Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.70
70.1. But why do I speak of small things? The immortal gods themselves, whose temples you now approach and whose powers you adore as suppliants, according to your own letters and opinions, began not to be and not to be known from certain times, and to be named by imposed appellations of names?
2. For if it is true that Jupiter with his brothers was begotten from Saturn and his wife, before the marriages and births of Ops Jupiter had been nowhere—Jupiter as well the supreme as the Stygian—nowhere the lord of the salt dance, nowhere Juno; nay, no other at all besides the two parents inhabited the seats of heaven, but from their concubinage they were conceived and born and drank in the living breath.
3. Therefore from a fixed time Jupiter began to be a god, from a fixed time to earn cult and sacrifices, from a fixed time to be set before his brothers in powers. Again, if Liber, Venus, Diana, Mercury, Apollo, Hercules, the Muses, the Tyndarid Castors, and fire-potent Vulcan were brought forth with Jupiter as father and begotten from the Saturnian begetter, before Memory, before Alcmena, Maia, Juno, Latona, Leda, Dione, and then Semele were made pregnant by Diespiter’s embraces, these too were nowhere among the nations nor in any part of the nature of things, but from Jupiter’s congress they were seeded and born and began to have some sense of themselves.
4. Therefore these also began to be at a fixed time and to be invoked in the number of sacred powers for ceremonies—which the same may likewise be said, transferred, of Minerva. For if, as you assert, she flashed from Jupiter’s brain without the cast of any seed, before Diespiter was begotten and received in his mother’s womb the form of bodily outline, it is certain that Minerva did not exist nor was reckoned in the number of things or in any substance, but she was born from Jupiter’s head and began to be some thing constituted in essence. She therefore has first origins, and from a fixed time she began to be called a goddess, to be set in sacred buildings, and to be sanctioned by inviolable religion.
5. Since this is so, when you speak of the newness of our religions, your own do not come to your mind, nor do you care to inspect when your gods arose, what origins they have, what causes, or from what roots they burst and flashed forth. And of what shame is it—nay, of what shamelessness—to reprove another in that which you see yourself doing, to give as insult and crime things that can be hurled back upon you by reciprocal exchange?
Latin
70.1. Sed quid ego haec parva? Ipsi dii immortales, quorum modo aditis templa et numina suppliciter adoratis, sicut vestris litteris atque opinionibus traditur, non esse, non sciri ab temporibus coeperunt certis et impositis nominum appellationibus nuncupari?
2. Nam si verum est ex Saturno atque eius uxore Iovem suis cum fratribus procreatum, ante nuptias et partus Opis nusquam fuerat Iuppiter, Iuppiter tam supremus quam Stygius, nusquam sali dominus, nusquam Iuno, quinimmo alius nullus genitoribus duobus exceptis caeli habitabat in sedibus, sed ex eorum concubitu concepti et nati sunt et spiritum hausere vitalem.
3. Certo ergo a tempore deus esse Iuppiter coepit, certo cultus et sacrificia commereri, certo fratribus in potestatibus anteponi. Rursus vero si Liber Venus Diana Mercurius Apollo Hercules Musae, Tyndaridae Castores ignipotensque Vulcanus Iove patre sunt proditi et genitore Saturnio procreati, ante quam Memoria, quam Alcmena Maia Iuno Latona Leda Dione, tum et Semela Diespitri factae sunt compressionibus fetae, nusquam et hi gentium nec in aliqua parte rerum fuere naturae, sed ex conventu Iovis inseminati et nati sunt et aliquem sensum sui habere coeperunt.
4. Ergo et hi quoque tempore esse coeperunt certo et in numero numinum sacrorum ad caerimonias invocari, quod ipsum similiter dicere translatum in Minervam licebit. Si enim Iovis, ut adseveratis, ex cerebro sine ullius seminis emicuit iactu, antequam est Diespiter genitus et in utero matris corporeae formam circumscriptionis accepit, certum est utique Minervam non fuisse neque rerum in numero aut ulla esse in substantia computatam, sed ex capite Iovis enata est et esse res coepit nonnulla in essentia constituta. Habet ergo primigenios ortus, et a certo coepta est tempore dea dici, sacris in aedibus statui et inviolabili religione sanciri.
5. Quod cum ita se habeat, cum de novitate loquimini religionum nostrarum, vestrae vobis in mentem non veniunt, nec curatis inspicere, quando sint exorti dii vestri, quas origines habeant, quas causas, vel ex: quibus proruperint emicuerint que radicibus? Cuius est autem pudoris, quinimmo inverecundiae cuius, quod agere te videas, in eo alterum reprehendere, maledicti et criminis loco dare ea quae in te possint reciprocata vicissitudine retorqueri?