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| Appendix: A Fragment Concerning the Execrable Gods of the Heathen.
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Appendix.
A Fragment Concerning the Execrable
Gods of the Heathen.
————————————
So great blindness has fallen on the Roman race,
that they call their enemy Lord, and preach the filcher of blessings as
being their very giver, and to him they give thanks. They call those
(deities), then, by human names, not by their own, for their own names
they know not. That they are dæmons1101
| 1101 Dæmons. Gr.
δαίμων, which some hold to
= δαήμων,
“knowing,” “skilful,” in which case it would
come to be used of any superhuman intelligence; others, again, derive
from δαίω,
“to divide, distribute,” in which case it would mean a
distributor of destinies; which latter derivation and meaning Liddell
and Scott incline to. |
they understand: but they read histories of the old kings, and then,
though they see that their character1102
was mortal,
they honour them with a deific name.
As for him whom they call Jupiter, and think to be
the highest god, when he was born the years (that had elapsed) from the
foundation of the world1103
to him1104
| 1104 i.e., till his
time. | were some three thousand. He is born in
Greece, from Saturnus and Ops; and, for fear he should be killed by his
father (or else, if it is lawful to say so, should be begotten1105
| 1105 Pareretur. As the word
seems to be used here with reference to his father, this, although not
by any means a usual meaning, would seem to be the sense. [As in the
equivalent Greek.] | anew), is by the advice of his mother
carried down into Crete, and reared in a cave of Ida; is concealed from
his father’s search) by (the aid of) Cretans—born
men!1106
| 1106 A Cretibus, hominibus
natis. The force seems to be in the absurdity of supposing that,
1st, there should be human beings (hominibus) born, (as
Jupiter is said to have been “born,”) already existing at
the time of the “birth” of “the highest god;”
2ndly, that these should have had the power to do him so
essential service as to conceal him from the search of his own father,
likewise a mighty deity, by the simple expedient of rattling their
arms. | —rattling their arms; sucks a
she-goat’s dugs; flays her; clothes himself in her hide; and
(thus) uses his own nurse’s hide, after killing her, to be sure,
with his own hand! but he sewed thereon three golden tassels worth the
price of an hundred oxen each, as their author Homer1107
| 1107 See Hom. Il. ii.
446–9; but Homer says there were 100 such tassels. | relates, if it is fair to believe it.
This Jupiter, in adult age, waged war several years with his father;
overcame him; made a parricidal raid on his home; violated his virgin
sisters;1108
selected one of
them in marriage; drave1109
| 1109 So Scott:
“He drave my cows last Fastern’s
night.”—Lay of Last Minstrel. | his father by dint
of arms. The remaining scenes, moreover, of that act have been
recorded. Of other folks’ wives, or else of violated virgins, he
begat him sons; defiled freeborn boys; oppressed peoples lawlessly with
despotic and kingly sway. The father, whom they erringly suppose to
have been the original god, was ignorant that this (son of his)
was lying concealed in Crete; the son, again, whom they believe the
mightier god, knows not that the father whom himself had
banished is lurking in Italy. If he was in heaven, when would he not
see what was doing in Italy? For the Italian land is “not in a
corner.”1110
And yet, had he
been a god, nothing ought to have escaped him. But that he whom
the Italians call Saturnus did lurk there, is clearly evidenced on the
face of it, from the fact that from his lurking1111
the Hesperian1112
| 1112 i.e., Western:
here=Italian, as being west of Greece. | tongue is to this
day called Latin,1113
as likewise their
author Virgil relates.1114
| 1114 See Virg.
Æn. viii. 319–323: see also Ov. Fast. i.
234–238. | (Jupiter,) then, is
said to have been born on earth, while (Saturnus his father) fears lest
he be driven by him from his kingdom, and seeks to kill him as being
his own rival, and knows not that he has been stealthily carried off,
and is in hiding; and afterwards the son-god pursues his father,
immortal seeks to slay immortal (is it credible?1115
| 1115 Oehler does not mark
this as a question. If we follow him, we may render, “this can
find belief.” Above, it seemed necessary to introduce the
parenthetical words to make some sense. The Latin is throughout very
clumsy and incoherent. | ), and is disappointed by an interval of sea,
and is ignorant of
(his quarry’s) flight; and while all this is going on between two
gods on earth, heaven is deserted. No one dispensed the rains, no one
thundered, no one governed all this mass of world.1116
For they cannot even say that their action
and wars took place in heaven; for all this was going on on Mount
Olympus in Greece. Well, but heaven is not called Olympus, for heaven
is heaven.
These, then, are the actions of theirs, which we
will treat of first—nativity, lurking, ignorance, parricide,
adulteries, obscenities—things committed not by a god, but by
most impure and truculent human beings; beings who, had they been
living in these days, would have lain under the impeachment of all
laws—laws which are far more just and strict than their
actions. “He drave his father by dint of arms.” The
Falcidian and Sempronian law would bind the parricide in a sack with
beasts. “He violated his sisters.” The Papinian law would
punish the outrage with all penalties, limb by limb. “He invaded
others’ wedlock.” The Julian law would visit its adulterous
violator capitally. “He defiled freeborn boys.” The
Cornelian law would condemn the crime of transgressing the sexual bond
with novel severities, sacrilegiously guilty as it is of a novel
union.1117
| 1117 Lex Cornelia
transgressi fœderis ammissum novis exemplis novi coitus sacrilegum
damnaret. After consulting Dr. Holmes, I have rendered, but not without
hesitation, as above. “Fœdus” seems to have been
technically used, especially in later Latin, of the marriage
compact; but what “lex Cornelia” is meant I have
sought vainly to discover, and whether “lex Cornelia transgressi
fœderis” ought not to go together I am not sure. For
“ammissum” (=admissum) Migne’s
ed. reads “amissum,” a very different word. For
“sacrilegus” with a genitive, see de Res.
Carn, c. xlii. med. | This being is shown
to have had no divinity either, for he was a human being; his
father’s flight escaped him. To this human being, of such a
character, to so wicked a king, so obscene and so cruel, God’s
honour has been assigned by men. Now, to be sure, if on earth he
were born and grew up through the advancing stages of life’s
periods, and in it committed all these evils, and yet is no more in it,
what is thought1118
| 1118 Quid putatur (Oehler)
putatus (Migne). | (of him) but that
he is dead? Or else does foolish error think wings were born him in his
old age, whence to fly heavenward? Why, even this may possibly
find credit among men bereft of sense,1119
| 1119 Or,
“feeling”—“sensu.” | if
indeed they believe, (as they do,) that he turned into a swan, to beget
the Castors;1120
| 1120 The Dioscuri, Castor
and Pollux. | an eagle, to
contaminate Ganymede; a bull, to violate Europa; gold, to violate
Danaë; a horse, to beget Pirithoüs; a goat, to beget
Egyppa1121
| 1121 Perhaps
Ægipana (marginal reading of the ms. as
given in Oehler and Migne). | from a she-goat; a
Satyr, to embrace Antiope. Beholding these adulteries, to which
sinners are prone, they therefore easily believe that sanctions of
misdeed and of every filthiness are borrowed from their feigned god. Do
they perceive how void of amendment are the rest of his career’s
acts which can find credit, which are indeed true, and which, they say,
he did without self transformation? Of Semele, he begets
Liber;1122
of Latona, Apollo
and Diana; of Maia, Mercury; of Alcmena, Hercules. But the rest of his
corruptions, which they themselves confess, I am unwilling to record,
lest turpitude, once buried, be again called to men’s ears. But
of these few (offsprings of his) I have made mention; off-springs whom
in their error they believe to be themselves, too, gods—born, to
wit, of an incestuous father; adulterous births, supposititious
births. And the living,1123
| 1123 Oehler reads
“vide etem;” but Migne’s
“viventem” seems better: indeed,
Oehler’s is probably a misprint. The punctuation of this treatise
in Oehler is very faulty throughout, and has been disregarded. | eternal God, of
sempiternal divinity, prescient of futurity, immeasurable,1124
| 1124
“Immensum,” rendered “incomprehensible” in the
“Athanasian Creed. | they have dissipated (into nothing, by
associating Him) with crimes so unspeakable.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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