Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 12.djvu/441

] And that comic poet Pherecrates, in The Fugitives, facetiously represents the gods themselves as finding fault with men on the score of their sacred rites:

And Eubulus, also a comic poet, thus writes respecting sacrifices:

And introducing Dionysus in Semele, he represents him disputing:

And Menander writes:

For is not the savour of the holocausts avoided by the beasts? And if in reality the savour is the guerdon of the gods of the Greeks, should they not first deify the cooks, who are dignified wdth equal happiness, and worship the chimney itself, which is closer still to the much-prized savour?

And Hesiod says that Zeus, cheated in a division of flesh by Prometheus, received the white bones of an ox, concealed with cunning art, in shining fat: