The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint, Vol. 2 (of 2) / The Roman Trial

by Walter M. Chandler

The gods at Rome increased in number just in proportion that the empire expanded. The admission of foreign territory brought with it the introduction of strange gods into the Roman worship.

When the Romans needed a new god and could not find a foreign one that pleased them, they deliberately manufactured a special deity for the occasion. In the breaking up and multiplication of the god-idea, they excelled all the nations of antiquity. It was the duty of the pontiffs to manufacture a divinity whenever an emergency arose and one was needed. The god-casting business was a regular employment of the Decemviri and the Quindecemviri; and a perusal of the pages of Roman history reveals these god-makers actively engaged in their workshops making some new deity to meet some new development in Roman life.

The extent of the polytheistic notions of the ancient Romans is almost inconceivable to the modern mind. Not only were the great forces of nature deified, but the simplest elements of time, of thought, and action. Ordinary mental abstractions were clothed with the attributes of gods. Mens (Mind), Pudicitia (Chastity), Pietas (Piety), Fides (Fidelity), Concordia (Concord), Virtus (Courage), Spes (Hope), and Voluptas (Pleasure), were all deities of the human soul, and were enthusiastically worshiped by the Romans. A single human action was frequently broken into parts each of which had a little god of its own. The beginning of a marriage had one deity and its conclusion, another. Cunina was the cradle-goddess of a child. Statilinus, Edusa, Potnia, Paventia, Fabelinus and Catius were other goddesses who presided over other phases of its infancy. Juventas was the goddess of its youth; and, in case of loss of parents, Orbona was the goddess that protected its orphanage.

Any political development in the Roman state necessitated a new divinity to mark the change. In the early periods of their history, the Romans used cattle as a medium of exchange in buying and bartering. Pecunia was then the goddess of such exchange. But when, in later times, copper money came into use, a god called Æsculanus was created to preside over the finances; and when, still later, silver money began to be used, the god Argentarius was called into being to protect the coinage. This Argentarius was naturally the son of Æsculanus.

Not only the beneficent but the malign forces of nature were deified. Pests, plagues, and tempests had their special divinities who were to be placated. "There were particular gods for every portion of a dwelling—the door, the threshold of the door, and even the hinges of the door. There was a special god for each different class—even the most menial and the most immoral; and a special divinity for those who were afflicted in a peculiar manner, such as the childless, the maimed or the blind. There was the god of the stable, and the goddess of the horses; there were gods for merchants, artists, poets and tillers of the soil. The gods must be invoked before the harvest could be reaped; and not even a tree could be felled in the forest without supplicating the unknown god who might inhabit it."[136]

The extreme of the Roman divinity-making process was the deification of mere negative ideas. Tranquillitas Vacuna was the goddess of "doing nothing."

Not only were special actions and peculiar ideas broken up and subdivided with an appropriate divinity for each part or subdivision, but the individual gods themselves were subdivided and multiplied. It is said that there were three hundred Jupiters in Rome. This means that Jupiter was worshiped under three hundred different forms. Jupiter Pluvius, Jupiter Fulgurator, Jupiter Tonans, Jupiter Fulminator, Jupiter Imbricitor, Jupiter Serenator, were only a few designations of the supreme deity of the Romans.

It will thus be seen that polytheism was insatiable in its thirst for new and strange gods. When the god-casting business was once begun, there was no end to it. And when the Roman empire had reached its greatest expansion, and Roman public and private life had attained to complete development, the deities of the Roman religion were innumerable. No pantheon could hold them, and no Roman could remember the names of all. Temples of the gods were everywhere to be found throughout the empire; and where there were no altars or temples, certain trees, stones and rocks were decorated with garlands and worshiped as sacred places which the gods were supposed to frequent. Thus the Roman world became crowded with holy places, and the gods and goddesses became an innumerable host. Petronius makes a countrywoman from a district adjoining Rome declare that it was much easier to find a god in her neighborhood than a man. We shall see that the multiplicity of the gods was finally the cause of the decay and ruin of the Roman religion.

The Roman Priesthood.—The Roman priesthood was composed of several orders of pontiffs, augurs, keepers of the Sibylline books, Vestal virgins, epulos, salians, lupercals, etc.

Fifteen pontiffs exercised supreme control in matters of religion. They were consecrated to the service of the gods; and all questions of doubtful religious interpretation were submitted to the judgment of their tribunal.