Augustine: DE CIVITATE DEI

[Pr] Quinque superioribus libris satis mihi aduersus eos uideor disputasse, qui multos deos et falsos, quos esse inutilia simulacra uel inmundos spiritus et perniciosa daemonia uel certe creaturas, non creatorem ueritas Christiana conuincit, propter uitae huius mortalis rerumque terrenarum utilitatem eo ritu ac seruitute, quae Graece *latreia dicitur et uni uero Deo debetur, uenerandos et colendos putant. Et nimiae quidem stultitiae uel pertinaciae nec istos quinque nec ullos alios quanticumque numeri libros satis esse posse quis nesciat? quando ea putatur gloria uanitatis, nullis cedere uiribus ueritatis, in perniciem utique eius, cui uitium tam inmane dominatur.

[Pr] In the five previous books I seem to myself to have argued sufficiently against those who, on account of the utility of this mortal life and of earthly affairs, think that many gods—and false ones—whom Christian truth convicts to be useless images or unclean spirits and pernicious daemons, or at least creatures, not the Creator—are to be venerated and worshiped with that rite and servitude which in Greek is called *latreia* and is owed to the one true God alone. And who does not know that neither those five nor any other books, however great the number, can be sufficient against excessive folly or obstinacy? when that glory of vanity is thought to yield to no forces of truth, to the ruin, assuredly, of the one over whom so enormous a vice holds sway.

Nam et contra omnem curantis industriam non malo medici, sed aegroti insanabilis morbus inuictus est. Hi uero, qui ea quae legunt uel sine ulla uel non cum magna ac nimia ueteris erroris obstinatione intellecta et considerata perpendunt, facilius nos isto numero terminatorum quinque uoluminum plus, quam quaestionis ipsius necessitas postulabat, quam minus disseruisse iudicabunt, totamque inuidiam, quam Christianae religioni de huius uitae cladibus terrenarumque contritione ac mutatione rerum imperiti facere conantur, non solum dissimulantibus, sed contra suam conscientiam etiam fauentibus doctis, quos impietas uesana possedit, omnino esse inanem rectae cogitationis atque rationis plenamque leuissimae temeritatis et perniciosissimae animositatis dubitare non poterunt.

For even, in spite of every diligence of the caregiver, it is not the fault of a bad physician, but the patient’s incurable disease that proves invincible. But those who weigh the things they read—once understood and considered—either without any, or at least not with a great and excessive obstinacy of ancient error, will more readily judge that in this number of five completed volumes we have discoursed more, rather than less, than the necessity of the question itself required; and they will not be able to doubt that the whole odium which the unskilled try to make against the Christian religion from the disasters of this life and from the crushing and change of earthly things is altogether empty of right cogitation and reason and full of the slightest temerity and the most pernicious animosity—even in the case of the learned who not only dissemble but, possessed by frenzied impiety, also favor it against their own conscience.

[I] Nunc ergo quoniam deinceps, ut promissus ordo expetit, etiam hi refellendi et docendi sunt, qui non propter istam uitam, sed propter illam, quae post mortem futura est, deos gentium, quos Christiana religio destruit, colendos esse contendunt: placet a ueridico oraculo sancti psalmi sumere exordium disputationis meae: Beatus, cuius est Dominus Deus spes ipsius et non respexit in uanitates et insanias mendaces. Verum tamen in omnibus uanitatibus insaniisque mendacibus longe tolerabilius philosophi audiendi sunt, quibus displicuerunt istae opiniones erroresque populorum, qui populi constituerunt simulacra numinibus multaque de his, quos deos inmortales uocant, falsa atque indigna siue finxerunt siue ficta crediderunt et credita eorum cultui sacrorumque ritibus miscuerunt. Cum his hominibus, qui, etsi non libere praedicando, saltem utcumque in disputationibus mussitando, talia se inprobare testati sunt, non usque adeo inconuenienter quaestio ista tractatur: utrum non unum Deum, qui fecit omnem spiritalem corporalemque creaturam, propter uitam, quae post mortem futura est, coli oporteat, sed multos deos, quos ab illo uno factos et sublimiter conlocatos quidam eorundem philosophorum ceteris excellentiores nobilioresque senserunt.

[1] Now therefore, since next, as the promised order requires, even those must be refuted and instructed who contend that not on account of this life, but on account of that which will be after death, the gods of the nations, whom the Christian religion destroys, ought to be worshiped: it pleases me to take the beginning of my disputation from the truth-telling oracle of a holy psalm: “Blessed is he whose Lord God is his hope, and who has not looked upon vanities and lying insanities.” Yet, however, among all vanities and lying insanities, it is far more tolerable to listen to the philosophers, to whom those opinions and the errors of the peoples were displeasing—peoples who established images for the divinities, and many false and unworthy things about those whom they call immortal gods they either feigned or believed the fictions, and the things believed they mixed into their worship and the rites of sacred things. With these men—who, even if not by freely proclaiming, at least somehow by muttering in disputations, have borne witness that they disapprove such things—this question is handled not so very inappropriately: whether it is not one God, who made every spiritual and corporal creature, that ought to be worshiped on account of the life which will be after death, but many gods, whom certain of those same philosophers thought to have been made by that One and loftily placed, more excellent and more noble than the others.

Ceterum quis ferat dici atque contendi deos illos, quorum in quarto libro quosdam commemoraui, quibus rerum exiguarum singulis singula distribuuntur officia, uitam aeternam cuique praestare? An uero peritissimi illi et acutissimi uiri, qui se pro magno beneficio conscripta docuisse gloriantur, ut sciretur quare cuique deo supplicandum esset, quid a quoque esset petendum, ne absurditate turpissima, qualis ioculariter in mimo fieri solet, peteretur a Libero aqua, a Lymphis uinum, auctores erunt cuipiam hominum diis inmortalibus supplicanti, ut, cum a Lymphis petierit uinum eique responderint: Nos aquam habemus, hoc a Libero pete, possit recte dicere: Si uinum non habetis, saltem date mihi uitam aeternam? Quid hac absurditate monstrosius?

But who could endure that it be said and maintained that those gods—some of whom I mentioned in the fourth book—to whom, for each of the most trifling things, individual offices are distributed, provide eternal life to anyone? Or indeed will those most expert and most acute men, who boast that they have taught by their written compositions as a great benefaction, so that it might be known for what each god must be supplicated, what should be asked from each, lest by a most shameful absurdity, such as is done jocularly in a mime, water be asked from Liber and wine from the Nymphs—will they be advisers to some person supplicating the immortal gods, so that, when he has asked wine from the Nymphs and they have answered him, We have water; ask this from Liber, he can rightly say: If you do not have wine, at least give me eternal life? What is more monstrous than this absurdity?

Nonne illae cachinnantes (solent enim esse ad risum faciles), si non adfectent fallere ut daemones, supplici respondebunt: O homo, putasne in potestate nos habere uitam, quas audis non habere uel uitem? Inpudentissimae igitur stultitiae est uitam aeternam a talibus diis petere uel sperare, qui uitae huius aerumnosissimae atque breuissimae et si qua ad eam pertinent, adminiculandam atque fulciendam ita singulas particulas tueri asseruntur, ut, si id, quod sub alterius tutela ac potestate est, petatur ab altero, tam sit inconueniens et absurdum, ut mimicae scurrilitati uideatur esse simillimum. Quod cum fit ab scientibus mimis, digne ridentur in theatro; cum uero a nescientibus stultis, dignius inridentur in mundo.

Will not those, cackling (for they are wont to be easy to laughter), if they do not aim to deceive like daemons, answer the suppliant: O man, do you think we have life in our power, we whom you hear not to have even a vine-stock? It is therefore the most impudent stupidity to ask or to hope for eternal life from such gods, who are asserted to guard the individual particles of the buttressing and propping of this most wretched and most brief life, and of whatever pertains to it, in such a way that, if that which is under another’s tutelage and power is asked from a different one, it is so incongruent and absurd that it seems most like mimical scurrility. And when this is done by knowing mimes, they are rightly laughed at in the theater; but when by unknowing fools, they are more rightly laughed to scorn in the world.

Cui ergo deo uel deae propter quid supplicaretur, quantum ad illos deos adtinet quos instituerunt ciuitates, a doctis sollerter inuentum memoriaeque mandatum est; quid a Libero, uerbi gratia, quid a Lymphis, quid a Vulcano ac sic a ceteris, quos partim commemoraui in quarto libro, partim praetereundos putaui. Porro si a Cerere uinum a Libero panem, a Vulcano aquam a Lymphis ignem petere erroris est: quanto maioris deliramenti esse intellegi debet, si cuiquam istorum pro uita supplicetur aeterna!

To which god or goddess, then, and for what purpose one should make supplication, so far as it pertains to those gods whom the cities have instituted, has been skillfully devised by the learned and consigned to memory: what from Liber, for example, what from the Lymphs, what from Vulcan, and so from the rest, some of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book, others I judged should be passed over. Moreover, if it is an error to ask from Ceres for wine, from Liber for bread, from Vulcan for water, from the Lymphs for fire, how much greater a delirium must it be understood to be if supplication for eternal life be made to any of those!

Quam ob rem si, cum de regno terreno quaereremus, quosnam illud deos uel deas hominibus credendum esset posse conferre, discussis omnibus longe alienum a ueritate monstratum est a quoquam istorum multorum numinum atque falsorum saltem regna terrena existimare constitui: nonne insanissimae impietatis est, si aeterna uita, quae terrenis omnibus regnis sine ulla dubitatione uel comparatione praeferenda est, ab istorum quoquam dari cuiquam posse credatur? Neque enim propterea dii tales uel terrenum regnum dare non posse uisi sunt, quia illi magni et excelsi sunt, hoc quiddam paruum et abiectum, quod non dignarentur in tanta sublimitate curare; sed quantumlibet consideratione fragilitatis humanae caducos apices terreni regni merito quisque contemnat, illi dii tales apparuerunt, ut indignissimi uiderentur, quibus danda atque seruanda deberent uel ista committi. Ac per hoc, si (ut superiora proximis duobus libris pertractata docuerunt) nullus deus ex illa turba uel quasi plebeiorum uel quasi procerum deorum idoneus est regna mortalia mortalibus dare, quanto minus potest inmortales ex mortalibus facere!

Wherefore, if, when we were inquiring about the earthly kingdom, which gods or goddesses it ought to be believed could confer it upon men, with all having been discussed it was shown to be far alien from the truth to suppose that even the earthly kingdoms were established by any of those many and false divinities: is it not the most insane impiety, if eternal life, which without any doubt or comparison is to be preferred to all earthly kingdoms, should be believed able to be given to anyone by any of those? For such gods were not therefore seen to be unable to give even an earthly kingdom because they are great and exalted, this being a certain small and abject thing which they would not deign in so great sublimity to care for; but, however much, from a consideration of human fragility, one may deservedly despise the perishable pinnacles of an earthly kingdom, those gods appeared such that they seemed most unworthy, to whom even these things ought to be committed to be given and guarded. And through this, if (as the foregoing handled in the two immediately preceding books have taught) no god from that crowd either of the so‑called plebeians or of the so‑called nobles of the gods is suitable to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how much less can he make immortals out of mortals!

Huc accedit, quia, si iam cum illis agimus, qui non propter istam, sed propter uitam quae post mortem futura est existimant colendos deos, iam nec propter illa saltem, quae deorum talium potestati tamquam dispertita et propria non ratione ueritatis, sed uanitatis opinione tribuuntur, omnino colendi sunt, sicut credunt hi, qui cultum eorum uitae huius mortalis utilitatibus necessarium esse contendunt; contra quos iam quinque praecedentibus uoluminibus satis, quantum potui, disputaui. Quae cum ita sint, si eorum, qui colerent deam Iuuentatem, aetas ipsa floreret insignius, contemptores autem eius uel intra annos occumberent iuuentutis, uel in ea tamquam senili torpore frigescerent; si malas cultorum suorum speciosius et festiuius Fortuna barbata uestiret, a quibus autem sperneretur, glabros aut male barbatos uideremus: etiam sic rectissime diceremus huc usque istas deas singulas posse, suis officiis quodam modo limitatas, ac per hoc nec a Iuuentate oportere peti uitam aeternam, quae non daret barbam, nec a Fortuna barbata boni aliquid post hanc uitam esse sperandum, cuius in hac uita potestas nulla esset, ut eandem saltem aetatem, quae barba induitur, ipsa praestaret. Nunc uero cum earum cultus nec propter ista ipsa, quae putant eis subdita, sit necessarius, quia et multi colentes Iuuentatem deam minime in illa aetate uiguerunt, et multi non eam colentes gaudent robore iuuentutis, itemque multi Fortunae barbatae supplices ad nullam uel deformem barbam peruenire potuerunt, et si qui eam pro barba impetranda uenerantur, a barbatis eius contemptoribus inridentur: itane desipit cor humanum, ut, quorum deorum cultum propter ista ipsa temporalia et cito praetereuntia munera, quibus singulis singuli praeesse perhibentur, inanem ludibriosumque cognoscit, propter uitam aeternam credat esse fructuosum?

To this is added, that, if now we deal with those who think that the gods are to be worshiped not on account of this (life), but on account of the life which will be after death, then not even on account of those things at least which are attributed to the power of such gods as though apportioned and proper, not by the reason of truth but by the opinion of vanity, are they at all to be worshiped, just as those believe who contend that their cult is necessary for the utilities of this mortal life; against whom already in the five preceding volumes I have argued sufficiently, as far as I could. Since these things are so, if the very age of those who would worship the goddess Youth were to flourish more conspicuously, but her despisers either were to die within the years of youth, or in it were to grow cold as if with senile torpor; if Bearded Fortune were to clothe the cheeks of her worshipers more beautifully and jauntily, but those by whom she was scorned we should see smooth-cheeked or ill-bearded: even so we would most rightly say that up to this point these individual goddesses can do so much, limited in a certain manner by their own offices, and therefore neither ought eternal life to be asked from Youth, who would not give a beard, nor ought anything good after this life to be hoped for from Bearded Fortune, whose power in this life would be nothing, so that she herself would bestow at least that same age in which a beard is put on. Now indeed, since the cult of them is not necessary even on account of these very things which they suppose to be subject to them, because both many worshiping the goddess Youth have by no means thrived in that age, and many not worshiping her rejoice in the vigor of youth, and likewise many suppliants of Bearded Fortune have been able to arrive at no beard or a misshapen beard, and if any venerate her for obtaining a beard, they are mocked by bearded despisers of her: does the human heart so play the fool, that, the worship of which gods on account of these very temporal and quickly passing gifts, over which individuals are reported to preside individually, it recognizes as empty and ludicrous, on account of eternal life it believes to be fruitful?

Hanc dare illos posse nec hi dicere ausi sunt, qui eis, ut ab insipientibus populis colerentur, ista opera temporalia, quoniam nimis multos putarunt, ne quisquam eorum sederet otiosus, minutatim diuisa tribuerunt.

Nor did even these dare to say that those could give this, who, to them, in order that they might be worshiped by foolish peoples, assigned these temporal works, divided piecemeal, since they thought them too many, lest any one of them sit idle.

[II] Quis Marco Varrone curiosius ista quaesiuit? quis inuenit doctius? quis considerauit adtentius?

[2] Who has inquired into these matters more curiously than Marcus Varro? who has discovered more learnedly? who has considered more attentively?

quis distinxit acutius? quis diligentius pleniusque conscripsit? Qui tametsi minus est suauis eloquio, doctrina tamen atque sententiis ita refertus est, ut in omni eruditione, quam nos saecularem, illi autem liberalem uocant, studiosum rerum tantum iste doceat, quantum studiosum uerborum Cicero delectat.

Who has distinguished more acutely? who has composed more diligently and more fully? He who, although he is less suave in eloquence, is nevertheless so replete with doctrine and judgments that, in all erudition—which we call secular, but they call liberal—this man instructs the studious of things as much as Cicero delights the studious of words.

Denique et ipse <Tullius> huic tale testimonium perhibet, ut in libris Academicis dicat eam, quae ibi uersatur, disputationem se habuisse cum Marco Varrone, "homine, inquit, omnium facile acutissimo et sine ulla dubitatione doctissimo". Non ait "eloquentissimo" uel "facundissimo", quoniam re uera in hac facultate multum impar est; sed "omnium, inquit, facile acutissimo", et in eis libris, id est Academicis, ubi cuncta dubitanda esse contendit, addidit "sine ulla dubitatione doctissimo". Profecto de hac re sic erat certus, ut auferret dubitationem, quam solet in omnibus adhibere, tamquam de hoc uno etiam pro Academicorum dubitatione disputaturus se Academicum fuisset oblitus. In primo autem libro cum eiusdem Varronis litteraria opera praedicaret: "Nos, inquit, in nostra urbe peregrinantes errantesque tamquam hospites tui libri quasi domum reduxerunt, ut possemus aliquando qui et ubi essemus agnoscere. Tu aetatem patriae, tu descriptiones temporum, tu sacrorum iura, tu sacerdotum, tu domesticam, tu publicam disciplinam, tu sedem regionum locorum, ut omnium diuinarum humanarumque rerum nomina genera, officia causas aperuisti." Iste igitur uir tam insignis excellentisque peritiae et, quod de illo etiam Terentianus elegantissimo uersiculo breuiter ait:

Finally, even <Tullius> himself bears such testimony to him, that in the Academic books he says that he had the disputation which is handled there with Marcus Varro—“a man,” he says, “by far the most acute of all and, without any doubt, the most learned.” He does not say “the most eloquent” or “the most facund,” since in truth in this faculty he is very unequal; but “of all,” he says, “by far the most acute,” and in those books, that is, the Academics, where he contends that all things are to be doubted, he added “without any doubt the most learned.” Assuredly about this matter he was so certain as to remove the doubt which he is wont to apply in everything, as though, when he was about to dispute, even on behalf of the Academics’ doubt, concerning this one, he had forgotten that he was an Academic. But in the first book, when he was proclaiming the literary works of that same Varro: “We,” he says, “wandering and erring in our own city like guests, your books have, as it were, led us back home, so that at last we could recognize who and where we were. You have laid open the age of the fatherland, you the descriptions of times, you the laws of sacred rites, you of the priests, you the domestic, you the public discipline, you the seat of regions, of places—you have opened up, namely, the names, kinds, offices, causes of all divine and human things.” Therefore that man of such distinguished and excellent expertise, and—as even Terentianus says of him briefly in a most elegant little verse:

Vir doctissimus undecumque Varro, qui tam multa legit, ut aliquid ei scribere uacuisse miremur; tam multa scripsit, quam multa uix quemquam legere potuisse credamus: iste, inquam, uir tantus ingenio tantusque doctrina, si rerum uelut diuinarum, de quibus scripsit, oppugnator esset atque destructor easque non ad religionem, sed ad superstitionem diceret pertinere, nescio utrum tam multa in eis ridenda contemnenda detestanda conscriberet. Cum uero deos eosdem ita coluerit colendosque censuerit, ut in eo ipso opere litterarum suarum dicat se timere ne pereant, non incursu hostili, sed ciuium neglegentia, de qua illos uelut ruina liberari a se dicit et in memoria bonorum per eius modi libros recondi atque seruari utiliore cura, quam Metellus de incendio sacra Vestalia et Aeneas de Troiano excidio penates liberasse praedicatur; et tamen ea legenda saeculis prodit, quae a sapientibus et insipientibus merito abicienda et ueritati religionis inimicissima iudicentur: quid existimare debemus nisi hominem acerrimum ac peritissimum, non tamen sancto Spiritu liberum, oppressum fuisse suae ciuitatis consuetudine ac legibus, et tamen ea quibus mouebatur sub specie commendandae religionis tacere noluisse.

The most learned man in every respect, Varro, who read so many things that we marvel he had any leisure to write anything; who wrote so many things as we could scarcely believe anyone to have been able to read so many: this man, I say, so great in talent and so great in doctrine, if he had been an assailant and destroyer of the things, as it were, divine, about which he wrote, and said that they pertained not to religion but to superstition, I know not whether he would have set down so many things in them to be laughed at, despised, and detested. But since he both worshiped those same gods and judged that they ought to be worshiped, to such a point that in that very work of his letters he says he fears lest they perish, not by a hostile incursion, but by the negligence of citizens, from which negligence he says that they are, as if from a collapse, freed by himself and stored away and preserved in the memory of good men by books of this sort with a more helpful care than that with which Metellus is proclaimed to have freed the Vestal rites from a conflagration and Aeneas the Penates from the Trojan destruction; and yet he brings forth to be read for ages those things which are judged by the wise and the unwise, deservedly, to be cast away and most inimical to the truth of religion: what ought we to think except that a man most acute and most expert, yet not set free by the Holy Spirit, was oppressed by the custom and laws of his city, and yet was unwilling to be silent about those things by which he was moved under the guise of commending religion.

[III] Quadraginta et unum libros scripsit antiquitatum; hos in res humanas diuinasque diuisit, rebus humanis uiginti quinque, diuinis sedecim tribuit, istam secutus in ea partitione rationem, ut rerum humanarum libros senos quattuor partibus daret. Intendit enim qui agant, ubi agant, quando agant, quid agant. In sex itaque primis de hominibus scripsit, in secundis sex de locis, sex tertios de temporibus, sex quartos eosdemque postremos de rebus absoluit.

[3] He wrote forty-one books of antiquities; he divided these into human and divine matters, assigning twenty-five to human, sixteen to divine, following this rationale in that partition: that for the human matters he should give six books to four parts. For he intended: who act, where they act, when they act, what they act. In the first six, therefore, he wrote about human beings; in the second six, about places; the third six, about times; the fourth six, and these the last, he completed about things.

Quater autem seni uiginti et quattuor fiunt. Sed unum singularem, qui communiter prius de omnibus loqueretur, in capite posuit. In diuinis identidem rebus eadem ab illo diuisionis forma seruata est, quantum adtinet ad ea, quae diis exhibenda sunt.

Moreover, four times six make twenty-four. But he placed a single one, which would speak in common first about all, at the head. In divine matters likewise the same form of division was observed by him, insofar as it pertains to those things that are to be rendered to the gods.

Exhibentur enim ab hominibus in locis et temporibus sacra. Haec quattuor, quae dixi, libris complexus est ternis: nam tres priores de hominibus scripsit, sequentes de locis, tertios de temporibus, quartos de sacris, etiam hic, qui exhibeant, ubi exhibeant, quando exhibeant, quid exhibeant, subtilissima distinctione commendans. Sed quia oportebat dicere et maxime id expectabatur, quibus exhibeant, de ipsis quoque diis tres conscripsit extremos, ut quinquies terni quindecim fierent.

For sacra are exhibited by human beings in places and times. These four, which I have said, he encompassed in triads of books: for he wrote the first three about human beings, the following three about places, the third three about times, the fourth three about sacra—also here commending, with a most subtle distinction, who exhibit, where they exhibit, when they exhibit, what they exhibit. But because it was necessary to say, and this was especially expected, to whom they exhibit, he likewise composed the last three about the gods themselves, so that five times three might make fifteen.

Sunt autem omnes, ut diximus, sedecim, quia et istorum exordio unum singularem, qui prius de omnibus loqueretur, apposuit. Quo absoluto consequenter ex illa quinquepertita distributione tres praecedentes, qui ad homines pertinent, ita subdiuisit, ut primus sit de pontificibus, secundus de auguribus, tertius de quindecim uiris sacrorum; secundos tres ad loca pertinentes ita, ut in uno eorum de sacellis, altero de sacris aedibus diceret, tertio de locis religiosis; tres porro, qui istos sequuntur et ad tempora pertinent, id est ad dies festos, ita, ut unum eorum faceret de feriis, alterum de ludis circensibus, de scaenicis tertium; quartorum trium ad sacra pertinentium uni dedit consecrationes, alteri sacra priuata, ultimo publica. Hanc uelut pompam obsequiorum in tribus, qui restant, dii ipsi sequuntur extremi, quibus iste uniuersus cultus inpensus est: in primo dii certi, in secundo incerti, in tertio cunctorum nouissimo dii praecipui atque selecti.

Now they are all, as we said, sixteen, because at the beginning of these he also appended a single one, which would first speak about all. When this was completed, consequently from that fivefold distribution he subdivided the three preceding, which pertain to human beings, thus: that the first be about the pontiffs, the second about the augurs, the third about the fifteen men of the sacred rites; the second three, pertaining to places, thus: that in one of them he should speak about little shrines, in another about sacred buildings, in a third about religious places; further, the three which follow these and pertain to times, that is to feast days, thus: that he should make one of them about the feriae, another about the circus games, the third about the scenic (theatrical) ones; of the fourth three, pertaining to sacred rites, he assigned to one consecrations, to another private sacred rites, to the last public ones. This, as it were, pageant of observances the gods themselves follow at the end in the three that remain, to whom this entire cult has been expended: in the first, certain gods; in the second, uncertain; in the third, the very last of all, the principal and select gods.

[IV] In hac tota serie pulcherrimae ac subtilissimae distributionis et distinctionis uitam aeternam frustra quaeri et sperari inpudentissime uel optari, ex his, quae iam diximus et quae deinceps dicenda sunt, cuiuis hominum, qui corde obstinato sibi non fuerit inimicus, facillime apparet. Vel hominum enim sunt ista instituta uel daemonum, non quales uocant illi daemones bonos, sed, ut loquar apertius, inmundorum spirituum et sine controuersia malignorum, qui noxias opiniones, quibus anima humana magis magisque uanescat et incommutabili aeternaeque ueritati coaptari atque inhaerere non possit, inuidentia mirabili et occulte inserunt cogitationibus impiorum et aperte aliquando ingerunt sensibus et qua possunt fallaci adtestatione confirmant. Iste ipse Varro propterea se prius de rebus humanis, de diuinis autem postea scripsisse testatur, quod prius extiterint ciuitates, deinde ab eis haec instituta sint.

[4] In this whole series of a most beautiful and most subtle distribution and distinction, that eternal life is vainly sought and, most impudently, even hoped for or desired, from the things we have already said and those that are to be said next, becomes most easily apparent to anyone among humans who is not, with an obstinate heart, an enemy to himself. For these institutions are either of men or of demons—not such demons as they call good, but, to speak more openly, of unclean spirits and, without controversy, malignant—who, with astonishing envy, secretly insert into the thoughts of the impious noxious opinions, by which the human soul becomes more and more vain and cannot be coapted and adhere to the incommutable and eternal truth; and they openly sometimes thrust them upon the senses, and, where they can, confirm them with fallacious attestation. This very Varro attests that for this reason he wrote first about human affairs but afterwards about divine, because commonwealths existed first, and then these institutions were established by them.

Vera autem religio non a terrena aliqua ciuitate instituta est, sed plane caelestem ipsa instituit ciuitatem. Eam uero inspirat et docet uerus Deus, dator uitae aeternae, ueris cultoribus suis.

But true religion has not been instituted by any terrestrial city, but plainly it itself institutes the celestial city. It is inspired and taught by the true God, the giver of eternal life, to his true worshipers.

Varronis igitur confitentis ideo se prius de rebus humanis scripsisse, postea de diuinis, quia diuinae istae ab hominibus institutae sunt, haec ratio est: "Sicut prior est, inquit, pictor quam tabula picta, prior faber quam aedificium: ita priores sunt ciuitates quam ea, quae a ciuitatibus instituta sunt." Dicit autem prius se scripturum fuisse de diis, postea de hominibus, si de omni natura deorum scriberet, quasi hic de aliqua scribat et non de omni, aut uero etiam aliqua, licet non omnis, deorum natura non prior debeat esse quam hominum. Quid quod in illis tribus nouissimis libris deos certos et incertos et selectos diligenter explicans nullam deorum naturam praetermittere uidetur? Quid est ergo, quod ait: "Si de omni natura deorum et hominum scriberemus, prius diuina absoluissemus, quam humana adtigissemus"? Aut enim de omni natura deorum scribit, aut de aliqua, aut omnino de nulla.

Therefore, of Varro’s confession that he wrote first about human affairs, afterwards about divine, because these divine things were instituted by men, this is the rationale: “Just as, he says, the painter is prior to the painted panel, the craftsman prior to the edifice: so cities are prior to the things which have been instituted by cities.” But he says that he would have written first about the gods, afterwards about men, if he were writing about the whole nature of the gods, as though here he were writing about some part and not about the whole; or indeed that even some nature of the gods, although not the whole, ought not to be prior to that of men. What of the fact that in those three most recent books, carefully explaining the certain and uncertain and select gods, he seems to have omitted no nature of the gods? What, then, is it that he says: “If we were writing about the whole nature of gods and men, we would first have completed the divine before we touched the human”? For either he is writing about the whole nature of the gods, or about some, or altogether about none.

Si de omni, praeponenda est utique rebus humanis; si de aliqua, cur non etiam ipsa res praecedat humanas? An indigna est praeferri etiam uniuersae naturae hominum pars aliqua deorum? Quod si multum est, ut aliqua pars diuina praeponatur uniuersis rebus humanis, saltem digna est uel Romanis.

If about the whole, it is of course to be set before human affairs; if about some part, why should not that very matter also precede human affairs? Or is some part of the gods unworthy to be preferred even to the universal nature of men? But if it is too much that some divine part be set before all human things, at least it is worthy to be preferred even to Roman matters.

Rerum quippe humanarum libros, non quantum ad orbem terrarum, sed quantum ad solam Romam pertinet, scripsit, quos tamen rerum diuinarum libris se dixit scribendi ordine merito praetulisse, sicut pictorem tabulae pictae, sicut fabrum aedificio, apertissime confitens, quod etiam istae res diuinae, sicut pictura, sicut structura, ab hominibus institutae sint. Restat ut de nulla deorum natura scripsisse intellegatur, neque hoc aperte dicere uoluisse, sed intellegentibus reliquisse. Vbi enim dicitur "non omnis", usitate quidem intellegitur "aliqua"; sed potest intellegi et "nulla", quoniam quae nulla est nec omnis nec aliqua est.

For indeed he wrote the books of human affairs, not in so far as it pertains to the whole world, but in so far as it pertains to Rome alone; and yet he said that he had, with good reason, preferred them in the order of writing to the books of divine affairs—just as a painter to a painted panel, just as a craftsman to an edifice—most openly confessing that even those divine affairs, like a painting, like a structure, have been instituted by human beings. It remains that he is to be understood to have written about no nature of the gods, nor to have wished to say this openly, but to have left it to those who understand. For when “not all” is said, ordinarily indeed “some” is understood; but it can also be understood as “none,” since what is none is neither all nor some.

Nam, ut ipse dicit, si omnis esset natura deorum, de qua scriberet, scribendi ordine rebus humanis praeponenda esset; ut autem et ipso tacente ueritas clamat, praeponenda esset certe rebus Romanis, etiamsi non omnis, sed saltem aliqua esset: recte autem postponitur; ergo nulla est. Non itaque rebus diuinis anteferre uoluit res humanas, sed rebus ueris noluit anteferre res falsas. In his enim, quae scripsit de rebus humanis, secutus est historiam rerum gestarum; quae autem de his, quas diuinas uocat, quid nisi opiniones rerum uanarum?

For, as he himself says, if the nature of the gods, about which he would write, were entire, in the order of writing it ought to be set before human affairs; but, as truth cries out even with himself silent, it would certainly have to be set before Roman affairs, even if it were not entire, but at least some part: yet it is rightly postponed; therefore it is none at all. He did not, then, wish to prefer human things to divine things, but he did not wish to prefer false things to true things. For in those matters which he wrote about human affairs, he followed the history of deeds; but as for those things which he calls divine, what are they if not opinions of vain things?

Hoc est nimirum, quod uoluit subtili significatione monstrare, non solum scribens de his posterius quam de illis, sed etiam rationem reddens cur id fecerit. Quam si tacuisset, aliter hoc factum eius ab aliis fortasse defenderetur. In ea uero ipsa ratione, quam reddidit, nec aliis quicquam reliquit pro arbitrio suspicari et satis probauit homines se praeposuisse institutis hominum, non naturam hominum naturae deorum.

This, to be sure, is what he wished to show by a subtle signification, not only by writing about these later than about those, but also by rendering a rationale for why he did it. Which, if he had kept silent, this deed of his might perhaps have been defended otherwise by others. But in that very rationale which he rendered, he left nothing for others to suspect at their discretion and sufficiently proved that he had set men before the institutions of men, not the nature of men before the nature of the gods.

Ita se libros rerum diuinarum non de ueritate quae pertinet ad naturam, sed de falsitate quae pertinet ad errorem scripsisse confessus est. Quod apertius alibi posuit, sicut in quarto libro commemoraui, ex naturae formula se scripturum fuisse, si nouam ipse conderet ciuitatem; quia uero iam ueterem inuenerat, non se potuisse nisi eius consuetudinem sequi.

Thus he confessed that he wrote the books of divine matters not concerning the truth which pertains to nature, but concerning the falsity which pertains to error. He set this forth more openly elsewhere, as I have commemorated in the fourth book: that he would have written from the formula of nature, if he himself were founding a new city; but since he found an old one already, he could do nothing except follow its custom.

[V] Deinde illud quale est, quod tria genera theologiae dicit esse, id est rationis quae de diis explicatur, eorumque unum mythicon appellari, alterum physicon, tertium ciuile? Latine si usus admitteret, genus, quod primum posuit, fabulare appellaremus; sed fabulosum dicamus; a fabulis enim mythicon dictum est, quoniam *muthos Graece fabula dicitur. Secundum autem ut naturale dicatur, iam et consuetudo locutionis admittit.

[5] Next, how about this, that he says there are three kinds of theology, that is, of the reasoning which is expounded concerning the gods, and that one of these is called mythicon, another physicon, a third civil? If Latin usage permitted, we would call the kind which he set first “fabular”; but let us say “fabulous”; for from fables the mythicon is so called, since *muthos in Greek is called fabula. But that the second be called natural, now even the usage of speech admits.

Tertium etiam ipse Latine enuntiauit, quod ciuile appellatur. Deinde ait: "Mythicon appellant, quo maxime utuntur poetae; physicon, quo philosophi, ciuile, quo populi. Primum, inquit, quod dixi, in eo sunt multa contra dignitatem et naturam inmortalium ficta.

He also himself enunciated the third in Latin, which is called civil. Then he says: "They call it mythicon, which the poets use most of all; physicon, which the philosophers [use]; civil, which the peoples [use]. The first, he says, which I mentioned, in it many things have been fabricated against the dignity and nature of the immortals."

In hoc enim est, ut deus alius ex capite, alius ex femore sit, alius ex guttis sanguinis natus; in hoc, ut dii furati sint, ut adulterarint, ut seruierint homini; denique in hoc omnia diis adtribuuntur, quae non modo in hominem, sed etiam quae in contemptissimum hominem cadere possunt." Hic certe ubi potuit, ubi ausus est, ubi inpunitum putauit, quanta mendacissimis fabulis naturae deorum fieret iniuria, sine caligine ullius ambiguitatis expressit. Loquebatur enim non de naturali theologia, non de ciuili, sed de fabulosa, quam libere a se putauit esse culpandam.

"In this, indeed, it is that one god is from a head, another from a thigh, another born from drops of blood; in this, that the gods stole, that they committed adultery, that they served a man; finally, in this all things are attributed to the gods which can fall not only upon a man, but even upon the most contemptible man." Here assuredly, where he could, where he dared, where he thought it would go unpunished, he expressed, without the mist of any ambiguity, how great an injury was being done to the nature of the gods by the most mendacious fables. For he was speaking not about natural theology, not about civil, but about fabulous, which he thought he was free to blame.

Videamus quid de altera dicat. "Secundum genus est, inquit, quod demonstraui, de quo multos libros philosophi reliquerunt; in quibus est, dii qui sint, ubi, quod genus, quale est: a quodam tempore an a sempiterno fuerint dii; ex igni sint, ut credit Heraclitus, an ex numeris, ut Pythagoras, an ex atomis, ut ait Epicurus. Sic alia, quae facilius intra parietes in schola quam extra in foro ferre possunt aures." Nihil in hoc genere culpauit, quod physicon uocant et ad philosophos pertinet, tantum quod eorum inter se controuersias commemorauit, per quos facta est dissidentium multitudo sectarum.

Let us see what he says about the other. "The second kind is, he says, that which I have demonstrated, concerning which the philosophers have left many books; in which are [treated]: who the gods are, where, of what genus, of what quality it is; whether the gods have been from a certain time or from the sempiternal; whether they are from fire, as Heraclitus believes, or from numbers, as Pythagoras, or from atoms, as Epicurus says. Thus other things, which ears can more easily bear within the walls in the school than outside in the forum." He blamed nothing in this kind, which they call physicon and which pertains to the philosophers, only that he recounted their controversies among themselves, through whom a multitude of dissentient sects has arisen.

Remouit tamen hoc genus a foro, id est a populis; scholis uero et parietibus clausit. Illud autem primum mendacissimum atque turpissimum a ciuitatibus non remouit. O religiosas aures populares atque in his etiam Romanas!

He did, however, remove this kind from the forum, that is, from the peoples; but he shut it up in the schools and within walls. Yet that first one, most mendacious and most shameful, he did not remove from the cities. O religious popular ears, and among these even Roman!

Quod de diis inmortalibus philosophi disputant, ferre non possunt; quod uero poetae canunt et histriones agunt, quae contra dignitatem ac naturam inmortalium ficta sunt, quia non modo in hominem, sed etiam in contemptissimum hominem cadere possunt, non solum ferunt, sed etiam libenter audiunt. Neque id tantum, sed diis quoque ipsis haec placere et per haec eos placandos esse decernunt.

What philosophers dispute concerning the immortal gods they cannot endure; but what poets sing and stage-players perform—things fabricated against the dignity and nature of the immortals, because they can befall not only a man but even a most contemptible man—they not only endure, but even gladly listen to. Nor that only, but they also decree that these things are pleasing to the gods themselves, and that through these the gods are to be placated.

Dixerit aliquis: Haec duo genera mythicon et physicon, id est fabulosum atque naturale, discernamus ab hoc ciuili, de quo nunc agitur, unde illa et ipse discreuit, iamque ipsum ciuile uideamus qualiter explicet. Video quidem, cur debeat discerni fabulosum: quia falsum, quia turpe, quia indignum est. Naturale autem a ciuili uelle discernere quid est aliud quam etiam ipsum ciuile fateri esse mendosum?

Someone may say: Let us discern these two kinds, the mythic and the physical, that is, the fabulous and the natural, from this civil kind, which is now under discussion, from which he himself also separated those; and now let us see how he expounds the civil itself. I do indeed see why the fabulous ought to be distinguished: because it is false, because it is base, because it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish the natural from the civil—what else is it than to admit that the civil itself also is faulty?

Si enim illud naturale est, quid habet reprehensionis, ut excludatur? Si autem hoc quod ciuile dicitur naturale non est, quid habet meriti, ut admittatur? Haec nempe illa causa est, quare prius scripserit de rebus humanis, posterius de diuinis, quoniam in diuinis rebus non naturam, sed hominum instituta secutus est.

If indeed that is natural, what has it of reprehension, that it should be excluded? But if this which is called civil is not natural, what has it of merit, that it should be admitted? This, to be sure, is that cause why he wrote first about human affairs, later about divine, since in divine matters he followed not nature, but the institutions of men.

Intueamur sane et ciuilem theologian. "Tertium genus est, inquit, quod in urbibus ciues, maxime sacerdotes, nosse atque administrare debent. In quo est, quos deos publice sacra ac sacrificia colere et facere quemque par sit." Adhuc quod sequitur adtendamus.

Let us indeed also look upon the civil theology. "The third kind," he says, "is that which in the cities the citizens, especially the priests, ought to know and administer. In it is [set forth] which gods it is fitting for each to honor publicly with sacred rites and sacrifices and to perform them." Let us furthermore attend to what follows.

"Prima, inquit, theologia maxime accommodata est ad theatrum, secunda ad mundum, tertia ad urbem." Quis non uideat, cui palmam dederit? Vtique secundae, quam supra dixit esse philosophorum. Hanc enim pertinere testatur ad mundum, quo isti nihil esse excellentius opinantur in rebus.

"The first theology, he says, is most accommodated to the theater, the second to the world, the third to the city." Who does not see to which he has given the palm? Assuredly to the second, which he said above is the philosophers’. For he attests that this pertains to the world, than which those men opine that nothing is more excellent among things.

Duas uero illas theologias, primam et tertiam, theatri scilicet atque urbis, distinxit an iunxit? Videmus enim non continuo, quod est urbis, pertinere posse et ad mundum, quamuis urbes esse uideamus in mundo; fieri enim potest, ut in urbe secundum falsas opiniones ea colantur et ea credantur, quorum in mundo uel extra mundum natura sit nusquam: theatrum uero ubi est nisi in urbe? Quis theatrum instituit nisi ciuitas?

But those two theologies, the first and the third, namely of the theater and of the city, did he distinguish or join? For we see that what belongs to the city cannot necessarily also pertain to the world, although we see cities to exist in the world; for it can happen that in a city, according to false opinions, things are worshiped and believed whose nature is nowhere in the world or outside the world: but where is a theater except in a city? Who instituted a theater except a commonwealth?

Propter quid instituit nisi propter ludos scaenicos? Vbi sunt ludi scaenici nisi in rebus diuinis, de quibus hi libri tanta sollertia conscribuntur?

For what reason did it establish it, if not for scenic games? Where are scenic games, if not in the divine rites, about which these books are composed with such great skill?

[VI] O Marce Varro, cum sis homo omnium acutissimus et sine ulla dubitatione doctissimus, sed tamen homo, non Deus, nec spiritu Dei ad uidenda et adnuntianda diuina in ueritatem libertatemque subuectus, cernis quidem quam sint res diuinae ab humanis nugis atque mendaciis dirimendae; sed uitiosissimas populorum opiniones et consuetudines in superstitionibus publicis uereris offendere, quas ab deorum natura abhorrere uel talium, quales in huius mundi elementis humani animi suspicatur infirmitas, et sentis ipse, cum eas usquequaque consideras, et omnis uestra litteratura circumsonat. Quid hic agit humanum quamuis excellentissimum ingenium? Quid tibi humana licet multiplex ingensque doctrina in his angustiis suffragatur?

[6] O Marcus Varro, since you are a man most acute of all and, without any doubt, most learned, yet a man nevertheless, not God, nor borne aloft by the Spirit of God to behold and to announce the divine into truth and liberty, you do indeed discern how the divine matters must be severed from human trifles and mendacities; but you fear to offend the most vicious opinions and customs of peoples in public superstitions—opinions which you yourself, when you consider them everywhere, both feel to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, or from that of such beings as the weakness of the human mind suspects in the elements of this world—and all your literature resounds on every side with this. What can a human genius, however most excellent, accomplish here? What support does your human learning—though manifold and immense—afford you in these straits?

Naturales deos colere cupis, ciuiles cogeris. Inuenisti alios fabulosos, in quos liberius quod sentis euomas, unde et istos ciuiles uelis nolisue perfundas. Dicis quippe fabulosos accommodatos esse ad theatrum, naturales ad mundum, ciuiles ad urbem, cum mundus opus sit diuinum, urbes uero et theatra opera sint hominum, nec alii dii rideantur in theatris, quam qui adorantur in templis, nec aliis ludos exhibeatis, quam quibus uictimas immolatis.

You desire to worship natural gods; you are compelled to worship civil ones. You have found others—fabulous—upon whom you may more freely spew what you feel, whence you also, whether you will or not, drench these civil ones. For you say that the fabulous are accommodated to the theater, the natural to the world, the civil to the city, since the world is a divine work, whereas cities and theaters are works of men; and no other gods are laughed at in the theaters than those who are adored in the temples, nor do you exhibit games to any others than those to whom you immolate victims.

Quanto liberius subtiliusque ista diuideres, dicens alios esse deos naturales, alios ab hominibus institutos, sed de institutis aliud habere litteras poetarum, aliud sacerdotum, utrasque tamen ita esse inter se amicas consortio falsitatis, ut gratae sint utraeque daemonibus, quibus doctrina inimica est ueritatis! Sequestrata igitur paululum theologia, quam naturalem uocant, de qua postea disserendum est, placetne tandem uitam aeternam peti aut sperari ab diis poeticis theatricis, ludicris scaenicis? Absit; immo auertat Deus uerus tam inmanem sacrilegamque dementiam.

How much more freely and more subtly you would divide these things, saying that some gods are natural, others instituted by men; but that concerning the instituted ones the writings of the poets have one thing, the writings of the priests another—yet that both are so friendly among themselves by a consortium of falsity, that both are pleasing to the demons, to whom doctrine is inimical to truth! Therefore, with the theology which they call natural sequestered for a little—about which there is to be discussion afterward—does it please at length that eternal life be sought or hoped for from poetic, theatrical, ludic, scenic gods? Far be it; nay rather, may the true God avert so monstrous and sacrilegious madness.

Quid? ab eis diis, quibus haec placent et quos haec placant, cum eorum illic crimina frequententur, uita aeterna poscenda est? Nemo, ut arbitror, usque ad tantum praecipitium furiosissimae impietatis insanit.

What? From those gods, to whom these things are pleasing and whom these things appease, since their crimes are there rehearsed, is eternal life to be asked? No one, as I judge, raves up to such a precipice of most frenzied impiety.

Nec fabulosa igitur nec ciuili theologia sempiternam quisquam adipiscitur uitam. Illa enim de diis turpia fingendo seminat, haec fauendo metit; illa mendacia spargit, haec colligit; illa res diuinas falsis criminibus insectatur, haec eorum criminum ludos in diuinis rebus amplectitur; illa de diis nefanda figmenta hominum carminibus personat, haec ea deorum ipsorum festiuitatibus consecrat; facinora et flagitia numinum illa cantat, haec amat; illa prodit aut fingit, haec autem aut adtestatur ueris aut oblectatur et falsis. Ambae turpes ambaeque damnabiles; sed illa, quae theatrica est, publicam turpitudinem profitetur; ista, quae urbana est, illius turpitudine ornatur.

Therefore neither by mythological nor by civil theology does anyone acquire everlasting life. For that one, by feigning shameful things about the gods, sows; this one, by favoring them, reaps; that one scatters lies, this one gathers them; that one assails divine things with false accusations, this one embraces the plays of those crimes in divine matters; that one gives voice to unspeakable figments about the gods in the songs of men, this one consecrates them at the very festivals of the gods; the deeds and disgraces of the deities that one sings, this one loves; that one brings forth or feigns, but this one either attests to the true or is entertained also by the false. Both are base and both condemnable; but that one, which is theatrical, professes public turpitude; this one, which is urban (civic), is adorned by the turpitude of that one.

Hincine uita aeterna sperabitur, unde ista breuis temporalisque polluitur? An uero uitam polluit consortium nefariorum hominum, si se inserant affectionibus et assensionibus nostris, et uitam non polluit societas daemonum, qui coluntur criminibus suis? Si ueris, quam mali!

Will eternal life be hoped for from this quarter, from which this brief and temporal life is polluted? Or indeed does the consortium of nefarious men pollute life, if they insinuate themselves into our affections and assents, and does not the society of daemons pollute life—those who are worshiped for their crimes? If for true crimes, how evil!

si falsis, quam male!

if by false ones, how badly!

Haec cum dicimus, uideri fortasse cuipiam nimis harum rerum ignaro potest ea sola de diis talibus maiestati indigna diuinae et ridicula detestabilia celebrari, quae poeticis cantantur carminibus et ludis scaenicis actitantur; sacra uero illa, quae non histriones, sed sacerdotes agunt, ab omni esse dedecore purgata et aliena. Hoc si ita esset, numquam theatricas turpitudines in eorum honorem quisquam celebrandas esse censeret, numquam eas ipsi dii praeciperent sibimet exhiberi. Sed ideo nihil pudet ad obsequium deorum talia gerere in theatris, quia similia geruntur in templis.

When we say these things, it may perhaps seem to someone too ignorant of these matters that only those things about such gods are celebrated which are unworthy of the divine majesty and ridiculous, detestable—those which are sung in poetic songs and acted in scenic games; whereas those sacred rites which not actors but priests perform are purged and alien from all disgrace. If this were so, never would anyone deem that theatrical turpitudes should be celebrated in their honor, never would the gods themselves command that they be exhibited to themselves. But for this reason it shames no one to do such things in the theaters in the service of the gods, because similar things are done in the temples.

Denique cum memoratus auctor ciuilem theologian a fabulosa et naturali tertiam quandam sui generis distinguere conaretur, magis eam ex utraque temperatam quam ab utraque separatam intellegi uoluit. Ait enim ea, quae scribunt poetae, minus esse quam ut populi sequi debeant; quae autem philosophi, plus quam ut ea uulgum scrutari expediat. "Quae sic abhorrent, inquit, ut tamen ex utroque genere ad ciuiles rationes adsumpta sint non pauca.

Finally, when the aforementioned author was trying to distinguish a civil theology as a certain third of its own kind from the fabulous and the natural, he wanted it to be understood rather as tempered from both than separated from both. For he says that the things which the poets write are too little for the peoples to be bound to follow them; but the things which the philosophers [write] are too much for it to be expedient that the common crowd scrutinize them. “Which things,” he says, “are so discordant, yet nonetheless not a few have been taken up from each kind for civic rationales.”

Quare quae erunt communia cum propriis, una cum ciuilibus scribemus; e quibus maior societas debet esse nobis cum philosophis quam cum poetis." Non ergo nulla cum poetis. Et tamen alio loco dicit de generationibus deorum magis ad poetas quam ad physicos fuisse populos inclinatos. Hic enim dixit quid fieri debeat, ibi quid fiat.

Wherefore the things that will be common with the proper ones, we shall write together with the civil; among which a greater fellowship ought to be ours with the philosophers than with the poets." Not, then, none with the poets. And yet elsewhere he says that, concerning the generations of the gods, the peoples have been more inclined to the poets than to the physicists. For here he said what ought to be done, there what is done.

Physicos dixit utilitatis causa scripsisse, poetas delectationis. Ac per hoc ea, quae a poetis conscripta populi sequi non debent, crimina sunt deorum, quae tamen delectant et populos et deos. Delectationis enim causa, sicut dicit, scribunt poetae, non utilitatis; ea tamen scribunt, quae dii expetant, populi exhibeant.

He said that the physicists wrote for the sake of utility, the poets for that of delectation. And through this, those things which, having been written by the poets, the peoples ought not to follow are the crimes of the gods, which nevertheless delight both the peoples and the gods. For the poets, as he says, write for the cause of delectation, not of utility; yet they write those things which the gods desire, the peoples exhibit.

[VII] Reuocatur igitur ad theologian ciuilem theologia fabulosa theatrica scaenica, indignitatis et turpitudinis plena, et haec tota, quae merito culpanda et respuenda iudicatur, pars huius est, quae colenda et obseruanda censetur; non sane pars incongrua, sicut ostendere institui, et quae ab uniuerso corpore aliena importune illi conexa atque suspensa sit, sed omnino consona et tamquam eiusdem corporis membrum conuenientissime copulata. Quid enim aliud ostendunt illa simulacra formae aetates sexus habitus deorum? Numquid barbatum Iouem, imberbem Mercurium poetae habent, pontifices non habent?

[7] Therefore the fabulous theatrical scenic theology, full of indignity and turpitude, is called back to the civil theology; and this whole thing, which is rightly judged culpable and to be repudiated, is a part of that which is thought to be to be cultivated and observed—not, to be sure, an incongruous part, as I have set out to show, one alien from the whole body and inopportunely connected and hung onto it, but altogether consonant and, as it were, most fittingly coupled as a member of the same body. For what else do those simulacra show—the forms, ages, sexes, attire of the gods? Is it that the poets have a bearded Jove, a beardless Mercury, and the pontiffs do not?

Numquid Priapo mimi, non etiam sacerdotes enormia pudenda fecerunt? An aliter stat adorandus in locis sacris, quam procedit ridendus in theatris? Num Saturnus senex, Apollo ephebus ita personae sunt histrionum, ut non sint statuae delubrorum?

Have not the mimes for Priapus, nay even the priests, made enormous pudenda? Or does he stand to be adored in sacred places otherwise than he comes forth to be laughed at in the theatres? Are Saturn an old man and Apollo an ephebe so the personae of actors that they are not the statues of the shrines?

Cur Forculus, qui foribus praeest, et Limentinus, qui limini, dii sunt masculi, atque inter hos Cardea femina est, quae cardinem seruat? Nonne ista in rerum diuinarum libris reperiuntur, quae graues poetae suis carminibus indigna duxerunt? Numquid Diana theatrica portat arma et urbana simpliciter uirgo est?

Why are Forculus, who presides over the doors, and Limentinus, who over the threshold, male gods, while among these Cardea is a female, who keeps the hinge? Are not these things found in the books of divine matters, which grave poets judged unworthy of their songs? Does the theatrical Diana bear arms, and the urban simply is a virgin?

Numquid scaenicus Apollo citharista est et ab hac arte Delphicus uacat? Sed haec honestiora sunt in comparatione turpiorum. Quid de ipso Ioue senserunt, qui eius nutricem in Capitolio posuerunt?

Is the theatrical Apollo a citharist, and is the Delphic free from this art? But these are more honorable in comparison with the more shameful. What did they think about Jove himself, who placed his nurse on the Capitol?

Nonne adtestati sunt Euhemero, qui omnes tales deos non fabulosa garrulitate, sed historica diligentia homines fuisse mortalesque conscripsit? Epulones etiam deos, parasitos Iouis, ad eius mensam qui constituerunt, quid aliud quam mimica sacra esse uoluerunt? Nam parasitos Iouis ad conuiuium eius adhibitos si mimus dixisset, utique risum quaesisse uideretur.

Did they not attest to Euhemerus, who, not with fabulous garrulity but with historical diligence, wrote that all such gods had been men and mortals? Those who even appointed the Epulones as gods, parasites of Jove, at his table—what else did they wish than that the sacra should be mimic? For if a mime had said that parasites of Jove were brought to his banquet, he would surely seem to have sought laughter.

Varro dixit! non cum inrideret deos, sed cum commendaret hoc dixit; diuinarum, non humanarum rerum libri hoc eum scripsisse testantur, nec ubi ludos scaenicos exponebat, sed ubi Capitolina iura pandebat. Denique talibus uincitur et fatetur, sicut forma humana deos fecerunt, ita eos delectari humanis uoluptatibus credidisse.

Varro said it! not when he was mocking the gods, but when he was commending, he said this; the books of divine, not of human, matters testify that he wrote this, and not where he was expounding scenic games, but where he was unfolding the Capitoline laws. Finally, by such things he is overcome and confesses that, just as they made the gods in human form, so they believed them to be delighted by human pleasures.

Non enim et maligni spiritus suo negotio defuerunt, ut has noxias opiniones humanarum mentium ludificatione firmarent. Vnde etiam illud est, quod Herculis aedituus otiosus atque feriatus lusit tesseris secum utraque manu alternante, in una constituens Herculem, in altera se ipsum, sub ea condicione, ut, si ipse uicisset, de stipe templi sibi cenam pararet amicamque conduceret; si autem uictoria Herculis fieret, hoc idem de pecunia sua uoluptati Herculis exhiberet; deinde cum a se ipso tamquam ab Hercule uictus esset, debitam cenam et nobilissimam meretricem Larentinam deo Herculi dedit. At illa cum dormisset in templo, uidit in somnis Herculem sibi esse commixtum sibique dixisse, quod inde discedens, cui primum iuueni obuia fieret, apud illum esset inuentura mercedem, quam sibi credere deberet ab Hercule persolutam.

For the malign spirits did not fail their own business either, so as to strengthen these noxious opinions by the ludification of human minds. Whence also is that tale, that the temple-warden of Hercules, idle and on holiday, played at dice by himself, alternating with each hand, setting Hercules on one hand and himself on the other, under this condition: that, if he himself should win, he would prepare a dinner for himself from the temple’s collection and would hire a girlfriend; but if victory should be Hercules’s, he would provide the same at his own expense for the pleasure of Hercules; then, when he had been beaten by himself as though by Hercules, he gave the owed dinner and the most renowned prostitute Larentia to the god Hercules. But she, when she had slept in the temple, saw in a dream that Hercules had been commingled with her and had said to her that, on departing thence, the first young man she met, with him she would find the fee which she ought to believe had been paid to her by Hercules.

Ac sic abeunti cum primus iuuenis ditissimus Tarutius occurrisset eamque dilectam secum diutius habuisset, illa herede defunctus est. Quae amplissimam adepta pecuniam ne diuinae mercedi uideretur ingrata, quod acceptissimum putauit esse numinibus, populum Romanum etiam ipsa scripsit heredem, atque illa non comparente inuentum est testamentum; quibus meritis eam ferunt etiam honores meruisse diuinos.

And so, as she was going away, the first young man, the very wealthy Tarutius, met her, and having kept her, beloved, with him for a long time, he died with her as heir. She, having obtained a most ample sum of money, lest she might seem ungrateful to the divine reward, wrote down even the Roman People themselves as heir, which she thought would be most acceptable to the numina; and when she did not appear, the testament was found; by which merits they say that she even earned divine honors.

Haec si poetae fingerent, si mimi agerent, ad fabulosam theologian dicerentur procul dubio pertinere et a ciuilis theologiae dignitate separanda iudicarentur. Cum uero haec dedecora non poetarum, sed populorum; non mimorum, sed sacrorum; non theatrorum, sed templorum; id est non fabulosae, sed ciuilis theologiae, a tanto doctore produntur: non frustra histriones ludicris artibus fingunt deorum quae tanta est turpitudinem, sed plane frustra sacerdotes uelut sacris ritibus conantur fingere deorum quae nulla est honestatem. Sacra sunt Iunonis, et haec in eius dilecta insula Samo celebrabantur, ubi nuptum data est Ioui; sacra sunt Cereris, ubi a Plutone rapta Proserpina quaeritur; sacra sunt Veneris, ubi amatus eius Adon aprino dente extinctus iuuenis formosissimus plangitur; sacra sunt Matris deum, ubi Attis pulcher adulescens ab ea dilectus et muliebri zelo abscisus etiam hominum abscisorum, quos Gallos uocant, infelicitate deploratur.

If poets were inventing these things, if mimes were performing them, they would without doubt be said to pertain to fabulous theology and would be judged to be separated from the dignity of civil theology. But since these disgraces are brought forth not of poets but of peoples; not of mimes but of sacra; not of theaters but of temples; that is, not of fabulous but of civil theology, by so great a teacher: not in vain do actors, by ludic arts, feign about the gods a turpitude so great, but plainly in vain do priests, as though by sacred rites, try to feign for the gods a decency which is none. There are sacra of Juno, and these were celebrated on her beloved island Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jove; there are sacra of Ceres, where Proserpina, snatched by Pluto, is sought; there are sacra of Venus, where her beloved Adonis, a most beautiful youth, slain by a boar’s tusk, is lamented; there are sacra of the Mother of the gods, where Attis, a handsome adolescent, loved by her and, through womanly jealousy, cut off, is bewailed together with the misfortune of even those men who are cut off, whom they call Galli.

Haec cum deformiora sint omni scaenica foeditate, quid est quod fabulosa de diis figmenta poetarum ad theatrum uidelicet pertinentia uelut secernere nituntur a ciuili theologia, quam pertinere ad urbem uolunt, quasi ab honestis et dignis indigna et turpia? Itaque potius est unde gratiae debeantur histrionibus, qui oculis hominum pepercerunt nec omnia spectaculis nudauerunt, quae sacrarum aedium parietibus occuluntur. Quid de sacris eorum boni sentiendum est, quae tenebris operiuntur, cum tam sint detestabilia, quae proferuntur in lucem?

Since these things are more misshapen than any scenic foulness, what reason is there that they strive to, as it were, separate the fabulous figments of the poets about the gods—evidently pertaining to the theater—from civil theology, which they want to pertain to the city, as though unworthy and shameful things were apart from honorable and dignified ones? Therefore there is rather cause for thanks to be owed to the actors, who spared the eyes of men and did not lay bare everything to spectacles, which are concealed by the walls of the sacred buildings. What good can be thought of their sacred rites, which are covered in darkness, when those that are brought into the light are so detestable?

Et certe quid in occulto agant per abscisos et molles, ipsi uiderint; eosdem tamen homines infeliciter ac turpiter eneruatos atque corruptos occultare mimine potuerunt. Persuadeant cui possunt se aliquid sanctum per tales agere homines, quos inter sua sancta numerari atque uersari negare non possunt. Nescimus quid agant, sed scimus per quales agant.

And surely, what they do in occult through the cut‑off and the effeminate, let them look to it themselves; yet they were by no means able to conceal these same men, unhappily and shamefully enervated and corrupted. Let them persuade whom they can that they do anything sacred through such men—whom they cannot deny to be numbered among and to be conversant within their sacred rites. We do not know what they do, but we know through what sort they do it.

Nouimus autem quae agantur in scaena, quo numquam uel in choro meretricum abscisus aut mollis intrauit; et tamen etiam ipsa turpes et infames agunt; neque enim ab honestis agi debuerunt. Quae sunt ergo illa sacra, quibus agendis tales elegit sanctitas, quales nec thymelica in se admisit obscenitas?

But we know what things are done on the stage, into which never, not even in the chorus of prostitutes, did a castrated man or an effeminate enter; and yet even they perform shameful and infamous acts; for they ought not to have been performed by honorable men. What then are those sacred rites, for the performance of which sanctity chose such men as not even thymelic obscenity admitted into itself?

[VIII] At enim habent ista physiologicas quasdam, sicut aiunt, id est naturalium rationum interpretationes. Quasi uero nos in hac disputatione physiologian quaerimus et non theologian, id est rationem non naturae, sed Dei. Quamuis enim qui uerus Deus est non opinione, sed natura Deus sit: non tamen omnis natura deus est, quia et hominis et pecoris, et arboris et lapidis utique natura est, quorum nihil est deus.

[VIII] But indeed they have certain, as they say, physiological interpretations, that is, interpretations of natural reasons. As though in this disputation we were seeking physiology and not theology, that is, a rationale not of nature but of God. For although he who is the true God is God not by opinion but by nature, nevertheless not every nature is a god, since there is assuredly a nature of man and of beast, and of tree and of stone, of which none is a god.

Si autem interpretationis huius, quando agitur de sacris Matris deum, caput est certe quod Mater deum terra est: quid ultra quaerimus, quid cetera perscrutamur? Quid euidentius suffragatur eis, qui dicunt omnes istos deos homines fuisse? Sic enim sunt terrigenae, sic eis mater est terra.

If, however, the head-point of this interpretation, when it is a question of the sacred rites of the Mother of the gods, is certainly that the Mother of the gods is the earth: what do we seek beyond, why do we scrutinize the rest? What more evident lends support to those who say that all those gods were men? For thus they are earth-born, thus the earth is their mother.

In uera autem theologia opus Dei est terra, non mater. Verum tamen quoquo modo sacra eius interpretentur et referant ad rerum naturam: uiros muliebria pati non est secundum naturam, sed contra naturam. Hic morbus, hoc crimen, hoc dedecus habet inter illa sacra professionem, quod in uitiosis hominum moribus uix habet inter tormenta confessionem.

But in true theology the earth is the work of God, not the mother. Nevertheless, however her rites may be interpreted and referred to the nature of things: for men to suffer womanly things is not according to nature, but against nature. This disease, this crime, this disgrace has among those rites a profession, which in the vicious morals of men scarcely has a confession even under torments.

Deinde si ista sacra, quae scaenicis turpitudinibus conuincuntur esse foediora, hinc excusantur atque purgantur, quod habent interpretationes suas, quibus ostendantur rerum significare naturam: cur non etiam poetica similiter excusentur atque purgentur? Multi enim et ipsa ad eundem modum interpretati sunt, usque adeo ut, quod ab eis inmanissimum et infandissimum dicitur, Saturnum suos filios deuorasse, ita nonnulli interpretentur, quod longinquitas temporis, quae Saturni nomine significatur, quidquid gignit ipsa consumat, uel, sicut idem opinatur Varro, quod pertineat Saturnus ad semina, quae in terram, de qua oriuntur, iterum recidunt. Itemque alii alio modo et similiter cetera.

Then if those sacred rites, which by theatrical turpitudes are convicted of being more foul, are hence excused and purged on the ground that they have their interpretations by which they are shown to signify the nature of things: why are not the poetical matters likewise excused and purged? For many have even those interpreted in the same mode, to such a degree that what is said by them to be most monstrous and most unspeakable—that Saturn devoured his own sons—some interpret thus: that the long duration of time, which is signified by the name of Saturn, consumes whatever it begets; or, as Varro likewise opines, that Saturn pertains to the seeds, which fall back again into the earth from which they arise. And likewise others in another way, and similarly the rest.

Et tamen theologia fabulosa dicitur et cum omnibus huiusce modi interpretationibus suis reprehenditur abicitur inprobatur, nec solum a naturali, quae philosophorum est, uerum etiam ab ista ciuili, de qua agimus, quae ad urbes populosque asseritur pertinere, eo quod de diis indigna confinxerit, merito repudianda discernitur, eo nimirum consilio, ut, quoniam acutissimi homines atque doctissimi, a quibus ista conscripta sunt, ambas inprobandas intellegebant, et illam scilicet fabulosam et istam ciuilem, illam uero audebant inprobare, hanc non audebant; illam culpandam proposuerunt, hanc eius similem comparandam exposuerunt, — non ut haec prae illa tenenda eligeretur, sed ut cum illa respuenda intellegeretur, atque ita sine periculo eorum, qui ciuilem theologian reprehendere metuebant, utraque contempta ea, quam naturalem uocant, apud meliores animos inueniret locum. Nam et ciuilis et fabulosa ambae fabulosae sunt ambaeque ciuiles; ambas inueniet fabulosas, qui uanitates et obscenitates ambarum prudenter inspexerit; ambas ciuiles, qui scaenicos ludos pertinentes ad fabulosam in deorum ciuilium festiuitatibus et in urbium diuinis rebus aduerterit. Quo modo igitur uitae aeternae dandae potestas cuiquam deorum istorum tribuitur, quos sua simulacra et sacra conuincunt diis fabulosis apertissime reprobatis esse simillimos formis aetatibus, sexu habitu, coniugiis generationibus ritibus, in quibus omnibus aut homines fuisse intelleguntur et pro uniuscuiusque uita uel morte sacra eis et sollemnia constituta, hunc errorem insinuantibus firmantibusque daemonibus, aut certe ex qualibet occasione inmundissimi spiritus fallendis humanis mentibus inrepsisse?

And yet the fabulous theology is so called, and, together with all its interpretations of this sort, is reprehended, cast away, and disapproved—not only by the natural (which belongs to the philosophers) but also by that civil kind, about which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain to cities and peoples—on the ground that it has fabricated unworthy things about the gods, and is discerned as meritoriously to be repudiated, with this purpose namely: that, since the most acute and most learned men, by whom these things were written, understood that both ought to be disapproved, both the fabulous, to wit, and this civil, they dared to disapprove that one, they did not dare this one; they set forth that one to be blamed, they expounded this one to be compared as like to it—not that this should be chosen to be held before that, but that it might be understood to be rejected together with that; and thus, without danger to those who feared to reprehend the civil theology, both being despised, that which they call natural might find a place with better minds. For both the civil and the fabulous are both fabulous and both civil; he will find both fabulous who has prudently inspected the vanities and obscenities of both; he will find both civil who has observed the stage-plays pertaining to the fabulous in the festivals of the civil gods and in the divine affairs of the cities. How, then, is the power of giving eternal life attributed to any of those gods, whom their own images and sacred rites convict of being most like to the fabulous gods, most openly reprobated—namely in forms, ages, sex, attire, marriages, begettings, rites—in all of which either they are understood to have been men, and, according to each one’s life or death, sacred things and solemnities have been established for them, demons insinuating and confirming this error; or at least, on whatever occasion, most unclean spirits have crept in to deceive human minds?

[IX] Quid? ipsa numinum officia tam uiliter minutatimque concisa, propter quod eis dicunt pro uniuscuiusque proprio munere supplicari oportere, unde non quidem omnia, sed multa iam diximus, nonne scurrilitati mimicae quam diuinae consonant dignitati? Si duas quisquam nutrices adhiberet infanti, quarum una nihil nisi escam, altera nihil nisi potum daret, sicut isti ad hoc duas adhibuerunt deas, Educam et Potinam: nempe desipere et aliquid mimo simile in sua domo agere uideretur.

[9] What then? Do not the very offices of the numina, sliced up so vilely and so minutely—on account of which they say that they ought to be supplicated for each one’s proper function, of which we have already said, not indeed all, but many—harmonize with mimic scurrility rather than with divine dignity? If anyone should employ two nurses for an infant, of whom one gave nothing but food, the other nothing but drink—just as these people have employed two goddesses for this, Educa and Potina—surely he would seem to be playing the fool and to be doing something like a mime in his own house.

Liberum a liberamento appellatum uolunt, quod mares in coeundo per eius beneficium emissis seminibus liberentur; hoc idem in feminis agere Liberam, quam etiam Venerem putant, quod et ipsam perhibeant semina emittere; et ob haec Libero eandem uirilem corporis partem in templo poni, femineam Liberae. Ad haec addunt mulieres adtributas Libero et uinum propter libidinem concitandam. Sic Bacchanalia summa celebrabantur insania; ubi Varro ipse confitetur a Bacchantibus talia fieri non potuisse nisi mente commota.

They want Liber to be named from “liberamentum” (discharge), because males in copulation are freed, by his beneficence, when seeds are emitted; that Libera does this same thing in females, whom they also think to be Venus, because they report that she too emits seeds; and on account of these things the same virile part of the body is set up in the temple to Liber, the feminine to Libera. To these they add women attributed to Liber and wine for the stirring up of libido. Thus the Bacchanalia were celebrated with utmost insanity; wherein Varro himself confesses that such things could not have been done by the Bacchants unless the mind were disturbed.

Haec tamen postea displicuerunt senatui saniori, et ea iussit auferri. Saltem hic tandem forsitan senserunt quid inmundi spiritus, dum pro diis habentur, in hominum mentibus possint. Haec certe non fierent in theatris; ludunt quippe ibi, non furiunt; quamuis deos habere, qui etiam ludis talibus delectentur, simile sit furoris.

Yet these things afterward displeased the saner senate, and it ordered them to be removed. At least here at last perhaps they perceived what unclean spirits, while they are held as gods, can do in the minds of men. Surely such things would not be done in theaters; there they play, they do not rage; although to have gods who are even delighted by such games is akin to frenzy.

Quale autem illud est, quod cum religiosum a superstitioso ea distinctione discernat, ut a superstitioso dicat timeri deos, a religioso autem tantum uereri ut parentes, non ut hostes timeri, atque omnes ita bonos dicat, ut facilius sit eos nocentibus parcere quam laedere quemquam innocentem, tamen mulieri fetae post partum tres deos custodes commemorat adhiberi, ne Siluanus deus per noctem ingrediatur et uexet, eorumque custodum significandorum causa tres homines noctu circuire limina domus et primo limen securi ferire, postea pilo, tertio deuerrere scopis, ut his datis culturae signis deus Siluanus prohibeatur intrare, quod neque arbores caeduntur ac putantur sine ferro, neque far conficitur sine pilo, neque fruges coaceruantur sine scopis; ab his autem tribus rebus tres nuncupatos deos, Intercidonam a securis intercisione, Pilumnum a pilo, Deuerram ab scopis, quibus diis custodibus contra uim dei Siluani feta conseruaretur. Ita contra dei nocentis saeuitiam non ualeret custodia bonorum, nisi plures essent aduersus unum eique aspero horrendo inculto, utpote siluestri, signis culturae tamquam contrariis repugnarent. Itane ista est innocentia deorum, ista concordia?

But what sort of thing is this, that, when he distinguishes the religious man from the superstitious by this distinction, that he says the gods are feared by the superstitious, but by the religious only revered, as parents, not feared as enemies, and he says they are all so good that it is easier for them to spare the nocent than to injure anyone innocent, nevertheless he recounts that to a woman in childbed after delivery three guardian gods are summoned to be present, lest the god Silvanus enter by night and vex her; and for the purpose of signifying these guardians three men by night go around the thresholds of the house, and first strike the threshold with an axe, afterwards with a pestle, and third sweep it with brooms, so that, these signs of culture having been given, the god Silvanus may be kept from entering—for neither are trees cut and pruned without iron, nor is grain prepared without a pestle, nor are crops heaped without brooms; and from these three things three gods are named: Intercidona from the inter-cutting of the axe, Pilumnus from the pestle, Deverra from the brooms—by which guardian gods the woman in childbed might be preserved against the violence of the god Silvanus. Thus against the savagery of a harmful god the guardianship of good gods would not avail, unless there were more set against one, and, to one rough, grim, and uncouth, as being woodland, they resisted with signs of culture as though contraries. Is this then the innocence of the gods, is this the concord?

Haecine sunt numina salubria urbium, magis ridenda quam ludibria theatrorum?

Are these then the salutary numina of cities, more to be laughed at than the mockeries of the theaters?

Cum mas et femina coniunguntur, adhibetur deus lugatinus; sit hoc ferendum. Sed domum est ducenda quae nubit; adhibetur et deus Domiducus; ut in domo sit, adhibetur deus Domitius; ut maneat cum uiro, additur dea Manturna. Quid ultra quaeritur?

When male and female are joined, the god Lugatinus is invoked; let this be tolerable. But the one who weds is to be led home; the god Domiducus is also invoked. That she may be in the house, the god Domitius is invoked; that she may remain with her husband, the goddess Manturna is added. What beyond this is sought?

Parcatur humanae uerecundiae; peragat cetera concupiscentia carnis et sanguinis procurato secreto pudoris. Quid impletur cubiculum turba numinum, quando et paranymphi inde discedunt? Et ad hoc impletur, non ut eorum praesentia cogitata maior sit cura pudicitiae, sed ut feminae sexu infirmae, nouitate pauidae illis cooperantibus sine ulla difficultate uirginitas auferatur.

Let human modesty be spared; let the concupiscence of flesh and blood accomplish the rest, with the secrecy of pudor provided. Why is the bedchamber filled by a crowd of numina, when even the paranymphs withdraw from there? And it is filled for this end, not so that, their presence being taken into account, there may be a greater care for pudicity, but so that, with them cooperating, the virginity of the woman—weak by sex, frightened by the novelty—may be taken away without any difficulty.

Adest enim dea Virginensis et deus pater Subigus, et dea mater Prema et dea Pertunda, et Venus et Priapus. Quid est hoc? Si omnino laborantem in illo opere uirum ab diis adiuuari oportebat, non sufficeret aliquis unus aut aliqua una?

For the goddess Virginensis is present, and the god, Father Subigus, and the goddess, Mother Prema, and the goddess Pertunda, and Venus and Priapus. What is this? If indeed it was necessary that the man laboring in that work be aided by the gods, would not some single one, some god or some goddess, suffice?

Numquid Venus sola parum esset, quae ab hoc etiam dicitur nuncupata, quod sine ui femina uirgo esse non desinat? Si est ulla frons in hominibus, quae non est in numinibus, nonne, cum credunt coniugati tot deos utriusque sexus esse praesentes et huic operi instantes, ita pudore adficiuntur, ut et ille minus moueatur et illa plus reluctetur? Et certe si adest Virginensis dea, ut uirgini zona soluatur; si adest deus Subigus, ut uiro subigatur; si adest dea Prema, ut subacta, ne se commoueat, conprimatur: dea Pertunda ibi quid facit?

Would Venus alone be too little, who is even said to be named on this account, that without force a female does not cease to be a virgin? If there is any shame in human beings, which there is not in the numinous beings, when the married believe that so many gods of both sexes are present and pressing upon this work, are they not so affected by pudor that he is moved less, and she resists more? And certainly, if the goddess Virginensis is present, that the maiden’s girdle be loosened; if the god Subigus is present, that she be subdued by the man; if the goddess Prema is present, that, once subjugated, she be pressed down, lest she move herself: what does the goddess Pertunda do there?

Erubescat, eat foras; agat aliquid et maritus. Valde inhonestum est, ut, quod uocatur illa, impleat quisquam nisi ille. Sed forte ideo toleratur, quia dea dicitur esse, non deus.

Let her blush, let her go outside; let the husband also do something. It is very indecent that what she is called for, anyone should fulfill except he. But perhaps for this reason it is tolerated, because she is said to be a goddess, not a god.

Nam si masculus crederetur et Pertundus uocaretur, maius contra eum pro uxoris pudicitia posceret maritus auxilium quam feta contra Siluanum. Sed quid hoc dicam, cum ibi sit et Priapus nimius masculus, super cuius inmanissimum et turpissimum fascinum sedere noua nupta iubebatur, more honestissimo et religiosissimo matronarum?

For if it were believed to be male and were called Pertundus, the husband would demand greater aid against him for his wife’s pudicity than a woman in childbed against Silvanus. But why should I say this, since there is also Priapus there, exceedingly male, upon whose most immense and most shameful phallus the new bride was ordered to sit, by the most honorable and most religious custom of the matrons?

Eant adhuc et theologian ciuilem a theologia fabulosa, urbes a theatris, templa ab scaenis, sacra pontificum a carminibus poetarum, uelut res honestas a turpibus, ueraces a fallacibus, graues a leuibus, serias a ludicris, adpetendas a respuendis, qua possunt quasi conentur subtilitate discernere. Intellegimus quid agant; illam theatricam et fabulosam theologian ab ista ciuili pendere nouerunt et ei de carminibus poetarum tamquam de speculo resultare, et ideo ista exposita, quam damnare non audent, illam eius imaginem liberius arguunt et reprehendunt, ut, qui agnoscunt quid uelint, et hanc ipsam faciem, cuius illa imago est, detestentur; quam tamen dii ipsi tamquam in eodem speculo se intuentes ita diligunt, ut qui qualesque sint in utraque melius uideantur. Vnde etiam cultores suos terribilibus imperiis compulerunt, ut inmunditiam theologiae fabulosae sibi dicarent, in suis sollemnitatibus ponerent, in rebus diuinis haberent, atque ita et se ipsos inmundissimos spiritus manifestius esse docuerunt, et huius urbanae theologiae uelut electae et probatae illam theatricam abiectam atque reprobatam membrum partemque fecerunt, ut, cum sit uniuersa turpis et fallax atque in se contineat commenticios deos, una pars eius sit in litteris sacerdotum, altera in carminibus poetarum.

Let them go on still and try, as far as they can, with a kind of subtlety to discern the civil theology from the fabulous theology, the cities from the theaters, the temples from the stages, the sacra of the pontiffs from the songs of the poets, as honest things from base things, veracious from fallacious, grave from light, serious from ludicrous, things to be sought from things to be spurned. We understand what they are doing; they know that that theatrical and fabulous theology depends on this civil one and reflects back to it from the songs of the poets as from a mirror, and therefore, with this set forth, which they do not dare to condemn, they more freely charge and censure that image of it, so that those who recognize what they mean may also detest this very face, of which that is an image; which yet the gods themselves, looking at themselves as it were in the same mirror, so love, that what they are and of what sort they are may be better seen in both. Whence also they drove their worshipers by terrible commands to dedicate to themselves the uncleanness of the fabulous theology, to set it in their solemnities, to have it in their divine rites, and thus they both taught more manifestly that they themselves are most unclean spirits, and they made that theatrical theology, abject and reprobate, a member and part of this urban theology as though chosen and approved, so that, although the whole is base and fallacious and contains within itself fictitious gods, one part of it is in the letters of the priests, the other in the songs of the poets.

Vtrum habeat et alias partes, alia quaestio est: nunc propter diuisionem Varronis et urbanam et theatricam theologian ad unam ciuilem pertinere satis, ut opinor, ostendi. Vnde, quia sunt ambae similis turpitudinis absurditatis, indignitatis falsitatis, absit a ueris religiosis, ut siue ab hac siue ab illa uita speretur aeterna.

Whether it also has other parts is another question: now, on account of Varro’s division, I have, as I think, shown enough that both the urban and the theatrical theology pertain to one civil theology. Whence, because both are of similar turpitude, absurdity, indignity, falsity, let it be far from the truly religious that eternal life should be hoped for from either this one or that.

Denique et ipse Varro commemorare et enumerare deos coepit a conceptione hominis, quorum numerum est exorsus a Iano, eamque seriem perduxit usque ad decrepiti hominis mortem, et deos ad ipsum hominem pertinentes clausit ad Neniam deam, quae in funeribus senum cantatur; deinde coepit deos alios ostendere, qui pertinerent non ad ipsum hominem, sed ad ea, quae sunt hominis, sicuti est uictus atque uestitus et quaecumque alia huic uitae sunt necessaria, ostendens in omnibus, quod sit cuiusque munus et propter quid cuique debeat supplicari; in qua uniuersa diligentia nullos demonstrauit uel nominauit deos, a quibus uita aeterna poscenda sit, propter quam unam proprie nos Christiani sumus. Quis ergo usque adeo tardus sit, ut non intellegat istum hominem ciuilem theologian tam diligenter exponendo et aperiendo eamque illi fabulosae, indignae atque probrosae, similem demonstrando atque ipsam fabulosam partem esse huius satis euidenter docendo non nisi illi naturali, quam dicit ad philosophos pertinere, in animis hominum moliri locum, ea subtilitate, ut fabulosam reprehendat, ciuilem uero reprehendere quidem non audeat, sed prodendo reprehensibilem ostendat, atque ita utraque iudicio recte intellegentium reprobata sola naturalis remaneat eligenda? De qua suo loco in adiutorio Dei ueri diligentius disserendum est.

Finally, Varro himself began to commemorate and enumerate the gods from the conception of a human, whose number he commenced from Janus, and he carried that sequence all the way to the death of a decrepit man, and he closed the gods pertaining to the man himself with the goddess Nenia, who is sung at the funerals of old men; then he began to show other gods, who pertained not to the man himself, but to the things that are the man’s, such as victuals and clothing and whatever other things are necessary to this life, showing in all what the office of each is and for what reason each one ought to be supplicated; in all which diligence he demonstrated or named no gods from whom eternal life should be asked, on account of which alone we Christians are properly such. Who then would be so slow as not to understand that this man, by so diligently setting forth and opening the civil theology, and by showing it to be similar to that fabulous, unworthy, and opprobrious one, and by quite evidently teaching that the fabulous is even a part of this, is contriving a place in the minds of men for none but that natural one, which he says pertains to the philosophers—by such subtlety as to reprehend the fabulous, but indeed not to dare to reprehend the civil, yet by betraying it to show it reprehensible—and thus, with both rejected by the judgment of those who understand rightly, the natural alone remains to be chosen? About which, in its own place, with the aid of the true God, there must be a more diligent disquisition.

[X] Libertas sane, quae huic defuit, ne istam urbanam theologian theatricae simillimam aperte sicut illam reprehendere auderet, Annaeo Senecae, quem nonnullis indiciis inuenimus apostolorum nostrorum claruisse temporibus, non quidem ex toto, uerum ex aliqua parte non defuit. Adfuit enim scribenti, uiuenti defuit. Nam in eo libro, quem contra superstitiones condidit, multo copiosius atque uehementius reprehendit ipse ciuilem istam et urbanam theologian quam Varro theatricam atque fabulosam.

[X] Liberty, to be sure, which was lacking to this man, so that he would not dare openly to reprehend that urban theology, most similar to the theatrical, just as he did that other, was not lacking—though not in its entirety, yet in some part—to Annaeus Seneca, whom by several indications we find to have been illustrious in the times of our apostles. It was present to him as a writer; it was lacking to him in living. For in that book which he composed against superstitions, he himself reprehended this civil and urban theology much more copiously and vehemently than Varro the theatrical and fabulous.

Cum enim de simulacris ageret: "Sacros, inquit, inmortales, inuiolabiles in materia uilissima atque inmobili dedicant, habitus illis hominum ferarumque et piscium, quidam uero mixto sexu, diuersis corporibus induunt; numina uocant, quae si spiritu accepto subito occurrerent, monstra haberentur." Deinde aliquanto post, cum theologian naturalem praedicans quorundam philosophorum sententias digessisset, opposuit sibi quaestionem et ait: "Hoc loco dicit aliquis: Credam ego caelum et terram deos esse et supra lunam alios, infra alios? Ego feram aut Platonem aut Peripateticum Stratonem, quorum alter fecit deum sine corpore, alter sine animo?" Et ad hoc respondens: "Quid ergo tandem, inquit, ueriora tibi uidentur Titi Tatii aut Romuli aut Tulli Hostilii somnia? Cluacinam Tatius dedicauit deam, Picum Tiberinumque Romulus, Hostilius Pauorem atque Pallorem taeterrimos hominum affectus, quorum alter mentis territae motus est, alter corporis ne morbus quidem, sed color.

While he was treating of simulacra: "Sacred, he says, immortal, inviolable, they dedicate in the vilest and immobile material; they give to them the forms of men, of wild beasts and of fishes—indeed some with mixed sex—they clothe them with diverse bodies; they call them numina, which, if, having received spirit, they were suddenly to present themselves, would be held as monsters." Then a little after, when, proclaiming natural theology, he had set in order the opinions of certain philosophers, he set a question in opposition to himself and said: "At this point someone says: Am I to believe heaven and earth to be gods, and above the moon others, below others? Am I to tolerate either Plato or the Peripatetic Strato, of whom the one made a god without body, the other without mind?" And answering this: "What then, pray, he says, seem to you truer—the dreams of Titus Tatius or of Romulus or of Tullus Hostilius? Tatius dedicated the goddess Cluacina, Romulus Picus and Tiberinus, Hostilius Pavor and Pallor, the most foul affections of men, of which the one is the movement of a terrified mind, the other not even a disease of the body, but a color.

Haec numina potius credes et caelo recipies?" De ipsis uero ritibus crudeliter turpibus quam libere scripsit! "Ille, inquit, uiriles sibi partes amputat, ille lacertos secat. Vbi iratos deos timent, qui sic propitios merentur?

"Will you rather believe these divinities and receive them into heaven?" Of the very rites themselves, cruelly disgraceful, how freely he wrote! "One, he says, amputates his own virile parts; another cuts his upper arms. Where do they fear the gods as enraged, they who thus earn them as propitious?"

Dii autem nullo debent coli genere, si hoc uolunt. Tantus est perturbatae mentis et sedibus suis pulsae furor, ut sic dii placentur, quem ad modum ne quidem homines saeuiunt taeterrimi et in fabulas traditae crudelitatis. Tyranni lacerauerunt aliquorum membra, neminem sua lacerare iusserunt.

But the gods ought not to be worshiped in any manner, if this is what they want. So great is the frenzy of a mind perturbed and driven from its proper seats, that thus the gods are appeased, in a way in which not even the most loathsome men—and the cruelty handed down into fables—rage. Tyrants have torn the limbs of some, but they have ordered no one to tear his own.

In regiae libidinis uoluptatem castrati sunt quidam; sed nemo sibi, ne uir esset, iubente domino manus adtulit. Se ipsi in templis contrucidant, uulneribus suis ac sanguine supplicant. Si cui intueri uacet, quae faciunt quaeque patiuntur, inueniet tam indecora honestis, tam indigna liberis, tam dissimilia sanis, ut nemo fuerit dubitaturus furere eos, si cum paucioribus furerent; nunc sanitatis patrocinium est insanientium turba."

For the pleasure of regal libido certain men have been castrated; but no one, at a master’s command, laid hands upon himself, so as not to be a man. They butcher themselves in the temples, and with their own wounds and blood they supplicate. If anyone has leisure to look at what they do and what they suffer, he will find things so indecorous for the honorable, so unworthy for the freeborn, so dissimilar to the sane, that no one would have been in doubt that they are raving, if they raved with fewer; now the crowd of the insane is the patronage of sanity."

Iam illa, quae in ipso Capitolio fieri solere commemorat et intrepide omnino coarguit, quis credat nisi ab inridentibus aut furentibus fieri? Nam cum in sacris Aegyptiis Osirim lugeri perditum, mox autem inuentum magno esse gaudio derissiset, cum perditio eius inuentioque fingatur, dolor tamen ille atque laetitia ab eis, qui nihil perdiderunt nihilque inuenerunt, ueraciter exprimatur: "Huic tamen, inquit, furori certum tempus est. Tolerabile est semel anno insanire.

Now as for those things which he recounts are accustomed to be done on the Capitol itself and quite intrepidly altogether exposes, who would believe them to be done except by those deriding or raving? For when he had mocked that in the Egyptian rites Osiris is mourned as lost, but soon, when found, there is great rejoicing, since his loss and discovery are feigned, yet that grief and that joy are authentically expressed by those who have lost nothing and found nothing: "To this madness, however," he says, "there is a fixed time. It is tolerable to be insane once in the year."

In Capitolium perueni, pudebit publicatae dementiae, quod sibi uanus furor adtribuit officii. Alius nomina deo subicit, alius horas Ioui nuntiat: alius lutor est, alius unctor, qui uano motu bracchiorum imitatur unguentem. Sunt quae Iunoni ac Mineruae capillos disponant (longe a templo, non tantum a simulacro stantes digitos mouent omantium modo), sunt quae speculum teneant; sunt qui ad uadimonia sua deos aduocent, sunt qui libellos offerant et illos causam suam doceant.

I came to the Capitol; there will be shame for the dementia made public, at what empty frenzy has ascribed to itself as office. One submits names to the god, another announces the hours to Jove: another is a washer, another an anointer, who with a vain motion of his arms imitates an anointer. There are women who arrange the hair for Juno and Minerva (standing far from the temple, not only from the simulacrum, they move their fingers after the manner of omen-takers), there are those who hold a mirror; there are those who summon the gods as advocates to their court-dates, there are those who offer petitions and brief them on their case.

Doctus archimimus, senex iam decrepitus, cotidie in Capitolio mimum agebat, quasi dii libenter spectarent, quem illi homines desierant. Omne illic artificum genus operatum diis inmortalibus desidet." Et paulo post: "Hi tamen, inquit, etiamsi superuacuum usum, non turpem nec infamem deo promittunt. Sedent quaedam in Capitolio, quae se a Ioue amari putant: ne Iunonis quidem, si credere poetis uelis, iracundissimae respectu terrentur."

“A learned archmime, now a decrepit old man, used to play a mime every day on the Capitol, as though the gods would gladly watch what those men had ceased to watch. Every kind of artisan there, employed for the immortal gods, sits idle.” And a little after: “These people, however,” he says, “even if they promise a superfluous service, promise to the god one not shameful nor infamous. Certain women sit on the Capitol who think themselves loved by Jove: nor are they terrified, if you wish to believe the poets, by the regard of Juno, most irascible.”

Hanc libertatem Varro non habuit; tantum modo poeticam theologian reprehendere ausus est, ciuilem non ausus est, quam iste concidit. Sed si uerum adtendamus, deteriora sunt templa ubi haec aguntur, quam theatra ubi finguntur. Vnde in his sacris ciuilis theologiae has partes potius elegit Seneca sapienti, ut eas in animi religione non habeat, sed in actibus fingat.

This freedom Varro did not have; he only dared to reprehend the poetic theology, he did not dare the civil, which that man cut down. But if we attend to the truth, the temples where these things are acted are worse than the theaters where they are feigned. Whence, in these sacra of civil theology, Seneca rather chose these parts for the wise man, that he should not have them in the religion of his mind, but should feign them in his acts.

Ait enim: "Quae omnia sapiens seruabit tamquam legibus iussa, non tamquam diis grata." Et paulo post: "Quid quod et matrimonia, inquit, deorum iungimus, et ne pie quidem, fratrum ac sororum! Bellonam Marti conlocamus, Vulcano Venerem, Neptuno Salaciam. Quosdam tamen caelibes relinquimus, quasi condicio defecerit, praesertim cum quaedam uiduae sint, ut Populonia uel Fulgora et diua Rumina; quibus non miror petitorem defuisse.

For he says: "The wise man will observe all these things as though ordered by laws, not as though gratifying to the gods." And a little later: "What of the fact that, he says, we even join the matrimonies of the gods—and not piously at that, of brothers and sisters! We settle Bellona with Mars, Venus with Vulcan, Salacia with Neptune. Some, however, we leave celibate, as if the condition had failed, especially since certain are widows, such as Populonia or Fulgora and the divine Rumina; for whom I do not wonder that a suitor has been lacking.

Omnem istam ignobilem deorum turbam, quam longo aeuo longa superstitio congessit, sic, inquit, adorabimus, ut meminerimus cultum eius magis ad morem quam ad rem pertinere." Nec leges ergo illae nec mos in ciuili theologia id instituerunt, quod diis gratum esset uel ad rem pertineret. Sed iste, quem philosophi quasi liberum fecerunt, tamen, quia inlustris populi Romani senator erat, colebat quod reprehendebat, agebat quod arguebat, quod culpabat adorabat; quia uidelicet magnum aliquid eum philosophia docuerat, ne superstitiosus esset in mundo, sed propter leges ciuium moresque hominum non quidem ageret fingentem scaenicum in theatro, sed imitaretur in templo; eo damnabilius, quo illa, quae mendaciter agebat, sic ageret, ut eum populus ueraciter agere existimaret; scaenicus autem ludendo potius delectaret, quam fallendo deciperet.

“All that ignoble mob of gods, which a long superstition has heaped up over a long age, thus,” he says, “we shall adore, so that we may remember that its cult pertains more to custom than to the reality.” Therefore neither those laws nor custom in civil theology instituted what would be pleasing to the gods or would pertain to the reality. But this man, whom the philosophers made as it were free, nevertheless, because he was a distinguished senator of the Roman people, was cultivating what he was reproving, was doing what he was accusing, what he was blaming he was adoring; because, to be sure, philosophy had taught him something great: not to be superstitious in the world; yet on account of the laws of the citizens and the mores of men he would not indeed act the scene-pretender in the theater, but he would imitate him in the temple; all the more damnably, to the degree that those things which he was acting mendaciously he acted in such a way that the people supposed he was acting veraciously; whereas the stage-player by playing would rather delight than by deceiving would dupe.

[XI] Hic inter alias ciuilis theologiae superstitiones reprehendit etiam sacramenta Iudaeorum et maxime sabbata, inutiliter eos facere adfirmans, quod per illos singulos septenis interpositos dies septimam fere partem aetatis suae perdant uacando et multa in tempore urgentia non agendo laedantur. Christianos tamen iam tunc ludaeis inimicissimos in neutram partem commemorare ausus est, ne uel laudaret contra suae patriae ueterem consuetudinem, uel reprehenderet contra propriam forsitan Uoluntatem. De illis sane Iudaeis cum loqueretur, ait: "Cum interim usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo conualuit, ut per omnes iam terras recepta sit; uicti uictoribus leges dederunt." Mirabatur haec dicens et quid diuinitus ageretur ignorans subiecit plane sententiam, qua significaret quid de illorum sacramentorum ratione sentiret.

[11] Here, among other superstitions of civil theology, he also reproves the sacraments of the Jews, and especially the sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly, because through those single days interposed at intervals of seven they lose almost the seventh part of their lifetime by idling, and are harmed by not doing many things urgent in due time. The Christians, however—already then most hostile to the Jews—he did not dare to mention on either side, lest he either praise contrary to the ancient custom of his fatherland, or censure contrary perhaps to his own Will. Of those Jews indeed, when he was speaking, he said: "Meanwhile the custom of that most criminal nation has prevailed to such an extent that it has been received through all lands; the conquered have given laws to the conquerors." Wondering at these things as he said them, and ignorant of what was being effected divinely, he appended a plain judgment, by which he indicated what he thought about the rationale of their sacraments.

Ait enim: "Illi tamen causas ritus sui nouerunt; maior pars populi facit, quod cur faciat ignorat." Sed de sacramentis Iudaeorum, uel cur uel quatenus instituta sint auctoritate diuina, ac post modum a populo Dei, cui uitae aeternae mysterium reuelatum est, tempore quo oportuit eadem auctoritate sublata sint, et alias diximus, maxime cum aduersus Manichaeos ageremus, et in hoc opere loco oportuniore dicendum est.

For he says: "Those, however, know the causes of their rite; the greater part of the people does what it does, ignorant of why it does it." But about the sacraments of the Jews—both why and to what extent they were instituted by divine authority, and how afterwards they were removed by the people of God, to whom the mystery of eternal life has been revealed, at the time when it was fitting, by that same authority—we have said elsewhere, especially when we were arguing against the Manichaeans; and in this work it is to be said in a more opportune place.

[XII] Nunc propter tres theologias, quas Graeci dicunt mythicen physicen politicen, Latine autem dici possunt fabulosa naturalis ciuilis, quod neque de fabulosa, quam et ipsi deorum multorum falsorumque cultores liberrime reprehenderunt, neque de ciuili, cuius illa pars esse conuincitur eiusque et ista simillima uel etiam deterior inuenitur, speranda est aeterna uita, si cui satis non sunt quae in hoc in uolumine dicta sunt, adiungat etiam illa, quae in superioribus libris et maxime quarto de felicitatis datore Deo plurima disputata sunt. Nam cui nisi uni felicitati propter aeternam uitam consecrandi homines essent, si dea felicitas esset? Quia uero non dea, sed munus est dei: cui deo nisi datori felicitatis consecrandi sumus, qui aeternam uitam, ubi uera est et plena felicitas, pia caritate diligimus?

[12] Now, on account of the three theologies which the Greeks call mythic, physic, politic, but in Latin can be called fabulous, natural, civil, because neither from the fabulous—which even the worshipers of many false gods themselves have most freely reproved—nor from the civil, of which that is proved to be a part and which is found to be very similar to this one or even worse, is eternal life to be hoped for, if what has been said in this volume is not enough for anyone, let him also add those things which in the preceding books, and especially in the fourth, about God the Giver of Felicity, very many matters have been argued. For to whom, if not to one Felicity, on account of eternal life, would men have to be consecrated, if Felicity were a goddess? But since she is not a goddess, but a gift of God: to what god but to the Giver of Felicity are we to be consecrated, whom with pious charity we love, who gives eternal life, where true and full felicity is?

Non autem esse datorem felicitatis quemquam istorum deorum, qui tanta turpitudine coluntur et, nisi ita colantur, multo turpius irascuntur atque ob hoc se spiritus inmundissimos confitentur, puto ex his, quae dicta sunt, neminem dubitare oportere. Porro qui non dat felicitatem, uitam quo modo dare posset aeternam? Eam quippe uitam aeternam dicimus, ubi est sine fine felicitas.

Moreover, that none of those gods—who are worshiped with such turpitude and, unless they be worshiped thus, grow angry far more disgracefully, and by this confess themselves to be most unclean spirits—is a giver of felicity, I think from what has been said no one ought to doubt. Furthermore, he who does not give felicity, how could he give eternal life? For we call that life “eternal” where there is felicity without end.

Nam si anima in poenis uiuit aeternis, quibus et ipsi spiritus cruciabuntur inmundi, mors est illa potius aeterna quam uita. Nulla quippe maior et peior est mors, quam ubi non moritur mors. Sed quod animae natura, per id quod inmortalis creata est, sine qualicumque uita esse non potest, summa mors eius est alienatio a uita Dei in aeternitate supplicii.

For if the soul lives in eternal penalties, in which the unclean spirits themselves also will be tormented, that is rather death eternal than life. For there is no greater and worse death than where death does not die. But since the nature of the soul, by the fact that it was created immortal, cannot be without some sort of life, its supreme death is alienation from the life of God in the eternity of punishment.

Vitam igitur aeternam, id est sine ullo fine felicem, solus ille dat, qui dat ueram felicitatem. Quam quoniam illi, quos colit theologia ista ciuilis, dare non posse conuicti sunt: non solum propter ista temporalia atque terrena, quod superioribus quinque libris ostendimus, sed multo magis propter uitam aeternam, quae post mortem futura est, quod isto uno etiam illis cooperantibus egimus, colendi non sunt. Sed quoniam ueternosae consuetudinis uis nimis in alto radices habet, si cui de ista ciuili theologia respuenda atque uitanda parum uideor disputasse, in aliud uolumen, quod huic opitulante Deo coniungendum est, animum intendat.

Therefore the eternal life—namely, happy without any end—is given by that one alone who gives true felicity. Since those whom this civil theology worships have been proved unable to give it, not only on account of these temporal and terrestrial matters (which we showed in the preceding five books), but much more on account of the eternal life which is to be after death (a point which in this very one we have treated, even with them cooperating), they are not to be worshiped. But since the force of inveterate custom has roots too deep, if to anyone I seem to have argued too little about this civil theology to be spit out and shunned, let him direct his mind to another volume, which, with God lending aid, is to be joined to this.