Chapter XX.--Absurd Representations of the Gods.
If the absurdity of their theology were confined to saying that the gods were created, and owed their constitution to water, since I have demonstrated that nothing is made which is not also liable to dissolution, I might proceed to the remaining charges. But, on the one hand, they have described their bodily forms: speaking of Hercules, for instance, as a god in the shape of a dragon coiled up; of others as hundred-handed; of the daughter of Zeus, whom he begat of his mother Rhea; or of Demeter, as having two eyes in the natural order, and two in her forehead, and the face of an animal on the back part of her neck, and as having also horns, so that Rhea, frightened at her monster of a child, fled from her, and did not give her the breast (thele), whence mystically she is called Athêlâ, but commonly Phersephoné and Koré, though she is not the same as Athênâ, [762] who is called Koré from the pupil of the eye;--and, on the other hand, they have described their admirable [763] achievements, as they deem them: how Kronos, for instance, mutilated his father, and hurled him down from his chariot, and how he murdered his children, and swallowed the males of them; and how Zeus bound his father, and cast him down to Tartarus, as did Ouranos also to his sons, and fought with the Titans for the government; and how he persecuted his mother Rhea when she refused to wed him, and, she becoming a she-dragon, and he himself being changed into a dragon, bound her with what is called the Herculean knot, and accomplished his purpose, of which fact the rod of Hermes is a symbol; and again, how he violated his daughter Phersephoné, in this case also assuming the form of a dragon, and became the father of Dionysus. In face of narrations like these, I must say at least this much, What that is becoming or useful is there in such a history, that we must believe Kronos, Zeus, Koré, and the rest, to be gods? Is it the descriptions of their bodies? Why, what man of judgment and reflection will believe that a viper was begotten by a god (thus Orpheus:--
"But from the sacred womb Phanes begat
Another offspring, horrible and fierce,
In sight a frightful viper, on whose head
Were hairs: its face was comely; but the rest,
From the neck downwards, bore the aspect dire
Of a dread dragon" [764] );
or who will admit that Phanes himself, being a first-born god (for he it was that was produced from the egg), has the body or shape of a dragon, or was swallowed by Zeus, that Zeus might be too large to be contained? For if they differ in no respect from the lowest brutes (since it is evident that the Deity must differ from the things of earth and those that are derived from matter), they are not gods. How, then, I ask, can we approach them as suppliants, when their origin resembles that of cattle, and they themselves have the form of brutes, and are ugly to behold?
[762] i.e., Minerva.
[763] Or, "have accurately described."
[764] Fragments.
Chapter XXI.--Impure Loves Ascribed to the Gods.
But should it be said that they only had fleshly forms, and possess blood and seed, and the affections of anger and sexual desire, even then we must regard such assertions as nonsensical and ridiculous; for there is neither anger, nor desire and appetite, nor procreative seed, in gods. Let them, then, have fleshly forms, but let them be superior to wrath and anger, that Athênâ may not be seen
"Burning with rage and inly wroth with Jove;" [765]
nor Hera appear thus:--
"Juno's breast
Could not contain her rage." [766]
And let them be superior to grief:--
"A woful sight mine eyes behold: a man
I love in flight around the walls! My heart
For Hector grieves." [767]
For I call even men rude and stupid who give way to anger and grief. But when the "father of men and gods" mourns for his son,--
"Woe, woe! that fate decrees my best belov'd
Sarpedon, by Patroclus' hand to fall;" [768]
and is not able while he mourns to rescue him from his peril:--
"The son of Jove, yet Jove preserv'd him not;" [769]
who would not blame the folly of those who, with tales like these, are lovers of the gods, or rather, live without any god? Let them have fleshly forms, but let not Aphrodité be wounded by Diomedes in her body:--
"The haughty son of Tydeus, Diomed,
Hath wounded me;" [770]
or by Arês in her soul:--
"Me, awkward me, she scorns; and yields her charms
To that fair lecher, the strong god of arms." [771]
"The weapon pierced the flesh." [772]
He who was terrible in battle, the ally of Zeus against the Titans, is shown to be weaker than Diomedes:--
"He raged, as Mars, when brandishing his spear." [773]
Hush! Homer, a god never rages. But you describe the god to me as blood-stained, and the bane of mortals:--
"Mars, Mars, the bane of mortals, stained with blood;" [774]
and you tell of his adultery and his bonds:--
"Then, nothing loth, th' enamour'd fair he led,
And sunk transported on the conscious bed.
Down rushed the toils." [775]
Do they not pour forth impious stuff of this sort in abundance concerning the gods? Ouranos is mutilated; Kronos is bound, and thrust down to Tartarus; the Titans revolt; Styx dies in battle: yea, they even represent them as mortal; they are in love with one another; they are in love with human beings:--
"Æneas, amid Ida's jutting peaks,
Immortal Venus to Anchises bore." [776]
Are they not in love? Do they not suffer? Nay, verily, they are gods, and desire cannot touch them! Even though a god assume flesh in pursuance of a divine purpose, [777] he is therefore the slave of desire.
"For never yet did such a flood of love,
For goddess or for mortal, fill my soul;
Not for Ixion's beauteous wife, who bore
Pirithöus, sage in council as the gods;
Nor the neat-footed maiden Danäe,
A crisius' daughter, her who Perséus bore,
Th' observ'd of all; nor noble Phoenix' child;
. . . . . . nor for Semele;
Nor for Alcmena fair; . . .
No, nor for Ceres, golden-tressèd queen;
Nor for Latona bright; nor for thyself." [778]
He is created, he is perishable, with no trace of a god in him. Nay, they are even the hired servants of men:--
"Admetus' halls, in which I have endured
To praise the menial table, though a god." [779]
And they tend cattle:--
"And coming to this land, I cattle fed,
For him that was my host, and kept this house." [780]
Admetus, therefore, was superior to the god. Prophet and wise one, and who canst foresee for others the things that shall be, thou didst not divine the slaughter of thy beloved, but didst even kill him with thine own hand, dear as he was:--
"And I believed Apollo's mouth divine
Was full of truth, as well as prophet's art."
(Æschylus is reproaching Apollo for being a false prophet:)--
"The very one who sings while at the feast,
The one who said these things, alas! is he
Who slew my son." [781]
[765] Hom., Il., iv. 23.
[766] Ibid., iv. 24.
[767] Ibid., xxii. 168 sq.
[768] Ibid., xvi. 433 sq.
[769] Ibid., xvi. 522.
[770] Ibid., v. 376.
[771] Hom., Od., viii. 308 sq., Pope's transl.
[772] Hom., Il., v. 858.
[773] Hom., Il., xv. 605.
[774] Hom., Il., v. 31, 455.
[775] Hom., Od., viii. 296-298, Pope's transl.
[776] Hom., Il., ii. 820.
[777] [oikonomian. Kaye, p. 174. And see Paris ed., 1615.]
[778] Hom., Il., xiv. 315 sqq.
[779] Eurip., Alcest., 1 sq.
[780] Ibid., 8 sq.
[781] From an unknown play of Æschylus.