ARGUMENT.
IN THIS BOOK IT IS SHOWN THAT ETERNAL LIFE IS NOT OBTAINED BY THEWORSHIP OF JANUS, JUPITER, SATURN, AND THE OTHER "SELECT GODS" OF THE CIVIL THEOLOGY.
PREFACE.
IT will be the duty of those who are endowed with quicker and better understandings, in whose case the former books are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to effect their intended object, to bear with me with patience and equanimity whilst I attempt with more than ordinary diligence to tear up and eradicate depraved and ancient opinions hostile to the truth of piety, which the long-continued error of the human race has fixed very deeply in unenlightened minds; co-operating also in this, according to my little measure, with the grace of Him who, being the true God, is able to accomplish it, and on whose help I depend in my work; and, for the sake of others, such should not deem superfluous what they feel to be no longer necessary for themselves.A very great matter is at stake when the true and truly holy divinity is commended to men as that which they ought to seek after and to worship; not, however, on account of the transitory vapor of mortal life, but on account of life eternal, which alone is blessed, although the help necessary for this frail life we are now living is also afforded us by it.
CHAP.1.-- WHETHER, SINCE IT IS EVIDENT THATDEITY IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE CIVIL THEOLOGY, WE ARE TO BELIEVE THATIT IS TO BE FOUND IN THE SELECT GODS.
If there is any one whom the sixth book, which I have last finished, has not persuaded that this divinity, or, so to speak, deity--for this word also our authors do not hesitate to use, in order to translate more accurately that which the Greeks call <greek>qeoths</greek>;--if there is any one, I say, whom the sixth book has not persuaded that this divinity or deity is not to be found in that theology which they call civil, and which Marcus Varro has explained in sixteen books,--that is, that the happiness of eternal life is not attainable through the worship of gods such as states have established to be worshipped, and that in such a form,--perhaps, when he has read this book, he will not have anything further to desire in order to the clearing up of this question.For it is possible that some one may think that at least the select and chief gods, whom Varro comprised in his last book, and of whom we have not spoken sufficiently, are to be worshipped on account of the blessed life, which is none other than eternal.
In respect to which matter I do not say what Tertullian said, perhaps more wittily than truly, "If gods are selected like onions, certainly the rest are rejected as bad."(1) I do not say this, for I see that even from among the select, some are selected for some greater and more excellent office:
as in warfare, when recruits have been elected, there are some again elected from among those for the performance of some greater military service;and in the church, when persons are elected to be overseers, certainly the rest are not rejected, since all good Christians are deservedly called elect; in the erection of a building corner-stones are elected, though the other stones, which are destined for other parts of the structure, are not rejected; grapes are elected for eating, whilst the others, which we leave for drinking, are not rejected.There is no need of adducing many illustrations, since the thing is evident.Wherefore the selection of certain gods from among many affords no proper reason why either he who wrote on this subject, or the worshippers of the gods, or the gods themselves, should be spurned.We ought rather to seek to know what gods these are, and for what purpose they may appear to have been selected CHAP.2.--WHO ARE THE SELECT GODS, AND WHETHERTHEY ARE HELD TO BE EXEMPT FROM THE OFFICES OF THE COMMONER GODS.
The following gods, certainly, Varro signalizes as select, devoting one book to this subject: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta; of which twenty gods, twelve are males, and eight females.Whether are these deities called select, because of their higher spheres of administration in the world, or because they have become better known to the people, and more worship has been expended on them ? If it be on account of the greater works which are performed by them in the world, we ought not to have found them among that, as it were, plebeian crowd of deities, which has assigned to it the charge of minute and trifling things.For, first of all, at the conception of a foetus, from which point all the works commence which have been distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus himself opens the way for the reception of the seed;there also is Saturn, on account of the seed itself; there is Liber,?who liberates the male by the effusion of the seed; there is Libera, whom they also would have to be Venus, who confers this same benefit on the woman, namely, that she also be liberated by the emission of the seed;--all these are of the number of those who are called select.But there is also the goddess Mena, who presides over the menses; though the daughter of Jupiter, ignoble nevertheless.And this province of the menses the same author, in his book on the select gods, assigns to Juno herself, who is even queen among the select gods; and here, as Juno Lucina, along with the same Mena, her stepdaughter, she presides over the same blood.There also are two gods, exceedingly obscure, Vitumnus and Sentinus--the one of whom imparts life to the foetus, and the other sensation; and, of a truth, they bestow, most ignoble though they be, far more than alI those noble and select gods bestow.For, surely, without life and sensation, what is the whole foetus which a woman carries in her womb, but a most vile and worthless thing, no better than slime and dust ?