XVI. To Eusebius of Caesarea

(Concerning the Gods of the Heathen.)

Touching the Gods of the Heathen, most reverend Father, thou art not ignorant
that even now, as in the time of thy probation on earth, there is great
dissension. That these feigned Deities and idols, the work of men's hands, are
no longer worshipped thou knowest; neither do men eat meat offered to idols.
Even as spoke that last Oracle which murmured forth, the latest and the only
true voice from Delphi, even so 'the fair-wrought court divine hath fallen; no
more hath Phoebus his home, no more his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of
water; nay, the sweet-voiced water is silent.' The fane is ruinous, and the
images of men's idolatry are dust.

Nevertheless, most worshipful, men do still dispute about the beginnings of
those sinful Gods: such as Zeus, Athene, and Dionysus: and marvel how first
they won their dominion over the souls of the foolish peoples. Now, concerning
these things there is not one belief, but many; howbeit, there are two main
kinds of opinion. One sect of philosophers believes--as thyself, with heavenly
learning, didst not vainly persuade--that the Gods were the inventions of wild
and bestial folk, who, long before cities were builded or life was honourably
ordained, fashioned forth evil spirits in their own savage likeness; ay, or in
the likeness of the very beasts that perish. To this judgment, as it is set
forth in thy Book of the Preparation for the Gospel, I, humble as I am, do
give my consent. But on the other side are many and learned men, chiefly of
the tribes of the Alemanni, who have almost conquered the whole inhabited
world. These, being unwilling to suppose that the Hellenes were in bondage to
superstitions handed down from times of utter darkness and a bestial life, do
chiefly hold with the heathen philosophers, even with the writers whom thou,
most venerable, didst confound with thy wisdom and chasten with the scourge of
small cords of thy wit.

Thus, like the heathen, our doctors and teachers maintain that the Gods of the
nations were, in the beginning, such pure natural creatures as the blue sky,
the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and the fire; but, as time went on, men,
forgetting the meaning of their own speech and no longer understanding the
tongue of their own fathers, were misled and beguiled into fashioning all
those lamentable tales: as that Zeus, for love of mortal women, took the shape
of a bull, a ram, a serpent, an ant, an eagle, and sinned in such wise as it
is a shame even to speak of.

Behold, then, most worshipful, how these doctors and learned men argue, even
like the philosophers of the heathen whom thou didst confound. For they
declare the Gods to have been natural elements, sun and sky and storm, even as
did thy