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But they also show whom they would have Jove (who is also called
Jupiter) understood to be. He is the god, say they, who has the
power of the causes by which anything comes to be in the world. And
how great a thing this is, that most noble verse of Virgil testifies:
"Happy is he who has learned the causes of things."
But why is Janus preferred to him? Let that most acute and most
learned man answer us this question. "Because," says he, "Janus
has dominion over first things, Jupiter over highest things.
Therefore Jupiter is deservedly held to be the king of all things;
for highest things are better than first things: for although first
things precede in time, highest things excel by dignity."
Now this would have been rightly said had the first parts of things
which are done been distinguished from the highest parts; as, for
instance, it is the beginning of a thing done to set out, the highest
part to arrive. The commencing to learn is the first part of a thing
begun, the acquirement of knowledge is the highest part. And so of
all things: the beginnings are first, the ends highest. This
matter, however, has been already discussed in connection with Janus
and Terminus. But the causes which are attributed to Jupiter are
things effecting, not things effected; and it is impossible for them
to be prevented in time by things which are made or done, or by the
beginnings of such things; for the thing which makes is always prior to
the thing which is made. Therefore, though the beginnings of things
which are made or done pertain to Janus, they are nevertheless not
prior to the efficient causes which they attribute to Jupiter. For as
nothing takes place without being preceded by an efficient cause, so
without an efficient cause nothing begins to take place. Verily, if
the people call this god Jupiter, in whose power are all the causes of
all natures which have been made, and of all natural things, and
worship him with such insults and infamous criminations, they are
guilty of more shocking sacrilege than if they should totally deny the
existence of any god. It would therefore be better for them to call
some other god by the name of Jupiter, some one worthy of base and
criminal honors; substituting instead of Jupiter some vain fiction
(as Saturn is said to have had a stone given to him to devour instead
of his son,) which they might make the subject of their blasphemies,
rather than speak of that god as both thundering and committing
adultery,, ruling the whole world, and laying himself out for the
commission of so many licentious acts,-having in his power nature and
the highest causes of all natural things, but not having his own causes
good.
Next, I ask what place they find any longer for this Jupiter among
the gods, if Janus is the world; for Varro defined the true gods to
be the soul of the world, and the parts of it. And therefore whatever
falls not within this definition, is certainly not a true god,
according to them. Will they then say that Jupiter is the soul of the
world, and Janus the body, that is, this visible world? If they
say this, it will not be possible for them to affirm that Janus is a
god. For even, according to them, the body of the world is not a
god, but the soul of the world and its parts. Wherefore Varro,
seeing this, says that he thinks God is the soul of the world, and
that this world itself is God; but that as a wise man though he
consists of soul and body, is nevertheless called wise from the soul,
so the world is called God from the soul, though it consists of soul
and body. Therefore the body of the world alone is not God, but
either the soul of it alone, or the soul and the body together, yet so
as that it is God not by virtue of the body, but by virtue of the
soul. If, therefore, Janus is the world, and Janus is a god,
will they say, in order that Jupiter may be a god, that he is some
part of Janus? For they are wont rather to attribute universal
existence to Jupiter; whence the saying, "All things are full of
Jupiter." Therefore they must think Jupiter also, in order that he
may be a god, and especially king of the gods, to be the world, that
he may rule over the other gods, according to them, his parts.
To this effect, also, the same Varro expounds certain verses of
Valerius Soranus in that book which he wrote apart from the others
concerning the worship of the gods. These are the verses: "Almighty
Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods, And eke the
mother of the gods, god one and all."
But in the same book he expounds these verses by saying that as the
male emits seed, and the female receives it, so Jupiter, whom they
believed to be the world, both emits all seeds from himself and
receives them into himself. For which reason, he says, Soranus
wrote, "Jove, progenitor and mother;" and with no less reason said
that one and all were the same. For the world is one, and in that one
are all things.
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