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| How There is No Reason Which Can Be Shown for the Selection of Certain Gods, When the Administration of More Exalted Offices is Assigned to Many Inferior Gods.
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Chapter 3.—How There is No Reason
Which Can Be Shown for the Selection of Certain Gods, When the
Administration of More Exalted Offices is Assigned to Many Inferior
Gods.
What is the cause, therefore,
which has driven so many select gods to these very small works, in
which they are excelled by Vitumnus and Sentinus, though little
known and sunk in obscurity, inasmuch as they confer the munificent
gifts of life and sensation? For the select Janus bestows an
entrance, and, as it were, a door252
for the seed; the select Saturn
bestows the seed itself; the select Liber bestows on men the
emission of the same seed; Libera, who is Ceres or Venus, confers
the same on women; the select Juno confers (not alone, but together
with Mena, the daughter of Jupiter) the menses, for the growth of
that which has been conceived; and the obscure and ignoble Vitumnus
confers life, whilst the obscure and ignoble Sentinus confers
sensation;—which two last things are as much more excellent than
the others, as they themselves are excelled by reason and
intellect. For as those things which reason and understand are
preferable to those which, without intellect and reason, as in the
case of cattle, live and feel; so also those things which have been
endowed with life and sensation are deservedly preferred to those
things which neither live nor feel. Therefore Vitumnus the
life-giver,253
and Sentinus
the sense-giver,254
ought to
have been reckoned among the select gods, rather than Janus the
admitter of seed, and Saturn the giver or sower of seed, and Liber
and Libera the movers and liberators of seed; which seed is not
worth a thought, unless it attain to life and sensation. Yet
these select gifts are not given by select gods, but by certain
unknown, and, considering their dignity, neglected gods. But if
it be replied that Janus has dominion over all beginnings, and
therefore the opening of the way for conception is not without
reason assigned to him; and that Saturn has dominion over all
seeds, and therefore the sowing of the seed whereby a human being
is generated cannot be excluded from his operation; that Liber and
Libera have power over the emission of all seeds, and therefore
preside over those seeds which pertain to the procreation of men;
that Juno presides over all purgations and births, and therefore
she has also charge of the purgations of women and the births of
human beings;—if they give this reply, let them find an answer to
the question concerning Vitumnus and Sentinus, whether they are
willing that these likewise should have dominion over all things
which live and feel. If they grant this, let them observe in how
sublime a position they are about to place them. For to spring
from seeds is in the earth and of the earth, but to live and feel
are supposed
to be properties even of the
sidereal gods. But if they say that only such things as come to
life in flesh, and are supported by senses, are assigned to
Sentinus, why does not that God who made all things live and feel,
bestow on flesh also life and sensation, in the universality of His
operation conferring also on fœtuses this gift? And what, then,
is the use of Vitumnus and Sentinus? But if these, as it were,
extreme and lowest things have been committed by Him who presides
universally over life and sense to these gods as to servants, are
these select gods then so destitute of servants, that they could
not find any to whom even they might commit those things, but with
all their dignity, for which they are, it seems, deemed worthy to
be selected, were compelled to perform their work along with
ignoble ones? Juno is select queen of the gods, and the sister
and wife of Jupiter; nevertheless she is Iterduca, the conductor,
to boys, and performs this work along with a most ignoble
pair—the goddesses Abeona and Adeona. There they have also
placed the goddess Mena, who gives to boys a good mind, and she is
not placed among the select gods; as if anything greater could be
bestowed on a man than a good mind. But Juno is placed among the
select because she is Iterduca and Domiduca (she who conducts one
on a journey, and who conducts him home again); as if it is of any
advantage for one to make a journey, and to be conducted home
again, if his mind is not good. And yet the goddess who bestows
that gift has not been placed by the selectors among the select
gods, though she ought indeed to have been preferred even to
Minerva, to whom, in this minute distribution of work, they have
allotted the memory of boys. For who will doubt that it is a far
better thing to have a good mind, than ever so great a memory?
For no one is bad who has a good mind;255
but some who are very bad are
possessed of an admirable memory, and are so much the worse, the
less they are able to forget the bad things which they think. And
yet Minerva is among the select gods, whilst the goddess Mena is
hidden by a worthless crowd. What shall I say concerning
Virtus? What concerning Felicitas?—concerning whom I have
already spoken much in the fourth book;256
to whom, though they held them to
be goddesses, they have not thought fit to assign a place among the
select gods, among whom they have given a place to Mars and Orcus,
the one the causer of death, the other the receiver of the
dead.
Since, therefore, we see that even
the select gods themselves work together with the others, like a
senate with the people, in all those minute works which have been
minutely portioned out among many gods; and since we find that far
greater and better things are administered by certain gods who have
not been reckoned worthy to be selected than by those who are
called select, it remains that we suppose that they were called
select and chief, not on account of their holding more exalted
offices in the world, but because it happened to them to become
better known to the people. And even Varro himself says, that in
that way obscurity had fallen to the lot of some father gods and
mother goddesses,257
| 257 The father Saturn, and the mother
Ops, e.g., being more obscure than their son Jupiter and
daughter Juno. | as it fails
to the lot of man. If, therefore, Felicity ought not perhaps to
have been put among the select gods, because they did not attain to
that noble position by merit, but by chance, Fortune at least
should have been placed among them, or rather before them; for they
say that that goddess distributes to every one the gifts she
receives, not according to any rational arrangement, but according
as chance may determine. She ought to have held the uppermost
place among the select gods, for among them chiefly it is that she
shows what power she has. For we see that they have been selected
not on account of some eminent virtue or rational happiness, but by
that random power of Fortune which the worshippers of these gods
think that she exerts. For that most eloquent man Sallust also
may perhaps have the gods themselves in view when he says:
“But, in truth, fortune rules in everything; it renders all
things famous or obscure, according to caprice rather than
according to truth.”258
| 258 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ch.
8. | For they cannot discover a reason
why Venus should have been made famous, whilst Virtus has been made
obscure, when the divinity of both of them has been solemnly
recognized by them, and their merits are not to be compared.
Again, if she has deserved a noble position on account of the fact
that she is much sought after—for there are more who seek after
Venus than after Virtus—why has Minerva been celebrated whilst
Pecunia has been left in obscurity, although throughout the whole
human race avarice allures a far greater number than skill? And
even among those who are skilled in the arts, you will rarely find
a man who does not practise his own art for the purpose of
pecuniary gain; and that for the sake of which anything is made, is
always valued more than that which is made for the sake of
something else. If, then, this selection of
gods has
been made by the judgment of the foolish multitude, why has not the
goddess Pecunia been preferred to Minerva, since there are many
artificers for the sake of money? But if this distinction has
been made by the few wise, why has Virtus been preferred to Venus,
when reason by far prefers the former? At all events, as I have
already said, Fortune herself—who, according to those who
attribute most influence to her, renders all things famous or
obscure according to caprice rather than according to the
truth—since she has been able to exercise so much power even over
the gods, as, according to her capricious judgment, to render those
of them famous whom she would, and those obscure whom she would;
Fortune herself ought to occupy the place of pre-eminence among the
select gods, since over them also she has such pre-eminent power.
Or must we suppose that the reason why she is not among the select
is simply this, that even Fortune herself has had an adverse
fortune? She was adverse, then, to herself, since, whilst
ennobling others, she herself has remained obscure.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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