Chapter XII.518    Agrees with The Apology, c. x.—The Original Deities Were Human—With Some Very Questionable Characteristics. Saturn or Time Was Human. Inconsistencies of Opinion About Him.

Now, how much further need I go in recounting your gods—because I want to descant on the character of such as you have adopted? It is quite uncertain whether I shall laugh at your absurdity, or upbraid you for your blindness. For how many, and indeed what, gods shall I bring forward? Shall it be the greater ones, or the lesser? The old ones, or the novel? The male, or the female? The unmarried, or such as are joined in wedlock? The clever, or the unskilful? The rustic or the town ones? The national or the foreign? For the truth is,519    Bona fide. there are so many families, so many nations, which require a catalogue520    Censum. (of gods), that they cannot possibly be examined, or distinguished, or described. But the more diffuse the subject is, the more restriction must we impose on it. As, therefore, in this review we keep before us but one object—that of proving that all these gods were once human beings (not, indeed, to instruct you in the fact,521    There is here an omitted clause, supplied in The Apology, “but rather to recall it to your memory.” for your conduct shows that you have forgotten it)—let us adopt our compendious summary from the most natural method522    Ab ipsa ratione. of conducting the examination, even by considering the origin of their race. For the origin characterizes all that comes after it. Now this origin of your gods dates,523    Signatur. I suppose, from Saturn. And when Varro mentions Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, as the most ancient of the gods, it ought not to have escaped our notice, that every father is more ancient than his sons, and that Saturn therefore must precede Jupiter, even as Cœlus does Saturn, for Saturn was sprung from Cœlus and Terra. I pass by, however, the origin of Cœlus and Terra. They led in some unaccountable way524    Undeunde. single lives, and had no children. Of course they required a long time for vigorous growth to attain to such a stature.525    Tantam proceritatem. By and by, as soon as the voice of Cœlus began to break,526    Insolescere, i.e., at the commencement of puberty. and the breasts of Terra to become firm,527    Lapilliscere, i.e., to indicate maturity. they contract marriage with one another.  I suppose either Heaven528    The nominative “cœlum” is used. came down to his spouse, or Earth went up to meet her lord. Be that as it may, Earth conceived seed of Heaven, and when her year was fulfilled brought forth Saturn in a wonderful manner. Which of his parents did he resemble? Well, then, even after parentage began,529    It is not very clear what is the force of “sed et pepererit,” as read by Oehler; we have given the clause an impersonal turn. it is certain530    “Certe” is sometime “certo” in our author. that they had no child previous to Saturn, and only one daughter afterwards—Ops; thenceforth they ceased to procreate. The truth is, Saturn castrated Cœlus as he was sleeping. We read this name Cœlus as of the masculine gender. And for the matter of that, how could he be a father unless he were a male? But with what instrument was the castration effected? He had a scythe. What, so early as that? For Vulcan was not yet an artificer in iron. The widowed Terra, however, although still quite young, was in no hurry531    Distulit. to marry another. Indeed, there was no second Cœlus for her. What but Ocean offers her an embrace? But he savours of brackishness, and she has been accustomed to fresh water.532    That is, to rain and cloud. And so Saturn is the sole male child of Cœlus and Terra. When grown to puberty, he marries his own sister. No laws as yet prohibited incest, nor punished parricide.  Then, when male children were born to him, he would devour them; better himself (should take them) than the wolves, (for to these would they become a prey) if he exposed them. He was, no doubt, afraid that one of them might learn the lesson of his father’s scythe. When Jupiter was born in course of time, he was removed out of the way:533    Abalienato. (the father) swallowed a stone instead of the son, as was pretended. This artifice secured his safety for a time; but at length the son, whom he had not devoured, and who had grown up in secret, fell upon him, and deprived him of his kingdom. Such, then, is the patriarch of the gods whom Heaven534    The word is “cœlum” here. and Earth produced for you, with the poets officiating as midwives. Now some persons with a refined535    Eleganter. imagination are of opinion that, by this allegorical fable of Saturn, there is a physiological representation of Time: (they think) that it is because all things are destroyed by Time, that Cœlus and Terra were themselves parents without having any of their own, and that the (fatal) scythe was used, and that (Saturn) devoured his own offspring, because he,536    i.e., as representing Time. in fact, absorbs within himself all things which have issued from him. They call in also the witness of his name; for they say that he is called Κρόνος in Greek, meaning the same thing as χρόνος.537    So Augustine, de Civ. Dei, iv. 10; Arnobius, adv. Nationes, iii. 29; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. ii. 25. His Latin name also they derive from seed-sowing;538    As if from “sero,” satum. for they suppose him to have been the actual procreator—that the seed, in fact, was dropt down from heaven to earth by his means. They unite him with Ops, because seeds produce the affluent treasure (Opem) of actual life, and because they develope with labour (Opus). Now I wish that you would explain this metaphorical539    Translatio. statement. It was either Saturn or Time. If it was Time, how could it be Saturn? If he, how could it be Time? For you cannot possibly reckon both these corporeal subjects540    Utrumque corporale. as co-existing in one person. What, however, was there to prevent your worshipping Time under its proper quality? Why not make a human person, or even a mythic man, an object of your adoration, but each in its proper nature not in the character of Time? What is the meaning of that conceit of your mental ingenuity, if it be not to colour the foulest matters with the feigned appearance of reasonable proofs?541    Mentitis argumentationibus. Neither, on the one hand, do you mean Saturn to be Time, because you say he is a human being; nor, on the other hand, whilst portraying him as Time, do you on that account mean that he was ever human. No doubt, in the accounts of remote antiquity your god Saturn is plainly described as living on earth in human guise. Anything whatever may obviously be pictured as incorporeal which never had an existence; there is simply no room for such fiction, where there is reality. Since, therefore, there is clear evidence that Saturn once existed, it is in vain that you change his character. He whom you will not deny to have once been man, is not at your disposal to be treated anyhow, nor can it be maintained that he is either divine or Time. In every page of your literature the origin542    Census. of Saturn is conspicuous. We read of him in Cassius Severus and in the Corneliuses, Nepos and Tacitus,543    See his Histories, v. 2, 4. and, amongst the Greeks also, in Diodorus, and all other compilers of ancient annals.544    Antiquitatem canos, “hoary antiquity.” No more faithful records of him are to be traced than in Italy itself. For, after (traversing) many countries, and (enjoying) the hospitality of Athens, he settled in Italy, or, as it was called, Œnotria, having met with a kind welcome from Janus, or Janes,545    Jano sive Jane. as the Salii call him. The hill on which he settled had the name Saturnius, whilst the city which he founded546    Depalaverat, “marked out with stakes.” still bears the name Saturnia; in short, the whole of Italy once had the same designation. Such is the testimony derived from that country which is now the mistress of the world: whatever doubt prevails about the origin of Saturn, his actions tell us plainly that he was a human being. Since, therefore, Saturn was human, he came undoubtedly from a human stock; and more, because he was a man, he, of course, came not of Cœlus and Terra. Some people, however, found it easy enough to call him, whose parents were unknown, the son of those gods from whom all may in a sense seem to be derived. For who is there that does not speak under a feeling of reverence of the heaven and the earth as his own father and mother? Or, in accordance with a custom amongst men, which induces them to say of any who are unknown or suddenly apparent, that “they came from the sky?”  Hence it happened that, because a stranger appeared suddenly everywhere, it became the custom to call him a heaven-born man,547    Cœlitem.—just as we also commonly call earth-born all those whose descent is unknown. I say nothing of the fact that such was the state of antiquity, when men’s eyes and minds were so habitually rude, that they were excited by the appearance of every newcomer as if it were that of a god: much more would this be the case with a king, and that the primeval one.  I will linger some time longer over the case of Saturn, because by fully discussing his primordial history I shall beforehand furnish a compendious answer for all other cases; and I do not wish to omit the more convincing testimony of your sacred literature, the credit of which ought to be the greater in proportion to its antiquity.  Now earlier than all literature was the Sibyl; that Sibyl, I mean, who was the true prophetess of truth, from whom you borrow their title for the priests of your demons. She in senarian verse expounds the descent of Saturn and his exploits in words to this effect: “In the tenth generation of men, after the flood had overwhelmed the former race, reigned Saturn, and Titan, and Japetus, the bravest of the sons of Terra and Cœlus.” Whatever credit, therefore, is attached to your older writers and literature, and much more to those who were the simplest as belonging to that age,548    Magis proximis quoniam illius ætatis. it becomes sufficiently certain that Saturn and his family549    Prosapia. were human beings. We have in our possession, then, a brief principle which amounts to a prescriptive rule about their origin serving for all other cases, to prevent our going wrong in individual instances. The particular character550    Qualitas. [n.b. Our author’s use of Præscriptio.] of a posterity is shown by the original founders of the race—mortal beings (come) from mortals, earthly ones from earthly; step after step comes in due relation551    Comparantur.—marriage, conception, birth—country, settlements, kingdoms, all give the clearest proofs.552    Monumenta liquent. They, therefore who cannot deny the birth of men, must also admit their death; they who allow their mortality must not suppose them to be gods.

12. Et quonam usque deos . . . quia disserendum, quales deos receperitis, quantum vobis erus . . . . Rideam vanitatem, an exprobrem caecitatem, est admodum incertum. Nam quot deos, et quos utique producam? majores, an et minores ? veteres, an et novitios? mares, an et foeminas? caelibes, an et le, . . . . . ? artifices, an et inertes? rusticos, an et urbanos? cives, an et peregrinos. Tot enim familiae, tot nationes sensus bona fide quaerunt, ut dispici et distingui 0601B describique non possint, ut quanto diffusa res est, tanto substringenda nobis erit. Et ideo, quis in ista specie unum tuemur propositum demonstrandi, illos omnes homines fuisse: non quidem ut cognoscatis, nam quasi oblita agitis, compendio ab ipsa despiciendi ratione summam originem generis illorum retractando. Origo enim totius posteritatis. Ea origo deorum vestrorum Saturno, ut opinor, signatur. Neque enim si Varro antiquissimos deos Jovem, Junonem et Minervam refert, nobis excidisse debet, omnem patrem filiis antiquiorem, tam Saturnum Jove, quam Coelum Saturno; de Coelo enim et Terra Saturnus. Et tamen Coeli et Terrae originem omitto. Erant inde caelibes diu et orbi, antequam mariti et parentes. Longo scilicet aevo crescendum illis fuit ad tantam proceritatem. 0601C Denique simul coepit et Coelo vox insolescere et ubera terrae lapilliscere, faciunt nuptias inter se. Credo, aut Coelum descendit ad sponsam, aut Terra ascendit ad sponsum! Concepit tamen Terra de Coelo et peperit illa Athos, Athos Saturnum mira ratione. Utri parentum similis? Sed et peperit, certe ante Saturnum neminem procreaverunt, nisi unam postea Opem, exinde de subole cessatum est. Nam Saturnus quidem Coelum castravit dormientem. Legimus Coelum genere masculino; caeterum quomodo pater, nisi masculinus? Sed et unde castrandum? falx illi: hoc s . . l . . . Nondum enim Vulcanus artifex ferri. Terra vero orbata distulit, etsi adhuc juvenili aetate, alii nubere. Sed nec habebat Coelum . . . . . tamen nisi illam Mare amplectitur, sed olet salsuginem . . . . aquis assueta. Ita 0601D Saturnus unicus masculus Coeli atque Terrae. Sed ipse pubescens sorori suae jungitur. Nondum leges, quae 0602A incesta prohiberent, nec quae parricidium plecterent. Itaque filios virili sexu devorabat; melius ipse, quam lupi, si exponeret; timebat scilicet, ne quis illorum de paterna falce didicisset. Nato mox et abalienato Jove, saxum infantis ementiti deglutivit. Hoc ingenio diu securus, tandem filio, quem nondum digesserat, in tenebris adulto oppressus regnoque privatus est. Hunc vobis patriarcham deorum, Coelum et Terra, poetis obstetricantibus, procreaverunt. Sed eleganter quidam sibi videntur physiologice per allegoricam argumentationem de Saturno interpretari, tempus esse, et ideo Coelum et Terram parentes, ut et ipsos origini nullos, et ideo falcatum, quia tempore omnia dirimantur, et ideo voratorem suorum, quod omnia ex se edita in se ipsum consumat. Nominis quoque 0602B testimonium compellant: Cronium dictum graece, ut Chronon; aeque latini vocabuli a sationibus rationem . . . . . ut, qui eum procreatorem conjectantur, per eum seminalia coeli in terram deferri. Opem adjungunt, quod opem videndi semina conferant, et quod opere semina evadant. Quae oro, hujus translationem . . . . . ponas. Aut Saturnus fuit, aut tempus. Quomodo Saturnus . . . . . quomodo tempus? Utrumque enim non potes, corporale in eo . . . . . mare. Quid autem prohibuit tempus coli in sua qualitate? . . . . . hominis, aut fabulam hominis, aut famulam hominis in sua specie, non in tempo . . . . Quid sibi vult intellectio ista, nisi foedas materias mentitis argumentationibus colorare? Saturnum neque ideo qui . . d . . . . tempus, aut dum eum tempus facis, jam nec hominem vis fuisse. Pla . . . . s 0602C omnino Saturnus in terris humanae qualitatis apud veteres memorias recensetur. Potest incorporaliter fingi quodvis, quod non fuerit omnino; vacat fingendi locus, ubi veritas est. Cum autem Saturnum constat vixisse, frustra demutatis; non conceditur vobis, quem non negabitis fuisse hominem, qui neque deus neque tempus defendi potest. Exstat apud litteras vestras usquequaque Saturni census, legimus apud Cassium Severum, apud Cornelios Nepotem et Tacitum, apud Graecos quoque Diodorum, quive alii antiquitatem canos collegerunt. Nec fideliora vestigia . . . . . quam in ipsa Italia signata sunt. Nam post plurimas tetras et Attica hospitia Italiae, vel, ut tunc vocabatur, Oenotriae, consedit, exceptus ab Jano sive Jane, ut Salii vocant. Mons, quem coluerat, Saturnius 0602D dictus; urbs, quam depalaverat, Saturnia usque nunc est; tota denique Italia de Saturno vocabatur: 0603A tali teste terram, quae nunc dominatur orbi etiamsi de origine Saturni dubitatur, de actu tamen constat hominem illum fuisse. Ita si homo Saturnus, procul dubio de [homine], imo quia homo, non utique de coelo atque terra. Sed cujus parentes ignoti, quibusdam facile fuit illum eorum filium dici, quorum possunt omnes videri. Quis enim non coelum ac terram patrem ac matrem venerationis gratia appellet? An de consuetudine humana, qua ignoti quique ex inopinato apparentes de coelo advenisse dicuntur? Proinde . . . . semper eg . . . . repentino , ubique inolevit coelitem dici. Nam et vulgo generis incertos terrae filios jactitamus . Nihil allego de statu antiquitatis, qua . . . rudes tunc agebantur et oculi et mentes hominum, ut cujuslibet novi viri aspectu quasi divino commoverentur, 0603B nedum et regis, et quidem primi. Adhuc de Saturno immorabor, quod et caeteris compendium praestruam, satiata primordiorum disputatione; nec praetermittam potiora testimonia divinarum litterarum, quibus fides pro antiquitate superior debetur. Ante enim Sibylla, quam omnis litteratura, exstitit. Illa scilicet Sibylla , veri vera vates et cujus vocabula daemoniorum vatibus induistis. Ea senario versu in hunc sensum de Saturni prosapia et rebus ejus exponit: decima, inquit, genitura hominum, ex quo cataclysmum prioribus accidit, regnavit Saturnus et Titan et Jamfetus, Terrae et Coeli fortissimi filii. Si qua ergo, vel vestris . . . . oribus litteris vestris superioribus, sed idcirco magis proximis . . . . in illius aetatis, fides adjacet.