earth; as some to be in the sea; and the ancientest of them
all to be bound in hell; and for those to whom they have
allotted heaven, they have set over them one, who in title is
their father, but in his actions a tyrant and a lord; whence it
came to pass that his wife, and brother, and daughter (which
daughter he brought forth from his own head) made a
conspiracy against him to seize upon him and confine hint, as
he had himself seized upon and confined his own father
before.

35. And justly have the wisest men thought these notions
deserved severe rebukes; they also laugh at them for
determining that we ought to believe some of the gods to be
beardless and young, and others of them to be old, and to
have beards accordingly; that some are set to trades; that one
god is a smith, and another goddess is a weaver; that one god
is a warrior, and fights with men; that some of them are
harpers, or delight in archery; and besides, that mutual
seditions arise among them, and that they quarrel about men,
and this so far, that they not only lay hands upon one
another, but that they are wounded by men, and lament, and
take on for such their afflictions. But what is the grossest of
all in point of lasciviousness, are those unbounded lusts
ascribed to almost all of them, and their amours; which how
can it be other than a most absurd supposal, especially when
it reaches to the male gods, and to the female goddesses
also? Moreover, the chief of all their gods, and their first
father himself, overlooks those goddesses whom he hath
deluded and begotten with child, and suffers them to be kept
in prison, or drowned in the sea. He is also so bound up by