|
In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle distributions
and distinctions, it will most easily appear evident from the things we
have said already, and from what is to be said hereafter, to any man
who is not, in the obstinacy of his heart, an enemy to himself, that
it is vain to seek and to hope for, and even most impudent to wish for
eternal life. For these institutions are either the work of men or of
demons, not of those whom they call good demons, but, to speak more
plainly, of unclean, and, without controversy, malign spirits, who
with wonderful slyness and secretness suggest to the thoughts of the
impious, and sometimes openly present to their understandings, noxious
opinions, by which the human mind grows more and more foolish, and
becomes unable to adapt itself to and abide in the immutable and eternal
truth, and seek tO confirm these opinions by every kind of fallacious
attestation in their power. This very same Varro testifies that he
wrote first concerning human things, but afterwards concerning divine
things, because the states existed first, and afterward these things
were instituted by them. But the true religion was not instituted by
any earthly state, but plainly it established the celestial city.
It, however, is inspired and taught by the true God, the giver of
eternal life to His true worshippers.
The following is the reason Varro gives when he confesses that he had
written first concerning human things, and afterwards of divine
things, because these divine things were instituted by men:, "As
the painter is before the painted tablet, the mason before the
edifice, so states are before those things which are instituted by
states." But he says that he would have written first concerning the
gods, afterwards concerning men, if he had been writing concerning the
whole nature of the gods, as if he were really writing concerning some
portion of, and not all, the nature of the gods; or as if, indeed,
some portion of, though not all, the nature of the gods ought not to
be put before that of men. How, then, comes it that in those three
last books, when he is diligently explaining the certain, uncertain
and select gods, he seems to pass over no portion of the nature of the
gods? Why, then, does he say, "If we had been writing on the
whole nature of the gods, we would first have finished the divine
things before we touched the human?" For he either writes concerning
the whole nature of the gods, or concerning some portion of it, or
concerning no part of it at all. If concerning it all, it is
certainly to be put before human things; if concerning some part of
it, why should it not, from the very nature of the case, precede
human things? Is not even some part of the gods to be preferred to the
whole of humanity? But if it is too much to prefer a part of the
divine to all human things, that part is certainly worthy to be
preferred to the Romans at least. For he writes the books concerning
human things, not with reference to the whole world, but only to
Rome; which books he says he had properly placed, in the order of
writing, before the books on divine things, like a painter before the
painted tablet, or a mason before the building, most openly confessing
that, as a picture or a structure, even these divine things were
instituted by men. There remains only the third supposition, that he
is to be understood to have written concerning no divine nature, but
that he did not wish to say this openly, but left it to the intelligent
to infer; for when one says "not all," usage understands that to
mean "some," but it may be understood as meaning none, because that
which is none is neither all nor some. In fact, as he himself says,
if he had been writing concerning all the nature of the gods, its due
place would have been before human things in the order of writing.
But, as the truth declares, even though Varro is silent, the divine
nature should have taken precedence of Roman things, though it were
not all, but only some. But it is properly put after, therefore it
is none. His arrangement, therefore, was due, not to a desire to
give human things priority to divine things, but to his unwillingness
to prefer false things to true. For in what he wrote on human things,
he followed the history of affairs; but in what he wrote concerning
those things which they call divine, what else did he follow but mere
conjectures about vain things? This, doubtless, is what, in a
subtle manner, he wished to signify; not only writing concerning
divine things after the human, but even giving a reason why he did so;
for if he had suppressed this, some, perchance, would have defended
his doing so in one way, and some in another. But in that very reason
he has rendered, he has left nothing for men to conjecture at will,
and has sufficiently proved that he preferred men to the institutions of
men, not the nature of men to the nature of the gods. Thus he
confessed that, in writing the books concerning divine things, he did
not write concerning the truth which belongs to nature, but the
falseness which belongs to error; which he has elsewhere expressed more
openly (as I have mentioned in the fourth book), saying that, had
he been founding a new city himself, he would have written according to
the order of nature; but as he had only found an old one, he could not
but follow its custom.
|
|