Crepitus is an allegedRoman god offlatulence created by Christians and used in their literature frequently as a fascinating subject to them. It is unlikely that Crepitus was ever actually worshipped. The only ancient source for the claim that such a god was ever worshipped comes fromChristiansatire. The nameCrepitus standing alone would be an inadequate and unlikely name for such a god inLatin.[further explanation needed] The god appears, however, in a number of important works ofFrench literature.
The origin of the myth is somewhat obscure, as it is possible that the existence of this god is an invention by a satirist. No ancient polytheistic source appears for this deity.
The earliest mention of a god of flatulence is as anEgyptian, not aRoman deity. This comes from the hostile pen of the author of theRecognitions dubiously attributed toPope Clement I, in which it is reported that:
alii ... crepitus ventris pro numinibus habendos esse docuerunt.
"others (among the Egyptians) teach that intestinal noise (Latin:crepitus ventris) ought to be regarded as a god."[1]
It is unlikely that Clement I was the author of the extantRecognitiones; these are extant chiefly in a Latin translation, presumably out of the original Greek, made byTyrannius Rufinus in the late fourth or early fifth century. The passage of Pseudo-Clement stands within a Western Christian tradition of satire against the variety of minor deities worshipped by classical pagans; similar passages exist inThe City of God by SaintAugustine of Hippo, andTertullian'sAd Nationes.[2]
Lilius Giraldus repeats many of her ceremonies: all affections of the mind were heretofore accounted gods, love, and sorrow, virtue, honour, liberty, contumely, impudency, had their temples, tempests, seasons,Crepitus Ventris, dea Vacuna, dea Cloacina, there was a goddess of idleness, a goddess of the draught, or jakes, Prema, Premunda, Priapus, bawdy gods, and gods for all offices.[3]
Burton cites a work calledSyntagma de Diis ("A Compendium of the Gods") byLilius Giraldus as his source for the existence of such a god; by this reference, Burton probably meant Giraldus'Historia de diis gentium ("History of the Pagan Gods"); but because Burton wrote in what he called an "extemporean" style,quicquid in buccam venit ("whatever came into his head"),[4] Burton's quotations and references are not always reliable.[5] Because of Burton's mixedLatin and English style, this passage may not say that there was a godnamed "Crepitus Ventris", (Latin for "intestinal noise"), but only that there was a god of intestinal noise. The Latin wordcrepitus, moreover, did not exclusively mean the sound generated by intestinal gas; it referred to squeaks, groans, knocks, and any nondescript noise in general. InThe City of God, Augustine elsewhere refers tocrepitus cymbalorum, the clang ofcymbals.[6] Medical jargon gives the namecrepitus to the creaking or popping noises made by the joints. TheLatin word for "to fart" ispēdere.[7]
Voltaire, in a passage of hisPhilosophical Dictionary devoted to changing conceptions ofdeity, alludes to a number of real or alleged Roman deities of a less exalted status:
La déesse des tétons, dea Rumilia; la déesse de l’action du mariage, dea Pertunda; le dieu de la chaise percée, deus Stercutius; le dieu Pet, deus Crepitus, ne sont pas assurément bien vénérables. . . Il est sûr que deus Crepitus, le dieu Pet, ne donnait pas la même idée que deus divum et hominum sator,la source des dieux et des hommes.
"The goddess of breasts,dea Rumilia; the goddess of the marital act,dea Pertunda; the god of the toilet,deus Stercutius; the god Fart,deus Crepitus, were surely not quite objects of reverence. . . It is certain thatdeus Crepitus, the god Fart, did not give the same sort of idea asdeus divum et hominum sator, the creator of gods and men."
— "Polytheism", entry in thePhilosophical Dictionary of Voltaire.[8]
Through these passages, the nounCrepitus moves from acommon noun to aproper noun. Previous authorities had only claimed that the ancient polytheists, whether Egyptian or Roman, worshipped a god of intestinal noises. Perhaps in Burton's mention, and certainly in Voltaire,Crepitus is the name of a god of flatulence.
Baudelaire criticised both the need of religion and the mediocrity ofneopagan artists in the essay "The Pagan School" ("L'École païenne"):
Pastiche ! pastiche ! Vous avez sans doute perdu votre âme quelque part, dans quelque mauvais endroit, pour que vous couriez ainsi à travers le passé comme des corps vides pour en ramasser une de rencontre dans les détritus anciens ? Qu'attendez-vous du ciel ou de la sottise du public ? Une fortune suffisante pour élever dans vos mansardes des autels à Priape et à Bacchus ? Les plus logiques d'entre vous seront les plus cyniques. Ils en élèveront au dieu Crepitus.
"Pastiche! pastiche! You must have all surely lost your soul somewhere, in some bad place, to be thus running now through the past as emptied carcasses, trying to pick one up from the ancient detritus on stumbling on it by haphazard. Have you not? What are you expecting of the heavens or the folly of the public? Could it be a fortune swollen enough to raise altars to Priapus and Bacchus upon your mansard roofs? The most sane amongst you shall be those most cynical: they shall raise it in honour of the god Crepitus."[9]
CREPITUS:Moi aussi l'on m'honora jadis. On me faisait des libations. Je fus un Dieu!
L'Athénien me saluait comme un présage de fortune, tandis que le Romain dévot me maudissait les poings levés et que le pontife d'Égypte, s'abstenant de fèves, tremblait à ma voix et pâlissait à mon odeur.
Quand le vinaigre militaire coulait sur les barbes non rasées, qu'on se régalait de glands, de pois et d'oignons crus et que le bouc en morceaux cuisait dans le beurre rance des pasteurs, sans souci du voisin, personne alors ne se gênait. Les nourritures solides faisaient les digestions retentissantes. Au soleil de la campagne, les hommes se soulageaient avec lenteur.
J'ai eu mes jours d'orgueil. Le bon Aristophane me promena sur la scène, et l'empereur Claudius Drusus me fit asseoir à sa table. Dans les laticlaves des patriciens j'ai circulé majestueusement! Les vases d'or, comme des tympanons, résonnaient sous moi;--et quand plein de murènes, de truffes et de pâtés, l'intestin du maître se dégageait avec fracas, l'univers attentif apprenait que César avait dîné![10]
"I once was honoured. Libations were made to me. I was a God!
"The Athenian once hailed me as a favourable omen, while the pious Roman cursed me with raised fists, and the pontiff of Egypt, abstinent from beans, trembled at my voice and paled at my odour. . .
"When the army vinegar ran down unshaven beards, when men helped themselves to acorns, peas, and raw onions, and cooked chopped up goat meat in shepherds' rank butter — never mind your neighbour — no one was embarrassed by me. Solid foods made for sound digestions. In the sun of the countryside, men took their ease at their leisure. . .
"I had my glory days. Jolly Aristophanes placed me on the stage, and the emperor Claudius Drusus had me sitting at his table. I made the rounds majestically in thelaticlaves of patricians! The golden vessels resounded under me like kettledrums — and when stuffed with lamprey, truffles, and pâtés, the intestine of the Master noisily emptied itself, an attentive universe learned that Caesar had dined!"[11]
While Flaubert learned from his friendFréderic Baudry, who in turn had consultedAlfred Maury, that "poor little Deus Crepitus does not exist; it's a modern invention," he liked his text so much that he left him in.[12] While it is unlikely that the god Crepitus ever existed, the scene fromAristophanes is genuine; inThe Clouds Athenians comparethunder to the sound of celestial flatulence.
^Pseudo-Clement,RecognitionesArchived August 21, 2004, at theWayback Machine 5.20. English version available inThe Ante-Nicene Fathers, Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, editors, Vol. VIII. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Company)[1]
^Robert Burton,The Anatomy of Melancholy, Preface, "Democritus Junior to the Reader"
^"A Note on the Text" by William H. Gass toThe Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review Books Classics) (New York Review of Books, 1991),ISBN0-940322-66-8
^The City of God 7.24, referring to the use of cymbals in the cult ofCybele.
^The Latin nouncrepitus is in the fourthLatin declension, and itsgenitive case would also becrepitūs. See generallyThe Classic Latin Dictionary (Follett, Chicago, 1961) sub. tit.crepitus
