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That theology, therefore, which is fabulous, theatrical, scenic,
and full of all baseness and unseemliness, is taken up into the civil
theology; and part of that theology, which in its totality is
deservedly judged to be worthy of reprobation and rejection, is
pronounced worthy to be cultivated and observed;, not at all an
incongruous part, as I have undertaken to show, and one which, being
alien to the whole body, was unsuitably attached to and suspended from
it, but a part entirely congruous with, and most harmoniously fitted
to the rest, as a member of the same body. For what else do those
images, forms, ages, sexes, characteristics of the gods show? If
the poets have Jupiter with a beard and Mercury beardless, have not
the priests the same? Is the Priapus of the priests less obscene than
the Priapus of the players? Does he receive the adoration of
worshippers in a different form from that in which he moves about the
stage for the amusement of spectators? Is not Saturn old and Apollo
young in the shrines where their images stand as well as when
represented by actors' masks? Why are Forculus, who presides over
doors, and Limentinus, who presides over thresholds and lintels,
male gods, and Cardea between them feminine, who presides over
hinges. Are not those things found in books on divine things, which
grave poets have deemed unworthy of their verses? Does the Diana of
the theatre carry arms, whilst the Diana of the city is simply a
virgin? Is the stage Apollo a lyrist, but the Delphic Apollo
ignorant of this art? But these things are decent compared with the
more shameful things. What was thought of Jupiter himself by those
who placed his wet nurse in the Capitol? Did they not bear witness to
Euhemerus, who, not with the garrulity of a fable-teller, but with
the gravity of an historian who had diligently investigated the matter,
wrote that all such gods had been men and mortals? And they who
appointed the Epulones as parasites at the table of Jupiter, what
else did they wish for but mimic sacred rites. For if any mimic had
said that parasites of Jupiter were made use of at his table, he would
assuredly have appeared to be seeking to call forth laughter. Varro
said it, not when he was mocking, but when he was commending the gods
did he say it. His books on divine, not on human, things testify
that he wrote this, not where he set forth the scenic games, but where
he explained the Capitoline laws. In a word, he is conquered, and
confesses that, as they made the gods with a human form, so they
believed that they are delighted with human pleasures.
For also malign spirits were not so wanting to their own business as
not to confirm noxious opinions in the minds of men by converting them
into sport. Whence also is that story about the sacristan of
Hercules, which says that, having nothing to do, he took to playing
at dice as a pastime, throwing them alternately with the one hand for
Hercules, with the other for himself, with this understanding, that
if he should win, he should from the funds of the temple prepare
himself a supper, and hire a mistress; but if Hercules should win the
game, he himself should, at his own expense, provide the same for the
pleasure of Hercules. Then, when he had been beaten by himself, as
though by Hercules, he gave to the god Hercules the supper he owed
him, and also the most noble harlot Larentina. But she, having
fallen asleep in the temple, dreamed that Hercules had had intercourse
with her, and had said to her that she would find her payment with the
youth whom she should first meet on leaving the temple, and that she
was to believe this to be paid to her by Hercules. And so the first
youth that met her on going out was the wealthy Tarutius, who kept her
a long time, and when he died left her his heir. She, having
obtained a most ample fortune, that she should not seem ungrateful for
the divine hire, in her turn made the Roman people her heir, which
she thought to be most acceptable to the deities; and, having
disappeared, the will was found. By which meritorious conduct they
say that she gained divine honors.
Now had these things been reigned by the poets and acted by the
mimics, they would without any doubt have been said to pertain to the
fabulous theology, and would have been judged worthy to be separated
from the dig nity of the civil theology. But when these shameful
things, not of the poets, but of the people; not of the mimics, but
of the sacred things; not of the theatres, but of the temples, that
is, not of the fabulous, but of the civil theology, are reported by
so great an author, not in vain do the actors represent with theatrical
art the baseness of the gods, which is so great; but surely in vain do
the priests attempt, by rites called sacred, to represent their
nobleness of character, which has no existence. There are sacred
rites of Juno; and these are celebrated in her beloved island,
Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jupiter. There are sacred
rites of Ceres, in which Proserpine is sought for, having been
carried off by Pluto. There are sacred rites of Venus, in which,
her beloved Adonis being slain by a boar's tooth, the lovely youth is
lamented. There are sacred rites of the mother of the gods, in which
the beautiful youth Atys, loved by her, and castrated by her through
a woman's jealousy, is deplored by men who have suffered the like
calamity, whom they call Galli. Since, then, these things are more
unseemly than all scenic abomination, why is it that they strive to
separate, as it were, the fabulous fictions of the poet concerning the
gods, as, forsooth, pertaining to the theatre, from the civil
theology which they wish to belong to the city, as though they were
separating from noble and worthy things, things unworthy and base?
Wherefore there is more reason to thank the stage-actors, who have
spared the eyes of men and have not laid bare by theatrical exhibition
all the things which are hid by the walls of the temples. What good is
to be thought of their sacred rites which are concealed in darkness,
when those which are brought forth into the light are so detestable?
And certainly they themselves have seen what they transact in secret
through the agency of mutilated and effeminate men. Yet they have not
been able to conceal those same men miserably and vile enervated and
corrupted. Let them persuade whom they can that they transact anything
holy through such men, who, they cannot deny, are numbered, and live
among their sacred things. We know not what they transact, but we
know through whom they transact; for we know what things are transacted
on the stage, where never, even in a chorus of harlots, hath one who
is mutilated or an effeminate appeared. And, nevertheless, even
these things are acted by vile and infamous characters; for, indeed,
they ought not to be acted by men of good character. What, then, are
those sacred rites, for the performance of which holiness has chosen
such men as not even the obscenity of the stage has admitted?
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