Some modern writers have affected not to believe that so wise a nation could be guilty of an idolatry so stupid. But there is scarce any thing in all antiquity that comes to us better attested. They were on this account the objects of ridicule to other Pagan nations. See to this purpose, Cicero De Nat. Deorum, lib. i. cap. 16 et 29, et lib. iii. cap. 15. See also a passage of the poet Anaxandrides, in Athen. Deipnosoph. lib. vii. According to Diodorus, it was hard to make those who had not been witnesses of it, to believe the extravagan cies the Egyptians were guilty of, with regard to their sacred animals.* And Philo, who lived among them, charges them with worshipping dogs, lions, wolves, crocodiles, and many other animals, both terrestrial and aquatick. And he says that all strangers who came into Egypt were wont to laugh at them; and the more sensible travellers beheld them with astonishment and pity.+ Plutarch expressly "says that the "greater part of the Egyptians-Aiyutríwv oi tóλλ01, worshipping the animals themselves-αὐτὰ ζῶα θεραπεύοντες ;” thereby not only exposed their sacred ceremonies and worship to derision and contempt, but gave occasion to horrid conceptions, producing, in persons of weak and simple minds, an extravagance of superstition, and precipitating others of more subtle and daring spirits into atheistical and brutish opinions.‡ An

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of the affairs or customs of Egypt, such as Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, make no mention of this singular superstition, which they would not have omitted, if they had known that the Egyptians practised it. He thinks Juvenal is the first that has mentioned it. Lucian has also taken notice of it in his Jupiter Tragoedus. These authors have been followed by others; but, considering the satirical turn for which they are both so remarkable, he thinks they are not much to be depended upon.

Diod. Sic. lib. i. cap. 84.

+ Philo De Decal. Oper. p. 755. E.

Plut. De Isid. et Osir. Oper. tom. II. p. 379. D. E. But from these must be excepted the inhabitants of Thebais; if what the same author informs us of be true, that when the other Egyptians paid their proportion of the taxes and contributions, appointed by the laws, towards maintaining the sacred animals, the inhabitants of Thebais alone did not pay any thing, as thinking there is no mortal god; but worship him whom they call Kneph, as being unbegotten or unmade, and immortal. Ibid. p. 359. D.

ingenious modern author, who is loath to believe what is said of the Egyptian idolatry, says, by way of apology for them, that "the Egyptians did not adore these things without as❝cribing certain divine virtues to them, or considering them "as symbols of some invisible power.' But, if it were so,

it furnishes a remarkable instance of the vanity of human wisdom, if left to itself in matters of religion. For the symbols and hieroglyphics, upon which the wise men of Egypt so much valued themselves, and in which such profound wisdom and science was supposed to be contained, proved to be an occasion of leading the people into the most absurd and senseless idolatry; to which they continued inviolably attached, notwithstanding all the ridicule cast upon them for it by other nations. Cotta, in Cicero, observes that they showed a greater regard to the beasts which they worshipped, than other nations did to their most holy temples and images: that there had been many instances of temples spoiled and images of the gods taken away out of the most holy places by the Romans: but it had never been heard of, that a crocodile, an ibis, or a cat, had been ill treated by the Egyptians. "Fir"miores videas apud eos opiniones de bestiis quibusdam, "quam apud nos de sanctissimis templis et simulacris deorum.

Etenim fana multa expoliata, et simulacra deorum de locis "sanctissimis ablata vidimus a nostris; at verò ne fando "quidem auditum est, crocodilum, aut ibin, aut felem viola"tum ab Egyptiis." De Nat. Deor. lib. i. cap. 29. See also Tuscul. Disput, lib. v. cap. 27,

* Chevalier Ramsay's Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, vol. II. P. 53.

ered.

CHAP. VI.

The Pagan theology distributed by Varro into three different kinds: the poetical or fabulous, the civil, and the philosophical. The poetical or fabulous theology considThe pretence, that we ought not to judge of the Pagan religion by the poetical mythology, examined. It is shown that the popular religion and worship was in a great measure founded upon that mythology, which ran through the whole of their religion, and was of great authority with the people.

VARRO, who was accounted the most learned of the Romans, speaks of three different kinds of theology among them: the mythical or fabulous, the physical or natural, and the civil or popular. The first is that of the poets; the second that of the philosophers; the third is that which is established by public authority and the laws, and which is in use among the people.* The famous Roman pontiff and lawyer Scævola makes the same distinction. So also does Plutarch.‡

It will be proper, in order to form a right judgment of the state of religion among the Pagans, to take a view of these different kinds of theology.

As to the mythical or fabulous theology, which was that of the poets, it is condemned in strong terms both by Scævola and Varro. The former passes this just censure upon it, that it was nugatory, and that in it many unworthy things were feigned concerning the gods. And particularly he observes that "they make one god steal, another to commit "adultery; they represent three goddesses contending for the "prize of beauty, and that two of them, in revenge for its be"ing adjudged to Venus, subverted Troy; that Jupiter himself "was converted into a bull or a swan, that he might debauch "some woman he had a fancy for; that a goddess married a "man; that Saturn devoured his own children; and, in fine, "nothing can be imagined so monstrous or so vicious, but it

* Apud Augustin. De Civit. Dei, lib. vi. cap. 5.

+ Ibid. lib. iv. cap. 27.

De Placit. Philos. lib. i. cap. 6. Oper. tom. II. p. 880. A.

"may be found in the fables attributed to the gods, however "foreign to their nature.-Sic deos deformant, ut nec bonis "hominibus comparentur; cum alium faciunt furari, alium "adulterare; tres inter se deas certâsse de præmio pulchritudi"nis, victas duas a Venere Trojam evertisse; Jovem ipsum "converti in bovem aut cygnum, ut cum aliqua concumbat ; "deam homini nubere; Saturnum liberos devorare: nihil de"nique posse confingi miraculorum atque vitiorum quod non ❝ibi reperiatur, atque ab deorum natura longè absit.' Varro passes the same judgment upon the fabulous poetical theology which Scævola did. And, after mentioning some of the same absurdities, and others of the like kind, he concludes with saying that "all things are attributed to the gods, which "men, and even the vilest and worst of men, could be guilty of. "Omnia diis attribuuntur, quæ non modo in hominem, sed "etiam quæ in contemtissimum hominem cadere possunt."+ And long before them Plato had accused Hesiod, as guilty of the greatest falsehood, and that in a matter of the utmost importance, when he mentions such wicked things to have been perpetrated by Coelus, and his son Saturn; which, he thinks, if true, ought not to have been mentioned, especially to inconsiderate and young persons, but to have been buried in silence, or communicated only to a few. He pronounces these fables to be pernicious, and not fit to be heard in a well-ordered commonwealth. And afterwards mentioning what Homer says of the quarrel between Jupiter and Juno, and Vulcan's being hurled down by Jupiter from heaven for taking Juno's part, as also what the same poet relates concerning the battles and contentions of the gods, he declares that these stories are not to be admitted, whether they are pretended to have a hidden allegorical meaning or not. See his second book De Republica, at the latter end.‡ Cicero also passes a severe censure upon the poetical fables.§

Augustin De. Civ. Dei, lib. iv. cap. 27. p. 84. E. Ed. Rened.

+ Ibid. lib. vi. cap. 5. p. 116. E.

Plat. Oper. Ficin. p. 429, 430. Edit. Lugd. 1590.

§ De Nat. Deor. lib. i. cap. 16. et lib. ii. cap. 28.

Considering this and other passages to the same purpose, which occur in some of the most eminent Pagan writers, it may be looked upon as an unfair thing to judge of the ancient religion of the heathens by the writings of the poets and mythologists. And accordingly they, who endeavour to represent that religion in the most advantageous light, are for entirely discarding the poetical mythology. This is Lord Herbert's scheme. He mightily inveighs against the poets, as having confounded and polluted the heathen theology, and left nothing sound or pure in their history or religion; and that therefore no regard is to be had to them in this matter.*

And yet certain it is, that, in examining into the religion of the ancient Gentiles, the poetical mythology, notwithstanding the censures so freely bestowed upon it, must necessarily be considered. It may justly be affirmed that the writings of the poets tend to give us the truest idea of the Pagan religion, as it obtained even among the polite and learned nations of Greece and Rome, and as it was established by public authority. Whosoever will carefully consult the account given by Potter, in his excellent antiquities of Greece, of the numerous sacred festivals and rites observed and celebrated in Greece, and especially at Athens, will find that they are almost all founded upon the fables of the poetical mythology. The same may be said of many of those observed by the ancient Romans.

The poets, as Dr. Cudworth observes, were the prophets of the Pagans, and pretended to a kind of divine inspiration. And, though he treats them as the great depravers of the Pa

* "Licentiâ quippe poeticâ usi musarum alumni, ita omnia temerabant, ut quid ❝ ad alterutras spectet partes nemo facile invenerit.-Facessant igitur, et ab ipsa gen"tilium theologiâ exulent poetæ ; non solùm quippe veras heroum historas, ex fabul"arum interpolatione suspectas, ne dicam falsas, etiam mortalium credulissimis red"diderunt: sed et fabulas hasce mysticis involutisque quibusdam, circa cœlum, as"traet elementa doctrinis, admiscentes, nihil integrum, nihil sanum, vel in historia "vel in ipsa religione reliquere." Herb. De Relig. Gentil. cap. xi. p. 135. Edit. Amstel. 8vo.

† See Potter's Antiquities, vol. I. lib. 2. chap. 20. from p. 326. to p. 4C7.