42. But you will perhaps
say, for this only is left which you may think4541
can be brought forward by you, that the
gods do not wish their
mysteries to be known by men, and that the
narratives were therefore written with allegorical ambiguity. And
whence have you
learned4542
| 4542
Lit., “is it clear to you.” |
that the gods above do not wish their
mysteries to be made
public? whence have you become acquainted with
these? or why are you anxious to unravel them by explaining them as
allegories? Lastly, and finally, what do the gods mean, that
while they do not wish honourable, they allow unseemly, even the basest
things, to be said about them? When we name Attis, says
my
opponent, we mean and speak of the sun; but if Attis is the sun, as
you reckon
him and say, who will that Attis be whom your books
record and declare to have been
born in Phrygia, to have
suffered
certain things, to have done certain things also, whom all the theatres
know in the scenic shows, to whom every year we see
divine honours paid
expressly by name amongst the other
religious ceremonies?
Whether was this name made to pass from the sun to a man, or from a man
to the sun? For if that name is derived in the first instance
from the sun, what,
pray, has the golden sun done to you, that you
should make that name to
belong to him in common with an emasculated
person? But if it is
derived from a goat, and is Phrygian,
of what has the sire of Phaethon, the father of this light and
brightness, been guilty, that he should seem worthy to be named from a
mutilated man, and should become more venerable when designated by the
name of an emasculated body?
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