[121] So Tertullian urges, _ad Natt._ ii, 7. [122] This man, or somebody very like him, appears as a Christian hermit in Sulpicius Severus, _Dial._ i, 17; only there he is reported to consort with angels. [123] _de def. orac._ 21, 421 A-E. Cf. Tert. _de Spect._ 10. The names of the dead and their images are nothing, but we know _qui sub istis nominibus institute simulacris operentur et gaudeant et divinitatem mentiantur, nequam spiritus scilicet, daemones_. He holds the gods to have been men, long deceased, but agrees in believing in daemonic operations in shrines, etc. [124] _de Iside_, 70, 71, 379 B-E. [125] _de Iside_, 76, 382 A. [126] See discussion in Oakesmith, _Religion of Plutarch_, p. 185. Greard, _de la Morale de Plutarque_, p. 269, ranks it with the best works that have come down to us from Antiquity. [127] Tertullian on pagan baptisms--Isis and Mithras, _de Baptismo_, 5; _de Praescr. Haer._ 40. [128] Cf. Tert. _Apol._ 9, on these sacrifices, in Africa, and elsewhere, and see p. 26. [129] _Conjug. Praec._ 19. [130] Cf. _de Iside_, 55, 373 C; 18, 358 B; the image of Osiris, 36, 365 B. Origen (_c. Cels._ v, 39) remarks that Celsus is quite pleased with those who worship crocodiles "in the ancestral way." [131] If the legend is mere fable, he asks, _cur rapitur sacerdos Cereris, si non tale Ceres passet est? cur Saturno alieni liberi immolantur ... cur Idaeae masculus amputatur_? _ad Natt._ ii, 8. {113} CHAPTER IV JESUS OF NAZARETH When we hear any other speaker, even a very good one, he produces absolutely no effect upon us, or not much, whereas the mere fragments of you and your words, even at second-hand, and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every man, woman and child who comes within hearing of them.--Plato, _Symposium_, 215 D (Jowett). _Dominus noster Christus veritatem se non consuetudinem cognominavit_.--Tertullian, _de virg. vel._ 1.