Deride, and his alone as good maintain.
[6488]———obvia signis
Signa, pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis,
Of such symptoms as properly belong to superstition, or that irreligious religion, I may say as of the rest, some are ridiculous, some again feral to relate. Of those ridiculous, there can be no better testimony than the multitude of their gods, those absurd names, actions, offices they put upon them, their feasts, holy days, sacrifices, adorations, and the like. The Egyptians that pretended so great antiquity, 300 kings before Amasis: and as Mela writes, 13,000 years from the beginning of their chronicles, that bragged so much of their knowledge of old, for they invented arithmetic, astronomy, geometry: of their wealth and power, that vaunted of 20,000 cities: yet at the same time their idolatry and superstition was most gross: they worshipped, as Diodorus Siculus records, sun and moon under the name of Isis and Osiris, and after, such men as were beneficial to them, or any creature that did them good. In the city of Bubasti they adored a cat, saith Herodotus. Ibis and storks, an ox: (saith Pliny) [6502]leeks and onions, Macrobius,
[6503]Porrum et caepe deos imponere nubibus ausi,
Hos tu Nile deos colis.———
Et domibus, tectis, thermis, et equis soleatis
Assignare solent genios———
Quicquid humus, pelagus, coelum miserabile gignit
Id dixere deos, colles, freta, flumina, flammas.