Gods Who Were Only Men

To mention a few instances out of many, so as not to go on too long: who, seeing his lawless and corrupt conduct toward Semele, Leda, Alcmene, Artemis, Leto, Maia, Europa, Danae and Antiope, or seeing what he dared to undertake with his own sister, having the same woman as both wife and sister, would not despise him and pronounce him worthy of death? For not only did he commit adultery, but he made gods of those born of his adulteries and raised them to heaven, contriving their deification as a cover for his lawlessness: such as Dionysus, Heracles, the Dioscuri, Hermes, Perseus and Soteira. [a]

Who, seeing the so-called gods in irreconcilable strife among themselves at Troy over the Greeks and Trojans, will fail to recognize their weakness, in that out of jealousy of one another they egged on even mortals to strife? Who, seeing Ares and Aphrodite wounded by Diomedes, or Hera and Aidoneus from beneath the earth, whom they call a god, wounded by Heracles, Dionysus by Perseus, Athena by Arcas, and Hephaestus hurled down and going lame, will not recognize their real nature? Who will not refuse to call them gods, and be assured, when he hears that they are perishable and able to suffer, that they are nothing but men, and weak men too, and admire those who inflicted the wounds rather than the wounded?

Or who, seeing the adultery of Ares with Aphrodite, and Hephaestus contriving a snare for the two of them, and the other so-called gods called by Hephaestus to view the adultery, coming and seeing their debauchery, would not laugh and recognize how worthless they are? Or who would not laugh to see the drunken folly and misconduct of Heracles toward Omphale? As for their deeds of pleasure, their shameless loves, and their divine images in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone and wood, we need not seriously expose them by argument. The facts are abominable in themselves, and enough on their own to prove the deception, so that one’s chief feeling is pity for those who are deceived about them. For while they hate the adulterer who interferes with a wife of their own, they are not ashamed to make gods of the teachers of adultery. They refrain from incest themselves, yet they worship those who practice it. They admit that molesting children is an evil, yet they serve those who stand accused of it. And they do not blush to ascribe to those they call gods things that the laws forbid even among men.