This custom is not new, nor did it begin with the Roman Senate. It existed long before and was already being practiced in preparation for the conception of idols. For the gods celebrated among the Greeks from ancient times—Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, and among the females Hera, Demeter, Athena, and Artemis—were decreed by the ordinances of Theseus, whom Greek history records, to be called gods. Those who issued the decree die as human beings and are mourned, while those whom they decreed are worshiped as gods. What great contradiction and madness! They know the one who issued the decree, yet they honor those whom he decreed above him. If only this madness of idolatry had stopped with males and they had not brought the divine title down to females as well.
For they worship and revere with the honor due to God even women whom it is not even considered safe to admit to common deliberation about public affairs. Such were the women appointed by Theseus, as we said before; among the Egyptians there are Isis, Kore, and Neotera, and among others Aphrodite. As for the names of the rest, I do not consider it fitting even to mention them, since they are full of every kind of mockery.
Many people, not only in ancient times but also in our own, after losing those dearest to them—brothers, relatives, and wives, and many women after losing husbands, all of whom nature showed to be mortal human beings—had them portrayed because of their great grief, devised sacrifices, and dedicated them. Later generations, because of the workmanship and the artist’s ambition, worshiped them as gods, doing something contrary to nature.
For their parents mourned them precisely because they were not gods. If they had known them to be gods, they would not have lamented them as having perished. Indeed, it was for this reason that, not only not regarding them as gods but believing that they no longer existed at all, they represented them in an image, so that by seeing in the image a semblance of those who no longer existed they might console themselves. Yet fools pray to these as gods and give them the honor that belongs to the true God.
Even now in Egypt the lament for the loss of Osiris, Horus, Typhon, and the others is still performed. The bronze cauldrons at Dodona and the Corybantes in Crete expose Zeus as no god but a human being, and one born of a cannibal father. And what is remarkable is that even Plato, who is considered very wise among the Greeks and boasted greatly of having reflected on God, goes down to Piraeus with Socrates to worship Artemis, an image fashioned by human art.
This custom is not new, nor did it begin with the Roman Senate. It existed long before and was already being practiced in preparation for the conception of idols. For the gods celebrated among the Greeks from ancient times—Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, and among the females Hera, Demeter, Athena, and Artemis—were decreed by the ordinances of Theseus, whom Greek history records, to be called gods. Those who issued the decree die as human beings and are mourned, while those whom they decreed are worshiped as gods. What great contradiction and madness! They know the one who issued the decree, yet they honor those whom he decreed above him.
If only this madness of idolatry had stopped with males and they had not brought the divine title down to females as well.
For they worship and revere with the honor due to God even women whom it is not even considered safe to admit to common deliberation about public affairs. Such were the women appointed by Theseus, as we said before; among the Egyptians there are Isis, Kore, and Neotera, and among others Aphrodite. As for the names of the rest, I do not consider it fitting even to mention them, since they are full of every kind of mockery.
Many people, not only in ancient times but also in our own, after losing those dearest to them—brothers, relatives, and wives, and many women after losing husbands, all of whom nature showed to be mortal human beings—had them portrayed because of their great grief, devised sacrifices, and dedicated them. Later generations, because of the workmanship and the artist’s ambition, worshiped them as gods, doing something contrary to nature.
For their parents mourned them precisely because they were not gods. If they had known them to be gods, they would not have lamented them as having perished. Indeed, it was for this reason that, not only not regarding them as gods but believing that they no longer existed at all, they represented them in an image, so that by seeing in the image a semblance of those who no longer existed they might console themselves. Yet fools pray to these as gods and give them the honor that belongs to the true God.
Even now in Egypt the lament for the loss of Osiris, Horus, Typhon, and the others is still performed. The bronze cauldrons at Dodona and the Corybantes in Crete expose Zeus as no god but a human being, and one born of a cannibal father. And what is remarkable is that even Plato, who is considered very wise among the Greeks and boasted greatly of having reflected on God, goes down to Piraeus with Socrates to worship Artemis, an image fashioned by human art.