City of God (Penguin Classics), page 37
Seneca was quite outspoken about the cruel obscenity of some of the ceremonies:
One man cuts off his male organs: another gashes his arms. If this is the way they earn the favour of the gods, what happens when they fear their anger? The gods do not deserve any kind of worship, if this is the worship they desire. So extreme is the frenzy of a mind disturbed and toppled from its throne, that the gods are appeased by rites which surpass the savagery of the foulest of mankind, whose cruelty has passed into legend. Tyrants have sometimes lacerated men’s limbs: they have never ordered men to lacerate themselves. Men have been gelded to serve a monarch’s lustful pleasure; but no one has ever unmanned himself with his own hands, at the bidding of his master. Men gash themselves in the temples, and offer their wounds and their blood as a supplication. If anyone had the time to notice what those people do and what they have done to them, he would discover things so unbecoming for men of honour, so unworthy of freemen, so incongruous for men of sane mind, that no one would hesitate to call them mad, if there were not so many sharing the same frenzy. As it is, their title to sanity rests on the multitude of the apparently insane.
He goes on to recount the ceremonies habitually observed in the Capitol itself, and he exposes them without the slightest reserve. No one would believe, he implies, that those were performed by any but lunatics – unless it were in a spirit of mockery. He himself speaks in derision of the mourning for Osiris47 in the Egyptian mysteries, followed soon by the joy at his finding, since both the loss and the discovery are fictitious, and yet the grief, and the joy, are expressed with every appearance of genuine emotion by people who have neither lost nor found anything. Seneca adds,
But at least this delirium has a limited period; it is allowable to go mad once a year. If you go to the Capitol, you will be ashamed at the demented performances presented to the public, which frivolous lunacy looks upon in the light of a duty. Jupiter has someone to announce the names of his callers; another to tell him the time; he has an attendant to wash him, another to oil him, and this one merely goes through the motions with his hands. There are women to do the hair of Juno and Minerva; these stand at a distance not only from the statues, but from the temple, and move their fingers like hairdressers, while others hold up a looking-glass. You find people praying the gods to stand bail for them; others handing them their writs and explaining their law cases. A leading pantomime actor of great experience, grown old and decrepit, used to put on his act every day on the Capitol, as if the gods still took pleasure in his performance now that human beings had abandoned him. Craftsmen of all kinds hang about the place waiting to do some work for the immortal gods.
Soon afterwards, Seneca adds,
At least the services they offer are not indecent or dishonourable, though they may be superfluous. But there are some women who haunt the Capitol in the belief that Jupiter is in love with them: and they are not deterred by the thought of Juno’s jealous anger, which (if one is to believe the poets) can be formidable!
Here we have a freedom of speech such as Varro did not display. He could only bring himself to criticize poetic theology; he did not dare find fault with ‘civil’, which Seneca cut to pieces. Yet, if we really want the truth, the temples where those rites go on are worse than the theatres where those fictions are enacted. Hence, in the rites of ‘civil’ theology the role chosen by Seneca for the wise man is to simulate conformity in act while having no religious attachment. This is what he says: ‘The wise man will observe all these customs as being ordered by law, not as acceptable to the gods.’ And, a little later,
And what of the marriages we arrange among the gods, including the blasphemy of unions between brothers and sisters? We give Bellona to Mars, Venus to Vulcan, Salacia48 to Neptune. We leave some of the gods as bachelors, for lack, one assumes, of suitable matches. There are, to be sure, some unattached females available, such as Populonia, Fulgora,49 and Rumina;50 but it is not surprising that no suitors were forthcoming for them. All that undistinguished mob of gods which long-standing superstition has amassed over the centuries, will receive our worship; but we shall bear in mind that their cult is a matter of custom, having little connection with truth.
Thus, what the laws and custom established in ‘civil’ theology is not what was acceptable to the gods, nor anything related to reality. But Seneca, who had been, as it were, emancipated by the philosophers, but who was also an illustrious senator of the Roman people, worshipped what he criticized, performed acts which he reprehended, venerated what he condemned. Doubtless philosophy had taught him an important lesson, that he should not be superstitious in his conception of the physical universe; but, because of the laws of the country and the accepted customs, he also learnt that without playing an actor’s part in theatrical fictions, he should imitate such a performance in the temple. This was to take a line the more reprehensible in that he acted this insincere part in such a way as to lead people to believe him sincere. The stage-player on the other hand, only aims at giving pleasure by his performance; he has no desire to mislead or deceive his audience.
11. Seneca’s opinion of the Jews
Besides criticizing the superstitions of ‘civil’ theology, Seneca attacks the rites of the Jews, and the Sabbath in particular. He maintains that the Sabbath is a harmful institution, since by the interposition of this one day in seven they practically lose a seventh part of their life in inactivity, and they suffer by having to put off urgent tasks. As for the Christians, who were at that time already bitterly opposed to the Jews, he did not dare to mention them for good or ill – not wishing to praise them in defiance of the ancient traditions of his country, nor to criticize them against (it may be) his personal feelings. It is in speaking of the Jews that he says: ‘The customs of this detestable race have become so prevalent that they have been adopted in almost all the world. The vanquished have imposed their laws on the conquerors.’ He expresses his surprise when he says this, and he shows his ignorance of the ways of God’s working in adding a remark in which he reveals what he thought about the Jewish ritual system: ‘At least they know the origins of their ceremonies: the greater part of our people have no idea of the reason for the things they do.’
The questions that arise about the Jewish religious practices, why, and to what extent, they have been established by divine authority, and afterwards taken over, with divine approval, by the people of God, to whom the mystery of eternal life has been revealed – these questions I have treated in other places, and in particular in my books against the Manicheans.51 And I shall have more to say on this topic at a more convenient moment in this present work.
12. The falsity of the pagan gods has been exposed; they can give no help in respect of temporal life; they certainly cannot bestow life eternal
Here then are three theologies: the Greeks call them ‘mythical’, ‘physical’, and ‘political’, and in Latin they can be called ‘fabulous’, ‘natural’, and ‘civil’. Men can look to neither the first nor the third of these for eternal life: not to ‘fabulous’ theology, which the pagans themselves criticize with extreme candour, although they are worshippers of many false gods, nor to ‘civil’ theology, for that has been proved to be a subdivision of the ‘fabulous’, closely resembling it, or even morally inferior to it. If what I have said in this book is not enough to convince every reader, I would refer to the ample discussions in the previous volumes, and especially in the fourth, on God as the giver of felicity. For to whom should men consecrate themselves, with a view to eternal life, save to felicity alone, if felicity were a goddess?52 But felicity is not a goddess, but the gift of God. To what God then should we consecrate ourselves except to the giver of felicity, if we fix our devout affection on eternal life, where there is the true fulfilment of felicity?
After what has been already said, I do not imagine that anyone is likely to suppose that any of the pagan gods is the giver of felicity. Their worship has so much that is disgraceful in it, and even more disgraceful is their indignation if such worship is withheld; it is that which betrays them for the unclean spirits they are. Then how can one who does not give felicity be capable of giving eternal life? For what we mean by eternal life is the condition of unending felicity. If the soul lives in the eternal pains with which the unclean spirits themselves will be tormented, that is not eternal life, but eternal death. The greatest and worst of all deaths is where death does not the. Now since the soul, being created immortal, cannot be deprived of every kind of life, the supreme death of the soul is alienation from the life of God in an eternity of punishment. Therefore life eternal, that is, life of unending felicity, is the gift of him alone who gives true felicity. It has been proved that the gods worshipped by ‘civil’ theology cannot give it. They are not to be worshipped, even with a view to temporal and earthly goods; we have demonstrated that in the five preceding books. Much less are they to be honoured with a view to eternal life, the life after death: that is the point we have made in this present book, with the support of the arguments in the previous discussions.
But inveterate custom has the strength derived from very deep roots: and some readers may think that my arguments have not adequately established the need to reject and to shun this ‘civil’ theology. I would ask any such readers to give their attention to the next volume, which, with God’s help, is to follow.
BOOK VII
Preface
I AM using my most earnest endeavours to destroy and eradicate the baneful and long-held notions which are the enemies of true religion, and which have been fixed in the darkened minds of mankind through centuries of error, putting out deep and tenacious roots. I am co-operating, in my small measure, with the grace of the true God, relying on the help of him who alone can accomplish this design. No doubt the argument of my previous books is more than sufficient to achieve this object for livelier and superior intelligences; but they will have to possess themselves in patience; and I ask them, for the sake of others, not to think superfluous what for themselves they feel to be unnecessary.
The task before us is a matter of supreme importance: to establish that the true and truly holy Divinity is to be sought and worshipped not with a view to this mortal life, which passes away like smoke1 (although we do receive from the Divinity the help needed for our present frailty), but for the sake of the life of blessedness, which must needs be the life of eternity.
1. Since it is agreed that no divinity is to be found in ‘civil’ theology, are we to believe that it is to be found in the ‘select’ gods?
This Divinity, or, as I may call it, this Deity – for our Christian writers have no reluctance about using this word, as a more accurate translation of the Greek theotês2 – this Divinity, or Deity, is not to be found in the ‘civil’ theology which Marius Varro has expounded in sixteen books: that is to say, it is impossible to attain to the felicity of eternal life by means of the worship of such gods as have been established in the cities, together with the ritual of their worship. Any reader who has not been convinced by my sixth book, just completed, will no doubt find, after reading the present book, that he needs no further elucidation of the subject.
It may be, in fact, that someone will imagine that at any rate the ‘select’ and ‘principal’ gods, which Varro has treated of in his last book, and about which I have as yet said all too little, ought to be worshipped with a view to a life of happiness, which can only mean eternal life. On this subject I am not going to echo what Tertullian said, perhaps with more wit than truth, ‘If gods are “selected” like onions, then the others are rejected as worthless.’3 I am not saying that; for I see that even among a select few, a further selection is made for some task of exceptional importance. For instance, in an army, when recruits have been selected, a choice is made from these for some important military operation; and when a choice is made of leaders in the Church, it does not mean that the rest are rejected, since all the truly faithful are rightly called ‘elect’. ‘Corner stones’4 are ‘selected’ for a building, but that does not imply the ‘rejection’ of the rest, which are appointed to a place in other parts of the structure. Grapes are ‘selected’ for eating, but the others, which are reserved for drink, are not ‘rejected’. There is no need to labour an abvious point. We can take it that the mere fact that certain gods have been selected out of a large number is not a reason for attacking the author, or the worshippers of the gods, or the gods themselves. Our task is rather to examine who those gods are and for what purpose they have, apparently, been ‘selected’.
2. Who are these ‘select’ gods? Are they excused the duties of the less considerable gods?
At all events, here are the gods to whom Varro, in the course of one book, gives the testimonial of ‘select’: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn, Genius,5 Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, the Sun, Orcus, Father liber,6 Earth, Ceres, Juno, the Moon,7 Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta – twenty in all, twelve males, eight females. Are these divinities called ‘select’ because of their more important responsibilities in the universe or because they are better known to the people in general and because a higher degree of worship is offered to them? If it is because of their more responsible functions in the universe, we should not expect to find them among what we may call the plebeian multitude of divinities which are assigned to tiny tasks. In fact, to start with Janus himself, at the moment of conception – for that is where they start, all these tasks minutely distributed among those minute divinities – at that moment it is Janus who opens the door for the reception of the seed. Saturn is there too, in charge of the actual seed; Liber is there, for he liberates the male by the emission of the seed; Libera is there (some identify her with Venus) who performs the same good office for the female, to give her liberation by the emission of the seed. All these belong to the class of ‘select’ gods. But the goddess Mena8 is there as well, and she looks after the menstrual flux – an obscure divinity, although the daughter of Jupiter. Varro, in his book about ‘select’ gods, assigns this department of menstruation to Juno herself, who is queen even among the ‘select’ gods, and, in her capacity as Juno Lucina she presides over this haemorrhage in company with her stepdaughter, Mena. Among those present there, there are a couple of very obscure divinities of some sort, Vitumnus and Sentinus:9 the first gives vitality to the foetus, the latter bestows sensibility. And in spite of their utter obscurity those two perform a much more important office than all those noble and ‘select’ gods. For surely, without life and sense, what is it that a woman carries in her womb? Merely a lump of worthless matter, of the same order as dust and mud.
3. There is no discoverable principle in the selection of certain gods, since more important responsibilities are assigned to many inferior deities
What drove all those ‘select’ gods to undertake these lowly tasks, where Vitumnus and Sentinus, who ‘are wrapped in complete obscurity’,10 are superior to them in gifts allotted for their bestowal? It is the ‘select’ Janus who gives access – opens the door (janua) as it were – for the seed; the ‘select’ Saturn confers the actual seed; the ‘select’ Liber procures for men the emission of the seed; Libera (or Ceres, or Venus) does the same for women; the ‘select’ Juno provides the menses for the growth of the foetus when conceived – and she does this not alone, but with the help of Mena, daughter of Jupiter. And it is the obscure and unknown Vitumnus who gives life, the obscure and unknown Sentinus gives sensibility; and those are more important gifts than the others, in proportion as they themselves are inferior to intellect and reason. For just as beings endowed with reason and intelligence are by that very fact superior to those without those faculties, whose life is merely that of sense, so in the same way beings equipped with life and sense are rightly ranked above those which have neither life nor sensibility. Thus Vitumnus, giver of life, and Sentinus, giver of sense, have a better claim to a place among ‘select’ gods than Janus, the admitter of seed, Saturn, giver or sower of seed, and Liber and Libera, movers or emitters of seeds – seeds which are not worthy of consideration until they have reached the stage of life and sensibility; and life and sense are ‘select’ gifts which are not in the gift of ‘select’ gods but of unknown gods, gods regarded as negligible in comparison with the high rank of those others.
The reply may be that Janus is the authority concerned with all beginnings, and for that reason the opening made for conception is rightly assigned to him; and that Saturn is in charge of all seeds, and therefore the seeding of man cannot be separated from his operation; that Liber and Libera are in charge of the emission of all seeds, and must in consequence be concerned with the emission of seeds which are connected with the formation of men; that Juno presides over all purifications and all parturition, and therefore cannot fail to be present at the purification of women and the births of men. If so, let our antagonists decide what to reply about Vitumnus and Sentinus. Do they wish them to be the authorities over all living and sentient beings? If the answer is Yes, then they should give thought to the question of giving them a loftier position. For to be born by means of seed is to be born on earth and from earth, while to live and to feel are, in their view, attributes of the heavenly gods. If they say, on the other hand, that Vitumnus and Sentinus are only given responsibility for beings which live in the flesh and with the aid of senses, why does not their great god, who makes all things live and feel, confer life and sensibility on the flesh also, and, as part of his universal operation, bestow this gift on creatures at their birth? What need is there for Vitumnus and Sentinus? Let us imagine that the Supreme Being, who presides over life and sensibility in general, has entrusted to those whom we may call his servants the oversight of things of the flesh as being utterly remote from him and too lowly for his immediate attention. But are we to suppose that those ‘select’ gods are so deprived of domestic staff that they cannot themselves entrust those tasks to servants, but are compelled, for all their renown (which leads to their being selected), to share such tasks with obscure deities? Juno is a ‘select’ goddess; she is queen, the ‘sister and consort of Jupiter’, yet she is Iterduca for children, and shares her task with those most obscure goddesses, Abeona and Adeona.11 In the same sphere they placed another goddess, called Mens12 (Mind), to give to children a good intelligence; and yet that divinity is not ranked among the ‘select’ deities – as if this gift were not the most valuable that could be given. Yet Juno is ranked as ‘select, because she is Iterduca and Domiduca – as if it were the slightest use ‘to find one’s way’ (iter ducerc) or ‘to be brought back home’ (domum duel), if one has not a good intelligence (mens).13 And yet the selectors never thought of entering the giver of this blessing among their ‘select’ divinities. But surely she (Mens) ought to have been preferred even to Minerva, who was made responsible for the memory of children in this allocation of detailed functions. For it can hardly be doubted that a good intelligence is a more valuable possession than a memory however vast. No one who has a good mind can be a bad man; whereas there are complete villains with remarkable memories, who are all the worse because they cannot forget their evil thoughts. For all that, Minerva is among the ‘select’ deities while Mens is lost to sight among the common herd. And what am I to say of Virtue? Or of Felicity? I have already said a good deal about them in my fourth book.14 Although our pagans consider them gods, they have refused them any place among the ‘select’, while giving places to Mars and Orcus, of whom the first ensures death, the second receives the dead.
