28. What say ye, O
interpreters of sacred and of divine law?3281
| 3281
So Gelenius, followed by Orelli and others, for the ms., reading divini interpretes viri (instead
of juris)—“O men, interpreters of the sacred and
divine,” which is retained by the 1st ed., Hildebrand, and
Oehler. |
Are they attached to a better
cause who adore the Lares Grundules, the Aii Locutii,
3282
| 3282
Aii Locutii. Shortly before the Gallic invasion,
b.c. 390, a voice was heard at the dead of
night announcing the approach of the Gauls, but the warning was
unheeded. After the departure of the Gauls, the Romans dedicated
an altar and sacred enclosure to Aius Locutius, or
Loquens, i.e., “The Announcing Speaker,” at a spot on
the Via Nova, where the voice was heard. The ms. reads aiaceos boetios, which Gelenius
emended Aios Locutios. |
and the Limentini,
3283
| 3283
So emended by Ursinus for the ms.
libentinos, which is retained in the 1st ed., and by Gelenius,
Canterus, and others. Cf. iv. 9, where Libentina is spoken of as
presiding over lusts. |
than we who
worship God the
Father
of all things, and demand of Him protection in
danger and
distress? They, too, seem to you wary,
wise, most sagacious, and
not worthy of any
blame, who revere Fauni and Fatuæ, and the genii
of
states,
3284
| 3284
As a soul was assigned to each individual at his birth, so a genius was
attributed to a state. The genius of the Roman people was often
represented on ancient coins. |
who
worship
Pausi and Bellonæ:—we are pronounced dull, doltish, fatuous,
stupid, and senseless, who have given ourselves up to
God, at whose
nod
and
pleasure everything which exists has its being, and remains
immoveable by His
eternal decree. Do you put forth this
opinion? Have you
ordained this
law? Do you
publish this
decree, that he be
crowned with the highest honours who shall
worship
your
slaves? that he merit the extreme penalty of the
cross who shall
offer prayers to you yourselves, his masters? In the greatest
states, and in the most
powerful nations,
sacred rites are performed in
the
public name to
harlots, who in old days earned the
wages of
impurity, and prostituted themselves to the
lust of all;
3285
| 3285
Thus the Athenians paid honours to Leæna, the Romans to Acca
Laurentia and Flora. |
and yet
for this there are no swellings of indignation on the part of the
deities.
Temples have been erected with lofty roofs to cats, to
beetles, and to heifers:
3286
| 3286
The superstitions of the Egyptians are here specially referred to. |
—the powers of the deities thus
insulted are
silent; nor are they affected with any feeling of
envy
because they see the
sacred attributes of
vile animals put in rivalry
with them. Are the deities inimical to us alone? To us are
they most unrelenting, because we
worship their
Author, by whom, if
they do exist, they began to be, and to have the essence of their
power
and their
majesty, from whom, having obtained their very
divinity, so
to speak, they feel that they exist, and realize that they are reckoned
among things that be, at whose will and at whose behest they are able
both to
perish and be dissolved, and not to be dissolved and not to
perish?
3287
| 3287
That is, by whose pleasure and at whose command they are preserved from
annihilation. |
For
if we all grant that there is only one great Being, whom in the long
lapse of time nought else precedes, it necessarily follows that after
Him all things were generated and put forth, and that they
burst into
an existence each of its
kind. But if this is unchallenged and
sure, you
3288
| 3288
So Orelli, adopting a conjecture of Meursius, for the
ms. nobis. |
will be
compelled as a consequence to confess, on the one
hand, that the
deities are
created,
3289
| 3289
That is, not self-existent, but sprung from something previously in
being. |
and on the other, that they derive
the spring of their existence from the great source of things.
And if they are
created and brought forth, they are also doubtless
liable to annihilation and to
dangers; but yet they are believed to be
immortal, ever-existent, and subject to no extinction. This is
also a gift from God their Author, that they have been privileged to
remain the same through countless ages, though by nature they are
fleeting, and liable to dissolution.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
