Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and physician, they have nevertheless given him a place as some part of the world.They have said that he is also the sun; and likewise they have said that Diana, his sister, is the moon, and the guardian of roads.Whence also they will have her be a virgin, because a road brings forth nothing.They also make both of them have arrows, because those two planets send their rays from the heavens to the earth.They make Vulcan to be the fire of the world;Neptune the waters of the world; Father Dis, that is, Orcus, the earthy and lowest part of the world.Liber and Ceres they set over seeds,--the former over the seeds of males, the latter over the seeds of females; or the one over the fluid part of seed, but the other over the dry part.And all this together is referred to the world, that is, to Jupiter, who is called "progenitor and mother," because he emitted all seeds from himself, and received them into himself.For they also make this same Ceres to be the Great Mother, who they say is none other than the earth, and call her also Juno.And therefore they assign to her the second causes of things, notwithstanding that it has been said to Jupiter, "progenitor and mother of the gods;" because, according to them, the whole world itself is Jupiter's.Minerva, also, because they set her over human arts, and did not find even a star in which to place her, has been said by them to be either the highest ether, or even the moon.Also Vesta herself they have thought to be the highest of the goddesses, because she is the earth; although they have thought that the milder fire of the world, which is used for the ordinary purposes of human life, not the more violent fire, such as belongs to Vulcan, is to be as- signed to her.And thus they will have all those select gods to be the world and its parts, --some of them the whole world, others of them its parts; the whole of it Jupiter,--its parts, Genius, Mater Magna, Sol and Luna, or rather Apollo and Diana, and so on.And sometimes they make one god many things; sometimes one thing many gods.Many things are one god in the case of Jupiter; for both the whole world is Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and the star alone is said and held to be Jupiter.Juno also is mistress of second causes,--Juno is the air, Juno is the earth; and had she won it over Venus, Juno would have been the star.Likewise Minerva is the highest ether, and Minerva is likewise the moon, which they suppose to be in the lowest limit of the ether.And also they make one thing many gods in this way.The world is both Janus and Jupiter; also the earth is Juno, and Mater Magna, and Ceres.
CHAP.17.--THAT EVEN VARRO HIMSELF PRONOUNCED HIS OWN OPINIONS REGARDINGTHE
GODS AMBIGUOUS, And the same is true with respect to all the rest, as is true with respect to those things which I have mentioned for the sake of example.They do not explain them, but rather involve them.They rush hither and thither, to this side or to that, according as they are driven by the impulse of erratic opinion; so that even Varro himself has chosen rather to doubt concerning all things, than to affirm anything.For, having written the first of the three last books concerning the certain gods, and having commenced in the second of these to speak of the uncertain gods, he says: "Iought not to be censured for having stated in this book the doubtful opinions concerning the gods.For he who, when he has read them, shall think that they both ought to be, and can be, conclusively judged of, will do so himself.For my own part, I can be more easily led to doubt the things which I have written in the first book, than to attempt to reduce all the things I shall write in this one to any orderly system." Thus he makes uncertain not only that book concerning the uncertain gods, but also that other concerning the certain gods.Moreover, in that third book concerning the select gods, after having exhibited by anticipation as much of the natural theology as he deemed necessary, and when about to commence to speak of the vanities and lying insanities of the civil theology, where he was not only without the guidance of the truth of things, but was also pressed by the authority of tradition, he says: "I will write in this book concerning the public gods of the Roman people, to whom they have dedicated temples, and whom they have conspicuously distinguished by many adornments; but, as Xenophon of Colophon writes, I will state what I think, not what I am prepared to maintain: it is for man to think those things, for God to know them."It is not, then, an account of things comprehended and most certainly believed which he promised, when about to write those things which were instituted by men.He only timidly promises an account of things which are but the subject of doubtful opinion.Nor, indeed, was it possible for him to affirm with the same certainty that Janus was the world, and such like things; or to discover with the same certainty such things as how Jupiter was the son of Saturn, while Saturn was made subject to him as king:--he could, I say, neither affirm nor discover such things with the same certainty with which he knew such things as that the world existed, that the heavens and earth existed, the heavens bright with stars, and the earth fertile through seeds; or with the same perfect conviction with which he believed that this universal mass of nature is governed and administered by a certain invisible and mighty force.
CHAP.18.--A MORE CREDIBLE CAUSE OF THE
RISE OF PAGAN ERROR.