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The City of God

Chapter 5.--That It is Not Credible that the Gods Should Have Punished the Adultery of Paris, Seeing They Showed No Indignation at the Adultery of the Mother of Romulus.

But whether Venus could bear Aeneas to a human father Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor, we leave as unsettled questions. For our own Scriptures suggest the very similar question, whether the fallen angels had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with enormously large and strong men. At present, then, I will limit my discussion to this dilemma: If that which their books relate about the mother of Aeneas and the father of Romulus be true, how can the gods be displeased with men for adulteries which, when committed by themselves, excite no displeasure? If it is false, not even in this case can the gods be angry that men should really commit adulteries, which, even when falsely attributed to the gods, they delight in. Moreover, if the adultery of Mars be discredited, that Venus also may be freed from the imputation, then the mother of Romulus is left unshielded by the pretext of a divine seduction. For Sylvia was a vestal priestess, and the gods ought to avenge this sacrilege on the Romans with greater severity than Paris' adultery on the Trojans. For even the Romans themselves in primitive times used to go so far as to bury alive any vestal who was detected in adultery, while women unconsecrated, though they were punished, were never punished with death for that crime; and thus they more earnestly vindicated the purity of shrines they esteemed divine, than of the human bed.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput V: Non probari quod di adulterium Paridis punierint, quod in Romuli matre non ulti sunt.

Sed utrum potuerit Venus ex concubitu Anchisae Aenean parere uel Mars ex concubitu filiae Numitoris Romulum gignere, in medio relinquamus. nam paene talis quaestio etiam de scripturis nostris oboritur, qua quaeritur, utrum praeuaricatores angeli cum filiabus hominum concubuerint, unde natis gigantibus, hoc est nimium grandibus ac fortibus uiris, tunc terra conpleta est. proinde ad utrumque interim modo nostra disputatio referatur. si enim uera sunt, quae apud illos de matre Aeneae et de patre Romuli lectitantur, quomodo possunt dis adulteria displicere hominum, quae in se ipsis concorditer ferunt? si autem falsa sunt, ne sic quidem possunt irasci ueris adulteriis humanis, qui etiam falsis delectantur suis. huc accedit, quoniam, si illud de Marte non creditur, ut hoc quoque de Venere non credatur, nullo diuini concubitus obtentu matris Romuli causa defenditur. fuit autem sacerdos illa Vestalis, et ideo di magis in Romanos sacrilegium illud flagitium quam in Troianos Paridis adulterium uindicare debuerunt. nam et ipsi Romani antiqui in stupro detectas Vestae sacerdotes uiuas etiam defodiebant, adulteras autem feminas, quamuis aliqua damnatione, nulla tamen morte plectebant: usque adeo grauius quae putabant adyta diuina quam humana cubilia uindicabant.