Against the Nations 7.23–7.37

As for what we hear you say, that some of the gods are good and others evil and more prone to the desire of harming, and that sacrificial solemnities are performed to the former that they may help, to the latter that they may not harm, we confess we cannot understand on what reasoning this is said. For to say that the gods are most kind and have gentle natures is holy, religious, and true; but that they are evil and ill-omened must by no means be taken into our ears, because that divine power is far removed and separated in nature from harming. And whatever can cause calamity must first be examined as to what it is, and ought to be set apart from the name of god by the greatest difference. So, to grant you assent that there are gods favoring both right and left things, even so there is no reason why you should entice some to prosperity and soothe others with sacrifices and rewards so that they may not harm. First, because good gods cannot do evil, even if they have been honored with no honor; for whatever is gentle and peaceful by nature is far separated from the practice and thought of harming; but an evil one does not know how to restrain his fierceness, though he be enticed with a thousand flocks and a thousand altars. For bitterness cannot turn itself into sweetness, nor dryness into moisture, the heat of fire into cold, or what is contrary to anything take into its own nature and change what is contrary to it. As, if you stroke a viper with your hand or caress a venomous scorpion, the one attacks you with a bite and the other plants its sting at the touch, and your daring does not help at all, since both things are driven to harm not by the goads of anger but by a certain property of nature: so it is of no use to want to win over the ill-omened gods with victims, since whether you do it or not, they act according to their nature and are led to what they will do by inborn laws and a certain necessity. What of this, that in this way both kinds of gods cease to remain in their powers and qualities? For if a divine rite is performed to the good that they may help, and the evil are supplicated on the same principle that they may not harm, it follows that it must be understood that the right-hand gods will be of no help if they receive no gifts, and thereby become evil; and the evil, if they receive them, will lay aside the mind to harm and thereby become good; and so the matter comes to this, that neither are these right-hand nor those left-hand, or, what cannot be, both are right-hand and both again left-hand.

Granted: let it be conceded that the most unhappy cattle are slaughtered at the temples of the gods not without some duty of religion, and that what has been done from the habit of custom contains some cause of reason. But if it seems magnificent and grand to cut the throats of bulls to the gods, and to burn the inward parts of animals whole and entire, what do these other things mean, which cling to the lore of the magi, which ... the pontifical mysteries in the hidden laws of the rites and inserted in divine matters? What, I say, do these mean: apexaones, hirciae, silicernia, longavi? These are names and kinds of sausages, some stuffed with goat's blood, others with chopped lungs. What of taedae, neniae, and the offae called not common but penitae? Of these, the first is fat cut in small bits of little dishes, according to custom; what stands second is a stretch of intestine, through which the waste is passed, thoroughly dried of the vital juices; and offa penita is the tail of an animal cut off with a bit of flesh. What of polimina, omenta, palasea, or, as some call it, plasea? Of these, the omentum is a certain part by which the receptacles of the stomach are enclosed and bounded; plasea is an ox's tail smeared with fine flour and blood; polimina, further, are those which we more modestly call 'offspring', and which the common people usually call by the name of testicles. What of fitilla, frumen, africia, gratilla, catumeum, ..., cubula? Of these, the first two are names of porridges, but different in kind and quality; the series that follows contains the names of cakes, for they too do not have one and the same form. I do not care to name strebula flesh, which is taken from the haunches of bulls; the pulpamenta, not roasted; the entrails on spits, quickened on coals and toasted on embers; nor finally salsamina, which is a single mixture joined of four grains; nor likewise the fendicae, which are themselves the hirae, as the speech of the common people usually calls them when it speaks of them; nor on the same principle the rumae, which are the first heads in the gullets, by which it is natural for ruminants to swallow and bring back their food; nor the magmenta, the augmina, the thousand kinds of ... or fitilla, to which you have given obscure names and made them more august than the common people.

For if whatever is done by human beings, and especially in a sacred matter, ought to have its causes, and nothing should be done without reason in any business and administration, explain to us and tell us what the cause is, what the reason, that these things too are given to the gods and burned on the sacred altars. For we linger, persist, and stick at this point for this cause longer, and especially necessarily, wanting to learn what a god has to do with porridges, with cakes, with various sausages prepared with many sauces and seasoned with a variety of expenses. Are the deities treated to sumptuous dinners or lunches, so that countless dishes must be devised for them? Do they suffer from queasiness of stomach, and is variety of flavors sought to drive away their distaste, so that now roasted, now raw things are set before them, half-cooked and now half-raw? But if the gods love to receive all these parts which you call prosiciae, and they are pleasing to them with a sense of some pleasure or sweetness, what stands in the way, what forbids, that you should not bring all these at once with the whole animals? What is the cause, what the reason, that strebula flesh separately, the ruma, the tail, and the plasea separately, the hirae alone, and the omentum alone are added for the purpose of augmenting? Are the heavenly gods affected by the varieties of relishes, as is the custom after the fattening dinners of the wealthy and rich, and do they take these tiny scraps as sweet tidbits, not to quiet their hunger, but to remind their palate of its leisure and, though full, to stir themselves to a craving of voracity? O wonderful greatness of the gods, grasped by no human natures, understood by none, since, to make them help, they are bought off with the testicles and gullets of cattle, and do not lay aside their anger and passion unless they have seen neniae prepared to be burned for them and offae penitae offered!

It follows that we say something, without any excess, about incense and wine. For these kinds of ceremonies too are joined and mixed, and are used in worship very much. And first we ask and inquire of you about incense itself: from where or at what time could you know or learn of it, so that you rightly think it should be given to the gods or is most acceptable to their will? For it is almost a new thing, and no inexplicable series of years has passed since knowledge of it flowed into these parts and it earned a place in the divine shrines. For neither in the heroic times, as is believed and declared, was it known what incense was, as is proved by the ancient writers, in whose books no mention of it is found; nor did Etruria, the begetter and mother of superstition, know the opinion or report of it, as the rites of its chapels show; nor in the four hundred years during which the Alban state flourished did it come into anyone's use when a sacred rite was performed; nor did Romulus himself or Numa, the craftsman in devising religions, know that it existed or grew, as the pious spelt-meal shows, with which the duties of solemn sacrifices were customarily performed. From where, then, did the use of it begin to be taken up, or what novelty broke into the old and ancient custom, so that what was not necessary for such long ages took a place in the ceremonies first? For if the duty of religion limps without incense, and its power is necessary to make the heavenly ones gracious and gentle to human beings, the ancients sinned; indeed, the whole life of those was full of guilt needing expiation who through carelessness neglected to offer what was most fitting for the pleasure of the gods. But if in ancient times neither men nor gods sought this material of incense, it is proved that today too it is offered to no purpose and in vain, since neither antiquity believed it necessary, and novelty sought it without any reasons.

Finally, so that we may always keep that rule and definition by which it has been shown and fixed that whatever is done by a human being must have its causes, we will keep it in this part too, and ask of you what the cause is, what the reason, that incense is thrown on the altars before the very images of the deities, and that by its burning they are thought to become friendly and gentle. What is gained for them from an act of this kind, or what is added to their minds, that we may rightly judge that it is properly spent and not burned in vain and to no purpose? For as you ought to show why you give incense to the gods, so it follows that you ought also to show that the gods have some cause why they do not reject it, indeed why they desire it so familiarly. 'We honor the gods with it,' someone will perhaps say. But we ask not your feeling but that of the deities, and not what is done by you, but how highly what is given as a reward of favor is valued by them. But still, O piety, how great or what kind of honor is it, which is made from the smell of fire and obtained from the resin of a tree? For in case you do not know what that incense is or where it comes from: it is a gum flowing from bark ..., as a resin from the almond or cherry grows together by tearful dripping. Does this, then, honor and increase the dignities above, or, if an offense has at some time been incurred, is it dissolved by the vapor of incense and put to sleep, the indignation tempered? Why then do you not burn the gum of any tree whatever, without any distinction? For if the deities are honored by this and do not take it ill that little Panchaean resins burn for them, what does it matter where the smoke is made on the holy altars, or from what kind of gum the clouds of fumigation boil up? Or will someone say

that incense is given to the gods above because it has a sweet smell and soothes the sense of the nostrils, while the rest are harsh and excluded because of offense? Do the gods, then, have nostrils with which to draw in the breath of the air, do they take in and send back breezes, so that the qualities of different odors can penetrate them? If we grant this, we join them to the law of mortality and exclude them from the bounds of divinity. For whatever breathes and draws back-and-forth breaths through passable openings must be mortal, since it is sustained by the food of the air. And whatever is sustained by the food of the air, if you take away the returns by which the alternation of life is given back and taken away, its breath must be choked and the principle of living undermined and destroyed. So if the gods too breathe and draw to themselves odor wrapped in accompanying breezes, it is not beside the point to say both that they live by outside supplies and that they can perish if their breathing passages are blocked. And finally, how do you know whether, if they are captivated by the sweetness of odors, the same things are pleasant to them as to you, and soothe and affect the natures of the gods with the same sense as yours? Can it not be that what brings you pleasure seems harsh and unpleasant to them? For since their essences are unlike and their substances not the same, in what way can it be brought about that what is different in quality should feel and receive one contact? Do we not see daily, even among animals born on earth, that the same things are bitter to some and sweet to others, deadly to these which are not born to harm those, so that the things which soothe some with pleasant odors breathe out deadly breaths on the bodies of others? But that this happens and occurs is not caused by the things, which cannot be at the same time deadly and wholesome, sweet and bitter, but each one, as it is made, is affected by the touch of the thing coming from outside, and receives a quality born not from the impact of things but from the nature of its own sense and contact. But all this reasoning is set far from the gods and separated by no small boundary. For if it is true, as is believed by the wise, that they are incorporeal and not raised up by any prominence of solidity, odor is empty with them, and the breath of any fumes cannot move them sensibly, not if you burn a thousand pounds of male incense and this whole sky is shut in by the cloudiness of overflowing vapors. For what does not have strength and bodily substance cannot be touched by bodily substance; but odor is a body, as is shown when the nostrils are touched; so it cannot by any reasoning be perceived by a god, who lacks the strength of a body and is deprived of all sense and contact.

Wine is the companion of incense, and we likewise ask that it be explained why it is poured over the burning incense. For unless the reason why it is done is shown, and it has no cause set out for it, this must no longer be charged to playful error but, to say it more expressly, to madness, insanity, and blindness. For, as has already often been said, everything that is done ought to have its cause clear and not covered by the obscurity of any mist. If, then, you trust in what you do, disclose and show why this liquid is given, that is, why wine is poured on the altars. Do the bodies of the deities feel dry thirst, and must their dryness be tempered by some moisture? As it is our custom as mortals to mix drinks with dinners, do they in the same way, after their solid meals of cakes, porridges, and slaughtered victims, water and fill themselves most frequently with wine, so that the food may soften and be digested more easily? Give the immortal gods something to drink, I pray. Bring out goblets, cups, bowls, and ladles; and since they stuff themselves with sumptuous and rich feasts and fat foods, lest some morsel badly swallowed stick in the passage of the stomach, come to help, hurry: give Jupiter Best and Greatest wine so that he does not choke. He wants to belch and cannot; and unless that obstruction slips down and dissolves, there is the greatest danger that his breath may be crushed and cut off, and heaven remain bereft of its administrators.

'But in vain,' he says, 'you ride roughshod over us: for we do not pour out wine to the gods above for these reasons, as though we thought they are thirsty or drink or are gladdened by a liking for its sweetness. It is given them for honor: so that their majesty may become more exalted, greater, and more august, we pour libations over the very altars and rouse the venerable fragrances on extinguished coals.' And what heavier insult can be inflicted on the gods than if you believe that they become gracious when they have received wine, or think that great honor has been paid them if you have only thrown and dripped a few drops of wine on a live coal? We are not speaking with men lacking reason, nor with those who do not share common understanding and truth: there is wisdom in you too, there is sense, and you yourselves know in your inner judgment that we speak the truth. But what can we do, when you are unwilling to consider the things themselves thoroughly and speak with yourselves? For you do what you see done, not what you trust ought to be done; because custom, which has no reason, is worth more with you than the nature of things examined and weighed by the test of truth. For what has a god to do with wine, or what or how great is the power in its substance, that when it has been poured out his majesty increases and his authority is thought honored? What, I say, has a god to do with wine, a thing most closely akin to Venus, weakening the sinews of all virtues, the enemy of modesty, shame, and chastity, which has often thrown roused minds into madness and frenzy and driven them to degrade the very gods with insane curses? Is it not wicked and a crime full of sacrilege to give the gods for honor that which, if you take it too greedily, you do not know what you do, you are unaware of what you say, and at last you earn the abuse and infamy of a drunkard, a debauchee, and a profligate?

It is worthwhile also to set out the very words which it is customary to use and pray with when wine is given: 'Be thou honored with this wine of offering (inferium).' 'Inferium,' says Trebatius, 'is added for this reason and uttered on this principle: lest all the wine whatever which is stored in the cellars and storerooms, from which what is poured out is taken, begin to be sacred and be taken away from human uses. So by adding this word, only what is offered will be sacred, and the rest will not be bound by religious obligation.' What kind of honor is this, then, in which a law, as it were, is imposed on a god not to seek more than is given? Or of what greed is the god himself, who, unless he is kept off by the prescription of a word, would stretch his desire further and rob his suppliant of his storerooms? 'Be thou honored with this wine of offering': this is an injury, not an honor. For what if the god wants more than this and is not content with what is offered? Must he not be said to be notably injured, who is forced to receive honor on a condition? For if, without the exception added, all the wine whatever in the cellars must become sacred, it is plain both that an insult is done to the god, on whom a limit is imposed against his will, and that you yourselves violate the duties of ceremonies in a sacred matter, since you do not give as much wine as you see the god wants to be given him. 'Be thou honored with this wine of offering': what else is this than to say: 'Be honored as much as I wish, increased as much as I command; take as much honor as I decree you shall have and define by the limitation of words'? O mighty majesty of the gods, which you ought to venerate and worship with ceremonial duties, on which the worshiper imposes a law, which he adores with pacts and formulas, which is kept from immoderate desires for wine by the fear of a single word!

But let there be honor in wine, as you wish, let there be honor in incense; let the anger and offenses of the deities be appeased by the sacrifice and slaughter of victims. Are the gods also affected by garlands, crowns, and flowers? By the ringing of bronze and the shaking of cymbals? By tambourines? By concerts? What? Do the clappers of foot-castanets bring it about that, when the deities have heard them, they think they have been treated honorably and lay aside their burning minds in forgetfulness of their anger? Or as little boys are frightened out of their silly wailing by hearing rattles, are the almighty deities in the same way soothed by the shrill sound of flutes and, their indignation softened, grow limp to the rhythm of cymbals? What do those wakings mean which you sing in the morning, joining your voices to the flute? Do the gods above fall asleep, so that they must come back to wakefulness? What of those sleepings, to which you bid them good health with an auspicious greeting? Are they released into the quiet of sleep, and to be able to be occupied with this, must they hear gentle lullabies? 'Today is the washing of the Mother of the gods.' Do the deities get dirty, and is there need of washing waters, with some rubbing with ashes added, to wash off the dirt? 'Tomorrow is the feast of Jupiter.' Does Jupiter dine, and must he be filled with great feasts, having long been eager from starvation and fasting in the yearly interval? '... the vintage of Aesculapius is held and celebrated.' Do the gods tend vineyards and press out wine for their own uses with vintagers hired? 'There will be a feast-couch of Ceres on the next Ides.' Do the gods have couches, and, so that they may lie on softer bedding, is the pressed-down impression of the cushions lifted and plumped? 'It is the birthday of Earth.' Do the gods come forth from wombs, and do they have happy days on which it is recorded that they began to draw the breath of life?

But the games which you hold, called the Floralia and Megalensia, and all the others which you have wanted to be sacred and counted among the duties of religion: what reason, what cause do they have, that they had to be instituted and founded and marked with the names of deities? 'The gods are honored by them,' he says, 'and if they hold any memories of offenses brought on them by men, they cast them off, shut them out, and return to us as favorers with friendship renewed.' And what is the cause again that they are made tranquil, peaceful, and gentle, if silly things are done and idle men play while the multitude looks on? Does Jupiter lay aside his passion if the Amphitryon of Plautus is acted and recited? Or if Europa, Leda, Ganymede, or Danae is danced, does he check the motion of his anger? Is the Great Mother made more tranquil and gentle if she sees the old story of Attis rubbed up again by actors? Will Venus forget her offense if she sees a pantomime acting the part of Adonis in dancing movements? Does the indignation of Alcides grow languid if Sophocles' tragedy called the Trachinian Women, or the Hercules of Euripides, is performed? Or does Flora think herself honorably treated if she sees shameful things done in her games and a migration from the brothels to the theaters? Is this not to diminish the dignity of the gods, to dedicate and consecrate to them the most shameful things, which a censorious mind would reject, and whose performers your law has judged dishonorable and counted among persons marked with infamy? The gods, no doubt, rejoice in mimes, and that surpassing power, grasped by no human natures, most willingly lends its ears to hearing these, in whose many intertwinings they know they are mixed as material for mockery. They are delighted, as the fact is, by the shaved heads of fools, by the sound and clapping of slaps, by shameful deeds and words, by the redness of huge members. And now, if they see men weakening themselves into feminine softness, some shouting to no purpose, others running about without cause, others, with the faith of friendship kept, beating one another and mutilating themselves with raw-hide gloves, these competing in breath, puffing out their cheeks with wind and clattering with huge voices: they raise their hands to heaven, leap up moved by wonderful things, cry out, and come back into favor with men. If these things bring the immortal gods forgetfulness of their grudges, if they draw the happiest pleasures from comedies, Atellan farces, and mimes, why do you delay, why do you hesitate to say that the gods themselves play, frolic, dance, compose obscene songs, and sway with twisting buttocks? For what difference does it make whether they do these things themselves or count it among their loves and delights that they are done by others?

From where, then, did this perversity of opinions flow, or from what causes did it arise? Chiefly, of course, from this: that human beings, unable to know what God is, what his power is, his nature, substance, and quality, whether he has a form or is bounded by no limitation of body, whether he does anything or not, whether he is always awake or is sometimes released into sleep, whether he runs, sits, walks, or is free from such motions and rest; unable, as I said, to know all these things or to see them clearly by any reasoning, they fell into these opinions, so that they fashioned gods after themselves, and gave them such a nature of actions, feelings, and wishes as their own nature is. But if they saw that they are a creature of no value, and that there is no great difference between themselves and an ant, they would surely stop thinking that they have anything in common with the gods above and would keep the modesty of their lowliness within their own bounds. But now, because they see that they have mouths, eyes, heads, cheeks, ears, noses, and the other portions of limbs and inward parts, they think that the gods too are formed in the same way and have their state in a bodily frame; and because they see that they rejoice at a happy thing and become sad from gloomier causes, they think that the deities too rejoice at more cheerful things and are drawn into contraction of mind by less happy ones; because they are affected by games, they think that the minds of the heavenly ones too are soothed by the delight of games; and because it is pleasant for them to be refreshed by the warmth of baths, they think that the cleanliness of washings is pleasing to the gods above too; we human beings gather the vintage, and they think and believe that the gods gather and conduct their vintages; we have birthdays, and they declare that the heavenly powers have birthdays. And if they could ascribe illnesses, sicknesses, and bodily diseases to the gods, they would not hesitate to call them splenetic, bleary-eyed, and ruptured, because they themselves are often splenetic and bleary-eyed and weighed down by the size of huge hernias.

Come now, since our discussion has been carried forward and brought to this place, let us compare in summary, by setting the individual points against each other, whether you think better about the gods above, or whether we hold a much more honorable and correct opinion, and one which gives and assigns to the divine its proper dignity. And first, you declare that the gods, whom you either think or believe exist in the nature of things, and whose images and forms you have set up in all the temples, were born and begotten by the law of union from the seeds of males and females. But we on the contrary, if indeed they are certainly gods and have the authority, power, and dignity of this name, hold either that they are unbegotten (for this is the religious belief), or, if they have a beginning of birth, it belongs to the supreme God to know in what ways he made them, or how many ages it is since he gave them to begin the everlastingness of their divinity. You think that the gods have sexes, and that some of them are male and others of the female kind; we deny that the heavenly powers are distinguished by sexes, since distinction of this kind was given to earthly animals, which the author of things willed to unite and beget, to replace offspring through desire. You think that they bear the likeness of human beings and are formed with the faces of mortals; we think that images are far removed from them, since form belongs to a mortal body, and if perhaps there is any, we swear that no one can grasp it with undoubted assertion. By you each is said to have crafts like workmen; we laugh when we hear these things, since we think arts are not necessary to gods, and it is established and clear that they were devised as aids to poverty.

You say that some of them cause discords, others bring pestilences, others loves and frenzies, and others preside over wars and rejoice in the shedding of blood; but we on the contrary judge that these things ... are separated from the dispositions of deities; or, if there are any who bring and put these evils on most wretched mortals, we maintain that they are far from the nature of gods and must not be placed under the name of this title. You judge that the deities are angry and disturbed and are slaves and subject to the other feelings of the mind; we think that motions of this kind are foreign to them, for they are functions of fierce kinds and of those who undergo mortality. You think that they rejoice and are glad in the blood of cattle, in the slaughter and immolation of victims, and return into favor with men when their offenses are put to sleep; we think that there is no love of blood in the heavenly ones, nor are they so hard as to cast off their anger when sated with the slaughter of wretched animals. You think that honor is added to the gods by wine and incense and that their dignities increase; we judge it a monstrosity and a portent that any human being believes that a god becomes more august by smoke, or himself thinks he has been supplicated holily and honorably enough by men with a few drops of wine. You are persuaded that the gods are delighted and affected by the ringing of bronze and the sounds of flutes, by horse races and theatrical games, and that their anger once conceived is softened by this satisfaction; we think it unfitting, indeed judge it incredible, that those who have passed through every kind of virtue by a thousand degrees to the summit of perfection should find pleasure and delight in things at which a wise man would laugh, and which seem to hold any charm only for little infants and those brought up in a common and vulgar way.

Since these things are so, and since there is so great a difference between our opinions and yours, where are we impious and you pious, since the reckoning of piety and impiety ought to be weighed from the feelings of the heart? For it is not he who makes himself some image to venerate as a god, or slaughters an innocent animal and burns incense on sacred altars, who is to be held devoted to divine things. It is opinion that makes religion, and a right mind about the gods, so that you think they seek nothing contrary to the honor of their own majesty. For since we see all the things given to them consumed here before our eyes, what else must be said to reach them from us but opinions worthy of the gods and most fitting to their name? These are the surest gifts, these the true sacrifices; for porridges and incense with meat are food for greedy fires and most closely akin to the offerings made to the dead.