30. But in the discussion
which we at present maintain, we do not undertake this trouble or
service, to show and declare who all these were. But this
is what we proposed to ourselves, that as you call us impious and
irreligious, and, on the other hand, maintain that you are pious
and serve the gods, we should prove and make manifest that by no men
are they treated with less respect than by you. But if it is
proved by the very insults that it is so, it must, as a consequence, be
understood that it is you who rouse the gods to fierce and terrible
rage, because you either listen to or believe, or yourselves invent
about them, stories so degrading. For it is not he who is
anxiously thinking of religious rites,42354235 and slays spotless victims, who gives
piles of incense to be burned with fire, not he must be thought to
worship the deities, or alone discharge the duties of religion.
True worship is in the heart, and a belief worthy of the gods; nor does
it at all avail to bring blood and gore, if you believe about them
things which are not only far remote from and unlike their nature, but
even to some extent stain and disgrace both their dignity and
virtue.