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But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that is,
natural interpretations, showing their natural meaning; as though in
this disputation we were seeking physics and not theology, which is the
account, not of nature, but of God. For although He who is the
true God is God, not by opinion, but by nature, nevertheless all
nature is not God; for there is certainly a nature of man, of a
beast, of a tree, of a stone, none of which is God. For if, when
the question is concerning the mother of the gods, that from which the
whole system of interpretation starts certainly is, that the mother of
the gods is the earth, why do we make further inquiry? why do we carry
our investigation through all the rest of it? What can more manifestly
favor them who say that all those gods were men? For they are
earth-born in the sense that the earth is their mother. But in the
true theology the earth is the work, not the mother, of God. But in
whatever way their sacred rites may be interpreted, and whatever
reference they may have to the nature of things, it is not according to
nature, but contrary to nature, that men should be effeminates. This
disease, this crime, this abomination, has a recognized place among
those sacred things, though even depraved men will scarcely be
compelled by torments to confess they are guilty of it. Again, if
these sacred rites, which are proved to be fouler than scenic
abominations, are excused and justified on the ground that they have
their own interpretations, by which they are shown to symbolize the
nature of things, why are not the poetical things in like manner
excused and justified? For many have interpreted even these in like
fashion, to such a degree that even that which they say is the most
monstrous and most horrible, namely, that Saturn devoured his own
children, has been interpreted by some of them to mean that length of
time, which is signified by the name of Saturn, consumes whatever it
begets; or that, as the same Varro thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds
which fall back again into the earth from whence they spring. And so
one interprets it in one way, and one in another. And the same is to
be said of all the rest of this theology.
And, nevertheless, it is called the fabulous theology, and is
censured, cast off, rejected, together with all such interpretations
belonging to it. And not only by the natural theology, which is that
of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology, concerning which
we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain to cities and peoples,
it is judged worthy of repudiation, because it has invented unworthy
things concerning the gods. Of which, I wot, this is the secret:
that those most acute ant learned men, by whom those things were
written, understood that both theologies ought to be rejected, to
wit, both that fabulous and this civil one, but the former they dared
to reject, the latter they dared not; the former they set forth to be
censured, the latter they showed to be very like it; not that it might
be chosen to be held in preference to the other, but that it might be
understood to be worthy of being rejected together with it. And thus,
without danger to those who feared to censure the civil theology, both
of them being brought into contempt, that theology which they call
natural might find a place in better disposed minds; for the civil and
the fabulous are both fabulous and both civil. He who shall wisely
inspect the vanities and obscenities of both will find that they are
both fabulous; and he who shall direct his attention to the scenic
plays pertaining to the fabulous theology in the festivals of the civil
gods, and in the divine rites of the cities, will find they are both
civil. How, then, can the power of giving eternal life be attributed
to any of those gods whose own images and sacred rites convict them of
being most like to the fabulous gods, which are most openly
reprobated, in forms, ages, sex, characteristics marriages,
generations, rites; in all which things they are understood either to
have been men, and to have had their sacred rites and solemnities
instituted in their honor according to the life or death of each of
them, the demons suggesting and confirming this error, or certainly
most foul spirits, who, taking advantage of some occasion or other,
have stolen into the minds of men to deceive them?
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