The sun (_sol_) is so named either because he is _solus_ (alone), so eminent above all the stars; or because he obscures all the stars, and appears alone as soon as he rises.

_Luna_, the moon, is so called _a lucendo_ (from shining); she bears the name also of Lucina: and as in Greece the women in labor invoke Diana Lucifera, so here they invoke Juno Lucina.

She is likewise called Diana _omnivaga_, not _a venando_ (from hunting), but because she is reckoned one of the seven stars that seem to wander.[148] She is called Diana because she makes a kind of day of the night;[149] and presides over births, because the delivery is effected sometimes in seven, or at most in nine, courses of the moon; which, because they make _mensa spatia_ (measured spaces), are called _menses_ (months).
This occasioned a pleasant observation of Timaeus (as he has many).
Having said in his history that "the same night in which Alexander was born, the temple of Diana at Ephesus was burned down," he adds, "It is not in the least to be wondered at, because Diana, being willing to assist at the labor of Olympias,[150] was absent from home." But to this Goddess, because _ad res omnes veniret_--"she has an influence upon all things"-- we have given the appellation of Venus,[151] from whom the word _venustas_ (beauty) is rather derived than Venus from _venustas_.
XXVIII.

Do you not see, therefore, how, from the productions of nature and the useful inventions of men, have arisen fictitious and imaginary Deities, which have been the foundation of false opinions, pernicious errors, and wretched superstitions?
For we know how the different forms of the Gods--their ages, apparel, ornaments; their pedigrees, marriages, relations, and everything belonging to them--are adapted to human weakness and represented with our passions; with lust, sorrow, and anger, according to fabulous history: they have had wars and combats, not only, as Homer relates, when they have interested themselves in two different armies, but when they have fought battles in their own defence against the Titans and giants.

These stories, of the greatest weakness and levity, are related and believed with the most implicit folly.
But, rejecting these fables with contempt, a Deity is diffused in every part of nature; in earth under the name of Ceres, in the sea under the name of Neptune, in other parts under other names.