CHAPTER XI.

And no reasons exist for their subsequent deification, since their aid in Nature is, and always has been, unnecessary; while their gross immoralities would rather condemn them to Tartarus than exalt them to Heaven.

AND since, as you dare not deny that these deities were men, you have decided to assert that they were made gods after their death, let us examine the causes which may have urged this. [38] 

In the first place, indeed, you must allow that there is some superior God, and absolute proprietor of divinity, who made them gods out of men. For neither could they assume to themselves a divinity which they did not possess, nor could any other but he whose peculiar possession it was, give it to them that had it not. If, however, there is no one who made them gods, it is absurd for you to represent them as having been made gods, and at the same time to deny them a maker. Certainly if they could have made themselves gods, they would never have been men; since they would in that case have possessed in themselves the power of enjoying a nobler state of being. If, then, there is any one who makes gods, I turn back to examine the reasons for making gods out of men; nor do I find any, except it be that that great God felt the want of their services and aid in the discharge of his divine duties.

But in the first place it is unworthy of him that he should need the help of any one, and especially of a dead man; since he, who was fated to feel the want of a dead man, might more worthily have created some god from the beginning. Nor do I see any room for such aid. For the whole body of this universe (whether spontaneously generated, as Pythagoras held, or formed and created, as Plato believed) was surely found to have been once for all in its very construction arranged and furnished and ordered under the guidance of an all-embracing plan. That could not be imperfect which perfectly discharged all its functions. Nothing waited for the intervention of [39] Saturn and his race. Men would be fools if they were not quite convinced that from the very beginning the rain has fallen from the sky and the stars have gleamed, and the sun and moon have been bright, and the thunder has muttered, and Jupiter himself has feared those lightnings which you place in his hand. Likewise every kind of fruit sprang forth abundantly from the earth before Bacchus and Ceres and Minerva, nay, even before the time of the very first man; for nothing that was devised for the preservation and support of man could be introduced after man himself.

Lastly, the gods are said to have discovered those necessaries of life, not to have made them. But that which is discovered must already be in existence; and therefore will not be accounted his who discovered it, but his who made it. For it was in existence before it could be discovered. If, however, Bacchus be a god because he first pointed out the use of the vine, Lucullus, who first introduced the cherry into Italy from Pontus, has been unfairly treated, in that he has not been on that account deified, as the author of a new fruit, because its discoverer and notifier.

Wherefore, if the universe has been established from the beginning both furnished and ordered on fixed plans for the discharge of its proper functions, no reason exists from this point of view for electing men into the rank of gods; because the positions and powers which you assign to them have existed just as much from the beginning as they would have [40] done even had you not created those gods of yours.

But you turn to another reason, and reply that divinity was conferred upon them as the reward of their merits. And with this statement you will of course grant that that god-making Deity is conspicuous for justice, and would not rashly nor unworthily nor prodigally dispense so great a reward.

I want therefore to review their merits, and to see if they are of such a kind as should exalt them to Heaven, and not rather plunge them down to the lowest Tartarus, which you, with many ²⁹, affirm to be the prison house of infernal punishments. For thither the impious are accustomed to be thrust, and such as have committed incest with parents or sisters, and adulterers, and ravishers of virgins, and corruptors of boys, and the passionate, and murderers, and thieves, and deceivers, and whosoever resemble some god of yours, not one of whom could you prove free from crime or vice, unless you deny that he was a man. And yet, though you cannot deny them to have been men, there are those infamous marks in addition which forbid our believing them to have been deified afterwards. For if you judicially preside for the punishment of such men,—if such as are upright amongst you decline the society, conversation, and intimacy of the wicked and base, but yet that great [41] God has admitted such beings to a partnership in his own majesty,—why do you condemn those whose fellows in sin you worship? Your administration of justice is an affront upon heaven. To please your gods you must deify all your greatest criminals; for the deification of their fellows is an honour to them.

But not to dwell upon the question of their unworthiness, let us suppose that they were upright and pure and good. How many better men, nevertheless, have you left in the lower world? some Socrates in wisdom, some Aristides in justice, some Themistocles in military skill, some Alexander in magnanimity, some Polycrates in happiness, some Crcesus in wealth, some Demosthenes in eloquence! Which of those gods of yours was graver and wiser than Cato, juster and more strict than Scipio? which was more magnanimous than Pompey, more successful than Sulla, wealthier than Crassus, more eloquent than Cicero? How much more worthily would that great God have waited for such men as these to be called up into the rank of gods, especially as he must have had foreknowledge of these nobler characters! He was hasty, I suppose, and closed the entrance to heaven once for all; and now doubtless blushes to see better men murmuring with indignation in the realm below. [42]