City of God 6.12–7.9

Chapter 12. That once the vanity of the gods of the nations has been exposed, it cannot be doubted that they can give eternal life to no one, since they do not help even with this temporal life.

There are three theologies, which the Greeks call mythical, physical, and political, and which in Latin may be called fabulous, natural, and civil. Eternal life is not to be hoped for from the fabulous, which even the worshippers of the many false gods have themselves censured most freely, nor from the civil, of which the fabulous is shown to be a part, and to which the civil is found to be most similar or even worse. If what has been said in this volume is not enough for anyone, let him add also what was argued at length in the preceding books, and especially in the fourth, about God as the giver of happiness. For to whom but to Felicity alone should men consecrate themselves for the sake of eternal life, if Felicity were a goddess? But since she is not a goddess but a gift of God, to what God should we be consecrated but to the giver of happiness, we who love with devout charity the eternal life in which there is true and full happiness? And that none of these gods is the giver of happiness — gods who are worshipped with such shamefulness and who, if they are not so worshipped, grow angry far more shamefully, and thereby confess themselves to be most unclean spirits — I think no one ought to doubt, from what has been said. Moreover, how could one who does not give happiness give eternal life? For we call that life eternal in which there is happiness without end. For if the soul lives in eternal punishments, with which the unclean spirits themselves too will be tormented, that is eternal death rather than life. For there is no greater and no worse death than where death does not die. But since the nature of the soul, being created immortal, cannot exist without some kind of life, its supreme death is estrangement from the life of God in an eternity of punishment. Eternal life, then, that is, life happy without any end, is given only by him who gives true happiness. Since it has been proved that those whom this civil theology worships cannot give it, they are not to be worshipped — not only for the sake of these temporal and earthly things, as we showed in the five preceding books, but much more for the sake of the eternal life that is to come after death, as we have argued in this one book, with those others also lending support. But since the force of inveterate custom has its roots too deep, if anyone thinks I have argued too little about rejecting and avoiding this civil theology, let him turn his attention to another volume, which, with God's help, is to be joined to this one.

Chapter 1. Whether, since it has been established that deity is not to be found in civil theology, we should believe that it can be found in the select gods.

This divinity, or, so to speak, deity — for our writers no longer hesitate to use this word too, so as to translate more exactly from the Greek what they call theotēs — this divinity or deity, I say, is not in the theology they call civil, which Marcus Varro set out in sixteen volumes; that is, the happiness of eternal life is not reached by the worship of such gods, and in such a way, as the cities established. Whoever has not yet been persuaded of this by the sixth book, which we have just finished, will perhaps, when he has read this one, have nothing further to wish for in settling this question. For it may be that someone thinks that at least the select and principal gods, whom Varro covered in his last volume and about whom we have said little, should be worshipped for the sake of the happy life, which is none other than eternal. On this point I do not say what Tertullian said, perhaps more wittily than truly: “If gods are selected like onions, then surely the rest are judged rejects.” I do not say this; for I see that even from among the selected some are selected for something greater and more excellent. So in the army, when recruits have been chosen, from these again some are chosen for some greater work of arms; and when those are chosen in the church who are to become its leaders, the rest are certainly not rejected, since all good believers are rightly called chosen. In a building cornerstones are chosen, without rejecting the other stones, which are assigned to other parts of the structure. Grapes are chosen for eating, and the others, which we leave for drinking, are not rejected. There is no need to run through many examples, since the matter is plain. Therefore neither the writer, nor their worshippers, nor the gods themselves are to be blamed because some gods were selected out of many; rather, we must consider who these gods are and for what purpose they seem to have been selected.

Chapter 2. Who the select gods are, and whether they are held to be exempt from the duties of the lesser gods.

Varro certainly commends these as select gods in the course of a single book: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, Father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta. Of all these, about twenty in all, twelve are male and eight female. Are these deities called select because of their greater administrations in the world, or because they became better known to the peoples and greater worship was paid to them? If it is because greater works are administered by them in the world, we ought not to have found them among that plebeian crowd, as it were, of deities assigned to tiny little tasks. For Janus himself first of all, when an offspring is conceived — the point from which all those works take their beginning, distributed piece by piece among little deities — opens the way for receiving the seed. There too is Saturn, for the seed itself; there is Liber, who liberates the male when the seed is emitted; there is Libera, whom they also take to be Venus, who confers the same benefit on the woman, that she too may be liberated by the emission of seed. All these are among those who are called select. But there too is the goddess Mena, who presides over the menstrual flow — a daughter of Jupiter, yet undistinguished. And in the book on the select gods the same author assigns this province of the menstrual flow to Juno herself, who is even queen among the select gods; and here, as Juno Lucina, she presides over the same blood together with this same Mena, her stepdaughter. There too are two very obscure gods, I know not who, Vitumnus and Sentinus, one of whom bestows life on the offspring and the other senses. And surely they supply much more, though they are most undistinguished, than all those many nobles and select gods. For without life and sense, what is all that which is carried in a woman's womb but some most abject thing, to be compared with mud and dust?

Chapter 3. That no reason can be shown for the selection of certain gods, since a more excellent administration is assigned to many inferior ones.

What reason, then, compelled so many select gods to these very small works, where in the distribution of this bounty they are surpassed by Vitumnus and Sentinus, whom obscure repute hides away? For the select Janus supplies the entrance and, as it were, the door (ianua) for the seed; the select Saturn supplies the seed itself; the select Liber supplies to men the emission of this same seed; Libera, who is Ceres or Venus, supplies the same to women; the select Juno supplies — and not alone, but with Mena, the daughter of Jupiter — the menstrual flow for the growth of what has been conceived. And obscure and undistinguished Vitumnus supplies life; obscure and undistinguished Sentinus supplies sense — two things which are as much more excellent than those others as they are themselves surpassed by understanding and reason. For as beings that reason and understand are certainly superior to those that live and feel like cattle, without understanding and reason, so those endowed with life and sense are rightly preferred to those that neither live nor feel. Among the select gods, therefore, Vitumnus the life-giver and Sentinus the sense-giver ought rather to have been counted than Janus the admitter of the seed, and Saturn the giver or sower of the seed, and Liber and Libera the movers or emitters of the seed. It is unworthy even to think of these seeds unless they attain life and sense; and these select gifts are given not by the select gods but by certain unknown ones, neglected in comparison with the dignity of the others. If it is answered that Janus has power over all beginnings, and that therefore the opening for conception is not undeservedly attributed to him; that Saturn has power over all seeds, and that therefore the sowing of man too cannot be separated from his working; that Liber and Libera have power over the emission of all seeds, and that therefore they also preside over what pertains to the propagation of men; that Juno has power over all purifications and births, and that therefore she is not absent from the purifications of women and the births of human beings — then let them look for an answer about Vitumnus and Sentinus: do they wish these too to have power over all things that live and feel? If they grant this, let them notice how much higher they will be placing them. For to be born from seeds is on the earth and from the earth; but living and feeling they think belong even to the gods of the stars. But if they say that to Vitumnus and Sentinus only those things are attributed which come alive in the flesh and are supported by the senses, why does not the god who makes all things live and feel give life and sense to the flesh as well, bestowing this gift on offspring too by his universal work? And what need is there of Vitumnus and Sentinus? But if these fleshly things were entrusted to them as to servants, as the lowest and last of things, by him who presides universally over life and the senses, are those select gods so destitute of household servants that they could not find any to whom they too might entrust these things, but, with all their nobility for which they were thought worth selecting, were compelled to work alongside the undistinguished? Juno is select, and queen, and sister and wife of Jupiter; yet she is Iterduca, the guide on the way, for children, and works with the most undistinguished goddesses Abeona and Adeona. There they have also placed the goddess Mens, who gives children a good mind; and she is not placed among the select, as if anything greater could be given to a man. But Juno is placed there because she is Iterduca and Domiduca — as if it were of any use to take a journey and be led home, if the mind is not good; yet the goddess of that gift these selectors did not place among the select deities at all. She certainly ought to have been preferred even to Minerva, to whom, among these tiny works, they attributed the memory of children. For who would doubt that it is much better to have a good mind than a memory however vast? For no one is bad who has a good mind; but some of the worst men have a wonderful memory, and are all the worse the less they can forget what they wickedly plan. And yet Minerva is among the select gods, while the goddess Mens is buried in the common crowd. What shall I say of Virtue? What of Felicity? About them we have already said much in the fourth book. Though they held them to be goddesses, they would not give them any place among the select gods, where they gave one to Mars and Orcus, the one the maker of deaths, the other their receiver. Since, then, in these tiny works, distributed piece by piece among many gods, we see even the select gods working together with the plebeians like a senate with the common people, and find that many greater and better things are administered by certain gods who were by no means thought worth selecting than by those called select, it remains to judge that they were called select and principal not because of more excellent administrations in the world, but because it happened to them that they became better known to the peoples. Hence Varro himself says that obscurity had befallen certain father gods and mother goddesses, as it befalls men. If, then, Felicity perhaps ought not to have been among the select gods because they attained this nobility not by merit but by chance, at least Fortune should have been placed among them, or rather before them — Fortune, the goddess who, they say, confers her gifts on each not by rational arrangement but as chance falls out. She ought to have held the summit among the select gods, since in them above all she showed what she could do; for we see them selected not for pre-eminent virtue, nor for rational happiness, but by the reckless power of Fortune, as their worshippers think of her. For the most eloquent Sallust too was perhaps thinking of the gods themselves when he said: “But truly Fortune rules in everything; it is she who makes all things famous or obscure from caprice rather than according to truth.” For they cannot find a reason why Venus was made famous and Virtue obscure, when the deities of both were consecrated by them and their merits are not to be compared. Or if what deserved to be made famous is what more people desire — for more desire Venus than Virtue — why was the goddess Minerva made famous and the goddess Pecunia (Money) obscure? For among mankind avarice attracts more people than skill, and even among those who are skilled you would rarely find a man who does not hold his art for sale for a money payment; and that for the sake of which something is done is always valued more than what is done for the sake of something else. If, then, this selection of gods was made by the judgment of the foolish multitude, why was the goddess Pecunia not preferred to Minerva, since many are craftsmen for the sake of money? But if this distinction belongs to the wise few, why was Virtue not preferred to Venus, since reason prefers her by far? At least certainly, as I said, Fortune herself — who, as those think who ascribe most to her, rules in everything and makes all things famous or obscure from caprice rather than according to truth — if she had such power even over the gods that by her reckless judgment she made famous whom she would and obscure whom she would, ought to have had the chief place among the select, since she has such pre-eminent power over the gods themselves. Or are we to think that Fortune herself could not be there only because she too had bad fortune? Then she was her own adversary, since she made others noble and was not ennobled herself.

Chapter 4. That the lower gods, who are defamed by no disgraces, have fared better than the select gods, whose great indecencies are celebrated.

Someone eager for nobility and renown might congratulate these select gods and call them fortunate, if he did not see that they were selected for insults rather than honors. For obscurity itself has covered that lowest crowd, so that it was not buried under disgraces. We laugh, indeed, when we see them, by the fictions of human opinion, distributed among works divided up among them, like petty tax-farmers, or like craftsmen in the silversmiths' street, where one little vessel, in order to come out finished, passes through many craftsmen, though it could be finished by one finished craftsman. But it was thought that the multitude of workers could not be provided for otherwise than by each learning single parts of the art quickly and easily, so that all should not be compelled to become perfect in one art slowly and with difficulty. Yet hardly any of the unselected gods is found who has incurred infamy by some crime, but hardly any of the select who has not received on himself the brand of notable disgrace. The select gods came down to the lowly works of the others; the others did not come up to the lofty crimes of the select. About Janus, indeed, nothing readily occurs to me that pertains to disgrace. And perhaps he was such a one, lived more innocently, and was further removed from crimes and outrages. He kindly received Saturn when he was fleeing; he shared his kingdom with his guest, so that they even founded separate cities, Janus the Janiculum, Saturn Saturnia. But these men, eager for every disgrace in the worship of the gods, disgraced him whose life they found less shameful by the monstrous deformity of his image, making him now two-faced, now even four-faced, as though twinned. Or perhaps they wished that, since most of the select gods had lost their foreheads (their shame) by committing shameful deeds, Janus should appear the more fronted the more innocent he was?

Chapter 5. On the more secret doctrine of the pagans, and on their natural explanations.

But let us rather hear their natural interpretations, by which they try to color the shamefulness of a most wretched error with the appearance of a loftier doctrine. First, Varro commends these interpretations by saying that the ancients made images of the gods, and their emblems and adornments, so that those who had approached the mysteries of the doctrine, seeing them with their eyes, might see with the mind the soul of the world and its parts, that is, the true gods. Those who made their images in human form, he says, seem to have done so because the mortal soul which is in the human body is most like the immortal soul; as if vessels were set up to mark the gods, and a wine jar were placed in the temple of Liber to signify wine, the container signifying what is contained. So by an image having human form the rational soul is signified, because that nature is usually contained in the human form as in a vessel, and of this nature they wish God, or the gods, to be. These are the mysteries of doctrine which this most learned man had penetrated, from which he brought these things into the light. But, O most acute man, did you lose in these mysteries of doctrine that prudence by which it seemed to you, soberly, that those who first set up images for the peoples both took away fear from their citizens and added error, and that the ancient Romans worshipped the gods more chastely without images? For they were your authorities, so that you dared to say these things against the later Romans. For if those most ancient Romans too had worshipped images, perhaps you would have suppressed with the silence of fear that whole opinion about not setting up images, true as it is, and would have proclaimed more loquaciously and loftily these mysteries of doctrine in pernicious and empty fictions of this kind. Yet your soul, so learned and so gifted (and here we grieve much for you), could by no means reach through these mysteries of doctrine to its God — that is, to him by whom it was made, not with whom it was made; not him of whom it is a portion, but him of whom it is the creation; not him who is the soul of all things, but him who made every soul, by whose light alone the soul becomes happy, if it is not ungrateful for his grace. But what these mysteries of doctrine are, and how much they are worth, what follows will show. Meanwhile this most learned man confesses that the soul of the world and its parts are the true gods. From this it is understood that his whole theology — that is, the natural theology itself, to which he ascribes most — could extend only as far as the nature of the rational soul. For he says very little by way of preface about natural theology in this book on the select gods, the last he wrote; in it we shall see whether he can refer the civil theology to this natural one by physiological interpretations. If he can, the whole will be natural; and what need was there to separate the civil from it with such careful distinction? But if it was separated by a right distinction, then, since not even the natural theology that pleases him is true (for it reaches only as far as the soul, not as far as the true God, who made the soul too), how much more abject and false is this civil theology, which is chiefly occupied with the nature of bodies, as its interpretations themselves — some of which I must necessarily mention — will show, sought out and elucidated by them with such diligence.

Chapter 6. On Varro's opinion that God is the soul of the world, which nevertheless has in its parts many souls whose nature is divine.

The same Varro, then, still speaking by way of preface about natural theology, says that he thinks God is the soul of the world, which the Greeks call kosmos, and that this world itself is God; but that, as a wise man, though he consists of body and mind, is nevertheless called wise from his mind, so the world is called God from its soul, though it consists of soul and body. Here he seems in some fashion to confess one God; but to bring in many as well, he adds that the world is divided into two parts, heaven and earth; heaven into two, ether and air; and earth into water and land. Of these the ether is highest, the air second, water third, earth lowest. All these four parts are full of souls: immortal ones in the ether and air, mortal ones in water and earth. From the highest circuit of heaven to the circle of the moon, the ethereal souls are the stars and planets; these are not only understood to be heavenly gods but are also seen to be. Between the orbit of the moon and the tops of the clouds and winds are the aerial souls; but these are seen with the mind, not with the eyes, and are called heroes and lares and genii. This, briefly set out in that preface, is the natural theology that pleased not only this man but many philosophers. It must be discussed more carefully when, with the help of the true God, I have completed what remains concerning the civil theology, as far as the select gods are concerned.

Chapter 7. Whether it was reasonable to separate Janus and Terminus into two deities.

Janus, then, with whom he began — I ask who he is. The answer is: he is the world. This is certainly a brief and plain answer. Why, then, are the beginnings of things said to belong to him, but the ends to another, whom they call Terminus? For they say that, on account of beginnings and ends, two months were dedicated to these two gods besides those ten of which March is the head, up to December: January to Janus, February to Terminus. That is why they say the Terminalia are celebrated in the same month of February, when the purifying rite is performed which they call Februum, from which the month took its name. Do the beginnings of things, then, belong to the world, which is Janus, and not the ends, so that another god had to be set over them? Do they not confess that all the things they say come to be in this world also come to an end in this world? What folly is this, to give him half the power in his work and a double face in his image? Would they not interpret this two-faced god much more elegantly if they said that the same god is both Janus and Terminus, and gave one face to beginnings and the other to ends? For he who works must attend to both; in every movement of his action, he who does not look back to the beginning does not look forward to the end. Hence the intention that looks forward must be joined to the memory that looks back; for he who has forgotten what he began will not find how to finish it. But if they thought that the happy life begins in this world and is perfected outside it, and for that reason attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power over beginnings, they would surely have put Terminus before him and would not have excluded him from the select gods. Though even now, when the beginnings and ends of temporal things are dealt with in these two gods, more honor ought to have been given to Terminus. For there is greater joy when any undertaking is completed; things begun are full of anxiety until they are brought to their end, which whoever begins anything most desires, aims at, waits for, and longs for; nor does he rejoice over a thing begun unless it is brought to an end.

Chapter 8. For what reason the worshippers of Janus made his image two-faced, though they also want it to be seen as four-faced.

But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be brought forward. They say that he has two faces, before and behind, because the opening of our mouth, when we open it, seems like the world. Hence the Greeks call the palate ouranos (heaven), and some Latin poets, he says, have called the heavens the palate; and from this opening of the mouth there is a way outward toward the teeth and a way inward toward the throat. See where the world has been brought, on account of a word for our palate, whether Greek or poetic! But what has this to do with the soul, what with eternal life? Let this god be worshipped for saliva alone, for which both doors are opened under the heaven of the palate, partly for swallowing and partly for spitting. And what is more absurd than not to find in the world itself two doors placed opposite each other, through which it might either admit something into itself or send something out from itself, and yet to wish to compose an image of the world in Janus from our mouth and throat, which the world does not resemble — for the sake of the palate alone, which Janus does not resemble? When they make him four-faced and call him the twin Janus, they interpret this of the four quarters of the world, as though the world looked out on something, as Janus does through all his faces. Then, if Janus is the world and the world consists of four parts, the image of two-faced Janus is false; or if it is true because the whole world is commonly understood by the names of East and West, will anyone, when we name the other two parts, North and South, call the world twin, as they call the four-faced Janus twin? They have nothing at all by which to interpret four doors, open to those who enter and go out, as a likeness of the world, as for the two-faced one they at least found something to say in the mouth of a man — unless perhaps Neptune comes to their aid and offers a fish, which, besides the opening of the mouth and throat, also has gills opening to right and left. And yet no soul escapes this vanity through so many doors, except one that hears the Truth saying: “I am the door.”

Chapter 9. On the power of Jupiter, and on his comparison with Janus.

Let them now explain whom they wish Jove, who is also called Jupiter, to be understood to be. “He is the god,” they say, “who has power over the causes by which anything comes to be in the world.” How great a thing this is, that most famous verse of Virgil testifies: “Happy the one who could know the causes of things.” But why is Janus put before him? Let that most acute and most learned man answer us. “Because,” he says, “with Janus are the first things, with Jupiter the highest. Rightly, then, Jupiter is held to be king of all. For the first things are surpassed by the highest, because, though the first precede in time, the highest excel in dignity.” But this would be rightly said if the first and the highest parts of things done were being distinguished: as the beginning of an act is to set out and the highest point to arrive; the beginning is to start learning, the highest point the grasp of knowledge; and so in all things the first are beginnings and the highest are ends. But this business has already been discussed between Janus and Terminus. The causes attributed to Jupiter, however, are things that make, not things made; and in no way can it be that they are preceded, even in time, by things made or by the beginnings of things made. For the thing that makes is always prior to the thing that is made. Therefore, if the beginnings of things made belong to Janus, they are not on that account prior to the efficient causes which they attribute to Jupiter. For as nothing is made, so nothing is begun in order to be made, unless an efficient cause has preceded it. If, then, the peoples call this god — with whom are all the causes of all natures made and of all natural things — Jupiter, and worship him with such great insults and such wicked accusations, they bind themselves with a fouler sacrilege than if they thought there were no god at all. It would therefore have been better for them to give the name of Jupiter to some other being worthy of shameful and scandalous honors, substituting an empty figment for them to blaspheme instead (as a stone is said to have been substituted for Saturn to devour in place of his son), than to call this god both thunderer and adulterer, both ruler of the whole world and dissolute in so many debaucheries, both holding the supreme causes of all natures and natural things and not having good causes for his own conduct. Next I ask what place they give this Jupiter among the gods, if Janus is the world. For Varro defined the true gods as the soul of the world and its parts; and so whatever is not this is certainly not a true god, according to them. Will they then say that Jupiter is the soul of the world in such a way that Janus is its body, that is, this visible world? If they say this, there will be no way for them to call Janus a god, since the body of the world is not a god even according to them, but the soul of the world and its parts. Hence the same man says most plainly that he thinks God is the soul of the world and that this world itself is God; but that, as a wise man, though he consists of mind and body, is nevertheless called wise from his mind, so the world is called God from its soul, though it consists of soul and body. The body of the world alone, therefore, is not God, but either its soul alone, or body and soul together, yet in such a way that it is God not from the body but from the soul. If, then, Janus is the world and Janus is a god, will they say that Jupiter, in order to be a god, is some part of Janus? For they usually attribute the universe to Jupiter rather; hence the saying, “All things are full of Jove.” Therefore, that Jupiter may be a god, and above all king of the gods, they can think him nothing other than the world, so that he may reign over the other gods, according to them, as over his own parts. In this sense the same Varro also expounds certain verses of Valerius Soranus in the book which he wrote separately from these, on the worship of the gods. The verses are these: “Almighty Jupiter, of kings and things and gods the progenitor and mother of the gods, one god and all.” In the same book they are explained thus: since they considered the male to be the one who emits seed and the female the one who receives it, and that Jupiter is the world, and emits all seeds from himself and receives them into himself, “with reason,” he says, “Soranus wrote, ‘Jupiter, progenitor and mother’; and with no less reason that one and all are the same; for the world is one, and in that one are all things.”