Tertullian

“ And if you do believe your poets, how is it that you worship such gods (as they describe) ? If you worship them simply because you do not believe the poets, why do you bestow praise on such lying authors, without any fear of giving offence to those whose calumniators you honour? A regard for truth [19] is not, of course, to be expected of poets. But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human? ”

“ The poets, no doubt, are liars. Yet it is not because of their telling us that [24] your gods did such things when they were human beings, nor because they predicated divine scandals [25] of a divine state, since it seemed to you more credible that gods should exist, though not of such a character, than that there should be such characters, although not gods. ”