9. So, if some ox, or any
animal you please, which is slain to mitigate and appease the fury of
the deities, were to take a man’s voice and speak these4807
words:
“Is this, then, O
Jupiter, or whatever
god thou art, humane or
right, or should it be considered at all just, that when another has
sinned I should be
killed, and that you should allow satisfaction to be
made to you with my
blood, although I never did you wrong, never
wittingly or unwittingly did
violence to your
divinity and
majesty,
being, as thou knowest, a
dumb creature, not departing from
4808
the
simplicity of my
nature, nor inclined to be
fickle in my
4809
| 4809
Lit., “to varieties of manifold.” |
manners? Did I ever celebrate your games with too little
reverence and care?
did I drag forward a dancer so that thy
deity was offended? did I
swear
falsely by thee? did I sacrilegiously
steal your property and plunder
your
temples? did I uproot the most
sacred groves, or pollute and
profane some
hallowed places by founding private
houses? What,
then, is the reason that the
crime of another is atoned for with my
blood, and that my
life and
innocence are made to pay for
wickedness
with which I have nothing to do? Is it because I am a base
creature, and am not
possessed of reason and
wisdom, as these declare
who call themselves men, and by their ferocity make themselves
beasts?
4810
Did not
the same
nature both
beget and form me from the same beginnings?
Is it not one
breath of
life which sways both them and me? Do I
not respire and see, and am I not affected by the other senses just as
they are? They have livers, lungs,
hearts, intestines,
bellies;
and do not I have as many members? They
love their young, and
come together to
beget children; and do not I both take care to procure
offspring, and
delight in it when it has been begotten? But they
have reason, and utter articulate sounds; and how do they know whether
I do what I do for my own reasons, and whether that sound which I give
forth is my
kind of words, and is understood by us alone? Ask
piety whether it is more just that I should be slain, that I should be
killed, or that man should be pardoned and be
safe from
punishment for
what he has done? Who formed
iron into a
sword? was it not
man? Who
brought disaster upon races; who imposed
slavery
upon
nations? was it not man? Who mixed
deadly draughts, and gave
them to his
parents,
brothers,
wives,
friends? was it not man?
Who found out or devised so many forms of
wickedness, that they can
hardly be related in ten
thousand chronicles of years, or
even
of days? was it not man? Is not this, then, cruel, monstrous, and
savage? Does it not seem to you, O
Jupiter,
unjust and barbarous
that I should be
killed, that I should be slain, that you may be
soothed, and the
guilty find impunity? ”
It has been established that sacrifices are
offered in vain for this purpose then, viz., that the angry deities may
be soothed; since reason has taught us that the gods are not angry at
any time, and that they do not wish one thing to be destroyed, to be
slain for another, or offences against themselves to be annulled by the
blood of an innocent creature.4811
| 4811
[This very striking passage should lead us to compare the widely
different purpose of Judaic sacrifices. See Elucidation VI.,
infra.] |
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
