12. But let them4138 be true, as you maintain, yet will you have us also believe4139 that Mellonia, for example, introduces herself into the entrails, or Limentinus, and that they set themselves to make known4140 what you seek to learn? Did you ever see their face, their deportment, their countenance? or can even these be seen in lungs or livers? May it not happen, may it not come to pass, although you craftily conceal it, that the one should take the other’s place, deluding, mocking, deceiving, and presenting the appearance of the deity invoked? If the magi, who are so much akin to4141 soothsayers, relate that, in their incantations, pretended gods4142 steal in frequently instead of those invoked; that some of these, moreover, are spirits of grosser substance,4143 who pretend that they are gods, and delude the ignorant by their lies and deceit,—why4144 should we not similarly believe that here, too, others substitute themselves for those who are not, that they may both strengthen your superstitious beliefs, and rejoice that victims are slain in sacrifice to them under names not their own?
Footnotes
- 4138
i.e., the predictions.
- 4139
Lit., “will you make the same belief.”
- 4140
Lit., “adapt themselves to the significations of the things which.”
- 4141
Lit., “brothers of.”
- 4142
i.e., demons.
- 4143
Perhaps “abilities”—materiis.
- 4144
The ms. reads cum—“with similar reason we may believe,” instead of cur, as above.