Pagan gods are fictions learned from poets and shaped by craftsmen
Octavius is continuing his reply to Caecilius, arguing that the pagan gods are merely fictions taught by poets and manufactured by artisans.
We learn these fables and errors from unthinking parents. And what is worse, we work at them ourselves through our studies and learning, especially through the poems of the poets, who by their authority have harmed the truth as much as anyone could. That is why Plato rightly drove that famous, praised, and crowned Homer out of the city he was building in his discourse. For Homer, though he makes sport of the gods, still mixed them into human affairs and actions in the Trojan War. He set them on equal terms. He wounded Venus, bound Mars, struck him, and put him to flight. He tells how Jupiter was freed by Briareus so that he would not be bound by the other gods, and how he wept tears of blood for his son Sarpedon because he could not rescue him from death, and how, enticed by Venus's girdle more hotly than he usually is with adulteresses, he lay with his wife Juno. Elsewhere Hercules hauls dung and Apollo pastures cattle for Admetus. Neptune builds walls for Laomedon, and the unlucky builder receives no pay for his work. There Vulcan forges Jupiter's thunderbolt on the anvil along with the arms of Aeneas, though heaven and thunderbolts and lightning existed long before Jupiter was born in Crete, and neither could the Cyclopes imitate the flames of a real thunderbolt nor could Jupiter himself fail to fear them. Why should I speak of the adultery of Mars and Venus caught in the act, or Jupiter's rape of Ganymede consecrated in heaven? All these things were brought forward for this purpose: to give some authority to human vices. By these and similar fictions and lies that are rather sweet, the minds of boys are corrupted. As they cling to these same stories they grow up to the full strength of adulthood, and in these same opinions they grow old in misery, though the truth is available—but only to those who seek it.
Who then doubts that the common people pray to and publicly worship consecrated images of humans, while the opinion and mind of the ignorant is deceived by the elegance of the art, dazzled by the gleam of gold, dulled by the shine of silver and the whiteness of ivory? If anyone should consider with what torments and with what machines every idol is formed, he would blush to fear material that has been mocked by a craftsman so that he might make it a god. For a wooden god—perhaps a piece of a funeral pyre or an unlucky log—is hung up, cut, hewn, and planed. And a bronze or silver god is melted down from an unclean vessel, as we have heard was done for an Egyptian king, beaten with hammers and shaped on anvils. And a stone god is cut, carved, and smoothed by a defiled man, and it does not feel the injury of its own birth, just as it does not feel your veneration and worship afterward—unless perhaps the stone or wood or silver is not yet a god. When, then, is it born? Look: it is poured, forged, carved; it is not yet a god. Look: it is soldered, assembled, erected; it is still not a god. Look: it is adorned, consecrated, prayed to; then at last it is a god, when a human has willed it and dedicated it.
Latin
Has fabulas et errores et ab inpentis parentibus discimus, et quod est grauius, ipsi studiis et disciplinis elaboramus, carminibus praecipue poetarum, qui plurimum quantum ueritati ipsi sua auctoritate nocuerunt.
et Plato ideo praeclare Homerum illum inclytum laudatum et coronatum de ciuitate, quam in sermone instituebat, eiecit.
hic enim praecipuus bello Troico deos uestros, etsi ludos facit, tamen in hominum rebus et actibus miscuit, hic eorum paria composuit, sauciauit Venerem, Martem uinxit, uulnerauit, fugauit.
Iouem narrat Briareo liberatum, ne adiis ceteris ligaretur, et Sarpedonem filium, quoniam morti non poterat eripere, cruentis imbribus fleuisse, et loro Veneris inlectum flagrantius, quam in adulteras soleat, cum Iunone uxore concumbere.
alibi Hercules stercora egerit et Apollo Admeto pecus pascit. Laomedonti uero muros Neptunus instituit, nec mercedem operis infelix structor accipit.
illic Vulcanus Iouis fulmen cum Aeneae armis in incude fabricatur, cum caelum et fulmina et fulgura longe ante fuerint, quam Iuppiter in Creta nasceretur, et flammas ueri fulminis nec Cyclops potuerit imitari nec ipse Iuppiter non uereri.
quid loquar Martis et Veneris adulterium deprehensum et in Ganymeden Iouis stuprum caelo consecratum? quae omnia in hoc prodita, ut uitiis hominum quaedam auctoritas pararetur.
his atque huiusmodi figmentis et mendacns dulcioribus corrumpuntur ingenia puerorum et isdem fabulis inhaerentibus adusque summae aetatis robur adolescunt et in isdem opinionibus miseri consenescunt, cum sit ueritas obuia, sed requirentibus.
Quis ergo dubitat hominum imagines consecratas uulgus orare et publice colere, dum opinio et mens imperitorum artis concinnitate decipitur, auri fulgore praestringitur, argenti nitore et candore eboris hebetatur?
quodsi in animum quis inducat, tormentis quibus et quibus machinis simulacrum omne formetur, erubescet timere se materiem ab artifice, ut deum faceret, inlusam.
deus enim ligneus, rogi fortasse uel infelicis stipitis portio, suspenditur, caeditur, dolatur, runcinatur.
et deus aereus uel argenteus de immundo uasculo, ut accepimus factum Aegyptio regi, conflatur, tunditur malleis et in incudibus figuratur: et lapideus deus caeditur, scalpitur et ab impurato homine leuigatur, nec sentit suae natiuitatis iniuriam, ita ut nec postea de uestra ueneratione culturam: nisi forte nondum deus saxum est uel lignum uel argentum.
quando igitur hic nascitur? ecce funditur, fabricatur, sculpitur: nondum deus est: ecce plumbatur, construitur, erigitur: nec adhuc deus est: ecce ornatur, consecratur, oratur: tunc postremo deus est, cum homo illum uoluit et dedicauit.