The City of God, Volume IAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume I
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
Next, I ask what place they find any longer for this Jupiter among
the gods, if Janus is the world; for Varro defined the true gods to
be the soul of the world, and the parts of it. And therefore whatever
falls not within this definition, is certainly not a true god,
according to them. Will they then say that Jupiter is the soul of
the world, and Janus the body--that is, this visible world? If they
say this, it will not be possible for them to affirm that Janus is
a god. For even, according to them, the body of the world is not a
god, but the soul of the world and its parts. Wherefore Varro, seeing
this, says that he thinks God is the soul of the world, and that
this world itself is God; but that as a wise man, though he consists
of soul and body, is nevertheless called wise from the soul, so the
world is called God from the soul, though it consists of soul and
body. Therefore the body of the world alone is not God, but either
the soul of it alone, or the soul and the body together, yet so as
that it is God not by virtue of the body, but by virtue of the soul.
If, therefore, Janus is the world, and Janus is a god, will they say,
in order that Jupiter may be a god, that he is some part of Janus?
For they are wont rather to attribute universal existence to Jupiter;
whence the saying, "All things are full of Jupiter."[265] Therefore
they must think Jupiter also, in order that he may be a god, and
especially king of the gods, to be the world, that he may rule over
the other gods--according to them, his parts. To this effect, also,
the same Varro expounds certain verses of Valerius Soranus[266] in
that book which he wrote apart from the others concerning the worship
of the gods. These are the verses:
"Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods,
And eke the mother of the gods, god one and all."
But in the same book he expounds these verses by saying that as the
male emits seed, and the female receives it, so Jupiter, whom they
believed to be the world, both emits all seeds from himself and
receives them into himself. For which reason, he says, Soranus wrote,
"Jove, progenitor and mother;" and with no less reason said that one
and all were the same. For the world is one, and in that one are all
things.
10. _Whether the distinction between Janus and Jupiter is a proper
one._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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