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

called, by what genus of worship, by what mode, and by what terms of art is that mode to be explained? In that, the fortunes of Crete or Greece do not turn. Let that be tossed back and forth in the schools, up and down, freely and back and forth, little by little, as much as possible, let it be transacted in a friendly manner. What are impeded in controversies, let them be expedited from the sense of our ancestors. Meanwhile, let everyone abound in his own sense privately and think with impunity and freely, tolerate the one thinking contrary, await the day on which all controversial matters are reduced to clarity by disputing. With me as advisor, you will bid morose contentions to be gone, you will dissolve factions: you will check the more audacious Demagogues of the parties: so that when these are ordered to be silent, it may be right to believe simply. You will conspire into one badge of religion. Thus, not being grievous and destructive to yourselves, you will be terrible to the foreign enemy. Although the schools may be dissenting, (aa) you will have common temples. Said and done! It was gone into the sentiment of Nestor the Cretan: applause from everywhere: the assembly was dissolved. It is pleasing now, what seems to be searched out for you, O Solon, by the Sun and Salt of Grecian wisdom? If it is not grave, what do you think of this Cretan institution, with that freedom of speech with which you have chastised my

(aa) This is that very political Theology, which the Bishop of Hippo depicts in these words, book de vera religione On True Religion, ch. 1 and 2: "The wise men of the heathens had dissenting schools, and common temples: for it did not escape either the peoples or the priests how diversely they thought concerning the nature of the gods themselves, since each did not fear to profess his own opinion publicly, and strove to persuade all, if he could; yet all, with their followers who thought diversely and contrarily, came to the common sacred rites, with no one forbidding. It is not now the question which of them thought more truly, but certainly that much, as it seems to me, appears: that they undertook one thing in religion with the people, and defended another thing privately while the same people were listening." And book 6, de Civitate Dei, ch. 10: "Varro, whom philosophers made as if a free man, only because he was an illustrious Senator of the Roman people, worshiped what he reproved, did what he argued, adored what he blamed: because clearly philosophy had taught him something great, so that he would not be superstitious in the world, but for the sake of the laws of citizens and the customs of men, he would not act as a scenic actor in the theater, but would imitate in the temple." These things Augustine. Hugo Grotius adds these things in the book de veritate religionis Christianae On the Truth of the Christian Religion, p. 119: "The authors of Greek Wisdom confessed that they brought almost nothing certain themselves: for truth is as if immersed in a well, and our mind is not less blind to divine things than the eyes of an owl to the light of the Sun. But the envy of all among themselves is a great argument,"