasked and vanquished.