physicum, gods from poets, genus mythicum, and gods from nations, genus gentile.
He introduces the image of adoption in connection with this third type of gods,
which corresponds to civil theology, because they are the gods the different nations
have chosen and adopted to practice their cult:For he has made a threefold distinction in classifying the gods: one being the physical
class, of which the philosophers treat; another the mythicclass, which is the constant
burden of the poets; the third, the gentileclass, which the nations have adopted each
one for itself. (Nat.2.1.10)This image of “adoption” that characterizes civil theology introduces to us the
way in which Tertullian attempts to seize and understand the status of religions in
the Roman empire, to approach the issue of freedom of religious practice and the
plurality of cults, which differed from one city to another and which on many occa-
sions were unknown to the Roman citizens themselves, so that as from here
Tertullian refers to the complex, contradictory relationship between local religions
and universal religion. The concept of “adoption,” introduced here and reformu-
lated in Apologeticum, he finds useful both to describe the plurality of cults in the
empire and to criticize the Roman gods who passively allow themselves to be chosen
and, therefore, depend on the contingency and arbitrariness of local decisions, a
point Tertullian goes on to develop in chapter 8 when he once again picks up the
theme of civil theology. Opposing the opinions of philosophers and the inventions
of poets, Tertullian introduces the question of the relationship between truth and
place (Nat.2.1.11), and this allows him to go on to disqualify municipal adoption
as an election that changes from one place to another, since each town is likely to
adopt a different divinity. In the face of this theology, Tertullian presents his own
ideas about truth characterized as certa(sure) in opposition to the opinions of philo-
sophers, which he describes as incertaand varia(manifold), as integrain opposition
to the inventions of poets, which he qualifies as indignaand turpia(shameful), and
communis(general) in opposition to local pantheons, which he describes as passiva
and voluntaria(Nat.2.1.14). In the following chapters, Tertullian systematically pre-
sents Varro’s system, focusing in chapters 2 to 6 on the genus physicum, on the genus
mythicumin chapter 7, and on the genus gentilein chapter 8. Here he picks up the
issue of municipal adoption, of gods elected not according to the truth but on an
arbitrary whim (Nat.2.8.1). And he opposes this to his image of god characterized
as communis, present and to be venerated everywhere (Nat.2.8.2).
Based on this, Tertullian points out that if those gods that are universally wor-
shiped, such as stars or elements of nature, do not hold up to philosophical testing,
much less so can those gods that are sometimes unknown even to the citizens them-
selves. He illustrates this with a long list of gods (Nat.2.8.3–7), initially containing
central divinities from different Roman provinces: the Syrians’ Atargatis, the
Africans’ Caelestis, Varsutina from Mauretania, the Arabs’ Obodas and Dusaris, Belenus
from Noricum. Then, referring expressly to Varro as his source, he adds a series of
unknown gods from small Italic towns (dei decuriones): Delventinus in Casinum,
Visidianus in Narnia, Numiternus in Atina, Ancharia in Asculum, and Nortia in Vulsinii,
Roman Religion in the Vision of Tertullian 463