Book VII.
————————————
1. Since it has been sufficiently shown, as
far as there has been opportunity, how vain it is to form images, the
course of our argument requires that we should next speak as briefly as
possible, and without any periphrasis, about sacrifices, about the
slaughter and immolation of victims, about pure wine, about incense,
and about all the other things which are provided on such
occasions.4764
| 4764
Lit., “in that part of years.” |
For
with respect to this you have been in the
habit of exciting against us
the most violent
ill-will, of calling us
atheists, and inflicting upon
us the
punishment of
death, even by savagely tearing us to pieces with
wild beasts, on the ground that we pay very little respect
4765
| 4765
Lit., “attribute least.” |
to the gods;
which, indeed, we admit that we do, not from contempt or
scorn of the
divine,
4766
but because
we think that such powers require nothing of the
kind, and are not
possessed by desires for such things.
4767
| 4767
[When good old Dutch Boyens came to the pontificate as Hadrian VI., he
was accounted a “barbarian” because he so little
appreciated the art-treasures in the Vatican, on which Leo X. had
lavished so much money and so much devotion. His pious spirit
seemed oppressed to see so many heathen images in the Vatican:
sunt idola ethnicorum was all he could say of them,—a most
creditable anecdote of such a man in such times. See p. 504, n.
6, supra.] |
What, then,4768
| 4768
[In the Edin. edition this is the opening sentence, but the editor
remarks]: “By some accident the introduction to the seventh
book has been tacked on as a last chapter to the sixth, where it is
just as out of place as here it is in keeping.” [I have
restored it to its place accordingly.] |
some one will say, do you think
that no sacrifices at all should be offered? To answer you not
with our own, but with your Varro’s opinion—none. Why
so? Because, he says, the true gods neither wish nor demand
these; while those
4769
| 4769
Lit., “those, moreover.” |
which are made of copper,
earthenware, gypsum, or
marble, care much less for these things, for
they have no feeling; and you are not
blamed4770
| 4770
Lit., “nor is any blame contracted.” |
if you do not offer them, nor do you
win favour if you do. No sounder opinion can be found,
none truer, and
one which any one may
adopt, although he
may be stupid and very hard
to convince. For who is so
obtuse as either to
slay victims in
sacrifice to those who have no
sense, or to think that they should be given to those who are removed
far from them in their nature and blessed state?
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