The writer, after thus scathing the cult of Antinous,
goes on to glance at Ctesar-worship. " Princes and
kings," he says,

might fairly be flattered as men mighty and elect, but
the homage paid to them as gods is false. It is truer to
bestow honour on a man because he is renowned, and
sweeter to bestow love on him because he is best of his
kind. But, instead of this, the pagans invoke the god-
head of kings, pray to their images, appeal, when
accused of aught, to their genius — that is, their demon;
and so it is held less risky to perjure yourself by the
genius of Jove than by that of the king.
Lactantius, another Latin apologist at the beginning
of the fourth century, holds similar language, in a
passage which merits citation because it so admirably
sums up the earlier conceptions of Jesus enter-
tained in the Church before his deification d outrance ;
for this was only accomplished later on, in the



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 183

Councils called orthodox. The passage is in a work
On True Wisdom, ch. 14 : —

As to what were the ways of God and what his
precepts, we are left neither in doubt nor in darkness.
