Whom, then, ye men of Greece, do ye call your teachers of religion? The poets? It will do your cause no good to say so to men who know the poets; for they know how very ridiculous a theogony they have composed,—as we can learn from Homer, your most distinguished and prince of poets. For he says, first, that the gods were in the beginning generated from water; for he has written thus: 2508 —
“Both ocean, the origin of the gods, and their mother Tethys”And then we must also remind you of what he further says of him whom ye consider the first of the gods, and whom he often calls “the father of gods and men;” for he said: 2509 —
“Zeus, who is the dispenser of war to men.”Indeed, he says that he was not only the dispenser of war to the army, but also the cause of perjury to the Trojans, by means of his daughter; 2510 and Homer introduces him in love, and bitterly complaining, and bewailing himself, and plotted against by the other gods, and at one time exclaiming concerning his own son: 2511 —
“Alas! he falls, my most beloved of men!And at another time concerning Hector: 2512 —
“Ah! I behold a warrior dear to meAnd what he says of the conspiracy of the other gods against Zeus, they know who read these words: 2513 “When the other Olympians—Juno, and Neptune, and Minerva —wished to bind him.” And unless the blessed gods had feared him whom gods call Briareus, Zeus would have been bound by them. And what Homer says of his intemperate loves, we must remind you in the very words he used. For he said that Zeus spake thus to Juno: 2514 — p. 274
“For never goddess pourd, nor woman yet,It is fit that we now mention what one can learn from the work of Homer of the other gods, and what they suffered at the hands of men. For he says that Mars and Venus were wounded by Diomed, and of many others of the gods he relates the sufferings. For thus we can gather from the case of Dione consoling her daughter; for she said to her: 2515 —
“Have patience, dearest child; though much enforcdBut if it is right to remind you of the battle of the gods, opposed to one another, your own poet himself will recount it, saying: 2516 —
“Such was the shock when gods in battle met;These and such like things did Homer teach you; and not Homer only, but also Hesiod. So that if you believe your most distinguished poets, who have given the genealogies of your gods, you must of necessity either suppose that the gods are such beings as these, or believe that there are no gods at all.
That is, Venus, who, after Paris had sworn that the war should be decided by single combat between himself and Menelaus, carried him off, and induced him, though defeated, to refuse performance of the articles agreed upon.
273:2511Iliad, xvi. 433. Sarpedon was a son of Zeus.
273:2512 273:2513 273:2514Iliad, xiv. 315. (The passage is here given in full from Cowpers translation. In Justins quotation one or two lines are omitted.)
274:2515Iliad, v. 382 (from Lord Derbys translation).
274:2516Iliad, xx. 66 (from Lord Derbys translation).
Bible | Daily Readings | Agbeya | Books | Lyrics | Gallery | Media | Links
https://st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/001/0010612.html
Short URL (link):
tak.la/gr5m3xp