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La cité de dieu

CHAPITRE XII.

DU CULTE DES FAUX DIEUX ÉTABLI PAR LES ROIS DE LA GRÈCE, DEPUIS L’ÉPOQUE DE LA SORTIE D’ÉGYPTE JUSQU’A LA MORT DE JÉSUS NAVÉ.

Durant ce temps, c’est-à-dire depuis que le peuple juif fut sorti d’Egypte jusqu’à la mort de Jésus Navé, les rois de la Grèce instituèrent en l’honneur des faux dieux plusieurs solennités qui rappelaient le souvenir du déluge et de ces temps misérables où les hommes tour à tour gravissaient le sommet des montagnes et descendaient dans les plaines. Telle est l’explication que l’on donne de ces courses fameuses des prêtres Luperques¹, montant et descendant tour à tour la Voie sacrée². C’est en ce temps que Dionysius, qu’on nomme aussi Liber, se trouvant dans l’Attique, apprit, dit-on, à son hôte l’art de planter la vigne, et fut honoré comme un dieu après sa mort. Alors aussi des jeux de musique furent dédiés à Apollon de Deiphes, suivant son ordre, pour l’apaiser, parce qu’on attribuait la stérilité de la Grèce à ce qu’on n’avait pas garanti son temple du feu, lorsque Danaüs fit irruption dans leur pays. Erichthon fut le premier qui institua en Attique des jeux en son honneur et en l’honneur de Minerve. Le prix en était une branche d’olivier, parce que Minerve avait enseigné la culture de cet arbre, comme Bacchus celle de la vigne. Xanthus, roi de Crète, que d’autres nomment autrement³, enleva en ce temps-là Europe, dont il eut Rhadamante, Sarpédon et Minos, que l’on fait communément fils de Jupiter. Mais les adorateurs de ces dieux prennent ce que nous avons rapporté du roi de Crète pour historique, et ce qu’on dit de Jupiter et ce qu’on en représente sur les théâtres comme fabuleux, de sorte qu’il ne faudrait voir dans ces aventures que des fictions dont on se sert pour apaiser les dieux, qui se plaisent à la représentation de leurs faux crimes. C’était aussi alors qu’Hercule florissait à Tyrinthe⁴, mais un autre Hercule que celui dont nous avons parlé plus haut. Les plus savants dans l’histoire comptent en effet plusieurs Bacchus et plusieurs Hercules. Cet Hercule dont nous parlons, et à qui l’on attribue les douze fameux travaux, n’est pas celui qui tua Antée, mais celui qui se brûla lui-même sur le mont OEta, lorsque cette vertu, qui lui avait fait dompter tant de monstres, succomba sous l’effort d’une légère douleur. C’est vers ce temps que le roi, ou plutôt le tyran Busiris, immolait ses hôtes à ses dieux. Il était fils de Neptune, qui l’avait eu de Lybia, fille d’Epaphus; mais je veux que ce soit une fable inventée pour apaiser les dieux, et que Neptune n’ait pas cette séduction à se reprocher. On dit qu’Erichthon, roi d’Athènes, était fils de Vulcain et de Minerve. Toutefois, comme on veut que Minerve soit vierge, on raconte que Vulcain, la voulant posséder en dépit d’elle, répandit sa semence sur la terre, d’où naquit un enfant qui, à cause de cela, fut nommé Erichthon⁵. Il est vrai que les plus savants rejettent ce récit et expliquent autrement la naissance d’Erichthon. Ils disent que dans le temple de Vulcain et de Minerve (car il n’y en avait qu’un pour tous deux à Athènes), on trouva un enfant entouré d’un serpent, et que, ne sachant à qui il était, on l’attribua à Vulcain et à Minerve. Sur quoi je trouve que la fable rend mieux raison de la chose que l’histoire. Mais que nous importe? l’histoire est pour l’instruction des hommes religieux, et la fable pour le plaisir des démons impurs, que toutefois ces hommes religieux adorent comme des divinités. Aussi, encore qu’ils ne veuillent pas tout avouer de leurs dieux, ils ne les justifient pas tout à fait, puisque c’est par leur ordre qu’ils célèbrent des jeux où on représente leurs crimes, et que ces dieux, disent-ils, s’apaisent par de telles infamies. Les crimes ont beau être faux, les dieux païens n’en sont guère moins coupables, puisque prendre plaisir à des crimes faux est un crime très-véritable.

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The City of God

Chapter 12.--Of the Rituals of False Gods Instituted by the Kings of Greece in the Period from Israel's Exodus from Egypt Down to the Death of Joshua the Son of Nun.

During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to the death of Joshua the son of Nun, through whom that people received the land of promise, rituals were instituted to the false gods by the kings of Greece, which, by stated celebration, recalled the memory of the flood, and of men's deliverance from it, and of that troublous life they then led in migrating to and fro between the heights and the plains. For even the Luperci, ¹ when they ascend and descend the sacred path, are said to represent the men who sought the mountain summits because of the inundation of water, and returned to the lowlands on its subsidence. In those times, Dionysus, who was also called Father Liber, and was esteemed a god after death, is said to have shown the vine to his host in Attica. Then the musical games were instituted for the Delphic Apollo, to appease his anger, through which they thought the regions of Greece were afflicted with barrenness, because they had not defended his temple which Danaos burnt when he invaded those lands; for they were warned by his oracle to institute these games. But king Ericthonius first instituted games to him in Attica, and not to him only, but also to Minerva, in which games the olive was given as the prize to the victors, because they relate that Minerva was the discoverer of that fruit, as Liber was of the grape. In those years Europa is alleged to have been carried off by Xanthus king of Crete (to whom we find some give another name), and to have borne him Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who are more commonly reported to have been the sons of Jupiter by the same woman. Now those who worship such gods regard what we have said about Xanthus king of Crete as true history; but this about Jupiter, which the poets sing, the theatres applaud, and the people celebrate, as empty fable got up as a reason for games to appease the deities, even with the false ascription of crimes to them. In those times Hercules was held in honor in Tyre, but that was not the same one as he whom we spoke of above. In the more secret history there are said to have been several who were called Father Liber and Hercules. This Hercules, whose great deeds are reckoned as twelve (not including the slaughter of Antaeus the African, because that affair pertains to another Hercules), is declared in their books to have burned himself on Mount OEta, because he was not able, by that strength with which he had subdued monsters, to endure the disease under which he languished. At that time the king, or rather tyrant Busiris, who is alleged to have been the son of Neptune by Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is said to have offered up his guests in sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be believed that Neptune committed this adultery, lest the gods should be criminated; yet such things must be ascribed to them by the poets and in the theatres, that they may be pleased with them. Vulcan and Minerva are said to have been the parents of Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose last years Joshua the son of Nun is found to have died. But since they will have it that Minerva is a virgin, they say that Vulcan, being disturbed in the struggle between them, poured out his seed into the earth, and on that account the man born of it received that name; for in the Greek language eris is "strife," and chthon "earth," of which two words Ericthonius is a compound. Yet it must be admitted that the more learned disprove and disown such things concerning their gods, and declare that this fabulous belief originated in the fact that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan and Minerva had in common, a boy who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a dragon, which signified that he would become great, and, as his parents were unknown, he was called the son of Vulcan and Minerva, because they had the temple in common. Yet that fable accounts for the origin of his name better than this history. But what does it matter to us? Let the one in books that speak the truth edify religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons. Yet these religious men worship them as gods. Still, while they deny these things concerning them they cannot clear them of all crime, because at their demand they exhibit plays in which the very things they wisely deny are basely done, and the gods are appeased by these false and base things. Now, even although the play celebrates an unreal crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of an unreal crime is a real one.