The City of God

The early parts of City of God are full of lively anecdotes about the beliefs and practices of Roman paganism. Augustine despises the worship of the pagan gods from pretty much every angle: Besides paganism’s falsity, he deplores its amorality, its licentiousness, and its cruelty. To the contemporary reader, Augustine’s distaste for the theatre and myth that made up a big part of popular pagan worship might at first seem prudish. But to both Augustine and the worshipers whose practices he derides, these performances and stories were deadly serious. As Seneca records, worshipers were sometimes driven to self-mutilation in religious frenzy.

Augustine also observes that pagan gods don’t seem to be elevated for the sake of what they represent (or else Felicity, the ultimate goal of all appeals to the gods, would be the chief goddess), and that they multiply endlessly and irrationally. In a comic passage on the many, many gods said to be responsible for the successful consummation of a marriage, he observes that:

If there is any modesty in human beings (there seems to be none in the gods!), I feel sure that the belief in the presence of so many divinities of both sexes to urge on the business in hand would so embarrass the couple as the quench the enthusiasm of the one and stiffen the reluctance of the other! (246).