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| Concerning the Three Kinds of Gods About Which the Pontiff Scævola Has Discoursed.
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Chapter 27.—Concerning the Three
Kinds of Gods About Which the Pontiff Scævola Has
Discoursed.
It is recorded that the very
learned pontiff Scævola179
| 179 Called by Cicero (De
Oratore, i. 39) the most eloquent of lawyers, and the best
skilled lawyer among eloquent men. | had distinguished about three kinds
of gods—one introduced by the poets, another by the philosophers,
another by the statesmen. The first kind he declares to be
trifling, because many unworthy things have been invented by the
poets concerning the gods; the second does not suit states, because
it contains some things that are superfluous, and some, too, which
it would be prejudicial for the people to know. It is no great
matter about the superfluous things, for it is a common saying of
skillful lawyers, “Superfluous things do no harm.”180
| 180 Superflua non
nocent. | But what
are those things which do harm when brought before the multitude?
“These,” he says, “that Hercules, Æsculapius, Castor and
Pollux, are not gods; for it is declared by learned men that these
were but men, and yielded to the common lot of mortals.” What
else? “That states have not the true images of the gods;
because the true God has neither sex, nor age, nor definite
corporeal members.” The pontiff is not willing that the people
should know these things; for he does not think they are false.
He thinks it expedient, therefore, that states should be deceived
in matters of religion; which Varro himself does not even hesitate
to say in his books about things divine. Excellent religion! to
which the weak, who requires to be delivered, may flee for succor;
and when he seeks for the truth by which he may be delivered, it is
believed to be expedient for him that he be deceived. And, truly,
in these same books, Scævola is not silent as to his reason for
rejecting the poetic sort of gods,—to wit, “because they so
disfigure the gods that they could not bear comparison even with
good men, when they make one to commit theft, another adultery; or,
again, to say or do something else basely and foolishly; as
that
three goddesses contested (with each other) the prize of
beauty, and the two vanquished by Venus destroyed Troy; that
Jupiter turned himself into a bull or swan that he might copulate
with some one; that a goddess married a man, and Saturn devoured
his children; that, in fine, there is nothing that could be
imagined, either of the miraculous or vicious, which may not be
found there, and yet is far removed from the nature of the
gods.” O chief pontiff Scævola, take away the plays if thou
art able; instruct the people that they may not offer such honors
to the immortal gods, in which, if they like, they may admire the
crimes of the gods, and, so far as it is possible, may, if they
please, imitate them. But if the people shall have answered thee,
You, O pontiff, have brought these things in among us, then ask the
gods themselves at whose instigation you have ordered these things,
that they may not order such things to be offered to them. For if
they are bad, and therefore in no way to be believed concerning the
majority of the gods, the greater is the wrong done the gods about
whom they are feigned with impunity. But they do not hear thee,
they are demons, they teach wicked things, they rejoice in vile
things; not only do they not count it a wrong if these things are
feigned about them, but it is a wrong they are quite unable to bear
if they are not acted at their stated festivals. But now, if thou
wouldst call on Jupiter against them, chiefly for that reason that
more of his crimes are wont to be acted in the scenic plays, is it
not the case that, although you call him god Jupiter, by whom this
whole world is ruled and administered, it is he to whom the
greatest wrong is done by you, because you have thought he ought to
be worshipped along with them, and have styled him their
king?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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