us may think
to the contrary, for they frequently stimulate nature in too violent a
manner. Everything, then, from which any great utility proceeded was
deified; and, indeed, the names I have just now mentioned are
declaratory of the particular virtue of each Deity.

XXIV. It has been a general custom likewise, that men who have done
important service to the public should be exalted to heaven by fame and
universal consent. Thus Hercules, Castor and Pollux, AEsculapius, and
Liber became Gods (I mean Liber[137] the son of Semele, and not
him[138] whom our ancestors consecrated in such state and solemnity
with Ceres and Libera; the difference in which may be seen in our
Mysteries.[139] But because the offsprings of our bodies are called
"Liberi" (children), therefore the offsprings of Ceres are called Liber
and Libera (Libera[140] is the feminine, and Liber the masculine); thus
likewise Romulus, or Quirinus--for they are thought to be the
same--became a God.

They are justly esteemed as Deities, since their souls subsist and
enjoy eternity, from whence they are perfect and immortal beings.

There is another reason, too, and that founded on natural philosophy,
which has greatly contributed to the number of Deities; namely, the
custom of representing in human form a crowd of Gods who have supplied
the poets with fables, and filled mankind with all sorts of
superstition. Zeno has treated of this subject, but it has been
discussed more at length by Cleanthes and Chrysippus. All Greece was of
opinion that Coelum was castrated by his son Saturn,[141] and that
Saturn was chained by his son Jupiter. In these impious fables, a
physical and not inelegant meaning is contained; for they would denote
that the celestial, most exalted, and ethereal nature--that is, the
fiery nature, which produces all things by itself--is destitute of that
part of the body which is necessary for the act of generation by
conjunction with another.

XXV. By Saturn they mean that which comprehends the course and
revolution of times and seasons; the Greek name for which Deity implies
as much, for he is called [Greek: Kronos,] which is the same with
[Greek: Chronos], that is, a "space of time." But he is called Saturn,
because he is filled (_saturatur_) with years; and he is usually
feigned to have devoured his children, because time, ever insatiable,
consumes the rolling years; but to restrain him from immoderate haste,
Jupiter has confined him to the co