—Virgil’s Æneid, viii. 320–324, Conington’s trans. Does not his very image, made as it is with the head covered, present him as one under concealment?591 Was it not he that made the practice of agriculture known to the people of Italy, a fact which is expressed by the reaping-hook?592 No, say they; for you may see whether the being of whom such things are recorded was a man,593 and indeed one partic- ular king: we, however, interpret Saturn to be universal Time, as is signified also by his name in Greek: for he is called Chronus,594 which word, with the aspiration thus given it, is also the vocable for time: whence, too, in Latin he gets the name of Saturn, as if it meant that he is sated595with years. But now, what we are to make of people like these I know not, who, in their very effort to put a more favourable meaning upon the names and the images of their gods, make the confession that the very god who is their major deity, and the father of the rest, is Time. For what else do they thus betray but, in fact, that all those gods of theirs are only temporal, seeing that the very parent of them all is made out to be Time? 35. Accordingly, their more recent philosophers of the Platonic school, who have flourished in Christian times, have been ashamed of such fancies, and have endeavoured to interpret Saturn in another way, affirming that he received the name Χρόνος596 in order to signify, as it were, the fulness of intellect; their explanation being, that in Greek fulness597 is expressed by the term χόρος,598 and intellect or mind by the term νοῦς;599 which etymo- logy seems to be favoured also by the Latin name, on the supposition that the first part of the word (Saturnus) came from the Latin, and the second part from the Greek: so that he got the title Saturnus as an equivalent to satur, νοῦς.600 For they saw how absurd it was to have that Jupiter regarded as a son of Time, whom they either considered, or wished to have considered, eternal deity. Furthermore, however, according to this novel interpretation, which it is marvellous that Cicero and Varro should have suffered to escape their notice, if their ancient authorities really had it, they call Jupiter the son of Saturn, thus denoting him, 591 Quasi latentem indicat, in reference to the story introduced in the Virgilian passage, that the country got its name, Latium, from the disappearance of the god. 592 The statue of Saturn represented him with a sickle or pruning-knife in his hand. 593 Migne’s text gives, on the authority of mss., the reading, Nam videris si fuit ille homo, etc. Others edit, Nam tametsi fuerit ille, etc. = For although he may have been a man…yet we interpret, etc. 594 For Kronos. 595 Saturetur—saturated, abundantly furnished. 596 Chronos, Kronos. 597 Or satiety. 598 Choros. 599 Nous. 600 Full, mind. 199 Of the Follies Which the Pagans Have Indulged in Regarding Jupiter and …