Chapter XIII.

“But they are gods to us,” you say. And how is it, then, that in utter inconsistency with this, you are convicted of impious, sacrilegious, and irreligious conduct to them, neglecting those you imagine to exist, destroying those who are the objects of your fear, making mock of those whose honour you avenge? See now if I go beyond the truth. First, indeed, seeing you worship, some one god, and some another, of course you give offence to those you do not worship. You cannot continue to give preference to one without slighting another, for selection implies rejection. You despise, therefore, those whom you thus reject; for in your rejection of them, it is plain you have no dread of giving them offence. For, as we have already shown, every god depended on the decision of the senate for his godhead. No god was he whom man in his own counsels did not wish to be so, and thereby condemned. The family deities you call Lares, you exercise a domestic authority over, pledging them, selling them, changing them—making sometimes a cooking-pot of a Saturn, a firepan of a Minerva, as one or other happens to be worn down, or broken in its long sacred use, or as the family head feels the pressure of some more sacred home necessity. In like manner, by public law you disgrace your state gods, putting them in the auction-catalogue, and making them a source of revenue. Men seek to get the Capitol, as they seek to get the herb market, under the voice of the crier, under the auction spear, under the registration of the quæstor. Deity is struck off and farmed out to the highest bidder. But indeed lands burdened with tribute are of less value; men under the assessment of a poll-tax are less noble; for these things are the marks of servitude. In the case of the gods, on the other hand, the sacredness is great in proportion to the tribute which they yield; nay, the more sacred is a god, the larger is the tax he pays. Majesty is made a source of gain. Religion goes about the taverns begging. You demand a price for the privilege of standing on temple ground, for access to the sacred services; there is no gratuitous knowledge of your divinities permitted—you must buy their favours with a price. What honours in any way do you render to them that you do not render to the dead? You have temples in the one case just as in the other; you have altars in the one case as in the other. Their statues have the same dress, the same insignia. As the dead man had his age, his art, his occupation, so it is with the deity. In what respect does the funeral feast differ from the feast of Jupiter? or the bowl of the gods from the ladle of the manes? or the undertaker from the soothsayer, as in fact this latter personage also attends upon the dead? With perfect propriety you give divine honours to your departed emperors, as you worship them in life. The gods will count themselves indebted to you; nay, it will be matter of high rejoicing among them that their masters are made their equals.  But when you adore Larentina, a public prostitute—I could have wished that it might at least have been Lais or Phryne—among your Junos, and Cereses, and Dianas; when you instal in your Pantheon Simon Magus,13    [Confirming the statement of Justin Martyr. See Vol. I., p. 187, note 1, and p. 193, this Series.] giving him a statue and the title of Holy God; when you make an infamous court page a god of the sacred synod, although your ancient deities are in reality no better, they will still think themselves affronted by you, that the privilege antiquity conferred on them alone, has been allowed to others.

CAPUT XIII.

Sed nobis dii sunt, inquitis. Et quomodo vos e contrario impii et sacrilegi et irreligiosi erga deos vestros deprehendimini, qui quos praesumitis esse, negligatis, quos timetis, destruatis, quos etiam vindicatis, illudatis? Recognoscite, si mentiar. Primo quidem, cum alii alios colitis, utique quos non colitis offenditis . Praelatio alterius sine contumelia alterius non potest procedere, quia nec electio sine reprobatione. Jam ergo contemnitis quos reprobatis, quos reprobando offendere non timetis. Nam ut supra perstrinximus , status dei cujusque in senatus 0344B aestimatione pendebat. Deus non erat, quem homo consultus noluisset et nolendo damnasset. Domesticos deos , quos lares dicitis, domestica potestate tractatis pignerando, venditando, demutando aliquando in cacabulum de Saturno , aliquando in trullam de Minerva, ut quisque contritus atque contusus est, 0345A dum diu colitur, ut quisque dominus sanctiorem expertus est domesticam necessitatem. Publicos aeque publico jure foedatis, quos in hastario vectigales habetis. Sic Capitolium, sic olitorium forum petitur; sub eadem voce praeconis, sub eadem hasta , sub eadem annotatione quaestoris divinitas addicta 0346A conducitur. Sed enim agri tributo onusti viliores, hominum capita stipendio censa ignobiliora; nam hae sunt notae captivitatis. Dii vero qui magis tributarii, magis sancti; imo qui magis sancti, magis tributarii. Majestas quaestuaria efficitur. Circuit cauponas religio mendicans . Exigitis mercedem 0347A pro solo templi, pro aditu sacri ; non licet deos nosse gratis, venales sunt. Quid omnino ad honorandos eos facitis, quod non etiam mortuis vestris conferatis? aedes proinde, aras proinde . Idem habitus et insignia in statuis. Ut aetas, ut ars, ut negotium mortui fuit, ita deus est. Quo differt ab epulo Jovis silicernium , a simpulo obba, ab haruspice pollinctor? nam et haruspex mortuis apparet . Sed digne imperatoribus defunctis honorem divinitatis dicatis, quibus et viventibus eum addicitis . Accepto ferent dii vestri, imo gratulabuntur, quod pares eis fiant domini sui . Sed quum Larentinam , publicum scortum, velim saltem Laidem aut Phrynen, inter Junones et Cereres ac Dianas adoratis; quum Simonem Magum statua et inscriptione 0348A sancti dei inauguratis; quum de paedagogiis aulicis nescio quem synodi deum facitis: licet non nobiliores dii veteres, tamen contumeliam a vobis deputabunt, hoc et aliis licuisse, quod solis antiquitas contulit .