is looking for are those from Varro and Lactantius.
Varro says[317] that Ops was called Mater because she was identical with
Terra, who was, of course, Terra Mater: "Haec enim--

'terris gentes omnes peperit et resumit denuo,

quae dat cibaria,' ut ait Ennius."[318] It is clear, then, that neither
Varro nor Ennius understood this title of Ops and Terra in Dr. Frazer's
sense of the word. The quotation from the early Christian father
Lactantius, which contains three well-known lines of Lucilius, might
possibly deceive those who neglect to turn it out and read the context;
there we find at once that not even Lactantius could attribute to these
epithets the meaning which Dr. Frazer wishes to put on them. He would
have been as glad to do so as Dr. Frazer himself, though for a very
different reason; but what he actually wrote is this:--

"Omnem Deum qui ab homine colitur, necesse est inter solennes ritus et
precationes patrem nuncupari, non tantum honoris gratia, verum etiam
rationis; quod et antiquior est homine, et quod vitam, salutem, victum
praestat, ut pater. Itaque ut Iuppiter a precantibus pater vocatur,
etc."[319]

Dr. Frazer's quotation begins with this last sentence; it is a pity that
he did not read the context. If he had read it, his candour would have
compelled him to confess that not even a Christian father, with a keen
sense of what was ridiculous or degrading in the pagan religion,
understood the fatherhood of the gods as he wishes to understand it.

But I am wasting time in pressing this point. Dr. Frazer would hardly
have used such an argument if he had not been hard put to it. The
figurative use of human relationships is surely a common practice, when
addressing their deities, of all peoples who have reached the stage of
family life. As another distinguished anthropologist says: "The very
want of an object tends to supply an object through the imagination; and
this will be either the vital energy inherent in things, or the reflex
of the human father, who once satisfied his needs (_i.e._ of the
worshipper). So, in Aryan religions, the supreme god is father, [Greek:
Zeus pater], Diespiter, Marspiter. Ahura-Mazda is a father.... Another
analogy shows the relationship of brother and friend, as in the case of
Mithra."[320] The Romans themselves were familiar from the first with
such figurative use of relationship, as was natural to a people in whom
the family instinct was so strong; we have but to think o