Opening the library…
Ad Nationes
Tertullian
Manifest cases, indeed, like these have a force peculiarly their
“Nulli subigebant arva coloni;”
“No swains would bring the fields beneath their sway;”
and without the importunity of any one the earth would bear all crops spontaneously. But he hated a father who had been guilty of incest, and had once mutilated his grandfather. And yet, behold, he himself marries his own sister; so that I should suppose the old adage was made for him: Τοῦ πατρὸς τὸ παιδίον—“Father’s own child.” There was “not a pin to choose” between the father’s piety and the son’s. If the laws had been just even at that early time, Jupiter ought to have been “sewed up in both sacks.” After this corroboration of his lust with incestuous gratification, why should he hesitate to indulge himself lavishly in the lighter excesses of adultery and debauchery? Ever since poetry sported thus with his character, in some such way as is usual when a runaway slave is posted up in public, we have been in the habit of gossiping without restraint of his tricks in our chat with passers-by; sometimes sketching him out in the form of the very money which was the fee of his debauchery—as when (he personated) a bull, or rather paid the money’s worth of one, and showered (gold) into the maiden’s chamber, or rather forced his way in with a bribe; sometimes (figuring him) in the very likenesses of the parts which were acted—as the eagle which ravished (the beautiful youth), and the swan which sang (the enchanting song). Well now, are not such fables as these made up of the most disgusting intrigues and the worst of scandals? or would not the morals and tempers of men be likely to become wanton from such examples? In what manner demons, the offspring of evil angels who have been long engaged in their mission, have laboured to turn men aside from the faith to unbelief and to such fables, we must not in this place speak of to any extent. As indeed the general body (of your gods), which took their cue from their kings, and princes, and instructors, was not of the self-same nature, it was in some other way that similarity of character was exacted by their authority. But how much the worst of them was he who (ought to have been, but) was not, the best of them? By a title peculiar to him, you are indeed in the habit of calling Jupiter “the Best,” whilst in Virgil he is “Æquus Jupiter.” All therefore were like him—incestuous towards their own kith and kin, unchaste to strangers, impious, unjust! Now he whom mythic story left untainted with no conspicuous infamy, was not worthy to be made a god.
Allecti.
This is not so terse as Tertullian’s “nomen et numen.”
Præstare.
Mancipem.
In cunabulis temporalitatis.
The ill-fame of the Cretans is noted by St. Paul, Tit. i. 12.
Virgil, Georg. i. 125.
Sewell.
Ipsa.
Jupiter’s, of course.
The law which prescribed the penalty of the paracide, that he be sewed up in a sack with an ape, a serpent, and a cock, and be thrown into the sea.
In duos culleos dividi.
De quo.
De fugitivo.
Abusui nundinare.
The “operam ejus”=ingenia et artificia (Oehler).
Percontationi alienæ.
In the case of Europa.
In the case of Danäe.
Similitudines actuum ipsas.
In the case of Ganymede.
In the case of Leda.
Quos.
Plebs.
Morata.
Proseminatoribus.
Alibi.
Optimum.
There would seem to be a jest here; “æquus” is not only just but equal, i.e., “on a par with” others—in evil, of course, as well as good.