Further proof that the prophetic and oracular shrines among pagans belonged to evil demons, and how they have all been destroyed and have failed since our Savior's teaching in the Gospel
What has been set out before would be enough to establish that those honored as gods among the nations in cities and countries were not gods nor good demons, but the very opposite. But it does no harm to confirm the same thesis over and above with more numerous and more abundant refutations, as the proof of these things shows forth the freedom from ancient evils provided for all men through the gospel teaching of our Savior. Listen, then, to the Greeks themselves admitting that their oracles have failed, at no other time in all the ages than after the times of the saving gospel teaching, which made the knowledge of the one God, universal King and creator of all, rise like light upon all men. So we will soon show that after his appearing deaths of demons were recorded, and the wonderful oracles celebrated of old ceased. It has already been shown before that the human sacrifices formerly performed cruelly and mercilessly among all the nations found rest from their evils at no time before the gospel teaching. To this it is well to add now that from then on not only the demonic superstition was quenched, but also the rule of many over the nations. For in ancient times one could see in almost every city and village kings and tyrants, local rulers and princes, governments by nations and by many rulers, through which, continually rushing into wars against one another, they were always and everywhere ravaging lands, besieging cities, and enslaving and taking captive their neighbors, driven to frenzy by their own demons into war against one another. These things being so, I leave you to consider for yourself in what confusion of evils and successive calamities all life was then held. Since, then, all these were removed at once together with the polytheistic error at no other time than after our Savior's coming among men, how should one not greatly admire the great mystery of the truly saving gospel demonstration, through which, all at once, throughout the whole inhabited world, houses of prayer and temples dedicated to the universal King and creator of all, the only God, have been established in cities and villages, and in the deserts of barbarian nations; books and readings, and all kinds of teachings, containing precepts about the highest virtue and the way of true piety, are handed down for men, women, and children to hear; while all the oracles and divinations from demons are dead? Nor is anyone now so mad, since the divine gospel power of our Savior shone out like light upon all, as to dare to appease the murderous, blood-loving, man-hating, and inhuman demons with the murder of his dearest and the slaughter of human sacrifices, such as the wise men and kings of old, truly possessed by demons, liked to do. And that the bad demons no longer have any power or strength since our Savior's coming among men, the very advocate of the demons in our time testifies in his attack on us, speaking somewhere in this way: "And now they wonder that the plague has held the city for so many years, since there is no longer any visitation of Asclepius and the other gods. For since Jesus has been honored, no one has perceived any public help from the gods." So says Porphyry in his own words. If, then, according to this admission, since Jesus has been honored no one has perceived any public help from the gods, there being no longer any visitation either of Asclepius or of the other gods, where does the doctrine about gods and heroes come from any longer? For why does not the power of the gods and of Asclepius rather prevail over that of Jesus? If he was a mortal man, as they would say (perhaps they would even say a deceiver), and they were saviors and gods, why then have they all, Asclepius included, fled at once, turning their backs on the mortal, and handed over all mankind to the one who, as they themselves would say, no longer exists? But he, even after death, is honored day by day among all the nations through the ages, plainly showing to those able to perceive it the clear and divine reality of life after death. Moreover, being one and, as one might suppose, alone, he drives out the multitude of gods throughout the whole world and prevails, setting aside their honors, so that the gods no longer exist, nor work, nor appear anywhere, nor visit the cities as they used to, because they were not gods but wicked demons; while the honors of him alone, and of the God of the universe who sent him, increase day by day and advance to greater excellence throughout all mankind; whereas, on the contrary, the gods, if they were truly guardians of those on earth, ought to have removed his deception utterly, if there was any, and themselves to have provided their healings and benefits ungrudgingly to all. And they have often attempted this very thing, through the rulers of each age who made war on our Savior's most mighty teaching; but they found the outcome of the attempt fruitless, since the divine power of our Savior always overcomes all, destroying all the uprisings of the wicked demons against his teaching and driving them out, demons that are truly bad but falsely thought to be gods or good demons.
How the demons operate
These, then, being earthly and infernal beings, haunting the heavy and gloomy air about the earth, and condemned to have a dark and earthy dwelling for reasons we shall give later, delighting in tombs of the dead and monuments and all foul and unclean matter, rejoicing in blood and gore and the bodies of all kinds of animals and in the rising of what is exhaled and steams up from the earth; and their rulers, being certain aerial or infernal powers, when they learned that the human race was groveling below in the deification of dead men and laboring with all eagerness at sacrifices and savors of fat, which are most pleasing to them, were at hand close by as watchers and accomplices of the error, reveling in the evils of men and easily deceiving the foolish in soul by movements of the images dedicated by the ancients in honor of the departed, by the illusions of oracles, and by cures of bodies, which they themselves secretly harmed by their own working, and then, by relaxing it, set free from their sufferings. By these means they swept the superstitious still further down precipices, so that they thought them sometimes heavenly powers and some truly gods, sometimes the souls of deified heroes. From this, then, the belief of the polytheistic error came to be thought by the many something greater and more dignified, as the mind passed over from the visible to the invisible beings hidden in the images, and confirmed the error more strongly. So, then, the earthly demons, the world-rulers about the air, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness, and the leader of evil over them all, were thought by all to be the greatest of the gods; and the memory of the dead of old was counted worthy of the greater worship. The forms of the images dedicated in the cities seemed to bear the shapes of their bodies, while the bad demons played the part of their souls and of divine and incorporeal powers through much marvel-working; and their own servants and priests always carried the pretension of the illusion further, and contrived much by the evil arts of sorcery, the bad demons themselves having first taught these too to their worshippers. These, at any rate, became the authors of sorcery, the source of evils, for all human life, as the preceding argument proved.
That the superstition of the Greeks concerning the gods consisted of many divisions and various opinions
Since, then, these wicked earthly demons and aerial and infernal spirits, whom the divine words call world-rulers, spiritual hosts of wickedness, principalities, and powers, at one time pretended to be good demons, at another took the form of heavenly gods, and again at another changed into heroes, and sometimes plainly displayed the sign of their wickedness through what was done, naturally great error came upon men still more: some declaring them gods, others heroes and demons but not gods; and of the demons calling some good and others bad, yet saying that even the bad must be propitiated because of the harm they do; so that all their deification fell into several kinds. First, that from the luminaries appearing in heaven, which they say were first proclaimed gods because of their running (thein) and because they are the cause of beholding (theorein) what is seen; second, that honored for benefits to the common life, as they say, which they themselves admit was born of men, bringing forward the so-called heroes, Heracles, the Dioscuri, Dionysus, and their like among the barbarians. Separating from these and distinguishing the more shameful things recorded about them, they set up a third kind of deification, calling it mythical. Ashamed of it, although it was true and most ancient, they changed it, as they say, to the more physical, by more figurative allegories, inventing certain theories. But it did not suffice them to stop at this point of error; bringing down the reverend and adorable name of God even to their own passions, they devised a fourth manner of deification, not even worth refuting, since it plainly brings its own shame with it: proclaiming as gods Eros, Aphrodite, and Pothos, their shameful and licentious desires, and naming speech Hermes and reason Athena, they took these too into their own theology, as also forming a fifth kind out of the things done among men. For they made idols of the activities of war and of the crafts and assigned them to gods: the warlike to Ares and Athena, the crafts to Hephaestus and some others. Besides all these, a sixth and seventh kind, the demonic, was brought in among them, truly versatile and of many forms, now pretending to be gods, now souls of the dead, contributing nothing to us for virtue of soul, but always mocking every superstitious man and carrying him over precipices through deceitful error; and this, though wholly bad, they divided into two, the harmful and the helpful, and gave them the names of good and bad. These things being so, it seems necessary to me to set aside what needs no refutation and consider the logical account of demonic activity; part of which we examined in the preceding book, and we shall now complete what is lacking. Come, then, let us now go on to the proofs themselves. I shall set down first those from the writing of Plutarch On the Failure of the Oracles, where he writes in this way that the divinations and oracles among the nations belong to wicked demons:
That the prophetic and oracular shrines among pagans belonged to evil demons
"They speak well, then, who say that Plato, by discovering the element underlying the qualities that come into being, which they call matter, freed the philosophers from many great difficulties; but to me those seem to have solved more and greater difficulties who placed the race of demons between gods and men, and discovered what in a way brings together and joins our fellowship with them; whether this doctrine belongs to the Magi of Zoroaster, or is Thracian from Orpheus, or Egyptian, or Phrygian, as we conjecture when we see many mortal and mournful elements mixed in the rites of both, in the orgies and sacred acts performed. Of the Greeks, Homer appears to use both names in common, sometimes calling the gods demons. Hesiod first set out clearly and distinctly four classes of rational beings: gods, then demons, then heroes, and last of all men. From these he seems to make the change: the golden race being separated into many good demons, and the demigods into heroes." Then next he says: "But on these points we need not differ with Demetrius. For whether the time in which the soul of a demon and the life of a hero changes is longer or shorter, fixed or unfixed, he will none the less have shown what he wishes, with wise and ancient witnesses: that there are certain natures, as it were on the border between gods and men, subject to mortal passions and necessary changes, whom it is right, following the custom of our fathers, to regard as demons, name so, and reverence." After other matters he adds to this: "That not gods, for whom it is fitting to be free of earthly things, but demons, servants of the gods, preside over the oracles, does not seem to me a bad opinion; but to take, as it were, a handful from the verses of Empedocles and impose on these demons sins, calamities, and god-sent wanderings, and finally to suppose deaths for them as for men, I consider rather rash and barbarous." And again he adds to what has been said: "For there are, as among men, differences of virtue among demons too; and in some the passionate and irrational element is a weak and faint remnant, like a residue, while in others it is abundant and hard to quench; of which sacrifices, rites, and myths, scattered here and there, preserve and guard traces and tokens. And concerning the mysteries, in which one may find the greatest manifestations and illuminations of the truth about demons, 'let my lips be sealed,' as Herodotus says. But festivals and sacrifices, like unlucky and gloomy days, in which there are eating of raw flesh and tearings apart, fastings and beatings of the breast, and again in many places foul language at the sacred rites, and other frenzies 'raving with tossing of necks in tumult,' I would say are performed not for any god, but as appeasements to avert bad demons. And it is not credible that gods demanded or accepted the human sacrifices made of old; nor would kings and generals have accepted them in vain, giving up their children, beginning the rites, and slaughtering them; but they were averting and satisfying the anger and resentment of harsh and morose avenging spirits, and the mad loves of some, who could not and would not consort with bodies and through bodies. But as Heracles besieged Oechalia for a maiden, so often strong and violent demons, demanding a human soul contained in a body, bring plagues on cities and barrenness on the land, and stir up wars and seditions, until they take and obtain what they love." By these words the philosopher mentioned has clearly shown that the things described were performed in all the cities to wicked demons. And if there were among them, as they say, some good by nature, or even gods, why should they serve the bad, when these ought to be driven away by the good? For if they had any good protectors, trusting in these they ought surely to have cared nothing for the worse, and to have turned aside the opposing powers by sober words and prayers, and not by foul language. But when they did none of these things, but supplicated the wicked demons with a shameful and licentious life, indecent words, eating of raw flesh, tearings apart, and human sacrifices, how was it possible that men who did such things and performed what pleases the bad should be akin to the God over all, or to the divine powers under him, or to any good beings at all? It is plain to all that he who does what is dear to the bad could never be dear to the good. So those described served neither gods nor good demons, but only the bad. Plutarch confirms this argument still more where he says that the mythical narratives as if about gods are accounts about demons, and that the tales of giants and Titans sung among the Greeks are demonic narratives, so as to suggest a newer meaning. Perhaps, then, such were the things said in the divine Scripture about the giants before the flood, and about those who begot them, of whom it is said: "And the angels of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took wives for themselves of all whom they chose; from whom were born the giants, the renowned ones of old." For one might say that these are those beings, and that their spirits were deified by later men, and that their battles, their quarrels with one another, and their wars are what is told in myth as about gods. At any rate Plutarch, in the treatise he composed On Isis and the Egyptian Gods, says this in these very words:
That the mythical narratives related concerning gods contain hidden histories of demons
"Better, then, are those who think that what is told of Typhon, Osiris, and Isis are sufferings neither of gods nor of men, but of great demons, whom Plato, Pythagoras, Xenocrates, and Chrysippus, following the ancient theologians, say were stronger than men and far surpassed our nature in power, but did not have the divine unmixed and pure, but sharing in the nature of soul and in the perception of body, receiving pleasure and pain, and all the passions that arise from these changes, which disturb some more and others less. For there arise among demons, as among men, differences of virtue and vice. For the tales of giants and Titans sung among the Greeks, and many lawless deeds, and the battles of Python against Apollo, the flights of Dionysus and the wanderings of Demeter, fall in no way short of those of Osiris and Typhon, which anyone may freely hear told in myth; and all that is preserved unspoken and unseen in mystic rites has a like account." And he adds next: "Empedocles says that demons too pay the penalty for whatever they sin and transgress: 'For the might of the ether chases them into the sea; the sea spits them out onto the floor of the earth; the earth into the rays of the tireless sun; and he casts them into the eddies of the ether. One receives them from another, and all hate them'; until, having been punished, they recover their natural place and rank. Akin to these and the like, they say, are the things told of Typhon: that out of envy and ill will he did dreadful things, throwing all things into confusion, and filled all the earth and sea alike with evils, and then paid the penalty." Having set out this in the work mentioned and developed the argument at greater length, Plutarch records similar things in On the Failure of the Oracles in this way: "He, then, traced divination back to demons, and had a very high regard for Delphi; he was not unacquainted with any of the sacred things said and done there about Dionysus, but said that these too were great sufferings of demons, and so were those about the Python. For the slayer, he said, the exile was not for nine years nor to Tempe, but he was cast out and went into another world; later, purified after nine periods of great years, he came back truly Phoebus (pure) and took over the oracle, which till then had been guarded by Themis. [ So too,] the stories of Typhon and the Titans were battles of demons against demons, then flights of the defeated or punishments by God of those who sinned, such as Typhon is said to have sinned against Osiris and Cronus against Ouranus; whose honors among us have become fainter or have failed altogether, since they have gone over into another world. For I learn that the Solymi, the neighbors of the Lycians, especially honored Cronus; but since he killed their leaders Arsalus, Arytus, and Tosibis, and fled and removed somewhere or other (this they cannot say), he was neglected, while Arsalus and his companions are called the Sciri gods, and the Lycians make their curses by them publicly and privately. Many things like these may be taken from the myths. And if we call some demons by the customary names of the gods, it is not to be wondered at," said the stranger. "For each is usually called after the god to whom he is attached and whose power he shares; for among us too one is Dius, another Athenaeus, another Apollonius, Dionysius, or Hermaeus. But some were rightly so named by chance, while most have acquired names derived from gods that do not suit them but are misapplied." So much Plutarch, in his treatise On the Failure of the Oracles, showing besides other things that the demons also die; this too I shall set out at the proper time. Meanwhile, come, let us collect whatever else about the power and activity of the good demons, as he calls them, is set out by the one who composed the attack on us, in the work he entitled On the Philosophy from Oracles. For now especially, as often before, I shall use him as witness and refutation of the error about those they suppose to be gods, so that they may be shamed, struck by their own darts and arrows. For in this way the proof of what is before us would be complete and unanswerable, coming from those dear to the gods themselves, thought to be pious, and having exactly investigated what concerns their own. The writer mentioned writes this in the work he entitled On the Philosophy from Oracles, where he solemnly protests that he does not reveal the secrets of the gods, swearing himself and charging others to hide and not to publish to the many what is to be said. What were these things? He says that Pan is a servant of Dionysus and, being one of the good demons, once appeared to those tilling the fields. What should a good being have given, if not the presence of something good to those counted worthy of the appearance of the good? Did anything good, then, come to those who saw the good demon, or did they get a bad demon, having perceived it by actual experience? At any rate the wonderful witness says that those counted worthy of this good sight suffered sudden death, speaking thus:
That their so-called good demons are agents of death
"Already in other cases some have been shown to be servants of certain gods, as Pan of Dionysus; and Apollo at Branchidae has shown this through the following. For nine men were found dead; and when those who lived in the countryside asked the cause, the god gave this oracle: 'Pan, golden-horned servant of grim Dionysus, going over the wooded mountains, held a staff in his strong hand, and in the other grasped a hollow pipe sounding clear, and charmed the hearts of the Nymphs. Piping a shrill tune he terrified all the woodcutters, and amazement seized them as they saw the chilling form of the raging demon rushing on. And the end of chilling death would have seized them all, had not Artemis the huntress, holding dread anger in her breast, checked his mighty fury; to her you must pray, that she may be your helper.'" You have heard what the Apollo at Branchidae says of the form and deeds of the demon whom he calls good. Look now at the noble achievements of the rest, for whose sake they left their heavenly abode and exchanged it for life among men. They surely ought to have led the way in self-control and suggested to men what is profitable and useful. But they did none of these things. Listen to what he reveals who has searched out the secrets more secret than secrets and been counted worthy of the knowledge of hidden things. He says that some of these good demons minister to erotic pleasures, others delight in drums and flutes and the clatter of women, others again exult in battles and wars; Artemis in hunting and Deo in the fruits of the earth; Isis still mourns Osiris, and Apollo gives oracles. Such are the benefits to men of those they call good demons. Receive the proofs of these things too.
That they minister also to amorous pleasures; and the kind of pleasures in which they severally delight
"Divine Hecate never spoke anything vain or unfulfilled among the immortal gods to wise prophets; but coming down from the all-powerful mind of the Father, she always shines with truth, and wisdom stands steadfast around her, established in unbroken oracles. So call me with a bond; for you are bringing a goddess as great as I, who have been able to give soul to the highest world." "And perhaps for this reason the soul too is three-formed and threefold; and of it one part is spirited and another desiring; hence she is also called upon for erotic purposes." Do not think these are my words; you have heard them from the writer mentioned, to whom these words also belong: "It greatly troubles me how, being invoked as superior beings, they are commanded as inferior; and while they require their worshipper to be just, they themselves submit to do unjust things when ordered; and they would not listen to one who calls on them if he is not pure from sexual intercourse, while they themselves do not hesitate to lead anyone at all into unlawful sexual relations." You will find this too in his Letter to Anebo the Egyptian. And in the treatise mentioned before, On the Philosophy from Oracles, he adds to what has been said, speaking thus: "And what is assigned to each they themselves have made known, as the Didymaean god did through these lines (the inquiry was whether one should swear when someone tendered the oath): 'To Rhea the Titaness, mother of the blessed ones, flutes are dear and the clatter of drums and the throng of women; to Pallas of the fine helmet the din of battle and Enyo's strife; and to Leto's maiden daughter, with dappled hounds, to drive the mountain beasts over the deep-cliffed headlands; to sweet-voiced Hera the soft outpouring of moist air; to Deo, nurse of the ears of grain, to tend the thriving crops; and to Pharian Isis, by the fertile streams of the Nile, to seek in frenzy her delicate husband Osiris.'" If, then, "flutes and the clatter of drums and the throng of women" are dear to the mother of the gods, we must practice these, letting go all virtue, since nothing of self-control or of any other God-loving action is dear to her; as to Athena the din of battle, fights, and wars, and not peace and the things of peace. And let the dappled hounds be dear to Leto's maiden daughter, Artemis, because as a huntress in the fields she wars against beasts; and to the others what was listed. What, then, would these contribute to a God-loving and blessed life? Consider whether what is next said seems to you to belong to a divine nature, or to a bad and most wicked one:
That they are drawn down by incantations, and compelled against their will to serve the designs of men
"Pythagoras of Rhodes rightly declared this too: that the gods invoked at sacrifices do not take pleasure in them, but come because they are dragged by a certain necessity of consequence, some more and some less. Some, as if they had made a habit of their presence, come more readily, especially if they happen to be good by nature; but others, even if they have a habit of coming, are eager to do some harm, especially if someone seems to conduct himself rather carelessly in the matters. For when Pythagoras had said this, I observed from the oracles that what was said is true. For all say that they have come under necessity, not simply, but, if one may so put it, a persuasive necessity. The words of Hecate have been quoted earlier, in which she says she appears: 'Leaving the airy, boundless, star-filled, undefiled great house of God, I set foot on the life-nourishing earth, at your counsels and by the persuasion of unspeakable words, with which mortal man has learned to delight the minds of immortals.' And again: 'I have come, hearing your eloquent prayer, which the nature of mortals found by the counsels of the gods.' And still more clearly: 'Why, ever needing me from the swift-running ether, have you called me, the goddess Hecate, with god-subduing compulsions?' And next: 'Some you drag from the sky with unspeakable spells, easily, unwilling, to be brought to the divine earth; others, the middle ones, mounted on the middle winds, apart from the divine fire, like all-voiced dreams, you bring in to mortals, doing improper things to demons.' And again: 'But the heavenly ones on high, hastening, are borne with the swift Harpies; and quickly, yielding to the god-subduing compulsions, rushing to Deo's earth they dart down, interpreters of the future to mortals.' And again another, under compulsion, said: 'Hear me, unwilling though I am, since you have bound me by compulsion.' To these the writer adds again: "For they even give out compulsions against themselves, as the compelling spell given out by Apollo about himself will show. It runs thus: 'This is a mighty name of compulsion, and heavy besides.' And he added: 'Come swiftly at these words, which I bring up from my heart with sacred figures, the holy fire being pressed together. Your nature, immortal Paean, dares to reveal these things of your birth.' And again Apollo: 'The stream from the Phoebean radiance, coming down from on high, wrapped in the shrill breath of pure air, charmed by songs and unspeakable words, fell around the head of the blameless receiver, of delicate membranes, and filled his soft tunic, rushing up through his belly and back again; and from a mortal pipe it brought forth a dear voice.'" To these the writer adds: "Nothing could be clearer, more divine, or more natural than these. For a spirit coming down, an emanation from the heavenly power, entering into an organic and living body and using the soul as its base, gives forth a voice through the mouth as an instrument." That they are compelled, these things suffice to show; and that they ask to be released, since departure does not lie in their own power, you may learn from the following:
That they cannot withdraw of their own accord
"That the gods who have been called hasten to depart will be shown by such things, when they say: 'Release the lord now; a mortal no longer holds the god.' And again: 'Why, needing nothing further, do you torment the mortal so long?' And again: 'Go, and quickly come and save this man.' And how they must be released he himself will teach, saying: 'Cease now, kindly, from converse; give the man rest, loosing the gray figure of thorn, and lifting from his limbs the Nilotic linen with strong hands.' And he gave the release: 'Raise the high-prowed sail, check the voice from the recesses,' and what follows. To which he adds: "And when they delayed to release him, he says: 'Spread out the linen, and loose the receiver from the cloud.' And again at another time he gave such a release: 'Naiad Nymphs, Muses, greatly celebrate Phoebus, all you who sing of far-shooting Apollo.' And again at another time he says: 'Loose my garlands, sprinkle my feet with clear water, and wipe away the lines, and I may go. Take the laurel branch with your hands from the right hand, and rub the two eyes and the nostrils of the face; lift up the man from the ground, raising him, companions.'" To which the writer adds: "He commands them, then, to wipe away the lines, so that he may depart; for these hold him fast, as does the rest of the form of the clothing, because it bears images of the gods who have been called." I think it has been clearly shown by these things that there is nothing at all worthy of God, nothing great or truly divine, in spirits fallen so low as to be dragged and drawn down by any chance men, not through their acquiring virtue and wisdom, but if only they pursue and practice the arts of curious sorcery. So neither Pythagoras of Rhodes, nor the one who gave him this testimony, nor anyone at all would reasonably call gods, or even good demons, those dragged by mortal men, and sorcerers at that, not of their own will but by force and compulsion, and not having in their own power even release from their bonds. For if the divine is free from force and compulsion, stronger than all, impassible and free in nature, how could they be gods who are charmed by trickeries through such figures, lines, and shapes, garlands and flowers of the earth, and certain other unintelligible and barbarous sounds and words, mastered by any chance men, and as it were enslaved by bonds, so as not even to keep in their own hands the power of free will and choice? And how could they be called good demons who are drawn down by force and compulsion? What is the reason why they do not give themselves freely, rather than unwillingly, to those who need help? For if, being good, they make their visit for good, and if there was any benefit to the soul from them, they ought surely to embrace the good by choice, anticipating the needy with their kindnesses, and not to wait for compulsion. But if what was done was not good or beneficial, and therefore did not happen with their consent, how could they be good, doing what is neither good nor profitable? And how are they worthy to be admired and honored with the worship of gods, who are enslaved to any chance sorcerers, utterly abandoned in character, compelled against their will to do what is neither good nor profitable, led and dragged down not through any approval of men's self-control, nor for the sake of virtue or any part of philosophy, but by forbidden methods of sorcerers? These methods the same writer has set out in his Letter to the Egyptian mentioned, as if sharing true and secret things with a prophet, asking to be taught by him the reasons by which these things are accomplished. At any rate he asks, in perplexity, somewhat as follows:
The kind of methods by which their wonderful gods are subjected to the impostors
"It greatly troubles me how, being invoked as superior beings, they are commanded as inferior; and while requiring their worshipper to be just, they themselves submit to do unjust things when ordered; and they would not listen to one who calls them if he is not pure from sexual intercourse, while they themselves do not hesitate to lead anyone at all into unlawful sexual relations. And they command their interpreters to abstain from animal food, so as not to be defiled by the vapors from bodies, while they themselves are enticed most of all by the vapors from sacrifices; and the initiate must not touch a corpse, while most of the evocations of the gods are performed by means of dead animals. And much more absurd than these is that a man subject to any chance being should utter threats and frighten, not a demon, it may be, or the soul of a dead man, but the king, the sun himself, or the moon, or one of the heavenly beings, lying so that they may tell the truth. For to say that he will dash the heaven to pieces, reveal the secrets of Isis, show the hidden thing at Abydos, stop the sacred boat, and scatter the limbs of Osiris to Typhon, what extreme of madness does it not leave in the one who threatens things he neither knows nor can do, and of abjectness in those who fear so empty a terror and such fictions, like utterly foolish children? And yet Chaeremon the sacred scribe records these things as current among the Egyptians too, and they say that these and such things are most compelling. And what meaning have the prayers themselves, which speak of him who appeared out of the mud, who sits on the lotus, who sails in a boat, who changes his forms every hour, and is transformed according to each sign of the zodiac? For so they say he is seen, not knowing that they attach to him the particular experience of their own imagination. And if these things are said symbolically, being symbols of his powers, let them tell the interpretation of the symbols. For plainly, if the experience were the sun's, as in eclipses, it would have appeared the same to all who gaze at it. And what do the meaningless names mean, and among meaningless names the barbarous ones preferred to those proper to each? For if the hearer looks to what is signified, the same notion remaining is enough to make it plain, whatever the name may be. For surely the one invoked was not Egyptian by race; and even if Egyptian, he certainly did not use the Egyptian language, nor any human language at all. For either all these were contrivances of sorcerers, and screens for the passions that arise in us, by means of what is ascribed to the divine, or we have unawares held notions about the divine contrary to how it really is." Having said this he again raises a difficulty with the Egyptian, saying: "If some are impassible and others passible, for whom, they say, they set up phalluses and use obscene language on this account, the invocations of the gods will be vain, which promise to summon them, and the appeasements of anger, and expiations, and still more the so-called compulsions of the gods. For the impassible cannot be charmed, forced, or compelled." And again next he adds: "In vain has their wisdom been practiced in troubling the divine mind about finding a runaway slave, or buying land, or a marriage, it may be, or trade. And if it is not neglected, and those present speak most truly about other things but say nothing safe or reliable about happiness, then they were neither gods nor good demons, but that one who is called the deceiver." So much, then, from this writing of Porphyry. And indeed the noble gods themselves were the first teachers of the evil art of sorcery. For from where could men have known these things, unless the demons themselves had told the things about themselves and revealed the binding spells against one another? Do not think this argument ours either; for we confess that we neither know nor wish to know any of these things. But, to refute the absurdity of these things and at the same time as our defense for withdrawing from them, let this witness be brought in, who is wise among his familiars and knows exactly and teaches all his own affairs. He says this word for word in the collection of oracles mentioned:
That the demons whom men have supposed to be gods taught them their own magical practices
"They themselves have made known not only their way of life and the other things mentioned, but have also prescribed in what they delight and by what they are mastered, and indeed by what they are compelled, what one must sacrifice, and from what day one must refrain, of what kind the form of the statues must be made, in what forms they themselves appear, and in what places they dwell; in short, there is not one thing which men did not learn from them before honoring them in this way. Since there are many things that show this, we shall set out a few out of many, so as not to leave the account without witness." "That they themselves prescribed how statues should be made and of what material, the words of Hecate will show, which run thus:
That they themselves taught men how to array their images for magical rites
'But make a purified image, as I shall teach you: make the frame of wild rue, and adorn it with small house lizards; grinding mixtures of myrrh, storax, and frankincense with those creatures, set it in the open air under the waxing moon and complete it, praying this prayer yourself.' Then she gave out the prayer, and taught how many lizards should be taken: 'As many as my forms, with so many creatures I bid you, and complete these things carefully; and make for me a dwelling of self-grown laurel; and praying much to that image you will see me in sleep.' And again at another time she gave out such an image of herself."
That they showed the proper forms of their own statues
"And they themselves have made known in what forms they appear, according to which the statues were set up. Sarapis, at any rate, having seen Pan, says about himself: 'A bright radiance shines through the house of the god; for a great god came and met me; he saw my resistless might, my lightning of tyrant flame, the lock of hair from the crown of my head, spread around my gleaming brow, and the sacred locks of my beard.'" "And Pan taught a hymn about himself which runs thus: 'I, born a mortal, pray to Pan, the god akin to me, two-horned, two-footed, goat-legged, wanton,' and what follows. And Hecate says thus about herself: 'Now do everything for me; in the image itself let my form be that of Demeter of the splendid fruits, in pure white robes, with golden sandals on her feet; and around her girdle long serpents, creeping with undefiled tracks, hanging from above, from her head to the tips of her feet, coiling around her whole body in order.' And the material, she says, is either Parian marble or well-polished ivory."
That they encourage the practice of magic
"The gods often make plain what they say, foretelling it, by knowing the constitution of each man's nativity, being, if one may so say, consummate magi and consummate astrologers. And again in oracles he says that Apollo said: 'Invoke Hermes and the Sun likewise, on the day of the Sun, and the Moon when her day comes, and Cronus and Rhea and next Aphrodite, with unspoken invocations, which the best of the magi found, the king of the seven-voiced, whom all know.' When they said, 'You mean Ostanes,' he added: 'And earnestly, and always call each god seven times.'" The same writer sets down this too: "The symbols of Hecate are wax of three colors, white, black, and red, bearing a figure of Hecate holding a whip, a torch, and a sword, with a serpent coiled around her; and the symbols of Heaven are the starfish nailed up before the doors. For the gods themselves have made these known through the following. Pan says: 'Drive these away, setting wax of varied color in the might of fire; let it be white and black, and the fire light-bearing from the kindled coal, the dread carved image of Hecate, terror of the hounds below. Let a torch be in her hands, and the avenging sword, and a serpent coiled around, holding the maiden in its knots, set dreadfully about her head, and a gleaming key too, and, power over the demons, the loud crack of the whip.'" Through these and similar things the noble philosopher of the Greeks, the wonderful theologian, the initiate in secrets, displays his Philosophy from Oracles as containing secret oracles of the gods, plainly revealing the snares laid against men by the wicked and truly demonic power. For what could be useful to human life from the evil art of sorcery? What God-loving thing could the curious fashioning of lifeless images contain? Of what divine power could the shaping of such figures be an image? Why should they not rather have advised philosophizing than practicing magic and pursuing what is forbidden, when the way of virtue and philosophy is sufficient for a happy and blessed life? But he, increasing his own refutation, adds to what has been said this too:
That they love the lifeless blocks
"That they love the symbols of the characters, Hecate has made known, comparing them with what men love, through these lines: 'What mortal has not longed to obtain stamped pieces of bronze, gold, and gleaming silver? And who, standing above, does not love these things, as I, gathered into one, string the many destinies of men?' And she has shown not only that the characters are dear, but also, as we said, that they themselves are circumscribed and are, as it were, in a sacred place in the underlying image; for they could not be carried on earth, but on sacred earth; and sacred is that which bears the image of the god, and when it is removed, what holds the divine on earth is loosed. " Through all these things I think it has been clearly proved that their gods have been caught being earthly demons, lovers of passion. Therefore I think I have turned away from them with sober reasoning. You see, at any rate, that they say magical figures and such characters master them in certain places on earth; whereas, if there were truly anything divine, it should alight nowhere else than in the mind of the soul alone, and that purified of all filth and every stain, and adorned with self-control, justice, and the other virtues. For when these are first laid as foundations in a man's soul as in a truly sacred place, the presence of the divine Spirit may reasonably come upon it; and there would be no further need of the evil art of sorcery for souls prepared by virtuous and God-loving action to receive the divine. So from all these they are expressly caught being earthly demons, lovers of passion and of the body, of whom we spoke just now. But listen next to what the same writer sets down in the same work about the failure of their celebrated oracles, in this way:
Of the oracles that have failed
"'About Pytho and the Clarian oracles of Phoebus our word will speak with lawful voices. Countless wondrous oracles gushed forth on the back of the earth, springs and whirling exhalations; and some the earth herself, gaping, took back again into her nether bosom, and others countless ages destroyed. Only for the Sun who gives light to mortals do there still remain the divine water of Mycale in the vales of Didyma, and at the foot of Pytho beneath the height of Parnassus, and rocky Claros, the rough mouth of Phoebus's voice.' And giving an oracle to the Nicaeans he said: 'It is not possible to restore the talking voice of Pytho; for already, darkened by long ages, it has thrown the bolts of oracle-less silence. But offer to Phoebus, as is the custom, the prophetic sacrifices.'" To these it is timely to add here the words of Plutarch from the treatise he composed On the Failure of the Oracles: "When Ammonius had finished, I said: 'Tell us rather about the oracle there, Cleombrotus; for great was the ancient fame of the godhead there, but now it seems to be fading away.' And when Cleombrotus was silent and looked down, Demetrius said there was no need to inquire and raise questions about things there, when we see the fading of the oracles here, or rather the failure of all but one or two, but rather to consider together for what reason it has become so weak. For why speak of the others, when Boeotia, which in former times was many-voiced with oracles, has now been utterly deserted by them, like springs dried up, and a great drought of prophecy has seized the land? For nowhere else in Boeotia now but at Lebadea can those in need draw from prophecy; of the others, some are held by silence and some by total desolation." Further, besides these, the same writer says this about their demons dying:
That the demons whom they worship as gods actually die
"'That not gods, for whom it is fitting to be free of earthly things, but demons, servants of the gods, preside over the oracles,' he said, 'does not seem to me a bad opinion. But to take, as it were, a handful from the verses of Empedocles and impose on these demons sins, calamities, and god-sent wanderings, and finally to suppose deaths for them as for men, I consider rather rash and barbarous.' Cleombrotus then asked Philip who the young man was and where he came from; and having learned his name and city, he said: 'We ourselves are not unaware, Heracleon, that we have come into strange arguments; but it is not possible in great matters to arrive at a probable opinion without using great principles. But you do not notice that you take away what you grant. For you admit that demons exist, but by not allowing them to be bad or mortal you no longer keep them demons. For in what do they differ from the gods, if in substance they have incorruptibility and in virtue freedom from passion and sin?' While Heracleon was silently pondering a reply, Philip said: 'But bad demons were admitted not only by Empedocles, Heracleon, but also by Plato, Xenocrates, and Chrysippus; and Democritus too, praying to meet with propitious images, plainly knew of others that are perverse and have wicked purposes and impulses. And about the death of such beings I have heard an account from a man neither foolish nor boastful. Epitherses, my fellow citizen and teacher of grammar, was the father of Aemilianus the rhetor, whom some of you too have heard. He said that once, sailing to Italy, he embarked on a ship carrying merchandise and many passengers. In the evening, near the Echinades islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Most were awake and drinking, since they had dined. Suddenly a voice was heard from the island of Paxi, someone loudly calling Thamus, so that they wondered; for Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many of those on board. Twice called, he was silent, but the third time he answered the caller, and the other, raising his voice, said: "When you come opposite Palodes, announce that the great Pan is dead." On hearing this, Epitherses said, all were astonished, and they debated among themselves whether it would be better to carry out the command or not to meddle but let it be; and Thamus decided thus: if there were a wind, to sail past keeping quiet, but if calm and stillness came about the place, to announce what he had heard. So when they came opposite Palodes, there being neither wind nor wave, Thamus, looking from the stern toward the land, said as he had heard, that the great Pan is dead; and he had not yet finished when there arose a great lamentation, not of one but of many, mingled with amazement. Since many people were present, the story quickly spread in Rome, and Thamus was summoned by Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius believed the story so much that he made inquiries and investigations about Pan; and the many scholars about him conjectured that he was the son born of Hermes and Penelope. Philip had some of those present as witnesses, who had heard it from the old man Aemilianus. And Demetrius said that of the islands around Britain many are deserted and scattered, some of which are named after demons and heroes; and that he himself, sent by the king to inquire and observe, sailed to the nearest of the deserted ones, which had few inhabitants, all of whom were held sacred and inviolable by the Britons. Soon after he arrived, there was great disturbance in the air, many portents, winds bursting out, and whirlwinds falling. When it abated, the islanders said that one of the higher beings had passed away. 'For as a lamp,' they said, 'when lit has nothing dreadful, but when quenched is grievous to many, so the great souls have kindlings that are kindly and harmless, but their quenchings and destructions often, as now, nourish winds and hail, and often poison the air with pestilential afflictions.' There is one island there, moreover, in which Cronus is imprisoned, guarded by Briareus as he sleeps; for sleep has been devised as his bond; and many demons are around him as attendants and servants. " So much Plutarch. It is worth observing the time at which he says the death of the demon took place. This was the time of Tiberius, in which our Savior, spending his life among men, is recorded to have driven every kind of demon out of human life, so that some of the demons even fell on their knees before him and begged him not to hand them over to the Tartarus awaiting them. You have, then, the time of the destruction of the demons, recorded at no other time in all the ages, just as the abolition of human sacrifice among the nations took place at no other time than after the preaching of the gospel teaching went out to all men. Let these things, then, be proved by us from more recent history.
Of the oracles mentioned among the Greeks of old times
But since what has been said is not known to all, it seems good to me to pass from here to what is plain to all lovers of learning, and to examine the most ancient oracles, sung on the lips of all the Greeks and handed down in the schools of the cities to those who attend for education. Taking up, then, the ancient histories from the beginning, consider what the Pythian god declared to the Athenians when they were oppressed by plague on account of the death of Androgeos. All the Athenians were stricken with plague because of the death of one man, and they asked to obtain help from the gods. What, then, did the savior and god advise them? Perhaps someone will suppose: to care for justice and kindness and the rest of virtue for the future, or to repent of the offense and to perform some holy and pious act, so that the gods might be appeased by these. But it was none of these. For what concern had the wonderful gods, or rather the utterly wicked demons, for these things? Again, then, they speak what is akin and proper to them, things pitiless, savage, and inhuman: plague upon plague and deaths for a death. Apollo, at any rate, commands them to send every year seven of their own sons in the bloom of youth and as many maiden daughters, fourteen innocent and harmless persons for one, not once only but every year, to be put to death in Crete by Minos; so that even down to the times of Socrates, more than five hundred years later, this terrible and most inhuman tribute kept its memory among the Athenians. This, it seems, was what caused the postponement of Socrates' death. One of the more recent writers, at any rate, who made a Detection of Impostors in a treatise of his own, sets out the oracle and very well refutes it with manly reasoning. Hear his words, not mine, as he addresses the oracle-giver somewhat as follows:
Apollo charged with commanding twice seven boys and maidens to be sent out by the Athenians to the Cretans to be sacrificed
"What? Would not the Athenians, after killing Androgeos and suffering plague because of it, have said they repented? Or, if they did not say so, was it not fitting for you to say, 'Repent,' rather than: 'There will be an end of plague and famine if you allot by lot bodies of your own, male and female, to Minos, sending them over the divine sea as recompense for your unjust deeds; so the god will be gracious'? For I pass over the fact that you gods were indignant when Androgeos died at Athens, but sleep when so many died everywhere and always. And yet you knew that Minos was then master of the sea and very powerful, and all Greece courted him; and for this reason he was also most just, and a good lawgiver, and in Homer's view 'the familiar friend of great Zeus,' and after death a judge in Hades; and you, for this reason, exacted these penalties on his behalf. But I pass over this of yours too, that letting the murderers go you ordered the guiltless to be sent to die, and that to a man whom you were about to proclaim a common judge of mankind, who did not know how to judge even this. And yet how many of you gods would justly be sent to the Athenians instead of these young people, whom you unjustly killed for Androgeos?" This same writer, taking up the story of the Heraclidae, calls Apollo to account for how many deaths he has caused through the ambiguity of his oracles, speaking thus:
How Apollo has been the cause of death to many by the ambiguity of his responses
"But since I have somehow come to mention this account, come, let me go through the relevant parts of the story of the Heraclidae. They once set out to invade the Peloponnese by the Isthmus and failed. Aristomachus, son of Aridaeus, since Aridaeus had died in the invasion, comes to hear from you about the way; for he desired it as his father had. And you say to him: 'The gods show you victory by way of the narrows.' And he set out to attempt it by the Isthmus and died in battle. His son Temenus came, ill-starred third of an ill-starred line; and you charge him with the same as Aristomachus his father. And he said: 'But he too obeyed you and died in the invasion.' And you said: 'I do not mean the narrows by land, but the wide-bellied one,' since it was hard to say 'by the sea.' And he went by sea, having given the impression that he would invade by land, and encamps between Naupactus and Typaeum; and he spears Carnus the Aetolian, a horseman, son of Phylander, doing well, it seems to me. And when a sickness struck them close at hand and Aristodemus died, they withdrew again, and Temenus came and complained of the failure, and heard that he had brought on himself a penalty for the divine messenger, and the poem to Apollo Carneius about the prayer, which says in the oracle: 'Having killed our messenger you have brought a penalty on yourself.' What then does Temenus say? 'What must I do? And how may I appease you?' 'Pray to perform worship to Apollo Carneius.' You most foul and most shameless seer! Did you not know, then, that he who heard 'the narrows' would miss the narrows? But knowing it none the less, you give oracles, and then look on while he fails. But 'the narrows' is ambiguous, so that if he won you might seem the cause of the victory, and if he were defeated you would be no cause of the defeat, and could escape to 'the wide-bellied.' But the man went to 'the wide-bellied,' and did not succeed. Again, as an escape, Carnus the messenger, killed, has been found. And yet how was it, most excellent one, that you, caring so much for Carnus, ordered him to be inspired for others but not for himself? And when you ought to have saved Carnus, being only one man, you both neglected him and, when he had died, cast a Homeric plague upon the host, and prescribed prayers about the plague? And if by praying he achieved nothing, some other remedy would be found by your trickery, and you would never have stopped, they asking and you playing the sophist, so that both for the winners and for the losers you would be undetected in your wrongdoing. For passion and desire are enough to beguile them, so that even if they were slaughtered a thousand times they would not be made to distrust you." To these it is worth adding the story of Croesus. He was king of Lydia, having received the kingdom that had come down to him from his ancestors of old. Then, hoping to achieve something more than his ancestors, he resolved to show reverence to the gods, and having tested them all he chose the Apollo at Delphi above the rest; and then, adorning the temple with bowls and golden bricks and a multitude of countless offerings, in a short time he made it the richest of all temples on earth, in his magnanimity not even neglecting what would supply the sacrifices. Since, then, he had paid so much to the god in advance, the Lydian, reasonably relying on the great works of his piety, resolves to make war on the Persians, planning to increase his kingdom greatly with the god's alliance. What then did the wonderful oracle-giver do? That very one at Delphi, the Pythian, the god of friendship, brings it about that his suppliant, the pious man, the refugee, not only does not gain another's kingdom but even falls from his own; not willingly, it seems to me, but rather through ignorance of what would happen. (For the god, not knowing the future, since he was no god nor any power stronger than man, cunningly fitted the oracle to either outcome.) And all but saying, 'Croesus, crossing the Halys, will destroy a great empire,' he overthrows the kingdom of Lydia, which had come down to the pious man by succession from his ancestors, a great and long-lasting one, paying back this fruit to the god-beloved man for his great zeal toward him. On these things hear how the writer, not without reason, expresses his indignation:
How again by an ambiguous response he caused Croesus to lose his own kingdom
"You seem truly to know things worth as much as sand, but to know nothing good. At any rate, that 'the smell came to your mind of a hard-shelled tortoise being boiled' is a piece of knowledge worth as much as sand, not true even itself, but still befitting a braggart, shameless, and one who raises his brows over empty pieces of knowledge, and who persuades the Lydian slave Croesus not to despise him. He was soon, after the test, to ask you whether he should march against the Persians, and to make you counselor of his madness and greed; and you did not hesitate to tell him that 'crossing the Halys he will destroy a great empire.' This, however, was well done, that you did not care whether he would suffer something terrible, lifted up by an ambiguous oracle against another's empire; nor whether certain bitter men, when they ought to praise you for overthrowing a madman, should actually accuse you of not even uttering a balanced word, so that the Lydian might hesitate and take counsel; but 'destroy' was meant in only one way the Greeks could understand: not falling from his own empire, but acquiring another's. For Cyrus, half-Mede or half-Persian, or, being on his mother's side of royal and on his father's side of common stock, the 'mule' in the riddle, shows the puffed-up muse, but also the prophecy that is no prophecy, if the prophet did not know that Croesus would not understand the riddle. But if it was not from ignorance, but from wantonness and wickedness that he was playing, alas, what games the gods play! And if not even this, but because it had to happen so, this is the most unholy of sophistical arguments. Yet, if it had to happen so, why do you, wretch, sit at Delphi singing empty and vain songs? What use are you to us? Why are we mad, we who press to you from every part of the earth? And why do you savor the smoke of sacrifice?" Such is the outspokenness of Oenomaus in his Detection of Impostors, not free from Cynic bitterness. For he will not have the oracles admired among all the Greeks to be from a demon, let alone a god, but deceits and tricks of impostors contrived to delude the many. Since we have once mentioned them, nothing would prevent our hearing other refutations too, and first the one in which the same writer says that he himself was deceived by the Clarian Apollo, writing thus:
How they used to mislead inquirers by deluding them through the responses
"But I too had to share in the comedy and not put on airs as if I had not fallen into the common madness, and to tell of the trade which I myself made about wisdom, coming from Asia, Clarian, from you: 'There is in the land of Trachis a garden of Heracles, with all things blooming, plucked by all every day, nor is it lessened, but it is laden with waters continually.' Then I, the fool, hearing it, was myself puffed up by Heracles, and, because of the blooming garden of Heracles, dreaming of a sort of Hesiodic sweat because of Trachis, and again of an easy life because of the blooming garden. Then, when I asked whether the gods were helping me, one of the many tells me, swearing by the very gods who help, that he had certainly heard from you this same oracle given to Callistratus, a merchant of Pontus. So when I heard it, how indignant do you think I was, as if robbed of my virtue by him? But though vexed I considered the merchant, whether he too had been warmed by Heracles; and he too appeared to toil at some toil, and to aim at profit, and to expect a pleasant life from the profit. And when the merchant appeared to be put on an equal footing, I no longer accepted the oracle, nor Heracles, but disdained to share the same things with them, looking at their present toils and the mangers they hoped for. But neither the robber appeared without a share in the oracle, nor the soldier, nor a man in love, nor a woman in love, nor the flatterer, nor the orator, nor the informer. For to each, as he desires, the toil leads the way and the good cheer is expected." Having set out these things he at once adds that, asking a second and a third time, he found the wonderful gods knowing nothing, but hiding their ignorance only in the darkness of obscurity. He says, then:
That by their darkness and obscurity they concealed their own ignorance
"When my business was already well forward, and a man was needed to guide me to wisdom, and none seemed to be found, I asked you to point him out too: 'Among the well-hulled ships and the Achaeans he will make need; and what is tracked out will hold not even a little.' What do you say? If I had wished to become a sculptor or a painter and were looking for teachers, would it have been enough for me to hear 'among the well-hulled'? Would I not have said that the speaker was mad? But perhaps you are not able to understand this, for human characters have much obscurity. But where it was better for me to travel from Colophon was no longer so hidden from the god: 'A man hurling stones from a far-whirling sling, slaying with his shots countless grass-eating geese.' Who will tell me what the countless grass-eating geese mean? And who the far-whirling sling? Amphilochus, or the god of Dodona? Or you, if I came to Delphi, will you not go off and hang yourself with the far-whirling sling along with your unintelligible poem?" But now that these have been refuted in this way, it is time to see again from the beginning how the same writer refutes the most ancient oracles at Delphi, those most admired in the Greek histories. "Great was the army of the Persians armed against the Athenians, and they had no other hope of safety than the god alone; and not knowing who he was, they called on their ancestral helper; this was Apollo at Delphi. What then did this wonderful god do? Did he fight for his own? Did he remember the libation and savor and the hecatombs they habitually offered him? Not at all. But what does he say? To flee, and to flee having prepared a wooden wall, thus meaning the fleet, through which alone, he says, they will be saved when the city has been burned. What great help from a god! Then he pretends, of course, to foretell the besieging not only of the other buildings in the city but even of those dedicated to the gods. But this, even without an oracle, all could expect from the enemy's advance." Reasonably indeed the writer mocks again, refuting the Greek deception in these words:
That, being unable to give any help in the misfortunes of war, they used to quibble and deceive their suppliants by ambiguous responses
"But such things perhaps belong to someone willfully malicious; rather, we must bring to judgment the oracles to the Athenians. Let what was said to the Athenians be told: 'Wretches, why do you sit? Flee to the ends of the earth from the city; for neither the head remains firm nor the body, nor the hands nor the feet below; [All will be ruined and lost.] for fire and swift Ares, driving a Syrian-born chariot, will bring it down. Many towers will he destroy and bring down; and many temples of the immortals will he give to the raging fire, which now stand streaming with sweat, quivering with fear.' Here, then, is your oracle to the Athenians: is there anything prophetic in it? 'For you were so confident in it, by Zeus,' someone might say. If you add what is said in reply to their asking for help, it will be known. Look, let it be added: 'Pallas cannot appease Olympian Zeus, though entreating him with many words ... But to you I will speak this word again, making it like adamant: when the others are taken ... far-seeing Zeus grants to Tritogeneia a wooden wall alone to remain unsacked, which will help you and your children. Nor do you wait for the horsemen and the foot coming on, but turn your back; you will yet face them some day. Divine Salamis, you will destroy the children of women, either when Demeter is scattered or when she is gathered.' Worthy of Zeus is your Zeus, son of Zeus! And Athena of Athena, brother of Athena! This zeal and counter-zeal befit the father and the daughter, or rather the gods. And this Olympian, who was too weak to destroy this one city unless he brought upon it that boundless army from Susa, was a great one indeed, and had lordship over the universe, and was persuasive too, moving so many nations from Asia into Europe, yet unable to overturn one city in Europe. And you, the daring one, who run risks over nothing, will you not suffer for it? So men would have said, on whose behalf Pallas cannot appease Olympian Zeus. Or was Zeus angry not with men but with stones and timbers, and then you saved the men while he burned the buildings with imported fire? For he had no thunderbolt at that time. Or are we rather the daring and reckless ones, for not allowing you to talk such nonsense? How, seer, did you know that divine Salamis would destroy the children of women, but no longer know whether it would be when Demeter is scattered or gathered? And how did you not know this either, that one perceiving your trickery might say that 'the children of women' are one's own people, and might also say the enemy? But one must wait for the outcome; for one of these things must come about. For 'divine Salamis' would not be unsuitable even if they were defeated, as being addressed so for pity's sake; and the coming sea battle, 'either when Demeter is scattered or when she is gathered,' has been plastered over with poetic grandiloquence so that the prophecy might go undetected through the trick and it might not at once be plain that a sea battle is not fought in winter. And now the tragedy is not hidden either, nor the gods wheeled on stage, the one entreating and the other unbending, useful for the future and for the unexpected turn of the war, the one for those saved and the other for those destroyed. For if they were saved, look, the prayers of Pallas have been announced beforehand, able to bend the anger of Zeus; and if not, not even this was left unprepared by the seer: for Pallas cannot appease Zeus. And for half-bad fortunes the craftsman mixed the oracle, as though Zeus had in part carried out his own purpose, and in part had not despised his daughter's request. And as for the towers, that many would be destroyed: if they had come with fennel stalks and not with iron and fire, perhaps it would have been false, though even with fennel stalks so great a host would surely have accomplished something. ' But I,' he says, 'found the wooden wall, the only thing unsacked.' Advice, yes, but not prophecy; not unlike the line: 'flee, and do not stay, nor be ashamed to be a coward.' He, at any rate, who solved that riddle was no worse than you at seeing that the city of the Athenians was the Persian's pretext for the march, and that the whole expedition was directed against it first and foremost; since even I myself, who am no prophet, perceiving this, would have told the Athenian too, not only the Lydian, to flee, turning his back. 'For you will yet face him some day'; for many horsemen and foot are coming on. And that it should be by ships and not on the mainland: for it would have been ridiculous for people who had a fleet and lived by the sea not to pack up in all haste, put aboard what food they had, and save themselves, handing over the land to whoever wanted it." These, then, were the oracles to the Athenians; but those to the Lacedaemonians were very weak and ridiculous. For either, he says, the whole city will be besieged, or it will mourn its king, perished. But anyone at all could reasonably guess that either this or that would happen. But surely it was not the prophecy of a god to equivocate in this way through ignorance of the future, when he ought to have helped and appeared at the right time as savior of the Greeks, and rather to have procured for the Greeks, as his own friends, victory over their enemies and the barbarians; and if he was not able to do this, at least to grant that they should not suffer or be captured. But he did not do even this; he does not even know how their defeat will turn out for them. Hear, therefore, what the refutation says on this too:
The answers to the Lacedaemonians
"'But one must not give the Lacedaemonians the same advice,' you will say. You speak the truth. For you did not know, sophist, how the affairs of Sparta would turn out, as you did those of Attica. So you were afraid that if you told them to flee, they might flee and the enemy might not come. Since, then, you had to say something, you spoke thus to the Lacedaemonians: 'For you, dwellers in spacious Sparta, either your great and glorious city is sacked by men of Perseus's line, or, if not that, the land of Lacedaemon will mourn a king of Heracles's race, perished.' Again the most unprophetic of conjunctions! But let it go, so that we may not seem both tiresome and at a loss by leaping on you twice for the same thing; let us examine the rest. All were looking to you in so great a danger, and you were for them both informer of the future and counselor of what must be done. And they were persuaded that you were trustworthy, and you that they were fools, and that the present crisis was enough to lead and drive the simpletons headlong not only to the schools of sophistry at Delphi and Dodona, but even to bird-oracles and flour-oracles and ventriloquists. And at that time not only the gods were trusted, but even weasels and crows and stumbles in dreams. It was not unclear, then, that they would neither have preferred both misfortunes to one, nor the greater instead of the lesser; and the lesser was that one, the king, should fall instead of all. If the city fell, there would be no escape for him either; but if he were posted somewhere else, perhaps something unexpected might happen. It remained, then, for those reasoning thus to send the king to fight and to stay at home themselves out of danger, waiting for the outcome. For him, then, standing with a few against the boundless crowd, destruction was manifest; but Sparta had respite from fear and unexpected hopes. And the trick was no less undetectable whether the city escaped or was taken. Why so? Because it had not been said, by Zeus, that if the king died the city would be saved, but that either he alone would perish or the whole city; and this could not be called to account either way, whether he perished alone or not alone. This is the fruit of conceit and folly." So much for this. But it is not right to pass over what he gave as oracle to the Cnidians, when they in turn prayed and asked for the god's alliance.
The like to the people of Cnidos
"The Cnidians too suffered something like this when Harpagus marched against them. For, attempting to cut through the isthmus there and make their city an island, at first they kept at the work, but when the labor went against them, they gave up and consulted the oracle. And you said to them: 'Do not fortify the isthmus nor dig it; for Zeus would have made it an island if he had wished.' And the dullards were persuaded, turned back, and surrendered themselves to Harpagus. But note the knavery: since there was no sure escape if they dug, you stopped them from that; and by not bidding them keep at the work, you seem to promise them escape. To this you added, not that it was better for them not to dig, but that it did not please Zeus that it should be an island. In dissuading them, then, both outcomes were evenly balanced; but in encouraging them, escape would have been expected; so it was safe for the sophist to turn them back. And so, saying nothing of what they had come for, you sent them away thinking they had heard something." These things, I think, sufficiently refute the impotence both of those who give the oracles and of those who consult them, and show that nothing true or divine can be found in what they declare. And you would see the malice of their character, whether of the wicked demons or of the men who played the part of the oracles, if you learned how they stirred up those who consulted them to war against one another, when they ought to have been arbiters of peace and friendship. At one time, then, the god at Delphi again incites the Lacedaemonians, as his own people and friends, against the Messenians; at another he gives oracles to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians, if they in turn would appease the demons by human sacrifice. Hear about these things too:
How they incited those who consulted them to war against each other
"Wisdom, when present with prophecy, will judge such things, and will not permit it to speak at random, since she has fastened the cables of all things to herself and holds the place of honor; nor will she let the Pythian, being vain, give oracles either to these or to the Lacedaemonians about the Messenians and the land which the Messenians held, having conquered the Lacedaemonians by deceit: 'Phoebus bids you not to pursue only the works of battle with your hand; but by deceit the people holds the Messenian land, and by the same arts by which it began it will be taken.' Wisdom bids them rather to remember peace, and frugality, and self-sufficiency. But they, adorned with the laws of Lycurgus, came to ask out of greed and vainglory, so as not to seem inferior to the Messenians in battle, though they were thought to have been reared under laws of endurance. But if they had really been reared so under laws of endurance, they would have endured with little, and would have had no need of battle, or arms, or the rest of such folly. This was to the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians; and again, to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians, this. For you prophesy to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians too, not only to the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians: 'The lot calls a maiden of the line of Aepytus; give her to the demons below, and you would save Ithome.' For I do not accept the excuses, that the victim was not pure, of the line of Aepytus, and therefore the sacrifice was ineffective for the Messenians. For you are the sort to make confusion." Such are the things of ancient history. And countless things like these can be seen in our own times too, from ancient times down to ourselves, when the rulers of each age at one time rushed into fruitless wars on the counsel of the oracles, at another were tripped up by the obscurity of the responses, and at another were led astray by the outright deceit of the oracles. What need is there to say how at times, in the greatest calamities, whether in battles against enemies or in the dangers of bodily illness, they gained nothing from the help or service of the reputed gods? And always and throughout, the results of the oracles turn out for them such as the ancient history also establishes. But since among the Pythian's oracles most talked of among the Greeks one was that to Lycurgus, to whom, as he approached, the Pythia uttered that famous saying: 'You have come, Lycurgus, to my rich temple, dear to Zeus and to all who have Olympian homes. I doubt whether I shall declare you god or man; but still more I hope you are a god, Lycurgus. You have come seeking good order; and I will give it to you,' with what is said along with these, come, let us observe what the refutation already cited perceived in reply. He writes thus:
That the treatment of Lycurgus the law-giver of the Lacedaemonians was not worthy of a god
"But you said that the forerunner and model of Tyrtaeus, when he once came to you, had come from hollow Lacedaemon, 'dear to Zeus and to all who have Olympian homes,' and that you doubted whether you would declare him god or man, 'but still more a god,' because he came to ask for good order. And how, if he was a god, did the friend of Zeus and of all the Olympians not know civic law? But since perhaps such things are not found without a god, things shown to the most godlike of men by the voice of the god, come, let us look at the divine voice and what you taught Lycurgus: 'You have come seeking good order; and I will give it to you.' Give it, I would say; for you never yet promised such a gift to anyone. 'If you give to the oracles promises and oaths, and justice to one another and to strangers, honoring the elders purely and cleanly, and revering the Tyndaridae, and Menelaus, and the other immortal heroes who are in divine Lacedaemon, so will far-seeing Zeus spare you.' Apollo, what divine teaching and exhortation! And for this no long voyage is needed, not even from the Peloponnese to Delphi, let alone to the Hyperboreans themselves, from where, they say, according to the oracle of Asteria, another prophetess, there came 'the settlers and priests of fragrant Delos.' This Lycurgus, it seems to me, never had a nurse, nor ever sat among a council of elders, from whom, and from her, he could have heard better and wiser things than these. Perhaps you will add something, if Lycurgus begs you to say something clear: ' if some lead well and others follow.' I shall no longer say that this belongs to the same council, and I shall ask Lycurgus not to grow weary, in case he could go away to Sparta having received from you some political lesson. ' There are two roads, very far apart from each other, the one leading to the honored house of freedom, the other to the house of slavery, to be shunned by mortals. The one may be traveled through manliness and holy concord; and this is the path you must lead the peoples on. The other they reach through hateful strife and feeble ruin ... and that one you must guard against.' You bid them above all to be brave: this we have often heard even from cowards. And of one mind: this not from the wise only, but even from the very men who stir up faction. So we excuse you from this exhortation. And yet, being a prophet, did you not know that we have often received this, and from many people, who neither chewed the laurel nor drank the water of Castalia nor ever raised their brows over wisdom? Speak, then, about courage; speak about freedom; speak about concord, how these arise in a city; and do not bid us, who do not know, to lead the peoples on this path, but lead it yourself. For it is noble, but impassable and fearful for us." To these he adds, saying:
That they failed to give answers about matters of importance
"And you are ready to speak about marriage too: 'Take a foal of horse-pasturing Argos, of a dark-maned sire.' And about children: 'Eetion, no one honors you, though you are worthy of much honor; Labda is with child, and will bear a rolling stone.' And about a colony: 'Send against men of gold a people of many nations, bearing bronze on the shoulders and iron in the hands.' And about vainglory: 'Of all the earth the Pelasgian ground is best; Thracian mares, Lacedaemonian women, and men who drink the water of fair Arethusa.' And you seem to me no better than the so-called portent-watchers, nor than the other mendicants and sophists. But at them I have never wondered, if they throw men headlong for pay; but at you, the god, and at men, if they are thrown headlong for pay. Then that Socrates answered neither way to the man who asked whether he should marry or not, but said that he would regret both; and to the man who desired children he said that he would not do well if, neglecting to try how, should he have children, he might best treat them, he gave no thought to this, but considered only how he might get them. And when another had decided to go abroad because things were bad for him at home, he said that he was not deciding rightly; for he would go away leaving his country there, but taking with him his ignorance, which would make him displeasing to people there as to people here. And he went to such conversations not only when he was asked, but also uninvited.
That, in advising men what to do, they were guided by ordinary human reasonings
'For twenty days before the Dog-star and twenty after, use Dionysus as physician in a shady house.' To the Athenians troubled by the heat: medical advice, not prophecy. 'Erginus, son of Clymenus, of Presbon's line, you have come late seeking offspring; but even so, fit a new tip to the old plow-pole.' That a young woman should live with an old man if he wants children: this too is not of a prophet, but of one who knows nature. But desire drives the dullards out of their wits."
That their recommendations were for the most part unphilosophical
"Therefore I advise you to take a rod to them, if you cannot persuade them to learn, instead of their contemptible questions, something worthy of a god's school; rather than to say to Antiochus of Paros, when he had lost his property in political nonsense and came to you in grief: 'Antiochus, go to Thasos and dwell in the famous island.' He would have profited more by hearing: 'Antiochus, come to your senses, and do not lament in poverty.' Or to the Cretans who came: 'Dwellers of Phaestus and Tarrha and of Dium rich in streams, I bid you perform the Pythian purification of Phoebus, being pure, so that you may dwell in Crete, revering prosperity and Zeus by laws not those of your fathers.' For them it would have been better to hear this: 'Dwellers of nonsense and madness, and much conceit as well, I bid you perform your own purification from nonsense, being pure, so that you may dwell in wisdom, revering prosperity by laws not those of your fathers but divine'; so that you yourself may not need purification more than Crete does, imagining some Orphic or Epimenidean purifications.
That they used to take part with the wrongdoers
"And why, most wise one, did you say: 'Charilaus and Archelaus, kings of the Lacedaemonians, if they share half the portion of what they acquire with Apollo, it will be much better for them'? And to what other Apollo do you mean? For surely not to yourself, shameless seer, so that no one might rebuke you yourself for sharing so wickedly with robbers. " So let these things stand thus. But come, let us add to them the oracles in which Apollo in turn admires Archilochus, a man who in his own poems used every kind of obscenity and unspeakable language against women, which no self-controlled man would endure even to hear; and Euripides, who fell away from the school and philosophy of Socrates and is even now still played in tragedy on the stage; and Homer besides, whom the noble Plato expels from his own republic as in no way useful, but as the author of words that corrupt the young in the extreme. On these the writer already cited again mocks the oracle-giving god somewhat as follows:
That in accordance with the opinions of the multitude they injudiciously belauded the poets, who had displayed nothing worthy of the philosophical life
"'Immortal and famed in song will your son be among men, Telesicles.' And the son was Archilochus. 'You will have a boy, son of Mnesarchus, whom all men will honor, and he will rush to noble fame, and will put on the sweet grace of sacred crowns.' And the boy was Euripides. And to Homer: 'Your life has received two portions, the one of two darkened suns, the other equal to the immortals, living and dead.' And for this he heard: 'Blessed and ill-starred, for you were born to both.' And it is not a man who says, but one who once insisted, that he, being a god, ought not to care for wretched men. Come then, god, do not neglect us either. For we desire, if we do no wrong, some of us noble fame, some sacred crowns, some an equal portion with the gods, and some immortality itself. What, then, was it for which Archilochus seemed to you worthy of heaven? Do not begrudge, most kind of the gods, the upward road to other men too. What do you bid us do? Or, plainly, the deeds of Archilochus, if we are to appear worthy of your hearth: to revile bitterly the women who will not marry us, and to attack the effeminates too, since they are much worse than other wicked men; and not without meter, for this is the language of the gods, as also of divine men, such as Archilochus. And perhaps there is nothing surprising in that. For through excellence in these things a house is well managed, and a private life well led, and cities and nations stand together in concord and good order. Not unreasonably, then, he seemed to you a servant of the Muses, and his killer unworthy of entering in to you gods, or of hearing your voice, since he had killed a man of song. Not unjust, then, was the threat against Archias, nor untimely the Pythia, avenging Archilochus long dead and ordering the polluted man to leave the temple: 'for he killed the servant of the Muses.' So to me you did not appear improper in defending the poet; for I remembered also the other poet, and the sacred crowns of Euripides, though I was at a loss and wished to hear, not that he was crowned, but how these crowns were sacred; nor that his fame rushed forth, but how it was noble. For he was applauded by the crowds, I know, and pleased tyrants, this too I know; and he practiced a craft for which not only he himself, the lover of it, was admired, but even the city of the Athenians, because it alone produced tragedians. If, then, applause is a sufficient judge, and the table in the acropolis, I say no more, seeing Euripides dining in the acropolis and the people of the Athenians and of the Macedonians applauding together. But if apart from these there is also a vote of the gods, and that a trustworthy one, and no less than that of tyrants or crowds, come, tell us yourself for which of his fine deeds you gods cast your vote for Euripides, so that we may hasten and pursue heaven in the footsteps of your praises. For surely there are even now Sabaei and Lycambae ready to be mocked in comedy, and as for being made tragedies of, neither Thyestes nor Oedipus nor that Phineus would object even now; nor, I think, would they begrudge anyone who desires the friendship of the gods. Rather, it seems to me, they themselves, had they perceived that there would be a Euripides, a man who would become dear to the gods by working them up, would have cared about those evils, and turned not to wiser thinking but to making verses; and, if they heard the names of earlier men full of pomp, they would have used them for the journey to heaven, so as to go and sit on Olympus with the boxers in the court of Zeus; for this is what the poet at Delphi says. Come, let us see also the question of the blessed Homer which he asks the god. Surely it was some heavenly question, able to call the god forth; for otherwise the god would not so readily have called him blessed, and after 'blessed' assigned him this speech: ' You seek your fatherland; but you have a motherland, not a fatherland. In the land of Minos, neither near nor far, it is your lot to end your life, when from the tongue of children you hear and do not understand a song spoken in riddling words.' For it would be terrible, most wise of men, or rather of gods, if a blessed man knew neither where on earth he sprang from his mother nor where he will lie when he has closed his eyes. But I thought it was the same thing for Homer to approach the god about such matters as for one of the beetles, and that the god would no more explain such things unknown to Homer than to a beetle. It is as if a beetle, once born, had not lived and grown old in that dung, but met a hostile wind and a harsh beetle-demon, which lifted it up by force and carried it off to some other land and other dung, and then it came to Delphi and asked which was its ancestral dung, and what land would receive it when dead." So much about the poets.
That they exhorted men to glorify pugilists and athletes with honors equal to those of the gods
But since the wonderful god deified through his oracles not only poets but even boxers and athletes, the writer cited above reasonably, it seems to me, refutes these too, in these words: "'You who know the number of the sand and the measures of the sea, and understand the dumb and hear him who does not speak!' I wish you had been ignorant of all such things, and had known this instead: that boxing differs nothing from kicking, so that you would either make asses immortal too, or not even Cleomedes the boxer of Astypalaea, when you say: 'Last of the heroes is Cleomedes of Astypalaea; honor him with sacrifices, as being no longer mortal.' For why, ancestral interpreter of the Greeks, as Plato calls you, did you deify this man? Was it because at Olympia, striking his opponent with one blow, he opened his side and, thrusting in his hand, seized his lung? Apollo, what a deed worthy of a god! Or not only that, but also because, being fined four talents for it, he did not submit, but in vexation and rage vented his anger on the boys in the school, pulling away the pillar that held up the roof? Is it for this, maker of gods, that Cleomedes is to be honored by you? Or will you add that other proof of his courage and at the same time his love for the gods, that, getting into a sacred chest and pulling the lid down, he could not be caught by his pursuers when they tried to drag him out? Cleomedes, hero no longer mortal, what contrivances you invented for immortality! The gods at once perceived his good deeds and snatched you up, as Homer's gods did Ganymede; but him for his beauty, and you for your strength and your good use of strength. I wish then, seer, as I said, that you had left the sand and the brine and learned instead what boxing is worth, so that you might have counted boxers asses for gods and wild asses the best of gods; and there would have been a fitting oracle on a dead wild ass rather than on your boxer: 'Highest of immortals is the wild ass, not Cleomedes; honor him with sacrifices, as being no longer mortal.' For do not be surprised if a wild ass too lays claim to immortality, being well equipped for divine things; and that on hearing of it he would not bear it, but would threaten to strike Cleomedes himself and throw him into the pit, and would not let him go up to heaven. For he would be worthier than he of the divine gifts themselves, being ready to fight not only him alone, even if he used iron thongs, but also the Thasian boxer, both at once, over whose statue the gods were angry and made the land of the Thasians barren. And about this too we trust not a man but the same god. From which I fully perceived that boxing was, it seems, a divine pursuit, though it had escaped the many and those who think themselves wise, so that, giving up being honorable and good, they might practice the arts of the Thasian boxer, to whom the gods did not give immortality, as to Cleomedes, but loved him greatly. So his bronze statue too showed something beyond the images of other men, falling upon the enemy who was flogging it, by some demonic care, it seems. But the foolish Thasians, inexperienced in divine matters, were indignant, charged the statue with pollution, exacted a penalty, and dared to sink it in the sea. Yet the Thasians did not escape; the gods showed how great an evil they had dared, sending famine, the minister of divine justice, which barely taught them the gods' counsels; and you, kindest of the gods, sent them help in your own fashion, saying: 'Bring the exiles back to their fatherland, and you will reap Demeter.' But the fools again thought they must recall the men who were in exile, ill-informed as they were. For what do the most unkind gods care about the recall of men, compared with that of statues? Of course the land gained nothing by this so as to stop being sick, until one of the wise who knew the divine mind understood that the exile was the statue sunk in the sea. And so it was. For as soon as it was set up again, the land at once flourished again, and they thereafter grew their hair long for Demeter. How, then, are these not clear proofs of god-befitting athletics, that it is honored by the gods? For the gods were angry also over the insulted statue of a pentathlete, and the Locrians starved because of it, like the Thasians, until an oracle of yours healed them, running thus: 'Holding the dishonored one in honor, then you will till the land.' For the Locrians did not perceive the divine intent before you became their patron in this. But they threw Euthycles the pentathlete into prison, accusing him of having taken bribes against his country; and not only this, but after he died they too outraged his images, until the gods, not bearing what was happening, let loose upon them the mightiest famine; and they would have perished by the famine, had not help come from you, saying that they must honor stall-fed men, whom the gods love no less than the oxen fattened by millers, by sacrificing which men sometimes persuade you gods; no less, perhaps, but much more than fat oxen, fat men gladden you, so that you are sometimes angry with a whole city and a whole nation when one or two wrong these cattle of yours. I wish, seer, that you had become a trainer for us instead of a seer, or seer and trainer at once, so that as there is an oracle at Delphi, so there might be a gymnasium too. For it would not be foreign to the Pythian games for the gymnasium also to be Pythian." To these I shall add what he says in refutation, showing how those of whom we speak are accustomed to flatter tyrants too:
That they used to flatter tyrants
"'This man who comes down into my house is Cypselus, son of Eetion, king of famous Corinth.' So tyrants too are blessed, not only those who plot against tyrants: Cypselus, who will bring many woes on Corinth, and Melanippus, who brought many goods to the city of Gela. And how, if Cypselus is blessed, wretch, is not Phalaris blessed too, being of the same character as Cypselus? So that it would be better for you to say: 'Happy were Phalaris and Melanippus, leaders among men of divine discord.' And I heard from you a prose oracle too about Phalaris, praising and honoring him because, when he caught men plotting against him, he tortured them, but admiring their endurance let them go: ' Loxias and father Zeus have voted a postponement of death for Phalaris, because he dealt gently with Chariton and Melanippus.' Well done, and with difficulty you have shown us the truth about death and life, that life is a very fine thing. " To all these let this too be added:
That they told men to worship lifeless matter
"'But it will be much better for the dwellers of Methymna if they honor the phallic head of Dionysus.' For cities sacrifice and hold rites not only for phallic heads of Dionysus, but also for stone, bronze, and golden ones; and not only for phallic ones, but also for the Dionysuses themselves and very many other Hesiodic gods. For truly 'there are thirty thousand on the earth that nourishes so much,' not immortals, but stone and wooden masters of men; who, if they watched over men's insolence and good order, so much nonsense would not have arisen that the evil has now reached even to you, crossing over to Olympus as well, 'where, they say, is the seat of the gods, ever secure.' And yet if it were secure, it would not be accessible to nonsense, nor would any one of the Olympians have come to such madness as to deify an olive trunk which the Methymnaeans drew up caught in the meshes of a net, men casting their nets twice, if you like, and three times and more in the same place, and running aground from there on the Libyan coast, without even casting it out onto the land; since, by Dionysus, it would not otherwise have been caught in their nets again. But the trunk had a head-shaped top (Apollo, what a strange contrivance!). What, then, was it doing in the sea? One might be at a loss. What else, by Zeus, but sitting and waiting until men in their madness (for I will not say gods too) should come upon it and think it fallen not from Zeus but from Poseidon, and then carry it off to the city like some good fortune, though in truth it was bad, not fortune but folly? Or was the folly not enough for them, ruining them from home, but a further load sent for from Delphi strengthened it and stretched it further into god-stricken madness, as one might say?" So much, then, from Oenomaus. But after what has been said, turn again to the Philosophy from Oracles of the man who composed the attack against us, and read from the Pythian's oracles on fate, to see whether the account of the much-talked-of oracles will not strike you too as still more foreign to divine power.
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Preparation for the Gospel, Book 5
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