ds, but of religion also, which
consists in a pious adoration of them.

What think you of those who have asserted that the whole doctrine
concerning the immortal Gods was the invention of politicians, whose
view was to govern that part of the community by religion which reason
could not influence? Are not their opinions subversive of all religion?
Or what religion did Prodicus the Chian leave to men, who held that
everything beneficial to human life should be numbered among the Gods?
Were not they likewise void of religion who taught that the Deities, at
present the object of our prayers and adoration, were valiant,
illustrious, and mighty men who arose to divinity after death?
Euhemerus, whom our Ennius translated, and followed more than other
authors, has particularly advanced this doctrine, and treated of the
deaths and burials of the Gods; can he, then, be said to have confirmed
religion, or, rather, to have totally subverted it? I shall say nothing
of that sacred and august Eleusina, into whose mysteries the most
distant nations were initiated, nor of the solemnities in Samothrace,
or in Lemnos, secretly resorted to by night, and surrounded by thick
and shady groves; which, if they were properly explained, and reduced
to reasonable principles, would rather explain the nature of things
than discover the knowledge of the Gods.

XLIII. Even that great man Democritus, from whose fountains Epicurus
watered his little garden, seems to me to be very inferior to his usual
acuteness when speaking about the nature of the Gods. For at one time
he thinks that there are images endowed with divinity, inherent in the
universality of things; at another, that the principles and minds
contained in the universe are Gods; then he attributes divinity to
animated images, employing themselves in doing us good or harm; and,
lastly, he speaks of certain images of such vast extent that they
encompass the whole outside of the universe; all which opinions are
more worthy of the country[102] of Democritus than of Democritus
himself; for who can frame in his mind any ideas of such images? who
can admire them? who can think they merit a religious adoration?

But Epicurus, when he divests the Gods of the power of doing good,
extirpates all religion from the minds of men; for though he says the
divine nature is the best and the most excellent of all natures, he
will not allow it to be susceptible of any benevolence, by which he
destroys the chi