、 tle to hope. In that difconfolate condition, they attri bute the bulk of their diftreffes to an invifible being, who in their opinion must be malevolent. This feems to have been the opinion of the Greeks in the days of Solon; as appears in a converfation between him and Crafts King of Lydia, mentioned by Herodotus in the first book of his hiftory. "Cræfus, faid Solon, you ask me about ❝ human affairs; and I answer as one who thinks that all the gods are envious, and difturbers of mankind." The negroes on the coast of Guinea, dread their deities as tyrants and oppreffors: having no conceptions of a good deity, they attribute the few bleffings they receive, to the foil, to the rivers, to the trees, and to the plants. The Lithuanians continued Pagans down to the fourteenth century; and worshipped in gloomy woods, where their deities were held to refide. Their worship probably was prompted by fear, which is allied to gloominefs or darknefs. The people of Kamfkatka acknowledge to this day raany malevolent deities, having little or no notion of a good deity. They believe the air, the water, the mountains, and the woods, to be inhabited by malevolent fpirits, whom they fear and worship. The favages of Guiana afcribe to the devil even their most common diseases; nor do they ever think of another remedy, but to apply to a forcerer to drive him away. Such ne groes as believe in the devil, paint his images white. Conviction of fuperior beings, who, like men, are of a mixed nature, sometimes doing good, fometimes mifchief, conftitute the third fiage. This came to be the fyftem of theology in Greece. The intoduction of writ ing among the Greeks, while they were little better than favages, produced a compound of character and manners, that has not a parallel in any other nation. They were acute in fcience, fkilful in fine arts, extremely deficient in orals, grofs beyond conception in theology, and fuperfti tions to a degree of folly; a ftrange jumble of exquifite fenfe and abfurd nonfenfe. They held their gods to re fen ble men in their external figure, and to be corporcal. In the 21ft book of the Iliad, Minerva with a huge ftone beats Mars to the ground, whofe monftrous body cover ed feven broad acres. As corporeal beings, they were fuppofed to require the nourishment of meat, drink, and fleep. Homer mentions more than once the inviting of gods to à feaft: and Paufanias reports, that in the temple of Bacchus at Athens, there were figures of clay, reprefenting a feast given by Amphyction to Bacchus and other deities. The inhabitants of the Ifland Java are not fo grofs in their conceptions, as to think that the gods eat the offerings prefented to them: but it is their opinion, that a deity brings his mouth near the offering, fucks out all its favour, and leaves it taftelefs like water The Grecian gods, as described by Homer, dress, bathe, and anoint, like mortals. Venus, after being detected by her husband in the embraces of Mars, retires to Paphos : Where to the pow'r an hundred altars rife, Juno's dress is moft poetically defcribed, Iliad, book 14. It was also univerfally believed, that the gods were fond of women, and had many children by them. The ancient Germans thought more fenfibly, that the gods were too high to resemble men in any degree, or to be confined within the walls of a temple. Led by the fame impreffions of deity, the Greeks feem to have thought, that the gods did not much exceed themselves in knowledge. When Agefilaus journeyed with his private retinue, he ufually lodged in a temple, making the gods witneffes, fays Plutarch, of his moft fecret actions. The Greeks thought, that a god, like a man, might know r All Greek writers, and thofe in their neighbourhood, form the world out of a chaos. They had no such exalted notion of a deity as to believe, that he could make the world cut of nothing. what paffed within his own house; without knowing any thing paffing at a greater diftance. Agamemnon, in Efchylus, putting off his travelling habit, and dreffing himself in fplendid purple, is afraid of being feen and envied by fome jealous god. We learn from Seneca, that people ftrove for the feat next to the image of the deity, that their prayers might be the better heard. But what we have chiefly to remark upon this head is, that the Grecian gods were, like men, held capable of doing both good and ill. Jupiter, their highest deity, was a ravisher of women, and a notorious adulterer. In the fecond book of the Iliad, he fends a lying dream to deceive Agamemnon. Mars feduces Venus by bribes to commit adultery (a). In the Rhefus of Euripides, Minerva, difguifed like Venus, deceives Paris by a grofs lie. The ground-work of the tragedy of Xuthus is a lying oracle, declaring Ion, fon of Apollo and Creufa, to be the fon of Xuthus. Oreftes in Euripides, having flain his mother Clytemneftra, excufes himself as having been milled by Apollo to commit the crime. "Ah! fays he, had "I confulted the ghost of my father, he would have dif"fuaded me from a crime that has proved my ruin, with out doing him any good." He concludes with obferving, that having acted by Apollo's command, Apollo is the only criminal. In a tragedy of Sophocles, Minerva makes no difficulty to cheat Ajax, by promifing to be his friend, while underhand fhe is ferving Ulyffes, his bitter enemy. Mercury, in revenge for the murder of his fon Myrtillus, entails curfes on Pelops the murderer, and on all his race ef. In general, the gods, every where in Greek tragedies, are partial, unjuft, tyrannical, and revengeful. The Greeks accordingly have no referve in maltreating their gods. In the tragedy of Prometheus, Jupiter, without the leaft ceremony, is accufed of being an ufurper. Eíchylus preclaims publicly on the ftage, that Jupiter, a jealous, cruel, and implacable ty (a) Odyffey, book 8. The English tranflator of that tragedy, observes it to be remarkable in the Grecian creed, that the gods punish the crimes of men upon their innocent pofterity. rant, had overturned every thing in heaven; and that the other gods were reduced to his flaves. In the Iliad, book 13. Menelaus addreffes Jupiter in the following words: "O father Jove! in wisdom, they fay, thou excelleft "both men and gods. Yet all these ills proceed from "thee: for the wicked thou doft aid in war. Thou art "a friend to the Trojans, whofe fouls delight in force, "who are never glutted with blood." The gods were often treated with a fort of contemptuous familiarity, and employed on very low offices. Nothing is more common, than to introduce them as actors in Greek tragedies; frequently for trivial purposes: Apollo comes upon the ftage moft courteously to acquaint the audience with the fubject of the play. Why is this not urged by our critics, as claffical authority against the rule of Horace, Nec deus interfit nifi dignus vindice nodus*. Homer makes ufeful fervants of his gods. Minerva, in particular, is a faithful attendant upon Ulyffes. She acts the herald, and calls the chief to council (a). She marks the place where a great ftone fell that was thrown by Ulyffes (b). She affifts Ulyffes to hide his treafure in a cave (c), and helps him to wrestle with a beggar (d). Ulyffes being toffed with cares in bed, fhe defcends from heaven to make him fall afleep (e). This laft might poffibly be fqueezed into an allegory, if Minerva were not frequently introduced where there is no place for an allegory. Jupiter, book 17. of the Iliad, is introduced comforting the steeds of Achilles for the death of Patroc lus. It appears from Cicero (f), that when Greek philofophers began to reafon about the deity, their notions were wonderfully crude. One of the hardest morfels to digeft in Plato's philofophy, was his doctrine, That God is incorporeal; which by many was thought abfurd, for .very that, without a body, he could not have fenfes, nor pru dence, nor pleasure. The religious creed of the Romans feems to have been little lefs impure than that of the Greeks. It was a ceremony of theirs, in befieging a town, to evocate the tutelar deity, and to tempt him by a reward to betray his friends and votaries. In that ce remony, the name of the tutelar deity was thought of importance; and for that reafon, the tutelar deity of Rome was a profound fecret *. Appian of Alexandria, in his book of the Parthian war, reports, that Anthony, The form of the evocatio follows. "Tuo duâu, inquit, Py"thie Apollo, tuoque numine instinctus, pergo ad delendam ur"bem Veios: tibique hinc decimam partem prædæ voveo. 44 Te fimul, Juno Regina, quæ nunc Veios colis, precor, ut nos victores in noftrem tuamque mox futuram urbem fequare: ubi te, dignuin amplitudine tua templum accipiat." Titus Livius, lib. 5. cap. 21. [In English thus: "Under thy guidance and divine in"fpiration, O Pythian Apollo, I march to the deftruction of Vaii; aud to thy fhrine I devote a tenth of the plunder Im"perial Juno, guardian of Veii, dign to profper our victorious 66 ་་ arms, and a temple fhall be erected to thy honour, fuitable to "the greatnefs and majefty of thy name." But it appears from Macrobius, that they ufed a form of evocation even when the name of the tutelar deity was unknown to them. "Si deus, fi "dea eft, cui populus civitafque Carthaginienfis eft in tutela, te66 que maxime ille qui urbis hujus populiqui tutelam recipifti, precor, venerorque, veniamque a vobis peto, ut vos populum civi“tatemque Carthaginienfem deferatis, lota, templa, facra, urbemque eorum relinquiates, abfque his abeatis, eique populo, civit atiqui metum, formidinem, oblivionem injiciatis, proditique "Ronan ad me meofque veneatis, noftraque bobis loca, templa, facra, urbs, acceptior probatiorque fit, mihiqui populoque Ro"mane militibufque meis præpofiti fitis, ut fciamus intelligamufque. Si ita feceritis, voveo, vobis templa ludofque facturum." Saturnal. lib 3. cap. 9.- \In Englife thus: "That divinity. wheth er god or goddess, who is the guardian of the flate of Carthage, "that divinity I invoke, I pray and fupplicate that he will defert that perfidious eople. Honour not with thy prefence their "temples, their ceremonies, nor their city, abandon them to all "their fears, leave them to intamy and oblivion. Fly hence to "Rome, where, in my country, and among my fellow-citizens, "thou shalt have nobler temples, and more acceptable facrifices; thou fhalt be the tutelar deity of this army, and of the Roman "ftate. On this condition, I here vow to crect temples and inftitute games to thine honour."] |
