Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| There are some, however, whose minds are so blinded that when they come upon these very things they neither turn to them nor feel any fear, but despise them and laugh, as though they were listening to some made-up fables. They praise the varied colors of the eloquence, but turn away from the solid substance of the doctrine; they put their faith in the fables of the poets, and spread stale and false rumors through the whole Greek world and the whole barbarian world alike.
2| For the poets say that sons of a god, who were men, judge souls after death; they sing of judgments and places of punishment, and they set overseers over the departed. Yet these same poets proclaim battles of the divinities and certain laws of war; they noise abroad the fates appointed to them, and they represent some of them as harsh by nature, others as indifferent to the care of human beings, and others again as hard to please. They even bring them on stage lamenting the slaughter of their own children, as though they were unable to protect not only strangers but even those dearest to them; and they portray them as subject to human passions, singing of their wars and wounds, their joys and their laments.
3| And they deserve to be believed when they say these things. For if it is by divine inspiration that they take up the art of poetry, it is right to believe them and to be persuaded about what they say under that inspiration; and what they speak of is the sufferings of gods and divinities. The sufferings of these beings, then, must certainly be bound up with the truth. But someone will say that poets are allowed to lie, since the proper business of poetry is to charm the souls of its hearers, while truth is present only when what is said is exactly as it is stated and not otherwise.
4| Granted, let it be the proper business of poetry at times to snatch the truth away. Yet those who tell falsehoods do not lie for nothing: either they do it for the sake of gain and advantage, or, conscious of some evil deed of their own, they cover it over because of the danger that hangs over them from the laws. For it was possible, I think, for those who inquire into the higher nature to tell no lie at all against the truth and to commit no impiety.
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