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The City of God

Chapter 17.--Whether, If the Highest Power Belongs to Jove, Victoria Also Ought to Be Worshipped.

Or do they say, perhaps, that Jupiter sends the goddess Victoria, and that she, as it were acting in obedience to the king of the gods, comes to those to whom he may have despatched her, and takes up her quarters on their side? This is truly said, not of Jove, whom they, according to their own imagination, feign to be king of the gods, but of Him who is the true eternal King, because he sends, not Victory, who is no person, but His angel, and causes whom He pleases to conquer; whose counsel may be hidden, but cannot be unjust. For if Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumph also a god, and joined to Victory either as husband, or brother, or son? Indeed, they have imagined such things concerning the gods, that if the poets had feigned the like, and they should have been discussed by us, they would have replied that they were laughable figments of the poets not to be attributed to true deities. And yet they themselves did not laugh when they were, not reading in the poets, but worshipping in the temples such doating follies. Therefore they should entreat Jove alone for all things, and supplicate him only. For if Victory is a goddess, and is under him as her king, wherever he might have sent her, she could not dare to resist and do her own will rather than his.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XVII: An, si Iouis summa potestas est, etiam Victoria dea debuerit aestimari.

An forte dicunt, quod deam Victoriam Iuppiter mittat atque illa tamquam regi deorum obtemperans ad quos iusserit ueniat et in eorum parte considat? hoc uere dicitur non de illo Ioue, quem deorum regem pro sua opinione confingunt, sed de illo uero rege saeculorum, quod mittat non Victoriam, quae nulla substantia est, sed angelum suum et faciat uincere quem uoluerit; cuius consilium occultum esse potest, iniquum non potest. nam si uictoria dea est, cur non deus est et triumphus, et uictoriae iungitur uel maritus uel frater uel filius? talia quippe isti de dis opinati sunt, qualia si poetae fingerent atque a nobis exagitarentur, responderent isti ridenda esse figmenta poetarum, non ueris adtribuenda numinibus; et tamen se ipsi non ridebant, cum talia deliramenta non apud poetas legebant, sed in templis colebant. Iouem igitur de omnibus rogarent, ei uni tantummodo supplicarent. non enim, quo misisset Victoriam, si dea est et sub illo rege est, posset ei audere resistere et suam potius facere uoluntatem.