Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Concerning the effeminates consecrated to the same Great\r\nMother, in defiance of all the modesty which belongs to men\r\nand women, Varro has not wished to say anything, nor do I\r\nremember to have read anywhere aught concerning them.\r\nThese effeminates, no later than yesterday, were going through\r\nthe streets and places of Carthage with anointed hair, whitened\r\nfaces, relaxed bodies, and feminine gait, exacting from the\r\npeople the means of maintaining their ignominious lives.\r\nNothing has been said concerning them. Interpretation\r\nfailed, reason blushed, speech was silent. The Great Mother\r\nhas surpassed all her sons, not in greatness of deity, but of\r\ncrime. To this monster not even the monstrosity of Janus is\r\nto be compared. His deformity was only in his image; hers\r\nwas the deformity of cruelty in her sacred rites. He has a\r\nredundancy of members in stone images; she inflicts the loss\r\nof members on men. This abomination is not surpassed by\r\nthe licentious deeds of Jupiter, so many and so great. He,\r\nwith all his seductions of women, only disgraced heaven with\r\none Ganymede; she, with so many avowed and public effeminates,\r\nhas both defiled the earth and outraged heaven. Perhaps\r\nwe may either compare Saturn to this Magna Mater, or\r\neven set him before her in this kind of abominable cruelty,\r\nfor he mutilated his father. But at the festivals of Saturn\r\nmen could rather be slain by the hands of others than mutilated\r\nby their own. He devoured his sons, as the poets say,\r\nand the natural theologists interpret this as they list. History\r\nsays he slew them. But the Romans never received,\r\nlike the Carthaginians, the custom of sacrificing their sons to\r\nhim. This Great Mother of the gods, however, has brought<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_293\">[Pg 293]</a></span>\r\nmutilated men into Roman temples, and has preserved that\r\ncruel custom, being believed to promote the strength of the\r\nRomans by emasculating their men. Compared with this\r\nevil, what are the thefts of Mercury, the wantonness of Venus,\r\nand the base and flagitious deeds of the rest of them, which\r\nwe might bring forward from books, were it not that they are\r\ndaily sung and danced in the theatres? But what are these\r\nthings to so great an evil,—an evil whose magnitude was only\r\nproportioned to the greatness of the Great Mother,—especially\r\nas these are said to have been invented by the poets?\r\nas if the poets had also invented this, that they are acceptable\r\nto the gods. Let it be imputed, then, to the audacity\r\nand impudence of the poets that these things have been sung\r\nand written of. But that they have been incorporated into\r\nthe body of divine rites and honours, the deities themselves\r\ndemanding and extorting that incorporation, what is that but\r\nthe crime of the gods? nay more, the confession of demons\r\nand the deception of wretched men? But as to this, that\r\nthe Great Mother is considered to be worshipped in the appropriate\r\nform when she is worshipped by the consecration of\r\nmutilated men, this is not an invention of the poets, nay,\r\nthey have rather shrunk from it with horror than sung of it.\r\nOught any one, then, to be consecrated to these select gods,\r\nthat he may live blessedly after death, consecrated to whom\r\nhe could not live decently before death, being subjected to such\r\nfoul superstitions, and bound over to unclean demons? But\r\nall these things, says Varro, are to be referred to the world.<a id=\"FNanchor_282_282\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_282_282\">[282]</a>\r\nLet him consider if it be not rather to the unclean.<a id=\"FNanchor_283_283\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_283_283\">[283]</a> But\r\nwhy not refer that to the world which is demonstrated to be\r\nin the world? We, however, seek for a mind which, trusting\r\nto true religion, does not adore the world as its god, but for\r\nthe sake of God praises the world as a work of God, and,\r\npurified from mundane defilements, comes pure<a id=\"FNanchor_284_284\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_284_284\">[284]</a> to God Himself\r\nwho founded the world.<a id=\"FNanchor_285_285\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_285_285\">[285]</a></p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK SEVENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-538"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"c94d9c0733cbeaae3cbdb4b3fdab427bc12f3d0b7722be4efb3094e3bf612e33","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_284_284","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_284_284","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_284_284\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_284_284\"><span class=\"label\">[284]</span></a> Mundus.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_284_284","text_sha256":"547d2a6a5318aede1e6cceb6fd70d71958959250002588e51c590c6d37c7d52b","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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