21. But perhaps this foul pollution may be less apparent in the rest. Did, then, the ruler of the heavens, the father of gods and men, who, by the motion of his eyebrow, and by his nod, shakes the whole heavens and makes them tremble,—did he find his origin in man and woman? And unless both sexes abandoned themselves to degrading pleasures in sensual embraces,954    Copulatis corporibus. would there be no Jupiter, greatest of all; and even to this time would the divinities have no king, and heaven stand without its lord? And why do we marvel that you say Jove sprang from a woman’s womb, seeing that your authors relate that he both had a nurse, and in the next place maintained the life given to him by nourishment drawn from a foreign955    i.e., not his mother’s, but the dug of the goat Amalthea. breast? What say you, O men? Did, then, shall I repeat, the god who makes the thunder crash, lightens and hurls the thunderbolt, and draws together terrible clouds, drink in the streams of the breast, wail as an infant, creep about, and, that he might be persuaded to cease his crying most foolishly protracted, was he made silent by the noise of rattles,956    Lit., “rattles heard.” and put to sleep lying in a very soft cradle, and lulled with broken words? O devout assertion of the existence of gods, pointing out and declaring the venerable majesty of their awful grandeur! Is it thus in your opinion, I ask, that the exalted powers957    Lit., “the eminence of the powers.” of heaven are produced? do your gods come forth to the light by modes of birth such as these, by which asses, pigs, dogs, by which the whole of this unclean herd958    Lit., “inundation.” of earthly beasts is conceived and begotten?

1041A XXI. Sed in caeteris forsitan minus hujus eluceat turpitudinis foeditas. Ergone ille rector poli, pater deorum et hominum, supercilio et nutu totum motans et tremefaciens coelum, ex viro concretus et foemina est? Et nisi ambo sexus in obscoenas dissolverentur copulatis corporibus voluptates, Jupiter ille maximus non esset, et usque ad hos dies, et regem numina non haberent, et coelum sine domino staret? Et quid Jovem miramur ex foeminae effusum dictitare vos alvo, quando auctores vestri et nutricem habuisse conscribunt, et ex alieni uberis alimonia mox traditam retinuisse vitam? Quid dicitis, o viri? Ergone, iterum dicam, tonans, fulgens, et fulminans, et nubila terribilia conducens, suxit fluenta mammarum, vagitum edidit, repsit, atque, ut fletum 1041B exponeret ineptissime tractum, crepitaculis obticuit 1042A auditis, et ad somnos inductus est in mollissimis cunis jacens, et vocibus delinitus infractis? O deorum assertio religiosa! o amplitudinis metuendae venerabilem monstrans atque insinuans dignitatem! siccine apud vos, quaeso, supernarum nascitur eminentia potestatum? his in lucem prodeunt generationibus dii vestri, quibus asini, porci, canes, quibus immunda haec omnis conceptatur et genitur terrenarum proluvies bestiarum?