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Seeing that this is so, seeing that the filthy and cruel deeds, the
disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether real or reigned,
were at their own request published, and were consecrated, and
dedicated in their honor as sacred and stated solemnities; seeing they
vowed vengeance on those who refused to exhibit them to the eyes of
all, that they might be proposed as deeds worthy of imitation, why is
it that these same demons, who by taking pleasure in such obscenities,
acknowledge themselves to be unclean spirits, and by delighting in
their own villanies and iniquities, real or imaginary, and by
requesting from the immodest, and extorting from the modest, the
celebration of these licentious acts, proclaim themselves instigators
to a criminal and lewd life;, why, I ask, are they represented as
giving some good moral precepts to a few of their own elect, initiated
in the secrecy of their shrines? If it be so, this very thing only
serves further to demonstrate the malicious craft of these pestilent
spirits. For so great is the influence of probity and chastity, that
all men, or almost all men, are moved by the praise of these virtues;
nor is any man so depraved by vice, but he hath some feeling of honor
left in him. So that, unless the devil sometimes transformed
himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of light, he could not
compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly, in public, a bold
impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy clamor; in private, a
reigned chastity speaks in scarce audible whispers to a few: an open
stage is provided for shameful things, but on the praiseworthy the
curtain fails: grace hides disgrace flaunts: a wicked deed draws an
overflowing house, a virtuous speech finds scarce a hearer, as though
purity were to be blushed at, impurity boasted of. Where else can
such confusion reign, but in devils' temples? Where, but in the
haunts of deceit? For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the
virtuous, who are few in number; the wicked examples are exhibited to
encourage the vicious, who are countless.
Where and when those initiated in the mysteries of Coelestis received
any good instructions, we know not. What we do know is, that before
her shrine, in which her image is set, and amidst a vast crowd
gathering from all quarters, and standing closely packed together, we
were intensely interested spectators of the games which were going on,
and saw, as we pleased to turn the eye, on this side a grand display
of harlots, on the other the virgin goddess; we saw this virgin
worshipped with prayer and with obscene rites. There we saw no
shame-faced mimes, no actress over-burdened with modesty; all that
the obscene rites demanded was fully complied with. We were plainly
shown what was pleasing to the virgin deity, and the matron who
witnessed the spectacle returned home from the temple a wiser woman.
Some, indeed, of the more prudent women turned their faces from the
immodest movements of the players, and learned the art of wickedness by
a furtive regard. For they were restrained, by the modest demeanor
due to men, from looking boldly at the immodest gestures; but much
more were they restrained from condemning with chaste heart the sacred
rites of her whom they adored. And yet this licentiousness, which,
if practised in one's home, could only be done there in secret , was
practised as a public lesson in the temple; and if any modesty remained
in men, it was occupied in marvelling that wickedness which men could
not unrestrainedly commit should be part of the religious teaching of
the gods, and that to omit its exhibition should incur the anger of the
gods. What spirit can that be, which by a hidden inspiration stirs
men's corruption, and goads them to adultery, and feeds on the
full-fledged iniquity, unless it be the same that finds pleasure in
such religious ceremonies, sets in the temples images of devils, and
loves to see in play the images of vices; that whispers in secret some
righteous sayings to deceive the few who are good, and scatters in
public invitations to profligacy, to gain possession of the millions
who are wicked?
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