Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XLV

by Arnobius

45. Judge fairly, and you are deserving of censure in this,^[1] that in your common conversation you name Mars when you mean^[2] fighting, Neptune when you mean the seas, Ceres when you mean bread, Minerva when you mean weaving,^[3] Venus when you mean filthy lusts. For what reason is there, that, when things can be classed under their own names, they should be called by the names of the gods, and that such an insult should be offered to the deities as not even we men endure, if any one applies and turns our names to trifling objects? But language, you say, is contemptible, if defiled with such words.^[4] O modesty,^[5] worthy of praise! you blush to name bread and wine, and are not afraid to speak of Venus instead of carnal intercourse!

Footnotes

1. Lit., “are in this part of censure.”
2. Lit., “for.”
3. Lit., “the warp,” stamine.
4. i.e., if things are spoken of under their proper names.
5. The ms. reads ac unintelligibly.