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Shali I now, thereiore, go over them one by one, so numero and so various, neW and old, barbarian, Grecian, Roman, foret , captivo and adopted, private and common, male andiemale, rural and urban, naves and military It were lem even to hunt out est their names: so Ι may content
nesther Cassius Severus or Cornelius Nepos, nor any Writerupon sacred antiquities, have ventured to say that Saturn as any but a man : so far as the question dependa on facis,
Ι find none more trust orthy than those that in Italy itfelimo have the count in Whicli, aster many expeditions, and after haring partaken os Attic hospitalities, Saturn setilia, obtaining cordial melcome imm Janus, or, as tho Salii Willhavo it, Janis. The motintain on Whicli ho dweli mas called Saturnius; the city ho Aunded is called Saturnia to this day;last os ali, the whole of Italy, after having borne the nameos Oenotria, mas called Saturnia fram him. Ηo fidit gaveyou the art of writing, and a stamped coinage, and thence itis he presides over ste public treas y. But is Saturn Werea man, he had undo tedly a human origin; and having a
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aci, When they Were impressed by the look of any strangerbappening to appear among them, as though it mere divine, since even at this day men os cultum mahe gods of those Whom, a day Or tWo before, they achnowledged to bo deadmen by their public mourning for them. Let these notices of Saturn, briet as they are, sussice. Ιt mill thus also be proved
that Iupiter is as certainly a man as from a man he sprung; and that one aster another the wholo swarm is mortal lita thoprimat stoch.
11. And since, as you dare not deny that these deities of
mass-Whester sel Lexistent and uncreated, as Pythagoras
maintains, or brought into being by a creator's havds, as Plato holds as manifestly, once tor ali, in iis original construction disposed, and furnished, and ordered, and supplied Mitha government of perfect Wisdom. That cannot be imperfect
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which has made ali perseel. Thers Was nothing Watting onfor Saturn and his race to do. Mon mill maho focis os them- solvas is they refuso to bellove that iram the very siret minpoured do n iram tho fhy, and stare gleamed, and light shone, and thundere mared, and Jovo himself droadod tholighinings you put in his hanti; that in like manner besore Bacchus, and Ceres, and Minerva, nay, besore the fi rei man, Whoever stat mas, every hind of fruit burat fortii plentifullysrom the bosom of the earth, for nothing provided for thesuppore and sustenanco of man could bo introduced aster his entrance on the stage of being. Accordindy, these necessaries of liso are said to have been discovered, not created. But tho
os a neW fruit, he has not, as though he wero iis creator, beenawarded divino honoura. Wheresore, is the universo existed
Worhing under ceriain laWs sor the performance of ita functions, there is in this respect an entire absence of ali reason
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78 TERTULLIANUSwho offend against filial piety, and such as are gestu of incest
But to say no more about a Way of acting so unWorthy, there have been men virtuous, aud pure, and good. rit ho many of these nobier men you have leti in tho regions ofd mi as Socrates, so renowned for his Wisdom, Aristides
for his justice, Themistocles for his martiis genius, Alexander sor his sublimity os foui, Polycrates for his mod fortune, Croesus for his wealth, Demosthenes ior his eloquence. Which of these gods of youm is more remarhable for gravi and wisdom stan Cato, more just and warithe than Scipio whicli of them moro magnanimous than Pompey, more prosperous than Sylla, oi greater Wealth than Crassus, more eloquent than Talty Τ ΗΟW much betior it mould havo been for the God Supreme in Wait, stat He might have in n
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men os ancient times; I hear fabulous stories; I recogniso sacrod rites founded on mere myths. As to the actuat images, I regard them as simply pieces of mattor ahin to the Vesseis and utensiis in common uso among us, or eVen undergoingin their consecration a hapless change from these usosul articles at tho hanci os rechless ari, whicli in the transform-ing procem treata them With ulter contempt, nay, in the veryaci commits sacrilege; so that it might be no stight solaceto us in ali our punishmenta, suffering as me do because of theso fame gods, that in their mining they suffer as Wo dothemsolves. You put Christians on crosses and staris: What
imago is not formed hom the clay in the fidit instance, seton croas and stahe ' The body oi your god is fidit consecraredon the gibbet. Gu tear the fides of Christians with your clams; but in the case of your οὐ gods, axes, and planes,
lead, and the glue, and the natis are put in requisition, your deities aro headlem. are cast to the wild beasts, whiloyou attach them to Bacchus, and Cybele, and Caelestis. Woare burned in the flames; so, too, are they in their Originallvmp. are condemned to the mines; from these Fourgods originate. We aro banished to istands ; in istands it is a common thing for your goti to have their birili or dio. Ιfit is in this way a dei is made, it mill sollo that as manyas are punished are deified, and tortures mill have to bedeclared divinities. But plain it is these objects of your
moe are the persons, no doubt, Who censured a certain
Seneca speising of your superstition at much greater lennii, and far more sita ly l la a Word, is we refuse our homage tostatues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead origines' mith Which haWks, and mice, and spidera are so Wellacquainred, does it not merit presso instead os penalty, that Ws have rejected What me have come is sis is error cannot
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surely be made out to injure those Who me are certain amnonentities. What does not exist, is in iis non-existenco secure hom suffering.
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in the one case as in the other. Their statues havo the fame
them that their masters ara made thela equias. But Whenyοu adore Larentina, a public prostitute- Ι could have Wished that it might at loast have been Lais or Phryne-amongyοur Junos, and Cereses, and Dianas; When you instat in your Pantheon Simon Magus, oving him a statue and thetitio Oi Holy God; when you mine an infamous couri page a Md of the sacred synod, although your ancient deities amin reality no beller, they wiu stili thinh themselves inrontodby yοu, stat the privilege antiquiu conferred on them Mone,
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82TERTULLIANUS was in peril of his liso from tho fame Diomede; stat Mars
was almost Wasted aWay by a thirteen monilis' imprisonment; that Jupiter Was saved by a monster's aid hom suffering thosame violence at the hanci of the other gods; that ho nowlaments the fate of Sarpedon, noW foully mahes love to hisown sister, recounting fio heri former mistresses, no for a long time past not so dear as site. Aster this, What poet is
perele professing a great respect for religion. Nor indoeddo eister tragic or comic writers stirinh from setting forththo gods as the origin os ali fami ly calamities and sins. Ιdo not dweli on the philosophers, contenting myself With a re rence to Socrates, who, in contempt of the gods, Wasin tho habit os swearing by an oah, and a goat, and a dog. In faci, for this very thing Socrates Was condemned to death, that he overthrow the worship of the gods. Plainly, at Ono time as Weli as another, that is, at Vs truth distiked. Howevor, When rueing their judgment, the Athenians inflictod punishment on his accusers, and set up a Midon image of him
in a templo, the condemnation mas in the Very aci rescinded, and his Witness was restored to ita former valve. Diogenes,too, mahes ulter mock of Hercules; and the Roman cynio
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arena, Where aster the fame fashion your deities danco onhuman blood, on the pollutions caused by inflicted punishmenta, as they aci their themes and stories, doing their tum for the Wretched criminals, excepi that these, too, osten put on divinityand actualty play the Very gods. We have seen in our day a representation of the mutilation of Attis, that famous god ofΡominus, and a man burni alive as Hercules. - havo mademero amid the ludicrous crueities of the noon-day exhibition,
temples adulteries ars arranged, that at the altare pimping is practised, that osten in thes houses of the temple-heepers and priesti, under the sacrificiat fillera, and the sacred hais, and the purple robes, amid the sumes of incense, deeiis of licentiousness are done, I am not sure but your gods have more
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reason to complain of you than os Christians. It is certainlyamong the Votaries of your religion that the perpetratore os sacrilego are alWays sound. For Christians do not enteryour temples even in the da time. Perhaps they too Would
hom their rejection os the lie, that they render homage to the truth; nor continue longer in an error Which they have given up in the very faci os recognising it to be an error. Tahe this in first os ali, and whon me have offered a proluminary refutation of some salse opinions, go on to derive
hom it our entire religious System.
16. For, lita some others, you are under the delusion statour god is an ass's head. Cornelius Tacitus fidit put this notion into people's minti. In the fifth book of his historios,beginning the narrativo of theJ Je isti War With an account of the origin of the nation; and theoriging at his pleasure about the origin, as meli as the namo and the religion os the Jems,he states that having been delivered, or rather, in his opinion, expelled from Egypt, in crossing the vast plians of Arabia, Where Water is so scanty, they were in extremity srom thirat; but tining the Midance of the wild asses, whicli it Wasthought might be seehing mater aster feedin g, they dis- covered a fountain, and thereupon in their gratitude theyconsecrated a head of this species os animal. And as Christianity is nearly allied to Judaism, irom this, I suppose, it Wastahen for granted that we too are devoted to the worship of the fame image. But the said Cornelius Tacitus the very opposite of tacit in telling lies) insorms us in the work already