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Varro says also, concerning the generations of the gods, that the
people have inclined to the poets rather than to the natural
philosophers; and that therefore their forefathers, that is, the
ancient Romans, believed both in the sex and the generations of the
gods, and settled their marriages; which certainly seems to have been
done for no other cause except that it was the business of such men as
were prudent and wise to deceive the people in matters of religion, and
in that very thing not only to worship, but also to imitate the
demons, whose greatest lust is to deceive. For just as the demons
cannot possess any but those whom they have deceived with guile, so
also men in princely office, not indeed being just, but like demons,
have persuaded the people in the name of religion to receive as true
those things which they themselves knew to be false; in this way, as
it were, binding them up more firmly in civil society, so that they
might in like manner possess them as subjects. But who that was weak
and unlearned could escape the deceits of both the princes of the state
and the demons?
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