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| Concerning the Liberty of Seneca, Who More Vehemently Censured the Civil Theology Than Varro Did the Fabulous.
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Chapter 10.—Concerning the
Liberty of Seneca, Who More Vehemently Censured the Civil Theology
Than Varro Did the Fabulous.
That liberty, in truth, which this
man wanted, so that he did not dare to censure that theology of the
city, which is very similar to the theatrical, so openly as he did
the theatrical itself, was, though not fully, yet in part possessed
by Annæus Seneca, whom we have some evidence to show to have
flourished in the times of our apostles. It was in part possessed
by him, I say, for he possessed it in writing, but not in living.
For in that book which he wrote against superstition,248
| 248 Mentioned also by Tertullian,
Apol. 12, but not extant. | he more
copiously and vehemently censured that civil and urban theology
than Varro the theatrical and fabulous. For, when speaking
concerning images, he says, “They dedicate images of the sacred
and inviolable immortals in most worthless and motionless matter.
They give them the appearance of man, beasts, and fishes, and some
make them of mixed sex, and heterogeneous bodies. They call them
deities, when they are such that if they should get breath and
should suddenly meet them, they would be held to be monsters.”
Then, a while afterwards, when extolling the natural theology, he
had expounded the sentiments of certain philosophers, he opposes to
himself a question, and says, “Here some one says, Shall I
believe that the heavens and the earth are gods, and that some are
above the moon and some below it? Shall I bring forward either
Plato or the peripatetic Strato, one of whom made God to be without
a body, the other without a mind?” In answer to which he says,
“And, really, what truer do the dreams of Titus Tatius, or
Romulus, or Tullus Hostilius appear to thee? Tatius declared the
divinity of the goddess Cloacina; Romulus that of Picus and
Tiberinus; Tullus Hostilius that of Pavor and Pallor, the most
disagreeable affections of men, the one of which is the agitation
of the mind under fright, the other that of the body, not a
disease, indeed, but a change of color.” Wilt thou rather
believe that these are deities, and receive them into heaven? But
with what freedom he has written concerning the rites themselves,
cruel and shameful! “One,” he says, “castrates himself,
another cuts his arms. Where will they find room for the fear of
these gods when angry, who use such means of gaining their favor
when propitious? But gods who wish to be worshipped in this
fashion should be worshipped in none. So great is the frenzy of
the mind when perturbed and driven from its seat, that the gods are
propitiated by men in a manner in which not even men of the
greatest ferocity and fable-renowned cruelty vent their rage.
Tyrants have lacerated the limbs of some; they never ordered any
one to lacerate his own. For the gratification of royal lust,
some have been castrated; but no one ever, by the command of his
lord, laid violent hands on himself to emasculate himself. They
kill themselves in the temples. They supplicate with their wounds
and with their blood. If any one has time to see the things they
do and the things they suffer, he will find so many things unseemly
for men of respectability, so unworthy of freemen, so unlike the
doings of sane men, that no one would doubt that they are mad, had
they been mad with the minority; but now the multitude of the
insane is the defence of their sanity.”
He next relates those things
which are wont
to be done in the Capitol, and
with the utmost intrepidity insists that they are such things as
one could only believe to be done by men making sport, or by
madmen. For having spoken with derision of this, that in the
Egyptian sacred rites Osiris, being lost, is lamented for, but
straightway, when found, is the occasion of great joy by his
reappearance, because both the losing and the finding of him are
feigned; and yet that grief and that joy which are elicited thereby
from those who have lost nothing and found nothing are
real;—having I say, so spoken of this, he says, “Still there is
a fixed time for this frenzy. It is tolerable to go mad once in
the year. Go into the Capitol. One is suggesting divine
commands249
| 249 Numina. Another reading is nomina; and with either
reading another translation is admissible; “One is announcing to
a god the names (or gods) who salute him.” | to a god;
another is telling the hours to Jupiter; one is a lictor; another
is an anointer, who with the mere movement of his arms imitates one
anointing. There are women who arrange the hair of Juno and
Minerva, standing far away not only from her image, but even from
her temple. These move their fingers in the manner of
hairdressers. There are some women who hold a mirror. There are
some who are calling the gods to assist them in court. There are
some who are holding up documents to them, and are explaining to
them their cases. A learned and distinguished comedian, now old
and decrepit, was daily playing the mimic in the Capitol, as though
the gods would gladly be spectators of that which men had ceased to
care about. Every kind of artificers working for the immortal
gods is dwelling there in idleness.” And a little after he
says, “Nevertheless these, though they give themselves up to the
gods for purposes superflous enough, do not do so for any
abominable or infamous purpose. There sit certain women in the
Capitol who think they are beloved by Jupiter; nor are they
frightened even by the look of the, if you will believe the poets,
most wrathful Juno.”
This liberty Varro did not enjoy.
It was only the poetical theology he seemed to censure. The
civil, which this man cuts to pieces, he was not bold enough to
impugn. But if we attend to the truth, the temples where these
things are performed are far worse than the theatres where they are
represented. Whence, with respect to these sacred rites of the
civil theology, Seneca preferred, as the best course to be followed
by a wise man, to feign respect for them in act, but to have no
real regard for them at heart. “All which things,” he says,
“a wise man will observe as being commanded by the laws, but not
as being pleasing to the gods.” And a little after he says,
“And what of this, that we unite the gods in marriage, and that
not even naturally, for we join brothers and sisters? We marry
Bellona to Mars, Venus to Vulcan, Salacia to Neptune. Some of
them we leave unmarried, as though there were no match for them,
which is surely needless, especially when there are certain
unmarried goddesses, as Populonia, or Fulgora, or the goddess
Rumina, for whom I am not astonished that suitors have been
awanting. All this ignoble crowd of gods, which the superstition
of ages has amassed, we ought,” he says, “to adore in such a
way as to remember all the while that its worship belongs rather to
custom than to reality.” Wherefore, neither those laws nor
customs instituted in the civil theology that which was pleasing to
the gods, or which pertained to reality. But this man, whom
philosophy had made, as it were, free, nevertheless, because he was
an illustrious senator of the Roman people, worshipped what he
censured, did what he condemned, adored what he reproached,
because, forsooth, philosophy had taught him something
great,—namely, not to be superstitious in the world, but, on
account of the laws of cities and the customs of men, to be an
actor, not on the stage, but in the temples,—conduct the more to
be condemned, that those things which he was deceitfully acting he
so acted that the people thought he was acting sincerely. But a
stage-actor would rather delight people by acting plays than take
them in by false pretences. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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