What the treatise on the Gospel promises
Christianity, whatever it may be, I have thought it right to set out for those who do not know it, by means of the present treatise, which promises to contain the Demonstration of the Gospel. This treatise I have addressed to you, Theodotus, divine treasure among bishops, beloved of God and holy head, with prayers, in the hope that I may obtain help from you, as you assist me in great matters by your God-loving priestly ministrations on my behalf toward the subject I have set before me: the teaching of the gospel. But first of all it is right to explain what this word we use, "gospel," means. It brings to all people the good news of the presence of the highest and greatest goods, long ago foretold and recently shining out upon all. It does not offer wealth that is blind, nor this small and much-suffering life, nor the things that belong to the body and to corruption, but the things that are dear and akin to souls which possess an intellectual nature; on these even bodies depend, following them like shadows. The chief of these goods would be piety: not the falsely named and much-wandering kind, but that which bears the name together with the truth. And this is the turning upward toward the one and only God, who is truly confessed and truly is, and the life lived in accordance with him. From this comes friendship with him, and on that friendship follows the end that is truly dear to God and blessed three times over, hung from above, from the higher things, steered toward them, and ending once again in them. What then could be more blessed than this good and all-happy friendship with God? Is not he himself the steward and giver of life and light and truth and all good things to all? Has not he himself encompassed the cause of the being and the life of all things? What, then, could still be lacking to one who has gained his friendship? What could he want who has made the creator of good things his own? Or in what could he be the poorer who has enrolled the great protector and universal King of the universe as his father and guardian? No, it is impossible to name anything in which the one who draws near in disposition to God the universal King, and has been counted worthy of his all-blessed friendship through piety grounded in knowledge, would not fare well, in soul and body alike and in all external things. This good and saving friendship of human beings with God, then, the Word of God, sent down from above from the all-good God like a ray of light of boundless greatness, announces as good news to all people. He does not summon them from here or there only, but from everywhere, out of all nations, urging them to come to the God of the universe and to hasten and receive the gift with all eagerness of soul: Greeks and barbarians alike, men together with women and infants, poor and rich, wise and unlearned; nor does he despise the class of slaves in his calling, because the Father, having constituted the being and nature of all as one, rightly also counted all worthy of one and the same generous gift, granting knowledge of himself and friendship with himself to all who are willing to obey and who gladly embrace the grace. This friendship with his Father the Word of Christ came to announce as good news to the whole world: "For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them," as the divine oracles teach; and "coming," it says, "he proclaimed the good news of peace to those far off and peace to those near." These things the sons of the Hebrews, inspired by God, foretold long ago to the whole world. One cries aloud: "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he rules over the nations"; and again: "Say among the nations that the Lord reigns; for he has set the world right, and it shall not be shaken." Another says: "The Lord shall appear among them and shall utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they shall worship him, each from his own place." These things, laid up long ago in divine oracles, have now been made plain to us ourselves through the teaching of our Savior Jesus Christ. So the Word, lately come to us from heaven, rightly announces to us the good news of the knowledge of God for all the nations, which was proclaimed of old and expected by those not unacquainted with these things, showing that what is accomplished in deeds agrees with the voices of the ancients. But why should I hurry on and in my eagerness outrun the sequence of the intervening arguments, when I ought to take things up from the beginning and clear away every obstacle? For some have supposed that Christianity has no reason to give for itself, but that those who desire the name confirm their opinion by an unreasoning faith and an unexamined assent. They say that no one can offer, by clear demonstration, any proof of the truth of what is promised, but that those who come to it are required to attend to faith alone, and that this is why they are called "faithful" (pistoi), because of their uncritical and untested faith. So, setting out on this treatise of the Demonstration of the Gospel, I think it right, as a preparation for the whole subject, first to discuss briefly the questions that might reasonably be raised against us both by Greeks and by those of the circumcision, and by everyone who inquires into our affairs with careful examination. For in this way I think my account will proceed in order to the more complete teaching of the Demonstration of the Gospel and to the understanding of the deeper doctrines, if the matters of the Preparation come first on the road, holding the place of elementary instruction and introduction and suited to those from the nations who are just coming to us. What follows will hand on, to those who have passed beyond this stage and have already prepared their disposition for receiving higher things, accurate knowledge of the most essential points of the mystical dispensation of God concerning our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. Let us begin, then, the Preparation, bringing forward the things that might reasonably be said against us both by Greeks and by those of the circumcision, and by everyone who examines our affairs with careful inquiry.
The charges usually brought against us by those who try to slander our doctrines
For in the first place someone might reasonably be at a loss to know who we are who have come forward to write: whether Greeks or barbarians, or something between these; and what we claim to be, not in name, since that is plain to all, but in the manner and choice of our life. For they see that we neither think as the Greeks nor practice the customs of the barbarians. What then, they ask, could be the strangeness about us, and what is the novelty of our life? How could those not be in every way impious and atheists who have abandoned their ancestral customs, by which every nation and every city is held together? Or what good can people reasonably hope for who have set themselves up as enemies and adversaries of what saves them, and have thrust away their benefactors? And what else are they doing but fighting against the gods? And what pardon will be granted to those who have turned away from the beings honored as gods from all ages among all Greeks and barbarians, in cities and in the countryside, with all kinds of sacred rites, initiations, and mysteries, by kings, lawgivers, and philosophers alike, and have chosen instead what is impious and godless among human beings? To what punishments would they not justly be subjected, who are fugitives from their ancestral ways and have become zealots for the foreign myths of the Jews, which are slandered by all? Must it not be a sign of utter depravity and levity lightly to cast aside the customs of one's own people, and with unreasoning and unexamined faith to choose the ways of the impious and of the enemies of all nations; and not even to hold to the God honored among the Jews according to their own customary rites, but to cut out for themselves a new and lonely track in a pathless waste, keeping neither the ways of the Greeks nor those of the Jews? These are the difficulties that one of the Greeks, knowing nothing true either of his own affairs or of ours, might reasonably raise against us. But the sons of the Hebrews too might find fault with us, if, being foreigners and of another race, we make use of their books, which do not belong to us at all; and because, as they would say, we shamelessly and brazenly thrust ourselves in, and try by force to thrust out the members of their own household and their kinsmen from their ancestral possessions. For if there is a Christ who is foretold, it was the prophets of the Jews who proclaimed his coming beforehand, and they announced that he would come as redeemer and king of the Jews, not of foreign nations. And if the Scriptures contain any other brighter promises, these too, they say, were spoken to the Jews, and we misunderstand them, and not to our credit. And it is very absurd, they say, that we eagerly snatch up the rebukes against that nation for its sins, but pass over in silence the promises of good things foretold to them in turn, or rather wrest them by force and transfer them to ourselves, plainly grasping at what is not ours and doing nothing more than deceiving ourselves. But the most unreasonable thing of all, they say, is that, though we do not keep the law's ordinances as they do but openly transgress them, we draw to ourselves the better rewards promised to those who keep the laws.
That we did not adopt the sentiments of the word of salvation without inquiry
Since these difficulties may reasonably be raised against us first of all, come, let us call upon the God of the universe through our Savior, his very Word, as through a high priest, and clear up the first of the points proposed, first showing to be slanderers those who declare that we have nothing to establish by demonstration but hold to an unreasoning faith. We shall refute this at once and not from far off: from the demonstrations we use toward those who come to us for instruction in our teaching, from the counter-arguments we make against those who oppose us in the more reasoned inquiries, and from the discourses, unwritten and written, which we take pains to hold, both privately with each inquirer and publicly before the crowds; yes, and also through the writings now in hand, which contain the whole treatment of the Demonstration of the Gospel. In it the present work announces to all people all the grace from God and the heavenly benefaction, confirming by reasoning, through very many clear demonstrations, the dispensation concerning our Savior and Lord Jesus, the Christ of God. Many of those before us have devoted great effort to many other kinds of writing: sometimes composing refutations and counter-arguments against the arguments opposed to us; sometimes interpreting the inspired and sacred Scriptures in exegetical commentaries and in homilies on particular passages; and sometimes championing our doctrines more combatively. But the purpose now in hand is worked out in a way of our own. First of all, indeed, the holy apostle Paul, rejecting deceitful and sophistical plausibilities and using demonstrations beyond dispute, says somewhere: "And my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." To which he adds: "Yet we speak wisdom among the perfect, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom." And again: "Our sufficiency," he says, "is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant." Rightly, then, all of us have been commanded to be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us. Hence one may find among recent writers countless demonstrations, most wise and clear, with syllogisms, written on behalf of our doctrine, and many commentaries composed on the sacred and inspired Scriptures, establishing by geometrical demonstrations the truthfulness and infallibility of those who from the beginning proclaimed to us the word of godliness. Yet all words are superfluous where the deeds are clearer and more evident, deeds which the divine and heavenly power of our Savior still plainly displays even now, as it announces to all people the good news of the inspired and heavenly life. For instance, he foretold that his teaching would be preached throughout the whole inhabited world of mankind for a testimony to all the nations; and by divine foreknowledge he declared that the church which would one day be formed by his power out of all the nations, though at the time when he became man it was not yet seen nor established, would be invincible and undismayed, would never be conquered by death, but would stand and remain unshaken, as founded and rooted by his power on an unshaken and unbreakable rock. The fulfillment of this prediction, beyond all argument, would rightly stop every unbridled mouth of those prepared to be shamelessly impudent. For who would not confess that the prediction is true, when the facts all but cry aloud so plainly that it was the power of God, and not human nature, which saw beforehand that these things would come to pass in this way, foretold them, and accomplished them in deed? At any rate, the report of his gospel has filled the whole world that the sun looks upon and has run through all the nations, and the proclamation about him still grows and increases even now, in accordance with his own words. And his church, foretold by name, stands mightily rooted, raised aloft to the vaults of heaven by the prayers of holy and God-loving souls, glorified day by day, and flashing out to all the intellectual and divine light of the piety he proclaimed. It is in no way defeated by its enemies or yielding to them; it does not give way even to the gates of death, because of that one saying which he himself declared: "Upon the rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." And by collecting in a work of its own countless other things said and foretold by our Savior, and showing that the outcomes of events agree with his divine foreknowledge, we demonstrate beyond dispute the truth of what we believe about him. Besides all these, no small demonstration of our truth is also the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures. In them the prophets among the Hebrews, countless years before, proclaimed the promise of good things to all mortal life, mentioned by name the title of Christ, and foretold his coming among human beings. They announced the new manner of his teaching, which has run through all the nations, and predicted the unbelief and opposition of the Jewish nation toward him, what they would do against him, and the grievous things that would come upon them immediately afterward and not long after: I mean the final siege of their royal metropolis, the complete overthrow of their kingdom, their dispersion among all the nations, and their slavery under enemies and adversaries. These things they are seen to have suffered after the coming of our Savior, in accordance with the predictions. Besides this, who would not be amazed to hear the same prophets, after the coming of Christ and the falling away of the Jews, announcing in bright and clear words the good news of the calling of the nations? This too has plainly come to pass, in accordance with the prophecies, through the teaching of our Savior. Through him countless people of every race have turned away from the error of idols and accepted the true knowledge and worship of the God over all, all but confirming the oracles of the ancients, both the others and in particular the one spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: "Lord my God, to you nations shall come from the end of the earth and shall say: How false were the idols our fathers acquired, and there was no profit in them. Shall a man make gods for himself? And these are not gods."
Our adoption of belief in the greatest blessings is not uncritical as to time
All these things confirm the account of our affairs: that it was not devised by human impulse but foreknown by God, proclaimed beforehand by God through the written oracles, and, much more, set before all people by God through our Savior; and that it is again strengthened and upheld by God. For though it has been driven hard through so many years by invisible demons and by the visible rulers of each age, it shines out all the more, excels and grows day by day, and multiplies far more, since the help from above, from the God of the universe, plainly gives to the name and teaching of our Savior a strength that cannot be fought, that is invincible, and that conquers its enemies. And the immediate benefit for the good life which it has set before all people, not only from his plain words but also from a secret power, how could this fail to prove his divine power? For it was the work of a divine and secret power that, together with his word and with his teaching about the sole rule of the one God over all, the human race was set free at once both from the much-erring working of demons and from the rule of many over the nations. In ancient times, at any rate, countless kings and local rulers held power in each nation; in the cities some were governed by democracies, others by many rulers; and as a result, naturally, wars of every kind arose, nations dashing against nations and continually rising up against their neighbors, ravaging and being ravaged, and marching out to besiege one another. So for these reasons all, everyone, both those who lived in cities and those who tilled the fields, were taught the arts of war from childhood and constantly carried swords on the highways and in villages and fields. But when the Christ of God came, of whom it had been said long before through the prophets, "In his days righteousness shall spring up, and abundance of peace," and "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall no more learn to make war," the deeds followed in accordance with the predictions. At once all the many governments of the Romans were removed, Augustus becoming sole ruler at the same time as the appearing of our Savior. From then until now you would not see, as before, cities at war with cities, nor nation fighting against nation, nor life worn away in the old confusion. And yet how could one who considers it fail to wonder why, in ancient times, when the demons tyrannized over all the nations and human beings paid them great worship, people were driven to frenzy by the gods themselves and inflamed to wars against one another, so that at one time Greeks fought against Greeks, at another Egyptians against Egyptians, Syrians against Syrians, and Romans against Romans, enslaving one another and wearing one another out with sieges, as the histories of the ancients about these things show; but together with the most pious and most peaceful teaching of our Savior the destruction of polytheistic error was accomplished, and the conflicts among the nations at once found rest from their old evils? This I consider the very greatest proof of the divine and secret power of our Savior. Of the benefit that appears from his words you would see a clear example if you considered that never before since time began, nor by any of the famous men of old, but only by his words and by his teaching spread through the whole inhabited world, have the customs of all the nations been set right, even those that were formerly savage and barbarous: so that the Persians who have become his disciples no longer marry their mothers; the Scythians no longer eat human flesh, because of the word of Christ which has come even to them; other barbarian peoples no longer have lawless intercourse with daughters and sisters; men no longer rage with lust for men and pursue pleasures contrary to nature; those who formerly did so no longer expose their own dead to dogs and birds; they no longer strangle the aged, as before; they no longer feast on the flesh of their dearest dead, after the ancient custom; they no longer offer human sacrifices to the demons as to gods, as in ancient times, nor slaughter those dearest to them in the belief that it is piety. For these things and countless others like them formerly corrupted human life. The Massagetae and Derbices are reported to have thought the most wretched of their people those who died of their own accord; therefore they sacrificed beforehand and feasted on the aged among those dearest to them. The Tibareni threw their nearest old relatives alive over cliffs. The Hyrcanians and Caspians exposed them to birds and dogs, the one people while living, the other when dead. The Scythians buried alive with the dead, and slaughtered on the pyres, those whom the dead had most loved. And the Bactrians threw their aged to the dogs while still alive. But these things were so long ago, in former times; now they are no longer the same, since the one saving law of the power of the gospel has put an end to the savage and inhuman disease of them all. And no longer to regard as gods either dead and dumb wooden images, or the wicked demons who work in them, or the parts of the visible world, or the souls of mortals long departed, or the most harmful of the irrational animals; but instead of all these, through the one gospel teaching of our Savior, for Greeks and barbarians alike who devote themselves genuinely and not in pretense to his word, to come to such a height of philosophy as to worship, hymn, and proclaim as God only the most high God, the very one who is beyond all things, the universal King and Lord of heaven and earth, maker of the sun and stars and of the whole universe; and to live strictly, and to be so taught as to be disciplined even in the look of the eyes, and to entertain no licentious thought from looking with desire, but to cut off by the root from the mind itself every shameful passion: how could all this fail to contribute to the good life of all? And what of not even needing to keep oaths, much less to swear falsely, because they learn from him not to swear at all, but in all things to be free of falsehood and to speak the truth, so as to be content with "yes" and "no," making their resolve firmer than any oath? And not to be careless even in mere trivial words and ordinary conversation, but to be exact even in these, so as to let slip from the tongue neither falsehood nor abuse nor any shameful or indecent word, because of his further command in which he said, "For every idle word you shall give account in the day of judgment": to what heights of the philosophical life does this belong? And further, that whole tens of thousands at once, men and women and children, slaves and free, obscure and famous, barbarians and Greeks alike, in every place and city and country, among all the nations under the sun, come to the teaching of such lessons as we have just learned and give their ears to the words, being persuaded to master not only licentious deeds but also shameful thoughts of the mind, and the belly and what is below the belly; that the whole human race is trained in a divine and pious discipline, learning to bear nobly and with a lofty spirit the insults of those who rise up against them, and not to retaliate on the wicked in kind, but to become superior to anger and rage and every frenzied desire; yes, and also to share their possessions with the poor and needy, to welcome every human being as of one kin, and to recognize the one considered a stranger as, by the law of nature, a member of their household and a brother. Gathering all these things together, then, how could anyone fail to confess that our doctrine has announced as good news to all people the greatest and truly good things, and has given to human life an immediate advantage for living well? And what do you think of its having prepared the whole human race, not only Greeks but also the wildest barbarians and those who live at the ends of the earth, to give up irrational savagery and to take up philosophical beliefs? For example, the beliefs about the immortality of the soul and about the life with God laid up for those dear to God after their departure from here, for the sake of which they have learned to despise this temporary life. So it has shown to be mere children those who were ever celebrated for philosophy, and that much-talked-of death, sung on the lips of all the philosophers, to be a plaything; for among us women and mere children, and barbarian men of seemingly low station, by the power and help of our Savior have shown the doctrine of the immortality of the soul to be true by deeds before words. And what of the fact that all people in general, in all the nations, are taught from the lessons of our Savior to think soundly and firmly about the providence of God as overseeing all things; that every soul learns the doctrine of the place of judgment and of God's judgment, and to live with care and to be on guard against the practices of vice?
We did not forsake the superstitious errors of our fathers without sound reason
You would recognize the sum of the first and greatest benefit of the saving word if you considered the superstitious error of the ancient idolatry, by which the whole human race was formerly worn down under the compulsion of demons. Out of it, as out of the gloomiest darkness, the word by divine power removed Greeks and barbarians alike and brought them all over to the intellectual and most radiant day of the true worship of God the universal King. Why should we go on at length trying to show that we have not committed ourselves to an unreasoning faith, but to sober and profitable doctrines containing the way of true piety? Since the present work treats precisely this throughout, we urge those who are fit to follow demonstrations by argument, and exhort them to cultivate understanding, to receive the proofs of our doctrines in a more reasoned way, and to be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks us for the reason of our hope. But since not all are such, and since the Word is a lover of humankind, turning no one away at all but healing every person with fitting remedies and calling even the ignorant and unlearned to the healing of their ways, we rightly, at the introductory stage, lead by the hand toward the pious life the beginners from among the simpler sort, women and children and the common crowd, and give them sound faith as a kind of medicine, implanting in them right beliefs about God's providence, about the immortality of the soul, and about the life of virtue. Do we not see the same with those who skillfully heal the sick in body? They themselves have taken up the principles of medicine through long practice and training and perform every operation with reason; but those who come to them for treatment entrust themselves in faith and in hope of better things, though they understand nothing of the science's theory precisely, and depend only on good hope and faith. The best of physicians comes forward and, like a ruler and master, prescribes with knowledge what must be avoided and what ought to be done; and the patient obeys as if he were a king and lawgiver, believing that what is prescribed will be good for him. So also pupils receive instruction from teachers, believing that the lesson will be good for them. Yes, and no one would take up philosophy before believing that what it promises will be good for him. One person straightaway chose the doctrines of Epicurus, another emulates the Cynic life, another pursues philosophy after Plato, another after Aristotle, and yet another preferred the Stoic doctrines above all, each embracing what seemed good to him with better hope and faith that it would profit him. So too people have taken up the ordinary trades, some the soldier's life, others the merchant's, having first taken it on faith that the occupation would give them a living. And the first unions of marriage and partnerships began from good faith in the hope of having children. Again, someone sails into the unknown, having put out no other anchor of safety than faith alone and good hope. Another farms, casts his seed into the earth, and sits waiting for the turn of the season, believing that what has decayed in the earth and been covered by floods of rain will come to life again as from the dead. Someone sets out from home on a long journey to a foreign land, and again takes along with him hope and faith as good guides. Since you find, then, that all human life hangs on nothing else than these two, hope and faith, why do you wonder that the higher things of the soul are handed on to some through faith, to those who have no leisure to be taught the details in a more reasoned way, while others may pursue the arguments themselves and learn the demonstrations of what we hold? But now that we have briefly, and not without use, exercised ourselves in these points, let us go back to the first charge and answer those who ask who we are and where we come from. That we, being Greeks by race and thinking as Greeks, gathered out of all kinds of nations like the picked men of a newly enlisted army, have become deserters from the superstition of our fathers, we ourselves would never deny. And that, devoting ourselves to the Jewish books and gathering from the prophecies among them most of our doctrine, we no longer think it good to live like those of the circumcision, this too we would confess at once. It is time, therefore, to give the reasons for these things. How else could we appear to have done well in abandoning our ancestral religion, unless we first set it out openly and bring it before the eyes of our readers? For in this way the divine power of the Demonstration of the Gospel would become plain, if it were set before the eyes of all from what evils, and of what kind, it announces the cure. And how could the reasonableness of our pursuit of the Jewish books appear unless their excellence were also demonstrated? It would be well to explain also on what principle, though we embrace their Scriptures, we decline the like manner of life; and, above all, what is the meaning of our gospel subject, and what Christianity might properly be said to be, being neither Hellenism nor Judaism, but a new and true divine wisdom, bringing its newness from its very name. Come then, first of all, let us examine the most ancient theologies, and in particular our own ancestral ones, which are still celebrated in every city even now, and the solemn views of the noble philosophers about the constitution of the world and about the gods, so that we may know whether we were right to depart from them or not. In setting out what is to be shown I shall put forward not my own words, but those of the very people who have been most zealous for the worship of those they call gods, so that the argument may be free of all suspicion that we are making things up.
Primitive theology of Phoenicians and Egyptians
The prevailing account, then, is that the Phoenicians and Egyptians were the first of all people to declare the sun, the moon, and the stars to be gods, and to be the sole causes of the coming into being and the perishing of all things, and that afterward they introduced into human life the deifications and genealogies of gods that are noised abroad among all. Before these, no one knew anything more than the phenomena of the sky, except a few men remembered among the Hebrews, who with the purest eyes of the mind looked beyond everything visible and worshipped the maker of the world and creator of all things. They marveled exceedingly at his great wisdom and power, which they perceived from his works, and being persuaded that he alone is God, they rightly proclaimed him alone as God; this true, first, and only piety they received, son from father, and preserved. But the rest of mankind, falling away from this one true piety and, like children in soul, struck with wonder at the light-bearing bodies of heaven seen by the eyes of the flesh, proclaimed them gods and honored them with sacrifices and acts of homage. They did not build temples or fashion likenesses of mortals in images and wooden statues, but looked up to the ether and to heaven itself, reaching with their souls only as far as the things seen here. Yet the error of polytheism did not stop at this point for later generations, but drove them into a depth of evils and produced an impiety worse than atheism, the Phoenicians first and then the Egyptians beginning the error. From the Egyptians, they say, Orpheus son of Oeagrus first transferred the Egyptian mysteries and imparted them to the Greeks, just as Cadmus brought the Phoenician rites to the same people, together with the learning of letters; for the Greeks did not yet at that time know the use of letters. First, then, we shall consider the first cosmogony, how the writers in question have conceived it; next, the first and most ancient superstition of human life; third, the religion of the Phoenicians; fourth, that of the Egyptians; after which, fifth, we shall divide the religion of the Greeks and survey first their old and more mythical error, and then the more dignified and more physical philosophy about the gods. After this we shall go through the account of the wonderful oracles, and then examine the dignified doctrines of the noble philosophy of the Greeks. When these have been examined, we shall pass on to the religion of the Hebrews, that is, of those who were first and truly Hebrews, and of those who afterward received the name of Jews. After all this, as a seal on the whole, we shall bring forward our own. Of necessity we shall record the history of all these, so that by setting side by side what is admired in each place the test of the truth may be shown, and it may be plain to readers what kind of things we have left and what kind we have chosen. But let us come to the first point. From where shall we make our proofs credible? Not from our own writings, so that we may not seem to be doing favors to our own argument; let our witnesses be the Greeks themselves, both those who boast of philosophy and those who have investigated the history of the other nations. Diodorus of Sicily, then, a man very well known to the most learned of the Greeks, as one who has gathered the whole of history into a single work, the Library, writes, explaining from the beginning the ancient theology of the Egyptians. From him I shall first set out what he has stated at the beginning of his work about the cosmogony of the universe, recording the opinions of the ancient historians in this way.
Character of the cosmogony of the Greeks
"What notions about the gods were held by those who first showed how to honor the divine, and what is told in myth about each of the immortals, we shall try for the most part to arrange separately, since this subject requires a long account; but whatever seems to us fitting for the present histories we shall set down in summary, so that nothing worth hearing may be missed. But concerning the origin of all mankind and the deeds done in the known parts of the inhabited world, we shall write accurately, as far as is possible with matters so ancient, beginning from the earliest times." "Concerning the first origin of human beings, two views have been held by the most reputable of the natural philosophers and historians. Some of them, supposing the world to be unbegotten and imperishable, declared that the human race too has existed from eternity, its begetting never having had a beginning. Others, holding the world to be begotten and perishable, said that human beings, like it, had their first origin at definite times. For in the original constitution of the universe heaven and earth had one form, their natures being mingled; but afterward, when the bodies separated from one another, the world took on the whole ordered arrangement seen in it, and the air received continual motion. Its fiery part ran together into the highest regions, since such a nature moves upward because of its lightness; for this reason the sun and the rest of the multitude of stars were caught up in the whole whirl. The muddy and turbid part, together with the mass of moisture, settled in the same place because of its weight; and as it rolled and was continually compressed upon itself, from the moist parts it made the sea, and from the more solid parts the earth, muddy and entirely soft. This earth at first became firm as the fire of the sun shone upon it; then, as its surface fermented from the heat, some of the moist parts swelled up in many places, and putrid growths covered with thin membranes formed around them. This can be seen happening even now in marshes and swampy places, when, after the ground has been chilled, the air suddenly becomes burning hot, without making the change gradually. And as the moist parts were brought to life by the heat in the way described, they at once took nourishment by night from the mist that fell from the surrounding air, and by day were made solid by the heat; and at last, when the embryos had reached full growth and the membranes had been burned through and broken open, all kinds of forms of living creatures sprang up. Of these, those that had shared most in the heat went off to the upper regions and became winged creatures; those that held to an earthy constitution were counted in the class of reptiles and other land animals; and those that had partaken most of a moist nature ran together to the region of their own kind and were called swimming creatures. And the earth, growing ever more solid under the fire of the sun and the winds, was at last no longer able to generate any of the larger animals, but each kind of living creature was begotten from intercourse with one another. Euripides too, a disciple of Anaxagoras the natural philosopher, seems not to disagree with what has been said about the nature of the universe. For in his Melanippe he puts it thus: 'Heaven and earth were once one form; but when they were separated from each other, they bring forth all things and give up to the light trees, birds, beasts, the creatures the brine nourishes, and the race of mortals.'" "Such are the accounts we have received about the first origin of all things. They say that the first human beings to be born lived a disorderly and beastlike life, going out to pasture scattered here and there and eating the most palatable herbs and the fruits that grew of themselves on the trees. When attacked by wild beasts they helped one another, taught by their own advantage; and gathering together out of fear they gradually came to recognize one another's features. Their voice being without meaning and confused, they gradually articulated words, and by setting up among themselves symbols for each thing they made the expression of everything known to one another. And as such groups formed throughout the whole inhabited world, not all had a language of the same sound, since each group arranged its words as chance had it. Therefore every kind of language came into being, and the first groups that formed became the original stocks of all the nations. The first human beings, then, since none of the things useful for life had yet been discovered, lived a laborious life, naked of clothing, unaccustomed to dwelling and fire, and entirely without any notion of cultivated food. For not knowing even how to gather wild food, they made no store of fruits against times of need; and so many of them perished in the winters through cold and lack of food. From this, gradually taught by experience, they took refuge in caves in winter and laid up such fruits as could be kept. And when fire and the other useful things became known, little by little the arts also were discovered, and the other things that could benefit common life. For in general need itself became the teacher of human beings in all things, guiding appropriately the learning of each thing for a creature well endowed by nature and having, as helpers for everything, hands and speech and quickness of mind. Concerning the first origin of human beings and their most ancient life, we shall be content with what has been said, aiming at due proportion." So much the writer we have cited, who did not so much as mention the name of God in his cosmogony, but introduced an ordering of the universe that was accidental and spontaneous. With him you would find most of the Greek philosophers in agreement. I shall now set out for you their opinions about first principles, and their disagreements and disputes with one another, arising from guesswork and not from sure knowledge, from the Miscellanies of Plutarch. Do you, not carelessly but at leisure and with reflection, observe how the views reported disagree with one another.
Philosophers' opinions concerning the system of the universe
"Thales, they say, was the first of all to make water the first principle of all things; for from it all things come, and into it they return." "After him Anaximander, a companion of Thales, said that the infinite holds the whole cause of the coming into being and perishing of the universe; from it, he says, the heavens were separated off, and in general all the worlds, which are infinite in number. He declared that perishing, and much earlier coming into being, take place as all of them revolve in cycles from infinite ages. He says that the earth is cylindrical in shape and has a depth one third of its breadth. He says that what is productive of the hot and the cold from the eternal was separated off at the coming into being of this world, and that a sphere of flame from this grew around the air surrounding the earth, like bark around a tree. When this was broken off and shut up in certain circles, the sun, the moon, and the stars came to be. He says also that in the beginning man was born from creatures of another kind, since the other animals quickly feed themselves, while man alone needs prolonged nursing; therefore in the beginning, being such as he is, he would never have survived. Such were Anaximander's views. "Anaximenes, they say, called air the first principle of all things, and said that it is infinite in kind but defined in its qualities; and that all things are generated by a kind of condensation of it, and again by rarefaction. Motion, he says, exists from eternity. When the air was compressed, the earth came into being first, very flat; therefore it reasonably rides upon the air. And the sun, the moon, and the other stars had the origin of their coming into being from earth. At any rate he declares the sun to be earth, which through its swift motion acquired very great heat." "Xenophanes of Colophon, who went a way of his own different from all those mentioned before, admits neither coming into being nor perishing, but says that the universe is always alike. For if it came into being, he says, it must necessarily not have existed before this; but what is not could not come into being, nor could what is not make anything, nor could anything come into being from what is not. He declares the senses to be false, and in general discredits, together with them, reason itself. He declares also that the earth, continually carried down little by little in the course of time, passes into the sea. He says that the sun is collected from many small particles of fire. He declares also concerning the gods that there is no leadership among them, for it is not holy that any of the gods should be ruled; and that none of them needs anything at all from any; and that they hear and see as a whole and not in part. He declares too that the earth is infinite and is not surrounded by air on every side; and that all things come from earth; and he says that the sun and the other stars come into being from the clouds." "Parmenides of Elea, the companion of Xenophanes, at the same time laid claim to his opinions and also attempted the opposite position. For he declares the universe eternal and unmoved, even according to the truth of things; for it is 'alone, only-begotten, unshaken, and unbegotten.' But coming into being belongs to the things that seem to exist by false supposition, and he excludes the senses from the truth. He says that if anything exists besides being, it is not being; but non-being does not exist in the universe. So he leaves being unbegotten. He says that the earth came into being from the dense air flowing down." "Zeno of Elea set out no view of his own, but raised further difficulties about these matters." "Democritus of Abdera assumed the universe to be infinite, because it was in no way fashioned by anyone. He says further that it is unchangeable; and in general he states expressly that the causes of what now comes to be have no beginning at all, but that all things that have been, are, and will be have been held fast by necessity from above, wholly from infinite time. Of the origin of the sun and moon he says that these were carried along separately, not yet having any hot nature at all, nor indeed any brightness, but on the contrary a nature like that around the earth. For each of these, he says, came into being earlier, still separately, as a kind of foundation of a world; and later, as the circle of the sun grew greater, the fire was enclosed in it." "Epicurus son of Neocles, the Athenian, tries to put down the vain conceit about the gods. Nothing, he says, comes into being from what is not, because the universe always was such as it is and will be such; nothing strange is brought about in the universe beyond the infinite time that has already passed; everything is body, not only unchangeable but also infinite; the end of good things is pleasure. "Aristippus of Cyrene held pleasure to be the end of good things and pain of evil things. He rejects the rest of natural philosophy, saying that the only useful thing is to seek 'whatever evil and good has been done in your halls.'" "Empedocles of Acragas held four elements, fire, water, ether, and earth, and their cause to be Love and Strife. He says that from the first mixture of the elements the air was separated off and poured around in a circle; after the air, the fire ran out and, having no other place, ran upward under the solidified mass around the air. There are two hemispheres moving in a circle around the earth, one wholly of fire, the other mixed of air and a little fire, which he thinks is night. The beginning of motion came about because the fire happened to weigh down upon the accumulation. The sun is not fire by nature, but a reflection of the fire, like that which occurs from water. The moon, he says, was formed by itself from the air cut off by the fire; for this air was solidified like hail; and it has its light from the sun. The ruling part of the soul is neither in the head nor in the chest but in the blood; hence in whatever part of the body the ruling part is more widely dispersed, in that part, he thinks, people excel." "Metrodorus of Chios says that the universe is eternal, because if it had come into being, it would have come from what is not; and infinite, because eternal, for it has no beginning from which it began, nor limit, nor end. Nor does the universe share in motion; for it cannot move without changing place, and it must change place either into what is full or into what is empty. The ether, when condensed, makes clouds, then water, which, coming down upon the sun, quenches it; and when it is rarefied again, the sun is kindled. In time the sun is solidified by the dry, and makes stars out of the bright water, and night and day from the quenching and kindling, and in general it produces the eclipses." "Diogenes of Apollonia assumes air as the element; all things are in motion, and the worlds are infinite. He makes the world in this way: as the whole was in motion and became rare in one place and dense in another, where the dense ran together it made a mass, and so the rest according to the same principle; and the lightest parts, taking the upper position, produced the sun. Such is the conception of the all-wise Greeks, those called natural philosophers, about the constitution of the universe and the first cosmogony. They posited no creator or maker of all things, nor made any mention at all of God, but attributed the cause of the universe solely to irrational movement and spontaneous motion. So great, too, is their opposition to one another, since they agree with one another in nothing and have filled everything with conflict and disagreement. Hence the admirable Socrates also convicted all these of folly and said that they differed in no way from madmen, if Xenophon is a sufficient witness for you, who says in the Memorabilia as follows: "No one ever saw Socrates doing, or heard him saying, anything impious or unholy. For he did not discourse, as most did, about the nature of all things or about the rest, inquiring how what the sophists call the cosmos is constituted, and by what necessities each of the heavenly things comes to pass; but he even showed those who concerned themselves with such things to be fools." And he adds next: "He wondered that it was not plain to them that these things are impossible for human beings to discover; since even those who pride themselves most on speaking about them do not hold the same opinions as one another, but behave toward one another like madmen. For among madmen some do not fear even what is dreadful, while others fear what is not to be feared; and among those who busy themselves with the nature of all things, some think that being is only one, others that it is infinite in number; some that all things are always in motion, others that nothing could ever be moved; some that all things come into being and perish, others that nothing could ever come into being or perish." So said Socrates, as Xenophon testifies. And Plato too agrees with this, recording him as saying in the dialogue On the Soul: "When I was young, Cebes," he said, "I had an amazing desire for that wisdom which they call the inquiry into nature. For it seemed to me a splendid thing to know the causes of each thing, why each thing comes into being, why it perishes, and why it exists. And I often turned myself upside down, considering first questions like these: Is it when the hot and the cold undergo a kind of putrefaction, as some said, that living creatures are bred? And is it the blood with which we think, or the air, or the fire? Or none of these, but is it the brain that provides the senses of seeing and hearing and smelling, and from these memory and opinion arise, and from memory and opinion, when it has become settled, knowledge arises in the same way? And again, considering how these things perish, and what happens in the heavens and on the earth, I finally came to think myself so unfit for this inquiry as to be good for nothing. I will give you sufficient proof: for things that I had previously known clearly, as I and others thought, I was then so utterly blinded by this inquiry that I unlearned even what I had formerly supposed I knew." So said Socrates himself, celebrated among all the Greeks. Since, then, the natural philosophy of these men seemed such to so great a philosopher, I think we too have rightly rejected the atheism of all of them, since their polytheistic error also seems not unrelated to what has been said. This will be refuted at the proper time, when we show that Anaxagoras is recorded as the first of the Greeks to set Mind over the cause of the universe. But now pass on with me to Diodorus, and see what he records about the first theology of mankind.
The ancients worshiped only the heavenly lights; they knew nothing of the God of the universe, carved images, or demons. Stories about the gods among other nations were introduced later
"The people who lived in Egypt in ancient times, looking up at the cosmos and struck with awe and wonder at the nature of the universe, supposed that there were two eternal and primal gods, the sun and the moon, and named the one Osiris and the other Isis, each name being given from some etymology. For when these names are translated into the Greek form of speech, Osiris means 'many-eyed,' fittingly; for casting his rays in every direction he sees, as with many eyes, all the earth and sea. And the poet speaks in agreement with this: 'Sun, who oversees all things and hears all things.' Some of the ancient mythographers among the Greeks give Osiris the further names Dionysus and, by a derived form, Sirius. Of these Eumolpus says in his Bacchic verses: 'Dionysus, shining like a star, fiery-eyed in his rays.' And Orpheus: 'Therefore they call him Phanes and Dionysus.' Some say too that the fawnskin hung about him is put on him from the variety of the stars. Isis, when translated, means 'ancient,' the name having been given to the moon from its eternal and ancient origin. They put horns on her both from the appearance she has whenever she is crescent-shaped and from the cow consecrated to her among the Egyptians. These gods they suppose to govern the whole universe." So much for this. You have also in the Phoenician theology that the first natural philosophers of the Phoenicians recognized as gods only the sun and the moon and the other planets, the elements and the things connected with them; and that the most ancient of them consecrated the growths of the earth to these, held them to be gods, and worshipped those things by which they themselves, their descendants, and all before them were sustained, and offered libations and drink offerings to them. They consecrated pity, lament, and weeping to the earth's growth when it withered, and to the first generation of living creatures from the earth and their generation from one another, and to death, by which they departed from life. Such were their notions of worship, matching their own weakness and the timidity of their souls as yet. So says the Phoenician writing too, as will be shown next. But also that very man of our own time who has won renown by his slanders against us, in the work he entitled On Abstinence from Animal Food, sets out the record of the antiquity of the ancients in these very words, using Theophrastus as his witness: "It seems to be a countless length of time since the most learned race of all, as Theophrastus says, who inhabit the most sacred land, founded by the Nile, first began to sacrifice on their hearths to the heavenly gods, not first-fruits of myrrh, or of cassia and frankincense mixed with saffron; for these were taken up many generations later, when man, wandering in search of the necessities of life, with many toils and tears offered drops of these as first-fruits to the gods. It was not these, then, that they sacrificed at first, but taking up in their hands grass, as it were the down of fertile nature. For the earth brought forth trees before animals, and long before trees the grass that grows each year; and plucking its leaves and roots and the whole shoots of its growth they burned them, greeting with this sacrifice the visible heavenly gods and making their honors immortal by fire. For to these gods they also kept an undying fire in the temples, as being most like them. From the fumigation (thymiasis) of the products of the earth they named censers (thymiateria), and sacrificing (thyein) and sacrifices (thysiai); words which we wrongly understand as signifying the later transgression, calling the supposed worship by means of animals 'sacrifice.' So much did the ancients care not to transgress the custom that they invoked curses (arai) against those who abandoned the ancient practice and introduced another, and so called the incense that was burned aromata." After saying this he adds, after other matters: "But as men advanced far from the first-fruits in sacrifices into lawlessness, the adoption of the most dreadful offerings, full of cruelty, was brought in, so that the curses spoken of before against us seem now to have been fulfilled, when men slaughtered victims and bloodied the altars." So much Porphyry, or rather Theophrastus. And a seal on the argument may be Plato in the Cratylus, who, before what he says about the Greeks, speaks thus, word for word: "It seems to me that the first men in Greece held as gods only these, which many of the barbarians hold now: sun and moon and earth and stars and heaven. Seeing all these always going on their course and running, from this nature of running (thein) they named them gods (theoi)." That the first and most ancient human beings paid no attention to building temples or setting up images, since at that time the arts of painting, modeling, carving, and statuary had not yet been invented, and building and architecture did not yet exist, is, I think, plain to anyone who reasons it out. And that there was among the people of that time no memory even of the gods and heroes named afterward: that they had no Zeus, no Cronus, no Poseidon, no Apollo, no Hera, no Athena, no Dionysus, nor any other god, female or male, such as afterward were numberless among barbarians and Greeks; that no demon, good or bad, was admired among men, but only the visible stars of heaven received the name of gods, from thein, which means 'to run,' as they themselves say; and that not even these were worshipped with sacrifices of animals and with the honors devised later: this is not our account, but the testimony comes from home, from the Greeks themselves, providing the proof by the words already set out and by those to be set out next. This our sacred writings also teach, which contain the statement that in the beginning the honor of the visible luminaries was allotted to all the nations, but that to the race of the Hebrews alone was entrusted the insight into God, the maker and creator of the universe, and true piety toward him. So among the most ancient human beings there was no account of a Greek or barbarian theogony, no setting up of lifeless images, nor the great nonsense of today about naming gods male and female. At any rate, the titles and names devised later by men were not yet known among them; nor were there invocations of demons and invisible spirits, nor absurd myths about gods and heroes, nor mysteries of secret rites, nor anything at all of the great and garrulous superstition of later men. These things, then, were inventions of human beings and fabrications of mortal nature, or rather devices of shameful and licentious ways, according to the divine oracle among us that says, "The devising of idols is the beginning of sexual immorality." At any rate the polytheistic error of all the nations appeared long ages afterward. It began with the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and passed from them to the other nations and even to the Greeks themselves, as the history of the most ancient times again records. It is time to examine this too, beginning from the Phoenicians. These things are recorded by Sanchuniathon, a very ancient man, older, they say, than the Trojan times, whom they testify to have been approved for the accuracy and truth of his Phoenician history. Philo of Byblos, not the Hebrew, translated his whole work from the Phoenician tongue into Greek and published it. He is mentioned by the man of our own time who composed the attack upon us, in the fourth book of his work against us, who bears witness to the man in these words: "Sanchuniathon of Berytus records the history of the Jews most truthfully, since it agrees most closely with their places and names. He received the records from Hierombalus, the priest of the god Ieuo. He dedicated his history to Abibalus, king of the Berytians, and was accepted by him and by the examiners of truth in his time. Their times fall even before the Trojan times, and come close to those of Moses, as the successions of the kings of Phoenicia show. Sanchuniathon, having collected and written the whole ancient history in the Phoenician language, with love of truth, from the records in each city and the registers in the temples, lived under Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians, who is recorded to have lived before the Trojan war or at about that time. The works of Sanchuniathon were translated into the Greek language by Philo of Byblos." So says the writer cited, testifying to both the truth and the antiquity of this theologian. But Sanchuniathon, as he proceeds, proclaims as gods not the God over all, nor even the gods in heaven, but mortal men and women, not even refined in character, such as one might accept or emulate for their virtue in philosophy, but clothed in all the vice of baseness and wickedness. And he testifies that these are the very ones who are still regarded as gods by all, in cities and countries. Receive the proofs of this too from the writings. Philo, then, having divided the whole work of Sanchuniathon into nine books, in the preface to the first book says this in advance about Sanchuniathon, in these very words: "This being so, Sanchuniathon, a man of great learning and curiosity, who longed to know from all sources the things from the beginning, from which all things were constituted, very carefully searched out the writings of Taautus, knowing that of all who have lived under the sun Taautus was the first, who devised the invention of letters and began the writing of records; and from him, laying the foundation of his account as it were, he began. The Egyptians called him Thouth, the Alexandrians Thoth, and the Greeks translated his name as Hermes." After saying this he finds fault with the later writers who came afterward, for referring the myths about the gods, forcibly and untruly, to allegories and physical explanations and theories. At any rate he says as he goes on: "But the most recent of the sacred writers rejected the events that took place at the beginning, devised allegories and myths, invented a kinship with the phenomena of the cosmos, and established mysteries, bringing upon them much smoke of pretension, so that no one could easily see what had really happened. But he, coming upon the secret writings of the Ammoneans that had been found in the shrines, composed in characters not known to all, himself practiced the study of them all; and having completed the work, he set aside the myth and the allegories from the beginning and accomplished his purpose, until the priests who came later, in later times, wished to hide it again and restore it to the mythical; from which the mystical element arose, which had not yet reached the Greeks." Next to this he says: "These things we have discovered in our eagerness to know the history of the Phoenicians accurately, having searched through much material, not that among the Greeks; for that is inconsistent, and composed by some more for the sake of contention than of truth." And after other matters: "We came to be convinced that things are as he has written, seeing the disagreement among the Greeks; concerning which I have taken pains to write three books, entitled Paradoxical History." And again, after other matters, he adds: "For clearness later, and for distinguishing the particulars, it is necessary to state first that the most ancient of the barbarians, especially the Phoenicians and Egyptians, from whom the rest of mankind received it, considered as the greatest gods those who had discovered things useful for life, or had in some way done good to the nations. Regarding them as benefactors and causes of many goods, they worshipped them as gods; and when they had passed away, they built temples and consecrated pillars and staffs in their names, venerating these greatly; and the Phoenicians assigned to them their greatest festivals. In particular, they gave the names of their own kings to the elements of the cosmos and to some of those considered gods. But as natural gods they recognized only the sun, the moon, the other planets, the elements and the things connected with them, so that some of their gods were mortal and others immortal." Having made these distinctions in the preface, Philo next begins his translation of Sanchuniathon, setting out the Phoenician theology somewhat as follows:
Theology of the Phoenicians
"He supposes the beginning of the universe to be a dark and windy air, or a breath of dark air, and a turbid chaos, black as Erebus. These, he says, were boundless and for a long age had no limit. 'But when,' he says, 'the wind fell in love with its own first principles and a mixture took place, that intertwining was called Desire. This was the beginning of the creation of all things. But the wind did not know its own creation; and from its own intertwining with the wind, Mot came into being. Some say this is mud, others a putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from it came every seed of creation and the generation of all things. There were certain living creatures without sensation, from which intelligent creatures came into being, and they were called Zophasemin, that is, 'watchers of heaven.' And Mot was formed in the shape of an egg, and shone forth, and sun and moon, stars and the great constellations." Such is their cosmogony, plainly introducing atheism. Let us see next how he says the generation of living creatures came about. He says then: "And when the air shone with light, through the burning heat of both the sea and the earth there came winds and clouds and very great downpours and floods of the waters of heaven. And when they were separated and parted from their own place through the burning of the sun, and all met again in the air, one with another, and dashed together, thunders and lightnings were produced; and at the crash of the thunders the intelligent creatures described before awoke, and were startled at the sound, and male and female moved on land and in the sea." Such is their account of the generation of living creatures. Next the same writer adds, saying: "These things were found written in the cosmogony of Taautus and in his records, from the conjectures and evidences which his mind saw and discovered and made clear to us." Next, after naming the winds, the south wind, the north wind, and the rest, he adds: "But these were the first to consecrate the growths of the earth, and they held them to be gods and worshipped them, the things by which they themselves, their descendants, and all before them lived; and they made libations and offerings to them." And he adds: "These were their notions of worship, matching their own weakness and timidity of soul." Then he says that from the wind Colpia and his wife Baau, which he interprets as 'night,' were born Aeon and Protogonus, mortal men so called; and that Aeon discovered food from trees. Those born of these were called Genos and Genea, and they settled Phoenicia. When droughts came, they stretched out their hands to heaven toward the sun; "for him," he says, "they considered the only god, lord of heaven, calling him Beelsamen, which among the Phoenicians means 'lord of heaven,' and among the Greeks Zeus." After this he charges the Greeks with error, saying: "For it was not without reason that we distinguished these things in many ways, but because of the misinterpretations of the names, which the Greeks, not understanding, took in another sense, misled by the ambiguity of the translation." Next he says: "From Genos son of Aeon and Protogonus were born again mortal children, whose names were Light, Fire, and Flame. These," he says, "discovered fire by rubbing pieces of wood together and taught its use. They begot sons surpassing in size and stature, whose names were given to the mountains they held, so that from them Cassius, Libanus, Antilibanus, and Brathy were named. From these," he says, "were born Samemroumus, also called Hypsouranius, and Usous; and they were named," he says, "after their mothers, since the women of that time had intercourse without restraint with any they happened to meet." Then he says: "Hypsouranius lived in Tyre and devised huts of reeds, rushes, and papyrus; and he quarreled with his brother Usous, who first invented a covering for the body from the skins of the wild beasts he was able to catch. When violent rains and winds came, the trees in Tyre were rubbed together, caught fire, and burned the forest there. Usous took a tree, stripped off its branches, and was the first to dare to embark on the sea. He consecrated two pillars to fire and wind, worshipped them, and poured out to them the blood of the wild beasts he hunted. When these had died, he says, those who were left consecrated staffs to them, worshipped the pillars, and held festivals for them every year. Many ages later, from the race of Hypsouranius came Agreus and Halieus, the inventors of hunting and fishing, from whom hunters and fishermen are named. From these came two brothers, inventors of iron and of its working. One of them, Chrysor, practiced words, incantations, and divinations; he is Hephaestus. He also invented the hook, bait, line, and raft, and was the first of all men to sail; so after his death they worshipped him as a god. He was also called Zeus Meilichius. Some say that his brothers devised walls of brick. After this, from their race came two young men, one called Technites and the other Geinus Autochthon. These devised mixing straw with the clay of bricks and drying them in the sun, and they also invented roofs. From these came others, one of whom was called Agrus and the other Agrueros or Agrotes, of whom there is a very venerable wooden image and a shrine carried by yoked animals in Phoenicia; and among the people of Byblos he is called, in particular, the greatest of the gods. These devised adding courtyards, enclosures, and cellars to houses. From these come farmers and huntsmen. They are also called Aletae and Titans. From these came Amynus and Magus, who established villages and flocks. From these came Misor and Sydyk, that is, 'easily freed' and 'just.' They discovered the use of salt. From Misor came Taautus, who invented the writing of the first letters, whom the Egyptians called Thouth, the Alexandrians Thoth, and the Greeks Hermes. From Sydyk came the Dioscuri, or Cabiri, or Corybantes, or Samothracians. These," he says, "first invented the ship. From them came others, who discovered herbs, the healing of bites, and charms. In their time is born one Elioun, called the Most High, and a female called Berouth; they lived near Byblos. From these is born Epigeius Autochthon, whom they afterward called Ouranus (Heaven), so that from him they also named the element above us 'heaven,' because of its surpassing beauty. And from the same parents a sister is born to him, who was called Ge (Earth); and because of her beauty," he says, "they called the earth by the same name. Their father, the Most High, died in an encounter with wild beasts and was deified, and his children offered libations and sacrifices to him. Ouranus, taking over his father's rule, marries his sister Ge and has by her four sons: Elus, who is also Cronus, Baetylus, Dagon, who is Siton (grain), and Atlas. By other wives too Ouranus had a large family. So Ge, angered and jealous, reproached Ouranus, so that they separated from each other. But Ouranus, having left her, would come upon her by force whenever he wished, lie with her, and go away again; he also tried to destroy the children he had by her. Ge often defended herself, gathering allies for herself. And when Cronus came to manhood, using Hermes Trismegistus as his counselor and helper (for he was his secretary), he took vengeance on his father Ouranus, avenging his mother. To Cronus are born children, Persephone and Athena. The first died a virgin; but on the advice of Athena and Hermes, Cronus made a sickle and a spear of iron. Then Hermes, speaking magic words to Cronus's allies, put into them a desire for the battle against Ouranus on behalf of Ge. And so Cronus, engaging Ouranus in war, drove him from his rule and succeeded to the kingdom. In the battle the beloved concubine of Ouranus was also captured, being pregnant, and Cronus gives her in marriage to Dagon. In Dagon's house she bears the child she was carrying by Ouranus, and named him Demarus. After this Cronus builds a wall around his own dwelling and founds the first city, Byblos in Phoenicia. After this Cronus, suspecting his own brother Atlas, on the advice of Hermes threw him into a pit in the earth and buried him. At this time the descendants of the Dioscuri, having built rafts and ships, went to sea, and being cast ashore near Mount Cassius consecrated a temple there. The allies of Elus, that is Cronus, were called Eloeim, as those called after Cronus would be Cronians. Cronus, having a son Sadidus, killed him with his own sword, having come to suspect him, and deprived him of life, becoming the murderer of his own child. In the same way he cut off the head of his own daughter, so that all the gods were dismayed at the mind of Cronus. As time went on, Ouranus, being in exile, secretly sends his virgin daughter Astarte, with two other sisters of hers, Rhea and Dione, to kill Cronus by guile. But Cronus caught them and made them his wedded wives, though they were his sisters. When Ouranus learned of it, he sends Heimarmene (Fate) and Hora (Season) with other allies to make war on Cronus; and Cronus won these too over to himself and kept them with him. Further," he says, "the god Ouranus devised baetylia, contriving stones endowed with life. To Cronus were born by Astarte seven daughters, Titanides or Artemides. And again to the same are born by Rhea seven sons, of whom the youngest was consecrated at his birth; and by Dione daughters; and again by Astarte two sons, Pothos (Longing) and Eros (Love). Dagon, since he discovered grain and the plow, was called Zeus Arotrius. One of the Titanides, uniting with Sydyk, called the Just, bears Asclepius. In Peraea too three sons were born to Cronus: Cronus, of the same name as his father, Zeus Belus, and Apollo. In their time are born Pontus, Typhon, and Nereus, father of Pontus. From Pontus comes Sidon, who by the surpassing beauty of her voice first invented the hymn of song, and Poseidon. To Demarus is born Melcathrus, who is also Heracles. Then again Ouranus makes war on Pontus, and revolting, attaches himself to Demarus. Demarus attacks Pontus, but Pontus routs him, and Demarus vowed a sacrifice for his escape. In the thirty-second year of his power and reign Elus, that is Cronus, having set an ambush for his father Ouranus in a certain inland place and got him into his hands, cuts off his private parts near springs and rivers. There Ouranus was deified; his breath was ended, and the blood from his private parts dripped into the springs and the waters of the rivers; and the place is pointed out to this day." Such, then, are the deeds of Cronus, and such the noble features of the life of the people in the time of Cronus, so loudly praised among the Greeks, whom they say were the first, "a golden race of mortal men," in that blessed happiness of the ancients. Again the writer, after other matters, adds this, saying: "Astarte the greatest, and Zeus Demarus, and Adodus king of the gods, reigned over the land with the consent of Cronus. Astarte put on her own head, as a mark of royalty, a bull's head; and traveling around the inhabited world she found a star that had fallen from the sky, which she took up and consecrated in Tyre, the holy island. The Phoenicians say that Astarte is Aphrodite. And Cronus, going around the inhabited world, gives the kingdom of Attica to his own daughter Athena. When a plague and pestilence came, Cronus offers his only-begotten son as a whole burnt offering to his father Ouranus, and circumcises himself, compelling his allies also to do the same. And not long after, when another of his sons by Rhea, named Muth, died, he deifies him. The Phoenicians call him Death and Pluto. After this Cronus gives the city of Byblos to the goddess Baaltis, who is also Dione, and Berytus to Poseidon and to the Cabiri, the Hunters and Fishers, who also consecrated the remains of Pontus at Berytus. Before this the god Tauthus, imitating the appearances of the gods who were with him, Cronus and Dagon and the rest, gave form to the sacred characters of the letters. He also devised for Cronus, as marks of royalty, four eyes in the front and back parts ... and two quietly closed, and on the shoulders four wings, two as if flying and two as if folded. The symbol meant that Cronus saw while sleeping and slept while waking; and likewise with the wings, that he flew while resting and rested while flying. To each of the other gods he gave two wings on the shoulders, meaning that they flew with Cronus. And to Cronus himself again two wings on his head, one for the most commanding mind and one for sense perception. Cronus, coming to the land of the south, gave all Egypt to the god Tauthus to be his kingdom. These things," he says, "the seven sons, the Cabiri, and their own brother Asclepius, were the first of all to put into records, as the god Tauthus commanded them. All these things Thabion, the very first hierophant of the Phoenicians who have lived from the beginning, turned into allegory and mixed with natural and cosmic phenomena, and handed down to the priests who lead the orgies and begin the rites. They, contriving in every way to increase the vain pretension, handed it on to their successors and to those brought in from outside; one of whom was Isiris, the inventor of the three letters, brother of Chna, who was the first to have his name changed to Phoenix." Then next he adds again: "But the Greeks, surpassing all in natural talent, at first appropriated most of these things, and then also dramatized them in various ways with added ornaments, and, intending to charm with the pleasures of the myths, embellished them in every way. Hence Hesiod and the much-celebrated cyclic poets fashioned theogonies, battles of giants and battles of Titans of their own, and mutilations; and by carrying these about with them they overcame the truth. And our ears, having grown up with their fictions and been preoccupied for many ages, guard as a trust the mythology they have received, as I said at the beginning; and this, strengthened by time, has made its hold hard to escape, so that the truth seems nonsense, and the spurious account seems truth." Let these extracts from the writing of Sanchuniathon be set before you, translated by Philo of Byblos and approved as true by the testimony of Porphyry the philosopher. The same author, in his work On the Jews, also writes this about Cronus: "Tauthus, whom the Egyptians call Thouth, excelling in wisdom among the Phoenicians, was the first to bring the things concerning the worship of the gods out of the ignorance of the vulgar into scientific understanding. Many generations after him the god Surmubelus and Thuro, whose name was changed to Eusarthis, followed him and brought to light the theology of Tauthus, which had been hidden and overshadowed by allegories." And shortly after he says: "It was the custom among the ancients, in great calamities of danger, that instead of the destruction of all, the rulers of the city or nation gave up the most beloved of their children to be slaughtered as a ransom to the avenging demons; and those who were given up were slaughtered with mystic rites. Cronus, then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and afterward, at the end of his life, was deified as the star of Cronus, had an only-begotten son by a nymph of the country called Anobret, whom for this reason they called Ieoud (the only-begotten is still so called among the Phoenicians); and when very great dangers from war had seized the country, he adorned his son with royal attire, prepared an altar, and sacrificed him." The same writer again, translating from Sanchuniathon about the Phoenician letters, see what he says about the creeping and venomous creatures, which contribute nothing good to human use but bring destruction and ruin to whomever they strike with their hard-to-heal and grievous poison. He writes this too, word for word, saying something like this: "Tauthus himself deified the nature of the dragon and of serpents, and after him again the Phoenicians and Egyptians. For the creature was declared by him to be the most full of spirit of all creeping things, and fiery. Hence it shows an unsurpassable speed by means of its spirit, without feet or hands or any other external members by which the other animals make their movements; it forms shapes of various kinds, and in its progress makes its springs in spirals at whatever speed it wishes. It is also very long-lived, and by nature not only grows young again by putting off its old age, but also receives greater growth; and when it has fulfilled its fixed measure, it is consumed into itself, as Tauthus himself likewise set down in the sacred writings. Therefore this creature has been adopted in temples and in mysteries. We have spoken about it at greater length in the records entitled Ethothia, in which it is argued that it is immortal and is dissolved into itself, as was said before; for this creature does not die a natural death unless struck by some violence. The Phoenicians call it Agathodaemon (Good Spirit); likewise the Egyptians name it Kneph; and they add to it a hawk's head, because of the hawk's active nature. And Epeeis, speaking allegorically (he who was named among them the greatest hierophant and sacred scribe, whom Areius of Heracleopolis translated), says word for word: 'The first and most divine being is a serpent having the form of a hawk, exceedingly graceful; whenever he opened his eyes he filled all things with light in his first-born region, and when he closed them, darkness came.' Epeeis indicates that it is also fiery by saying 'he shone through,' for to shine through is a property of light. From the Phoenicians Pherecydes also took his starting points and wrote theology about the god called by him Ophion and about the Ophionidae, of whom we shall speak again. Further, the Egyptians, from the same idea, when they depict the cosmos, draw a round circle, airy and fiery, and a hawk-shaped serpent stretched across the middle; and the whole figure is like our theta. By the circle they indicate the cosmos, and by the serpent in the middle they signify the Agathodaemon who holds it together. And Zoroaster the magus, in the sacred collection of Persian writings, says word for word: 'God has the head of a hawk. He is the first, incorruptible, eternal, unbegotten, without parts, most unlike all, the charioteer of all that is good, not to be bribed, the best of the good, the wisest of the wise; he is also father of good order and justice, self-taught, natural, perfect, wise, and the only discoverer of the sacred natural law.' Ostanes too says the same things about him in the book entitled Octateuch." All of them, taking their starting points from Tauthus, gave natural explanations, as has been shown. And they built temples and consecrated in shrines the first elements represented by the serpents, and celebrated festivals, sacrifices, and secret rites to them, regarding them as the greatest gods and the rulers of the universe. So much about serpents. Such, then, is the character of the Phoenician theology. The saving word announces as good news that we should flee from it without turning back, and should seek the cure for the madness of the ancients. That these are not myths and inventions of poets containing some hidden meaning in their allegories, but true testimonies of wise and ancient theologians, as they themselves would say, containing things older than all poets and prose writers, and drawing the credibility of their words from the names and history of the gods that still prevail in the cities and villages of Phoenicia, and from the mysteries performed among each people, would be plain; so that there is no longer any need to search out forced physical explanations of them, when the facts themselves bring their clear refutation. Such, then, is the theology of the Phoenicians; it is time to pass on and examine that of the Egyptians.
Connections in Preparation for the Gospel, Book 1
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