πῶς οὖν χρηστέον ἐστὶ ταῖς σκυθρωπαῖς; καὶ ἀγελάστοις καὶ πενθίμοις θυσίαις, εἰ μήτε παραλείπειν τὰ νενομισμένα καλῶς ἔχει μήτε φύρειν τὰς περὶ θεῶν δόξας καὶ συνταράττειν ὑποψίαις ἀτόποις; καὶ παρʼ Ἕλλησιν ὅμοια πολλὰ γίγνεται περὶ τὸν αὐτὸν ὁμοῦ τι χρόνον, οἷς Αἰγύπτιοι δρῶσιν ἐν τοῖς ὁσίοις. καὶ γὰρ Ἀθήνησι νηστεύουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν Θεσμοφορίοις χαμαὶ καθήμεναι. καὶ Βοιωτοὶ τὰ τῆς Ἀχαίας μέγαρα κινοῦσιν, ἐπαχθῆ τὴν ἑορτὴν ἐκείνην ὀνομάζοντες, ὡς διὰ τὴν τῆς Κόρης κάθοδον ἐν ἄχει τῆς Δήμητρος οὔσης. ἔστι δʼ ὁ μὴν οὗτος περὶ Πλειάδας σπόριμος, ὃν Ἀθὺρ Αἰγύπτιοι, Πυανεψιῶνα δʼ Ἀθηναῖοι Βοιωτοὶ δὲ Δαμάτριον καλοῦσι. τοὺς δὲ πρὸς ἑσπέραν οἰκοῦντας ἱστορεῖ Θεόπομπος ἡγεῖσθαι καὶ καλεῖν τὸν μὲν χειμῶνα Κρόνον, τὸ δὲ θέρος Ἀφροδίτην, τὸ δʼ ἔαρ Περσεφόνην· ἐκ δὲ Κρόνου καὶ Ἀφροδίτης γεννᾶσθαι πάντα. Φρύγες δὲ τὸν θεὸν οἰόμενοι χειμῶνος καθεύδειν, θέρους δʼ ἐγρηγορέναι, τοτὲ μὲν κατευνασμούς, τοτὲ δʼ ἀνεγέρσεις βακχεύοντες αὐτῷ τελοῦσι. Παφλαγόνες δὲ καταδεῖσθαι καὶ καθείργνυσθαι χειμῶνος, ἦρος δὲ κινεῖσθαι καὶ ἀναλύεσθαι φάσκουσι.
How then must we manage ourselves at these tetrical, morose, and mournful sacrifices, if we are neither to omit what the laws prescribe us, nor yet to confound and distract our thoughts about the Gods with vain and uncouth surmises? There are among the Greeks also many things done that are like to those which the Egyptians do at their solemnities, and much about the same time too. For at the Thesmophoria at Athens the women fast sitting upon the bare ground. The Boeotians also remove the shrines of Achaea (or Ceres), terming that day the afflictive holiday, because Ceres was then in great affliction for her daughter’s descent into hell. Now upon this month, about the rising of the Pleiades, is the sowing time; and the Egyptians call it Athyr, the Athenians Pyanepsion; and the Boeotians Damatrios (or the month of Ceres). Moreover Theopompus relates, that those that live towards the sun-setting (or the Hesperii) believe the winter to be Saturn, the summer Venus, and the spring time Proserpine; and that they call them by those names, and maintain all to be produced by Saturn and Venus. But the Phrygians, being of opinion that the Deity sleeps in the winter and wakes in the summer, do, in the manner of ecstatics, in the winter time sing lullabies in honor of his sleeping, and in the summer time certain rousing carols in honor of his waking. In like manner the Paphlagonians say, he is bound and imprisoned in the winter, and walks abroad again in the spring and is at liberty.
καὶ δίδωσιν ὁ καιρὸς ὑπόνοιαν ἐπὶ τῶν καρπῶν τῇ ἀποκρύψει γενέσθαι τὸν σκυθρωπασμόν, οὓς οἱ παλαιοὶ θεοὺς μὲν οὐκ ἐνόμιζον, ἀλλὰ δῶρα θεῶν ἀναγκαῖα καὶ μεγάλα πρὸς τὸ μὴ ζῆν ἀγρίως καὶ θηριωδῶς. καθʼ ἣν δὴ ὥραν τοὺς μὲν ἀπὸ δένδρων ἑώρων ἀφανιζομένους παντάπασιν καὶ ἀπολείποντας, οὓς δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ κατέσπειραν ὄντας ἔτι γλίσχρους καὶ ἀπόρους, διαμώμενοι ταῖς χερσὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ περιστέλλοντες αὖθις, ἐπʼ ἀδήλῳ τῷ πάλιν ἐκτελεῖσθαι καὶ συντέλειαν ἕξειν ἀποθέμενοι, πολλὰ θάπτουσιν ὅμοια καὶ πενθοῦσιν ἔπραττον. εἶθʼ ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς τὸν ὠνούμενον βιβλία Πλάτωνος ὠνεῖσθαί φαμεν Πλάτωνα, καὶ Μένανδρον ὑποκρίνεσθαι τὸν τὰ Μενάνδρου ποιήμαθʼ ὑποτιθέμενον, οὕτως ἐκεῖνοι τοῖς τῶν θεῶν ὀνόμασι τὰ τῶν θεῶν δῶρα καὶ ποιήματα καλεῖν οὐκ ἐφείδοντο, τιμῶντες ὑπὸ χρείας καὶ σεμνύνοντες. οἱ δʼ ὕστερον ἀπαιδεύτως δεχόμενοι καὶ ἀμαθῶς ἀναστρέφοντες ἐπὶ τοὺς θεοὺς τὰ πάθη τῶν καρπῶν, καὶ τὰς παρουσίας τῶν ἀναγκαίων καὶ ἀποκρύψεις θεῶν γενέσεις καὶ φθορὰς οὐ προσαγορεύοντες μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ νομίζοντες, ἀτόπων καὶ παρανόμων καὶ τεταραγμένων δοξῶν αὑτοὺς ἐνέπλησαν, καίτοι τοῦ παραλόγου τὴν ἀτοπίαν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς ἔχοντες. εὖ μὲν οὖν Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος ἠξίωσε τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους, εἰ θεοὺς νομίζουσι, μὴ θρηνεῖν, εἰ δὲ θρηνοῦσι, θεοὺς μὴ νομίζειν ἀλλʼ ὅτι γελοῖον ἅμα θρηνοῦντας εὔχεσθαι τοὺς καρποὺς πάλιν ἀναφαίνειν καὶ τελειοῦν ἑαυτοῖς, ὅπως πάλιν ἀναλίσκωνται καὶ θρηνῶνται·
And the nature of the season gives us suspicion that this tetrical sort of service was occasioned by the absenting of the several sorts of fruits at that time of the year; which yet the ancients did not believe to be Gods, but such gifts of the Gods as were both great and necessary in order to preserve them from a savage and bestial life. And at what time they saw both the fruits that came from trees wholly to disappear and fail, and those also which themselves had sown to be yet but starved and poor, they taking up fresh mould in their hands and laying it about their roots, and committing them a second time to the ground with uncertain hopes of their ever coming to perfection or arriving to maturity, did herein many things that might well resemble people at funerals and mourning for the dead. Moreover, as we use to say of one that hath bought the books of Plato, that he hath bought Plato, and of one that hath taken upon him to act the compositions of Menander, that he hath acted Menander; in like manner they did not stick to call the gifts and creatures of the Gods by the names of the Gods themselves, paying this honor and veneration to them for their necessary use. But those of after times receiving this practice unskilfully and ignorantly, applying the accidents of fruits, and the accesses and recesses of things necessary to human life, unto the Gods, did not only call them the generations and deaths of the Gods, but also believed them such, and so filled themselves with abundance of absurd, wicked, and distempered notions; and this, although they had the absurdity of such a monstrous opinion before their very eyes. And therefore Xenophanes the Colophonian might not only put the Egyptians in mind, if they believed those they worshipped to be Gods, not to lament for them, and if they lamented for them, not to believe them to be Gods; but also that it would be extremely ridiculous at one and the same time to lament for the fruits of the earth, and to pray them to appear again and make themselves ripe, that so they may be over again consumed and lamented for.
τὸ δʼ οὐκ ἔστι τοιοῦτον, ἀλλὰ θρηνοῦσι μὲν τοὺς καρπούς, εὔχονται δὲ τοῖς αἰτίοις καὶ δοτῆρσι θεοῖς ἑτέρους πάλιν νέους ποιεῖν καὶ ἀναφύειν ἀντὶ τῶν ἀπολλυμένων. ὅθεν ἄριστα λέγεται παρὰ τοῖς φιλοσόφοις τὸ τοὺς μὴ μανθάνοντας ὀρθῶς ἀκούειν ὀνομάτων κακῶς χρῆσθαι καὶ τοῖς πράγμασιν· ὥσπερ Ἑλλήνων οἱ τὰ χαλκᾶ καὶ τὰ γραπτὰ καὶ λίθινα μὴ μαθόντες μηδʼ ἐθισθέντες ἀγάλματα καὶ τιμὰς θεῶν, ἀλλὰ θεοὺς καλεῖν, εἶτα τολμῶντες λέγειν, ὅτι τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν Λαχάρης ἐξέδυσε, τὸν δʼ Ἀπόλλωνα χρυσοῦς βοστρύχους ἔχοντα Διονύσιος ἀπέκειρεν δὲ Ζεὺς ὁ Καπετώλιος περὶ τὸν ἐμφύλιον πόλεμον ἐνεπρήσθη καὶ διεφθάρη, λανθάνουσι συνεφελκόμενοι καὶ παραδεχόμενοι δόξας πονηρὰς ἑπομένας τοῖς ὀνόμασιν.
τοῦτο δʼ οὐχ ἥκιστα πεπόνθασιν Αἰγύπτιοι περὶ τὰ τιμώμενα τῶν ζῴων. Ἕλληνες μὲν γὰρ ἔν γε τούτοις λέγουσιν ὀρθῶς καὶ νομίζουσιν ἱερὸν Ἀφροδίτης ζῷον εἶναι τὴν περιστερὰν καὶ τὸν δράκοντα τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς καὶ τὸν κόρακα τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ τὸν κύνα τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος, ὡς Εὐριπίδης Ἑκάτης ἄγαλμα φωσφόρου κύων ἔσῃ. Αἰγυπτίων δʼ οἱ πολλοὶ θεραπεύοντες αὐτὰ τὰ ζῷα καὶ περιέποντες ὡς θεοὺς οὐ γέλωτος μόνον οὐδὲ χλευασμοῦ καταπεπλήκασι τὰς ἱερουργίας (ἀλλὰ τοῦτο τῆς ἀβελτερίας ἐλάχιστόν ἐστι κακόν)· δόξα δʼ ἐμφύεται δεινή, τοὺς μὲν ἀσθενεῖς καὶ ἀκάκους εἰς ἄκρατον ὑπερείπουσα τὴν δεισιδαιμονίαν, τοῖς δὲ δριμυτέροις καὶ θρασυτέροις εἰς ἀθέους ἐκπίπτουσα καὶ θηριώδεις λογισμούς. ᾗ καὶ περὶ τούτων τὰ εἰκότα διελθεῖν οὐκ ἀνάρμοστόν ἐστι.
But now this in its true intention is no such thing. But they make their lamentation for the fruits; and their prayers to the Gods, who are the authors and bestowers of those fruits, that they would be pleased to produce and bring up again other new ones in the place of them that are gone. Wherefore it is an excellent saying among philosophers, that they that have not learned the true sense of words will mistake also in the things; as we see those among the Greeks who have not learned nor accustomed themselves to call the brazen and stone statues and the painted representations of the Gods their images or their honors, but the Gods themselves, are so adventurous as to say that Lachares stripped Minerva, that Dionysius cropped off Apollo’s golden locks, and that Jupiter Capitolinus was burned and destroyed in the civil wars of Rome. They therefore, before they are aware, suck in and receive bad opinions with these improper words. And the Egyptians are not the least guilty herein, with respect to the animals which they worship. For the Grecians both speak and think aright in these matters, when they tell us that the pigeon is sacred to Venus, the serpent to Minerva, the raven to Apollo, and the dog to Diana, as Euripides somewhere speaks: Into a bitch transformed you shall be, / And be the image of bright Hecate. / But the greater part of the Egyptians worshipping the very animals themselves, and courting them as Gods, have not only filled their religious worship with matter of scorn and derision (for that would be the least harm that could come of their blockish ignorance); but a dire conception also arises therefrom, which blows up the feeble and simple minded into an extravagance of superstition, and when it lights upon the more subtle and daring tempers, outrages them into atheistical and brutish cogitations. Wherefore it seems not inconsonant here to recount what is probable upon this subject.
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