Commodian — Instructiones 18
Is it not a disgrace that a prudent man be seduced and worship such a one, or say Diana is wood? In the morning you trust one drunk, raw, about to perish, who speaks by feigned art what seems to him; he truly plays god and demands entrails for himself. One detestable man piles up all the citizens and has joined like men to himself in a made college, with whom he feigns a story to adorn a god. He does not know how to divine for himself; for others he dares. He shoulders him when he likes, and when he likes he sets him down; he turns spinning from himself with the two-pronged wood, as if you would think him breathed on by a wood’s divinity. You do not worship gods that these falsely prophesy: you worship the priests themselves, fearing in vain. But if you thrive in heart, flee now the shrines of death.
Latin
18 NEMESIACIS VANIS. Non ignominium est uirum seduci prudentem Et colere talem aut Dianam dicere lignum? Mane ebrio, crudo, perituro creditis uno, Ex arte qui fincte loquitur, quod illi uidetur; Se uere deum agit, sibi uiscera poscit. Incopriat ciues unus detestabilis omnes Adplicuitque sibi similis collegio facto, Cum quibus historiam fingit, ut deum adornet. Ipse sibi nescit diuinare, ceteris audet. Succollat, quando libet, eum, et quando, deponit; Uertitur a se rotans cum ligno bifurci, Ac si putes illum adflatum numine ligni. Non deos uos colitis, quos isti false prophetant: Ipsos sacerdotes colitis in uano timentes. Sed si corde uiges, fuge iam sacraria mortis.