athen.)

Touching the Gods of the Heathen, most reverend Father, thou art not
ignorant that even now, as in the time of thy probation on earth, there
is great dissension. That these feigned Deities and idols, the work of
men's hands, are no longer worshipped thou knowest; neither do men eat
meat offered to idols. Even as spoke that last Oracle which murmured
forth, the latest and the only true voice from Delphi, even so 'the
fair-wrought court divine hath fallen; no more hath Phoebus his home,
no more his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of water; nay, the
sweet-voiced water is silent.' The fane is ruinous, and the images of
men's idolatry are dust.

Nevertheless, most worshipful, men do still dispute about the beginnings
of those sinful Gods: such as Zeus, Athene, and Dionysus: and marvel
how first they won their dominion over the souls of the foolish peoples.
Now, concerning these things there is not one belief, but many;
howbeit, there are two main kinds of opinion. One sect of philosophers
believes--as thyself, with heavenly learning, didst not vainly
persuade--that the Gods were the inventions of wild and bestial folk,
who, long before cities were builded or life was honourably ordained,
fashioned forth evil spirits in their own savage likeness; ay, or in the
likeness of the very beasts that perish. To this judgment, as it is set
forth in thy Book of the Preparation for the Gospel, I, humble as I
am, do give my consent. But on the other side are many and learned men,
chiefly of the tribes of the Alemanni, who have almost conquered the
whole inhabited world. These, being unwilling to suppose that the
Hellenes were in bondage to superstitions handed down from times of
utter darkness and a bestial life, do chiefly hold with the heathen
philosophers, even with the writers whom thou, most venerable, didst
confound with thy wisdom and chasten with the scourge of small cords of
thy wit.

Thus, like the heathen, our doctors and teachers maintain that the Gods
of the nations were, in the beginning, such pure natural creatures as
the blue sky, the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and the fire; but, as
time went on, men, forgetting the meaning of their own speech and no
longer understanding the tongue of their own fathers, were misled and
beguiled into fashioning all those lamentable tales: as that Zeus, for
love of mortal women, took the shape of a bull, a ram, a serpent, an
ant, an eagle, and sinned in such wise as it