City of God 7.10–7.22

Chapter 10. Whether the distinction between Janus and Jupiter is right.

Since, then, Janus is the world and Jupiter is the world, and the world is one, why are Janus and Jupiter two gods? Why do they have temples apart, altars apart, different rites, unlike images? If it is because the force of beginnings is one thing and the force of causes another, and the one received the name of Janus and the other the name of Jupiter — if one man had two powers or two arts in different matters, would he therefore be called two judges or two craftsmen, because the force of each is different? So, then, when one God himself has power over beginnings and himself over causes, must he therefore be thought to be two gods, because beginnings and causes are two things? If they think this right, let them also say that Jupiter himself is as many gods as the surnames they have given him because of his many powers; for all the things from which those surnames are taken are many and diverse. I mention a few of them.

Chapter 11. On the surnames of Jupiter, which refer not to many gods but to one and the same god.

They have called him Victor, Invictus (Unconquered), Opitulus (Helper), Impulsor (Driver), Stator (Stayer), Centumpeda (Hundred-footed), Supinalis (Overturner), Tigillus (Beam), Almus (Nourisher), Ruminus (Suckler), and other names which it would take long to list. These surnames they gave to one god because of different causes and powers, but they did not force him to be as many gods as there are things: because he conquered all things; because he was conquered by none; because he brought help to the needy; because he had power to drive, to stay, to establish, to overturn; because like a beam he held together and sustained the world; because he nourished all things; because by the ruma, that is, the breast, he nourished animals. Among these, as we notice, some things are great, some slight; and yet one god is said to do both. I think the causes of things and their beginnings — because of which they wanted the one world to be two gods, Jupiter and Janus — are closer to each other than holding the world together and giving the breast to animals. Yet because of these two works, so far apart from each other in force and dignity, they were not compelled to make two gods; one Jupiter was called Tigillus for the one and Ruminus for the other. I will not say that giving the breast to suckling animals might have befitted Juno more than Jupiter, especially since there was also the goddess Rumina, who could give her help or service in this work. For I suppose it may be answered that Juno herself is nothing other than Jupiter, according to those verses of Valerius Soranus where it is said: “Almighty Jupiter, of kings and things and gods the progenitor and mother of the gods.” Why then was he also called Ruminus, when, to those who inquire more carefully, he himself may perhaps be found to be that goddess Rumina too? For if it seemed rightly unworthy of the majesty of the gods that in one ear of grain one god should have charge of the joint and another of the husk, how much more unworthy is it that one very lowly thing, namely that animals should be fed at the breast, should be cared for by the power of two gods, of whom one is Jupiter, the king of all himself, and that he should do this not at least with his wife but with some undistinguished Rumina, unless he himself is also Rumina — Ruminus perhaps for suckling males, Rumina for females! I would indeed say that they had not wished to give Jupiter a feminine name, were he not called “progenitor and mother” in those verses, and did I not read among his other surnames that he was also called Pecunia (Money), a goddess we found among those petty gods and mentioned in the fourth book. But since both men and women have money, why he was not called both Pecunia and Pecunius, as Rumina and Ruminus, let them see to it.

Chapter 12. That Jupiter is also called Pecunia (Money).

How elegantly they have given the reason for this name! “He is called Pecunia,” they say, “because all things are his.” O the great reason for a divine name! Rather, he to whom all things belong is most cheaply and most insultingly called Money. For compared with all that is contained in heaven and earth, what is money, in all the things whatsoever that are possessed by men under the name of money? But clearly avarice gave Jupiter this name, so that whoever loves money may seem to himself to love not just any god, but the king of all himself. It would be far different if he were called Riches. For riches are one thing, money another. For we call the wise, the just, the good rich, though they have no money or little; for they are more truly rich in virtues, through which, even in the needs of bodily things, what they have is enough for them. But we call the avaricious poor, always gaping and in want; for however great sums of money they may have, in whatever abundance of it, they cannot but be in want. And we rightly call the true God himself rich, yet not in money but in omnipotence. So those who have money are called rich, but inwardly they are needy if they are covetous; likewise those who lack money are called poor, but inwardly they are rich if they are wise. What, then, must this theology be to a wise man, in which the king of the gods has received the name of a thing that no wise man has coveted? How much more readily, if anything wholesome pertaining to eternal life were learned from this doctrine, would the god who rules the world be called by them not Money but Wisdom, the love of which cleanses from the filth of avarice, that is, from the love of money!

Chapter 13. That when it is explained what Saturn is and what Genius is, each is shown to be the one Jupiter.

But why say more about this Jupiter, to whom perhaps all the rest should be referred, so that the opinion of many gods may be left empty, since he himself is all of them — whether when they are thought to be his parts or powers, or when the force of the soul which they think is spread through all things has received the names of many gods, as it were, from the parts of this mass of which this visible world is built up, and from the manifold administration of nature? For what is Saturn too? “One of the chief gods,” he says, “with whom is dominion over all sowings.” Does not the explanation of those verses of Valerius Soranus run thus, that Jupiter is the world and emits all seeds from himself and receives them into himself? He, then, is the one with whom is dominion over all sowings. What is Genius? “The god,” he says, “who is set over and has the force of all things that are to be begotten.” Whom else do they believe has this force but the world, to which it was said, “Jupiter, progenitor and mother”? And when in another place he says that the genius is the rational mind of each person, and that therefore each individual has his own, but that such a mind of the world is God, he certainly brings it back to the same thing, so that the mind of the world itself may be believed to be, as it were, the universal genius. This, then, is the one they call Jupiter. For if every genius is a god and every man's mind is a genius, it follows that every man's mind is a god; but if the very absurdity compels even them to shrink from this, it remains that they call that one uniquely and pre-eminently the god Genius whom they call the mind of the world, and therefore Jupiter.

Chapter 14. On the duties of Mercury and Mars.

They could not find how to refer Mercury and Mars to any parts of the world and to the works of God that are in the elements, and so they set them at least over the works of men, as ministers of speaking and of making war. If Mercury holds power even over the speech of the gods, then of these two he rules even the king of the gods himself, if Jupiter speaks at his will or has received from him the faculty of speaking; which is certainly absurd. But if power over human speech alone is said to be given him, it is not credible that Jupiter was willing to stoop to suckling at the breast not only children but also cattle, from which he was surnamed Ruminus, and did not wish the care of our speech, by which we surpass cattle, to belong to him; and so Mercury is the same as Jupiter. But if speech itself is said to be Mercury, as the interpretations they give of him show — for they say he is called Mercury as though medius currens, “running in the middle,” because speech runs between men in the middle; and he is called Hermēs in Greek because speech, or interpretation, which certainly pertains to speech, is called hermēneia; and he presides over merchandise because speech comes in the middle between sellers and buyers; the wings on his head and feet signify that speech is carried swiftly through the air; he is called messenger because by speech all thoughts are announced — if, then, Mercury is speech itself, even by their own confession he is not a god. But when they make gods for themselves of those who are not even demons, by supplicating unclean spirits they are possessed by those who are not gods but demons. Likewise, since they could not find for Mars either any element or part of the world in which he might do works of nature of any kind, they said he was the god of war, which is a work of men, and not a desirable one. If, then, Felicity gave perpetual peace, Mars would have nothing to do. But if Mars is war itself, as Mercury is speech, then would that it were as true that there is no war, to be falsely called a god, as it is plain that war is not a god!

Chapter 15. On certain stars which the pagans have called by the names of their gods.

Unless perhaps these gods are those stars which they have called by their names. For they call one star Mercury and another likewise Mars. But there too is the one they call Jupiter, and yet for them the world is Jupiter; there is the one they call Saturn, and yet besides this they give him no small substance, namely that of all seeds; there too is that brightest of all, which they call Venus, and yet they want this same Venus to be the Moon as well — although among them Juno and Venus contend over that most brilliant star as over the golden apple. For some say that Lucifer, the morning star, belongs to Venus, some to Juno; but, as usual, Venus wins. For far more people attribute that star to Venus, so that hardly any of them is found who thinks otherwise. But who would not laugh when they call Jupiter king of all, since his star is so far surpassed in brightness by the star of Venus? For his ought to be as much more brilliant than the rest as he himself is more powerful. They answer that it seems so because the one thought dimmer is higher and much farther from the earth. If, then, greater dignity has earned a higher place, why is Saturn there higher than Jupiter? Could the vanity of the fable that makes Jupiter king not reach as far as the stars, and was Saturn allowed at least to obtain in heaven what he could not in his kingdom nor on the Capitol? And why did Janus not receive any star? If it is because he is the world and all are in him, the world is Jupiter's too, and yet Jupiter has one. Or did Janus settle his case as best he could, and, in place of the one star he does not have among the heavenly bodies, receive so many faces on earth? Further, if it is only because of the stars that they think Mercury and Mars parts of the world, so that they can have them as gods — since speech and war are certainly not parts of the world but acts of men — why have they made no altars, no rites, no temples for the Ram and the Bull and the Crab and the Scorpion and the rest of this kind, which they count as heavenly signs, each consisting not of single stars but of many, and which they say are placed higher than these, in the highest heaven, where a steadier motion gives the stars an unwandering course? Why have they not held them to be gods — I do not say among these select gods, but not even among those plebeian ones, so to speak?

Chapter 16. On Apollo and Diana and the other select gods whom they wanted to be parts of the world.

Though they want Apollo to be a diviner and a physician, yet in order to place him in some part of the world they said he was also the sun, and that Diana his sister was likewise the moon and the guardian of roads (hence they want her to be a virgin too, because a road gives birth to nothing); and that both have arrows because these two heavenly bodies extend their rays from heaven all the way to the earth. They want Vulcan to be the fire of the world, Neptune the waters of the world, Father Dis, that is Orcus, the earthly and lowest part of the world. They set Liber and Ceres over seeds, either him over male seeds and her over female, or him over the moisture of seeds and her over their dryness. And all this is certainly referred to the world, that is, to Jupiter, who was called “progenitor and mother” for this reason, that he emitted all seeds from himself and received them into himself. For they also want the Great Mother to be this same Ceres, and they say she is nothing other than the earth, and they declare her to be Juno as well; and therefore they attribute to her the secondary causes of things, although it was said to Jupiter, “progenitor and mother of the gods,” because, according to them, the whole world itself is Jupiter's. Minerva too, because they set her over the human arts and did not find even a star in which to place her, they said was either the highest ether or even the moon. And they thought Vesta herself the greatest of the goddesses for this reason, that she is the earth; although they believed that the lighter fire of the world, which serves the easy uses of men, not the more violent kind, such as Vulcan's, was to be assigned to her. And so they want all these select gods to be this world: some the whole, some its parts — the whole, like Jupiter; its parts, like Genius, like the Great Mother, like the Sun, like the Moon, or rather Apollo and Diana. And sometimes they make one god many things, sometimes one thing many gods. For one god is many things, like Jupiter himself: for the whole world is held and called Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and a single star is Jupiter; likewise Juno is mistress of secondary causes, and Juno is the air, and Juno is the earth, and, if she beat Venus, Juno would be a star. Similarly Minerva is the highest ether, and Minerva is also the moon, which they think is at the lowest boundary of the ether. And they make one thing many gods thus: both Janus and Jupiter are the world; so too the earth is Juno and the Great Mother and Ceres.

Chapter 17. That Varro himself pronounced his opinions about the gods to be doubtful.

And as with these things, which I have mentioned by way of example, so with the rest: they do not explain them but rather entangle them. As the impulse of a wandering opinion drives them, so they leap this way and that, hither and thither, and spring back, so that Varro himself preferred to doubt everything rather than affirm anything. For when he had finished the first of the last three books, the one on the certain gods, he began to speak in the second about the uncertain gods and said: “If in this little book I set out doubtful opinions about the gods, I ought not to be blamed. For whoever thinks that one ought and is able to judge will do so himself when he has heard them. I could more readily be brought to call into doubt what I said in the first book than to bring all that I shall write in this one to any definite conclusion.” Thus he made uncertain not only this book on the uncertain gods but also the one on the certain gods. Then in this third book on the select gods, after he had said by way of preface what he thought needed to be said from natural theology, as he was about to enter on the vanities and lying follies of this civil theology, where not only did the truth of things not lead him, but the authority of his ancestors also pressed on him, he says: “In this book I shall write about the public gods of the Roman people, to whom they dedicated temples and whom they marked out adorned with many statues; but, as Xenophanes of Colophon writes, I shall set down what I think, not what I would maintain. For it is for man to hold opinions about these things, for God to know.” Trembling, then, he promises an account not of things grasped and most firmly believed, but of things supposed and to be doubted, since he is going to speak of things instituted by men. For he knew that the world exists, that heaven and earth exist, heaven bright with stars, earth fertile with seeds, and other things of this kind, and he believed with a firm and steady mind that this whole mass and nature is ruled and administered by a certain invisible and all-powerful force. But he could not in the same way affirm about Janus that he was the world itself, or discover about Saturn how he was both the father of Jupiter and became subject to Jupiter when he reigned, and other such things.

Chapter 18. What is the more credible cause by which the error of paganism grew up.

A more credible account is given of these gods when they are said to have been men, and when rites and solemnities were established for each of them, according to his character, conduct, deeds, and fortunes, by those who wanted them to be gods out of flattery; and these things, creeping little by little into the souls of men, which are like demons and eager for playful things, were spread far and wide, the lies of the poets adorning them and deceitful spirits seducing men to them. For it could more easily have happened that an impious youth, or one fearing to be killed by an impious father, and greedy for a kingdom, drove his father from the kingdom, than what this man interprets: that Saturn the father was overcome by Jupiter his son because the cause, which belongs to Jupiter, is prior to the seed, which belongs to Saturn. For if this were so, Saturn would never have been prior, nor would he have been Jupiter's father. For the cause always precedes the seed, and is never begotten from the seed. But when they try to honor most empty fables or the deeds of men by natural interpretations, even the most acute men suffer such difficulties that we are compelled to grieve over their vanity too.

Chapter 19. On the interpretations by which the reason for worshipping Saturn is put together.

“They said,” he says, “that Saturn used to devour what was born of him, because the seeds return to the place from which they were born. And the fact that a clod was thrown to him to devour in place of Jupiter signifies,” he says, “that the crops, when sowing began, were covered over by human hands, before the usefulness of ploughing had been discovered.” Saturn, then, ought to have been called the earth itself, not the seeds; for it is the earth that in a way devours what it has begotten, when the seeds born from it return to it to be received again. And what does his receiving a clod in place of Jupiter have to do with the fact that the seed was covered with a clod by men's hands? Was the seed, because it was covered with a clod, not devoured like the rest? For this is said as if he who put the clod in the way took away the seed, as they say Jupiter was taken away from Saturn when the clod was offered to him; and not rather that the clod, by covering the seed, caused it to be devoured more thoroughly. Then, in this way Jupiter is the seed, not the cause of the seed, as was said a little before. But what are men to do who, when they interpret foolish things, find nothing wise to say? “He holds a sickle,” he says, “because of agriculture.” Certainly, when he reigned there was as yet no agriculture; and that is why his times are said to be the earliest, as the same man interprets the little fables, because the first men lived on the seeds which the earth produced of its own accord. Or did he receive a sickle when he lost his sceptre, so that he who in the first times had been a king at leisure became a toiling laborer while his son reigned? Then he says that some used to sacrifice boys to him, as the Carthaginians did, and some even adults, as the Gauls did, because the best of all seeds is the human race. What need is there to say more about this most cruel vanity? Let us rather notice and hold fast this: that these interpretations are not referred to the true God, the living, incorporeal and unchangeable nature, from whom a life happy for eternity is to be sought, but that their ends lie in things bodily, temporal, changeable, and mortal. “That Saturn is said in the fables to have castrated his father Caelus (Heaven),” he says, “signifies that the divine seed is with Saturn, not with Caelus.” This is so, as far as one can understand, because nothing is born from seeds in the sky. But see: if Saturn is the son of Caelus, he is the son of Jupiter. For they affirm countless times and carefully that the sky is Jupiter. Thus these things, which do not come from the truth, often overturn themselves even when no one pushes them. He says that he was called Chronos, which in the Greek word signifies a space of time, “without which,” he says, “seed cannot be fruitful.” These and many other things are said about Saturn, and all are referred to seed. But at least Saturn, with such great power, should have sufficed for seeds; why are other gods sought for these things, especially Liber and Libera, that is, Ceres? About them, again, as far as concerns seed, he says as much as if he had said nothing about Saturn.

Chapter 20. On the rites of Eleusinian Ceres.

Among the rites of Ceres, those Eleusinian ones are celebrated which were most famous among the Athenians. Of them Varro interprets nothing except what pertains to grain, which Ceres discovered, and to Proserpina, whom she lost when Orcus carried her off. And he says that Proserpina herself signifies the fruitfulness of seeds. When this fruitfulness had failed at a certain time, and the earth was mourning with that barrenness, the opinion arose that Orcus had taken away the daughter of Ceres, that is, fruitfulness itself, which was called Proserpina from proserpere, to creep forth, and was keeping her among the dead. This was solemnized with public mourning; and because the same fruitfulness returned again, joy arose at the return of Proserpina, and from this the solemn rites were established. He then says that many things are handed down in her mysteries which pertain only to the discovery of crops.

Chapter 21. On the shamefulness of the rites celebrated for Liber.

And now the rites of Liber, whom they set over liquid seeds, and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits, among which wine holds a kind of primacy, but also over the seeds of animals — to what shamefulness they came I am reluctant to say, because of the length of the account; but because of the proud dullness of these men I am not reluctant. Among other things which I am forced to pass over because they are many, he says that certain rites of Liber were celebrated at the crossroads of Italy with such licence of shamefulness that the male member was worshipped in his honor, not at least in somewhat more modest secrecy, but openly, with wickedness exulting. For during the festival days of Liber this shameful member, placed with great honor on little carts, was carried about first at the crossroads in the country and afterwards into the city itself. In the town of Lavinium a whole month was given to Liber alone, during the days of which everyone would use the most scandalous words until that member had been carried across the forum and come to rest in its place. On this indecent member it was necessary for a most respectable mother of a family to place a crown publicly. Thus, evidently, the god Liber had to be appeased for the success of the seeds; thus the evil eye had to be driven away from the fields — so that a matron was compelled to do in public what not even a harlot should have been permitted to do in the theater if matrons were watching. For these reasons Saturn alone was not believed to be sufficient for seeds, so that the unclean soul might find occasions for multiplying gods; and, deservedly abandoned by the one true God because of its uncleanness, and prostituted to many false gods through greed for greater uncleanness, it might call these sacrileges sacred rites, and offer itself to be violated and polluted by crowds of filthy demons.

Chapter 22. On Neptune and Salacia and Venilia.

Neptune already had Salacia as his wife, who they said was the lower water of the sea. Why was Venilia also joined to him, except that, without any reason of necessary rites, by the mere lust of a prostituted soul, the invitation of demons might be multiplied? But let the interpretation of this illustrious theology be brought forward, to restrain us from this censure by giving its reason. “Venilia,” he says, “is the wave that comes (venit) to the shore; Salacia, the wave that returns to the open sea (salum).” Why, then, are there two goddesses, when it is one wave that comes and returns? Surely it is mad lust itself, overflowing into many deities. For though the water that goes and returns is not doubled, yet by occasion of this vanity, when two demons are invited, the soul that goes and does not return is the more defiled. I ask you, Varro, or you who have read such writings of such learned men and boast that you have learned something great: interpret this — I will not say according to that eternal and unchangeable nature which alone is God, but at least according to the soul of the world and its parts, which you think to be true gods. That you have made a god for yourselves of the part of the world-soul which pervades the sea, Neptune, is an error somewhat more tolerable. But are the wave coming to the shore and the wave returning to the open sea two parts of the world, or two parts of the world-soul? Which of you is so foolish as to think so? Why, then, have they made two goddesses for you, except that it was provided by your wise ancestors, not that more gods might rule you, but that more demons, which delight in these vanities and falsehoods, might possess you? And why did that Salacia, by this interpretation, lose the lower part of the sea, in which she was placed beneath her husband? For just now, when you declared her to be the ebbing wave, you placed her on the surface. Or, angry because he had taken Venilia as a concubine, did she shut her husband out of the upper parts of the sea?