10. What say you, ye holy and pure guardians of religion? Have the gods, then, sexes; and are they disfigured by those parts, the very mention of whose names by modest lips is disgraceful? What, then, now remains, but to believe that they, as unclean beasts, are transported with violent passions, rush with maddened desires into mutual embraces, and at last, with shattered and ruined bodies, are enfeebled by their sensuality? And since some things are peculiar to the female sex, we must believe that the goddesses, too, submit to these conditions at the proper time, conceive and become pregnant with loathing, miscarry, carry the full time, and sometimes are prematurely delivered. O divinity, pure, holy, free from and unstained by any dishonourable blot! The mind longs718    Lit., “with ocular inspection, and held touched.”    The ms., followed by Hild., reads habet et animum—“has it a mind to, and does it,” etc.; for which Gelenius, followed by later edd., reads, as above, avet animus. and burns to see, in the great halls and palaces of heaven, gods and goddesses, with bodies uncovered and bare, the full-breasted Ceres nursing Iacchus,719    “Fire” is wanting in the ms.    Cererem ab Iaccho, either as above, or “loved by Iacchus.” Cf. Lucret. iv. 1160: At tumida et mammosa Ceres est ipsa ab Iaccho. as the muse of Lucretius sings, the Hellespontian Priapus bearing about among the goddesses, virgin and matron, those parts720    Arnobius here allows himself to be misled by Cicero (Tusc., i. 10), who explains ἐντελέχεια as a kind of perpetual motion, evidently confusing it with ἐνδελέχεια (cf. Donaldson, New Crat., § 339 sqq.), and represents Aristotle as making it a fifth primary cause. The word has no such meaning, and Aristotle invariably enumerates only four primary causes: the material from which, the form in which, the power by which, and the end for which anything exists (Physics, ii. 3; Metaph., iv. 2, etc.).    Sensu obscæno. ever prepared for encounter. It longs, I say, to see goddesses pregnant, goddesses with child, and, as they daily increase in size, faltering in their steps, through the irksomeness of the burden they bear about with them; others, after long delay, bringing to birth, and seeking the midwife’s aid; others, shrieking as they are attacked by keen pangs and grievous pains, tormented,721    Lit., “with indivisible bodies.”    The first five edd. read hortari—“exhorted,” for which LB, followed by later edd., received tortari; as above,—a conjecture of Canterus. and, under all these influences, imploring the aid of Juno Lucina. Is it not much better to abuse, revile, and otherwise insult the gods, than, with pious pretence, unworthily to entertain such monstrous beliefs about them?

X. Quid dicitis, o sancti atque impolluti antistites 0948B religionum? Habent ergo dii sexus, et genitalium membrorum circumferunt foeditates, quas etiam ex 0949A oribus verecundis infame est suis appellationibus promere? Quid ergo jam superest, nisi ut eos credamus immundorum quadrupedum ritu, in libidinum furias gestire, cupiditatibus rabidis ire in mutuas complexiones, et postremum fractis dissolutisque corporibus voluptatis enervatione languescere? Et quoniam quaedam sunt feminarum generis propria, sequitur et eas quoque credamus circumactis persolvere suas mensibus leges: fastidiosos ducere atque 0950A habere conceptus: aboriri , perferre, et praepropero partu septimanas edere aliquando foeturas. O pura, o sancta, atque ab omni turpitudinis labe disparata atque abjuncta divinitas! Avet animus, atque ardet in Chalcidicis illis magnis, atque in palatiis coeli deos deasque conspicere intectis corporibus atque nudis, ab Iaccho Cererem, musa ut praedicat Lucretii , mammosam, Hellespontiacum Priapum inter deas virgines atque matres circumferentem res illas, praeliorum 0951A semper in expeditione paratas. Avet, inquam, videre deas gravidas, deas foetas, gliscentibusque per dies alvis intestini ponderis morositate cunctari, parturire alias tractu longo, et manus obstetricias quaerere: illas telis gravibus, et dolorum acuminibus fixas ejulare, tortari et inter haec omnia suppetias Junonis implorare Lucinae. Nonne multo est rectius maledicere conviciari, atque alia ingerere diis probra, quam obtentu pio talia de his monstra opinionum indignitate praesumere?