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V. Although to you, Marcus my brother, the subject on
which especially we are inquiring is not in doubt, inasmuch as, being carefully
informed in both kinds of life, you have rejected the one and assented to the
other, yet in the present case your mind must be so fashioned that you may hold
the balance of a most just judge, nor lean with a disposition to one side (more
than another), lest your decision may seem not to arise so much from our
arguments, as to be originated from your own perceptions. Accordingly, if you
sit in judgment on me, as a person who is new, and as one ignorant of either
side, there is no difficulty in making plain that all things in human affairs
are doubtful, uncertain, and unsettled, and that all things are rather probable
than true. Wherefore it is the less wonderful that some, from the weariness of
thoroughly investigating truth, should rashly succumb to any sort of opinion
rather than persevere in exploring it with persistent diligence. And thus all
men must be indignant, all men must feel pain, that certain persons—and these
unskilled in learning, strangers to literature, without knowledge even of sordid
arts—should dare to determine on any certainty concerning the nature at large,
and the (divine) majesty, of which so many of the multitude of sects in all ages
(still doubt), and philosophy itself deliberates still. Nor without reason;
since the mediocrity of human intelligence is so far from (the capacity of)
divine investigation, that neither is it given us to know, nor is it permitted
to search, nor is it religious to ravish, the things that are supported in
suspense in the heaven above us, nor the things which are deeply submerged below
the earth; and we may rightly seem sufficiently happy and sufficiently prudent,
if, according to that ancient oracle of the sage, we should know ourselves
intimately. But even if we indulge in a senseless and useless labour, and wander
away beyond the limits proper to our humility, and though, inclined towards the
earth, we transcend with daring ambition heaven itself, and the very stars, let
us at least not entangle this error with vain and fearful opinions. Let the
seeds of all things have been in the beginning condensed by a nature combining
them in itself—what God is the author here? Let the members of the whole world
be by fortuitous concurrences united, digested, fashioned—what God is the
contriver? Although fire may have lit up the stars; although (the lightness of)
its own material may have suspended the heaven; although its own material may
have established the earth by its weight; and although the sea may have flowed
in from moisture, whence is this religion? Whence this fear? What is this
superstition? Man, and every animal which is born, inspired with life, and
nourished, is as a voluntary concretion of the elements, into which again man
and every animal is divided, resolved, and dissipated. So all things flow back
again into their source, and are turned again into themselves, without any
artificer, or judge, or creator. Thus the seeds of fires, being gathered
together, cause other suns, and again others, always to shine forth. Thus the
vapours of the earth, being exhaled, cause the mists always to grow, which being
condensed and collected, cause the clouds to rise higher; and when they fall,
cause the rains to flow, the winds to blow, the hail to rattle down; or when the
clouds clash together, they cause the thunder to bellow, the lightnings to grow
red, the thunderbolts to gleam forth. Therefore they fall everywhere, they rush
on the mountains, they strike the trees; without any choice, they blast places
sacred and profane; they smite mischievous men, and often, too, religious men.
Why should I speak of tempests, various and uncertain, wherein the attack upon
all things is tossed about without any order or discrimination?—in shipwrecks,
that the fates of good and bad men are jumbled together, their deserts
confounded?—in conflagrations, that the destruction of innocent and guilty is
united?—and when with the plague-taint of the sky a region is stained, that all
perish without distinction?—and when the heat of war is raging, that it is the
better men who generally fall? In peace also, not only is wickedness put on the
same level with (the lot of) those who are better, but it is also regarded in
such esteem, that, in the case of many people, you know not whether their
depravity is most to be detested, or their felicity to be desired. But if the
world were governed by divine providence and by the authority of any deity,
Phalaris and Dionysius would never have deserved to reign, Rutilius and Camillus
would never have merited banishment, Socrates would never have merited the
poison. Behold the fruit-bearing trees, behold the harvest already white, the
vintage, already dropping, is destroyed by the rain, is beaten down by the hail.
Thus either an uncertain truth is hidden from us, and kept back; or, which is
rather to be believed, in these various and wayward chances, fortune,
unrestrained by laws, is ruling over us.
VI. Since, then, either fortune is certain or nature is uncertain, how much more
reverential and better it is, as the high priests of truth, to receive the
teaching of your ancestors, to cultivate the religions handed down to you, to
adore the gods whom you were first trained by your parents to fear rather than
to know with familiarity; not to assert an opinion concerning the deities, but
to believe your forefathers, who, while the age was still untrained in the
birth-times of the world itself, deserved to have gods either propitious to
them, or as their kings. Thence, therefore, we see through all empires, and
provinces, and cities, that each people has its national rites of worship, and
adores its local gods: as the Eleusinians worship Ceres; the Phrygians, Mater;
the Epidaurians, Æsculapius; the Chaldæans; Belus; the Syrians, Astarte; the
Taurians, Diana; the Gauls, Mercurius; the Romans, all divinities. Thus their
power and authority has occupied the circuit of the whole world: thus it has
propagated its empire beyond the paths of the sun, and the bounds of the ocean
itself; in that in their arms they practise a religious valour; in that they
fortify their city with the religions of sacred rites, with chaste virgins, with
many honours, and the names of priests; in that, when besieged and taken, all
but the Capitol alone, they worship the gods which when angry any other people
would have despised; and through the lines of the Gauls, marvelling at the
audacity of their superstition, they move unarmed with weapons, but armed with
the worship of their religion; while in the city of an enemy, when taken while
still in the fury of victory, they venerate the conquered deities; while in all
directions they seek for the gods of the strangers, and make them their own;
while they build altars even to unknown divinities, and to the Manes. Thus, in
that they acknowledge the sacred institutions of all nations, they have also
deserved their dominion. Hence the perpetual course of their veneration has
continued, which is not weakened by the long lapse of time, but increased,
because antiquity has been accustomed to attribute to ceremonies and temples so
much of sanctity as it has ascribed of age.....
VIII. Therefore, since the consent of all nations concerning the existence of
the immortal gods remains established, although their nature or their origin
remains uncertain, I suffer nobody swelling with such boldness, and with I know
not what irreligious wisdom, who would strive to undermine or weaken this
religion, so ancient, so useful, so wholesome, even although he may be Theodorus
of Cyrene, or one who is before him, Diagoras the Melian, to whom antiquity
applied the surname of Atheist,—both of whom, by asseverating that there were no
gods, took away all the fear by which humanity is ruled, and all veneration
absolutely; yet never will they prevail in this discipline of impiety, under the
name and authority of their pretended philosophy. When the men of Athens both
expelled Protagoras of Abdera, and in public assembly burnt his writings,
because he disputed deliberately rather than profanely concerning the divinity,
why is it not a thing to be lamented, that men (for you will bear with my making
use pretty freely of the force of the plea that I have undertaken)—that men, I
say, of a reprobate, unlawful, and desperate faction, should rage against the
gods? who, having gathered together from the lowest dregs the more unskilled,
and women, credulous and, by the facility of their sex, yielding, establish a
herd of a profane conspiracy, which is leagued together by nightly meetings, and
solemn fasts and inhuman meats—not by any sacred rite, but by that which
requires expiation—a people skulking and shunning the light, silent in public,
but garrulous in corners. They despise the temples as dead-houses, they reject
the gods, they laugh at sacred things; wretched, they pity, if they are allowed,
the priests; half naked themselves, they despise honours and purple robes. Oh,
wondrous folly and incredible audacity! they despise present torments, although
they fear those which are uncertain and future; and while they fear to die after
death, they do not fear to die for the present: so does a deceitful hope soothe
their fear with the solace of a revival.
IX. And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and abandoned manners
creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an impious assembly are
maturing themselves throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought
to be rooted out and execrated. They know one another by secret marks and
insignia, and they love one another almost before they know one another.
Everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they
call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters, that even a not unusual
debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous: it is
thus that their vain and senseless superstition glories in crimes. Nor,
concerning these things, would intelligent report speak of things so great and
various, and requiring to be prefaced by an apology, unless truth were at the
bottom of it. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of
creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion,—a worthy and
appropriate religion for such manners. Some say that they worship the virilia of
their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common
parent. I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is
applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies
by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to
the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and
wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve. Now the story about the
initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An
infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before
him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young
pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal,
with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily—O horror!—they lick up its blood; eagerly
they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this
consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence. Such sacred
rites as these are more foul than any sacrileges. And of their banqueting it is
well known all men speak of it everywhere; even the speech of our Cirtensian
testifies to it. On a solemn day they assemble at the feast, with all their
children, sisters, mothers, people of every sex and of every age. There, after
much feasting, when the fellowship has grown warm, and the fervour of incestuous
lust has grown hot with drunkenness, a dog that has been tied to the chandelier
is provoked, by throwing a small piece of offal beyond the length of a line by
which he is bound, to rush and spring; and thus the conscious light being
overturned and extinguished in the shameless darkness, the connections of
abominable lust involve them in the uncertainty of fate. Although not all in
fact, yet in consciousness all are alike incestuous, since by the desire of all
of them everything is sought for which can happen in the act of each
individual.....
XII. Neither do you at least take experience from things present, how the
fruitless expectations of vain promise deceive you. Consider, wretched
creatures, (from your lot) while you are yet living, what is threatening you
after death. Behold, a portion of you—and, as you declare, the larger and better
portion—are in want, are cold, are labouring in hard work and hunger; and God
suffers it, He feigns; He either is not willing or not able to assist His
people; and thus He is either weak or inequitable. Thou, who dreamest over a
posthumous immortality, when thou art shaken by danger, when thou art consumed
with fever, when thou art torn with pain, dost thou not then feel thy real
condition? Dost thou not then acknowledge thy frailty? Poor wretch, art thou
unwillingly convinced of thine infirmity, and wilt not confess it? But I omit
matters that are common to all alike. Lo, for you there are threats,
punishments, tortures, and crosses; and that no longer as objects of adoration,
but as tortures to be undergone; fires also, which you both predict and fear.
Where is that God who is able to help you when you come to life again, since he
cannot help you while you are in this life? Do not the Romans, without any help
from your God, govern, reign, have the enjoyment of the whole world, and have
dominion over you? But you in the meantime, in suspense and anxiety, are
abstaining from respectable enjoyments. You do not visit exhibitions; you have
no concern in public displays; you reject the public banquets, and abhor the
sacred contests; the meats previously tasted by, and the drinks made a libation
of upon, the altars. Thus you stand in dread of the gods whom you deny. You do
not wreath your heads with flowers; you do not grace your bodies with odours;
you reserve unguents for funeral rites; you even refuse garlands to your
sepulchres—pallid, trembling beings, worthy of the pity even of our gods! Thus,
wretched as you are, you neither rise again, nor do you live in the meanwhile.
Therefore, if you have any wisdom or modesty, cease from prying into the regions
of the sky, and the destinies and secrets of the world: it is sufficient to look
before your feet, especially for untaught, uncultivated, boorish, rustic people:
they who have no capacity for understanding civil matters, are much more denied
the ability to discuss divine.
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