5. Chapter IV. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry — Chapter II
Chapter IV. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry — Chapter II C ol. 3:11 — The distinction of various religions by Epiphanius — The two kinds of idolatry: Sabaism and Hellenism — The peculiar superstition of the Druids — The beginning of idolatry in the worship of the heavenly bodies, Job 31:26-28 — The exposition of the ancients noted —
The time when Job lived — The beginning of error in the seduction of the heart, Deut. 11:16 — The manner of the most ancient worship — What adoratio [adoration] is — Religious salutation — The ἔκστασις [ecstasy] of Socrates — Catulus — Pompey — The kiss — Religious adoration, Ps. 2:12
— The Septuagint version noted — Jerome on Hos. 13:2 — ἐνστάσις [objections] against adoration by kisses: from Pliny, Apuleius, Lucian,
Minucius Felix — The rationale of the bowing of the body in adoration — The first sacrifices to idols without blood — The opinion of Porphyry — A reconciliation of opinions concerning the origin of sacrifices, Gen. 4:4;
8:20 — The offering of fruits added to adoration, Hos. 2:8 — The origin of other ceremonies — The nature and desert of idolatry — The Egyptians the first worshippers of the stars — The Chaldaeans join them; and the
Persians — Whether the sun was the only God of the Persians — The opinion of Herodotus — The number of gods continually increased with the passing of time — Writers of the history of the Magi — The custom of the Greeks and Romans in recording the gods of other nations — The gods of the Germans and Gauls — Tacitus noted — The sun the most ancient god of the Carthaginians — Also of the Greeks, as Plato testifies — The rationale of the positioning of sacred places — The first beginnings of idolatry — The foolishness and blasphemies of Cardanus — Nimrod among the builders of the tower of Babel — The triflings of the Jews — The catholicism of solar worship and its πολυωνυμία [multiplicity of names].
I. The apostle Paul teaches in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians that in Jesus Christ there is neither Greek, nor Jew, nor Barbarian, nor Scythian. From this, Epiphanius elicits various species of religions, Against Heresies, Bk. I: Βαρβαρισμόν [Barbarism], Σκυθισμόν
[Scythism], Ἑλληνισμόν [Hellenism], and Ἰουδαϊσμόν [Judaism]. He writes that Βαρβαρισμός prevailed from Adam to Noah; Σκυθισμός from Noah to the age of Serug, at which time Ἑλληνισμός was introduced; and he traces the beginning of Judaism from the circumcision of Abraham. Since moreover he places the entrance of idolatry into the world after the flood, it is plain that by Βαρβαρισμός he understands that ferocity of manners and violence which brought the antediluvian world to ruin. He places the distinction between Σκυθισμός and Ἑλληνισμός in this: that ἀγαλματοποιΐα
[image-making] was introduced by the latter, of which the former was destitute. Whether he distinguished these rightly or not, let others judge;
Petavius denies it in his Annotations on the passage. We establish that there were two kinds of all that idolatrous worship which occupied almost the whole world — one of which may be called Sabaism, the other Hellenism.
But since there were many peculiarities in the superstition of the Druids, we shall narrate that separately in a few words. Sabaism consisted in the worship and religion of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars; Hellenism added to it the veneration of deceased men and daemons. The adoration of images, statues, and stars was common to both. But the crowd of idolaters first venerated the heavens before the fictitious heavenly inhabitants. In Sabaism therefore — that is, in the worship of celestial things — idolatry had its beginning. We shall first prove this. Then we shall briefly show what handles of corrupt superstition the human race seized upon; by what vain reasonings Satan allured men into fraud and error; and, so far as we can attain by conjecture, we shall designate the time of the origin of this most pernicious error.
II. All the monuments of past things prove that idolatry planted its beginning in the world in the worship of heaven and the sun. For there exist in the Old Testament, beyond all credibility of profane history and the most ancient memory of things among the nations, illustrious testimonies of this wickedness. To this end, the most ancient writer — whether this was
Moses, which is most probable, or another divine man of the same age, through whom the Holy Spirit entrusted the history of Job to the faith of the church — reports the apologetic words of that most holy man: ch. 31:26-28,
"If I beheld the sun when it shone, and the moon walking in brightness; and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand — this also would be an iniquity to be judged, for I should have denied God above." With their leave, let me say that what Chrysostom, Nilus,
Olympiodorus, and other ancients comment on this passage is most absurd.
They deny that idolatry is here treated, and maintain that Job, when he denies that his mouth kissed his hand, wished to signify that he never felt so
arrogantly about his virtues and works — which he denotes by the sun — or about the fame of his name — which he assigns to the moon — as to have his mouth kiss his hand, as if he had accomplished by himself whatever power or ability he possessed. Absurd, I say, these things are, repugnant both to the scope of the passage and to the words themselves. The holy man is most plainly treating of the worship of the heavenly bodies. And while he carefully repels this crime from himself, he makes it plain that very many others at that time were engaged in it. Job lived, after the Babylonian dispersion, in the year 350 — that is, about the year of the world 2100. The words show that in that century the superstition had made progress and spread itself far and wide. But Job ascribes the beginning of the error to the seduction of the heart.
Elsewhere also the Holy Spirit uncovers this fountain of idolatry, Deut.
11:16: "Take heed to yourself lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods." All other things are naturally fitted to point to the true God; the whole danger lies in the human heart alone. Therefore, deceived by the appearance of empty reasonings — which would have had no force unless they had first been wholly turned away from the love of God and of spiritual things — the most ancient idolaters first secretly, then openly, religiously venerated the sun and moon. The shadows of those reasonings we shall set out in the next chapter. The manner of worship which he mentions is simple adoration. Now adoration is a religious salutation performed by raising the hand to the mouth. In this the error of the heart first expressed itself; other religious ceremonies being gradually introduced. So Plato narrates that Socrates used to salute the sun, and sometimes fell into ἔκστασιν [ecstasy] in that worship. The superstition having grown to an immense size, yet that simple adoration endured
through all the centuries of ancient ignorance. Catulus, in Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, Bk. I, ch. 28:
"I had stopped by chance to salute the rising dawn, When Roscius suddenly rises on my left."
For they venerated the rising sun especially. Hence the scornful jibe of Pompey directed at the declining dominion of Sulla: Τὸν ἥλιον ἀνατέλλοντα πλείονες, ἢ δυόμενον, προσκυνοῦσιν — "More men adore the rising than the setting sun," Plutarch, Life of Pompey. And from this, temples were built looking toward the rising of the sun. Nor does the custom — ancient enough among superstitious Christians — of bowing toward the east and worshipping come from any other source; although other reasons are put forward for that superstitious worship, which are all plainly futile.
III. Furthermore: Job denies that his hand was put to his mouth to kiss it, or that he pressed kisses upon it. For the kiss was also the pledge and sign of religious worship. So the Psalmist, Ps. 2:12: ַנְּׁשקּו־ַבר — "Kiss the Son"
— that is, worship with religious homage. The Septuagint corrupts the sense of the passage, rendering the words Δράξασθε παιδείας [Lay hold of discipline], which the Vulgate translator follows. Jerome acknowledges that religious worship is intended, and therefore renders the words "Worship purely." To venerate idols also with kisses was once and still is customary:
Hos. 13:2, ֶעְגִלים ִיָּׁשקּון — "Let them kiss calves" — that is, adore them; as the same Jerome says in Against Rufinus, Bk. I. "The images of Hercules,"
Cicero says in Against Verres, IV, "they were accustomed not only to venerate but also to kiss." "In adoring we bring the right hand to the kiss, and turn the whole body round," as Pliny, Bk. XXVIII, ch. 2. Plutarch, in his Life of Numa, gives the reason for this turning or bowing of the body.
He says it was Numa's institution τὸ προσκυνεῖν περιστρεφομένους [to adore while turning around]. He adds: Ἡ δὲ περιστροφὴ τῶν προσκυνούντων, λέγεται μὲν ἀπομίμησις εἶναι τῆς τοῦ κόσμου περιφορᾶς
— "The turning of those who adore is said to be an image of the revolution of the world" — or of the circuit of the heavens which the sun performs.
But this bowing of the body appears to have been introduced after temples looking toward the east were built. For since those who adored the idols in them were compelled to bow toward the west, they turned the body around in order to show that they principally intended the sun. Lucian, On Dancing, affirms that the Indians added leaping dances to kisses in adoration. Apuleius also, Bk. IV, The Golden Ass, speaking of a beautiful maiden whom they admired as a goddess: "Many of the citizens," he says,
"applying their right hand to their lips with the forefinger resting upon the upright thumb, were worshipping her with religious adorations as if she were the very goddess Venus herself." After images were set up, they kissed the images themselves; but in the worship of the heavenly bodies — namely the sun and moon — being absent, they were accustomed only to raise the hand to the mouth; and also other images, when in passing it was not permitted to devote leisure to religion. So Minucius Felix, noting that Caecilius had bowed to an image of Serapis, "had raised his hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss upon his lips."
IV. As yet — that is, in the age of Job — sacrifice had not been made to the sun with horses, bats, mice, and other creeping things of which Maimonides treats, More Nevukhim, Pt. III, ch. 29, or with grain — much less with human blood, which came later. Simple adoration — that is, the worship of the heart expressing itself only in the actions and bowings of the body — was followed by offerings of the fruits of the earth. For to this
extent we agree with the opinion of Porphyry in his second book On Abstinence from Animals. The first sacrifices offered to idols did not consist of animals and blood, but of the fruits of the earth. It is most certain that the first sacrifice pleasing to God was bloody, Gen. 4:4; also after the flood,
Gen. 8:20. Nor is there any doubt that so long as men worshipped the true God alone with religious worship, they venerated him with bloody sacrifices. Turned to idols, they did not immediately dare — nor until long afterwards — to offer them animal sacrifices. Their first sacrifices after adoration were from the fruits of the earth. Thus the prophet laments that the Israelites offered grain, wine, and oil to Baal — that is, to the sun —
Hos. 2:8. And in the poet:
"Turned toward the rising sun they give Salted grain from their hands." — Aeneid XII, 172.
The Pythagoreans, abstaining from the blood of animals, added hymns to their adoration. These also were a most well-known part of true or superstitious religious worship. Such were those of Homer and Callimachus that survive. Very many other ceremonies were afterwards admitted among the nations, which arose partly from the most obscure report of the Mosaic νομοθεσίας [law-giving], partly from the κακοζηλία [evil emulation] of Satan.
V. Then the most holy man adds the nature and desert of this wickedness.
He teaches that its nature consists in the denial of the omnipotent God who is above, governing all things, disposing all things, and who created the sun itself. "I should have denied," he says, "God ִמ ָּמַעל [from above]." Against perhaps what has seemed to many who are entangled in that error. The majority of mortals scarcely think that all religious worship of creatures is a denial of God the Creator. But he pointedly adds ִמ ָּמַעל [from above]. For
since the chief reason for solar worship has always consisted in the fact that men see it carried above all things, he indicates that God alone is exalted above all things. Maimonides rightly says, On Idolatry, Bk. II: ַהּמּׁשּוָּמד
ַלֲעבֹוָדה ָזָרה הּוא ְּכמּׁשּוָּמד ַלּתֹוָרה ֻּכָּלה — "He who is converted to idolatry defects from the whole law." And a little before: "Behold, you learn from this that whoever takes up idolatry denies the whole law, all the prophets, and whatever was commanded to the prophets, from the first man to the end of the world."
VI. He adds that worship of this kind of sun and moon has been judged iniquity — that is, most worthy of the severe judgment and retribution of God, or rightly to be abominated by all the pious. For "sun," the text has אֹור
[or] — that is, light κατ' ἀντονομασίαν [by naming-substitution]. Hence the Sun was called Horus.
VII. To this testimony certain passages of Deuteronomy are in agreement.
Now this worship of the celestial stars — especially of the sun — which beyond doubt invaded the world immediately from the Babylonian dispersion, attained catholicism before the idols which Hellenism worshipped were either known or created.
VIII. The first who publicly gave themselves over to this corrupt superstition were the Egyptians. We shall soon show this from Diodorus,
Lactantius, and others. The Babylonians and all the Chaldaeans followed them. Bel was none other than the Sun. God was therefore angry with Hezekiah because, when the king of Babylon had sent ambassadors to inquire about the miracle of the sun's recession, 2 Chron. 32:31, he did not seize the occasion to declare the true God and to say that the sun was his obedient creature.
IX. Herodotus testifies the same of the ancient Persians [and Massagetae] in his Clio, ch. 216: Θεῶν … μοῦνον ἥλιον σέβονται, τῷ θύουσιν ἵππους
— "Of the gods they worship the sun alone, and to him they sacrifice horses." Mithras also was the greatest — if not the only — God of the ancient Persians: Μίθραν νομίζουσιν οἱ Πέρσαι εἶναι τὸν ἥλιον — "The Persians hold Mithras to be the sun," Gregory Nazianzus, Oration I Against Julian. Similarly, Strabo: Θεὸν δὲ ἥλιον μόνον ἡγοῦνται· τούτῳ ἱπποθυτοῦσι — "They hold the sun alone to be God, and sacrificed to him."
X. All appear to affirm that the sun was the only God of the ancient Persians. The distinguished Vossius denies this, On Idolatry, Bk. II, and against Herodotus, adducing testimonies from Plutarch and Hesychius, teaches that they admitted other gods. But it is by no means established that they enrolled others in the number of gods — after the customary manner of idolaters — before the times of Plutarch, whom in the days of Herodotus they had not yet worshipped. For after the human race had donated to itself the right of ἀποθεώσεως [deification] and of manufacturing divine powers, the number of gods grew daily. Varro counted thirty thousand. But concerning earlier centuries, the Satirist speaks well, Juvenal, Satire XIII,
46:
"Nor was the crowd of gods Such as it is today; and the stars, content with few Divine powers, were pressing upon miserable Atlas
With less burden."
But Herodotus does not say absolutely that the sun was held as the only divine power among the Persians — but rather that the sun alone of all those gods whom Greece venerated was held in divine honour among the Persians. For he himself elsewhere mentions other stars and elements, of
which the rationale is the same as the sun, among the Persian σεβάσματα [objects of worship]: Clio, ch. 131. Θύουσιν … ἡλίῳ τε καὶ σελήνῃ, καὶ γῇ, καὶ πυρὶ, καὶ ὕδατι, καὶ ἀνέμοισι — "They sacrifice to the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and winds." For the worship of these almost everywhere accompanied solar worship. Τούτοισι … μὲν δὴ μούνοισι θύουσιν ἀρχῆθεν
— "To these only have they from the beginning performed sacred rites." In these idolatry had its origin. Ἐπιμεμαθήκασι δὲ καὶ τῇ Οὐρανίῃ θύειν —
"From others they have learned to worship the host of heaven with sacrifices."
XI. Hence at Diogenes Laërtius in the preface to his work, the writers of the history of the Magi charge Herodotus — forgetful of himself — with falsehood, for writing that Xerxes hurled javelins at the sun, since the sun was held as God by the Magi who were present with Xerxes in his expedition, as the guardians of Persian superstition.
XII. Herodotus further adds: "They have the custom of ascending certain very high mountains, and there sacrificing to Jupiter, calling the whole circuit of the sky Jupiter." But by what name they designated the circuit of the sky in their own language is entirely unknown. For it was most customary among Greeks and Romans to designate the gods of other nations by the names of those gods whose worship had prevailed among themselves. So far, however, Herodotus is right in showing that — although he pretends the Persians worshipped Jupiter — he did not intend that [Ἑλληνισμὸν] Hellenism of the Greeks which he introduced. Others are different. So they write that the Gauls and Germans worshipped Jupiter and Mercury. That no Celt ever so much as heard by report the names Jupiter and Mercury before the arrival of the Greeks and Romans in Gaul, all the surviving memory of the early history of those nations teaches. But since
the Greeks and Romans were most ignorant of all in knowledge of the origins of nations, peoples, and religions, they did not believe that the mortal race anywhere had been wise beyond their own fictions.
XIII. More correctly in the main, and closer to truth, Caesar on the Germans, Gallic War, Bk. VI, ch. 21: "They count only those as gods whom they can see — the Sun, Vulcan, and the Moon; the rest they have not even received by report." Tacitus is different — he says they worshipped
Hercules, Mars, Mercury, and Isis. "More things therefore, and more certain, about the religion of the Germans were known to Tacitus than to Caesar," says Lipsius. "And Caesar, whether he inquired about this in Gaul or in Germany, either had it reported to him incorrectly, or did not himself inquire with sufficient diligence," as Montanus says on that passage of Caesar. But in truth Tacitus was either himself deceived or willingly deceives others. He assigns at his pleasure Roman names to the gods of the Germans. For Woden was not Mercury, nor Taranis Jupiter, nor Hesus Mars.
Those Roman names were equally unknown to the Germans as the fables which are the foundation of their Hellenistic worship. Eostre, however — or Eastar — was perhaps the same goddess as the Astarte of the Syrians. Bede says of her: "Eostermonath, which now means Pascha, this month formerly took its name from their goddess called Eostre, to whom they celebrated festivals in that month." And indeed the word Eostar comes close to the Syriac name ֶע ְׁש ְּת ָרה [Ashtaroth], which is proper to the Syrian goddess — for that it is also called ַע ְׁש ָּתרֹות [Ashtaroth] in the plural number denotes the multitude of images or the worship of her instituted in many places.
Christians also, who instituted a festival according to the observation of the lunar course, were thought by the pagans to be worshipping the moon, or Astarte or Eostre — whence that name is retained to this day.
XIV. Caesar affirms that the Gauls worshipped Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, assigning them the same attributes as the Greeks and Romans.
But they drew that superstition from the Greek Massilians; for it does not belong to Druidic institutions. Also in the treaty entered into between the Carthaginians and Philip, king of Macedonia and others against the Romans, in Polybius, History, Bk. XVII, the Carthaginians call the Sun and Moon the gods of their armies — thereby showing, among other false divine powers, that these were their most ancient gods, since almost all nations placed their beginnings in arms and wars.
XV. That the Greeks themselves also did not from the beginning worship any other gods than the sun, moon, and stars, Plato is the witness in the Cratylus: Φαίνονταί μοι, he says, οἱ πρῶτοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τῶν περὶ τὴν
Ἑλλάδα τούτους μόνους τοὺς θεοὺς ἡγεῖσθαι, οὕσπερ νῦν πολλοὶ τῶν βαρβάρων, ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ γῆν καὶ ἄστρα καὶ οὐρανόν· ἅτε οὖν αὐτὰ ὁρῶντες πάντα ἀεὶ ἰόντα δρόμῳ καὶ θέοντα, ἀπὸ ταύτης τῆς φύσεως τῆς τοῦ θεῖν θεοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐπονομάσαι — "It seems to me that those men who first inhabited Greece held only those to be gods which very many barbarians now worship — namely, the sun, moon, earth, stars, and sky; and since they saw all of these ever carried along in continual course and running, from that nature of running they named them gods." Nor is that etymology of the name θεός [God] which he offers inept, as we shall see.
XVI. And from this it came about that in antiquity all temples — as erected to the sun — looked toward the east, and yet also had sacred doors on the south. So Homer makes his sacred cave of Ithaca two-gated; but the southern gate sacred to the gods, Odyssey XIII, v. 109-112:
καταιβαταὶ ἀνθρώποισιν, Αἳ δ' αὖ πρὸς Νότου εἰσὶ θεώτεραι· οὐδέ τι κείνῃἌνδρες εἰσέρχονται, ἀλλ' ἀθανάτων ὁδός ἐστιν.
"But the gate is double:
This facing north admits mankind; but that Looking to the south, more divine, is wholly closed
To man, and provides passage only to immortals."
The rationale of this positioning of sacred places was none other than that at midday the sun hangs over the southern entrance — as Porphyry testifies.
Ἱστᾶσιν, he says, οὖν καὶ σύμβολον τῆς μεσημβρίας, καὶ τοῦ νότου, ἐπὶ τῇ θύρᾳ μεσημβριάζοντος τοῦ θεοῦ [They therefore set up also a symbol of midday and of the south at the door, the god being at midday]. The same custom in arranging what they call sacred places is still retained everywhere.
XVII. Let it suffice to have said these things concerning various nations σποράδην [scattered] here and there. Concerning the eastern nations we shall later show the same thing in particular. This, I say, was the beginning which idolatry made in the world. As yet images and statues had not been invented; nor had pillars or columns been erected for religious purposes; nor had deceased men been enrolled in the order of divine powers. The error was first in heaven, and in the sun. It has seemed good to God to press down in dark night the chief authors of this wickedness, the precise time, and the places from which it took its rise.
XVIII. Plainly vain and trifling are the things which Hieronymus Cardanus discourses concerning the origin of idol worship in his commentary on Ptolemy on Astrological Judgment, Bk. II, text 17.
"Mercury," he says, "joined with Venus, produced a weak law of idols,
devoted to luxury, in which all things are permitted; and a manifold one on account of the power of Mercury; and therefore since Venus is weak in comparison with the superior planets, it was made light, of many gods, full of superstitions and divination and fables, which are also full of adulteries and other villainies and love of boys; for Mercury signifies all such things."
And again: "The law of idols, since it had its origin from Venus, began in the south — namely, Assyria, Babylonia, and the Chaldaeans; for Belus the first king of the Assyrians commanded himself to be adored." This, I say, is to rave. But although these things are fatuous and insipid and altogether unworthy of one in whose left breast something beats, yet it were to be wished that the learned man had placed a limit to his madness here, and had not blurted out what he also vomited up in the same place impiously, foolishly, and blasphemously concerning the nativity of our Lord Jesus
Christ and his law.
XIX. All the ancients are of the opinion that Nimrod, after he had laboured in vain in building the tower, not only lapsed into the worst morals but also fell into idolatry. The distinguished Bochart thinks he was not present at that work, Bk. I, ch. 10, "since he was either not yet born, or still a child." But the foundation for this conjecture is lacking; for although I believe Nimrod seized his tyranny only after the dispersion of the peoples, yet since he was the son of Cush, the eldest son of Ham, he could have been sixty years old when the tower was being built. "But he placed the beginning of his empire where he would have been dispersed," says the most learned man, "if he had been among the builders." But it is not necessary to say that all men without exception were driven from that place; and if they were, it is most certain that they immediately occupied it again.
The opinion of the ancients is therefore not altogether improbable — there
is nothing to add. Among the dispersed builders of the tower — who had cast off all reverence for the true divine power — first gradually and in moderation, then broadly and headlong, this wickedness grew and invaded the world.
XX. But within the space of not many centuries, it is established that almost all nations took on the divine sovereignty of the sun. So the Phoenicians, as Sanchuniathon testifies: Τοῦτον, he says — that is, the sun
— θεὸν ἐνόμιζον μόνον οὐρανοῦ κύριον, Βελσάμην καλοῦντες, ὅ ἐστι παρὰ Φοίνιξι κύριος οὐρανοῦ — "They held this one to be the only God, lord of heaven, and therefore called him Belsamen — that is, in the Phoenician tongue, lord of heaven."
XXI. His worship therefore attained catholicism; and he acquired πολυωνυμίαν [a multiplicity of names]. He was the same as ָהֵאל ֶעְליֹון [the Most High God], ַּבַעל [Baal], ֵּבל [Bel], ֲא ֹדַני [Adonai], ְּכמֹוׁש [Chemosh], ַּבַעל
ְזבּוב [Baal-zebub], ַּבַעל ְּפעֹור [Baal-peor], ְֹמֶל [Moloch], ִּכּיּון [Kiyyun], ְַאְדַרֶּמֶל
[Adrammelech]; Saturn, Jupiter, Hammon, Mithras, Ὥρος [Horus], Διόνυσος [Dionysus], Mars, Apollo, Osiris, Pan, Bacchus, Liber, Jupiter
Sabazius, Hercules, Janus, Belenus, Abellio, and what not. Hence Plutarch calls the Sun and Moon μυριωνύμους [of ten thousand names]. For by heaping up epithets and piling up titles, they thought they could capture the divine power and that it was thereby most greatly honoured — so that at last what had been only various names of superstition, with error advancing, came to be regarded as various divine powers — as the most learned Rivet rightly says, on Hos. 2:8. In πολυωνυμίᾳ [multiplicity of names] also there was a certain species of worship. Hence Ovid, Fasti, Bk. VI, 213:
"I was asking whether I should assign the Nones to Sancus, Fidius, Or to you, Father Semo; when Sancus said to me: '
Whichever of them you give the offering to, I shall receive the gift; I carry three names: so the Cures willed it.'"
And Horace, Carmen Saeculare, v. 14:
"Gentle Ilythia, protect the mothers, Whether you prefer to be called Lucina, Or Genitalis."
And Satires VI, Bk. II, v. 20:
"Father of the morning, or Janus, if you more gladly hear that name."
Catullus also, Carmen XXXIV, 5, 13, 21:
"O daughter of Latona, great offspring of greatest Jove; You Lucina, invoked by women in the pains of childbirth;
You powerful Trivia, and by the borrowed light Named Luna.
Be by whatever name it pleases you, Holy one."
Callimachus likewise, Hymn to Apollo:
Ὦ Ἄπολλον, πολλοί σε Βοηδρόμιον καλέουσι, Πολλοὶ δὲ Κλάριον, πάντη δέ τοι οὔνομα πολύ·
[O Apollo, many call you Boedromius, and many Clarius, and everywhere your name is many; but I call you Carneius.] From the diverse manner of solar worship, from the ceremonies by which he was worshipped, from the goods sought from him, from his benefits, from the places where he was solemnly adored, the sun obtained new names and new titles in the course of time and thrust forth new and diverse divine powers. Hence, perverting Scripture from the outcome, the Jews assert that
God granted the sun and moon to the nations to be adored. This they gather from the words of Moses, Deut. 4:19: "Lest perhaps you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and moon and stars — all the host of heaven — and being drawn away you bow down and serve them, ֲא ֶׁשר ָחַלק ְיהָוה ֱא ֹלֶהיָך ֹאָתם
ְל ֹכל ָהַעִּמים ַּת ַחת ָּכל ַה ָּׁש ָמִים [which Jehovah your God has distributed to all the peoples under all the heaven]." This is a most powerful reason for restraining the minds of the peoples from the worship of the heavenly bodies. That dominion which they assign to the sun and moon is servitude, destined for the use of all the nations that are under heaven. But the Jews drag these things in another direction, after the Jewish manner. God, they say, calling Israel to his own worship, set forth the sun and moon to the other nations as objects of adoration. So Trypho in Justin's Dialogue: "Tell us of another God," he says, φυλαξάμενος λέγειν τὸν ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην ἃ γέγραπται τοῖς ἔθνεσι συγκεχωρηκέναι τὸν θεὸν ὡς θεοὺς προσκυνεῖν —
"careful not to mention the sun and moon, which it is written that God has permitted the nations to worship as gods." The Vulgate translator renders the sense of the passage best: "Which the Lord your God created for the service of all the nations," Matt. 5:45.