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This, the only true religion, has alone been able to manifest that
the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who desire to be
thought gods, availing themselves of the names of certain defunct
souls, or the appearance of mundane creatures, and with proud impurity
rejoicing in things most base and infamous, as though in divine
honors, and envying human souls their conversion to the true God.
From whose most cruel and most impious dominion a man is liberated when
he believes on Him who has afforded an example of humility, following
which men may rise as great as was that pride by which they fell.
Hence are not only those gods, concerning whom we have already spoken
much, and many others belonging to different nations and lands, but
also those of whom we are now treating, who have been selected as it
were into the senate of the gods, selected, however, on account of
the notoriousness of their crimes, not on account of the dignity of
their virtues, whose sacred things Varro tempts to refer to certain
natural reasons, seeking to make base things honorable, but cannot
find how to square and agree with these reasons, because these are not
the causes of those rites, which he thinks, or rather wishes to be
thought to be so. For had not only these, but also all others of this
kind, been real causes, even though they had nothing to do with the
true God and eternal life, which is to be sought in religion, they
would, by affording some sort of reason drawn from the nature of
things, have mitigated in some degree that offence which was occasioned
by some turpitude or absurdity in the sacred rites, which was not
understood. This he attempted to do in respect to certain fables of
the theatres, or mysteries of the shrines; but he did not acquit the
theatres of likeness to the shrines, but rather condemned the shrines
for likeness to the theatres. However, he in some way made the
attempt to soothe the feelings shocked by horrible things, by rendering
what he would have to be natural interpretations.
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