Into a bitch transformed you shall be,But the greater part of the Egyptians worshipping the very animals themselves, and courting them as Gods, have not only filled their religious worship with matter of scorn [p. 129] and derision (for that would be the least harm that could come of their blockish ignorance); but a dire conception also arises therefrom, which blows up the feeble and simple minded into an extravagance of superstition, and when it lights upon the more subtle and daring tempers, outrages them into atheistical and brutish cogitations. Wherefore it seems not inconsonant here to recount what is probable upon this subject.
And be the image of bright Hecate.
But now this in its true intention is no such thing.
But they make their lamentation for the fruits; and their
prayers to the Gods, who are the authors and bestowers
of those fruits, that they would be pleased to produce and
bring up again other new ones in the place of them that
are gone. Wherefore it is an excellent saying among
philosophers, that they that have not learned the true
sense of words will mistake also in the things; as we see
those among the Greeks who have not learned nor accustomed themselves to call the brazen and stone statues and
the painted representations of the Gods their images or
their honors, but the Gods themselves, are so adventurous
as to say that Lachares stripped Minerva, that Dionysius
cropped off Apollo's golden locks, and that Jupiter Capitolinus was burned and destroyed in the civil wars of
Rome. They therefore, before they are aware, suck in
and receive bad opinions with these improper words. And
the Egyptians are not the least guilty herein, with respect
to the animals which they worship. For the Grecians
both speak and think aright in these matters, when they
tell us that the pigeon is sacred to Venus, the serpent to
Minerva, the raven to Apollo, and the dog to Diana, as
Euripides somewhere speaks:
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