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| Chapter XVII.—The Names of the Gods and Their Images are But of Recent Date.
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Chapter XVII.—The Names of the Gods and Their Images are But of Recent Date.
An apologist must adduce more precise arguments than I
have yet given, both concering the names of the gods, to show that they
are of recent origin, and concerning their images, to show that they are,
so to say, but of yesterday. You yourselves, however, are thoroughly
acquainted with these matters, since you are versed in all departments
of knowledge, and are beyond all other men familiar with the ancients.
I assert, then, that it was Orpheus, and Homer, and Hesiod who746
| 746 We here follow the text of Otto;
others place the clause in the following sentence. | gave
both genealogies and names to those whom they call gods. Such, too,
is the testimony of Herodotus.747
“My opinion,” he says, “is that
Hesiod and Homer preceded me by four hundred years, and no more; and
it was they who framed a theogony for the Greeks, and gave the gods
their names, and assigned them their several honours and functions,
and described their forms.” Representations of the gods,
again, were not in use at all, so long as statuary, and painting,
and sculpture were unknown; nor did they become common until Saurias
the Samian, and Crato the Sicyonian, and Cleanthes the Corinthian,
and the Corinthian damsel748
| 748 Or,
Koré. It is doubtful whether or not this should be regarded as a
proper name. | appeared, when drawing in outline was invented
by Saurias, who sketched a horse in the sun, and painting by Crato,
who painted in oil on a whitened tablet the outlines of a man and woman;
and the art of making figures in relief (κοροπλαθική)
was invented by the damsel,749
| 749
Or, Koré. It is doubtful whether or not this should be regarded
as a proper name. | who, being in love with a person, traced
his shadow on a wall as he lay asleep, and her father, being delighted
with the exactness of the resemblance (he was a potter), carved out the
sketch and filled it up with clay: this figure is still preserved at
Corinth. After these, Dædalus and Theodorus the Milesian further
invented sculpture and statuary. You perceive, then, that the time since
representations of form and the making of images began is so short, that
we can name the artist of each particular god. The image of Artemis at
Ephesus, for example, and that of Athenâ (or rather of Athelâ,
for so is she named by those who speak more in the style of the mysteries;
for thus was the ancient image made of the olive-tree called), and the
sitting figure of the same goddess, were made by Endœus, a pupil
of Dædalus; the Pythian god was the work of Theodorus and Telecles;
and the Delian
god and Artemis are due to the art of
Tectæus and Angelio; Hera in Samos and in Argos came from the hands
of Smilis, and the other statues750
| 750
The reading is here doubtful. | were by Phidias; Aphrodité
the courtezan in Cnidus is the production of Praxiteles; Asclepius
in Epidaurus is the work of Phidias. In a word, of not one of these
statues can it be said that it was not made by man. If, then, these
are gods, why did they not exist from the beginning? Why, in sooth,
are they younger than those who made them? Why, in sooth, in order to
their coming into existence, did they need the aid of men and art? They
are nothing but earth, and stones, and matter, and curious art.751
| 751 [There were no images or pictures,
therefore, in the earliest Christian places of prayer.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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