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Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for regulating
the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jackdaws. But it will
be said that an academic philosopher, who argues that all things are
uncertain, is unworthy to have any authority in these matters. In the
second book of his De Natura Deorum, he introduces Lucilius
Balbus, who, after showing that superstitions have their origin in
physical and philosophical truths, expresses his indignation at the
setting up of images and fabulous notions, speaking thus: "Do you
not therefore see that from true and useful physical discoveries the
reason may be drawn away to fabulous and imaginary gods? This gives
birth to false opinions and turbulent errors, and superstitions
well-nigh old-wifeish. For both the forms of the gods, and their
ages, and clothing, and ornaments, are made familiar to us; their
genealogies, too, their marriages, kinships, and all things about
them, are debased to the likeness of human weakness. They are even
introduced as having perturbed minds; for we have accounts of the
lusts, cares, and angers of the gods. Nor, indeed, as the rabies
go, have the gods been without their wars and battles. And that not
only when, as in Homer, some gods on either side have defended two
opposing armies, but they have even carried on wars on their own
account, as with the Titans or with the Giants. Such things it is
quite absurd either to say or to believe: they are utterly frivolous
and groundless." Behold, now, what is confessed by those who defend
the gods of the nations. Afterwards he goes on to say that some things
belong to superstition, but others to religion, which he thinks good
to teach according to the Stoics. "For not only the philosophers,"
he says, "but also our forefathers, have made a distinction between
superstition and religion. For those," he says, "who spent whole
days in prayer, and offered sacrifice, that their children might
outlive them, are called superstitious." Who does not see that he is
trying, While he fears the public prejudice, to praise the religion
of the ancients, and that he wishes to disjoin it from superstition,
but cannot find Out how to do so? For if those who prayed and
sacrificed all day were called superstitious by the ancients, were
those also called so who instituted (what he blames) the images of the
gods of diverse age and distinct clothing, and invented the genealogies
of gods, their marriages, and kinships? When, therefore, these
things are found fault with as superstitious, he implicates in that
fault the ancients who instituted and worshipped such images. Nay, he
implicates himself, who, with whatever eloquence he may strive to
extricate himself and be free, was yet under the necessity of
venerating these images; nor dared he so much as whisper in a discourse
to the people What in this disputation he plainly sounds forth. Let
us Christians, therefore, give thanks to the Lord our God, not to
heaven and earth, as that author argues, but to Him who has made
heaven and earth; because these superstitions, which that Balbus,
like a babbler, scarcely reprehends, He, by the most deep lowliness
of Christ, by the preaching of the apostles, by the faith of the
martyrs dying for the truth and living with the truth, has overthrown,
not only in the hearts of the religious, but even in the temples of the
superstitious, by their own free service.
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