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| That the Gods of the Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life.
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Chapter 6.—That the Gods of the
Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life.
This is the reason why those
divinities quite neglected the lives and morals of the cities and
nations who worshipped them, and threw no dreadful prohibition in
their way to hinder them from becoming utterly corrupt, and to
preserve them from those terrible and detestable evils which visit
not harvests and vintages, not house and possessions, not the body
which is subject to the soul, but the soul itself, the spirit that
rules the whole man. If there was any such prohibition, let it be
produced, let it be proved. They will tell us that purity and
probity were inculcated upon those who were initiated in the
mysteries of religion, and that secret incitements to virtue were
whispered in the ear of the élite; but this is an idle
boast. Let them show or name to us the places which were at any
time consecrated to assemblages in which, instead of the obscene
songs and licentious acting of players, instead of the celebration
of those most filthy and shameless Fugalia95
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Fugalia. Vives is
uncertain to what feast Augustin refers. Censorinus understands
him to refer to a feast celebrating the expulsion of the kings from
Rome. This feast, however (celebrated on the 24th of February),
was commonly called Regifugium. | (well called Fugalia, since they
banish modesty and right feeling), the people were commanded in the
name of the gods to restrain avarice, bridle impurity, and conquer
ambition; where, in short, they might learn in that school which
Persius vehemently lashes them to, when he says: “Be taught, ye
abandoned creatures, and ascertain the causes of things; what we
are, and for what end we are born; what is the law of our success
in life; and by what art we may turn the goal without making
shipwreck; what limit we should put to our wealth, what we may
lawfully desire, and what uses filthy lucre serves; how much we
should bestow upon our country and our family; learn, in short,
what God meant thee to be, and what place He has ordered you to
fill.”96
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Persius, Sat. iii. 66–72. | Let them
name to us the places where such instructions were wont to be
communicated from the gods, and where the people who worshipped
them were accustomed to resort to hear them, as we can point to our
churches built for this purpose in every land where the Christian
religion is received.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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