The occasion now calls for us, in this fourth book of the Evangelical Preparation, to refute the third kind of the polytheistic error, from which we have been set free by the power and benevolence of our Redeemer and Savior.
For since they divide the whole kind of their theology, more generically, into three parts — into the mythical, dramatized by the poets; the physical, invented by the philosophers; and that which is upheld by the laws and preserved in each city and country — and since two of these parts have already been set forth by us in the books before this one: namely, the historical, which they call mythical, and that which rises above the myths, which they call physical or theoretical or by whatever other name they prefer — it would now be time to go through the third on the present occasion. This is the kind established according to cities and countries, called by them 'political'; and it is especially upheld by the laws, as being at once ancient and ancestral, and as displaying of itself the excellence of the powers spoken of in theology.
There is much talk among them, then, of oracular shrines and oracles, of cures and healings of all sorts of afflictions, and of punitive visitations upon the impious. Claiming to have had experience of these things, they have thoroughly persuaded themselves that by honoring the divine they act justly, while we commit the greatest impiety, holding in no account such manifest and beneficent powers, and openly transgressing the law — whereas each people ought to revere its ancestral customs, not disturb what should remain undisturbed, but keep in line and follow the piety of their forefathers, and not meddle out of a love of innovation. For this reason, they say, death has fittingly been fixed by the laws as the penalty for those who offend in this matter.
The first kind of theology, then, being historical and mythical, let each of the poets set forth as he pleases; likewise the second, that of the philosophers, expressed through the more physical allegory of the myths. But the third — which has been established by law as something to be honored and safeguarded by the rulers, being at once ancient and political — let neither poet, they say, nor philosopher disturb; rather, let everyone in the countryside and in the cities remain in line with the institutions that have prevailed from of old, obeying the ancestral laws.
Against these claims, then, it is now time to give our own account, and to render a defense of the evangelical enterprise of our Savior, which proclaims the contrary of what has been said, and legislates against the laws of all the nations.
That the lifeless images are not gods is evident even to themselves; and that their mythical theology contains no account that is dignified or befitting the divine has been demonstrated in the first book — just as, likewise, it has been shown in the second and third books that the more physical and philosophical interpretation of the myths does not contain for them an unforced explanation either.
Let us, then, examine the third: what we ought to think about the powers that lurk within the images — whether they are, in character, refined and good and truly divine, or the very opposite of all these things.
Now perhaps someone else, pursuing the argument concerning these matters, might maintain that the whole thing is simply delusion, and the contrivances and impostures of charlatan men, entirely dismissing the opinion that what is reported about it belongs to a god — or even to an evil demon. For the compositions and the wording of the oracles, he would say, are the fabrications not of untalented men but of men very cleverly contrived for deception, composed in an ambiguous and middle manner, so as not unskillfully to fit either of the outcomes expected from the result; while the marvels that deceive the majority through certain wonders are attached to natural causes.
For there are, he would say, many kinds of roots and herbs and plants and fruits and stones, of both dry and moist matter, possessing powers of every sort in the nature of the universe — some repellent and driving away certain things, others naturally apt to attract and draw together, others able to separate and disperse, to condense and to contract, still others to relax and moisten and rarefy; some again preserve, while others kill; some transform utterly and alter the present state, at one time changing it this way, at another that way, some acting over a longer time, others over a short time; some are effective upon a multitude, others only upon a few; some take the lead while others follow upon certain conditions; some run together with others, growing and decaying together with them. Indeed, some are productive of health, not far removed from the science of medicine, while others prove disease-causing and poisonous. Some things, moreover, occur by natural necessities, waxing and waning together with the moon; and there exist countless antipathies among animals and plants and roots, and many fumigations that induce stupor and sleep, while others produce hallucinations. Not least do the very locations and places in which these things are performed contribute their share; instruments and equipment, too, are skillfully prepared beforehand for them by their art from far off; and many accomplices in the trickery are enlisted from outside, who busily inquire into the newcomers and each person's needs and what he has come to request; much, too, is concealed within the inner sanctuaries and recesses of the temples inaccessible to the many; and darkness itself contributes not a little to their scheme; and, not least, the preconceived assumption itself and the superstition of those who approach them as if they were gods, together with the opinion already held in advance from their ancestors.
Let there be added to this also the stupidity of mind found in the majority, the feebleness of reasoning and lack of scrutiny among the crowd; and, conversely, the cunning and malicious cleverness of those who busy themselves with this base art; and the deceitful and unscrupulous character of the charlatans, who at one time promise beforehand to each person what is pleasing to him and, by good hopes, attend to the present situation, and at another time make conjectures about the future and divine into what is uncertain, obscuring the sense of the oracles with ambiguous phrasing and obscurities, so that no one may understand what has been declared, and so that by the unclarity of what was said they may escape refutation.
Many things happen also through certain other deceptions and wonder-working devices, incantations of some sort being employed together with what takes place, accompanied by some meaningless and barbaric utterance, so that the things brought about by them — which are nothing whatever in themselves — may seem to be taken seriously on that account. But most of all, even among those thought to proceed from education, the majority are struck with astonishment at the very compositions of the oracles themselves, which are well embellished in the arrangement of their words, well puffed up with the grandiosity of high-sounding language, fashioned moreover with much boastful exaggeration and the counterfeit pomp of divine inspiration, and which through their ambiguous utterance deceive almost the entire populace.
As for those of their oracles which have escaped ambiguity, being uttered not by foreknowledge of the future but according to some mere conjecture, countless of these — or rather almost all of them — have often been caught falling short of their prediction, the outcome of events turning out contrary to what was declared; unless, rarely, one out of countless cases, occurring by some coincidental chance, or according to the conjectured expectation of the future, was thought to make the oracle come true.
This is exactly what you might see them chiefly proclaiming, engraving on stelae and shouting to every corner of the earth: that, say, so-and-so many oracles missed their mark — of this they are entirely unwilling to make any mention — while going on and on, up and down, about the fact that in this one case, one out of countless oracles happened to come true; just as if someone, upon two men drawing the same lot out of ten thousand, should marvel — if it should ever happen that they both hit upon the same number at once — as though it were by divination and foreknowledge that the same identical number came round to fall to both of them.
This is how matters stand: out of ten thousand upon ten thousand oracles delivered, one happens by chance to come true once; and it is the man who possesses nothing solid in the depth of his soul who, upon observing this, is utterly astonished at the oracle — whereas it would have been far better for him, reasoning soundly and not behaving foolishly, to consider how many others the aforementioned oracles have been the cause of death for, and of civil strife and wars, and to examine the histories of the ancients, and to observe that not even in that age did they display any divine work of virtue whatsoever — at the very time when Greek affairs were flourishing, and those oracles once so celebrated were still standing (though now they exist no longer), esteemed with all foresight and diligence by the local peoples, who, according to their ancestral laws and mysteries, revered and cultivated them.
And indeed it was precisely then, in the calamities of wars, that they were most clearly convicted of being able to do nothing; for, being unable to render help, those noble oracle-givers were caught out through the ambiguity of their oracles, having cunningly deceived those who took refuge with them — as we shall demonstrate at the fitting time, showing how they even incited those who consulted them into war against one another, and how they gave answers about matters of no serious importance, and how they led their inquirers astray, playing games with them through their oracles, and how they concealed their own ignorance beneath the darkness of obscurity.
Consider also for yourself, having inquired, how oftentimes, having promised to the sick strength and life and safety, and then being believed to be gods indeed, and having exacted great fees for this divinely-inspired trade, not long afterward they were exposed for what they were — men and charlatans, proven to be no gods — while no fortunate outcome befell those who had been deceived.
What need is there to say that the marvelous seers did not even provide their own beneficial help to their own fellow-inhabitants, those dwelling within the same city, but that one could see there countless sick, crippled, and bodily maimed persons? Why, then, did they hold out good hopes to those coming from outside and from far-off foreign lands, but no longer to their own fellow-townsmen — to whom, of all people, as their own friends and fellow citizens, they ought to have provided the good arising from the presence of the gods? It was because they could more easily deceive strangers, who were unacquainted with their trickery, but no longer their intimates, who were not unfamiliar with the art and were privy to the game being played in what was performed.
In this way the whole thing was not divine, nor superior to human contrivance; so that even in the greatest calamities — those hanging from above over the impious, sent by the all-sovereign God — their temples, together with their votive offerings and images, suffered utter destruction and sudden collapse.
For where, tell me, is that shrine at Delphi, celebrated among all the Greeks from time immemorial? Where is the Pythian? The Clarian? Where too is the Dodonean shrine? The story holds that the Delphic oracle was burned down three times by the Thracians, its divination proving of no use for knowledge of the future, nor was the Pythian able even to protect his own property. The same thing is recorded to have befallen the Capitol at Rome in the time of the Ptolemies, in which period it is also said that the temple of Vesta at Rome suffered a fire; and around the time of Julius Caesar they record that the great Olympic statue of the Greeks, the one at Olympia itself, was struck by lightning from the god; and at another time, they say, the temple of Capitoline Zeus was burned; and that the Pantheon was destroyed by lightning, and likewise the one at Alexandria was consumed by fire.
Recorded testimonies of these events are extant among the Greeks themselves. It would be a long discourse were one to enumerate each case, in an attempt to show that these marvelous oracle-givers have been found unable even to defend their own shrines; and those who proved of no use even to themselves in their calamities could hardly ever, one would think, be of assistance to others.
One further point, added to what has been said, would prove the greatest point of all to have observed: that already among the most god-inspired themselves — the very ones who were above all the hierophants, theologians, and prophets — a great many, not only long ago but even recently, in our own time, having been made to suffer for the sake of this theosophy, revealed under torments and torture before Roman tribunals the whole delusion to be the work of men's deceits, confessing that it was entirely a contrived trickery; and they even set down in writing, in statements released by themselves in their memoranda, the whole manner of the contrivance and the methods of the base art.
For this reason, then, paying the fitting penalty for their pernicious delusion, they uncovered the whole matter, confirming by their own deeds the proof of what has been said. And what sort of men were these? Do not think them to have been some cast-off and obscure persons. Some of them set out from this same admirable and noble philosophy, of the men who wear the philosopher's cloak and have raised their eyebrows in that other manner of solemn pretension; others were caught among the officials of the city of Antioch — the very ones who most of all made themselves conspicuous by their outrages against us during the persecution in our time. We know, too, of a philosopher and prophet in one who endured the same experiences as those described, at Miletus.
Gathering these facts, and yet more besides, one might say that the causes behind the oracular shrines in the various cities are neither gods nor even demons, but rather the delusion and deceit of charlatan men.
And indeed, among the Greeks themselves there were whole schools, distinguished through philosophy, that championed this very opinion — such as those from Aristotle and all the successive members of the Peripatos, the Cynics, and the Epicureans, whom I especially have marveled at, seeing how, though reared in Greek customs from their very swaddling clothes, and having received from their fathers as children the belief that the beings in question were gods, they were not caught by either snare, but forcefully refuted the celebrated oracular shrines and the divinatory practices pursued by all as bearing no truth whatsoever, and declared them to be useless, and rather to be positively harmful.
Since there are countless such men, and since many have accomplished the overthrow of divination through numerous arguments, I judge that it is sufficient for the present purpose, for the sake of testimony to what has been said, to cite even a single quotation from one of these, one that answers the arguments constructed by Chrysippus concerning fate on the basis of the predictions of divination. The author, then, writes against him, refuting the notion that fate is rightly inferred from divinations, and that in most cases the divinations of the Greeks prove false, and that only rarely by coincidence does something come to pass for them, and that their prediction is useless and even harmful. Listen, then, to what he says, word for word.
He brings forward also another proof of this sort in the aforementioned book. For he (Chrysippus) says that the predictions of the seers would not be true unless all things were encompassed by fate — a statement which itself is full of much simplicity. For he argues as though it were self-evident that all the predictions of the so-called seers come to pass, or rather as though this point were more likely to be granted by someone on the basis of the premise that all things happen according to fate, and as though it, too, were not equally liable to be declared false — since plain evidence shows the contrary, namely that not all the things predicted come to pass, but rather that most of them do not.
Thus Chrysippus has brought us his proof, establishing each of the two points by means of the other. For he wishes to demonstrate that all things happen according to fate from the fact that divination exists, while he could not otherwise demonstrate that divination exists unless he first assumed that all things come about according to fate.
What more defective mode of proof than this could there be? For the fact that some of the things predicted by seers plainly come to pass would not be a sign that divination is a science, but rather that the outcomes happen by chance to coincide with the predictions — which indicates to us no science whatsoever.
For we would not call a man a skilled archer who once hit the target but missed it many times; nor would we call a man a physician who kills the majority of those he treats but occasionally manages to save one; nor at all do we call something a science if it does not achieve success in all, or at least in most, of the works proper to it.
That so-called seers fail in most of their predictions the whole life of mankind would testify; and these very men themselves, who profess the art of divination, do not help themselves through it in the needs of daily life, but instead rely at times on their own private judgment, and on the counsel and cooperation of those reputed to possess experience in each particular matter.
But concerning the fact that this thing we have taken up to call divination does not truly exist, we shall render a fuller account elsewhere, setting forth also the views held by Epicurus on this matter. For the present, we shall add only this much to what has been said: that the fact that the so-called seers sometimes speak truly in their predictions would be the work not of science but of a merely fortuitous cause — for we have already defined, having distinguished the clear conceptions we hold under each name, that the work of chance is called such not when one never attains the thing proposed, but when one does not attain it always, nor for the most part, nor from science, whenever one does at some point happen to succeed. Furthermore, even if it were, by hypothesis, true that divination is capable of theoretically foreseeing and foretelling all future events, it would follow from this only that all things happen according to fate, but its usefulness and benefit to life would never thereby be demonstrated. This is why Chrysippus seems, above all, to be praising divination in song rather than proving it.
For what benefit would it be to us to learn in advance the difficulties that are absolutely certain to happen, which it would not even be possible to guard against? For how could anyone guard against things that come about according to fate? So then divination would be of no benefit to us at all — rather it would even prove to work toward some harm, providing men with needless grief in advance concerning difficulties, foretold beforehand, that must necessarily come to pass.
Nor, again, would anyone say that the foretelling of future goods provides an equal measure of joy; for man is by nature not so constituted as to rejoice over expected goods to the same degree that he is distressed over evils. Besides, before hearing such predictions, we do not, for the most part, hope for good things to happen to ourselves at all; whereas evils we all, so to speak, more readily anticipate, on account of our natural affinity toward the good — for indeed most men have hoped even for goods greater than what is possible to attain.
From this it follows that the foretelling of good things does not intensify joy very much at all, since even apart from the prediction each person already expects better things for himself of his own accord — or it intensifies joy only slightly, through the seeming certainty of the announcement — and often it even diminishes joy, whenever what is heard falls short of what was hoped for; whereas the foretelling of evils, both because of their naturally aversive character and because they are sometimes foretold contrary to one's hopes, causes great disturbance.
But even if this were not to happen, that the prediction would prove useless would surely be evident to everyone. For if someone should claim that the usefulness of divination can be preserved on the ground that a certain difficulty, which is absolutely bound to happen unless we take precautions against it, is foretold in advance, he will no longer be able to show that all things come about according to fate, since it lies within our own power whether to take precautions or not.
For if someone should claim that this too is compelled by necessity — that fate extends to all things that exist — then again the usefulness of divination is destroyed. For we shall take precautions if it has been fated that we do so, and we shall clearly not take precautions if it has not been fated that we do so, even should all the seers foretell to us what is going to happen.
Chrysippus himself, at any rate, says that in the cases of Oedipus and of Alexander the son of Priam, although their parents contrived many schemes to kill them, so as to guard themselves against the evil foretold by them, they were nevertheless unable to do so.
Thus, he says, the foretelling of evils proves of no benefit even to these men themselves, on account of the cause arising from fate. Let this, then, be said as a further point, over and above what was necessary, to show that divination is not only baseless but also useless.
These, then, are the words of the philosopher. But do you yourself consider, on your own, how it is that men who were Greeks, who had acquired from a young age the education native to the Greeks, and who knew the ancestral traditions concerning all the gods better than most — all the Aristotelians, the Cynics, and the Epicureans, and all who held similar views to these — laughed to scorn the celebrated oracles among the Greeks themselves.
And surely, if what is commonly reported concerning the marvel-working of the oracles had been true, it would have been reasonable for these men too, being Greeks, and knowing their ancestral customs with precision, and placing nothing worth knowing second in importance, to have been struck with astonishment.
These points, then, and all such as these, might have furnished abundant material for gathering an overthrow of the case made for the oracles. But it does not seem to me right to conduct the present argument along this path; rather, following the course upon which we set out at the beginning — granting that those who champion these matters speak the truth, so that, on the basis of what is admitted among themselves, they might affirm that the oracles are true and that the divine responses given from Pythian inspiration are genuinely as described — let us come to learn the precise disclosure of the things they describe.
I think it is clear to everyone that the refutation of the matters now under discussion will constitute not a small but the greatest and most necessary part of the evangelical case. For if it can be shown that all men everywhere before the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, Greeks and barbarians alike, had not come to know the true God, but were either glorifying things that do not exist as though they existed, or were led about here and there, like blind men, by certain wicked and God-warring spirits — evil and unclean demons — and dragged down by them into the depth of vice (and indeed, what else were they but demon-possessed?) — how would not the great mystery of the evangelical dispensation appear all the greater: that all men everywhere have been recalled from their ancestral error, from the tyranny of demons, by the voice of our Savior, and that even men dwelling at the ends of the earth have been redeemed from the deceit that had, from time immemorial, held their whole life in its grip? So that from that time until now, the age-worn foundations of the error of all the nations have been dissolved, together with their temples and images, while truly reverend shrines and schools of piety have been raised up, by the power and virtue of our Savior, throughout the whole world, in the midst of cities and villages, dedicated to the King of all and the Maker of the universe; and that from all the nations, continually, day by day, sacrifices befitting God are being offered — offerings of prayers from holy men whose disposition has been purified of all vice, in freedom from passion of soul and in the taking up of every virtue, according to the divine and saving teachings — these being the only sacrifices pleasing and acceptable to the God over all.
Since these things are so, how could we not, at the same time, have also demonstrated that it was with sound reasoning, and not by surrendering ourselves to irrationality, that we became apostates from the ancestral superstition, having loved the better course by a just and true judgment, and having become lovers of the truly divine and true piety? But let this suffice on these matters, and let us now proceed to take up what lies before us.
Those, then, who have refined the Greek theology in precision, dividing the whole matter, according to a different manner than those already mentioned by us, into four genera, first of all mark off the primary God, and say that they know this one to be first over all and both father and king of all the gods; after him comes the second genus, that of the gods; following it, that of the daimons; and fourth, that of the heroes. All of these, having a share in the character of the superior, in one respect lead and in another are led, and all such things are called 'light' by participation in light. But they say that evil belongs to the substance of the inferior; and this is the genus of wicked daimons, which is by no means a friend to the good, but which possesses primacy of power in the nature of things opposed to the good, just as God does among the higher beings. And all such things are called 'darkness.'
Having distinguished these matters in this manner, they say that heaven and the ether up to the moon are assigned to the gods; the region around the moon and the air to the daimons; and the region around the earth and beneath the earth to souls. Employing such a division, they say that, first of all, one must worship the heavenly and etherial gods; second, the good daimons; third, the souls of heroes; and fourth, one must appease the base and wicked daimons.
But though they distinguish these things in theory, in practice they confound everything, worshiping, instead of all the aforementioned classes, only the wicked powers, and enslaving themselves wholly to them — as our argument, proceeding onward, will demonstrate. It is now open to you to examine, on the basis of what will be set forth, what sort of powers those are that operate through the images — whether one ought to declare them gods or daimons, and whether base or good.
For our own divine oracles (the Scriptures) do not at all call any good being a daimon, but hold that all who share in this lot and indeed in this very appellation are wicked, since there is no other God, truly and properly speaking, save the one Cause of all things. As for the refined and good powers — since they are by nature begotten, and fall far short of the unbegotten God who is their own Maker, yet are nonetheless also set apart from the wicked class of daimons — Scripture does not see fit to call them either gods or daimons; but, since they occupy a position midway between God and daimons, it is accustomed to name them, by a fitting and intermediate designation, angels of God and ministering spirits, divine powers and archangels, and by certain other titles suited appropriately to their functions. As for the daimons — if indeed it falls to us to explain their etymology as well — it is not, as seems good to the Greeks, from being 'knowing ones' (daēmones) and possessed of understanding, but rather from deimainein, that is, 'to be afraid' and 'to inspire fear,' that certain beings are fittingly called daimons.
The divine and good powers, then, are estranged from the daimonic appellation, just as they are also estranged from the daimonic character; since it would be most irrational of all things to deem beings that share neither in disposition nor in the nature arising from character worthy of one and the same designation.
Come, then, let us examine what their own account of the oracles is, so that we may learn what kind of power we ought to declare them to be, and whether we were right or not in withdrawing from them. But if I were to bring forward the proofs of what has been said out of my own resources, I know well that I would not present an argument free of reproach to those fond of finding fault. For this reason, saying nothing of my own, I shall again make use of testimonies drawn from outside sources.
Now, though there are countless writers and philosophers among the Greeks, I judge above all others fitting for the matter at hand that very 'friend of the daimons,' who, having lived in our own time, glories in his falsehoods against us. For of all the philosophers of our own era, this man seems most to have consorted with daimons and with those he calls gods, to have acted as their advocate, and to have investigated the matters concerning them far more precisely than others.