Chapter VII.—The Gods of the Mythic Class. The Poets a Very Poor Authority in Such Matters. Homer and the Mythic Poets. Why Irreligious.

But to pass to the mythic class of gods, which we attributed to the poets,423    See above, c. i. [Note 19, p. 129.] I hardly know whether I must only seek to put them on a par with our own human mediocrity, or whether they must be affirmed to be gods, with proofs of divinity, like the African Mopsus and the Bœotian Amphiaraus. I must now indeed but slightly touch on this class, of which a fuller view will be taken in the proper place.424    See The Apology, especially cc. xxii. and xxiii. Meanwhile, that these were only human beings, is clear from the fact that you do not consistently call them gods, but heroes. Why then discuss the point? Although divine honours had to be ascribed to dead men, it was not to them as such, of course. Look at your own practice, when with similar excess of presumption you sully heaven with the sepulchres of your kings: is it not such as are illustrious for justice, virtue, piety, and every excellence of this sort, that you honour with the blessedness of deification, contented even to incur contempt if you forswear yourselves425    Pejerantes. for such characters? And, on the other hand, do you not deprive the impious and disgraceful of even the old prizes of human glory, tear up426    Lancinatis. their decrees and titles, pull down their statues, and deface427    Repercutitus. their images on the current coin? Will He, however, who beholds all things, who approves, nay, rewards the good, prostitute before all men428    Vulgo. the attribute of His own inexhaustible grace and mercy? And shall men be allowed an especial mount of care and righteousness, that they may be wise429    Sapere. The infinitive of purpose is frequent in our author. in selecting and multiplying430    Distribuendis. their deities? Shall attendants on kings and princes be more pure than those who wait on the Supreme God?431    An allusion to Antinous, who is also referred to in The Apology, xiii. [“Court-page.” See, p. 29, Supra.] You turn your back in horror, indeed, on outcasts and exiles, on the poor and weak, on the obscurely born and the low-lived;432    Inhoneste institutos. but yet you honour, even by legal sanctions,433    By the “legibus” Tertullian refers to the divine honours ordered to be paid, by decrees of the Senate, to deceased emperors. Comp. Suetonius, Octav. 88; and Pliny, Paneg. 11 (Oehler). unchaste men, adulterers, robbers, and parricides. Must we regard it as a subject of ridicule or indignation, that such characters are believed to be gods who are not fit to be men? Then, again, in this mythic class of yours which the poets celebrate, how uncertain is your conduct as to purity of conscience and the maintenance thereof!  For whenever we hold up to execration the wretched, disgraceful and atrocious (examples) of your gods, you defend them as mere fables, on the pretence of poetic licence; whenever we volunteer a silent contempt434    Ultro siletur. of this said435    Ejusmodi. poetic licence, then you are not only troubled with no horror of it, but you go so far as436    Insuper. to show it respect, and to hold it as one of the indispensable (fine) arts; nay,437    Denique. you carry out the studies of your higher classes438    Ingenuitatis. by its means, as the very foundation439    Initiatricem. of your literature. Plato was of opinion that poets ought to be banished, as calumniators of the gods; (he would even have) Homer himself expelled from his republic, although, as you are aware,440    Sane. he was the crowned head of them all. But while you admit and retain them thus, why should you not believe them when they disclose such things respecting your gods? And if you do believe your poets, how is it that you worship such gods (as they describe)?  If you worship them simply because you do not believe the poets, why do you bestow praise on such lying authors, without any fear of giving offence to those whose calumniators you honour? A regard for truth441    Fides. is not, of course, to be expected of poets.  But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human? Now what is there strange in the fact, that they who were once men are subject to the dishonour442    Polluuntur. of human casualties, or crimes, or fables?  Do you not, in fact, put faith in your poets, when it is in accordance with their rhapsodies443    Relationibus. that you have arranged in some instances your very rituals? How is it that the priestess of Ceres is ravished, if it is not because Ceres suffered a similar outrage? Why are the children of others sacrificed to Saturn,444    Comp. The Apology, ix. [See, p. 25, Supra.] if it is not because he spared not his own?  Why is a male mutilated in honour of the Idæan goddess Cybele, unless it be that the (unhappy) youth who was too disdainful of her advances was castrated, owing to her vexation at his daring to cross her love?445    Comp. Minucius Felix, Octav. xxi.; Arnobius, adv. Nat. v. 6, 7; Augustine, Civ. Dei, vi. 7. Why was not Hercules “a dainty dish” to the good ladies of Lanuvium, if it was not for the primeval offence which women gave to him? The poets, no doubt, are liars. Yet it is not because of their telling us that446    This is the force of the subjunctive verb. your gods did such things when they were human beings, nor because they predicated divine scandals447    By divine scandals, he means such as exceed in their atrocity even human scandals. of a divine state, since it seemed to you more credible that gods should exist, though not of such a character, than that there should be such characters, although not gods.

7. Caeterum cui res examinabitur, verisimilius utique dicet elementa ista ab aliquo regi, quam ultro . . . igitur non deos, quae sub aliquo. At si in isto erratur, melius est simpliciter, quam ut physici, diligenter. Sed enim si ad mythic . . . tes , melius jam 0594B in physico mortalitas errat, eis divinitatem adscribendo, quae super hominem putat situ et vi et magnitudine et divinitate sentiri; quod enim super hominem, credas Deo proximum. Caeterum ut ad mythicum transeamus, quod poetis deputatur, nescio an tantum . . . . . . . . . mediocritati nostrae, an tanti de documentis divinitatis conf . . . . . . . . ut Mopsus Africanus et Boeotus Amphiaraus . Delibanda enim nunc est species ista, cujus suo loco ratio reddetur. Interim hos certe homines fuisse vel eo palam est, quod non constanter deos illos, sed heroas appellatis. Quid ergo contendimus? Si addicenda mortuis divinitas erat, non utique talibus? Ecce vos cum eadem licentia praesumptionis sepulcris regum vestrorum coelum infamatis, nonne probatos quosque justitia, virtute, 0594C pietate et omni bono ejusmodi consecrationis solatio honestatis contenti pro talibus etiam irrideri pejerantes. At e contrario impios, turpes etiam pristinis humanae gloriae praemiis aufertis, decreta eorum et titulos lancinatis, imagines detrahitis, monetam repercutitis. Ille autem conspector omnium, comprobator, imo largitor bonorum, tantae indulgentiae suae ordinationem vulgo prostituet et plus diligentiae atque justitiae hominibus licebit in distribuendis divinitatibus sapere? Mundiores erunt regum et principum comites quam summi Dei? Atquin horretis et aversamini, vagos, exsules, . . . . . . debiles, sordide natos, 0595A inhoneste institutos; contra incestos, adulteros, raptores, parricidas etiam legibus exserendis. Ridendum an irascendum sit, tales deos credi, quales homines esse non debeant? Sed enim in isto mythico genere, quod poetae ferunt, quam incerti agitis circa conscientiae pudorem et pudoris defensionem! Nam quotiens mise . . . . , turpia, vel atrocia deorum exprobramus; allegationem poeti . . . . . . e ut fabulosa defenditis! quotiens ultro siletur de ejusmodi poetica, non modo non horretis, sed insuper honoratis, utque in necessariis artibus habetis. Denique per hanc initiatricem litteraturae ingenuitatis studia producitis. Criminatores deorum poetas eliminari Plato censuit, ipsum Homerum sane coronatum civitate pellendum. At cum excipiatis illos et retineatis, cur non credatis talia retexentibus de deis vestris? Igitur si creditis poetis, 0595B cur laudem mendacibus fertis, nec cavetis ne offendatis eos, quorum detrectatores honoratis? Sane fides a poetis non exigenda. Nonne qui dicitis deos post mortem factos, homines confitemini ante mortem? Quid ergo novi, si, qui homines fuerint, humanis aut casibus aut criminibus aut fabulis polluuntur? Non creditis poetis, cum de relationibus eorum etiam sacra quaenam disposueritis? Cur rapitur sacerdos Cereris, si non tale Ceres passa est? Cur Saturno alieni liberi immolantur, si ille suis pepercit? Cur Ideae masculus amputatur, si nullus illi fastidiosior adolescens libidinis frustatae dolore castratus est? Cur Herculeum polluctum mulieres Lanuvinae non gustant, si non mulierum caussa p . . . . . . Mentiuntur 0595C sane poetae! sed non ideo quod talia gesserint . . . homines quas defuerint nec quod divinas adscripserint fo . . . . divinitatis, cum interim vobis credibilius visum est deos fuisse, sed non tales, quam tales, sed non deos.