Chapter 14: The Progress of Idolatry into Complete Confusion

The progress of idolatry into complete confusion — Peculiar gods of the nations adopted by the nations themselves — The apotheoses of many — The deification of Alexander among the Lacedaemonians — The fable about Tiberius wishing to reckon Christ among the number of the Roman gods — In fashioning images and in depicting gods, contempt for all religion — The madness of the Egyptians — Penalties established by law against foreign gods, inflicted only upon worshipers of the one true God — The truly golden words of Justin Martyr.

I. We speak of those whom the crowd of idolaters, with consenting votes, have religiously venerated in general and in common throughout nearly the entire world. As polytheism grew stronger, every nation, every city, all peoples adopted whatever gods they wished for themselves. Seriously, in jest, publicly, privately, from ancient tradition, by present authority, by vain affections — an exceedingly abundant crop of divinities sprang up everywhere. Pausanias, in his Attica, book i, reports these origins of new gods: "The Oropians were the first of all to reckon Amphiaraus among the gods; the rest of the Greeks later followed them. I can also enumerate others whom the Greeks honored with divine honors, though they had previously been men, and to whom cities were even dedicated." For the custom ultimately prevailed everywhere that whoever had pleased men should be a god; for every people had the right to reckon whomever they wished among the number of the gods. And from this arose no small controversy between the Roman tax-collectors and the Greeks. For since the censorial law had provided that the lands of the immortal gods should pay no tribute, the tax-collectors vigorously denied that any who had once been men were immortal — as Marcus Tullius testifies, in book iii of On the Nature of the Gods. II. Alexander also, Caligula, Claudius, Domitian, and other monsters of wickedness wished to be reckoned as living gods, perhaps unconcerned because they would be dead in the underworld. Callisthenes elegantly ridicules this madness in Curtius: "So then," he says, "you and I, Cleo, make gods? Is the king about to receive the authority of his divinity from us? I should like to test your power — make someone a king, if you can make someone a god; it is easier to give dominion than heaven." Qu. Curt. lib. viii. cap. v. Force was threatened against the Lacedaemonians for refusing the right of deity, until he was admitted by that custom which Cicero — who so vigorously attacks the Clodian dedication of his house — would deny to be lawful. "Since," they said, "Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god." The Athenians also at that time fined the orator Demades ten talents, because he had attempted to persuade them to acknowledge Alexander as a god — as

Athenaeus testifies, lib. v., although these same Athenians afterward paid divine honors to Demetrius Poliorcetes, a man of far smaller worth than Alexander, while he was still living and present. The apotheosis of Claudius vanished at the sound of thunder; for fleeing into his tent, he said, "This is a god, not Claudius."

III. From this custom prevailing among the nations arose the fable that Tiberius had attempted to reckon Christ among the number of the Roman gods, but that, the senate opposing, he had abandoned the proposal. Would that it had never occurred to good men to spread abroad fables of this kind; may God not permit anyone hereafter to give credence to them.

IV. Kings, and also Roman emperors, reckoned whomever they wished in the register of the gods; all of them after Julius were judged by the senate to be either gods or enemies — hence the dying jest of Vespasian: "I think I am becoming a god." Moreover, one who was to be regarded as a god commonly needed to die while still wearing the purple; hence Eutropius, concerning Diocletian: "It befell him, what had befallen no one since men were born, that though he died a private citizen, he was nevertheless numbered among the deified." Yet this is not altogether true. Alexander ordered divine honors to be paid to his friend Hephaestion, and sacrifices to be offered — Curt. lib. x. And Antoninus Caracalla himself, a monster of a man, was placed among the gods by Macrinus, who had killed him, as Aelius Spartianus testifies. Concerning Hadrian — first sacrificing Antinous his favorite, that he might use his entrails for complete victory and union, then reckoning him among the gods, and everywhere setting up images of him — there is a dreadful account in Dio, Hist. lib. lxix., which impiety Clement in his Exhortation and Tertullian in his Apology rightly attack. It was also permitted to private individuals to worship privately whomever they wished. This is attested by Cornelia's saying to her son Gaius Gracchus: "When I am dead, you will perform the funeral rites for me and invoke the divine shades of a parent; at that time let it not shame you to seek the prayers of those gods whom you had abandoned and forsaken while they were living and present."

V. Indeed, the contempt for all religion and for all notions of deity had progressed so far that it became at last a kind of sport to mix the most shameful crimes with the most disgraceful superstitions. The reader may see what outrages they employed in fashioning and painting images of the gods, in Pliny, lib. xxxv., cap. ix. x. Nothing was more customary for painters (of whom Cicero says, "We know all the gods with that countenance which painters and sculptors desired") than to paint goddesses with the likenesses of harlots whom they admired; which Arellius did, who was always burning with love for some woman. And the image which Clodius consecrated in the house of Cicero, under the name of the Goddess of Liberty, Cicero himself proves, in his Oration to the Pontiffs in Defense of His House, to have been a Tanagran harlot. Thus nowhere more than in religion itself do they appear to have cast off every sense of religion. And so the ancient serpent triumphed over a vanquished human race; nor was it enough for him to hold them in bondage, unless he also held his captives up to mockery and set them fighting among themselves —

260 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY, [BOOK III. — and driven them against one another with arms and foul war, for the sake of the most foolish superstitions. Such is that remarkable testimony to the blindness and misery of humanity laboring under the yoke of Satan, which the Satirist exhibits — concerning neighboring peoples of Egypt, as he says — in Sat. xv, v. 33–38. The crocodile, cause of war:—

"Among neighboring peoples an old and ancient rivalry, an immortal hatred, and a wound never to be healed, still burns between Ombos and Tentyra. The utmost rage on either side among the common people arises from this — that each place hates the gods of its neighbors, since each believes that only those gods which it itself worships are to be reckoned as gods." He writes, moreover, that both peoples continued this battle, taken up for this cause, until the conquerors ate the conquered — ibid. 77–83:—

"Here a certain man, headlong in flight from excessive terror, stumbles and is captured; but him, cut into many pieces and fragments so that one dead man might suffice for many, the victorious crowd devoured whole, gnawing the bones — nor did they cook him in a boiling cauldron or on spits: they considered it far too long and slow to wait for fires, content with the raw corpse."

I am persuaded that the poet has recorded this incredible savagery of the Egyptians with almost historical credibility, both by the innate and still blind rage of very many persons over disputes concerning matters of almost no moment in religion, and by the crimes of some persons of nearly the same kind which they themselves, being Christians in name only, have perpetrated against innocent professors of the Christian religion.

VI. But however the idolaters have waged quarrels and enmities among themselves, they all appear to have conspired in this one thing: to despise the one true God and His worship. Although there was a law at Athens that no one should worship an unlawful deity, and a law of the Twelve Tables at Rome that "no one should have gods separately, nor worship privately any new or foreign gods, except those publicly adopted" — yet no one can be found who was prosecuted for violation of religion on account of worshiping any other god besides those who were publicly adopted, except the one who worshiped the one true God. (The sole exception is Socrates, whose accusation was: "Socrates does wrong in not acknowledging the gods the city acknowledges, and in introducing other new divine beings.") But when Christianity began to arise, the madness of men and the envy of Satan broke out most violently. Justin, the most ancient Christian writer, most elegantly reproaches these emperors — who fancied themselves philosophers — for this blindness and rage; and it is fitting to close this digression with his truly golden words. He says: "We alone are put to death for the name of Christ, though we have done no wrong, while those who worship trees and rivers, fire and earth, birds and beasts, and images formed by human hands — and yet not the same things as all others, but different things in different places, so that their worship differs from one another, though all worship the same material things — this alone is charged against us,

that we do not worship the same gods as they — therefore they drive us to death and

...and in writings being observed, and we offer sacrifices — for not from the same source, among those...

...among some, gods to us; among others, beasts; among still others, things regarded as customary sacrificial offerings — mark this well: "We alone are assailed with hatred on account of the name of Christ; and although we commit nothing against the laws, we are dragged to death as sinners; while others in various places worship trees, and rivers, and mice, and cats, and crocodiles, and many of the irrational animals. And indeed not the same things among all, but different things in different places, so that in the aggregate they are impious toward one another, because they do not worship the same sacred rites. Yet this one charge you have to bring against us as a crime: that we do not worship the same gods as you, nor offer libations to the dead, nor the savor of fat, nor garlands and victims to images and statues — though you certainly know that the same animals are, among some, divine beings; among others, wild beasts; among still others, sacrificial victims."