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Eusebius Pamphilii of Caesarea
On the Theophania
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  • THE SECOND BOOK AGAINST THE PHILOSOPHERS.
    • 15
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15. Nor was it this only, but also, the very men who rejected the gods mentioned (above), preached up, by means of hymns, elegies, sacrifices, mysteries, books, and votive offerings to Idols, that Father and Leader of all the Gods, who was overcome by bodily lust, and fell in love with Ganymede27: and, as it were in emulation of their Gods, they transgressed the bounds of nature, and remained in this excess, at a distance not to be described, or (received) as real into the hearing. They fearlessly abused each other, as the Divine declarations affirm : "Man with man working that which was shameful, and receiving in themselves the return of reward, which was due to their error28''.



27. 5 The well-known rape of Ganymede, son of Tros king of Phrygia. Ovid. Met. x. 155. shortly details the matter thus: " Rex Superum Phrygii quondam Ganymedis amore Arsit: et inventum est aliquid, quod Jupiter esse, Quam quod erat, mallet." See also Lactantius de falsa Relig. Lib. i. cap. x. p. 34. Edit. 1698. "Illud vero summae impietatis ac sceleris, quod regium puerum rapuit ad stuprum:" seq. See also Clemens Alexand., who recites several such cases. Ib. Theodoret. Graec. affect. curat. Serm. iii. p. 520. seq. And Arnobius adversus Gentes, Lib. i. p. 165. seq. Edit. 1604.



28. 6 Rom. i. 27. Our text differs so much from the Peschito, as to warrant the assumption, that it was translated for the occasion. It stands thus: [Syriac]. This place occurs in the Orat. de laudd. Constant, cap. xiii. p. 535. A. That our author has not overstated this matter, is evident from many ancient writers of the greatest respectability. The following is from Cicero, De Nat. Deorum. i. 16. " Exposui fere, non philosophorum judicia, sed delirantium somnia. Nec enim multo absurdiora sunt ea, quae Poetarum vocibus fusa, ipsa suavitate nocuerunt; qui et ira inflammatos et libidine furentes induxerunt Deos, feceruntque, ut eorum bella, pugnas, proelia, vulnera, videremus ; odia praeterea, dissidia, discordias, ortus, interitus, querelas, lamentationes, effusas in omni intemperantia libidines, adulteria, vincula, cum humano genere concubitus, mortalesque ex immortali procreates." Nor, according to Cicero himself, were the philosophers in any respect better. Compare the first few sections of the work, De Natura Deorum. To the same effect, Porphyry in the Prep. Evang. Lib. iv. cap. xxii. p. 172. D. And ib. Lib. xii. cap. xlix. p. 618. Origen contra Cels. Lib. vii. p. 365. Plato in his Republics, Lib. x.— Much of this noxious sort of matter is to be found in some of the Classic authors still extant, and which are too often put into the hands of our youth, e. g. The Comedies of Plautus, Terence, and Aristophanes; the Epigrams, &c. of Martial and Ausonius, &c.—See Theophilus ad Autolycum, Lib. iii. p. 142. seq.





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