Tertullian: Spuria

1. Tantum caecitatis invasit genus Romanum, ut inimicum suum Dominum vocent et ablatorem bonorum adeo datorem sibi esse praedicent, atque illi gratias agant; vocant ergo illos nominibus humanis, non propriis; nesciunt enim eorum nomina; quia sint daemones intelligunt, sed historias veterum Regum legunt, quorum actum cum videant fuisse mortalem, deifico honorificant eos nomine.

1. So great a blindness has invaded the Roman race, that they call their enemy “Lord” and proclaim that the remover of their goods is to such a degree a giver to them, and they give thanks to him; therefore they call those beings by human names, not proper ones; for they do not know their names; they understand that they are daemons, but they read the histories of the ancient Kings, whose conduct they see to have been mortal, and they honor them with a deific name.

2. Iovem quem vocant quemque putant summum Deum, quando natus est, a constitutione mundi erant ad illum tempus anni ferme tria millia. Hic in Graecia nascitur de Saturno et Ope, et ne a patre interficeretur, aut si fas est dicere, denuo pareretur, Cretam delatus consilio matris in antro Idaeo nutritur, a Cretibus hominibus natis arma quatientibus occultatur, caprae ubera sugit, cuius excoriatae pelle amictus utitur nutricis suae, scilicet a se interfectae: sed tres cincinnos aureos ei assuit centenum boum singulos pretium valentes, sicut meminit auctor eorum Homerus, credere si aequum est. Hic adulta aetate cum patre annis compluribus bellum gessit, superavit, parricidio domum invasit, sorores virgines stupravit, quarum unam in connubio elegit, patrem armis fugavit: caetera autem actus illius scripta sunt.

2. Jupiter, whom they call and whom they think the highest God—when he was born, from the constitution of the world to that time there were nearly three thousand years. He is born in Greece from Saturn and Ops; and lest he be slain by his father, or, if it is right to say, be borne anew, carried to Crete by his mother’s counsel he is reared in the Idaean cave; he is hidden by Cretan men, born to rattle arms; he sucks the udders of a she-goat, whose flayed skin, as a garment, he uses—the skin of his nurse, namely, slain by himself; but she sewed to him three golden ringlets, each worth the price of a hundred oxen, as Homer, their author, recalls, if it is fair to believe. He, at adult age, waged war with his father for several years, overcame him, with parricide stormed the house, ravished his virgin sisters, one of whom he chose in connubial union, drove his father to flight by arms; however, the rest of his acts have been written.

Ex connubiis alienis aut virginibus violatis filios sibi adulteros generavit, pueros ingenuos attaminavit, tyrannico regalique imperio oppressit populos, sine lege. 3. Hunc pater quem Initialem deum fuisse opinantur errantes, celari in insula Creta ignoravit, filius quoque, quem potentiorem deum credunt, fugatum a se patrem latere in Italia nescit. Si erat in caelo, cum non videbat quid in Italia gereretur?

From alien connubial unions or violated virgins he generated for himself adulterine sons, he tainted freeborn boys, he oppressed peoples by tyrannical and regal command, without law. 3. His father, whom the erring opine to have been the Initial god, was unaware that he was being concealed on the island of Crete; the son also, whom they believe to be the more powerful god, does not know that his father, put to flight by himself, is lying hidden in Italy. If he was in heaven, how did he not see what was being done in Italy?

Non enim in angulo est terra Italia. Quamquam si fuisset deus, latere eum nihil debebat: latuisse autem ibi, quem Itali Saturnum vocitaverunt, liquido opprobatum est, a cuius latitatione lingua Hesperia Latina nominata est usque in hodiernum: sicut etiam auctor eorum Virgilius meminit.

For the land of Italy is not in a corner. And yet, if he had been a god, he ought in no way to have been able to lie hidden; but that he lay hidden there, whom the Italians kept calling Saturn, is clearly proven, and from his hiding the Hesperian tongue has been named Latin down to the present day: as even their author Virgil remembers.

4. Ergo in terra generatus dicitur, dum, et ne ab eo regno pellatur, timet, et tamquam aemulum quaerit necare, et subreptum nescit latere, et postea deus filius patrem prosequitur, interficere quaerit immortalis immortalem, credi potest, et intervallo pelagi fallitur, et fugisse ignorat, et cum haec agerentur inter duos deos in terris caelum desertum est. Nemo administrabat pluvias, nemo tonabat, nemo gubernabat tantam molem orbis. Nec enim possunt dicere actum illorum, et bella in caelo esse facta: haec enim in monte Olympo fiebant in Graecia: sed nec caelum Olympum vocatur, caelum enim caelum est.

4. Therefore he is said to have been begotten on earth, while he fears lest he be expelled from the kingdom by him, and he seeks to kill him as a rival, and he does not know that, having been surreptitiously stolen away, he lies hidden; and afterward the god, the son, pursues the father, the immortal seeks to kill the immortal—can it be believed?—and he is deceived by the interval of the sea, and does not know that he has fled; and while these things were being done between two gods on earth, heaven was deserted. No one was administering the rains, no one was thundering, no one was governing so great a mass of the orb. For they cannot say that their business and wars were done in heaven: for these were happening on Mount Olympus in Greece; but neither is heaven called Olympus, for heaven is heaven.

5. De quibus ergo actibus eorum primum tractabimus, de nativitate, de latitatione, de ignorantia, de parricidio, de adulteriis, de obscenis actibus, de rebus non a deo, sed ab hominibus immundissimis et truculentissimis commissis, qui si essent in his temporibus, omnibus legibus rei subiacerent, quae multo iustiores et severiores quam actus illorum. Patrem armis pulsavit, lex Falcidia et Sempronia parricidam in culeo cum feris ligaret, et sorores corrupit, lex Papinia omnibus poenis per singula membra probrum puniret, connubia aliena invasit, lex Iulia adulterum suum capite afficeret, pueros ingenuos attaminavit, lex Cornelia transgressi foederis amissum novis exemplis novi coitus sacrilegum damnaret.

5. Therefore, concerning which deeds of theirs we shall first treat: about the nativity, about the latitation, about the ignorance, about parricide, about adulteries, about obscene acts, about deeds not by a god, but committed by the most unclean and most truculent men, who, if they were in these times, would be liable under all laws as defendants—laws much more just and more severe than their acts. He drove his father by arms; the Falcidian and Sempronian law would bind the parricide in a sack with wild beasts; and he corrupted his sisters; the Papinian law would punish the disgrace with every penalty upon each several limb; he invaded others’ marriages; the Julian law would visit the adulterer with capital punishment; he contaminated freeborn boys; the Cornelian law would condemn as sacrilegious, with forfeiture, by new precedents, the new kind of intercourse of one who has transgressed the covenant.

6. Hic nec divinitatem habuisse ostenditur: erat enim homo: latuit eum fuga patris: huic tali homini, tam nefando regi, tam obsceno tamque crudeli dei assignatus est honos ab hominibus, qui utique cum sit in terra natus et per incrementa aetatum adultus, in qua omnia haec mala admisit et modo non sit in ea, quid putatur, nisi mortuus, aut nunquid putat stultus error pennas ei natas in senectute, unde ad caelum volaret? sed possunt et hoc credere orbati sensu homines, si tamen credunt eum cygnum factum esse, ut generaret Castores, et aquilam, ut contaminaret Ganymedem, et taurum, ut violaret Europam, aurum, ut violaret Danaen; et equum, ut generaret Pirithoum; hircum, ut generaret Egyppam de capra, satyrum, ut opprimeret Antiopam, haec quia adulteria spectant, ad quae proni sunt peccatores: ideo facile credunt, ut male facti auctoritates et omnis spurcitiae de ficto deo mutuentur.

6. Here it is shown that he neither had divinity: for he was a man: his father’s flight was hidden from him: to such a man, to so nefarious a king, so obscene and so cruel, the honor of a god was assigned by men, who, since he was born on earth and grew up through the increments of ages, in which he committed all these evils, and now is not in it, what is he thought to be, if not dead? Or does foolish error suppose that wings sprang for him in old age, whence he might fly to heaven? But men bereft of sense can believe this too, if indeed they believe that he was made a swan, so that he might beget the Castors, and an eagle, so that he might contaminate Ganymede, and a bull, so that he might violate Europa, gold, so that he might violate Danae; and a horse, so that he might beget Pirithous; a he‑goat, so that he might beget Aegipan from a she‑goat, a satyr, so that he might ravish Antiope—these things since they regard adulteries, toward which sinners are prone: therefore they easily believe, so that they may borrow authorities for evil‑doing and for every filthiness from a fictitious god.

7. Num caetera quae credi possunt actus illius, quae et vera sunt quaeque sine transfiguratione eum aiunt gessisse quam sint inemendata, animadvertunt: ex Semele generat Liberum, ex Latona Apollinem et Dianam, ex Maia Mercurium, ex Alcmena Herculem. At caeteras eius corruptelas quas ipsi confitentur, nolo conscribere, ne rursus foeditas iam sepulta auribus renovetur. Sed horum paucorum mentionem feci, quos deos et ipsos credunt errantes scilicet de incesto patre generatos, adulterinos, supposititios, et Deum videntem aeternum sempiterni numinis praescium futurorum, immensum talibus cum nefandis criminibus diffuderunt.

7. Do they observe how unamended the other acts of his that can be believed are—both those that are true and those which they say he performed without transfiguration? From Semele he begets Liber; from Latona, Apollo and Diana; from Maia, Mercury; from Alcmene, Hercules. But the rest of his debaucheries, which they themselves confess, I am unwilling to write down, lest foulness already buried be renewed to the ears. Yet I have made mention of these few, whom they too believe to be gods—erring, to be sure, begotten from an incestuous father, adulterine, supposititious—and they have bespattered the all-seeing eternal God, prescient of future things, of everlasting numen, immeasurable, with such unspeakable crimes.