Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book III/Chapter XLIII

by Arnobius

43. For if this deity^[1] requires a black, that^[2] a white skin; if sacrifice must be made to this one with veiled, to that with uncovered head;^[3] this one is consulted about marriages,^[4] the other relieves distresses,—may it not be of some importance whether the one or the other is Novensilis, since ignorance of the facts and confusion of persons displeases the gods, and leads necessarily to the contraction of guilt? For suppose that I myself, to avoid some inconvenience and peril, make supplication to any one of these deities, saying, Be present, be near, divine Penates, thou Apollo, and thou, O Neptune, and in your divine clemency turn away all these evils, by which I am annoyed,^[5] troubled, and tormented: will there be any hope that I shall receive help from them, if Ceres, Pales, Fortune, or the genius Jovialis,^[6] not Neptune and Apollo, shall be the dii Penates? Or if I invoked the Curetes instead of the Lares, whom some of your writers maintain to be the Digiti Samothracii, how shall I enjoy their help and favour, when I have not given them their own names, and have given to the others names not their own? Thus does our interest demand that we should rightly know the gods, and not hesitate or doubt about the power, the name of each; lest,^[7] if they be invoked with rites and titles not their own, they have at once their ears stopped against our prayers, and hold us involved in guilt which may not be forgiven.

Footnotes

1. The dii inferi.
2. The dii superi.
3. Saturn and Hercules were so worshipped.
4. Apollo.
5. The ms., first five edd., and Oehler read terreor—“terrified;” the others tor., as above, from the conjecture of Gifanius.
6. Cf. ch. 40, note 21. It may further be observed that the Etruscans held that the superior and inferior gods and men were linked together by a kind of intermediate beings, through whom the gods took cognizance of human affairs, without themselves descending to earth. These were divided into four classes, assigned to Tina (Jupiter), Neptune, the gods of the nether world, and men respectively.
7. So LB., Hild., and Oehler, reading nomine ne; all others ut, the ms. having no conjunction.