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| The Original Deities Were Human--With Some Very Questionable Characteristics. Saturn or Time Was Human. Inconsistencies of Opinion About Him.
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Chapter XII.976
| 976 Agrees with The
Apology, c. x. | —The Original Deities Were
Human—With Some Very Questionable Characteristics. Saturn or Time
Was Human. Inconsistencies of Opinion About Him.
Now, how much further need I go in recounting your
gods—because I want to descant on the character of such as you
have adopted? It is quite uncertain whether I shall laugh at your
absurdity, or upbraid you for your blindness. For how many, and indeed
what, gods shall I bring forward? Shall it be the greater ones, or the
lesser? The old ones, or the novel? The male, or the female? The
unmarried, or such as are joined in wedlock? The clever, or the
unskilful? The rustic or the town ones? The national or the foreign?
For the truth is,977
there are so many
families, so many nations, which require a catalogue978
(of gods), that they cannot possibly be examined, or distinguished, or
described. But the more diffuse the subject is, the more restriction
must we impose on it. As, therefore, in this review we keep before us
but one object—that of proving that all these gods were once
human beings (not, indeed, to instruct you in the fact,979
| 979 There is here an
omitted clause, supplied in The Apology, “but rather to
recall it to your memory.” | for your conduct shows that you have
forgotten it)—let us adopt our compendious summary from the most
natural method980
of conducting the
examination, even by considering the origin of their race. For the
origin characterizes all that comes after it. Now this origin of your
gods dates,981
I suppose, from
Saturn. And when Varro mentions Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, as the most
ancient of the gods, it ought not to have escaped our notice, that
every father is more ancient than his sons, and that Saturn therefore
must precede Jupiter, even as Cœlus does Saturn, for Saturn was
sprung from Cœlus and Terra. I pass by, however, the origin of
Cœlus and Terra. They led in some unaccountable way982
single lives, and had no children. Of course
they required a long time for vigorous growth to attain to such a
stature.983
By and by, as soon as
the voice of Cœlus began to break,984
| 984 Insolescere, i.e., at
the commencement of puberty. | and
the breasts of Terra to become firm,985
| 985 Lapilliscere, i.e., to
indicate maturity. | they contract
marriage with one another. I suppose either Heaven986
| 986 The nominative
“cœlum” is used. | came down to his spouse, or Earth went up to
meet her lord. Be that as it may, Earth conceived seed of Heaven, and
when her year was fulfilled brought forth Saturn in a wonderful manner.
Which of his parents did he resemble? Well, then, even after parentage
began,987
| 987 It is not very clear
what is the force of “sed et pepererit,” as read by Oehler;
we have given the clause an impersonal turn. | it is certain988
| 988 “Certe” is
sometime “certo” in our author. | that
they had no child previous to Saturn, and only one daughter
afterwards—Ops; thenceforth they ceased to procreate. The truth
is, Saturn castrated Cœlus as he was sleeping. We read this name
Cœlus as of the masculine gender. And for the matter of that, how
could he be a father unless he were a male? But with what instrument
was the castration effected? He had a scythe. What, so early as that?
For Vulcan was not yet an artificer in iron. The widowed Terra,
however, although still quite young, was in no hurry989
to marry another. Indeed, there was no second Cœlus for her. What
but Ocean offers her an embrace? But he savours of brackishness, and
she has been accustomed to fresh water.990
| 990 That is, to rain and
cloud. | And
so Saturn is the sole male child of Cœlus and Terra. When grown to
puberty, he marries his own sister. No laws as yet prohibited incest,
nor punished parricide. Then, when male children were born to
him, he would devour them; better himself (should take them) than the
wolves, (for to these would they become a prey) if he exposed them. He
was, no doubt, afraid that one of them might learn the lesson of his
father’s scythe. When Jupiter was born in course of time, he was
removed out of the way:991
(the father)
swallowed a stone instead of the son, as was pretended. This artifice
secured his safety for a time; but at length the son, whom
he had not devoured, and who
had grown up in secret, fell upon him, and deprived him of his kingdom.
Such, then, is the patriarch of the gods whom Heaven992
| 992 The word is
“cœlum” here. |
and Earth produced for you, with the poets officiating as midwives. Now
some persons with a refined993
imagination are of
opinion that, by this allegorical fable of Saturn, there is a
physiological representation of Time: (they think) that it is
because all things are destroyed by Time, that Cœlus and Terra
were themselves parents without having any of their own, and that the
(fatal) scythe was used, and that (Saturn) devoured his own offspring,
because he,994
| 994 i.e., as
representing Time. | in fact, absorbs
within himself all things which have issued from him. They call in also
the witness of his name; for they say that he is called
Κρόνος in Greek, meaning
the same thing as χρόνος.995
| 995 So Augustine, de Civ.
Dei, iv. 10; Arnobius, adv. Nationes, iii. 29; Cicero, de
Nat. Deor. ii. 25. | His Latin name also they derive from
seed-sowing;996
| 996 As if from
“sero,” satum. | for they suppose him
to have been the actual procreator—that the seed, in fact, was
dropt down from heaven to earth by his means. They unite him with
Ops, because seeds produce the affluent treasure (Opem)
of actual life, and because they develope with labour (Opus).
Now I wish that you would explain this metaphorical997
statement. It was either Saturn or Time. If it was Time, how could it
be Saturn? If he, how could it be Time? For you cannot possibly reckon
both these corporeal subjects998
as co-existing in one
person. What, however, was there to prevent your worshipping Time under
its proper quality? Why not make a human person, or even a mythic man,
an object of your adoration, but each in its proper nature not in the
character of Time? What is the meaning of that conceit of your mental
ingenuity, if it be not to colour the foulest matters with the feigned
appearance of reasonable proofs?999
| 999 Mentitis
argumentationibus. | Neither, on the
one hand, do you mean Saturn to be Time, because you say he is a human
being; nor, on the other hand, whilst portraying him as Time, do you on
that account mean that he was ever human. No doubt, in the accounts of
remote antiquity your god Saturn is plainly described as living on
earth in human guise. Anything whatever may obviously be pictured as
incorporeal which never had an existence; there is simply no room for
such fiction, where there is reality. Since, therefore, there is clear
evidence that Saturn once existed, it is in vain that you change his
character. He whom you will not deny to have once been man, is not at
your disposal to be treated anyhow, nor can it be maintained that he is
either divine or Time. In every page of your literature the
origin1000
of Saturn is
conspicuous. We read of him in Cassius Severus and in the Corneliuses,
Nepos and Tacitus,1001
| 1001 See his
Histories, v. 2, 4. | and, amongst the
Greeks also, in Diodorus, and all other compilers of ancient
annals.1002
No more faithful
records of him are to be traced than in Italy itself. For, after
(traversing) many countries, and (enjoying) the hospitality of Athens,
he settled in Italy, or, as it was called, Œnotria, having met
with a kind welcome from Janus, or Janes,1003
as
the Salii call him. The hill on which he settled had the name
Saturnius, whilst the city which he founded1004
| 1004 Depalaverat,
“marked out with stakes.” |
still bears the name Saturnia; in short, the whole of Italy once had
the same designation. Such is the testimony derived from that country
which is now the mistress of the world: whatever doubt prevails about
the origin of Saturn, his actions tell us plainly that he was a human
being. Since, therefore, Saturn was human, he came undoubtedly from a
human stock; and more, because he was a man, he, of course, came not of
Cœlus and Terra. Some people, however, found it easy enough to
call him, whose parents were unknown, the son of those gods from whom
all may in a sense seem to be derived. For who is there that does not
speak under a feeling of reverence of the heaven and the earth as his
own father and mother? Or, in accordance with a custom amongst men,
which induces them to say of any who are unknown or suddenly apparent,
that “they came from the sky?” Hence it happened
that, because a stranger appeared suddenly everywhere, it became the
custom to call him a heaven-born man,1005
—just as we also commonly call
earth-born all those whose descent is unknown. I say nothing of the
fact that such was the state of antiquity, when men’s eyes and
minds were so habitually rude, that they were excited by the appearance
of every newcomer as if it were that of a god: much more would this be
the case with a king, and that the primeval one. I will linger
some time longer over the case of Saturn, because by fully discussing
his primordial history I shall beforehand furnish a compendious answer
for all other cases; and I do not wish to omit the more convincing
testimony of your sacred literature, the credit of which ought to be
the greater in proportion to its antiquity. Now earlier than all
literature was the
Sibyl; that Sibyl, I mean, who was the true prophetess of truth, from
whom you borrow their title for the priests of your demons. She in
senarian verse expounds the descent of Saturn and his exploits in words
to this effect: “In the tenth generation of men, after the flood
had overwhelmed the former race, reigned Saturn, and Titan, and
Japetus, the bravest of the sons of Terra and Cœlus.”
Whatever credit, therefore, is attached to your older writers and
literature, and much more to those who were the simplest as belonging
to that age,1006
| 1006 Magis proximis quoniam
illius ætatis. | it becomes
sufficiently certain that Saturn and his family1007
were human beings. We have in our possession, then, a brief principle
which amounts to a prescriptive rule about their origin serving for all
other cases, to prevent our going wrong in individual instances. The
particular character1008
| 1008 Qualitas.
[n.b. Our author’s use of
Præscriptio.] | of a posterity is
shown by the original founders of the race—mortal beings (come)
from mortals, earthly ones from earthly; step after step comes in due
relation1009
—marriage,
conception, birth—country, settlements, kingdoms, all give the
clearest proofs.1010
They, therefore who
cannot deny the birth of men, must also admit their death; they who
allow their mortality must not suppose them to be
gods.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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