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

(b) See Tacitus, Book 2, ch. 7. Compare Plutarch in Life of Solon, ch. 10; Cicero, On Duties [De Officiis], Book 1; Frontinus, Book 4, last ch.

he considers that it must be forgiven. There was with myself referring to a previous deliberation when I preferred to feign clemency, by whose indulgence I did not merely say that [an action] was prohibited by a law more useful than it was honorable, but I also acted, so that I might not appear to have consulted the Republic too little by remaining silent, or by passing judgment. I sustain the idea that private injuries should be pardoned for the public good, and I commend it highly; but if a Tyrant has occupied the Republic, if he has filled the prison with the bound, if he has filled the city with slaughter, if he can bear not only a free voice but not even a free countenance, and does not allow those whom he has affected with mourning to mourn, and afterward, by means of an external fear and a certain chance offered to him, he has abused it to accomplish a syncretism a union of conflicting parties—so that he might thus stabilize an unjust occupation—is the simplicity deceived in the name of peace then going to be honorable for the Republic? Is it right to lie, and indeed in a sacred, religious, divine matter? It is deservedly doubted. It has been a long time since Crete, by its zeal for mutual deceits, has become the fable of the world. You know that saying, ho Kres ton Kreta: pros Kreta kretizein the Cretan plays the Cretan against a Cretan, to repay a lie generously with a lie, and to appear more punishable than even the inhabitants of Pontus. This stain on the name would be more truly washed away by a love of sincerity than nurtured, nay, increased, by the invention of Syncretism. Which most mendacious nation of the island will have faith in pacts and agreements if it has prostituted that faith to the immortal Gods? That Cretan Logodaedalus cunning weaver of words/sophist sold mere smoke and sought a laurel wreath on a honey-cake when he persuaded those to a communion of religion who are separated from one another by the whole breadth of heaven. While under the facade of manners and names, he drew away from the foundation and head of the controversies—things which either hold the head of the matter themselves, or are so connected to it as parts to a body, that if you remove a part, you undo the shield of Phidias. He would surely be just as absurd who would go to separate the one from the true, as one who would separate the honorable from the useful. Nothing is one unless it is true; nothing is a whole if you remove a part. Because a painted eye has the name of an eye, is it truly an eye? Or is a song that is sung under one tone by three sentences, and as they say, texts, one? And to come to the present matter, do the Jew—who understands the Celestial Deity through his unknown and unnamed Deity, to be comprehended by no image—and Epimenides—to whom the Celestial Deity is Jupiter, never buried but immortal—and the vulgar—who venerate Jupiter as mortal and buried in Crete—all worship one Celestial Deity? Truly, such is the dullness of my judgment that I do not grasp such a subtle point. One