Eusebius, Preparation of the Gospels

ToposText · Eusebius · 1,565 sections

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.11.14
§ 3.11.14 On hearing that Silenus is the motion of the wind, and the force which penetrates through all things, and that at one time he represents by his head the revolution of the heavens, and at another the density of the air by the shaggy hair of his beard, how can one patiently endure to see him thought worthy of no august worship, who ought to have been deified before all, while Adonis and Dionysus, the corn-crops forsooth and tree-fruits, are turned into gods?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.11.15
§ 3.11.15 And who could patiently bear to hear Satyrs and Bacchantes spoken of with reverence, which are the foul and licentious passions of mankind, inasmuch as the former, the Satyrs, represented the impulses which excite to carnal pleasure, and the Bacchantes the inducements which concur to frenzy in those who take part herein?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.11.16
§ 3.11.16 But what need to refute each part separately, when we ought merely to run over them so that none of their secrets may escape us, and to cut short the physical explanation of what follows, which the author before named has set forth, proceeding in the following manner:'The whole power productive of water they called Oceanus, and named its symbolic figure Tethys. But of the whole, the drinking-water produced is called Achelous; and the sea-water Poseidon; while again that which makes the sea, inasmuch as it is productive, is Amphitrite. Of the sweet waters the particular powers are called Nymphs, and those of the sea-waters Nereids.'Again, the power of fire they called Hephaestus, and have made his image in the form of a man, but put on it a blue cap as a symbol of the revolution of the heavens, because the archetypal and purest form of lire is there. But the fire brought down from heaven to earth is less intense, and wants the strengthening and support which is found in matter: wherefore he is lame, as needing matter to support him.'Also they supposed a power of this kind to belong to the sun and called it Apollo, from the pulsation (πάλσις) of his beams. There are also nine Muses singing to his lyre, which are the sublunar sphere, and seven spheres of the planets, and one of the fixed stars. And they crowned him with laurel, partly because the plant is full of fire, and therefore hated by daemons; and partly because it crackles in burning, to represent the god's prophetic art.'But inasmuch as the sun wards off the evils of the earth, they called him Heracles (Ἑρακλῆς), from his clashing against the air (κλᾶσθαι πρὸς τὸν ἀέρα) in passing from east to west. And they invented fables of his performing twelve labours, as the symbol of the division of the signs of the zodiac in heaven; and they arrayed him with a club and a lion's skin, the one as an indication of his uneven motion, and the other representative of his strength in “ Leo ” the sign of the zodiac.'Of the sun's healing power Asclepius is the symbol, and to him they have given the staff as a sign of the support and rest of the sick, and the serpent is wound round it, as significant of his preservation of body and soul: for the animal is most full of spirit, and shuffles off the weakness of the body. It seems also to have a great faculty for healing: for it found the remedy for giving clear sight, and is said in a legend to know a certain plant which restores life.'But the fiery power of his revolving and circling motion, whereby he ripens the crops, is called Dionysus, not in the same sense as the power which produces the juicy fruits, but either from the sun's rotation (δινεῖν), or from his completing (διανύειν) his orbit in the heaven. And whereas he revolves round the cosmical seasons (Spas), and is the maker of “times and tides,” the sun is on this account called Horus.'Of his power over agriculture, whereon depend the gifts of wealth ( Plutus ), the symbol is Pluto. He has, however, equally the power of destroying, on which account they make Sarapis share the temple of Pluto: and the purple tunic they make the symbol of the light that has sunk beneath the earth, and the sceptre broken at the top that of his power below, and the posture of the hand the symbol of his departure into the unseen world.' Cerberus is represented with three heads, because the positions of the sun above the earth are three — rising, midday, and setting.'The moon, conceived according to her brightness, they called Artemis, as it were ἀερότεμις, “cutting the air.” And Artemis, though herself a virgin, presides over childbirth, because the power of the new moon is helpful to parturition.'What Apollo is to the sun, that Athena is to the moon: for the moon is a symbol of wisdom, and so a kind of Athena.'But, again, the moon is Hecate, the symbol of her varying phases and of her power dependent on the phases. Wherefore her power appears in three forms, having as symbol of the new moon the figure in the white robe and golden sandals, and torches lighted: the basket, which she bears when she has mounted high, is the symbol of the cultivation of the crops, which she makes to grow up according to the increase of her light: and again the symbol of the full moon is the goddess of the brazen sandals.'Or even from the branch of olive one might infer her fiery nature, and from the poppy her productiveness, and the multitude of the souls who find an abode in her as in a city, for the poppy is an emblem of a city. She bears a bow, like Artemis, because of the sharpness of the pangs of labour.'And, again, the Fates are referred, to her powers, Clotho to the generative, and Lachesis to the nutritive, and Atropos to the inexorable will of the deity.'Also, the power productive of corn-crops, which is Demeter, they associate with her, as producing power in her. The moon is also a supporter of Kore. They set Dionysus also beside her, both on account of their growth of horns, and because of the region of clouds lying beneath the lower world.'The power of Kronos they perceived to be sluggish and slow and cold, and therefore attributed to him the power of time (χρόνου): and they figure him standing, and grey-headed, to indicate that time is growing old.'The Curetes, attending on Chronos, are symbols of the seasons, because time ( Chronos ) journeys on through seasons.'Of the Horae, some are the Olympian, belonging to the sun, which also open the gates in the air: and others are earthly, belonging to Demeter, and hold a basket, one symbolic of the flowers of spring, and the other of the wheat-ears of summer.'The power of Ares they perceived to be fiery, and represented it as causing war and bloodshed, and capable both of harm and benefit.'The star of Aphrodite they observed as tending to fecundity, being the cause of desire and offspring, and represented it as a woman because of generation, and as beautiful, because it is also the evening star — “Hesper, the fairest star that shines in heaven.”'And Eros they set by her because of desire. She veils her breasts and other parts, because their power is the source of generation and nourishment. She conies from the sea, a watery element, and warm, and in constant movement, and foaming because of its commotion, whereby they intimate the seminal power.' Hermes is the representative of reason and speech, which both accomplish and interpret all things. The phallic Hermes represents vigour, but also indicates the generative law that pervades all things.'Further, reason is composite: in the sun it is called Hermes; in the moon Hecate; and that which is in the All Hermopan, for the generative and creative reason extends over all things. Hermanubis also is composite, and as it were half Greek, being found among the Egyptians also. Since speech is also connected with the power of love, Eros represents this power: wherefore Eros is represented as the son of Hermes, but as an infant, because of his sudden impulses of desire.'They made Pan the symbol of the universe, and gave him his horns as symbols of sun and moon, and the fawn skin as emblem of the stars in heaven, or of the variety of the universe.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.11.17
§ 3.11.17 Such are his interpretations of the Greek mythology: that of the Egyptians again he says has symbols such as follow:'The Demiurge, whom the Egyptians call Cneph, is of human form, but with a skin of dark blue, holding a girdle and a sceptre, and crowned with a royal wing on his head, because reason is hard to discover, and wrapt up in secret, and not conspicuous, and because it is life-giving, and because it is a king, and because it has an intelligent motion: wherefore the characteristic wing is put upon his head.'This god, they say, puts forth from his mouth an egg, from which is born a god who is called by themselves Phtha, but by the Greeks Hephaestus; and the egg they interpret as the world. To this god the sheep is consecrated, because the ancients used to drink milk.'The representation of the world itself they figured thus: the statue is like a man having feet joined together, and clothed from head to foot with a robe of many colours, and has on the head a golden sphere, the first to represent its immobility, the second the many-coloured nature of the stars, and the third because the world is spherical.'The sun they indicate sometimes by a man embarked on a ship, the ship set on a crocodile. And the ship indicates the sun's motion in a liquid element: the crocodile potable water in which the sun travels. The figure of the sun thus signified that his revolution takes place through air that is liquid and sweet.'The power of the earth, both the celestial and terrestrial earth, they called Isis, because of the equality (ἰσότητα), which is the source of justice: but they call the moon the celestial earth, and the vegetative earth, on which we live, they call the terrestrial.' Demeter has the same meaning among the Greeks as Isis among the Egyptians: and, again, Kore and Dionysus among the Greeks the same as Isis and Osiris among the Egyptians. Isis is that which nourishes and raises up the fruits of the earth; and Osiris among the Egyptians is that which supplies the fructifying power, which they propitiate with lamentations as it disappears into the earth in the sowing, and as it is consumed by us for food.' Osiris is also taken for the river-power of the Nile: when, however, they signify the terrestrial earth, Osiris is taken as the fructifying power; but when the celestial, Osiris is the Nile, which they suppose to come down from heaven: this also they bewail, in order to propitiate the power when failing and becoming exhausted. And the Isis who, in the legends, is wedded to Osiris is the land of Egypt, and therefore she is made equal to him, and conceives, and produces the fruits; and on this account Osiris has been described by tradition as the husband of Isis, and her brother, and her son.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.12.1
§ 3.12.1 [PORPHYRY]'AT the city Elephantine there is an image worshipped, which in other respects is fashioned in the likeness of a man and sitting; it is of a blue colour, and has a man's head, and a diadem bearing the horns of a goat, above which is a quoit-shaped circle. He sits with a vessel of clay beside him, on which he is moulding the figure of a man. And from having the face of a ram and the horns of a goat he indicates the conjunction of sun and moon in the sign of the Ram, while the colour of blue indicates that the moon in that conjunction brings rain.'The second appearance of the moon is held sacred in the city of Apollo: and its symbol is a man with a hawk-like face, subduing with a hunting-spear Typhon in the likeness of a hippopotamus. The image is white in colour, the whiteness representing the illumination of the moon, and the hawk-like face the fact that it derives light and breath from the sun. For the hawk they consecrate to the sun, and make it their symbol of light and breath, because of its swift motion, and its soaring up on high, where the light is. And the hippopotamus represents the Western sky, because of its swallowing up into itself the stars which traverse it.'In this city Horus is worshipped as a god. But the city of Eileithyia worships the third appearance of the moon: and her statue is fashioned into a flying vulture, whose plumage consists of precious stones. And its likeness to a vulture signifies that the moon is what produces the winds: for they think that the vulture conceives from the wind, and declares that they are all hen birds.'In the mysteries at Eleusis the hierophant is dressed up to represent the demiurge, and the torch-bearer the sun, the priest at the altar the moon, and the sacred herald Hermes.'Moreover a man is admitted by the Egyptians among their objects of worship. For there is a village in Egypt called Anabis, in which a man is worshipped, and sacrifice offered to him, and the victims burned upon his altars: and after a little while he would eat the things that had been prepared for him as for a man.'They did not, however, believe the animals to be gods, but regarded them as likenesses and symbols of gods; and this is shown by the fact that in many places oxen dedicated to the gods are sacrificed at their monthly festivals and in their religious services. For they consecrated oxen to the sun and moon.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.1
§ 3.13.1 [PORPHYRY]'THE ox called Mnevis which is dedicated to the sun in Heliopolis, is the largest of oxen, very black, chiefly because much sunshine blackens men's bodies. And its tail and all its body are covered with hair that bristles backwards unlike other cattle, just as the sun makes its course in the opposite direction to the heaven. Its testicles are very large, since desire is produced by heat, and the sun is said to fertilize nature.'To the moon they dedicated a bull which they call Apis, which also is more black than others, and bears symbols of sun and moon, because the light of the moon is from the sun. The blackness of his body is an emblem of the sun, and so is the beetle-like mark under his tongue; and the symbol of the moon is the semicircle, and the gibbous figure.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.2
§ 3.13.2 Let it suffice that I have made these short extracts from the writing of the before-named author, so that we may not be ignorant of any secrets of the theology which is at once both Grecian and Egyptian, and from which we confess ourselves to be apostates and deserters, having rejected these doctrines with sound judgement and reasoning. For I am not going to be frightened by the arrogant voice which said,'I speak to those who lawfully may hear: Depart, all ye profane, and close the doors."
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.3
§ 3.13.3 Not we at all events are profane, but those who declared that such foul and unseemly legends about beetles and brute beasts were the thoughts of a wise theology — they who, according to the admirable Apostle,'professing themselves to be wise, became fools,' seeing that they'changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.4
§ 3.13.4 But since they used to refer all the secret and more mysterious doctrine on these subjects in a metaphorical sense to incorporeal powers, so as to appear no longer to apply their deification to the visible parts of the world, but to certain invisible and incorporeal powers, let us examine whether we ought not even so to admire. the divine power as one, and not to regard it as many.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.5
§ 3.13.5 For it does not follow, because many shapes and parts and limbs have been created in one body, that we ought to believe them to have as many souls, nor to suppose that there are as many makers and creators of the body; but that as one soul moves the whole body, so one creative power framed the whole living being.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.6
§ 3.13.6 Thus then in the case of the whole world also, since it is one, and consists of one kind of corporeal matter, but is divided into many parts, and reveals one natural sympathy of the universe, and a composition and mixture of its elements, with changes and transformations of one into another, while it exhibits the entire whole as one order and one harmony, we ought not to suppose many creative powers, but to deify only one, namely that which is in very truth'the power of God, and the wisdom of God.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.7
§ 3.13.7 But our wise philosopher does not observe that he is transforming the Egyptian mythologies back into immaterial powers; for you have heard in what has gone before, how he confessed that Chaeremon and several others'believed in nothing else as prior to the visible worlds, and placed the Egyptians first,' because they interpreted all things of physical laws and nothing of incorporeal and living beings.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.8
§ 3.13.8 If therefore, according to their own confession, it was characteristic of the Egyptians to refer nothing'to incorporeal and living beings,' but to transfer all their mythological stories concerning the gods to the physical parts of the world, why then do they begin anew with their subtleties, and ascribe to the Egyptians doctrines which in no way belong to them, by asserting that they make their theology refer back to incorporeal powers? Such is the general charge to be brought.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.9
§ 3.13.9 And in regard also to the particulars, I think that no long refutation is needed to disprove their forced rendering.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.10
§ 3.13.10 For to pass over the nonsense of the Egyptians and all their prating foolery, and to come on to the physical theories of the wise Greeks, what man of sound mind would not at once condemn those who attempt to give such perverse interpretations?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.11
§ 3.13.11 For grant that Zeus no longer means the fiery and ethereal substance, as however was supposed by the ancients according to Plutarch, but that he is the supreme'mind' itself,'the creator of the universe,' who giveth to all things life — how then shall his father be Kronos, whom they assert to be time, and his mother Rhea, whom our interpreter declared to be the power of rocks and mountains? For I cannot understand how, after calling Hera the air and the ether, he says that she is at the same time sister and wife of the mind that made the world and gave life to all things.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.12
§ 3.13.12 But again let Leto be called a kind of oblivion (ληθώ) because of the insensibility, as they say, in sleep, and because oblivion accompanies the souls that are born into this sublunary world. How then could oblivion become the mother of sun and moon, Apollo and Artemis the children of Leto having been transformed into sun and moon?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.13
§ 3.13.13 And why are we to worship Rhea or Demeter as a goddess, if the one was said to be symbolic of rocky and mountainous land, and the other of the plain? As they allegorize Kore into satiety (κόρος), for what reason do they think they ought to honour her with that venerable title?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.14
§ 3.13.14 And why do they think we ought to worship as gods the seminal power, and the production of tree-fruits, or of the blossoms that appear in spring, and perish before they have perfected their fruit, or the symbols of the cutting of the ripe crops, surnaming them Dionysus and Attis and Adonis, instead of honouring above all these the human race for whose use and sustenance these things were provided by the Divine Creator of the universe?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.15
§ 3.13.15 But passing from these points, you will by the like method confute all the rest of their grand physical theory, and with good reason rebuke the shamelessness of those, say, who declared that the sun was Apollo himself, and again Heracles, and at another time Dionysus, and again in like manner Asclepius.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.16
§ 3.13.16 For how could the same person be both father and son, Asclepius and Apollo at once? And how could he be changed again into Heracles, since Heracles has been acknowledged by them to be the son of a mortal woman Alcmena? And how could the sun go mad and slay his own sons, seeing that this also has been ascribed to Heracles?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.17
§ 3.13.17 But in the performance of his twelve labours Heracles is said to be the symbol of the distribution in the heaven of the zodiacal circle in which they say the sun revolves. Who then is now to be the Eurystheus, that enjoins the performance of the labours on the sun, as he did upon Heracles? And how can the fifty daughters of Thestius be referred to the sun, and the multitude of other female captives with whom the story says that Heracles consorted, and of whom were born to him mortal sons who continued the succession of their generations for a very long time? And who could the Centaur be, with whose blood Deianeira smeared the tunic, and so would have involved the sun, as in fact she did Heracles, in the misery that has been described?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.18
§ 3.13.18 But now suppose they make the sun no longer Heracles, but Dionysus: and any one may with good reason say,'What have these things to do with Dionysus?' For who was his mother, whether called Semele or Persephone? And how could Dionysus be both the sun and the power that sprouts forth in the moist fruits and nuts? And what can the multitude of women who went with him on his expedition mean? And who is the Ariadne of the sun, as there was, we know, the Ariadne of Dionysus. And why, when Dionysus is transformed into the sun, should he be the provider rather of wine, and not of corn and vegetables and all the fruits of the earth? And again, if they make the sun Asclepius, how is he stricken with the thunderbolt of Zeus on account of his sordid love of gain, according to Pindar the lyric poet of Boeotia, who speaks as follows:'Him too by splendid bribe the gold Seen glittering on his palm seduc'd. Then swiftly from Kronion's hand The flashing lightning, fraught with death, With fiery bolt transfixing both, Quench'd in each form the living breath.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.19
§ 3.13.19 Who again were the Asclepiadae, children of the sun, who after being themselves preserved to a long life, founded a race of mortals like all other men?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.20
§ 3.13.20 However, while they try to escape, as it were by some sudden transformation, from the unseemly and fabulous narratives concerning the gods, their system will run back again to sun, and moon, and the other parts of the world.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.21
§ 3.13.21 If at least they made Hephaestus fire and the force of heat, Poseidon the watery element, Hera the air, and the mountainous and rocky earth Rhea, the plain and fruitful earth Demeter, Kore the seminal power, and Dionysus the power which produces hard fruits, the sun Apollo, together with those who have been enumerated above, and the moon at one time Artemis, at another Athena, and again Hecate, and Eileithyia — are they not again convicted of deifying'the creature rather than the Creator.' and the handiwork of the world but not the worker, with great risk and danger, and with mischief that must fall on their own head?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.22
§ 3.13.22 But if they shall assert that they deify not the visible bodies of sun and moon and stars, nor yet the sensible parts of the world, but the powers, invisible in them, of the very God who is over all — for they say that God being One fills all things with various powers, and pervades all, and rules over all, but as existing in all and pervading all in an incorporeal and invisible manner. and that they rightly worship Him through the things which we have mentioned — why in the world therefore do they not reject the foul and unseemly fables concerning the gods as being unlawful and impious, and put out of sight the very books concerning them, as containing blasphemous and licentious teaching, and celebrate the One and Only and Invisible God openly and purely and without any foul envelopment?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.23
§ 3.13.23 For this was what those who had known the truth ought to do, and not to degrade and debase the venerable name of God into foul and lustful fables of things unspeakable; nor yet to shut themselves up in cells and dark recesses and buildings made by man, as if they would find God inside; nor to think that they are worshipping the Divine powers in statues made of lifeless matter, nor to suppose that by vapours of gore and filth steaming from the earth, and by the blood of slain animals they are doing things pleasing to God.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.24
§ 3.13.24 Surely it became these men of wisdom and of lofty speech, as being set free from all these bonds of error, to impart of their physical speculations ungrudgingly to all men, and to proclaim as it were in naked truth to all, that they should adore not the things that are seen, but only the unseen Creator of things visible, and worship His invisible and incorporeal powers in ways invisible and incorporeal, not by kindling fire nor yet by offerings of ranis and bulls, nay, nor yet by imagining that they honour the Deity by garlands and statues and the building of temples, but by worshipping Him with purified thoughts and right and true doctrines, in dispassionate calmness of soul, and in growing as far as possible like unto Him.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.13.25
§ 3.13.25 But no one ever yet, barbarian or Greek, began to show all men this truth except only our Saviour; who, having proclaimed to all nations an escape from their ancient error, procured abundantly for them all a way of return and of devotion to the one true and only God of the universe. Yet the men perversely wise who boasted of the highest philosophy of life, whereby as the inspired Apostle says, though they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. They professed indeed to be wise, but became fools,... and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.1
§ 3.14.1 So after their long and manifold philosophical speculation, and after their solemn systems of meteorology and physiology, they fell down from their high place, as it were from the loftiest mountain-top, and were dragged down with the common herd, and swept away with the polytheistic delusion of the ancients, pretending that they glorified the like deities with the multitude by offering sacrifice and falling down before images, and increasing, and still further strengthening, the vulgar opinion of the legendary stories concerning the gods.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.2
§ 3.14.2 Must it not then be evident to all men that they are only talking solemn nonsense in their physical theories, and, as far as words go, putting a fair face on foul things by their perversion of the truth, but in actual deeds establishing the fabulous delusion, and the vulgar superstition? And so far there is no wonder, since they even record that their gods themselves assent to the fabulous stories concerning them.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.3
§ 3.14.3 Hear at least how Apollo himself teaches men a hymn, which he put forth concerning himself, acknowledging that he was born of Leto in the island of Delos, and Asclepius again in Tricca, as also Hermes acknowledging that he was the child of Maia: for these things also are written by Porphyry in a book which he entitled Of the Philosophy derived from Oracles, wherein he made mention of the oracles which run as follows:'Thou, joy of mortals, forth didst spring From thy pure mother's sacred pangs.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.4
§ 3.14.4 To this he subjoins —'But when the pangs of holy birth Through all her frame fair Leto seized, And in her womb twin children stirr'd, Still stood the earth, the air stood still, The isle grew fix'd, the wave was hush'd; Forth into life Lycoreus sprang, God of the bow, the prophet-king On the divining tripod thron'd.' Asclepius again thus speaks of himself:'From sacred Tricca, lo! I come, the god Of mortal mother erst to Phoebus born, Of wisdom and the healing art a king, Asclepius nam'd. But say, what would'st thou ask?' And Hermes says:'Lo! whom thou callest, Zeus' and Maia's son, Hermes, descending from the starry throne, Hither I come.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.5
§ 3.14.5 They also subjoin a description of the appearance of their own form, as Pan in the oracles gives the following description concerning himself:'To Pan, a god of kindred race, A mortal born my vows I pay; Whose horned brows and cloven feet And goat -like legs his lust betray.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.6
§ 3.14.6 These are the things which the author before named has set forth among the secrets Of the Philosophy drawn from the Oracles, Pan therefore was no longer the symbol of the universe, but must be some such daemon as is described, who also gave forth the oracle: for of course it was not the universe, and the whole world, that gave the oracle which we have before us. The men therefore who fashioned the likeness of this daemon, and not that of the universe, imitated the figure before described.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.7
§ 3.14.7 How also could Hermes be thought of as the reason which both makes and interprets all things, when he confesses that he had for his mother Maia the daughter of Atlas, thus sanctioning the fable that is told concerning him, and not any physical explanation?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.8
§ 3.14.8 So again, how could Asclepius be changed into the sun, when he lays claim to Tricca as his native place, and confesses that he was born of a mortal mother? Or how, if he were himself the sun, could be represented again as a child of the sun? Since in their physical theory they made his father Phoebus to be no other than the sun.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.9
§ 3.14.9 And is it not the most ridiculous thing of all, to say that he was born of the sun and a mortal woman? For how is it reasonable that his father, the sun, whom they declare to be Apollo, should himself also have been born in the island Delos of a mortal mother again, namely Leto.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.14.10
§ 3.14.10 Here observe, I pray you, how many gods born of women were deified by the Greeks, to be brought forward if ever they attempt to mock at our Saviour's birth: observe also that the remarks quoted are not the words of poets, but of the gods themselves.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.15.1
§ 3.15.1 WHEN poets therefore, as they say, invent legends concerning the gods, while philosophers give physical explanations, we ought, I suppose, rightly to despise the former, and admire the latter as philosophers, and to accept the persuasive arguments of this better class rather than the triflings of the poets. But when on the other hand gods and philosophers enter into competition, and the former, as likely to know best, state exactly the facts concerning themselves in their oracles, while the latter twist their guesses about things which they do not know into discordant and undemonstrable subtleties, which does reason persuade us to believe? Or rather is this not even worth asking?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.15.2
§ 3.15.2 If therefore the gods are to speak true in certifying the human passions attributed to them, they who set these aside must be false; but if the physical explanations of the philosophers are true, the testimonies of the gods must be false.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.15.3
§ 3.15.3 But even Apollo himself, it may be said, somewhere in an oracle, when asked about himself who he was, replied:' Osiris, Horus, Sun, Apollo, Zeus -born king, Ruler of times and seasons, winds and showers. Guiding the reins of dawn and starry night, King of the shining orbs, eternal Fire.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.15.4
§ 3.15.4 So then the same witnesses agree both with the poets' legends and with the philosophers' guesses, allying themselves with both sides in the battle. For if they ascribe to themselves mortal mothers, and acknowledge their native places upon earth, how can they be such as the physicists describe them?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.15.5
§ 3.15.5 Grant that Apollo is the sun — for their argument will again be caught running backwards and forwards and round to the same place — how then could Delos, the island which is now still seen at sea, be the native place of the sun, and Leto his mother? For this is what his own oracles just now certified as being true. And how could the sun become the father of Asclepius, a mortal man by nature, having begotten him of a mortal woman? But let us put this subject aside.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.16.1
§ 3.16.1 THE falsehood of the oracle is to be refuted in another way. For surely the sun did not come down to them from heaven, and then, after fully inspiring the recipient, utter the Phoebean oracle; since it is neither possible nor right that so great a luminary should be subjected to man's compulsion: nay, not even if they should speak of the divine and intelligent power in the sun, because a human soul could never be capable of receiving even this.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.16.2
§ 3.16.2 In the case of the moon also there would be the same argument. For if they mean to assert that she is Hecate, how then can it be right that she should be dragged down by constraint of men, and prophesy through the recipient, and be taken to help in base and amatory services, herself being ruler of the evil daemons — how right, I say, that Hecate should do these things? This the writer himself acknowledges, as we shall fully prove in due time.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.16.3
§ 3.16.3 How again could Pluto and Sarapis be changed by physical theory into the sun, when the same author declares that Sarapis is the same with Pluto, and is the ruler of the evil daemons? Moreover, in recording oracles of Sarapis how could he say they were those of the sun?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.16.4
§ 3.16.4 But in fact from all these considerations it only remains to confess that the physical explanations which have been described have no truth, but are sophisms and subtleties of sophistic men.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.17.1
§ 3.17.1 THE ministrants indeed of the oracles we must in plain truth declare to be evil daemons, playing both parts to deceive mankind, and at one time agreeing with the more fabulous suppositions concerning themselves, to deceive the common people, and at another time confirming the statements of the philosophers' jugglery in order to instigate them also and puff them up: so that in every way it is proved that they speak no truth at all.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:3.17.2
§ 3.17.2 After having said so much it is now time for us to pass on, and advance to the third kind of Greek theology, which they say is political and legal. For this has been thought most suitable to astonish the multitude, both because of the celebrated oracles, and the healings and cures of bodily sufferings, and the punishments inflicted upon some. And while they assert that they have had experience of these things, they have thoroughly persuaded themselves that they are doing rightly in their own devotion to the gods, and that we are guilty of the greatest impiety in not honouring the powers that are so manifest and so beneficent with the services that are due to them. To meet then these objections also, let us make another new beginning of our argument.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.1
§ 4.1.1 In this fourth book of the Preparation for the Gospel, due order bids me to refute the third form of polytheistic error, from which we were delivered by the power and beneficence of our Redeemer and Saviour.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.2
§ 4.1.2 For since they divide their whole system of theology under three general heads, the mythical treated by the poets in tragedy, and the physical which has been invented by the philosophers, and that which is enforced by the laws and observed in each city and country; and since two of these parts have been already explained by us in the preceding books, namely the historical, which they call mythical, and that which has transcended the mythical, and which they call physical, or speculative, or by any other name they please; in this present book it will be the right time to examine the third part, and this is what is established in the several cities and countries, and which they call political, or state-religion, which also is especially enforced by the laws, as both ancient and ancestral, and as in itself indicating the excellence of the power of those whom they deify.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.3
§ 4.1.3 There are for instance oracles renowned among them, and responses, and cures, and healings of all kinds of sufferings, and judgements inflicted upon the impious; whereof they profess to have had experience, and have thoroughly persuaded themselves that they act rightly in honouring the deities, and that we are guilty of the greatest impiety in making no account of powers so manifest and so beneficent, but directly breaking the laws, which require every one to reverence ancestral customs, and not disturb what should be inviolable, but to walk orderly in following the religion of his forefathers, and not to be meddlesome through love of innovation. Thus they say that even death has been deservedly fixed by the laws as the punishment for those who transgress.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.4
§ 4.1.4 As to the first form then of their theology, being historical and mythical, let any of the poets arrange it as he will, and so let any of the philosophers deal with the second form, reported to us through the allegorical interpretation of the legends in a more physical sense: but since the third form, as being both ancient and politic, has been legally ordained by their rulers to be honoured and observed, this, say they, let neither poet nor philosopher disturb; but let every one, both in rural districts and in cities, continue to walk by the customs which have prevailed from old time, and obey the laws of his forefathers.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.5
§ 4.1.5 In answer then to this, it is time to render the reason alleged on our side, and to submit a defence of our Saviour's evangelic system, as protesting against what has been described, and laying down laws opposed to the laws of all the nations.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.6
§ 4.1.6 Well then! it is manifest even to themselves that their lifeless images are no gods; and that their mythical theology offers no explanation that is respectable and becoming to deity, has been shown in the first book, as likewise in the second and third it has been shown that neither does their more physical and philosophical interpretation of the legends contain an unforced explanation.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.7
§ 4.1.7 Come then, let us examine the third point — how we are to regard the powers that lurk in the carved images, whether as civilized and good and truly divine in character, or the very opposite of all these.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.8
§ 4.1.8 Others, peradventure, in entering upon the discussion of these questions, might have laid it down that the whole system is a delusion, and mere conjuror's tricks and frauds, stating their opinion generally and concisely, that we ought not to attribute even to an evil daemon, much less to a god, the stories commonly told of them. For the poems and the compositions of the oracles, he would say, are fictions of men not without natural ability but extremely well furnished for deception, and are composed in an equivocal and ambiguous sense, and adapted, not without ingenuity, to either of the cases expected from the event: and the marvels which deceive the multitude by certain prodigies are dependent on natural causes.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.9
§ 4.1.9 For there are many kinds of roots, and herbs, and plants, and fruits, and stones, and other powers, both solid and liquid of every kind of matter in the natural world; some of them fit to drive off and expel certain diseases; others of a nature to attract and superinduce them; some again with power to secrete and disperse, or to harden and to bind, and others to relax and liquidate and attenuate; some again to save and others to kill, or to give a thorough turn, and change the present condition, altering it now this way and now that; and some to work this effect for a longer and some for a shorter time; and again, some to be efficacious on many and others only on a few; and some to lead and others to follow; and some to combine in different ways, and to grow and decay together. Yet further, that some are conducive to health, not unconnected with medical science, and others morbific and deleterious; and lastly that some things occur by physical necessities, and wax and wane together with the moon, and that there are countless antipathies of animals and roots and plants, and many kinds of narcotic and soporific vapours, and of others that produce delusion: that the places also, and regions in which the effects are accomplished give no little help; also that they have tools and instruments provided from afar in a way well fitted to their art, and that they associate with themselves in their jugglery many confederates from without, who make many inquiries about those who arrive, and the wants of each, and what he is come to request; also that they conceal within their temples many secret shrines and recesses inaccessible to the multitude; and that the darkness also helps their purpose not a little; and not least the anticipatory assumption itself, and the superstition of those who approach them as gods, and the opinion which has prevailed among them from the time of their forefathers. To this must be added also the silliness of mind of the multitude, and their feeble and uncritical reasoning, and on the other hand the cleverness and craftiness of those who are constantly practising this mischievous art, and the deceitful and knavish disposition of the impostors, at one time promising what will please each person, and soothing the present trouble by hopes of advantage, and at other times guessing at what is to come, and prophesying obscurely, and darkening the sense of their oracles by equivocations and indistinctness of expression, in order that no one may understand what is foretold, but that they may escape detection by the uncertainty of their statement.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.1.10
§ 4.1.10 They might also say that many events coincide with other frauds and quackeries, when certain so-called spells are associated with the events, with a kind of unintelligible and barbaric incantation, in order that the occurrences which are not in the least affected by them may seem to be hastened by them. Most, too, even of those who are supposed to start with a good education are especially astonished at the poetry of the oracles themselves, finely adorned as it is by the combination of the words, finely inflated also by the pompous grandeur of the language, and arrayed with much, boastful exaggeration and arrogant pretence of inspiration, and deceiving nearly all the people by their ambiguous sound.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.1
§ 4.2.1 Certainly all their oracles which have been free from ambiguity have been uttered not according to foreknowledge of the future but by mere conjecture, and thousands of these, or rather almost all, were often convicted of having failed in their prediction, the issue of the matters having turned out contrary to the answer of the oracle; unless perhaps on rare occasions some one event out of tens of thousands agreed therewith by some course of luck, or according to the conjectural expectation of what would happen, and so was thought to make the oracle speak true.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.2
§ 4.2.2 And of this you would find them most loudly boasting, and carving inscriptions upon columns, and shouting to the ends of the earth, not choosing to remember at all, that so many persons, it might chance, were disappointed, but publishing it high and low that to this one man out of ten thousand something promised by the oracle had turned out right. Just as if, when men were casting lots two at a time out of ten thousand, and it happened perhaps just once that they both fell upon the same numbers, a man should wonder how one and the same number happened to come round to both at once in consequence of divination and foreknowledge.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.3
§ 4.2.3 For such is the case of the one out of myriads upon myriads of oracular answers that on some one occasion happened to turn out true; and on observing this the man who possesses no firmness in the depth of his soul is exceedingly amazed at the oracle, though it were much better for him to cease from his folly by calculating to how many others the aforesaid soothsayers have been the cause of death, and of sedition, and wars, and to consider the histories of the ancients, and observe that they never pointed out any effect of divine power even at that time when the oracles of Greece were flourishing, and those which formerly were celebrated, but now exist no longer, were firmly established, and thought worthy of all care and zeal by their countrymen, who revered and fostered them by ancestral laws and mysterious rites.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.4
§ 4.2.4 And certainly in that period especially they were proved to be impotent in the calamities of war, in which the fine soothsayers being powerless to help were convicted of deceiving those who sought their protection by the ambiguity of their oracles; and this we shall accordingly show at the proper opportunity, by proving how they even goaded on those who consulted them into war with each other, and how they failed to give answers even about serious matters, and how they used to mislead their inquirers, making sport of them by their oracles, and tried to conceal their own ignorance by the darkness of uncertainty.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.5
§ 4.2.5 But observe from your own inquiries how they often promised to the sick strengthening, and life, and health, and then being trusted as though they were gods, exacted large rewards for this inspired traffic; and not very long afterwards it was discovered what sort of persons they were, being proved to be human impostors and no gods, when some unfortunate catastrophe seized upon their deluded victims.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.6
§ 4.2.6 What need to say that these wonderful prophets did not render their assistance even to their own next neighbours, those I mean who dwelt in the same city? But you might there see persons sick, and maimed, and mutilated all over their body, in thousands. Why in the world then did they promise such good hopes to the foreigners, who arrived from a far country, but not also to those who dwelt in the same place with them, to whom before all, as being their own friends and fellow citizens, they ought to have rendered the benefit of the presence of their gods? Was it not that they could more easily deceive the strangers, who knew nothing of their roguery, but not their intimates, as these were not ignorant of their craft, but conscious of the trickery practised upon those who were to be initiated?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.7
§ 4.2.7 Thus then the whole business was not divine nor beyond the pgwer of man's device; so that in the greatest calamities, I mean those which are suspended from on high over the heads of the ungodly from the all-ruling God, their temples, with votive offerings, statues and all, were subjected to utter destruction and sudden overthrow.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.8
§ 4.2.8 For where will you find the temple that was at Delphi, celebrated from the earliest times among all the Greeks? Where is the Pythian god? Where the Clarian? Where even the god of Dodona? As for the Delphian shrine, the story goes that it was burnt a third time by Thracians, the oracle not having been able to give any help to the knowledge of what was coming, nor the Pythian god himself to guard his own abode. It is recorded also that the Capitol at Rome met the same fate in the times of the Ptolemies, when the temple of Vesta at Rome is also said to have suffered conflagration. And about the time of Julius Caesar it is recorded that the great statue, which was the glory of the Greeks and of Olympia, was struck by lightning from the god at the very time of the Olympic games. On another occasion also, they say, the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was burnt, and the Pantheon destroyed by lightning, and the Serapeium at Alexandria burnt down in like manner.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.9
§ 4.2.9 Of these events written testimonies are current among the Greeks themselves; but it would be a long story, if any one meant to enumerate the several particulars, in trying to prove that the wonderful oracle-mongers have been found unable to defend even their own temples; and it is not likely that they who have been of no use to themselves in misfortunes would ever be able to give help to others.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.10
§ 4.2.10 By adding one circumstance to those which have been mentioned, such man would have clearly seen the main sum and substance of the matter, that ere now, many of the most highly inspired even of their chief hierophants, and theologians, and prophets, who were celebrated for this kind of theosophy, not only in former times but also recently in our own day, under cruel tortures before the Roman courts declared that the whole delusion was produced by human frauds, and confessed that it was all an artfully contrived imposture; and they had the whole character of the system and the methods of their evil practices registered in the words uttered by them in public records. Therefore they paid the just penalty of their pernicious deception, and revealed every word, and certified by actual facts the proof of the things which we have mentioned.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.11
§ 4.2.11 But, you ask, what sort of persons were these? Think not that they were any of the outcast and obscure. Some came to them from, this wonderful and noble philosophy, from the tribe who wear the long cloak and otherwise look so supercilious; and some were taken from the magistrates of the city of Antioch, who indeed in the time of our persecution prided themselves especially on their outrages against us. We know also the philosopher and prophet who suffered at Miletus the like punishments to those which we have mentioned.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.12
§ 4.2.12 These arguments then, and yet more than these, one might bring together to assert that the authors of the oracles are not gods nor yet daemons, but the delusion and deceit of human impostors.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.13
§ 4.2.13 And there were among the Greeks themselves whole sects distinguished in philosophy who defended this opinion; as the school of Aristotle, and all the successors of the Peripatetic school; Cynics too and Epicureans, in whom what I most admire is, how, after being brought up in the customs of the Greeks, and been taught even from the cradle, son from father, that those of whom we speak are gods, they have not been easily caught, but proved with all their might that even the renowned oracles, and the seats of divination which were sought after among all, had no truth, and declared that they were useless, nay gather mischievous.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.2.14
§ 4.2.14 But though there are thousands who have wrought the overthrow of the oracles by many arguments, for me I think it is sufficient at present, for a testimony of what I have stated, to make a single quotation from one of them in answer to the arguments devised by Chrysippus concerning fate from the predictions of the oracles. This author then writes against him to prove that he wrongly derives indications of fate from the oracles, and that the oracles of the Greeks give false answers in most cases, and that rarely from a coincidence some events agree with them, and that their prediction of the future is useless and mischievous. Hear, however, what he says, word for word.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.3.1
§ 4.3.1 [DIOGENIANUS]'But Chrysippus, in the book before mentioned, brings also another proof of the following kind. He says that the predictions of the prophets could not be true unless all things were fast bound by fate: which is itself a most silly argument. For he argues as if it were evident or would be more readily admitted by any one, that all the predictions of the so-called prophets came to pass, than that all things take place according to fate, as if the former would not itself be an equally false statement, since plain experience shows the contrary; I mean that not all the things foretold, or rather not the greatest part of them, come to pass.'Thus Chrysippus has brought us his proof, by establishing each proposition from the other. For he wishes to show that all things take place according to fate from the existence of prophecy: but the existence of prophecy he could not prove in any other way, if he did not first assume that all things occur according to fate.'But what method of proof could be more wretched than this? For that some things come to pass according to the plain meaning of what the prophets foretell would be a sign, not of the existence of prophetic science, but of the accidental concurrence of the events in agreement with the predictions — a thing which gives us no indication of any science.'For neither should we call an archer scientific who hit the mark once now and then, but missed many times; nor a physician who killed the greater number of those who were attended by him, but was able to save one sometimes; nor do we ever give the name of science to that which does not succeed in all, or at least in the greatest part of its proper operations.'Now that most of the predictions of the so-called prophets fail, the whole experience of human life would bear witness; and so would these men themselves who profess the art of prophecy, because it is not by this that they help themselves in the exigencies of life, but use sometimes their own judgement, and sometimes the counsel and cooperation of those who have been thought to possess experience in each kind of affairs.'But with regard to the want of consistency in this which we have chosen to call prophecy, we will render fuller proof elsewhere, bringing forward the opinions of Epicurus on this point also. But at present we will add to what has been said only this much, that at most the fact of the so-called prophets speaking truth sometimes in their predictions must be an effect, not of science, but of an accidental cause; for it is not that a man never hits the proposed mark, but that he does not hit it always, nor even in most cases, and not from science even when he does occasionally succeed, this is what we have chosen to call a work of chance — we who have arranged our own ideas in clear order under each term. Further, if even by hypothesis it were true that the prophetic art is able to discern and to foretell all things future, it might be concluded that all things are according to fate, but the usefulness of the art and its benefit to life could never be shown; and it is for this purpose especially that Chrysippus seems to sing the praises of the prophetic art.'For what benefit would it be to us to learn beforehand the misfortunes certain to come to pass, which it would not even be possible to guard against? For how could any one guard against the things which take place according to fate? So that there is no benefit to us in the prophetic art, but rather it would tend to some mischief, by causing mankind to grieve in vain beforehand over the predicted misfortunes which must of necessity come to pass.'For no one will affirm that the prediction of future blessings affords on the other hand equal delight: since man is not naturally so disposed to rejoice over expected blessings, as to be grieved over misfortunes. Especially as we hope that the latter will not happen at all to ourselves, until we hear it: but all of us, so to say, rather look for blessings, because our nature is congenial thereto; for most persons have formed hopes of things even greater than what can possibly come to pass.'Hence it results that the prediction of blessings either does not at all increase the joy, because even apart from the prediction every one of his own accord expects the better fortune, or else increases it but little by the supposed certainty, and often even diminishes the joy, when less is foretold than what was hoped for; but the prediction of evils causes great perturbation, both because of their repulsive nature, and because the prediction is sometimes opposed to men's hopes.'But even if this did not happen, nevertheless it would be evident, I think, to every one that the prediction would be useless. For if any one shall affirm that the usefulness of the prophetic art will be maintained on account of the prediction of the misfortune which will certainly happen unless we should guard against it, he can no longer show that all things are to happen in accordance with fate, if it is in our power either to guard or not to guard against them.'For if any one shall say that this choice also is controlled by necessity, so as to extend fate to all things that exist, the usefulness of prophecy on the other hand is destroyed; for we shall keep guard if it is so fated, and evidently we shall not keep guard if it is not fated that we shall keep guard, even though all the prophets foretell to us what is about to happen.'As to Oedipus, for instance, and Alexander son of Priam, even Chrysippus himself says that though their parents had recourse to many contrivances to kill them, in order that they might guard against the mischief predicted from them, they were unable to do so.'Thus there was no benefit, he says, even to them from the prediction of the evils, because they were effects proceeding from fate. Let this then be enough, and more than enough, to have been said in regard to not merely the uncertainty but also the uselessness of the prophetic art.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.3.2
§ 4.3.2 Thus far the philosopher. Do thou however consider with thyself, how those who were Greeks, and had from an early age acquired the customary education of the Greeks, and knew more accurately than any men the customs of their ancestors concerning the gods, all Aristotelians, and Cynics, and Epicureans, and all who held like opinions with them, poured ridicule upon the oracles which were renowned among the Greeks themselves.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.3.3
§ 4.3.3 And yet, if the stories current concerning the miraculous power of the oracles were true, it was natural that these men also should have been struck with wonder, being Greeks, and having an accurate understanding of the customs of their ancestors, and regarding nothing worthy to be known as of secondary importance.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.3.4
§ 4.3.4 To collect, however, these and all similar evidences, in order to overthrow the argument on behalf of the oracles, there would be abundant means: but it is not in this way that I wish to pursue the present discussion, but in the same way as we started at first, by granting that those who stand forth in their defence speak truth; in order that from their own avowals, when they affirm that oracles are true, and that the alleged responses are divinely inspired Pythian oracles, we may learn the exact explanation of the things alleged.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.4.1
§ 4.4.1 Now I think it is plain to every one that the proof of the matters before us will embrace not a small part, but a very great and at the same time very necessary part of the evangelic argument. For suppose it should be shown that all men everywhere, both Greeks and Barbarians, before the advent of our Saviour Jesus Christ, had no knowledge of the true God, but either regarded'the things that are not as though they were,' or were led about hither and thither like blind men by certain wicked spirits fighting against God, and by evil and impure daemons, and were by them dragged down into an abyss of wickedness (for what else ailed them but possession by daemons?) — how can the great mystery of the Gospel dispensation fail to be seen in a higher light? I mean, that all men from all quarters have been sailed back by our Saviour's voice from the delusion handed down from their fathers about the tyranny of daemons, and that the men who dwell as far off as the ends of the earth have been released from the deception which from the earliest age oppressed their whole life. For since His time and up to the present the antiquated seats of delusion in all the heathen nations have been broken up and destroyed — shrines and statues and all — and temples truly venerable, and schools of true religion have been raised up in honour of the Absolute Monarch and Creator of the universe in the midst of cities and villages by the power and goodness of our Saviour throughout the whole world. And by prayers of holy men the sacrifices which are worthy of God have been purified from all wickedness, and in freedom of soul from all passions, and in the acquirement of every virtue, according to the divine doctrines of salvation, are day by day continually offered up by all nations — those sacrifices which alone are acceptable and pleasing to the God who is over all?
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.4.2
§ 4.4.2 Now if these things be so, how can we have failed to show at the same time, that with sound reason, arid without giving ourselves over to folly, we have turned away from the superstition handed down from our fathers, and with just and true judgement have chosen the better part, and become lovers of the inspired and true religion? But enough of this, and let us now take in hand the subjects before us.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.5.1
§ 4.5.1 Those, therefore, who have accurately discussed the Greek theology in a manner different from the systems which we have already mentioned, distribute the whole subject under four heads. First of all they have set apart the first God, saying that they know him to be the One over all, and First, and Father and King of all gods, and that after him the race of gods is second, that of daemons third, and heroes fourth. All these, they say, participating in the nature of the higher power act and are acted upon in this way and in that, and everything of this kind is called light because of its participating in light. But they also say that evil rules the essence of the lower nature; and this evil is a race of wicked daemons, who treat the good in no way as a friend, but possess chief power in the nature of the adversaries of good, just as God does in that of the better sort; and everything of this kind is called darkness.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.5.2
§ 4.5.2 After defining these points in this manner, they say that the heaven, and the ether as far down as the moon, are assigned to gods; and the parts about the moon and the atmosphere to daemons; and the region of the earth and parts beneath the earth to souls. And having made such a distribution they say that we ought to worship first of all the gods of heaven and of the ether, secondly the good daemons, thirdly the souls of the heroes, and fourthly to propitiate the bad and wicked daemons.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.5.3
§ 4.5.3 But while making these verbal distinctions they in fact throw all into confusion, by worshipping the wicked powers only, instead of all those whom we have mentioned, and are wholly enslaved by them, as the course of our argument will prove. It is in your power, at any rate, to consider from what will be laid before you, what character we ought to ascribe to the powers which operate through the statues, whether as gods or daemons, and whether bad or good.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.5.4
§ 4.5.4 For our divine oracles never call any daemon good, but say that all are bad who share this lot and even this appellation, since no other is truly and properly god except the One Cause of all: but the gentle and good powers, as being in their nature created, and following far behind the uncreated God who is their Maker, but nevertheless separated also from the mischievous race of daemons — these the Scriptures deem it right to name neither gods nor daemons, but as being intermediate between God and daemons they are accustomed to call them by a well-applied and intermediate name, angels of God, and'ministering spirits,' and divine powers, and archangels, and any other names corresponding to their offices; but the daemons, if indeed it behoves us to declare the origin of their name also, are called according to their nature daemons, not as the Greeks think in consequence of their being knowing (δαημονας), and wise, but because of their fearing and causing fear (δειμαινειν).
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.5.5
§ 4.5.5 Certainly the divine and good powers are different in name as well as in character, from the daemons; since it would be of all things most absurd to adjudge one and the same appellation to the powers which are alike neither in purpose nor in natural character.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.6.1
§ 4.6.1 Come then, let us examine what is, according to them, the character of the oracles, in order that we may learn what kind of power we must ascribe to them, and whether we withdrew from them rightly or not. Now if I were going to bring forward my own proofs of the matters to be set forth, I know well that I should not render my argument unassailable by those who are inclined to find fault. Wherefore instead of asserting anything of my own, I shall make use again of the testimonies of those who are without.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.6.2
§ 4.6.2 But as there are among the Greeks historians and philosophers without number, I judge the most suitable of all in reference to the subjects before us to be that very friend of the daemons, who in our generation is celebrated for his false accusations against us. For he of all the philosophers of our time seems to have been most familiar with daemons and those whom he calls gods, and to have been their advocate, and to have investigated the facts concerning them much the most accurately.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.6.3
§ 4.6.3 He therefore, in the book which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, made a collection of the oracles of Apollo and the other gods and good daemons, which he especially chose out of them as thinking that they would suffice both for proof of the excellence of the supposed deities, and for the encouragement of what he is pleased to call'Theosophy.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.6.4
§ 4.6.4 From these oracles, therefore, which have been selected and thought worthy to be remembered it is fair to judge the soothsayers, and to consider what sort of power they possess. But first let us observe how at the beginning of his work the person indicated swears in the following words that he is'verily speaking the truth':4
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.7.1
§ 4.7.1 [PORPHYRY]'Sure, then, and steadfast is he who draws his hopes of salvation from this as from the only sure source, and to such thou wilt impart information without any reserve. For I myself call the gods to witness, that I have neither added anything, nor taken away from the meaning of the responses, except where I have corrected an erroneous phrase, or made a change for greater clearness, or completed the metre when defective, or struck out anything that did not conduce to the purpose; so that I preserved the sense of what was spoken untouched, guarding against the impiety of such changes, rather than against the avenging justice that follows from the sacrilege.'And our present collection will contain a record of many doctrines of philosophy, according as the gods declared the truth to be; but to a small extent we shall also touch upon the practice of divination, such as will be useful both for contemplation, and for the general purification of life. And the utility which this collection possesses will be best known to as many as have ever been in travail with the truth, and prayed that by receiving the manifestation of it from the gods they might gain relief from their perplexity by virtue of the trustworthy teaching of the speakers.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.7.2
§ 4.7.2 After making such preludes, he protests and forewarns against revealing to many what he is going to tell, in the following words:
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.8.1
§ 4.8.1 [PORPHYRY]'And do thou endeavour to avoid publishing these above all things, and casting them even before the profane for the sake of reputation, or gain, or any unholy flattery. For so there would be danger not only to thee for transgressing these injunctions, but also to me for lightly trusting thee who couldst not keep the benefits secret to thyself. We must give them then to those who have arranged their plan of life with a view to the salvation of the soul.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.8.2
§ 4.8.2 And further on he adds:'These things I beg you to conceal as the most unutterable of secrets, for even the gods did not make a revelation concerning thein openly, but by enigmas.'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.8.3
§ 4.8.3 Since, then, his discourse adopted such lofty strains, let us now examine, by help of the inspired Pythian oracles, what character we ought to ascribe to the invisible deified powers: for thus may the man also be tested from his own words and practices.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.8.4
§ 4.8.4 The aforesaid author, then, in his work which he entitled Of the Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, gives responses of Apollo enjoining the performance of animal sacrifices, and the offering of animals not to daemons only, nor only to the terrestrial powers, but also to the etherial and heavenly powers.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.8.5
§ 4.8.5 But in another work the same author, confessing that all, to whom the Greeks used to offer sacrifices by blood and slaughter of senseless animals, are daemons and not gods, says that it is not right nor pious to offer animal sacrifices to gods.
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.8.6
§ 4.8.6 Hear, therefore, his first utterances, in which, collecting the facts concerning The Philosophy to be derived from Oracles, he shows how Apollo teaches that the gods ought to be worshipped. This he sets forth in writing as follows:
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.9.1
§ 4.9.1 [PORPHYRY]'Next in order after what has been said concerning piety we shall record the responses given by them concerning their worship, part of which by anticipation we have set forth in the statements concerning piety. Now this is the response of Apollo, containing at the same time an orderly classification of the gods. “Friend, who hast entered on this heaven-taught path, Heed well thy work; nor to the blessed gods Forget to slay thine offerings in due form, Whether to gods of earth, or gods of heaven, Kings of the sky and liquid paths of air And sea, and all who dwell beneath the earth; For in their nature's fullness all is bound. How to devote things living in due form My verse shall tell, thou in thy tablets write. For gods of earth and gods of heaven each three: For heavenly gods pure white; for gods of earth Cattle of kindred hue divide in three And on the altar lay thy sacrifice. For gods infernal bury deep, and cast The blood into a trench! For gentle Nymphs Honey and gifts of Dionysus pour. For such as flit for ever o'er the earth Fill all the blazing altar's trench with blood, And cast the feathered fowl into the fire. Then honey mix'd with meal, and frankincense, And grains of barley sprinkle over all. But when thou comest to the sandy shore, Pour green sea-water on the victim's head, And cast the body whole into the deep. Then, all things rightly done, return at last To the great company of heavenly gods. For all the powers that in pure ether dwell, And in the stars, let blood in fullest stream Flow from the throat o'er all the sacrifice: Make of the limbs a banquet for the gods, And give them to the fire; feast on the rest, Filling with savours sweet the liquid air. Breathe forth, when all is done, thy solemn vows.”'
urn:cts:greekLit:tlg2018.tlg001:4.9.2
§ 4.9.2 Then a few words later he explains this response, interpreting it as follows:'Now this is the method of the sacrifices, which are rendered according to the aforesaid classification of the gods. For whereas there are gods beneath the earth, and on the earth, and those beneath the earth are called also infernal gods, and those on the earth terrestrial, for all these in common he enjoins the sacrifice of black four-footed victims. But with regard to the manner of the sacrifice he makes a difference: for to terrestrial gods he commands the victims to be slain upon altars, but to the infernal gods over trenches, and moreover after the offering to bury the bodies therein.'For that the four-footed beasts are common to these deities, the god himself added when questioned: “For gods of earth and Erebus alone Four-footed must their common victims be; For gods of earth soft limbs of newborn lambs.”

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Rev. Edwin Hamilton Gifford (1820-1905). Composed ca. 315 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.