Letters to Dead Authors | ||
XVI.
To Eusebius of Caesarea.
(Concerning the Gods of the Heathen.)
Touching the Gods of the Heathen, most reverend Father, thou art not ignorant that even now, as in the time of thy probation on earth, there is great dissension. That these feigned Deities and idols, the work of men's hands, are no longer worshipped thou knowest; neither do men eat meat offered to idols. Even as spoke that last Oracle which murmured forth, the latest and the only true voice from Delphi, even so 'the fair-wrought court divine hath fallen; no more hath Phoebus his home, no more his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of water; nay, the sweet-voiced water is silent.' The fane is ruinous, and the images of men's idolatry are dust.
Nevertheless, most worshipful, men do still dispute about the beginnings of those sinful Gods,
Thus, like the heathen, our doctors and teachers maintain that the Gods of the nations were, in the beginning, such pure natural creatures as the blue sky, the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and the fire; but, as time went on, men, forgetting the meaning of their own speech and no longer understanding the tongue of their own fathers, were
Behold, then, most worshipful, how these doctors and learned men argue, even like the philosophers of the heathen whom thou didst confound. For they declare the Gods to have been natural elements, sun and sky and storm, even as did thy opponents; and, like them, as thou saidst, 'they are nowise at one with each other in their explanations.' For of old some boasted that Hera was the Air; and some that she signified the love of woman and man; and some that she was the waters above the Earth; and others that she was the Earth beneath the waters; and yet others that she was the Night, for that Night is the shadow of Earth: as if, forsooth, the men who first worshipped Hera had understanding of these things! And when Hera and Zeus quarrel unseemly (as Homer declareth), this meant (said the learned in thy days) no more than the strife and confusion of the elements, and was not in the beginning an idle slanderous tale.
To all which, most worshipful, thou didst answer wisely: saying that Hera could not be both night, and earth, and water, and air, and the love of sexes, and the confusion of the elements; but that all these opinions were vain dreams, and the guesses of the learned. And why--thou saidst--
To all this and more, most worshipful Father, I know not what the heathen answered thee. But, in our time, the learned men who stand to it that the heathen Gods were in the beginning the pure elements, and that the nations, forgetting their first love and the significance of their own speech, became confused and were betrayed into foul stories about the pure Gods--these learned men, I say, agree no whit among themselves. Nay, they differ one from another, not less than did Plutarch and Porphyry and Theagenes, and the rest whom thou didst laugh to scorn. Bear with me, Father, while I tell thee how the new Plutarchs and Porphyrys do contend among themselves; and yet these differences of theirs they call 'Science'!
Consider the goddess Athene, who sprang armed from the head of Zeus, even as--among the fables
Yet this same doctor candidly lets us know that another of his nation, the witty Benfeius, hath devised another sense and origin of Athene, taken from the speech of the old Medes. But Muellerus declares to us that whosoever shall examine the contention of Benfeius 'will be bound, in common honesty, to confess that it is untenable.' This, Father, is one for Benfeius, as the saying goes. And as Muellerus holds that these matters 'admit of almost mathematical precision,' it would seem that Benfeius is but a Dummkopf, as the Alemanni say, in their own language, when they would be pleasant among themselves.
Now, wouldst thou credit it? despite the mathematical plainness of the facts, other Alemanni agree neither with Muellerus, nor yet with Benfeius, and will neither hear that Athene was the Dawn, nor yet that she is 'the feminine of the Zend Thra'eta'na athwya'na.' Lo, you! how Prellerus goes about to show that her name is drawn not from Ahana' and the old Brachmanae, nor athwya'na and the old Medes, but from 'the root aith*, whence aither*, the air, or ath*, whence anthos*, a flower.' Yea, and Prellerus will have it that no man knows the verity of this matter. None the
Now, Father, as if all this were not enough, comes one Roscherus in, with a mighty great volume on the Gods, and Furtwaenglerus, among others, for his ally. And these doctors will neither with Rueckertus and Hermannus, take Athene for 'wisdom in person;' nor with Welckerus and Prellerus, for 'the goddess of air;' nor even, with Muellerus and mathematical certainty, for 'the Morning-Red:' but they say that Athene is the 'black thunder-cloud, and the lightning that leapeth therefrom'! I make no doubt that other Alemanni are of other minds: quot Alemanni tot sententiae.
Yea, as thou saidst of the learned heathen, Oude gar allelois symphona physiologousis. Yet these disputes of theirs they call 'Science'! But if any man says to the learned: 'Best of men, you are erudite, and laborious and witty; but, till you are more of the same mind, your opinions cannot be styled knowledge. Nay, they are at present of no avail whereon to found any doctrine concerning the Gods'--that man is railed at for his 'mean' and 'weak' arguments.
Was it thus, Father, that the heathen railed against thee? But I must still believe, with thee, that these evil tales of the Gods were invented 'when man's life was yet brutish and wandering'
Letters to Dead Authors | ||