Preparation for the Gospel, Book 3

Such, then, were the views of the best of the philosophers and of the first and ancient rulers of Rome about the Greek theology: they in no way accepted physical explanations in the myths about the gods, nor their pompous and sophistical quibbles. But since we have once set out to refute these too, come, let us consider what dignified thing worthy of God their interpretations and theories bring, adding nothing of our own but using their own words throughout, so that we may learn from themselves again their own dignified and secret doctrines. Countless others who profess to philosophize have spent great labor on these matters, producing various inventions of their own, each insisting that whatever occurred to him and seemed right was the truth. For me it is enough to provide the proofs from those who are most distinguished, known to all philosophers, and who have won no small fame for philosophy among the Greeks. First of them, take and read the words of Plutarch of Chaeronea on the matters before us, in which, speaking solemnly, he turns the myths aside to what he says are mystical theologies. Unveiling these, he says that Dionysus is drunkenness, no longer the mortal man shown by history in the preceding book, and Hera the married life of husband and wife; then, as if he had forgotten this explanation, he joins on another account next and calls Hera no longer as before but the earth, and Leto forgetfulness and night; and again he says that Hera is the same as Leto; then after this Zeus is brought in by him, allegorized into the power of the ether. But why should I anticipate these things, when we may hear the man himself, revealing in the work he entitled On the Daedala at Plataea what is hidden from the many of the secret natural philosophy about the gods, somewhat as follows:

The physical theology of the Greeks

"That the ancient natural philosophy, among both Greeks and barbarians, was a physical doctrine hidden in myths, for the most part a secret and mystical theology conveyed through riddles and hidden meanings, in which what is spoken is clearer to the many than what is kept silent, and what is kept silent more suspect than what is spoken, is plain in the Orphic poems and in the Egyptian and Phrygian stories; but most of all the orgies of the initiations and the symbolic actions in the sacred rites show the mind of the ancients. For example, not to wander far from the matters at hand, they do not think or allow that Hera has any partnership with Dionysus. They take care not to mingle their rites; and the priestesses at Athens, they say, do not speak to each other when they meet, nor is ivy ever brought into the precinct of Hera. This is not because of mythical and nonsensical jealousies, but because the goddess presides over marriage and leads the bride, while drunkenness is improper for bridegrooms and most unsuited to marriage, as Plato says. For drinking unmixed wine, he says, causes disturbance in souls and bodies, by which what is sown and conceived takes root badly, shapeless and misdirected. Again, those who sacrifice to Hera do not consecrate the gall but bury it beside the altar, signifying that the life together of wife and husband should be without anger and gall, and pure of all rage and bitterness." This symbolic manner is found more in the stories and myths. For example, they relate that Hera, while still a maiden being brought up in Euboea, was stolen away by Zeus, carried across to this place, and hidden there, Cithaeron providing them a shady recess and a natural bridal chamber. When Macris, Hera's nurse, came in search of her and wished to look, Cithaeron would not let her pry or approach the place, saying that Zeus was resting and spending his time there with Leto. When Macris went away, Hera escaped notice for the time; and later, in gratitude to Leto, she gave her a share in her altar and temple, so that sacrifice is offered first to Leto Mychia (of the recess); some say Nychia (of the night). In both names the hidden and secret is signified. Some say that Hera herself, secretly united with Zeus there and escaping notice, was thus called Leto Nychia; and when the marriage became public, and their union was first revealed here at Cithaeron and Plataea, she was called Hera Teleia (fulfilled) and Gamelios (of marriage). "Those who interpret the myth more physically and fittingly bring Hera together with Leto in this way. Hera is the earth, as has been said, and Leto is night, being a sort of forgetfulness (letho) of those who turn to sleep; and night is nothing else than the shadow of the earth. For when the shadow, drawing near the west, hides the sun, it spreads out and darkens the air; and this is the eclipsing slip of the full moons, when, as the moon goes round, the shadow of the earth touches it and dims its light. "That Leto is no other than Hera you may learn from this. We call Artemis the daughter of Leto, but we also name her Eileithyia; so Hera and Leto are two names of one goddess. Again, Apollo was born of Leto and Ares of Hera, but both have one power; and he is called Ares as helping (aregon) in the misfortunes of violence and battle, and Apollo as freeing (apallatton) and releasing man from the sicknesses of the body. Therefore, of the most fiery and burning stars, the sun is called Apollo and the fire-colored one is named Ares. Nor is it absurd that the same goddess should be called the goddess of marriage and considered mother of Eileithyia and of the sun. For the end of marriage is birth, and birth is the passage from darkness to the sun and light. And the poet said well: 'But when Eileithyia of the hard labor brought him forth to the light, and he saw the rays of the sun.' The poet did well to compress the compound with the preposition, showing the intensity of labor, and to make the end of birth the seeing of the sun. So the same goddess made marriage come together, in order to prepare for birth." "Perhaps we should also tell the more simple-minded myth. It is said that Zeus, when Hera quarreled with him and would no longer come to him but hid herself, at a loss and wandering about, met Alalcomenes, a native of the land, and was taught by him that he must deceive Hera by pretending to marry another. With Alalcomenes' help they secretly cut down a fine, very beautiful oak, shaped it, dressed it as a bride, and called it Daedale. Then the wedding song was raised, the Tritonian nymphs brought the bridal bath, and Boeotia provided flutes and revels. While this was going on, Hera could hold out no longer, but came down from Cithaeron, followed by the women of Plataea, and in anger and jealousy ran to Zeus. When the pretense was revealed, she was reconciled, and with joy and laughter herself led the bridal procession. She gave honor to the wooden image and called the festival Daedala, but nevertheless burned it, lifeless though it was, out of jealousy." "Such is the myth; and its meaning is this. The quarrel and strife of Hera and Zeus is nothing else than the bad mixture and disturbance of the elements, when they no longer keep due measure with one another in order, but irregularity and harshness arise and they fight against each other, dissolve their partnership, and bring about the destruction of all things. If Zeus, that is, the hot and fiery power, gives the cause of the destruction, drought seizes the earth; but if excess or superabundance arises in Hera, that is, the moist and airy nature, a great flood comes, rains pour down, and everything is inundated. Something of this kind happened about those times, and Boeotia especially was submerged; and as soon as the plain emerged and the flood abated, the fair order of the surrounding air out of the calm was called the concord and reconciliation of the gods. And first of the plants of the earth the oak rose up, and men loved it, since it provided the continuance of food, life, and safety; for not only to the pious, as Hesiod says, but also to those left over from the destruction 'the oak bears acorns at its top and bees in its middle.'"

The same subject

So much Plutarch. And we, from the words he has set out, have learned that even the wonderful and secret natural philosophy of the Greek theology brought with it nothing divine, nothing great, worthy of God, or deserving of such exaltation. For you have heard Hera now proclaimed the goddess of marriage and signifying the life together of husband and wife, now again the earth named Hera, now the moist substance; Dionysus turned into drunkenness, Leto into night, the sun into Apollo, and Zeus himself into the hot and fiery power. So, besides the unseemliness of the myths, even the supposedly more dignified explanation and natural philosophy did not lead up to any heavenly, intellectual, and divine powers, nor to rational and incorporeal beings, but itself again turned the parts of the world downward to drunkenness and marriages and human passions, to fire and earth and sun and the other elements of matter, and deified nothing more. Plato too knows this. At any rate he confesses plainly in the Cratylus that the first men in Greece knew nothing more than the visible parts of the world, and thought that the only gods were the luminaries of heaven and the rest of the phenomena. He says, 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." Such, then, are the Greek doctrines; let us see also those older than these, the Egyptian. They say that Isis and Osiris are the sun and the moon; that Zeus is the spirit that pervades all things, Hephaestus fire, and that they named the earth Demeter; that the moist element is considered Oceanus among the Egyptians, and their own river the Nile, to which they ascribed the births of the gods; and that they call the air Athena. These five gods, I mean Air, Water, Fire, Earth, and Spirit, go about the whole inhabited world, taking now one shape and now another, the forms and appearances of men and of all kinds of animals; and among the Egyptians themselves there were mortal men of the same names as these, called Helios, Cronus, and Rhea, and also Zeus, Hera, Hephaestus, and Hestia. Manetho writes about these things more fully, and Diodorus in summary, in the work mentioned before, recording somewhat as follows, word for word:

The allegorical theology of the Egyptians

"These gods, they say, the Sun and the Moon, who are Osiris and Isis among the Egyptians, govern the whole universe, nourishing and increasing all things by the three seasons that complete the cycle in an invisible movement, spring, summer, and winter; and these, though most opposite in nature to one another, complete the year in the best harmony. These gods contribute most to the generation of all living things, the one of the fiery and spiritual nature, the other of the moist and dry, and both in common of the airy; and through these all things are begotten and nourished. Therefore the whole body of the nature of the universe is completed from the sun and moon, and their parts are the five mentioned before, spirit, fire, the dry, the moist, and lastly the airy; and just as in a man we count head, hands, feet, and the other parts, in the same way the whole body of the world is composed of those mentioned. Each of these the first men in Egypt to use articulate speech considered a god and gave each its own name according to its nature. Spirit they called Zeus, by translation of the word; regarding him as the cause of the soul in living things, they considered him a kind of father of all. They say that the most famous of the Greek poets also agrees with them, saying of the god, 'father of men and gods.' Fire, translated, they named Hephaestus, considering him a great god who contributes much to all things for their generation and full growth. The earth, which they regarded as a kind of vessel of growing things, they called Mother; and the Greeks likewise call her Demeter, the word having been slightly changed over time. For in ancient times she was called Earth Mother, as Orpheus also testifies, saying: 'Earth, mother of all, Demeter giver of wealth.' The moist element, they say, the ancients named Oceanus, which when translated means 'mother of food'; but some of the Greeks have taken it to be Ocean, of which the poet says: 'Oceanus, the origin of the gods, and mother Tethys.' For the Egyptians consider their own river, the Nile, to be Oceanus, and say that the births of the gods took place beside it. For of the whole inhabited world Egypt alone has many cities founded by the ancient gods, such as those of Zeus, Helios, Hermes, Apollo, Pan, Eileithyia, and many others. The air, they say, they called Athena, by translation of the word, and considered her the daughter of Zeus, and made her a virgin because the air is by nature incorruptible and occupies the highest place of the whole world; therefore it was said in myth that she was born from the head of Zeus. She was also named Tritogeneia because her nature changes three times a year, in spring, summer, and winter. She is also called Glaucopis, not, as some of the Greeks supposed, from having gray eyes (for that is silly), but because the air has a bluish appearance. They say that the five gods mentioned go about the whole inhabited world, appearing to men in the forms of sacred animals, and sometimes changing into the appearance of men or of other things. And this is not mythical, but possible, if these are truly the ones who beget all things. And the poet too, having visited Egypt and shared in such accounts from the priests, set down the above somewhere in his poetry as actually happening: 'And the gods, like strangers from abroad, taking all kinds of shapes, go about the cities, watching the violence and the good order of men.' Such are the things the Egyptians say about the gods in heaven who have had an eternal origin." "Others, they say, sprang from these and were earthly, being mortal at first but having obtained immortality because of their intelligence and their common benefits to mankind; and some of them were also kings in Egypt. Of these, when translated, some have the same names as the heavenly ones and some have had their own: Helios, Cronus, and Rhea, and Zeus, called Ammon by some, and besides these Hera and Hephaestus, Hestia, and lastly Hermes. And Helios was the first to reign over Egypt, bearing the same name as the star in heaven." So much the historian cited. And Plutarch too, in his work On Isis, writes this, word for word: "Let us look first, from another starting point, at the simplest of those who seem to say something more philosophical. These are the ones who say that, as the Greeks allegorize Cronus as time (chronos), Hera as the air, and the birth of Hephaestus as the change of air into fire, so among the Egyptians Osiris is the Nile, consorting with Isis, the earth, and Typhon is the sea, into which the Nile falls and disappears." Having said these and similar things, he again refers the myths about the gods in question to demons, and again explains them otherwise, and yet again allegorizes them in another way. It would be reasonable to ask of which gods they will say the images preserve the forms carved on them. Of demons? Or of fire, air, earth, and water? Or are they likenesses of men and women, and shapes of irrational animals and beasts? For since they themselves concede that certain mortal men bore the same names as the sun and the universal elements and were proclaimed gods, whose forms and likenesses would it be reasonable to call the carvings in lifeless images? Those of the universal elements, or, as the plain evidence of sight shows, those of mortals lying among the dead? But even if they themselves do not say so, the true account cries aloud, all but uttering a voice, bearing witness that those in question were mortal men. And Plutarch, over and above, describes even the character of their bodily appearance, in his work On Isis and the Egyptian Gods, speaking somewhat as follows: "For the Egyptians relate that Hermes was short-armed in body, Typhon red in complexion, Ares white, and Osiris dark-skinned, as having been men by nature." So much Plutarch too. All their deification, then, is of the dead, and the natural philosophy is a fiction of theirs. For why should they have made living figures of men and women, when they could have worshipped the sun and moon and the other elements of the world without these? To which of them, and beginning from what, did they give such names as, for example, Hephaestus and Athena, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hera? Were these first names of the universal elements, given afterward to mortals bearing the same names as the heavenly ones? Or, conversely, did they transfer the names from what men were called to these substances? And why should they give mortal names to universal natures? And do the mysteries of each god, the hymns, the songs, and the secrets of the rites, carry symbols of the universal elements, or of the mortal men of old who bore the same names as the gods? But wanderings, drunkenness, love affairs, seductions of women, plots of men, and countless things that are truly mortal, shameful, and undignified, how could anyone ascribe them to the universal elements, when they plainly bear the mark of mortality and human passion? So from all these considerations this wonderful and noble natural philosophy is convicted of having no hold on truth and of bringing nothing truly divine, but of having a forced and false outward show of dignity. Listen then to what Porphyry too records about these same things in his Letter to Anebo the Egyptian:

Further consideration of the physical system of the Egyptians, and that they transferred the whole reference of their allegorical theory solely to the visible celestial bodies, and to water and fire and the other elements of the cosmos

"For Chaeremon and the others do not think there is anything prior to the visible worlds, putting the gods of the Egyptians at the head of their account, and no other gods except those called planets, and those that fill up the zodiac, and those that rise alongside them: the divisions into decans, the horoscopes, and the so-called mighty leaders, whose names are given in the almanacs, together with cures of diseases, risings and settings, and signs of the future. For he saw that those who said the sun was the creator, and the stories of Osiris and Isis, and all the priestly myths, either turned upon the stars and their appearances, disappearances, and risings, or upon the waxing and waning of the moon, or the course of the sun, or the night or day hemisphere, or the river; and that they interpreted everything in terms of natural things and nothing in terms of incorporeal and living beings. Most of them even made our free will depend on the motion of the stars, binding all things, I do not know how, with the indissoluble bonds of necessity, which they call fate, and attaching everything to these gods; and these alone they worship as deliverers from fate, in temples and with images and the rest." Let these extracts from the letter cited stand, declaring plainly that the secret theology of the Egyptians too proclaimed as gods none other than the stars in heaven, both the so-called fixed stars and those named planets, and introduced as creator of the universe no incorporeal being whatever, no creative Word, no God, no gods, no intellectual and invisible powers, but only the visible sun. Therefore they ascribed the cause of the universe to the stars alone, hanging all things on fate and on the motion and course of the stars, as indeed this opinion still prevails among them even now. If, then, the Egyptians interpreted everything in terms of the visible elements of the world alone and nothing in terms of incorporeal and living beings, and if the elements and all visible bodies are by their own nature lifeless and irrational, flowing and perishable, see into what their theology has fallen once more, deifying lifeless substance and dead, irrational bodies, especially since they referred nothing to incorporeal and intellectual beings, nor to a creative mind and word of the universe. And since it was agreed earlier that the Greeks received their theology from the Egyptians, it is time to conclude that the Greeks too follow them, give the same natural explanations as the Egyptians, and are convicted of deifying nothing more than lifeless matter. For these were the dignified doctrines of the Egyptians according to the writing of the author mentioned, who again, in the work he entitled On Abstinence from Animal Food, goes through such things about the same matters: "Starting from this discipline and their intimacy with the divine, they recognized that the divine did not pass through man alone, nor did the soul dwell on earth in man alone, but that nearly the same soul passed through all living creatures. Therefore they took every living creature into their deification, and likewise mingled wild beasts and men, and again the bodies of birds and men. For one figure among them is represented as human up to the neck, but has the face of a bird or a lion or some other animal; and again there is a human head with parts of other animals, in one place below and in another above. By these they show that by the will of the gods these too have fellowship with one another, and that the wild among the beasts are reared with us and tamed not without some divine will. Hence the lion too is worshipped as a god, and a part of Egypt, which they call a nome, has the name Leontopolite, another Busirite, another Cynopolite. For they worshipped the power over all things through the animals associated with each of the gods, which each god provided. They revere water and fire, the most beautiful of the elements, as most responsible for our preservation, and display these in the temples; as even now, at the opening of the temple of holy Sarapis, the worship is performed with fire and water, the singer pouring out the water and showing the fire, when he stands on the threshold and awakens the god in the ancestral language of the Egyptians. These, then, they revere as having a part in the rites, and they have honored most of all those that have the fullest part in the sacrifices. Such are all animals, since they even worship a man at the village of Anabis, where a man is sacrificed to and the sacred offerings are burned on the altars for him; and a little later he would eat what had been prepared for him as for a man. As, then, we must abstain from man, so also from the other animals. Further, from their exceeding wisdom and their familiarity with the divine, they perceived that some animals are dearer to some of the gods than men are, as the hawk to the sun, having its whole nature from blood and spirit, pitying man and wailing over a dead body lying unburied, and scattering earth upon it." And a little after he says: "The beetle an ignorant man, unacquainted with divine things, would loathe; but the Egyptians revered it as a living image of the sun. For every beetle is male, and, discharging its seed in the mud and making it into a ball, it rolls it back with its hind feet, as the sun turns the heaven, and it awaits a lunar period of days. So too they philosophize somewhat about the ram, and something else about the crocodile, the vulture, and the ibis, and in general about each of the animals; so that it was from wisdom and exceeding divine knowledge that they came to the worship of the animals as well."

That this system also was wholly condemnable

Such are the things the author cited has set down about the noble natural philosophy of the wise Egyptians, making clear to us the secrets of the Egyptians: that they revere water and fire, and that among them one substance, not only of bodies but also of soul, has been judged to belong to rational and irrational creatures, so that it seems reasonable to him that the beasts have been proclaimed gods. And yet how could it be anything but most unreasonable to take irrational and beastlike nature into deification because it shares, as they say, in a soul equal to that of men? They ought rather, if anything, to have regarded these too as men, and given them a share of human esteem and honor. But they did not do this. The beasts, made irrational by nature itself and having received this name, not even counted worthy of the title of men, they did not think fit to receive even as equal to men; but they took the supreme name of the universal King and of God the creator of all things and brought it down to the nature of beasts, and proclaimed gods those which God himself has not counted worthy even of the name of men. Besides this you have heard of the mystical divine wisdom for which the admirable Egyptians worshipped wolves, dogs, and lions; you have learned the wonder of the beetle and the virtue of the hawk. Do not laugh at the gods any more, but pity the human race, wretched three times over, for its great simplicity and blindness. And consider, looking all around, what good things the Christ of God has given us, who has redeemed even the souls of the Egyptians, through his gospel teaching, from so great a disease and so long and lasting a blindness, so that most of the people in Egypt have now been freed from this disease too.

That we had good reason for withdrawing from their more physical theory of the gods, and preferring the only true theology

Such, then, are the doctrines of the Egyptians, which are recorded as older than all the Greek ones. You have, therefore, besides the mythical theology, the more physical theology of both the Greeks and the Egyptians, who in ancient times established polytheistic superstition; and you have learned that among them nothing of the truly divine incorporeal and intellectual beings was known. But let it be granted and conceded to these star-gazers that they speak the truth and succeed in their natural philosophy of allegories: let the sun be for them now Apollo, and again Horus, and again the same one Osiris, and countless other things, as many as they wish; and likewise the moon either Isis or Artemis, and as many names as one might wish to count; for let these not be names of mortal men, but significant names of the heavenly luminaries themselves: then the sun, the moon, the stars, and the other parts of the world must be worshipped as gods. And in this way the noble philosophy of the Greeks has appeared, as if by stage machinery, raising the promise of its doctrine on high, but turning the minds of the wise round and down toward the sensible and visible creation of God, and deifying nothing more than fire and the hot substance, and the parts of the world through the heavenly luminaries, and, let us grant, also the moist and the dry and the mixture of bodies. How, then, is not the gospel of our Savior Jesus, the Christ of God, great and wonderful, which teaches every race of men to worship with fitting thoughts the God and Lord of the sun and moon and creator of the whole universe, him who is the most high and beyond all things; and to hymn not the elements of bodies but the nourisher of life itself and the steward of all good things; to be in no way struck with awe at the visible parts of the world and all that can be grasped by the senses of the flesh, since they are of perishable nature, but to admire only him who is invisible in all of these, the creative Mind of the whole and of the parts; and to proclaim as God that one divine power alone which pervades and orders all things, incorporeal and intellectual by nature, or rather ineffable and incomprehensible, appearing through all things through which it also works, pervading all things incorporeally and without mingling, and displaying through all things, not only heavenly but also earthly, both the universal elements and the particular ones, the sustaining mighty works of the Godhead; presiding over all invisibly and imperceptibly to us, and steering the whole world by the reasons of an inexpressible wisdom. Since we have shown so much in refutation of the inconsistent wisdom or theology, both the so-called more mythical and the loftier and more physical one, which the ancient Greeks and Egyptians have been shown to glorify, it is time to look at the ornaments of the newcomers who profess to philosophize in our own time. These, attempting to weave into the theology of the ancients the doctrines about a creative Mind of the universe and about incorporeal ideas and intellectual and rational powers, which were discovered by Plato's school long ages afterward and conceived by right reasoning, have exalted their profession about the myths with greater pretension. Listen, then, to their natural philosophy too, with what boastfulness it has been put forth by Porphyry:

The systems of causation which the more recent philosophers interwove with the legends concerning the gods

"'I speak to those for whom it is lawful; close the doors, you profane,' showing the thoughts of a theological wisdom, by which men have made known God and the powers of God through images akin to sense, sketching invisible things in visible forms, for those who have learned to read in the statues, as in books, what is written about the gods. It is no wonder that the most ignorant think the images are wood and stones, just as those who do not know letters see the pillars as stones, the tablets as wood, and books as woven papyrus." Having adorned his preface in this way, listen to what he writes next as he proceeds, word for word: "Since the divine is of the nature of light and dwells in a surrounding of ethereal fire, and is invisible to sense busied with mortal life, by means of transparent material, such as crystal or Parian marble or ivory, he led men to the notion of its light; and by gold to the conception of its fire, and of its undefiled nature, since gold is not defiled. Many again showed the invisibility of its substance by black stone; and they represented the gods in human form because the divine is rational, and beautiful because in them there is pure beauty; in various shapes and ages, sitting and standing and clothed, some male and some female, maidens and youths, or those who have experienced marriage, to represent their differences. Hence they assigned everything white to the heavenly gods, and the sphere and all spherical things particularly to the cosmos, the sun, and the moon, and sometimes also to Fortune and Hope; the circle and circular things to eternity and to the motion of the heaven and its zones and circles; segments of circles to the phases of the moon; pyramids and obelisks to the substance of fire, and therefore to the Olympian gods; as again the cone to the sun, the cylinder to the earth, the phallus to sowing and generation, and the triangular figure because of the female part." So says the admirable philosopher. What could be more indecent than his solemn language about shameful things, and what more forced than to say that lifeless materials, gold and stone and the like, bear images of the light of the gods and are signs of their heavenly and ethereal nature? That these are sophistries of the newcomers, which never came into the minds of the ancients even in a dream, you would know on learning that images of gold and of the material thought more costly were rejected by the earlier men. At any rate Plutarch says, word for word, somewhat as follows:

The erection of carved images in old times

"The making of images seems to be something ancient and old, if the first statue sent to Delos by Erysichthon for Apollo on the sacred embassies was of wood, and of wood too the image of Polias set up by the original inhabitants, which the Athenians preserve to this day. The Samians too had a wooden seat of Hera, as Callimachus says: 'Not yet the work of Scelmis, well carved, but after the ancient custom you were a plank untouched by chisels. For so they set up gods then; for Danaus too placed a stone as the seat of Athena in Lindus.' Peiras, they say, who first founded the temple of Argive Hera and made his own daughter Callithyia priestess, cut down a fine pear tree from the trees around Tiryns and shaped an image of Hera. For they did not wish to cut stone into the image of a god, as hard, difficult to work, and lifeless; and they thought that gold and silver were diseased colors and stains of barren and corrupted earth breaking out, like bruises from the strokes of fire. Ivory they sometimes used in play, as an ornament of luxury." So says Plutarch. And Plato, long before him, knowing well that there is nothing dignified or resembling the divine nature in gold, stones, ivory, and things made of lifeless matter, listen to what he ordains in the Laws: "The earth, then, and the hearth of every dwelling are sacred to all the gods; let no one, then, consecrate sacred objects to the gods a second time. Gold and silver, in other cities, both privately and in temples, are an invidious possession; ivory, from a body that has left its soul, is not a pure offering; iron and bronze are instruments of war." I think these words contain a clear refutation of the natural philosophy set out before. Come, let us examine the rest of it too. Listen, then, to what he says:

Further consideration of the allegorical theology of the Greeks and Egyptians

"See the wisdom of the Greeks by examining it in this way. Taking Zeus to be the mind of the world, which created the things in it, holding the world within itself, those who composed the Orphic verses have handed down this about him in their theologies: 'Zeus was first, Zeus last, lord of the bright lightning; Zeus the head, Zeus the middle, and from Zeus all things were made. Zeus became male, Zeus was an immortal bride. Zeus is the foundation of the earth and of the starry heaven. Zeus is king, Zeus himself the first begetter of all. One power, one deity he became, great ruler of all; one royal body, in which all these things revolve: fire and water and earth and ether, night and day, and Metis, first begetter, and delightful Eros. For all these things lie in the great body of Zeus. His head and fair face, to look upon, are the shining heaven, around which his golden locks, the beautiful glittering stars, float in the air; on either side two golden bull's horns, the rising and the setting, the paths of the heavenly gods; his eyes the sun and the moon that faces it. His mind is the unerring, royal, imperishable ether, by which he moves and considers all things; nor is there any voice, nor cry, nor sound, nor rumor, that escapes the ear of the mighty son of Cronus. So he has an immortal head and thought. His body is radiant, boundless, unshaken, mighty, strong-limbed, of surpassing power, made thus: the shoulders, chest, and broad back of the god are the wide-ruling air, and wings grew from him, with which he flies over all things; his holy belly is the earth, mother of all, and the lofty peaks of the mountains; his middle girdle the swell of the deep-roaring sea and the main; the lowest base, the roots within the earth, the dank Tartarus and the farthest bounds of the earth. And having hidden all things, he was again to bring them forth from his heart into the gladsome light, working wonders.' Zeus, then, is the whole world, living being from living beings and god from gods; but Zeus as mind, from which he brings forth all things and creates by his thoughts. When the theologians had explained the things about God in this way, it was neither possible to make an image such as the account indicated, nor, if anyone had devised one, would it have shown by a sphere the living, intelligent, and provident nature. So they have made the image of Zeus in human form, because he was mind, by which he created and completed all things by seminal reasons. He is seated, hinting at the steadfastness of his power; he has his upper parts bare, because he is manifest in the intellectual and heavenly parts of the world; his front parts are covered, because he is invisible to things hidden below. He holds the scepter in his left hand, on the side where the heart, the most commanding and most intelligent of the organs of the body, dwells; for the creative mind is king of the world. In his right hand he holds out either an eagle, because he rules the gods who travel through the air, as the eagle rules the birds on high, or a Victory, because he himself has conquered all things." Such is what Porphyry offers you. Since they have been given in the way described, it is well to examine quietly and at leisure whom the verses say Zeus is. I think he is none other than the visible world, composed of all kinds of parts: those in heaven and the ether, and the stars that appear in them, set first as in the head of a great body, and those in the air, the earth, the sea, and the like. Earth, mountains, and hills are parts of the world, and the sea winds round in the midst of them like a girdle; fire and water, night and day, would be parts of the same nature of the world. These, unless I am mistaken, plainly indicate the visible world, and teach that the whole is composed of parts. At any rate he says: 'For all these things lie in the great body of Zeus.' And he makes clear what 'all things' are: 'fire and water and earth and ether, night and day.' 'His head and fair face, to look upon, are the shining heaven, around which his golden locks, the beautiful glittering stars, float in the air,' and what follows. In these he adds that the mind of Zeus is the ether and nothing else, in agreement with the Stoics, who say that the fiery and hot substance is the ruling part of the world, that God is a body, and that the creator himself is nothing other than the power of fire. For in the same sense, I think, it is said in the verses: 'His mind is the unerring, royal, imperishable ether, by which he moves and considers all things.' By these words, assuming without disguise that the world is a great living being, and calling it Zeus, he declared its mind to be the ether and its body the other parts of the world. Such is the Zeus sketched in the verses. And the interpreter of the verses, beginning in agreement with them, says: 'Zeus, then, is the whole world, living being from living beings, god from gods,' clearly interpreting the Zeus proclaimed as god in the verses to be nothing other than the visible and perceptible world. This is the doctrine of the Egyptians, from whom Orpheus received his theology and thought that the world was God, composed of many gods, its parts (for it was shown earlier that they deified the parts of the world); and the words of the verses quoted made nothing more than this clear. But after the first interpretation he adds a second of his own, saying that the god proclaimed is the creative mind, the maker of the universe. But how could the poet of the verses, whether Orpheus the Thracian or someone else, have proclaimed as god one whom he did not know at all? If his theology came to him from the Egyptians or from the first Greeks, they have been shown to know nothing intelligible, nothing contained in an invisible and incorporeal being, if Plato is a sufficient authority for anyone, when he admits in the Cratylus that the first men in Greece held as gods only those which many barbarians hold now: sun and moon and earth and stars and heaven. And Chaeremon too testified a little earlier that the Egyptians believed in nothing prior to the visible world, nor in any gods except the planets and the other stars, interpreting everything in terms of the visible parts of the world and nothing in terms of incorporeal and living beings.

Confutation and overthrow of their forced explanation

From where, then, or how, or from whom did the poet who started from these sources receive, and set down in his verses, the God who is beyond the world, the creator of the sun and moon and stars, of heaven itself and the whole universe? Where did he get the knowledge of an incorporeal being? But in fact he knew none of these things. For the creative mind of the universe is not composed of many parts, nor could heaven be its head, nor fire, water, and earth its body, nor the sun and moon its eyes. How could the wide-ruling air, the earth, and the lofty peaks of the mountains be the shoulders, chest, back, and belly of God the creator of all things? Or how could the ether ever be conceived as the mind of the maker of the universe, or of the creative mind? That these things have been sophistically contrived by the interpreter of the verses, there is no need to add. But I say that the one who says that the parts of the world are parts of God commits the utmost impiety, and still more the one who declares God to be the same as the world, and besides these the one who thinks the mind of the world is the creator of the universe. For it is pious to declare him the maker and savior of the world, being other than what he has made; but it would no longer be holy to call him the mind of the world, united throughout with it like the soul of a living creature and clothed with the whole. And yet our sacred oracles teach that he is present to the whole and exercises providence over the world, speaking of God worthily and as befits God, where it says: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord"; and again: "For God is in heaven above and on the earth below"; and again: "For in him we live and move and have our being." But not as in a part of the world, nor as in its soul and mind. But if we must use an illustration, the sacred word has spoken more worthily of God and more fittingly to the truth, saying: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet." For if one must personify at all in more human language, see the difference in the theology. The one who called heaven a throne set God, the universal King, beyond the throne and above all things, without separating the earth from his providence; for he teaches that the provident powers of his Godhead come down also to things here. Therefore he says: "and the earth the footstool of my feet." But neither the footstool nor the throne is the body of the one seated, nor could they ever be called his parts. But the one who called heaven and the things in it the head of God, the ether his mind, and the other parts of the world his limbs and body, is shown to know neither the creator nor God. For he could not create himself; nor could one whose mind was the ether still be called mind. What kind of god would he be whose parts are the earth and the mountains on the earth, irrational masses of bodies? And how is it reasonable to proclaim as god one who is brother and kin of fire, air, and water, the offspring of irrational and perishable matter? And if the mind of Zeus was nothing other than the ether described, and ether is the highest and fiery air, having received this name, as they say, from aithesthai, that is, to burn, and both air and ether are bodies, see where the mind of your Zeus has fallen. And who among the sensible would still call him a god whose mind was mindless and irrational, if such is the nature of every body? Therefore in our theology we must take everything opposite to what has been said: that God is not heaven, nor ether, nor sun, nor moon, nor the whole choir of the stars, nor the whole world all together; but these are works of his hands, still small and slight when compared with the incorporeal and intellectual powers. For every body is perishable and irrational, and such is the nature of visible things; but the things beyond, among the invisible, are rational and immortal, living through the ages together with the blessed life of God the universal King, and would be far better than all visible things. Rightly, then, the divine oracles teach about the visible parts of the world somewhat as follows: "I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have established"; and again: "You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands"; and again: "Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has shown forth all these things." Let this be said, then, about the first interpretation of the verses; come, let us examine what follows. Since it was not possible, he says, to make an image such as the account indicated, therefore they made the image of Zeus in human form, because he was mind, by which he created and completed all things by seminal reasons. And how so? If it was not possible to make an image such as the account indicated, and the account indicated the parts of the apparent and visible world, heaven and the things in heaven, air and earth and the things in them; if, then, it was not possible to make an image of the visible parts of the world, how could anyone fashion his image insofar as God was mind? What likeness could a human body have to the mind of God? I do not think it has any even to the human mind; for the mind is incorporeal, uncompounded, and without parts, while the statue is the work of craftsmen, imitating the nature of a mortal body, and has portrayed in lifeless and dead matter a dumb and voiceless image of living flesh. The rational and immortal soul and the impassible mind in human nature may well be said, I think, to preserve the image and likeness of God, insofar as it is immaterial and incorporeal, intellectual and rational in substance, and capable of virtue and wisdom. If anyone could fashion a statue and form of the soul in an image, he might also make one of the higher beings. But if the human mind is formless, shapeless, and without figure, neither visible to sight nor comprehensible in its substance by reason and hearing, who would be so mad as to declare that a man-shaped image bears the form and likeness of the most high God? The nature of God is conceived apart from all mortal matter, contemplated by souls purified by clear thought and silence; but the figure of the visible Zeus in the statue would be the image of a man mortal by nature, imitating not even the whole man but a certain part of him, the worse part, since it carries no trace of life and soul. How, then, could the God over all and the mind that created the universe be the same as the Zeus in bronze or dead ivory? And how could the creative mind of the universe itself have been that Zeus who was the father of Heracles by Alcmene and of the other men said in myth to be sons of Zeus, who ended their mortal life like all other men and left to later generations indelible memorials of their own nature? The first theologians of the Phoenicians, as we showed in the first book, recorded Zeus as the son of Cronus, a mortal born of a mortal, a Phoenician man by race; and the Egyptians, claiming the man as their own, again confessed him mortal, agreeing in this at least with the Phoenicians. And the Cretans, who show a tomb of Zeus among themselves, would be a third witness to the same; and the Atlantians and all those mentioned before, each claiming Zeus according to their own history, all alike declared him mortal, recording his deeds as mortal and human, not dignified or philosophical, but full of every shameful act and licentiousness. But for those who profess to turn the myths to more dignified meanings, Zeus was at one time a hot and fiery power, at another the spirit; and now, I do not know how, he has appeared to them as the creative mind of the universe. We must ask them, then, whom they would call his father and his father's forefather; since according to all the theologians Zeus is admitted to be the son of Cronus (and the verses of Orpheus quoted above mentioned 'the mighty son of Cronus'), and Cronus the son of Ouranus. Let it be granted them, then, that Zeus is the God over all and the mind that created all things. Who, then, is his father? Cronus. And who his forefather? Ouranus. But if Zeus is first, as the creator of all things, those made by him should surely be listed second and after him. For whether Cronus is time (chronos), born as offspring of Ouranus, or time came into being together with heaven, and Ouranus is himself the father of Cronus and time comes after him, still before these is God, the cause of the universe and creator of both heaven and time. If so, Zeus could not be third from Ouranus. How, then, is the creative mind of the universe given a genealogy by all the Egyptians and Phoenicians, Greeks and philosophers, as third from Ouranus? The philosopher's fabrication has been detected, and will be detected still more from what he adds, saying this:

Strong confutation of the Greek doctrines on this point

"They have made Hera the consort of Zeus, calling the ethereal and airy power Hera; for the ether is the finest air. Above, the verses showed that the mind of Zeus is the ether; now the account defines what the ether is, saying that it is the finest air. But air is a body, and the ether far more so. So the mind of Zeus has been proved to be a body, even if the finest of all. And how could body and mind, which are diametrically opposed in nature, be conceived as the same? Then, I do not know how, he has forgotten the verses which said plainly: 'His mind is the unerring, royal, imperishable ether, by which he moves and considers all things; nor is there any voice, nor cry, nor sound, nor rumor, that escapes the ear of the mighty son of Cronus.' By these the ether has clearly been declared to be the mind of Zeus. But he says again that Hera is the ethereal and airy power. Then, making distinctions, he adds: "The power of the whole air is Hera, named from the air (aer); and of the air beneath the moon, which is lit and darkened, Leto is the symbol; for she is forgetfulness (letho), because of the insensibility of sleep, and because forgetfulness of the divine accompanies souls that come to be beneath the moon. For this reason too she is the mother of Apollo and Artemis, the causes of light by night." And here he says that the air beneath the moon is the mother of the sun and moon, for this is Leto. But how could the air be the mother of the causes of light, when it is rather affected by them than acting? For the sun and moon change the air in different ways at different times. Proceeding again, he next says: "The ruling part of the earthly power is called Hestia, whose image, a maiden, is set up on a hearth of fire; but insofar as the power is fruitful, they represent her in the form of a woman with prominent breasts. Rhea they called the power of rocky and mountainous earth, and Demeter that of level and fruitful earth. Demeter in other respects is the same as Rhea, but differs in that she conceives Kore by Zeus, that is, the sprout (koros) from the seeds of the plants. Therefore her statue is crowned with ears of grain, and poppies around her are a symbol of fertility." Here again see how he has brought Rhea, who is called mother of the gods and of Zeus himself, down somewhere to rocks and earth, and, confusing everything, says that she is the same as Demeter, except that she differs because, he says, Demeter conceives Kore by Zeus, as the level ground brings forth the sprout from the seeds of plants. See, Zeus has again been changed for you into the seeds of plants! Next to this he adds, saying: "And since there was also a power in the seeds cast into the earth, which the sun, going round the lower hemisphere, draws down at the winter solstice, Kore is the seed-bearing power, and Pluto the sun going under the earth and traveling round the invisible world at the winter solstice; he is said to carry off Kore, whom Demeter longs for while she is hidden under the earth. The power of tree fruits and of plants in general is named Dionysus. See their images too: Kore bears symbols of the putting forth of the shoots of the crops above the earth; Dionysus has horns in common with Kore, but is of female form, indicating the male-female power in the generation of tree fruits. Pluto, the ravisher of Kore, has a helmet as a symbol of the invisible pole, and the shortened scepter as a sign of his kingdom below; and his dog shows the conception (kyesis) of the crops divided into three: the sowing, the receiving, and the springing up. For he is called dog (kyon) not because he has the fates of death (keres) for food, which means the souls, but from conceiving (kyein), of which Pluto is the provider when he carries off Kore. Attis and Adonis belong to the analogy of the crops. Attis is the symbol of the flowers that appear in spring and fall before they bear seed (hence they also ascribed to him the cutting off of his private parts, since the fruits did not reach seminal completion); and Adonis is the symbol of the cutting of the ripe fruits. Silenus is a symbol of the motion of the wind (pneuma), which contributes not a little to the universe. His symbols are the bald and shining head, for the revolution of heaven, and the hair around the lower parts, an emblem of the thickness of the air near the earth. And since there was also a power partaking of prophecy, the power is called Themis, from telling what is laid down (tethheimena) and appointed for each. "Through all these, then, the earthly power, once explained, is worshipped: as maiden and Hestia, she who holds the center; as mother, the nurse; as Rhea, she who makes rocks and mountains; as Demeter, she who bears green crops; as Themis, she who utters oracles; while the seminal reason that descends into her is represented in Priapus. Of this, the part concerned with dry fruits is called Kore, and that concerned with moist fruits and tree fruits Dionysus. Kore is carried off at sowing time by Pluto, the sun going under the earth; the sufferings of Dionysus signify the power that is young and fertile under the earth and begins to sprout; the power in the flower, which is open to attack, has Attis as its symbol, and the cutting off at maturity has Adonis; the power of the wind through all things is represented as Silenus, the drawing out from them into ecstasy as the Bacchante, as again the impulse that stirs to sexual pleasures is represented through the Satyrs. Through these symbols the earthly power is revealed." So much for this too, which I have necessarily abridged and set out, so that we may not be ignorant of the dignified doctrines of the philosophers. Thus, according to what has been explained, Kore is the power of the sown crops, Dionysus that of tree fruits; Attis is the symbol of spring flowers and Adonis of ripe fruits. Why, then, should we deify these things, made by the God of the universe as food for the bodies of living creatures on earth? And why is it fitting for us to worship the earthly power, we who have from the universal King, God of all, a heavenly, rational, and immortal nature of soul, able to contemplate with the purified eyes of the mind? And hearing that Silenus is the motion of the wind and the power that pervades all things, displaying now the heavenly revolution by his head and now the thickness of the air by the shaggy hair of his beard, how could one bear to see him counted worthy of no reverent honor, when he should have been deified before all, while Adonis and Dionysus, that is, the crops and tree fruits, are deified? And who could endure hearing Satyrs and Bacchantes, the shameful and licentious passions among men, spoken of solemnly, if the Satyrs signified the impulses that stir to sexual pleasures, and the Bacchantes the transports into ecstasy that accompany them? But why should I refute each thing in detail, when we should run over them, so that none of the secrets escapes us, and abridge the natural philosophy that follows, which the author mentioned has set out, going through it in this way: "The whole power that produces water they called Oceanus, naming its symbol Tethys. Of the whole, the power that makes drinkable waters is called by them Achelous, and that of the sea waters Poseidon, while Amphitrite is the power that makes the sea, insofar as it is generative. And the particular powers of sweet waters are called Nymphs, and those of sea waters Nereids. Calling the power of fire Hephaestus, they made his statue in human form, and put a blue cap on him as a symbol of the heavenly revolution, where fire is most primal and purest. The fire brought down from heaven to earth is weaker and needs the support and base of matter; therefore he is lame, needing matter for support. Taking such a power to belong to the sun, they called it Apollo, from the quivering (palsis) of its rays. The nine Muses who sing to him are the sublunary sphere, the seven of the planets, and one of the fixed stars. They put the laurel around him, partly because the plant is full of fire and therefore hateful to demons, and partly because it crackles when burned, to represent the god's prophesying. Insofar as the sun wards off evils from earthly things, they called him Heracles, from his being broken (klasthai) against the air as he goes from east to west. They told in myth that he toiled through twelve labors, giving this as the symbol of the division of the signs of the zodiac in heaven; and they gave him a club and a lion's skin, the one indicating the unevenness, the other showing his strength in the sign of the zodiac. Of his saving power Asclepius is the symbol. To him they have given the staff, for the support and rest of the sick, and the serpent coils around it, bearing the sign of the preservation of body and soul (and indeed the natural philosophers who explain the world to us have attributed the creatures that crawl about the earth to the thickest and earthiest substance); for the creature is most full of spirit and puts off the weakness of its body. It seems also to be most skilled in healing; for it discovered the remedy for keen sight, and is said in myth to know a certain herb of revival. Of the dancing and circling motion by which the power of fire ripens the crops, Dionysus is named in another sense than as the power of the moist fruits, either from whirling round (peridinein) or from the sun's accomplishing (dianyein) its revolution in heaven. And insofar as the sun goes round the seasons (horai) of the world and is the maker of times and seasons, he is called Horus. Of his agricultural power, by which the gifts of wealth (ploutos) come, Pluto is the symbol. But he has likewise the power of destruction; therefore they set Sarapis beside Pluto, making the purple robe the symbol of the light that has sunk beneath the earth, the docked scepter the symbol of the power below, and the position of the hand the symbol of departure into the invisible. Cerberus is three-headed because the positions of the sun above the earth are three: rising, midday, and setting. The moon, taking the name from its brightness (selas), they called Artemis, as it were 'air-cutter' (aerotemis); and Artemis, though a virgin, presides over childbirth, because the power of the new moon is helpful for giving birth. What Apollo is in the sun, Athena is in the moon; for she is the symbol of wisdom, being a kind of Athrena. The moon again is Hecate, the symbol of its changing phases and of its power according to its phases. Therefore her power is three-formed: that of the new moon bears the white robe, the golden sandals, and the lighted torches; the basket she carries on high is the symbol of the cultivation of the crops, which she nourishes as her light increases; and the bronze sandal is the symbol of the full moon. Or from the laurel branch one might understand her fiery nature, from the poppy her fertility and the multitude of souls that dwell in her as in a city, since the poppy is a symbol of a city. She bears a bow like Artemis because of the sharpness of birth pains. Again the Fates are referred to her powers: Clotho to the generative, Lachesis to the nourishing, and Atropos to the inexorable decree of God. They also associate with her the power that generates the crops, which is Demeter, as a power producing in her; and the moon contains Kore. They also associate Dionysus with her, both because of the growth of horns and because of the region of the clouds lying beneath the lower parts. They saw that the power of Cronus is sluggish, slow, and cold, and therefore ascribed to him the power of time; and they represent him standing and gray-haired, to show that time grows old. The Curetes are symbols of the seasons, tending time like a herd, because time passes through the seasons. Of the Horae, the Olympian ones belong to the sun and open the gates of the air; the earthly ones belong to Demeter and have baskets, one of flowers, the symbol of spring, the other of ears of grain, of summer. Perceiving the power of Ares to be fiery, they made him the maker of wars and of bloodshed, able both to harm and to help. Observing the star of Aphrodite to be productive of generation and the cause of desire and offspring, they fashioned her as a woman because of generation, and beautiful because she is also Hesperus, 'the fairest star that stands in heaven.' And they set Eros beside her because of desire. She covers her breasts and her private part, because the power is the cause of birth and nurture. She comes from the sea, a moist and hot element, much agitated and foaming from the commotion, hinting at the seminal nature. Of the reason (logos) that makes and interprets all things, Hermes is the representative. The erect Hermes shows vigor, and indicates also the seminal reason that pervades all things. Further, reason is compound: in the sun it is Hermes, in the moon Hecate, and in the universe Hermopan; for the seminal and creative reason is in all things. Compound too, and as it were half-Greek, is the Hermanubis among the Egyptians. And since reason also belonged to the power of love, Eros represents this. Therefore Eros is the son of Hermes, and an infant because of the sudden onsets of desire. Of the universe (to pan) they made Pan the symbol, giving the horns as symbols of the sun and moon, and the fawnskin as that of the stars in heaven, or of the variety of the universe." Such are the Greek doctrines; and those of the Egyptians, he says, have symbols like these: "The creator, whom the Egyptians call Kneph, is in human form, of a dark blue color, holding a girdle and a scepter, with a royal feather on his head, because the reason is hard to find, hidden and not visible, because it gives life, because it is king, and because it moves intellectually; therefore the feather's nature is placed on the head. This god, they say, brings forth from his mouth an egg, from which is born the god whom they call Phtha and the Greeks Hephaestus; and the egg signifies the world. To this god a sheep is consecrated because the ancients drank milk. Of the world itself they fashioned an image like this: it is a statue in human form with its feet joined together, clothed from top to feet in a many-colored robe; on its head it has a golden sphere, because it does not move from its place, because of the varied nature of the stars, and because the world is spherical. They sometimes signify the sun by a man embarked on a ship, the ship resting on a crocodile. The ship shows motion in a moist element, and the crocodile drinkable water, in which the sun is carried. So the sun was signified as making its circuit through moist and sweet air. The power of the heavenly and the earthly earth they called Isis because of equality (isotes), from which justice comes; by the heavenly earth they mean the moon, and by the earthly the fruitful earth on which we dwell. Demeter among the Greeks and Isis among the Egyptians mean the same, and again Kore and Dionysus among the Greeks, and Isis and Osiris among the Egyptians. She nourishes and takes away the things on earth; and Osiris among the Egyptians represents the fruit-bearing power, which they propitiate with lamentations as it disappears into the earth in sowing and is consumed by us for food. He is also taken for the river power of the Nile. When they signify the earthly earth, Osiris is taken as the fruit-bearing power; when the heavenly, Osiris is the Nile, which they think comes down from heaven; and they mourn him too, propitiating the power as it fails and is used up. The Isis who in the myths unites with Osiris is the land of Egypt, which is made equal and conceives and produces the crops; therefore Osiris has been handed down as the husband, brother, and son of Isis."

Of the image at Elephantine

"At the city of Elephantine an image is honored, fashioned in the shape of a man and seated, blue in color, with a ram's head, and wearing a royal crown with goat's horns, on which is a disk-shaped circle. It sits beside an earthen vessel, on which it is shaping a man. From having the face of a ram and the horns of a goat it signifies the conjunction of the sun and moon in the Ram; and the blue color, that the moon in conjunction brings rain. The second phase of the moon is consecrated in the city of Apollo; and its symbol is a man with a hawk's face subduing with a spear Typhon, represented as a hippopotamus. The image is white in color, the whiteness representing the moon's being lit, and the hawk's face its being lit and receiving breath from the sun. For they dedicate the hawk to the sun, and the hawk is for them a symbol of light and breath because of its swiftness and its soaring up on high, where the light is. The hippopotamus signifies the western pole, because it swallows up those that travel round into itself. The god honored in this city is Horus. The city of Eileithyia worships the third phase; its image is shaped as a flying vulture, whose plumage is made of precious stones. Its vulture shape signifies the moon as productive of winds; for they think the vulture conceives from the wind, declaring that all vultures are female. In the mysteries at Eleusis the hierophant is dressed to represent the creator, the torchbearer the sun, the priest at the altar the moon, and the sacred herald Hermes. Among the Egyptians a man too has been taken into the temples. For Anabis is a village of Egypt in which a man is worshipped; sacrifice is offered to him and the victims are burned on the altars; and a little later he would eat what had been prepared for him as for a man. That they do not consider the animals gods, but made them images and symbols of gods, is shown by the fact that in many places they sacrifice oxen dedicated to gods on the holy days and in the worship of the gods. For they consecrated oxen to the sun and moon.

Of the ox that is sacrificed to the sun in Heliopolis

"The one dedicated to the sun in Heliopolis, called Mnevis, is the largest of oxen, very black, chiefly because the sun in its strength blackens human bodies. Unlike other oxen it has its tail and its whole body with hair growing backward, as the sun makes its course opposite to the pole; and very large testicles, since sexual desire arises from heat, and the sun is said to impregnate nature. To the moon they dedicated a bull whom they call Apis, also blacker than the others, bearing signs of the sun and moon, because the moon's light comes from the sun. The sign of the sun is the blackness of the body and the beetle under the tongue; the symbol of the moon is the half-shaped and gibbous mark." Let these extracts from the writing of the man mentioned suffice, so that none of the secrets of the Greek and Egyptian theology may escape us, from which we confess ourselves deserters and fugitives, having rejected these things too with judgment and sober reasoning. For the boastful voice will not dismay me that says, 'I speak to those for whom it is lawful; close the doors, you profane.' It is not we who are profane, but those who have declared that such shameful and indecent myths about beetles and irrational beasts are the thoughts of theological wisdom, who, according to the admirable apostle, "professing to be wise became fools," because they "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." But since they referred the whole secret and more mystical account of these things metaphorically to incorporeal powers, so that their deification seems no longer to extend to the visible parts of the world but to certain invisible and incorporeal powers, let us consider whether even so we must not admire one divine power, and not suppose there are many. For though many shapes, parts, and limbs have been fashioned in one body, we should not think we have as many souls, nor suppose there are as many makers and creators of the body; but one soul moves the whole body, and one creative power has fashioned the whole living creature. So too with the whole world: since it is one and composed of one bodily matter, though divided into very many parts, and shows one natural sympathy of the whole, a blending and mingling of the elements in it, and their alterations and changes into one another, and displays the whole and all as one world and one harmony, we should not suppose many creative powers, but proclaim as God only the true power of God and the wisdom of God. But he, most wise as he is, has not noticed that he again transfers the Egyptian mythologies to incorporeal powers. For you heard above how he admitted that Chaeremon and many others thought there was nothing prior to the visible worlds, and that they put the Egyptians at the head of their account; for these interpreted everything in terms of natural things and nothing in terms of incorporeal and living beings. If, then, by your own admission it was the way of the Egyptians to refer nothing to incorporeal and living beings, but to transfer all the myths about the gods to the natural parts of the world, why do you, inventing from the beginning, ascribe to the Egyptians what in no way belongs to them, saying that they refer their theology to incorporeal powers? This, then, is the general charge. In the particulars too, I think, the refutation of their forced interpretation needs no long rebuttal. For if one passes over the Egyptian nonsense and their great and garrulous trifling and turns to the natural philosophy of the wise Greeks, who among the sensible would not at once find fault with those who try to give such false explanations? For let Zeus no longer be the fiery and ethereal substance, as the ancients thought according to Plutarch, but the supreme mind itself, the creator of the universe, who gives life to all things. How then will Cronus, who they say is time, be his father, and Rhea his mother, whom the interpreter said is the rocky and mountainous power? And Hera, whom, I do not know how, he called the air and also the ether, he says is the sister and also the wife of the mind that made the world and gives life to all. And let Leto again be called a kind of forgetfulness (letho), because of the insensibility of sleep, as they say, and because forgetfulness accompanies souls born beneath the moon. How then could forgetfulness be the mother of the sun and moon, if Apollo and Artemis, the children of Leto, are transferred to the sun and moon? Why should Rhea or Demeter be worshipped as a goddess, if the one was said to bear the symbols of rocky and mountainous earth and the other of the plain? And Kore, whom they allegorize as the sprout, on what principle do they think she too should be honored with the reverend name? Why should one worship as gods the seed-bearing power and the generation of tree fruits, or the symbols of the spring flowers that fall before bearing seed, or of the cutting of ripe fruits, naming them Dionysus, Attis, and Adonis, and not rather prefer to all these the human race, for whose use and food the God who created the universe made them? Passing on from these, you will refute the rest of the noble natural philosophy in the same way, rightly blaming the shamelessness of those who declare that the sun, if you please, is Apollo, and again Heracles, and again Dionysus, and likewise Asclepius. For how could the same be both father and son, Asclepius and Apollo together? And how could he be transferred to Heracles, if they admit that Heracles was born of a mortal woman, Alcmene? And how could the sun go mad and slaughter his own children, since this too is recorded of Heracles? But Heracles performing the twelve labors, they say, bears the symbol of the division in heaven of the zodiac, around which the sun travels. Who, then, would be the Eurystheus who ordered the sun, as he did Heracles, to perform the labors? And how could the fifty daughters of Thestius and the crowd of the other captive women be referred to the sun, with whom the story says Heracles had intercourse, and from whom mortal children were born to him who extended the succession of their families very far? And who would be the Centaur, with whose blood Deianeira stained the tunic and could involve the sun, as Heracles, in the calamity described? But let the sun be for them no longer Heracles, but Dionysus. 'And what has this to do with Dionysus?' one might well say. For who was his mother, whether she is called Semele or Persephone? How could Dionysus be at once the sun and the power that makes moist fruits and tree fruits sprout? What would become of the crowd of women who campaigned with him? Who would be the sun's Ariadne, as she was Dionysus'? And why would Dionysus, transferred to the sun, be the provider of wine rather than of grain and pulse and all the fruits of the earth? And if Asclepius again is the sun for them, how is he struck by Zeus with a thunderbolt for sordid love of gain, according to the Boeotian lyric poet Pindar, who says: 'Even he was turned aside by a lordly fee, gold shown in his hand ... and the son of Cronus, hurling with his hands through both, swiftly took the breath from their breasts, and the blazing thunderbolt struck down death.' And who are the Asclepiads descended from the sun, preserved for a long time and producing a birth of mortal men like all other men? But again, as if by stage machinery, as they flee the shameful and mythical stories about the gods, the account would run back for them to the sun, moon, and other parts of the world. If Hephaestus for them was fire and the hot power, Poseidon the moist substance, Hera the air; and the earth again, the mountainous and rocky part Rhea, the plain and fruitful part Demeter; Kore the seed-bearing power and Dionysus the power that plants tree fruits; the sun Apollo with those listed, and the moon now Artemis, now Athena, and again Hecate and Eileithyia, then they are again convicted of proclaiming as gods the creation instead of the Creator, and the work of the universe but not its creator, very dangerously and perilously, and to the ruin of their own heads. But if they say they do not deify the visible bodies of the sun, moon, and stars, nor the perceptible parts of the world, but the invisible powers in them of the God over all himself (for, being one God, he fills all things with all kinds of powers, pervades all, and presides over all, being in all incorporeally and invisibly and pervading all, and him, they say, they rightly worship through the things described), why then do they not reject as lawless and impious the shameful and indecent myths about the gods, and do away with the very books about them as containing impious and licentious things, and hymn the one and only and invisible God plainly and purely, without any shameful entanglement? For this is what those who have recognized the truth ought to have done: not to drag down and degrade the reverend name of God to shameful and passionate unspeakable tales; nor to shut themselves up in little houses and recesses of darkness and buildings made by men, as if they would find God inside; nor to think they honor the divine powers in images made of lifeless matter; nor to suppose that they please God with earthly fumes of blood and gore and the blood of dead animals. Released from all these as from bonds of error, the wise and the star-gazers ought surely to have shared their natural theory freely with all men, all but proclaiming openly to all that they should admire not the visible things but only the invisible creator of the visible, and worship his invisible and incorporeal powers invisibly and incorporeally; not lighting fires, nor sacrificing ram and bull, nor thinking to honor the divine with garlands, images, and buildings of temples, but doing this with purified reasonings and right and true doctrines, in tranquility of soul and in likeness to him, as far as possible, through virtue. But no one ever, neither barbarian nor Greek, began to teach this truth to all men except our Savior alone. He proclaimed to all the nations escape from the ancient error, and freely found for all the turning to the true and only God of the universe and piety toward him. But those vainly wise, who boasted of the highest philosophy of life, as the divine apostle says, "knowing God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever."

That their gods, by ratifying the legendary narratives concerning gods by their own oracles, are convicted of contradicting the philosophers

So after their long and copious philosophy and their solemn talk about the heavens and nature, falling as it were from a very lofty mountain-top, they were swept down with the multitude and mingled with the polytheistic error of the ancients, pretending to hold the same opinions as the many by sacrificing and falling down before images, and increasing and strengthening still more the popular belief in the mythical stories about the gods. How, then, would they not be plain to all, speaking solemnly in their natural philosophy and dressing up shameful things in words by turning the truth aside, but in their deeds supporting the mythical error and the popular superstition? And this is not yet surprising, since they record their gods themselves as agreeing with the myths about them. Listen, then, how Apollo himself teaches about himself in a hymn he gave out concerning himself, confessing that he was born of Leto on the island of Delos; and again Asclepius at Tricca; and Hermes too confessing that he was born of Maia. Porphyry writes this too in the work he entitled On the Philosophy from Oracles, where he records the oracles, which run somewhat as follows: "What great joy to all mortals, leaping forth from the holy birth-pangs of a pure mother." To which he adds: "But when holy labor pains seized Leto wholly, as the twin births were stirring within the shrines, the earth stood still, the air stood still, the island grew firm, the wave grew firm; and you leapt forth, prophet Lycoreus, archer Phoebus, king of the oracle-speaking tripods." And Asclepius again about himself: "From holy Tricca I come, a god, whom once my mother, bedded with Phoebus, bore as king of wisdom, Asclepius, skilled in healing. But what do you ask?" And Hermes says: "Here I am, whom you call, son of Zeus and Maia, Hermes; I have come forth, leaving the starry king." And they even describe their own bodily form, as Pan himself says in oracles about himself, teaching this: "I, born a mortal, pray to Pan, the god akin to me, two-horned, two-footed, goat-legged, wanton." These things the man mentioned has set down among the secrets of his Philosophy from Oracles. So Pan was no longer the symbol of the universe (to pan), but would be a demon of the kind described, who gave out the oracle; for surely it was not the universe and the whole world that uttered the words quoted. It was of this demon, then, and not of the universe, that men made the image, imitating the form described. And how could Hermes be understood as the reason that makes and interprets all things, when he confesses that he had Maia the daughter of Atlas for his mother, thus approving the mythology told about him and not the natural philosophy? So too, how could Asclepius be transferred to the sun, when he names Tricca as his fatherland and confesses that he was born of a mortal mother? And how could he, being the sun, be shown in turn to be the son of the sun? For they explained his father Phoebus as being none other than the sun. And to say that he was born of the sun and a mortal woman, how is it not the most ridiculous of all? Since how is it likely that his father the sun himself, whom they say is Apollo, was born on the island of Delos of a mortal mother again, Leto? Here note for me how many gods the Greeks proclaimed as born of women, for comparison, in case they ever try to mock the birth of our Savior; and note that these words are not those of poets, but the statements quoted are from the gods themselves.

That they also by their oracles confirm the theories of the philosophers by allegories opposed to the legends about themselves

If, then, as they say, the poets invent myths about the gods and the philosophers give natural explanations, we should surely despise the former and admire the latter as philosophers, and accept the plausible accounts of the better men rather than the poets' nonsense. But when the gods in turn enter into competition with the philosophers, the gods teaching exactly in their oracles the facts about themselves, as those who know better, and the philosophers turning their conjectures about what they do not know into inconsistent and unproved inventions, whom does reason choose to believe? Or is this not even worth asking? If, then, the gods speak the truth in confirming the human passions ascribed to them, those who reject them would be false; but if the natural explanations of the philosophers are true, the testimonies of the gods would be false. But Apollo himself, someone might say, said somewhere in oracles, when asked about himself who he was: "Helios, Horus, Osiris, lord, son of Zeus, Apollo, steward of seasons and times, of winds and rains, guiding the reins of dawn and of starry night, king of the blazing stars and immortal fire." So the same gods agree both with the myths of the poets and with the conjectures of the philosophers, siding with parties at war with each other. For if they ascribe to themselves mortal mothers and acknowledge earthly fatherlands, how could they be such as the philosophers explain them? For let Apollo be the sun (for again their argument, running up and down to the same points, will be caught). How then could Delos, the island still seen in the sea today, be the fatherland of the sun, and Leto his mother? For his own oracles just now confirmed these things as true. And how could the sun be the father of Asclepius, a man mortal by nature, having begotten him by a mortal woman? But let these things pass.

That it is a natural impossibility for the parts of the cosmos or the divine powers to be dragged down by magical incantations and so to give oracular predictions to the inquirers

The falsehood of the oracle can be refuted in another way too. For surely the sun did not come down from heaven to them, fill the receiver, and then utter the oracle; since it is neither possible nor lawful for so great a luminary to be subjected to the compulsions of men. Nor would it be, if they should say it was the divine and intellectual power in it, since a human soul could never receive even this. The same argument would hold for the moon. For if they say that she is Hecate herself, and is somehow drawn down by the compulsions of men, gives oracles through the receiver, and is employed in shameful and erotic services as ruler of the wicked demons, would it be fitting for Hecate to do these things? Yet the same author admits it, as we shall show at the proper time. And how could Pluto and Sarapis be explained as the sun, when the same author again declares that Sarapis, the same as Pluto, is the ruler of the wicked demons? And when he records oracles of Sarapis, how could he say they are the sun's? From all these it remains to admit that the natural explanations described carry nothing true, but are sophistries and inventions of sophists.

That all such effects are due to daemonic action

In truth one must say that the ministers of the oracles are wicked demons, playing both parts to deceive men: at one time agreeing with the more mythical beliefs about them, to promote the popular error, and at another confirming the sorcery of the philosophers, to their ruin and puffing up; so that from every side they are caught telling no truth. Having said so much, it is now time to pass on and go through the third kind of Greek theology, which they say is the civic and legal one. For this above all is thought able to astonish the many, because of the much-talked-of oracles, the cures and healings of afflicted bodies given through oracles, and the punishments inflicted on certain people. Claiming to have experienced these, they have thoroughly persuaded themselves that they do right in being pious toward the gods, and that we commit the greatest impiety in not honoring with fitting worship powers so manifest and beneficent. Let us meet these claims, then, taking up another beginning of our argument.