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But let us hear their own physical interpretations by which they
attempt to color, as with the appearance of profounder doctrine, the
baseness of most miserable error. Varro, in the first place,
commends these interpretations so strongly as to say, that the ancients
invented the images, badges, and adornments of the gods, in order
that when those who went to the mysteries should see them with their
bodily eyes, they might with the eyes of their mind see the soul of the
world, and its parts, that is, the true gods; and also that the
meaning which was intended by those who made their images with the human
form, seemed to be this, namely, that the mind of mortals, which is
in a human body, is very like to the immortal mind, just as vessels
might be placed to represent the gods, as, for instance, a
wine-vessel might be placed in the temple of Liber, to signify wine,
that which is contained being signified by that which contains. Thus
by an image which had the human form the rational soul was signified,
because the human form is the vessel, as it were, in which that nature
is wont to be contained which they attribute to God, or to the gods.
These are the mysteries of doctrine to which that most learned man
penetrated in order that he might bring them forth to the light. But,
O thou most acute man, hast thou lost among those mysteries that
prudence which led thee to form the sober opinion, that those who first
established those images for the people took away fear from the citizens
and added error, and that the ancient Romans honored the gods more
chastely without images? For it was through consideration of them that
thou wast emboldened to speak these things against the later Romans.
For if those most ancient Romans also had worshipped images, perhaps
thou wouldst have suppressed by the silence of fear all those sentiments
(true sentiments, nevertheless) concerning the folly of setting up
images, and wouldst have extolled more loftily, and more
loquaciously, those mysterious doctrines consisting of these vain and
pernicious fictions. Thy soul, so learned and so clever (and for
this I grieve much for thee), could never through these mysteries
have reached its God; that is, the God by whom, not with whom, it
was made, of whom it is not a part, but a work, that God who is not
the soul of all things, but who made every soul, and in whose light
alone every soul is blessed, if it be not ungrateful for His grace.
But the things which follow in this book will show what is the nature
of these mysteries, and what value is to be set upon them.
Meanwhile, this most learned man confesses, as his opinion that the
soul of the world and its parts are the true gods, from which we
perceive that his theology (to wit, that same natural theology to
which he pays great regard) has been able, in its completeness, to
extend itself even to the nature of the rational soul. For in this
book (concerning the select gods) he says a very few things by
anticipation concerning the natural theology; and we shall see whether
he has been able in that book, by means of physical interpretations,
to refer to this natural theology that civil theology, concerning which
he wrote last when treating of the select gods. Now, if he has been
able to do this, the whole is natural; and in that case, what need
was there for distinguishing so carefully the civil from the natural?
But if it has been distinguished by a veritable distinction, then,
since not even this natural theology with which he is so much pleased is
true (for though it has reached as far as the soul, it has not reached
to the true God who made the soul), how much more contemptible and
false is that civil theology which is chiefly occupied about what is
corporeal, as will be shown by its very interpretations, which they
have with such diligence sought out and enucleated, some of which I
must necessarily mention!
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