ity. or the Jupiter of the Capitol (1); till, at length, they all met in the amicable synod of the Pantheon, a representative assembly, as it were, of the presiding deities of all nations, in Rome, the religious as well as the civil capital of the world (2). The state, as Cicero shows in his Book of Laws, retained the power of declaring what forms of religion were permitted by the law (licitæ) (3); but this authority was rarely exercised with rigour, excepting against such foreign superstitions as were considered pernicious to the morals of the people, in earlier times, the Dionysiac (4); in later, the Isiac and Serapic rites (5). Universal- Christianity proclaimed itself the religion not of family, or tribe, ity of Christian- or nation, but of universal man. It admitted within its pale, on equal terms, all ranks and all races. It addressed mankind as one brotherhood, sprung from one common progenitor, and raised to immortality by one Redeemer. In this respect Christianity might appear singularly adapted to become the religion of a great empire. At an earlier period in the annals of the world, it would have encountered obstacles apparently insurmountable, in passing from one province to another, in moulding hostile and jealous nations into one religious community. A fiercer fire was necessary to melt and fuse the discordant elements into one kindred mass, before its gentler warmth could penetrate and permeate the whole with its vivifying influence. Not only were the circumstances of the times favourable to the extensive propagation of Christianity, from the facility of intercourse between the most remote nations, the cessation of hostile movements, and the uniform system of internal police, but the state of mankind seemed imperiously to demand the introduction of a new religion, to satisfy those universal propensities of human nature, which connect man with a higher order of things. Man, as history and experience teach, is essentially a (1) Solere Romanos Deos omnes urbium superatarum partim privatim per familias, spargere, partim publice consecrare. Arnob. iii. 38. It was a grave charge against Marcellus, that, by plundering the temples in Sicily, he had made the state an object of jealousy (iziq0oγον), because not only men but gods were led in triumph. The older citizens approved rather the conduct of Fabius Maximus, who left to the Tarentines their offended gods. Plut Vit. Marc. (2) According to Verrius Flaccus, cited hy the form of Evocation. The name of the tutelar Compare Augustin de Cons. Evang. i. 18. For the Grecian custom on this subject, see Thucyd. iv. 98. Philip, the king of Macedon, defeated by Flaninius in his wars with the Grecian states, paid little respect to the temples. His admiral Dicæarchus is said to have erected and sacrificed on two altars to Impiety and Law. lessness, Ασεβεία and Παρανόμια. This fact would be incredible on less grave authority than that of Polybius, lib. xviii. 37. On the general respect to temples in war, comp. Grot. de Jur. Bell. et Pac. iii, 12. 6. (3) The question is well discussed by Jortin, Discourses, p. 53. note. Dionysius Hal. distinguishes between religions permitted, and publicly received. lib. 11 vol. i. p. 275. edit, Reiske, (4) Livy, xxix. 12. et seqq. (5) During the republic, the temples of Isis and Serapis were twice ordered to be destroyed, Dion. xl. p 142., xlii. p. 196., also liv. p. 525, Val. Max. i. 3. Prop. ii. 24. On the Roman law on this subject, compare Jortin, Discourses, p. 53. Gibbon, vol. i. p. 55, with Wenck's note. religious being; there are certain faculties and modes of thinking and feeling apparently inseparable from his mental organisation, which lead him irresistibly to seek some communication with another and a higher world. But at the present juncture, the ancient religions were effete: they belonged to a totally different state of civilisation; though they retained the strong hold of habit and interest on different classes of society, yet the general mind was advanced beyond them; they could not supply the religious necessities of the age. Thus, the world, peaceably united under one temporal monarchy, might be compared to a vast body without a soul the throne of the human mind appeared vacant; among the rival competitors for its dominion, none advanced more than claims local, or limited to a certain class. Nothing less was required than a religion co-extensive with the empire of Rome, and calculated for the advanced state of intellectual culture and in Christianity this new element of society was found; which, in fact, incorporating itself with manners, usages, and laws, has been the bond which has held together, notwithstanding the internal feuds and divisions, the great European commonwealth; maintained a kind of federal relation between its parts; and stamped its peculiar character on the whole of modern history. ting prin Christianity announced the appearance of its Divine Author as the Dissociaera of a new moral creation; and if we take our stand, as it were, ciple of old on the isthmus which separates the ancient from the modern world, religions. and survey the state of mankind before and after the introduction of this new power into human society, it is impossible not to be struck with the total revolution in the whole aspect of the world. If from this point of view we look upward, we see the dissociating principle at work both in the civil and religious usages of mankind; the human race breaking up into countless independent tribes and nations, which recede more and more from each other as they gradually spread over the surface of the earth; and in some parts, as we adopt the theory of the primitive barbarism (1), or that of the degeneracy of man from an earlier state of culture, either remaining stationary at the lowest point of ignorance and rudeness, or sinking to it; either resuming the primeval dignity of the race, or rising gradually to a higher state of civilisation. A certain diversity of religion follows the diversity of race, of people, and of country. In no respect is the common nature of human kind so strongly, indicated (1) The notion that the primeval state of man was altogether barbarous and uncivilised, so generally prevalent in the philosophy of the two last centuries (for Dryden's line, Since wild in woods the noble savage ran, contains the whole theory of Rousseau) has encountered a strong reaction. It is remarkable that Niebuhr in Germany, and Archbishop Whateley in this country, with no knowledge of each other's views, should at the same time call in as in the universality of some kind of religion; in no respect is man so various, yet so much the same. All the religions of antiquity, multiform and countless as they appear, may be easily reduced to certain classes, and, independent of the traditions which they may possess in common, throughout the whole, reigns something like a family resemblance. Whether all may be rightly considered as depravations of the same primitive form of worship; whether the human mind is necessarily confined to a certain circle of religious notions; whether the striking phenomena of the visible world, presented to the imagination of various people in a similar state of civilisation, will excite the same train of devotional thoughts and emotions, the philosophical spirit, and extensive range of inquiry, which in modern times have been carried into the study of mythology, approximate in the most remarkable manner the religions of the most remote countries (1). The same primary principles everywhere appear, modified by the social state, the local circumstances, the civil customs, the imaginative or practical character of the people. Each state of social culture has its characteristic theology, self-adapted to the intellectual and moral condition of the people, and coloured in some degree by the habits of life. In the rudest and most savage races we find a gross superstition, called by modern Fetichism. foreign writers, Fetichism (2), in which the shapeless stone, the meanest reptile, any object however worthless or insignificant, is consecrated by a vague and mysterious reverence, as the representative of an unseen Being. The beneficence of this deity is usually limited to supplying the wants of the day, or to influencing the hourly occurrences of a life, in which violent and exhausting labour alternates either with periods of sluggish and torpid indolence, as among some of the North American tribes; or, as among the Africans, with wild bursts of thoughtless merriment (3). This Fetichism apparently survived in more polished nations, in the household (1) The best, in my opinion, and most comprehensive work on the ancient religions, is the (yet unfinished) translation of Creuzer's Symbolik, by M. De Guignaut, Religions de l'Antiquité, Paris, 1825. 1835. It is far superior in arrangement, and does not appear to me so obstinately wedded to the symbolic theory as the original of Creuzer. The Aglaophamus of Lobeck, as might be expected from that distinguished scholar, is full of profound and accurate erudition. Yet I cannot but think that the Gre cian polytheism will be better understood when considered in connection with the other religions of antiquity, than as an entirely independent system; and surely the sarcastic tone in which M. Lobeck speaks of the Oriental studies of his cotemporaries is unworthy of a man of consummate learning. The work of the late M. Constant, Sur la Religion, extensive in research, ingenious in argument, and eloquent in style, is in my, perhaps partial, judgment, vitiated by an hostility to every kind of priesthood, better suit. ed to the philosophy of the last than of the present century. M. Constant has placed the evils of sacerdotal influence in the strongest light, and disguised or dissembled its advantages. The ancient priestly castes, I conceive, attained their power over the rest of their race by their acknowledged superiority; they were the benefac tors, and thence the rulers of their people to retain their power, as the people advanced, they resorted to every means of keeping men in ignorance and subjection, and so degenerated into the tyrants of the human mind. At all events, sacerdotal domination (and here M. Constant would have agreed with us) is altogether alien to genuine Christianity. (2) The Fetiche of the African is the Manitou of the American Indian. The word Fetiche was first, I believe, brought into general use in the curious volume of the Président De Brosses, Du Culte des Dieux Fétiches. The word was formed by the traders to Africa, from the Portuguese, Fetisso, chose fée, enchantée, divine, ou rendant des oracles. De Brosses, p. 18. (3) Hume (History of Nat. Religion) argues that a pure and philosophical theism could never be the creed of a barbarous nation, struggling with want. gods, perhaps in the Teraphim, and in the sacred stones (the Bolylia), which were thought either to have fallen from heaven, or were sanctified by immemorial reverence. In the Oriental pastoral tribes, Tsabaism (1), the simpler worship Tsabaism. of the heavenly bodies, in general prevailed; which among the agricultural races grew up into a more complicated system, connecting the periodical revolutions of the sun and moon with the pursuits of husbandry. It was Nature-worship, simple in its pri- Naturemary elements, but branching out into mythological fables, rich worship. and diversified in proportion to the poetic genius of the people. This Nature-worship in its simpler, probably its earlier form, appears as a sort of dualism, in which two great antagonist powers, the creative and destructive, Light and Darkness, seem contending for the sovereignty of the world, and, emblematical of moral good and evil, are occupied in pouring the full horn of fertility and blessing, or the vial of wrath and misery, upon the human race. Subordinate to, or as a modification of, these two conflicting powers, most of the Eastern races concurred in deifying the active and passive powers of generation. The sun and the earth, Osiris and Isis, formed a second dualism. And it is remarkable how widely, almost universally extended throughout the earlier world, appears the institution of a solemn period of mourning about the autumnal, and of rejoicing about the vernal, equinox (2). The suspension, or apparent extinction of the great (3) vivifying power of nature, Osiris or Iacchus; the destitution of Ceres, Isis, or the Earth, of her husband or her beautiful daughter, torn in pieces or carried away into their realms by the malignant powers of darkness; their re-appearance in all their bright and fertilising energy; these, under different forms, were the great annual fast and festival of the early heathen worship (4). But the poets were the priests of this Nature- Poets. worship; and from their creative imagination arose the popular mythology, which gave its separate deity to every part of animate or inanimate being; and, departing still farther from the primitive allegory, and the symbolic forms under which the phenomena of the visible world were embodied, wandered into pure fiction; till nature-worship was almost supplanted by religious fable: and hence, (1) The astral worship of the East is ably and clearly developed in an Excursus at the end of Gesenius's Isaiah. (2) Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride: -púyes. τὸν θεὸν οἰόμενοι χειμῶνος μὲν και θεύδειν, θέρους δ ̓ ἐγρηγορέναι, τότε μὲν κατευνασμούς τότε δ ̓ ἀνεγέρσεις βακχεύοντες αὐτῷ τελοῦσι. Παφλαγόνες δὲ καταδεῖσθαι καὶ καθείργνυσθαι χει μῶνος, ἦρος δὲ ἀναλύεσθαι φάσκουσι. (3) Bohlen (das Alte Indien, p. 139. et seq.) gives a long list of these festivals of the sun. Lobeck (i. 690.) would altogether deny their symbolical character. It is difficult, however, to account for the remarkable similarity between Compare likewise Dr. Pritchard's valuable (4) Nam rudis ante illos, nullo discrimine, vita Priestly caste. by a natural transition, those who discerned God in every thing, multiplied every separate part of creation into a distinct divinity. The mind fluctuated between a kind of vague and unformed pantheism, the deification of the whole of nature, or its animation by one pervading power or soul, and the deification of every object which impressed the mind with awe or admiration (1). While every nation, every tribe, every province, every town, every village, every family, had its peculiar, local, or tutelar deity, there was a kind of common neutral ground on which they all met, a notion that the gods in their collective capacity exercised a general controlling providence over the affairs of men, interfered, especially on great occasions, and, though this belief was still more vague and more inextricably involved in fable, administered retribution in another state of being. And thus even the common language of the most polytheistic nations approached to monotheism (2). Wherever, indeed, there has been a great priestly caste, less occupied with the daily toils of life, and advanced beyond the mass of the people, the primitive nature-worship has been perpetually brought back, as it were, to its original elements; and, without disturbing the popular mythological religion, furnished a creed to the higher and more thinking part of the community, less wild and extravagant (3). In Persia the Magian order retained or acquired something like a pure theism, in which the Supreme Deity was represented under the symbol of the primal uncreated fire; and their Nature-worship, under the form of the two conflicting principles, preserved much more of its original simplicity than in most other countries. To the influence of a distinct sacerdotal order may be traced (4), in India, the singular union of the sublimest allegory, (1) Some able writers are of opinion that the reverse of this was the case-that the variety was the primary belief; the simplification the work of a later and more intellectual age. On this point A. W. Schlegel observes, "The more I investigate the ancient history of the world, the more I am convinced that the civilised nations set out from a purer worship of the Supreme Being; that the magic power of Nature over the imagination of the successive human races, first, at a later period, produced polytheism, and, finally, altogether obscured the more spiritual religious notions in the popular belief; while the wise alone preserved within the sanctuary the primeval secret. Hence mythology appears to me the last developed and most changeable part of the old religion. The divergence of the various mythologies, therefore, proves nothing against the descent of the religions from a common source. The mythologies might be locally formed, according to the circumstances of climate or soil; it is impossible to mistake this with regard to the Egyptian myths." Schlegel, p. 16. Preface to Pritchard's Egyptian Mythology. My own views, considering the question in a purely historical light, coincide with those of M. Schlegel. (2) This is strikingly expressed by a Christian writer:-"Audio vulgus cum ad cœlum manus tendunt, nihil aliud quam Deum dicunt, et Deus magnus est, et Deus verus est, et si Deus dederit, Vulgi iste naturalis sermo est, an Christiani confitentis oratio?" Min. Fel. Octavius. The same thought may be found in Cyprian, de Van. Idol., and Tertullian, Apolog. (3) This is nowhere more openly professed than in China. The early Jesuit missionaries assert that the higher class (the literatoruin secta) despised the idolatry of the vulgar. One of the charges against the Christians was their teaching the worship of one God, which they had full li berty to worship themselves, to the common people : "Non æque placere, rudem plebeculam rerum novarum cupiditate, coeli Dominum venerari.' Trigault, Exped, in Sinas, pp. 438-575. (4) "The learned brahimins adore one God, without form or quality, eternal, unchangeable, and occupying all space but they carefully eonfine these doctrines to their own schools, as dangerous; and teach in public a religion, in which, in supposed compliance with the infirmities and passions of human nature, the deity is brought inore to a level with our prejudices and wants. The incomprehensible attributes ascribed to him are invested with sensible and even human forms. The mind, lost in meditation, and fatigued in the pursuit of something, which, being divested of all sensible qualities, suffers the thoughts to wander without finding a resting |