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

by Arnobius

23. I should wish, therefore, to see Jupiter, the father of the gods, who ever controls the world and men,^[1] adorned with the horns of an ox, shaking his hairy ears, with his feet contracted into hoofs, chewing green grass, and having behind him^[2] a tail, hams,^[3] and ankles smeared over with soft excrement,^[4] and bedaubed with the filth cast forth. I should wish, I say,—for it must be said over and over again,—to see him who turns the stars in their courses, and who terrifies and overthrows nations pale with fear, pursuing the flocks of wethers, inspicientem testiculos aretinos, snatching these away with that severe^[5] and divine hand with which he was wont to launch the gleaming lightnings and to hurl in his rage the thunderbolt.^[6] Then, indeed, I should like to see him ransacking their inmost parts with glowing knife;^[7] and all witnesses being removed, tearing away the membranes circumjectas prolibus, and bringing them to his mother, still hot with rage, as a kind of fillet^[8] to draw forth her pity, with downcast countenance, pale, wounded,^[9] pretending to be in agony; and to make this believed, defiled with the blood of the ram, and covering his pretended wound with bands of wool and linen. Is it possible that this can be heard and read in this world,^[10] and that those who discuss these things wish themselves to be thought pious, holy, and defenders of religion? Is there any greater sacrilege than this, or can any mind^[11] be found so imbued with impious ideas as to believe such stories, or receive them, or hand them down in the most secret mysteries of the sacred rites? If that Jupiter of whom you speak, whoever he is, really^[12] existed, or was affected by any sense of wrong, would it not be fitting that,^[13] roused to anger, he should remove the earth from under our feet, extinguish the light of the sun and moon; nay more, that he should throw all things into one mass, as of old?^[14]

Footnotes

1. This clearly refers to the Æneid, x. 18.
2. Lit., “on the rear part.”
3. Suffragines.
4. So the margin of Ursinus, Elmenh. L.B., Oberth., Orelli, and Oehler, reading molli fimo for the ms. molissimo.
5. Lit., “censorial.”
6. Lit., “rage with thunders.”
7. So Gelenius, followed by Stewechius and Orelli, reading smilia for the corrupt and unintelligible ms. nullas.
8. Infulæ, besides being worn by the priest, adorned the victim, and were borne by the suppliant. Perhaps a combination of the two last ideas is meant to be suggested here.
9. i.e., seemingly so.
10. Lit., “under this axis of the world.”
11. So the ms., followed by Hild. and Oehler; the other edd. reading gens for mens.
12. Lit., “felt himself to be.”
13. Lit., “would the thing not be worthy that angry and roused.”
14. i.e., reduce to chaos, in which one thing would not be distinguished from another, but all be mixed up confusedly.