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We see that these select gods have, indeed, become more famous than
the rest; not, however, that their merits may be brought to light,
but that their opprobrious deeds may not be hid. Whence it is more
credible that they were men, as not only poetic but also historical
literature has handed down. For this which Virgil says, "Then from
Olympus' heights came down Good Saturn, exiled from his throne By
Jove, his mightier heir;" and what follows with reference to this
affair, is fully related by the historian Euhemerus, and has been
translated into Latin by Ennius. And as they who have written before
us in the Greek or in the Latin tongue against such errors as these
have said much concerning this matter, I have thought it unnecessary
to dwell upon it. When I consider those physical reasons, then, by
which learned and acute men attempt to turn human things into divine
things, all I see is that they have been able to refer these things
only to temporal works and to that which has a corporeal nature, and
even though invisible still mutable; and this is by no means the true
God. But if this worship had been performed as the symbolism of ideas
at least congruous with religion, though it would indeed have been
cause of grief that the true God was not announced and proclaimed by
its symbolism, nevertheless it could have been in some degree borne
with, when it did not occasion and command the performance of such foul
and abominable things. But since it is impiety to worship the body or
the soul for the true God, by whose indwelling alone the soul is
happy, how much more impious is it to worship those things through
which neither soul nor body can obtain either salvation or human honor?
Wherefore if with temple, priest, and sacrifice, which are due to
the true God, any element of the world be worshipped, or any created
spirit, even though not impure and evil, that worship is still evil,
not because the things are evil by which the worship is performed, but
because those things ought only to be used in the worship of Him to
whom alone such worship and service are due. But if any one insist
that he worships the one true God, that is, the Creator of every
soul and of every body, with stupid and monstrous idols, with human
victims, with putting a wreath on the male organ, with the wages of
unchastity, with the cutting of limbs, with emasculation, with the
consecration of effeminates, with impure and obscene plays, such a one
does not sin because he worships One who ought not to be worshipped,
but because he worships Him who ought to be worshipped in a way in
which He ought not to be worshipped. But he who worships with such
things, that is, foul and obscene things, and that not the true
God, namely, the maker of soul and body, but a creature, even
though not a wicked creature, whether it be soul or body, or soul and
body together, twice sins against God, because he both worships for
God what is not God, and also worships with such things as neither
God nor what is not God ought to be worshipped with. It is,
indeed, manifest how these pagans worship, that is, how shamefully
and criminally they worship; but what or whom they worship would have
been left in obscurity, had not their history testi fled that those
same confessedly base and foul rites were rendered in obedience to the
demands of the gods, who exacted them with terrible severity.
Wherefore it is evident beyond doubt that this whole civil theology is
occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and most impure
spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and through these to
take possession of stupid hearts.
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