Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] It would take too long to go through all those you have buried among the stars and boldly assigned to serve as gods. Worthy of heaven, I suppose, are the Castors, and Perseus, and Erigone — no less than Jupiter's own catamite! But why be surprised at that? You have transplanted even dogs, and scorpions, and crabs into the sky!
[2] I pass over for now those whom you [...] in oracles, and the divine testimony found there. You want gods to preside even over sorrow, so that there is Viduus, who widows the soul of the body — whom you have condemned by not permitting him to be enclosed within the city walls — likewise Caeculus, who strips the eyes of sense, likewise Orbana, who blights the seed into childlessness; and Death herself is a goddess. [3] To fly past the rest, you even regard the very locations of the city as gods: Janus the father of arches (and there is a goddess Diva Arquis for the arches too), and Montinus of the seven hills. [4] [...] those do this, who have altars or shrines in those same places, [...] rather than [...] dwelling in another's territory for pay. [5] I say nothing of Ascensus, from the climbing of steps, and Clivicola, from slopes; I say nothing of the gods Forculus, patron of the door itself, and Cardea, guardian of the pivoting hinge, and Limentinus, watching the threshold — or whatever other porter-gods are venerated among you and your neighbors. [6] For what is so remarkable, when they even have their own divinities in brothels, in kitchens, and down in the depths of the prison [...]? [7] Since, then, these functions belong specifically to these and the other Roman gods, among whom the duties of the whole of life are so parceled out that no other gods are needed for them — indeed, since they are reckoned privately among the Romans, the ones we have marked above, and are not easily known abroad — how is it that all those things which they wished these gods to preside over occur throughout the whole human race and every nation, where their presiding deities lack not only honor but even the least acquaintance?
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