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| Similar human origin of the Greek gods, by decree of Theseus. The process by which mortals became deified.
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§10. Similar human origin of the
Greek gods, by decree of Theseus. The process by which mortals became
deified.
But this custom is not a new one, nor did it
begin from the Roman Senate: on the contrary, it had existed previously
from of old, and was formerly practised for the devising of idols. For
the gods renowned from of old among the Greeks, Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo,
Hephæstus, Hermes, and, among females, Hera and Demeter and Athena
and Artemis, were decreed the title of gods by the order of Theseus, of
whom Greek history tells us121
| 121 This is
probably a reference to the ἱερὰ
ἀναγραφὴ of Euhemerus, which Christian apologists commonly took as genuine
history: see §12, note 1. | ; and so the men who
pass such decrees die like men and are mourned for, while those in
whose favour they are passed are worshipped as gods. What a height of
inconsistency and madness! knowing who passed the decree, they pay
greater honour to those who are the subjects of it. 2. And would that
their idolatrous madness had stopped short at males, and that they had
not brought down the title of deity to females. For even women, whom it
is not safe to admit to deliberation about public affairs, they worship
and serve with the honour due to God, such as those enjoined by Theseus
as above stated, and among the Egyptians122
| 122 Cf. de
la Saussaye, §51. Isis, as goddess of the earth, corresponded to
Demeter; as goddess of the dead, to the Κόρη
(Persephone). | Isis
and the Maid and the Younger one123
| 123 The Νεωτέρα is a
puzzle. The most likely suggestion is that of Montfaucon, who refers it
to Cleopatra, who νέα
῎Ισις
ἐχρήματιζε
(Plut. Vit. Anton.). He cites also a coin of M.
Antony, on which Cleopatra is figured as θέα
νεωτέρα.
Several such are given by Vaillant, de Numism. Cleopatr. 189.
She was not the first of her name to adopt this style, see Head
Hist. Num. pp. 716, 717. The text might be rendered ‘Isis,
both the Maid and the Younger.’ | , and among
others Aphrodite. For the names of the others I do not consider it
modest even to mention, full as they are of all kind of grotesqueness.
3. For many, not only in ancient times but in our own also, having lost
their beloved ones, brothers and kinsfolk and wives; and many women who
had lost their husbands, all of whom nature proved to be mortal men,
made representations of them and devised sacrifices, and consecrated
them; while later ages, moved by the figure and the brilliancy of the
artist, worshipped them as gods, thus falling into inconsistency with
nature124
. For whereas their parents had mourned for
them, not regarding them as gods (for had they known them to be gods
they would not have lamented them as if they had perished; for this was
why they represented them in an image, namely, because they not only
did not think them gods, but did not believe them to exist at all, and
in order that the sight of their form in the image might console them
for their being no more), yet the foolish people pray to them as gods
and invest them with the honour of the true God. 4. For example, in
Egypt, even to this day, the death-dirge is celebrated for Osiris and
Horus and Typho and the others. And the caldrons125
| 125 Cf.
Greg. Naz. Or. v. 32, p. 168 c, and Dict. G. and R. Geog. I. p.
783a. |
at Dodona, and the Corybantes in Crete, prove that Zeus is no god but a
man, and a man born of a cannibal father. And, strange to say, even
Plato, the sage admired among the Greeks, with all his vaunted
understanding about God, goes down with Socrates to Peiræus126
| 126 Plat.
Rep. I. ad init. | to worship
Artemis, a figment of man’s art.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
