|
Or do they say, perhaps, that Jupiter sends the goddess Victoria,
and that she, as it were acting in obedience to the king of the gods,
comes to those to whom he may have despatched her, and takes up her
quarters on their side? This is truly said, not of Jove, whom
they, according to their own imagination, feign to be king of the
gods, but of Him who is the true eternal King, because he sends,
not Victory, who is no person, but His angel, and causes whom He
pleases to conquer; whose counsel may be hidden, but cannot be
unjust. For if Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumph also a
god, and joined to Victory either as husband, or brother, or son?
Indeed, they have imagined such things concerning the gods, that if
the poets had reigned the like, and they should have been discussed by
us, they would have replied that they were laughable figments of the
poets not to be attributed to true deities: And yet they themselves
did not laugh when they were, not reading in the poets, but
worshipping in the temples such doating follies. Therefore they should
entreat Jove atone for all things, and supplicate him only. For if
Victory is a goddess, and is under him as her king, wherever he might
have sent her, she could not dare to resist and do her own will rather
than his.
|
|