Sigalion in the Shield of Croesiades or Apologetic Dialogue for the Mystery of Detected Syncretism

by all; original: "Amore ab universis placato, non tamen ex animo" (m) Love being placated by all, yet not from the heart, a certain confusion occurred. And just as no violent thing is lasting, so as soon as the evil subsided abroad, the dormant pain broke out again at home.

§. 4. Let us follow, however, a conjecture that is all too likely, and let us posit that there were (n) three sects philosophical or religious factions of the Cretans concerning
(o) Jove.

(m) Love placated: "The Cretans," says Athenaeus, book 13, Deipnosophistae Banquet of the Sages, p. 561, "when they had readied their soldiers for battle, chose the most beautiful of the citizens, that through them they might sacrifice to Love, as Sosicrates records." Not, however, from the heart, I say; thus Erasmus, in Chiliades Thousands, Century 1, p. 27, will correctly adapt the proverb to those who enter into friendship not because they love each other from the heart, but because one needs the help of the other.

(n) The philosophy of the three sects proposed by Varro found a happy interpreter in Augustine, book 6, De Civitate Dei On the City of God, ch. 5. What is that which he says, that there are three kinds of theology? That is, the reasoning by which one explains the gods: and of these, one is called mythicon mythological, another physicon natural, the third civile civil. If usage allowed, we would call the first genus, which he posited, fabulous; but let us call it mythical, for the word mythicon is derived from fables, since mythos is called fable in Greek. Usage of speech already admits that the second be called natural. He himself also stated the third in Latin, which he calls civil. Then he says, "They call it mythicon, which poets use the most; physicon, which philosophers use; civile, that of the people." The first, he says, which I mentioned, contains many things feigned against the dignity and nature of the immortals. For in this, it happens that one god is born from the head, another from the thigh, another from the throat of blood: in this, that the gods have stolen, that they have committed adultery, that they have served man. Finally, everything is attributed to this which can fall not only upon man, but even upon the most contemptible man. Here certainly, where he could, where he dared, where he thought it would go unpunished, he expressed without the fog of any ambiguity how much injury was done to the nature of the gods by most lying fables. For he was speaking not of natural theology, not of civil, but of the fabulous, which he thought was freely to be blamed. Let us see what he says about the other: the second genus, he says, is that which I demonstrated, about which philosophers have left many books. In which is: who are the gods? where? what genus? what kind? from whose time? whether they have been from eternity, or whether they are from fire, as Heraclitus believes: or from numbers, as Pythagoras: or from atoms, as Epicurus? Thus other things, which ears can more easily bear inside the walls of a school than outside in the forum. He blamed nothing in this genus, which he called physicon, and which pertains to philosophers; only that he commemorated their controversies among themselves, through whom a multitude of dissenting sects was made. The third genus, he says, is that which citizens, especially priests, ought to know and administer in cities. In which is: which gods it is proper for everyone to worship publicly, what rites and sacrifices to perform. Let us attend to what follows: "The first theology," he says, "is especially accommodated to the theater; the second to the world; the third to the city." Who would not see, to whom he gave—