but just as a wise man, though he consists of mind and body, is nevertheless called wise from the mind, so the world is called God from the mind, though it consists of mind and body. Thus the body of the world alone is not God, but either its soul alone or both body and mind together, yet in such a way that it is God not from the body but from the mind. If, then, Janus is the world, and Janus is God, are they going to say that Jupiter, in order to be able to be God, is some part of Janus? For they are rather wont to attribute the universe to Jove; whence comes the saying: 'All things are full of Jove.' Therefore Jove also, in order to be a god and especially king of the gods, they can reckon to be none other than the world, so that according to them he reigns over the other gods by their parts.
To this same opinion the same Varro expounds certain verses of Valerius Soranus, in that book which he wrote separately from these, on the worship of the gods; which verses are these: 'Jupiter almighty, begetter of kings and of things and of gods, and begetress of the gods, one god and all.' They are expounded, moreover, in the same book thus: since they reckoned that to be male which emits the seed, and that to be female which receives it, and that Jove is the world and that he emits all seeds from himself and receives them into himself, 'with reason,' he says, 'Soranus wrote: Jupiter begetter and begetress; nor with less reason that one and all are the same; for the world is one, and in that one all things are.' CHAPTER X. Whether the distinction of Janus and Jove is correct.
Since, then, both Janus is the world and Jupiter is the world, and the world is one, why are Janus and Jupiter two gods? Why do they have temples apart, altars apart, different rites, dissimilar images? If for this reason, that the power of first beginnings is one thing, that of causes another, and the one received the name of Janus, the other of Jupiter: surely, if one man had in different matters two powers or two arts, because the power of each is different, would he therefore be called two judges or two craftsmen? So, then, one God too, although He Himself has the power of first beginnings, He Himself of causes, is it therefore necessary to think Him two gods, because first beginnings and causes are two things?
But if they think this just, let them say that Jupiter himself is as many gods as the surnames they have given him on account of his many powers, since all the things from which those surnames were applied are many and diverse, of which I mention a few. CHAPTER XI. Concerning the surnames of Jupiter, which are referred not to many gods, but to one and the same. They called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor, Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Ruminus, and others which it would be long to enumerate. These surnames, moreover, they imposed on one god on account of diverse causes and powers, yet they did not on account of so many things compel him to be also so many gods.
because he conquered all things, because he was conquered by none, because he brought help to the needy, because he had the power of impelling, of establishing, of making firm, of laying on the back; because, like a beam (tigillus), he contained and sustained the world; because he nourished all things; because, with the udder (ruma, that is, the teat), he nourished animals. Among these, as we observe, some are great, some trifling; and yet one and the same is said to do both. I think that the causes of things and first beginnings are nearer to each other—on account of which they wished one world to be two gods, Jupiter and Janus—than containing the world and giving the teat to animals; nor yet on account of these two works, so far apart from each other in power and dignity, were they compelled to be two gods;
but it is one Jupiter who is called Tigillus on account of the one, Ruminus on account of the other. I am unwilling to say that to hold out the teat to suckling animals could more befit Juno than Jupiter, especially since there was also the goddess Rumina, who in this work would furnish him aid or service. For I reflect that it can be answered that Juno herself too is nothing other than Jupiter, according to those verses of Valerius Soranus, where it is said: 'Jupiter almighty, begetter of kings and of things and of gods, and begetress of the gods.' Why, then, was he also called Ruminus, when, to those who inquire perhaps more diligently, he himself is found to be also that goddess Rumina?
For if it seemed rightly unworthy of the majesty of the gods that in one ear of grain one should attend to the care of the little knot (joint) and another to that of the husk: how much more unworthy is it that one lowest thing—namely, that animals should be nourished by teats—should be cared for by the power of two gods, of whom one is Jupiter, the very king of all, and that he should do this not even with his consort, but with some ignoble Rumina—unless it be that he himself is also that very Rumina; Ruminus perhaps for the suckling males, Rumina for the females.
I would indeed say that they were unwilling to impose a feminine name upon Jupiter, were it not that in those verses he is called 'begetter and bearer,' and that among his other surnames I read that he was even called Pecunia (Money) — a goddess whom we found among those minor deities of theirs and made mention of in the fourth book. But since both men and women have money, why was he not called both Pecunia and Pecunius, just as Rumina and Ruminus? Let them see to it themselves. CHAPTER XII. That Jupiter is also called Pecunia. But how elegantly they have rendered the reason for this name! He is called Money, they say, he is so called because all things are his. O what a grand reason for a divine name! Nay rather, he whose all things are is most basely and most insultingly called Money.
For in comparison with all things that are contained in heaven and earth, what is money — what among all those things whatsoever that are possessed by men under the name of money? But doubtless it was avarice that imposed this name upon Jupiter, so that whoever loves money might seem to himself to love not some ordinary god, but the very king of all. Far otherwise would it be, however, if he were called Riches. For riches are one thing, money another. For we call those rich who are wise, just, and good, even though they have no money or but little; for they are richer in virtues, through which, even amid the very necessities of bodily things, what they have is enough for them. But the avaricious we call poor, ever gaping and ever in want;
for however great the sums of money they may possess, in whatever abundance of it they cannot but be in want. And the true God Himself we rightly call rich — yet not in money, but in omnipotence. And so the moneyed are called rich, yet inwardly needy if they are greedy; likewise those lacking money are called poor, yet inwardly rich if they are wise. What sort, then, must this theology be in the eyes of a wise man, where the king of their gods has received the name of that thing 'which no wise man has ever coveted'? For how much more easily, if anything that pertained to eternal life were learned wholesomely through this teaching, would the God who rules the world be called by them not Money but Wisdom — the love of which cleanses from the filth of avarice, that is, from the love of money! CHAPTER XIII.
That, when it is explained what Saturn is and what the Genius is, each is taught to be one and the same Jupiter. But what need is there to say more about this Jupiter, to whom perhaps all the rest are to be referred, so that the opinion of a plurality of gods may be left empty, since he himself is all of them — whether when his parts or powers are reckoned, or when that force of soul which they think is diffused through all things has received, from the parts of this mass into which this visible world rises up, and from the manifold administration of nature, as it were the names of many gods? For what too is Saturn?
'He is one of the principal gods,' he says, 'in whose power lies the dominion over all sowings.' Does not the exposition of those verses of Valerius Soranus run thus — that Jupiter is the world, and that he sends forth all seeds out of himself and receives them back into himself? He, then, it is in whose power lies the dominion over all sowings. What is the Genius? 'A god,' he says, 'who is set over and has power over all things to be begotten.' Whom else do they believe to have this power than the world, to which it was said: 'Jupiter, begetter and bearer'? And when in another place he says that the Genius is the rational soul of each individual, and that therefore there are individual genii for individuals, but that such a soul of the world is God: he certainly brings the matter back to the same point, namely that the very soul of the world is believed to be, as it were, the universal Genius.
This, then, is he whom they call Jupiter. For if every Genius is a god, and every man's soul is a genius, it follows that every man's soul is a god; and if the very absurdity of this compels even them to recoil from it, then it remains that they call that one in a singular and surpassing sense the god Genius, whom they call the soul of the world, and thereby Jupiter. CHAPTER XIV. On the offices of Mercury and Mars. As for Mercury and Mars, they could not find how to refer them to any parts of the world and works of God which are in the elements, and so they at least set them over the works of men, as ministers of speaking and of waging war.
Now if Mercury wields power over the speech even of the gods, then he lords it over the very king of the gods, if Jupiter speaks at his pleasure or received from him the faculty of speaking — which is surely absurd. But if it is asserted that to him only the power over human speech has been granted, it is not credible that Jupiter would have wished to come down to suckle at the breast not only boys but even cattle (whence he was surnamed Ruminus), and yet have been unwilling that the care of our speech, by which we surpass the cattle, should pertain to himself; and thus this same one is both Jupiter and Mercury.
But if speech itself is said to be Mercury, as the things which they interpret concerning him show (for that is why Mercury is said to be so named as if 'running in the middle,' because speech runs in the middle between men; that is why he is called Hermes in Greek, because speech, or interpretation, which surely pertains to speech, is called hermeneia; that is why he presides also over merchandise, because between sellers and buyers speech passes in the middle; the wings on his head and feet signify that speech is borne winged through the air; he is called a messenger, because through speech all thoughts are announced) — if, then, Mercury himself is speech, then even by their own confession he is not a god.
But when they make gods for themselves out of those who are not even demons, in supplicating unclean spirits they become possessed by these, who are not gods but demons. Likewise, since they could not find for Mars either any element or part of the world where he might carry on any work whatsoever of nature, they said he was the god of war, which is a work of men, and not one to be wished for. If therefore Felicity were to grant perpetual peace, Mars would have nothing to do. But if war itself is Mars, just as speech is Mercury — would that, as it is manifest that he is not a god, so also there were no war, which is even falsely called a god. CHAPTER XV. On certain stars which the pagans named with the names of their gods. Unless perhaps these gods are those stars which they have called by their names.
For they call a certain star Mercury, and likewise a certain one Mars. But there too is that one which they call Jupiter, and yet to them the world is Jupiter; there is the one they call Saturn, and yet to him besides they assign no small substance, namely that of all seeds; there too is that brightest of all, which is called by them Venus, and yet they will have it that this same Venus is also the Moon; although concerning that most resplendent star Juno and Venus contend among them, as if over a golden apple. For the Morning Star some say belongs to Venus, some to Juno; but, as usually happens, Venus wins. For far more attribute that star to Venus, so that scarcely one of them is to be found who thinks otherwise.
But who would not laugh, when they call Jupiter the king of all, that his star is so far outshone in brightness by the star of Venus? For it ought to have been brighter than the rest in proportion as he himself is more powerful. They answer that it appears so because that one, which is thought dimmer, is higher and far more remote from the earth. If, then, greater dignity merited a higher place, why is Saturn there higher than Jupiter? Or could the vanity of the fable, which makes Jupiter king, not reach as far as the stars, so that what Saturn could not obtain in his kingdom nor on the Capitol he was at least permitted to obtain in heaven? But why did Janus receive no star? If it is because he is the world and all are in him — then Jupiter too is the world, and yet he has a star.
Or did Janus arrange his case as best he could, and in place of the one star which he has not among the heavenly bodies, receive so many faces on earth? Next, if it is solely on account of the stars that they reckon Mercury and Mars to be parts of the world — so that they may be able to count them as gods, since surely speech and war are not parts of the world but acts of men — why for Aries and Taurus and Cancer and Scorpio and the rest of this kind, which they count as celestial signs (and which consist not of single stars but each of several), and which they declare to be set higher than these, in the highest heaven, where a more constant motion grants those bodies their unerring course — why did they make no altars, no sacred rites, no temples for them, nor count them as gods, I will not say among these select ones, but not even among those plebeian ones?
CHAPTER XVI. On Apollo and Diana and the other select gods whom they wished to be parts of the world. Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and a physician, yet, in order to place him in some part of the world, they also said that he was the sun itself, and Diana his sister to be likewise the moon and the guardian of ways (whence too they will have her to be a virgin, because a road brings forth nothing!); and therefore both have arrows, because those two heavenly bodies stretch their rays from heaven all the way to the earth. Vulcan they would have to be the fire of the world, Neptune the waters of the world, Father Dis — that is, Orcus — the earthen and lowest part of the world. Liber and Ceres they set over the seeds, the former over the male, the latter over the female; or the former over the moisture, the latter over the dryness of seeds.
And all this is referred entirely to the world, that is, to Jupiter, who was on that account called 'begetter and bearer,' because he sends forth all seeds out of himself and receives them back into himself. Since indeed they will have the Great Mother to be the same as Ceres, whom they say to be nothing other than the earth, and they declare her to be also Juno, and therefore assign to her the secondary causes of things — though nevertheless it was said to Jupiter, 'begetter and bearer of the gods,' because according to them the whole world itself is Jupiter. Minerva too, because they set her over human arts and could not find even a star where they might place her, they said to be either the highest ether or even the moon.
Vesta likewise they thought to be the greatest of the goddesses on this account, that she herself is the earth; although they believed there should be assigned to her the gentler fire of the world, which pertains to the easy uses of men, not the more violent fire such as is Vulcan's. And by this means they will have all these select gods to be this world — in some cases the whole, in some cases parts of it; the whole, as in Jupiter, its parts, as in the Genius, as in the Great Mother, as in the Sun, as in the Moon, or rather Apollo and Diana. And sometimes they make one god into several things, sometimes several gods out of one thing. For one god is several things, as is Jupiter himself; for the whole world is held and called Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and a single star alone is held and called Jupiter;
and likewise Juno is the mistress of the secondary causes, and Juno is the air, and Juno is the earth, and, if she had conquered Venus, Juno would be a star. Similarly Minerva is the highest ether, and Minerva is likewise the moon, which they suppose to be at the lowest border of the ether. But one thing they make into several gods thus: both Janus is the world and Jupiter is; so too Juno is the earth, and the Great Mother, and Ceres. CHAPTER XVII. That Varro himself declared his opinions concerning the gods to be ambiguous. And just as these matters, which I have recounted by way of example, so too the rest they do not explain but rather entangle; just as the impulse of wandering opinion has driven them, so this way and that, hither and thither, they leap on and leap back, so that Varro himself preferred to doubt about all things rather than affirm anything.
For of the last three books, when he had finished the first about the certain gods, beginning to speak in the second about the uncertain gods, he says: 'When in this little book I shall have set down doubtful opinions about the gods, I ought not to be blamed. For whoever shall think that judgment ought to and can be passed, when he has heard, will do it himself. For my part, I can sooner be brought to recall into doubt the things I said in the first book, than to direct everything I shall write in this one toward some sum total.' Thus he made uncertain not only this book about the uncertain gods, but also that one about the certain ones.
Then in this third book on the select gods, after he had prefaced what he thought should be prefaced from natural theology, being about to enter upon the vanities and lying follies of this civil theology — where not only did the truth of things fail to lead him, but even the authority of his forefathers pressed upon him — he says: 'Concerning the public gods of the Roman people, to whom they have dedicated temples and which they have distinguished by adorning them with many statues, I shall write in this book; but, as Xenophanes of Colophon writes, I shall set down what I think, not what I would maintain. For it is the part of man to hold these opinions, of God to know.' Therefore, trembling, he promises a discourse of matters not comprehended nor most firmly believed, but merely opined and to be doubted, about to speak of things that have been instituted by men.
For not as he knew that the world exists, that heaven and earth exist — heaven gleaming with stars, earth fruitful with seeds, and the rest of this kind — and just as he believed, with a settled steadfastness of mind, that this whole mass and nature is governed and administered by a certain invisible and all-powerful force: not thus could he affirm concerning Janus that he himself was the world, or discover concerning Saturn how he was both the father of Jupiter and made subject to Jupiter when he reigned, and other such things. CHAPTER XVIII. What may be the more credible cause by which the error of paganism grew up.
Concerning these, a more credible account is given when it is asserted that they were men, and that for each of them, by those who, in flattering them, wished them to be gods, sacred and solemn rites were established according to his character, manners, deeds, and fortunes; and that these, little by little, creeping in through the souls of men who are like the demons and greedy for trifling things, were spread far and wide, with the lies of the poets adorning them and with deceitful spirits leading men astray to them. For it could more easily have happened that an impious youth, fearing to be killed even by his impious father and greedy for the kingdom, drove his father from the kingdom, than what this man interprets — namely that Saturn the father was therefore overcome by Jupiter the son, because the cause that pertains to Jupiter is prior to the seed that pertains to Saturn.
For if this were so, Saturn would never have been prior, nor would he be the father of Jupiter. For the cause always precedes the seed, and is never begotten from the seed. But when they try to honor most vain fables, or the deeds of men, with so-called natural interpretations, even the most acute men suffer such straits that we are compelled to grieve over their vanity as well. CHAPTER XIX. On the interpretations by which a reason for the worship of Saturn is contrived. 'They said,' he says, 'that he was wont to devour his offspring' — those things which were born from him — 'because the seeds return back to that whence they sprang.' And the fact that a clod was thrown to him to devour in place of Jupiter signifies, he says,
that, before the usefulness of plowing had been discovered, the fruits that were sown began to be covered over by human hands. Saturn, therefore, ought to have been called the earth itself, not the seeds; for it is the earth that in a certain manner devours what it has produced, when the seeds born from it return to be received back into it. And as for the fact that he is said to have received a clod in place of Jupiter, what bearing does this have on the fact that seed was covered over by a clod through the hands of men? Was it therefore not, like the rest, devoured, because it was covered over by a clod? For it was so stated as though he who put the clod over it had carried off the seed — just as they relate that, by the clod offered to Saturn, Jupiter was carried off; and not rather that the clod, by covering the seed, caused it to be devoured the more diligently. Then in this way Jupiter is the seed, not the cause of the seed, as was said a little before.
But what are men to do who, when they interpret foolish things, find nothing to say wisely? 'He has,' he says, 'Saturn on account of agriculture.' Certainly while he reigned there was as yet no agriculture, and that is why his earlier times are spoken of (as the same man interprets the little fables), because the first men lived on those seeds which the earth produced of its own accord. Or did he take up the sickle when his scepter was lost, so that he who in the earliest times had been an idle king might, when his son reigned, become a toilsome laborer? Then he says that for this reason boys were wont to be sacrificed to him by some, as by the Carthaginians, and even grown men by others, as by the Gauls, because of all seeds the best is the human race. About this most cruel vanity what need is there to say more?
Let us rather take note of this and hold fast to it, that these interpretations are not referred to the true God — the living, incorporeal, and immutable nature, from whom life eternally blessed is to be sought — but that their bounds lie in things corporeal, temporal, mutable, and mortal. 'That Saturn is said in the fables to have castrated his father Heaven,' he says, 'signifies that the divine seed is in the power of Saturn, not in the power of Heaven.' This, so far as it can be understood, is because nothing in heaven is born from seeds. But behold: if Saturn is the son of Heaven, he is the son of Jupiter. For they affirm, countless times and carefully, that Heaven is Jupiter. Thus these things, which do not come from the truth, for the most part overturn themselves even with no one pushing them.
He says that he was called Chronos, which in the Greek word signifies a span of time, without which, he says, the seed cannot be fruitful. These and many other things are said about Saturn, and they are all referred to the seed. But at least let Saturn, with all this great power of his, suffice for the seeds; why are other gods sought after for these matters — especially Liber and Libera, that is, Ceres? Concerning whom again, so far as it pertains to seed, he says as much as if he had said nothing about Saturn. CHAPTER XX. On the rites of the Eleusinian Ceres. But in the rites of Ceres those Eleusinian mysteries are celebrated, which were the most renowned among the Athenians. Concerning these he interprets nothing, except what pertains to the grain which Ceres discovered, and to Proserpina, whom she lost when Orcus carried her off;
and he says that this Proserpina herself signifies the fruitfulness of the seeds; and that when this had at a certain time been lacking, and the earth mourned with that same barrenness, there arose the opinion that the daughter of Ceres — that is, fruitfulness itself, which was called Proserpina from 'creeping forth' — Orcus had carried off and detained among the lower regions; and that when this had been observed with public mourning, because that same fruitfulness returned again, gladness arose at Proserpina being given back, and from this solemn rites were established. He then says that many things are handed down in her mysteries which pertain to nothing but the discovery of the fruits of the field. CHAPTER XXI. On the foulness of the rites which were celebrated in honor of Liber.
Now indeed the rites of Liber — whom they set over the liquid seeds, and thereby not only over the liquids of fruits, of which in a certain manner wine holds the primacy, but also over the seeds of animals — to what degree of foulness they have come, it irks me indeed to tell on account of the length of discourse; but on account of the proud dullness of these men, it does not irk me. Among the rest, which I am compelled to pass over since they are many, he says that at the crossroads of Italy certain rites of Liber were celebrated with such great license of foulness that in his honor the male privy parts were worshipped — not even with somewhat more modest secrecy, but with wickedness exulting openly in public view.
For this shameful member, during the festival days of Liber, was placed with great honor upon little carts and conveyed first through the countryside at the crossroads and afterwards even into the city. But in the town of Lavinium a whole month was assigned to Liber alone, during whose days everyone would use the most shameful words, until that member had been conveyed through the forum and came to rest in its place. Upon that dishonorable member it was necessary that a most honorable matron should publicly place a crown. Thus, it seems, the god Liber had to be appeased for the successful outcome of the seeds; thus the evil eye had to be driven away from the fields, that a matron should be compelled to do in public what not even a harlot, if matrons were looking on, ought to have been permitted to do in the theater.
On account of these things, Saturn alone was believed unable to suffice for the seeds, so that the unclean soul might find occasions for multiplying gods, and — deservedly forsaken of its uncleanness by the one true God, and prostituted through many false ones by the greed for a greater uncleanness — might name these sacrilegious things sacred, and might offer itself to be violated and polluted by the crowds of filthy demons. CHAPTER XXII. On Neptune and Salacia and Venilia. Surely Neptune already had Salacia as his wife, whom they said to be the lower water of the sea: for what purpose was Venilia also joined to him, except that, without any reason of necessary rites, by the mere lust of a prostituted soul, the invitation of the demons might be multiplied?
But let the interpretation of their illustrious theology be brought forth, which might restrain us from this reproach by rendering a reason. 'Venilia,' he says, 'is the wave which comes to the shore; Salacia is that which returns into the deep.' Why, then, are two goddesses made, when it is one wave that comes and returns? Surely it is the very madness of lust, boiling up into many divinities. For although the water is not doubled which goes and returns, yet by occasion of this vanity, with two demons being invited, the soul is the more defiled — the soul which goes and does not return.
I beg you, Varro, or you all, who have read the writings of such learned men and boast that you have learned something great — interpret this, not, I do not wish to say, according to that eternal and immutable nature who alone is God, but at least according to the soul of the world and its parts, which you suppose to be true gods. That you should have made Neptune a god for us out of that part of the soul of the world which pervades the sea, is of a somewhat more tolerable error. But is the wave coming to the shore and returning into the deep two parts of the world, or two parts of the soul of the world? Who among you is so foolish as to be wise after this fashion?