City of God (Penguin Classics), page 26
A great advantage, to be sure! Everyone would be grateful to Varro, if he had shown them the truth and had taught men that they should worship the true God from whom all good things come.
23. Felicity, a late-comer to the ranks of Roman gods though she might by herself have taken the place of all the rest
But (and this is the question before us) if the pagan books and rites are true, and Felicity is a goddess, why is it not established that she alone should be worshipped, since she could confer all blessings and, in this economical fashion, bring a man happiness? Does anyone desire anything for any other reason than to secure happiness? Then why on earth was it so long before Lucullus79 set up a shrine for this great goddess, after so many leading men of Rome had managed without her? Surely Romulus himself was anxious to found a city that should be happy? He, of all people, should have erected a temple to her, and then he would not have addressed prayers to the other gods for anything; for if Felicity had been there, nothing would have been lacking. Why did he not? For what purpose did he establish, as gods for the Roman people, Janus, Jupiter, Picus, Faunus, Tiberinus, Hercules, and the rest?80 Why did Titus Tatius81 add Saturn, Ops, Sun, Moon, Vulcan, Light and the rest – including even Cloacina82 – and never think of Felicity? Why did Numa bring in so many gods and goddesses – but not Felicity? Was it that he could not find her, in all that crowd? At any rate, king Hostilius could not have introduced, as gods to be propitiated, those novel divinities, Panic and Pallor,83 if he had known and worshipped the goddess Felicity. For if she were there, Panic and Pallor would depart without propitiation; they would be chased away in flight!
How is it that the Roman Empire was extending its power far and wide, long before anyone had started a cult of Felicity? Is that the reason why its felicity did not match its grandeur? For how could true felicity exist where there was not true religion? True religion is the worship of the true God, not the cult of false gods, who are just so many devils. In fact, the inclusion of Felicity in the ranks of the gods was followed by the terrible infelicity of the civil wars. Was it that Felicity was rightly indignant at having been summoned so late, and summoned to what was not an honour so much as an insult – in that she was associated in worship with Priapus, Cloacina, Panic, Pallor, and Fever,84 and the rest? Such deities could not claim worship; they could only shame their worshippers.
Finally, if it was thought right that such a mighty goddess should be worshipped along with, that disreputable crowd, why was she not accorded at least a worship of greater splendour than the rest? Is it not intolerable that Felicity was not ranked among the Consentes,85 the gods who are said to be called in as Jupiter’s counsellors, nor among those called ‘the select gods’?86 They might have made her a temple to stand out above the others by the elevation of its site and the excellence of its architecture. Why did they not build her something better than the temple they gave to Jupiter himself? For who but Felicity gave Jupiter his kingship – assuming, that is, that he was happy in his reign? Felicity is undeniably worth more than a kingdom. For it is certain that one could easily find a man who was afraid to become a king; but you would not find anyone who did not want to be happy. If the pagans suppose that the opinion of the gods can be obtained by auguries or by any other method, they should have been asked whether they were willing to give place to Felicity, if it should happen that temples or altars of other gods had already taken a site where a greater and loftier temple might be erected for her. Even Jupiter himself would have retired in her favour, to allow Felicity to occupy the summit of the Capitol hill, rather than himself. For no one would have resisted Felicity, except (an impossible supposition) anyone who wished to be unhappy.
Had Jupiter been consulted, it is inconceivable that he would have acted as did the three gods, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas,87 who utterly refused to give place to their superior, in fact their king. For Roman literature has the story that when King Tarquin decided to build the Capitol, he discovered that the site which seemed most worthy and most appropriate had already been taken by other gods. He did not dare to do anything in defiance of their wishes, but he was. confident that they would yield willingly to that mighty divinity, their prince; and since there were many gods installed in the place where the Capitol was set up, he inquired, through the auguries, whether they were ready to give way to Jupiter. They all agreed to do so, except for those I have mentioned: Mars, Terminus, and Juventas. And that is why the Capitol88 was so constructed that they were included in it, though their images were so inconspicuous that the most learned men were scarcely aware of the fact. Jupiter would never have treated Felicity with the contempt that Terminus, Mars, and Juventas showed to him. And even those three, who would not give place to Jupiter, would have yielded to Felicity, who had made Jupiter their king. Or if they had not yielded, it would not have been out of contempt, but because they preferred to skulk unnoticed in the dwelling of Felicity rather than to catch every eye in their own shrines and be parted from her.
As soon as Felicity had been thus established in a dignified and exalted setting, the citizens would have learnt where they should seek help in every prayer for blessing. The bidding of natural reason would have led them to abandon the superfluous multitude of other gods, and confine their worship to Felicity. They would have prayed to her alone; her temple alone would have been thronged with citizens who wished for happiness – and who would not? Thus felicity would have been sought from the goddess Felicity herself, instead of from all the gods as formerly. For who would wish to receive, from any god, anything other than happiness, or what, in his view, conduces to happiness? Further, if it is in the power of Felicity to choose her beneficiaries (as it must be, if she is divine), what sort of folly is it to seek happiness from another god, when one can obtain it from Felicity herself! The Romans ought therefore to have honoured this deity above the rest of the gods, and to have shown this in the splendour of her setting, as well as in other ways. We learn from Roman sources that in antiquity the Romans ascribed nocturnal lightning to a certain Summanus,89 and they paid him more honour than Jupiter, who was responsible for lightning during the day. But when a temple of outstanding magnificence had been built for Jupiter, the crowds thronged to it, because of the impressiveness of the shrine, so that you would have difficulty in finding anyone who so much as remembers having read the name Summanus – no one ever hears it spoken.
Now if Felicity is not a goddess, because she is, in truth, a gift of God, we should seek the God who can bestow that gift and abandon the pernicious mob of false gods to which the silly mob of fools attach themselves. These fools turn the gifts of God into deities, and by the obstinacy of their insolent self-will, offend the God who confers those gifts. How can a man escape unhappiness, if he worships Felicity as divine and deserts God, the giver of felicity? Could a man escape starvation by licking the painted picture of a loaf, instead of begging real bread from someone who had it to give?
24. Arguments adduced in defence of the worship of the divine gifts, as well as gods
I should like to consider the explanations put forward by our opponents. ‘Are we to suppose’, they say, ‘that our ancestors were such idiots that they did not realize that these were the divine gifts and not themselves divinities? But they knew that these gifts were only given by the generosity of a god, and when they did not know the names of the gods concerned they called them by the name of the gifts, which, they felt, were bestowed by them. They made some modifications in the words; thus Bellona from bellum (war); Cunina from cunae (cradle); Segetia from seges (crop); Pomona90 from poma (apples); Bubona from bubus (ablative of boves, oxen). Sometimes they were called by the actual name of their subject, as Pecunia, the goddess who gives money (pecunia), which does not mean that money itself is considered a divinity. In the same way, Virtue is the bestower of virtue; Honour, of honour; Concordia gives concord; Victoria gives victory. Thus when Felicity is spoken of as a goddess, the reference is not to the gift, but to the giver of happiness.’
25. Only one God is to be worshipped. He is recognized as the giver of felicity even if his name is unknown
This explanation will perhaps make it much easier for us to win over to our way of thinking those of our opponents whose hearts are not too hardened. Human nature in its weakness has already felt that happiness can only be given by a god; and that has been realized by men who have been worshipping many gods, including Jupiter himself, the king of the gods. Now because they did not know the name of the giver of happiness, those people decided to call him by the name of the gift for which they believed him responsible. If this is true, they have made it clear that happiness is not given by Jupiter, whom they were already worshipping, but by a deity who was, they held, to be worshipped by the name of happiness itself, the name ‘Felicity’.
I put it quite bluntly. They believed that happiness is the gift of some god, unknown to them. Then let them seek him and worship him, and that is enough. Away with the hubbub of innumerable demons! The only man who would not be satisfied with this God is the man who is not satisfied with his gift. I repeat, the only man who would not be satisfied with God, the giver of happiness, as worthy of his worship, is the man who is not satisfied with happiness itself as worthy of his acceptance. If a man is content with happiness – and in fact man has nothing which he should desire beyond that – then let him serve the one God, the giver of happiness. And that is not the god they call Jupiter. For if they had recognized Jupiter as the giver of happiness they would not have looked for another deity, male or female, called Felicity, as its giver; nor would they have thought it right to associate the worship of Jupiter with all those slanders; for he was, according to their account, a seducer of the wives of others,91 and a shameless lover and ravisher of a beautiful boy.92
26. The theatrical shows, demanded by the gods from their worshippers
‘But this’, Cicero asserts, ‘is a fiction of Homer, who transferred human shortcomings to the gods. Would that he had transferred divine powers to us men.’93 The serious-minded Cicero was justifiably displeased with a poet who imputed fictitious crimes to the deities. But those crimes are represented in speech, in song, and in action in the stage shows; and those shows are put on in honour of the gods, and are classed among ‘Divine Matters’ by the most learned authorities. How is this? Cicero ought on this point to cry out, not against the poet’s fictions, but against the traditional institutions, established by his ancestors. But those ancestors would have cried out, in reply,
What have we done? It was the gods themselves who clamoured for these exhibitions in their honour, who demanded them with fearful threats, promising disaster if they were withheld, punishing any omission with the utmost harshness, and showing themselves appeased when the omission was repaired. Among the miraculous demonstrations of their power, the following story is told.94 A Roman peasant named Titus Latinius, the father of a family, was told in a dream to inform the senate that the Roman games must be restarted, because on the first day of the games a criminal had been ordered to be led to execution before the eyes of the assembled people, and this command had displeased the gods; no doubt because the divinities looked for cheerful entertainment at those shows. The man who had received this warning dream had not courage to fulfil the order next day; and on the second night he was given the same injunction, in stricter terms. He did not obey; and so he lost his son. On the third night he was told that a heavier punishment awaited him, if he disobeyed. When his courage again failed him, even after this threat, he fell seriously ill with a fearful disease. Then, on the advice of his friends he did inform the magistrates, and was carried into the senate on a litter. There he recounted his dream; and immediately he was restored to health and left the senate-house on his own legs, completely cured. Astounded by this miracle, the senate voted to recommence the games, with a fourfold increase of the subsidy.
Any man in his senses could see that men who were under the sway of malignant demons – a domination from which only the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, could free them – were constrained by force to offer to such gods exhibitions which to a right judgement could only appear disgusting. Certainly in those games – which were restarted by order of the senate, under compulsion from the gods – these poetic scandals about the gods were publicly displayed. In those shows the actors portrayed Jupiter, the corrupter of innocence, in song and action; and thus they appeased him! If this was mere fiction, Jupiter would have been angry, surely? Or, if Jupiter took delight in those scandals, even though fictitious, then his worship was nothing but the service of a devil.
Was it really this Jupiter who could have founded, developed, and preserved the Roman Empire? A contemptible reprobate, in comparison with any Roman whatsoever who found such depravities revolting? Was it really a god like this who could have given happiness, who was worshipped in this miserable fashion, and who was even more miserably angry, if that worship was withheld?
27. Three kinds of gods distinguished by Scaevola, the pontiff
It is recorded that Scaevola,95 a most erudite pontiff, argued that there were three kinds of gods96 in the Roman tradition; one strand of tradition coming through the poets, another through the philosophers, the third through the statesmen. According to Scaevola, the first tradition was trivial nonsense, a collection of discreditable fictions about the gods, while the second had no value for a commonwealth, in that it introduced much that was irrelevant, and also much that was harmful for the people in general to know. The irrelevances are not important. It is a commonplace of jurisprudence that ‘the irrelevant is not harmful.’ But what are the elements which are harmful, if divulged to the general public? ‘The assertion’, says Scaevola, ‘that Hercules, Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux are not gods. The learned inform us that they were men,97 and that they died, in accordance with the human condition.’ And further, ‘The allegation that communities do not have true images of those who really are gods, because the true God has neither sex nor age, nor has he a denned bodily form.’ The pontiff did not wish the people to be aware of this; he did not think the statements were untrue. Thus he held that it was expedient for communities to be deceived in matters of religion, and Varro himself has no hesitation in saying as much, even in his books on ‘Divine Affairs’.
What a splendid religion for the weak to flee to for liberation! He asks for the truth which will set him free; and it is believed that it is expethent for him to be deceived!
As for the poetic tradition, Roman literature makes it quite clear why Scaevola rejected its teaching. The poets give such a distorted picture of the gods that such deities cannot stand comparison with good men. One god is represented as a thief, another as an adulterer, and so on; all kinds of degradation and absurdity, in word and deed, are ascribed to them. Three goddesses have a beauty contest; Venus wins the prize, and the disappointed candidates overthrow Troy. Jupiter himself is changed into a bull, or a swan, to enjoy the favours of some woman or other.98 A goddess marries a man; Saturn devours his children. Any imaginable marvel, every conceivable vice can be found in this poetic tradition, however remote from the divine nature.
Come, Scaevola, you ‘supreme pontiff’, suppress those spectacles – if you can! Forbid the people to offer such ‘honours’ to the immortal gods – shows in which men enjoy admiring the scandals of the gods and decide to imitate such behaviour, if possible. But if the people retort, ‘It is you pontiffs who have introduced this among us,’ ask the gods to cease demanding these exhibitions; for it was at their instigation that you ordered them to be put on. If those stories are evil, and therefore to be rejected as utterly incongruous with the majesty of the gods, then the wrong offered to the gods is the more serious because such fictions enjoy impunity.
But the gods do not listen to you, Scaevola. They are, in fact, demons, who teach depravity and rejoice in degradation. Far from counting it an outrage that such fictions should be published about them, they actually take it as an intolerable outrage if such shows are not performed in their rites. Appeal against those demons to Jupiter if you will, especially as more scandals are enacted in the stage shows about him than about any other. Yet, though you pontiffs call him Jupiter the God, ruler and disposer of the whole universe, does he not suffer the greatest outrage at your hands? For you think it proper to associate his worship with those demons, and you make him out to be their king.
28. Did the worship of the gods help the Romans in the acquisition and extension of the Empire?
It is utterly impossible that the increase and preservation of the Roman Empire could have been due to such gods as these, gods who are appeased – or rather accused – by rites of such a kind that it would be more culpable for them to delight in such exhibitions if the stories were groundless, than if they were based on fact. If it had been in their power, the gods might have preferred to bestow this great blessing of empire upon the Greeks. For in this matter of ‘divine affairs’, that is, in those stage-shows, the Greeks offered a worship more honourable and more worthy of divinity. They did not withdraw themselves out of reach of the poet’s biting tongue, when they saw the gods being so lacerated; they gave the poet liberty to maltreat any man at their pleasure. Nor did they condemn the actors as infamous; they considered them worthy of even the highest honours.99
The Romans could have had gold money without worshipping the god Aurinus, and silver and bronze, without the cult of Argentinus and his father, Aesculanus. And so on through the list, which it would be tedious to repeat. In the same way, though they could not have exercised dominion without the consent of the true God, still, if they had ignored, or despised, that multitude of false gods, and had recognized the one God, and given him the worship of sincere faith and pure lives, they would have had a better dominion – whatever its size – here on earth, and would have received hereafter an eternal kingdom, whether they had enjoyed dominion in this world or no.
