Charidotes, the surname under which Mercury was worshipped on the island of Samos. Here is an unusual anecdote about his worshippers: on his feast day, when people were busy making their sacrifices to him, the Samiens stole with impunity all that they came across; this was in memory of the fact that their ancestors, conquered and scattered by their enemies, had been reduced to living for ten years only through pillages and banditry; or rather on the model of the god (Mercury), who was said to be the patron of thieves. This trait alone would be enough, although antiquity did not give us many others, to prove how essential it is that men have just ideas of the divine. If superstition raises on the altars a Jupiter who is vindictive, jealous, a Sophist, angry, fond of deception, and who encourages men to steal, to commit perjury, to betray, etc., I do not doubt that with the aid of imposters and poets, the people will quickly admire all those imperfections and become inclined to them; for it is easy to transform vices into virtues, when one thinks that one recognizes them in a being upon which one only raises his eyes with veneration. Such were also the effects of the scandalous stories that pagan theology attributed to its gods. In Terence, a young libertine excuses himself of a despicable action via the example of Jupiter. “What, he asks himself, a god was not averse to changing into a man, and slipping along the tiles into the bedroom of a young girl? And which god again? The one who shakes the sky with his thunderbolt; and me, a puny mortal, I should have scruples? Should I fear to do as much? Ego illud vero ita feci ac lubens . [1] Petronius criticizes the senate that in tempting the justice of the gods through gifts, it seemed to announce to the people that there was nothing one could not do for this precious metal. Ipse senatus, recti bonique praeceptor, mille pondo auri Capitolio promittere solet, et ne quis dubitet pecuniam concupiscere, Iovem quoque peculio exornat . [2]

Plato chased the poets out of his republic; without a doubt because the art of feigning, which they professed, respected neither the gods, nor men, nor nature, there were no authors more suited to deceive people about the things of which knowledge could not be false, without their morals being altered.

It is Christianity that has banished all these false gods, and all these bad idols, in order to present to men another one, who will make them all the more saintly, insofar as they will be more perfect imitators of him.

Translator's Note

1. Terence, Eunuchus , act III, scene 5. "Certainly, I was to do it, and without hesitation." Henry Thomas Riley, ed. and trans., The Comedies of Terence (New York: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), 101.

2. Petronius, Satyricon , C. 88. "Even the Senate, the teachers of what is right and good, often promise a thousand pounds in gold to the Capitol, and decorate even Jupiter with pelf, that no one need be ashamed of praying for money." Michael Heseltine, ed. and trans., Petronius (London, William Heinemann, 1913), 175.