Through all these, then, the terrestrial power, having received such explanation, is worshiped: as a virgin, and as Hestia the center-bearing; as a childbearer, the nurturer; as Rhea, the stone-forming and mountainous; as Demeter, the verdure-bearing; and as Themis, the giver of oracles — since the seminal reason descending into her is figured forth in Priapus. Of this, the part pertaining to dry fruits is called Kore, and the part pertaining to moist fruits and tree-fruits is called Dionysus; Kore being seized, at the time of sowing, by Pluto, the sun as it travels beneath the earth, while the sufferings of the power of Dionysus, insofar as it begins to sprout beneath the earth in a fresh and fair-born way, and insofar as the power in the flowering stage is embattled, has Attis as its symbol, while the harvest cutting at the time of completion has Adonis.
And the pneumatic power that pervades all things is figuratively represented in Silenus, while the excessive extension proceeding from these powers is represented in the Bacchae, just as, in turn, the impulse that incites toward sexual matters is represented through the Satyrs. It is, then, through these symbols that the terrestrial power is unveiled.
So much, then, for these matters, which I have set forth, necessarily abridged, so that we might not remain ignorant of the solemn teachings of the philosophers. Thus, then, according to what has been stated: Kore is the power of the sown crops, Dionysus the power of tree-fruits, Attis the symbol of the spring flowers, and Adonis the symbol of the ripened fruits.
Why, then, should we deify these things, which have been made by the god of all for the nourishment of the bodies of earthly creatures? And why should it be fitting for us to worship the terrestrial power — we, whose nature of soul is heavenly, rational, and immortal, granted by the God who reigns as king over all, and capable of contemplation with the purified eyes of the mind?
And hearing that Silenus is the pneumatic motion, and the power that pervades all things, showing forth at one time the heavenly revolution through his head, and at another the thickness of the air through his shaggy beard-hair — how could anyone bear to see this figure, whom above all others they ought to have deified, held worthy of no reverent honor at all, while Adonis and Dionysus — that is, plainly, the fruits and tree-fruits — are made gods?
And who could endure hearing the Satyrs and the Bacchae spoken of in solemn terms, when they are, in fact, the shameful and licentious passions found among men — if indeed the Satyrs signified the impulses that incite toward sexual matters, and the Bacchae the excesses that occur in the extension of such things?
But why should we need to refute each point one by one, when it is enough to run through them quickly, so that nothing of these secret teachings may escape our notice, and to summarize the natural philosophy that follows, which the aforementioned writer has set forth, proceeding in the following manner?
The whole water-producing power they called Oceanus, naming its symbol Tethys. Of this whole power, that which produces fresh water is called by them Achelous, and that which produces the sea, Poseidon; while, again, the sea-producing power, insofar as it is generative, is Amphitrite. And the particular powers of fresh waters are called Nymphs, and those of the sea, Nereids.
Naming, in turn, the power of fire Hephaestus, they made his image in human form, and placed upon him a dark blue cap, a symbol of the heavenly revolution, where the fire is in its primal and purest state. But the fire that has been brought down to earth from heaven is weaker, and needs a support and a foundation resting upon matter; for this reason he limps, needing matter as a prop.
And conceiving the sun's power in such a manner, they called it Apollo, from the vibration (palsis) of its rays. Nine Muses sing to him — the sub-lunar sphere, and the seven planets, and one for the sphere of the fixed stars. They placed the laurel upon him, partly because the plant is full of fire and for this reason hateful to demons, and partly because it crackles noisily when burned, as a representation of the god's prophesying.
And insofar as the sun is a warder-off of evil for earthly things, they called it Heracles, from its being 'broken' (klasthai) against the air as it travels from east to west. And they told the myth that he labored through twelve tasks, applying this as the symbol of the division of the zodiac in heaven; and they gave him a club and a lion's skin — the one signifying its irregularity, the other manifesting its strength with respect to the zodiacal sign (Leo).
And of its saving power, Asclepius is the symbol; to whom they have given a staff, as a sign of support and rest for the sick, while a serpent coils around it, bearing a sign of the salvation of body and soul. (And indeed, the natural philosophers, in explaining the universe to us, attributed the creatures that crawl about the earth to the thickest and most earthy substance;) for the serpent is a most breath-like (pneumatic) creature, and sheds the weakness of its body. It is also thought to be most skilled in medicine; for it discovered the remedy for keenness of sight, and is said in myth to know a certain herb of resurrection.
Again, with respect to the circling and cyclical motion by which the power of fire ripens the fruits, the sun is otherwise called Dionysus--that is, the power that produces moist fruits--either from its whirling about, or from the sun's completing its revolution around the heaven. But insofar as it circles about the seasons of the world and is productive of times and seasons, the sun is on this account called Horus.
Again, of its agricultural power, by which the gifts of wealth are given, Pluto is the symbol. Yet it likewise has a destructive power, and for this reason they associate Serapis with Pluto, making the purple robe a symbol of the light that has set beneath the earth, the mutilated scepter a symbol of the power below, and the gesture of the hand a symbol of its passing away into the unseen.
The moon they named Artemis, taking it from selas ('gleam'), as it were 'air-cutter'; and Artemis presides over childbirth, although a virgin, because the power of the new moon is conducive to bringing forth.
Again, the moon is Hecate on account of the transformation it undergoes and its power according to its various shapes; wherefore this power is three-formed. For the new moon it bears the white robe, the golden sandal, and the lit torches; the basket which it carries aloft is a symbol of the working of fruits, which it nurtures as the light increases; while the bronze sandal is, in turn, the symbol of the full moon.
Or again, from the laurel branch one might take her fiery quality, and from the poppy her fecundity, along with the multitude of souls that settle within her as within a city, since the poppy is a symbol of a city. And she bears a bow, just as Artemis does, on account of the sharpness of birth-pangs.
Again, the Fates are referred back to her powers: Clotho to the generative power, Lachesis to the nurturing power, and Atropos to the inexorability of the god.
They also associate with her the generative power of fruits, which is Demeter, implanting that power in her. And the moon contains within itself the power of Kore. They also associate Dionysus with her, both on account of the sprouting of horns and on account of the region of clouds lying beneath her lower parts.
They perceived the power of Cronus to be sluggish, slow, and cold, and therefore attributed to him the power of time; and they depict him standing, gray-haired, to signify that time grows old.
Of the Horae (Seasons), the Olympian ones belong to the sun, who also open the gates of the air; while the earthly ones belong to Demeter, and they carry a basket--one a symbol of the flowers of spring, another of the ears of grain of summer.
Observing the star of Aphrodite to be productive of generation, and the cause of desire and procreation, they fashioned it as a woman on account of generation, and as beautiful, because it is also Hesperus, the star that stands as the fairest in heaven.
And they represented Eros on account of desire. She covers her breasts and her private part, because the power is the cause of procreation and of nurture. She is from the sea, an element thoroughly moist and warm, much agitated and, through this commotion, foaming--hinting thereby at the seminal principle.
Hermes represents the Logos which is productive of all things and interpretive of them. And Hermes depicted erect signifies vigor, and also shows the seminal Logos which pervades all things.
As for the rest, the Logos is composite: in the sun it is Hermes, in the moon it is Hecate, and in the universe as a whole it is Hermopan; for the seminal and creative principle extends over all things. Composite also, and as it were a hybrid, is Hermanubis among the Egyptians. And since the Logos also belonged to the power of love, Eros represents this. Wherefore Eros is the child of Hermes, but an infant, on account of the sudden onsets that come upon him with respect to desires.
They set up Pan as a symbol of the universe, giving his horns as symbols of the sun and moon, and his fawn-skin as a symbol of the stars in heaven, or of the variegated nature of the universe.
Such, then, are the Greek symbols; but he says the Egyptians in turn have such symbols as these: the Demiurge, whom the Egyptians call Kneph, is human in form, dark blue-black in color, holding a girdle and a scepter, and wearing on his head a royal feather-crown--because the Logos is hard to discover, hidden, and not manifest; and because it is life-giving; and because it is kingly; and because it moves intellectually--wherefore the nature of the feather is set upon the head.
They say that this god sends forth an egg from his mouth, from which a god is born whom they themselves call Phtha, but the Greeks call Hephaestus; and the egg represents the world. A sheep is dedicated to this god because the ancients used to drink milk.
Of the world itself they fashioned a representation of this kind: it is an image in human form, with feet joined together, and wrapped from above down to the feet in a many-colored robe; and upon its head it bears a golden sphere, because it does not move from place to place, and on account of the variegated nature of the stars, and because the world is spherical in shape.
They signify the sun, at times, by a man mounted on a boat, the boat resting upon a crocodile. The boat signifies motion in a moist element, and the crocodile signifies drinkable water, in which the sun is borne. The sun thus signified that it makes its circuit through moist and sweet air.
The power of the heavenly earth and of the earthly one they called Isis, on account of 'equality,' from which justice derives; and they say the heavenly is the moon, while the earthly is the fruit-bearing land in which we dwell.
The same thing that Demeter signifies among the Greeks, Isis signifies among the Egyptians; and again what Kore and Dionysus signify among the Greeks, Isis and Osiris signify among the Egyptians. She nourishes and gathers the things upon the earth; while Osiris among the Egyptians represents the fruit-bearing power, which they propitiate with lamentations as it vanishes into the earth in the sowing, and is consumed by us for food.
He is also taken to represent the river-power of the Nile; but when they signify the earthly land, Osiris is taken as the fruit-bearing power, whereas when they signify the heavenly, Osiris is the Nile, which they suppose to be brought down from heaven. This too they mourn, propitiating the power as it wanes and is consumed. And Isis, who in the myths is united with Osiris, is the land of Egypt, for which reason she becomes 'equal,' conceives, and produces the fruits; wherefore Osiris is handed down as both husband, brother, and son of Isis.
In the city of Elephantine an image is honored, molded indeed, but of human form and seated, dark-blue in color, possessing the head of a ram, and a royal crown, having goat's horns upon which rests a disk-shaped circle. It sits with a clay vessel placed beside it, upon which a man is being fashioned. This signifies, by having a ram's face and a goat's horns, the conjunction of sun and moon in the sign of the Ram; and its dark-blue color, that the moon at conjunction draws up water.
The second light of the moon is consecrated in the city of Apollo. Its symbol is a man with a hawk's face, subduing with a spear Typhon, who is likened to a hippopotamus. The image is white in color, its whiteness representing the moon's being illuminated, and its hawk-face representing its being illuminated by the sun and receiving spirit. For they consecrate the hawk to the sun; and the hawk is their symbol of light and spirit, on account of its swift movement and its soaring aloft, where the light is. The hippopotamus signifies the western pole, because it swallows into itself those who circle around.
In this city, the god honored is Horus. The city of Eileithyia serves the third light; its wooden image is fashioned into a flying vulture, whose plumage is made up of precious stones. Its vulture-shape signifies the moon as generative of winds; for they suppose the vulture conceives from the wind, holding that all vultures are female.
In the Eleusinian mysteries, the hierophant is arrayed in the image of the Demiurge, the torch-bearer in that of the sun; and the one at the altar in that of the moon, while the sacred herald is arrayed in that of Hermes.
A man, too, has been received among the Egyptians into their sacred rites. For Anabis is a village of Egypt, in which a man is worshiped, and sacrifice is offered to him, and the victims are burned upon altars for him; and shortly after, he eats what has been prepared for him as though for a man.
That they do not, in fact, regard the animals as gods, but made these into images and symbols of the gods, is shown by the fact that in many places they offer up cattle to the gods and sacrifice oxen in the sacred months and in acts of worship toward the gods. For to the sun and moon they consecrated cattle.
But the one dedicated to the sun in Heliopolis, called Mnevis, is the greatest of oxen, exceedingly black, chiefly because the abundant sun also blackens human bodies. He has a tail different from other oxen and his whole body bristling backward, just as the sun makes its course in the direction opposite to the pole; and he has the largest testicles, since sexual desire arises from heat, and the sun is said to impregnate nature.
To the moon they dedicated a bull, whom they name Apis, likewise exceedingly black beyond the others, bearing signs of both sun and moon, since the light of the moon too comes from the sun. The sign of the sun is the blackness of his body and the beetle under his tongue; the symbol of the moon is a mark both half-cut and crescent-shaped.
Let these things be excerpted by me from the writing of the aforementioned man, so that nothing of the secret doctrines of Greek and Egyptian theology alike might escape our notice--a theology from which we confess ourselves to be apostates and fugitives, having renounced even these things by sound judgment and reasoning.
For that boastful voice shall not astound me, which says, 'I will speak to those for whom it is right; but shut the doors, you profane!' We, at any rate, are not the profane, but rather those who have declared such shameful and unseemly myths about beetles and irrational beasts to be the thoughts of a theologian's wisdom--men who, in the words of the wondrous Apostle, 'professing themselves to be wise, became fools'; because indeed 'they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.'
But since they referred the whole secret and rather mystical account concerning these matters, by way of metaphor, to incorporeal powers, so that their deification would seem no longer to extend to the visible parts of the world, but to certain invisible and incorporeal powers, let us consider whether, even so, one must revere a single divine power, rather than suppose there are many.
For it is not because many shapes, parts, and members have been fashioned within one body that we ought to suppose we have that many souls, nor to think there are that many makers and craftsmen of the body; rather, a single soul moves the whole body, and a single creative power fashions the whole living creature.
So too, then, in the case of the whole universe--being one, and composed of a single corporeal matter, yet divided into very many parts, and displaying a single natural sympathy among all its members, a blending and mixture of the elements within it, and their alterations and mutual transformations into one another, while the whole and entirety exhibits one world and one harmony--one ought not to suppose many creative powers, but should theologize only the power of God, and the wisdom of God, which alone truly exists.
He, again, transfers the Egyptian myths in turn to incorporeal powers, the wisest of men thereby unwittingly deceiving himself. For you have heard before how he acknowledged that Chaeremon and several others held that the Egyptians recognized nothing prior to the visible worlds, and placed the Egyptians among those who posit nothing beyond the physical in their doctrine of first principles; for these men, he says, interpret everything in physical terms, and nothing in terms of incorporeal and living substances.
If, then, according to their own testimony, it was characteristic of the Egyptians to refer nothing to incorporeal and living substances, but to transfer everything mythologized by them concerning the gods to the physical parts of the world, why then, inventing sophistries from the start, do you ascribe to the Egyptians things in no way proper to them, claiming that they refer their theology to incorporeal powers? These things, then, must be censured in general.
And in particular cases too, I think that the refutation of their forced interpretation needs no lengthy dismantling. For even if one should pass over the Egyptian nonsense and their much garrulous foolery, and turn instead to the natural philosophies of the wise Greeks, who among sensible men would not straightway censure those who attempt to misinterpret such things?
Let Zeus, then, no longer be the fiery and ethereal substance, as the ancients supposed according to Plutarch, but the supreme Mind itself, the Demiurge of all things, the vivifier of all. How, then, is Cronus--whom they say is Time--to be his father, and Rhea his mother, whom the interpreter said to be the rocky and mountainous power? For as for Hera, calling her the air, or rather the ether, I do not know how he can say she is both sister and wife of the Mind that fashions the world and gives life to all things.
But let Leto again be called a kind of 'Lethe' (forgetfulness), on account of the insensibility that occurs, as they say, in sleep, and because forgetfulness accompanies souls that have come to be under the moon. How, then, could Forgetfulness be the mother of sun and moon, seeing that Apollo and Artemis, the children of Leto, have been transferred to sun and moon?
And why should one worship Rhea or Demeter as a god, if the one is said to bear the symbols of rocky and mountainous earth, and the other of level plain? And in allegorizing Kore as 'satiety,' by what reasoning do they suppose that she too must be honored with a title of reverence?
And why, rather, should the seed-bearing power, and the generation of tree-fruits, or the flowers that appear beforehand in spring and wither away before coming to full fruition, or the symbols of the cutting-off of ripe fruits--naming them Dionysus, Attis, and Adonis--be reckoned as gods that must be worshiped, rather than that mankind, for whose use and nourishment the Demiurge-God of all things has provided all these things, should be honored above all of them?
Passing on from these matters, you may likewise refute the rest of their noble natural philosophy in the same manner, justly rebuking for shamelessness those who declare--come now!--that the sun itself is Apollo, and again Heracles, and yet again Dionysus, and likewise Asclepius.
For how could the same being be both father and son, both Asclepius and Apollo? And how, again, could it be transferred to Heracles, if indeed Heracles is acknowledged by them to have been born of the mortal woman Alcmene? And how could the sun become mad and slaughter its own children, seeing that these very things have been recorded of Heracles?
But they say that Heracles, in performing his twelve labors, bears the symbol of the division of the zodiacal circle in the heavens, through which they say the sun makes its circuit. Who, then, could still be Eurystheus, who--like Heracles--commands the sun to carry out its labors? And how could the sun be identified with the fifty daughters of Thestius and the multitude of the remaining captive women, with whom tradition holds Heracles had intercourse, from whom mortal children were born to him and prolonged the succession of his line to great length? And who could the Centaur be, with whose blood Deianira stained the tunic and thereby brought upon the sun--as she did upon Heracles--that well-known calamity?
But no longer let the sun be Heracles for them; let it be Dionysus instead. And what has this to do with Dionysus? one might reasonably ask. For who is the one who bore him--whether one should say Semele, or Persephone? And how could Dionysus be at once both the sun and the power that sprouts forth in moist fruits and tree-fruits? What would become of the multitude of women who campaigned together with him? And who, corresponding to the sun--just as Ariadne corresponds to Dionysus--would there be? And why should Dionysus, transferred to the sun, be the provider of wine rather than of grain and pulse and all the fruits that come from the earth?
And if, again, the sun is for them Asclepius, how is it that he is thunderbolted by Zeus on account of sordid love of shameful gain, as the Boeotian lyric poet Pindar says somewhat as follows: 'Gold, appearing in his hands as arrogant payment, turned even him aside... but the son of Cronus, hurling with his hands, swiftly took away the breath from both their breasts, and the flashing thunderbolt inflicted death.'
And who, moreover, are the Asclepiadae descended from the sun, who have been preserved to a long span of life and have established a generation of mortal men similar to that of all other men? Yet again, as though by a contrivance, whenever they wish to escape the shameful and mythical narratives about the gods, their explanation runs back to the sun and moon and the remaining parts of the world.
For if, according to them, Hephaestus was fire and the hot power, Poseidon the moist substance, Hera the air, and the earth again--the mountainous and rocky being Rhea, the level and fruitful being Demeter--and Kore the seed-bearing power, and Dionysus the power that produces the growth of tree-fruits; and the sun Apollo along with those already listed, and the moon at one time Artemis, at another Athena, and again Hecate and Eileithyia--then they are convicted of theologizing, once more, the creation instead of the Creator, and the fashioning of the universe rather than its Fashioner--doing so most precariously, most perilously, and to the great harm of their own heads.
But if they will say that they do not deify the visible bodies of sun, moon, and stars, nor the sensible parts of the world, but rather the invisible powers within these that belong to him who is over all things (for they say that God, being one, fills all things with powers of every kind, and pervades all things, and presides over all things, being incorporeally and invisibly present in all and pervading all, and that they fittingly worship him through the things that have been described)--why then, indeed, do they not, having renounced the shameful and unseemly myths about the gods as lawless and impious, and having made away with the very books concerning these things, as containing impious and licentious matter, hymn the one and only invisible God nakedly and purely and without any shameful entanglement?
For this is what those who have come to know the truth ought to do--not to drag down and cast the reverend appellation of God into shameful and passionate secret discourses; nor to shut themselves up in little houses and dark recesses and the buildings of men, as though they would find God within; nor to suppose that they honor the divine powers in wooden images made of lifeless matter; nor, indeed, to think that by the earthy vapors of blood and gore, and by the blood of dead animals, they perform acts pleasing to God.
Freed from all these bonds of error, the wise and star-gazing philosophers ought surely to have shared the theory of nature ungrudgingly with all men, proclaiming to all, almost nakedly, that they should not marvel at the things that appear, but should revere only the unseen Demiurge of the things that appear, and should worship his invisible and incorporeal powers invisibly and incorporeally--not kindling fire, nor sacrificing ram and bull, nor even thinking to honor the divine by wreaths, wooden images, and temple buildings, but doing this by purified reasonings and by right and true doctrines, in passionlessness of soul and in likeness to him, so far as possible, through virtue.
But no one ever, neither barbarian nor Greek, began this truth for all mankind, save our Savior alone; who, having proclaimed to all the nations an escape from their ancient error, procured for all, ungrudgingly, conversion and true piety toward the true and only God of all things. But those who otherwise boasted of the highest philosophy in life--as the divine Apostle says--'having known God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.'
After, then, such long and elaborate philosophy, and after such solemn discourse on the heavens and on nature, falling headlong from on high, as it were from a most lofty mountain peak, they were swept along together with the multitudes and mingled themselves with the ancient polytheistic error, doing the same things as the many--pretending, by sacrificing and prostrating themselves before wooden images, to give glory to the gods--thereby increasing, and confirming yet more, the popular notion of mythical tales concerning the gods.
How, then, could they not be manifest to everyone--men who solemnly discourse on natural philosophy, and who, in mere words, dress up shameful things by the perversion of truth, while by their very deeds they establish the mythical error and the universal superstition? And this is not even yet the most astonishing thing, when they even record their very gods as agreeing with the myths told about them.
Listen, then, to how Apollo himself teaches concerning himself in a hymn which he issued about himself, confessing that he was born on the island of Delos by Leto; and again Asclepius, in Tricca, just as Hermes too confesses that he was born from Maia.
Porphyry writes these things too in the work he entitled Concerning the Philosophy to be Derived from Oracles, where he also recorded the oracles which run something like this: 'O great joy to all mortals, who sprang forth from the sacred birth-pangs of a holy mother.'
To which he adds: 'But when the holy birth-pang seized Leto entirely, as the twin offspring stirred within the sacred enclosures, the earth stood still, the air stood still, the island grew rigid, the wave grew rigid; and up you leapt, O Lycorean seer, archer Phoebus, king of the oracle-speaking tripods.'