Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II:
City of God: Chapter 23

Chapter 23.—Concerning the Earth, Which Varro Affirms to Be a Goddess, Because that Soul of the World Which He Thinks to Be God Pervades Also This Lowest Part of His Body, and Imparts to It a Divine Force.

Surely the earth, which we see full of its own living creatures, is one; but for all that, it is but a mighty mass among the elements, p. 135 and the lowest part of the world.  Why, then, would they have it to be a goddess?  Is it because it is fruitful?  Why, then, are not men rather held to be gods, who render it fruitful by cultivating it; but though they plough it, do not adore it?  But, say they, the part of the soul of the world which pervades it makes it a goddess.  As if it were not a far more evident thing, nay, a thing which is not called in question, that there is a soul in man.  And yet men are not held to be gods, but (a thing to be sadly lamented), with wonderful and pitiful delusion, are subjected to those who are not gods, and than whom they themselves are better, as the objects of deserved worship and adoration.  And certainly the same Varro, in the book concerning the select gods, affirms that there are three grades of soul in universal nature.  One which pervades all the living parts of the body, and has not sensation, but only the power of life,—that principle which penetrates into the bones, nails and hair.  By this principle in the world trees are nourished, and grow without being possessed of sensation, and live in a manner peculiar to themselves.  The second grade of soul is that in which there is sensation.  This principle penetrates into the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and the organs of sensation.  The third grade of soul is the highest, and is called mind, where intelligence has its throne.  This grade of soul no mortal creatures except man are possessed of.  Now this part of the soul of the world, Varro says, is called God, and in us is called Genius.  And the stones and earth in the world, which we see, and which are not pervaded by the power of sensation, are, as it were, the bones and nails of God.  Again, the sun, moon, and stars, which we perceive, and by which He perceives, are His organs of perception.  Moreover, the ether is His mind; and by the virtue which is in it, which penetrates into the stars, it also makes them gods; and because it penetrates through them into the earth, it makes it the goddess Tellus, whence again it enters and permeates the sea and ocean, making them the god Neptune.

Let him return from this, which he thinks to be natural theology, back to that from which he went out, in order to rest from the fatigue occasioned by the many turnings and windings of his path.  Let him return, I say, let him return to the civil theology.  I wish to detain him there a while.  I have somewhat to say which has to do with that theology.  I am not yet saying, that if the earth and stones are similar to our bones and nails, they are in like manner devoid of intelligence, as they are devoid of sensation.  Nor am I saying that, if our bones and nails are said to have intelligence, because they are in a man who has intelligence, he who says that the things analogous to these in the world are gods, is as stupid as he is who says that our bones and nails are men.  We shall perhaps have occasion to dispute these things with the philosophers.  At present, however, I wish to deal with Varro as a political theologian.  For it is possible that, though he may seem to have wished to lift up his head, as it were, into the liberty of natural theology, the consciousness that the book with which he was occupied was one concerning a subject belonging to civil theology, may have caused him to relapse into the point of view of that theology, and to say this in order that the ancestors of his nation, and other states, might not be believed to have bestowed on Neptune an irrational worship.  What I am to say is this:  Since the earth is one, why has not that part of the soul of the world which permeates the earth made it that one goddess which he calls Tellus?  But had it done so, what then had become of Orcus, the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, whom they call Father Dis? 282   And where, in that case, had been his wife Proserpine, who, according to another opinion given in the same book, is called, not the fecundity of the earth, but its lower part? 283   But if they say that part of the soul of the world, when it permeates the upper part of the earth, makes the god Father Dis, but when it pervades the nether part of the same the goddess Proserpine; what, in that case, will that Tellus be?  For all that which she was has been divided into these two parts, and these two gods; so that it is impossible to find what to make or where to place her as a third goddess, except it be said that those divinities Orcus and Proserpine are the one goddess Tellus, and that they are not three gods, but one or two, whilst notwithstanding they are called three, held to be three, worshipped as three, having their own several altars, their own shrines, rites, images, priests, whilst their own false demons also through these things defile the prostituted soul.  Let this further question be answered:  What part of the earth does a part of the soul of the world permeate in order to make the god Tellumo?  No, says he; but the earth being one and the same, has a double life,—the masculine, which produces seed, and the feminine, which receives and nourishes the seed.  Hence it has been called Tellus from the feminine principle, and Tellumo from the masculine.  Why, then, do the priests, as he p. 136 indicates, perform divine service to four gods, two others being added,—namely, to Tellus, Tellumo, Altor, and Rusor?  We have already spoken concerning Tellus and Tellumo.  But why do they worship Altor? 284   Because, says he, all that springs of the earth is nourished by the earth.  Wherefore do they worship Rusor? 285   Because all things return back again to the place whence they proceeded.

Footnotes

See ch. 16.

Varro, De Ling. Lat. v. 68.

Nourisher.

Returner.