is a shame even to speak
of.

Behold, then, most worshipful, how these doctors and learned men argue,
even like the philosophers of the heathen whom thou didst confound. For
they declare the Gods to have been natural elements, sun and sky and
storm, even as did thy opponents; and, like them, as thou saidst, 'they
are nowise at one with each other in their explanations.' For of old
some boasted that Hera was the Air; and some that she signified the love
of woman and man; and some that she was the waters above the Earth; and
others that she was the Earth beneath the waters; and yet others
that she was the Night, for that Night is the shadow of Earth: as if,
forsooth, the men who first worshipped Hera had understanding of these
things! And when Hera and Zeus quarrel unseemly (as Homer declareth),
this meant (said the learned in thy days) no more than the strife
and confusion of the elements, and was not in the beginning an idle
slanderous tale.

To all which, most worshipful, thou didst answer wisely: saying that
Hera could not be both night, and earth, and water, and air, and the
love of sexes, and the confusion of the elements; but that all these
opinions were vain dreams, and the guesses of the learned. And why--thou
saidst--even if the Gods were pure natural creatures, are such foul
things told of them in the Mysteries as it is not fitting for me to
declare. 'These wanderings, and drinkings, and loves, and corruptions,
that would be shameful in men, why,' thou saidst, 'were they attributed
to the natural elements; and wherefore did the Gods constantly show
themselves, like the sorcerers called were-wolves, in the shape of
the perishable beasts?' But, mainly, thou didst argue that, till the
philosophers of the heathen were agreed among themselves, not all
contradicting each the other, they had no semblance of a sure foundation
for their doctrine.

To all this and more, most worshipful Father, I know not what the
heathen answered thee. But, in our time, the learned men who stand to it
that the heathen Gods were in the beginning the pure elements, and that
the nations, forgetting their first love and the significance of their
own speech, became confused and were betrayed into foul stories about
the pure Gods--these learned men, I say, agree no whit among themselves.
Nay, they differ one from another, not less than did Plutarch and
Porphyry and Theagenes, and the rest whom thou didst laugh to scorn.
Bear with me, Fathe