Demons, the philosophers perceived to be actually filled by the heavenly bodies; for in philosophical polytheism there was one invisible God supreme over all these; but still there was left an immense vacancy between the human species and the moon, which was known to be the lowest of the heavenly host; and this they imagined must certainly be occupied by invisible inhabitants of different orders and dispositions, which they called good and evil demons.

5. There is yet another source from which the universal belief of good and evil demons may be derived, with perhaps greater probability than from any or all of these. If the Mosaic account of the creation of the world, the peopling of the earth, and the dispersion of mankind, be admitted as true (and a more consistent account has not as yet been given or devised), some knowledge of good and evil angels must necessarily have been transmitted from father to son by the channel of oral tradition. This tradition would be corrupted at the same time, and in the same manner, with others of greater importance. When the true God was so far mistaken as to be considered, not as the sole governor of the universe, but only as the self-extant power of light and good, the Devil would be elevated from the rank of a rebellious created spirit to that of the independent power of darkness and evil; the angels of light would be transformed into good demons, and those of darkness into demons that are evil. This account of the origin of daemonology receives no small support from Plato, who derives one branch of it wholly from tradition. "With respect to those demons (says he) who inhabit the space between the earth and the moon, to understand and declare their generation is a task too arduous for my slender abilities. In this case we must credit the report of men of other times, who, according to their own account, were the descendants of the gods, and had, by some means or other, gained exact intelligence of that mystery from their ancestors. We must not question the veracity of the children of the gods, even though they should transgress the bounds of probability, and produce no evidence to support their assertions. We must, I say, notwithstanding, give them credit, because they profess to give a detail of facts with which they are intimately acquainted, and the laws of our country oblige us to believe them."

Though these demons were generally invisible, they were not supposed to be pure disembodied spirits.—Proclus, in his Commentary upon Plato's Timaeus, tells us, that "every demon superior to human souls consisted of an intellectual mind and an ethereal vehicle." Indeed it is very little probable, that those who gave a body and a place to the Supreme God, should have thought that the inferior orders of his ministers were spirits entirely separated from matter. Plato himself divides the class of daemons into three orders*; and whilst he holds their souls to be particles or emanations from the divine essence, he affirms that the bodies of each order of demons are composed of that particular element in which they for the most part reside. "Those of the first and highest order are composed of pure ether; those of the second order consist of groser air; and demons of the third or lowest rank have vehicles extracted from the element of water. Daemons of the first and second orders are invisible to mankind. The aquatic demons, being invested with vehicles of groser materials, are sometimes visible and sometimes invisible. When they do appear, though faintly observable by the human eye, they strike the beholder with terror and astonishment."

Daemons of this last order were supposed to have passions and affections similar to those of men; and though all nature was full of them, they were believed to have local attachments to mountains, rivers, and groves, where their appearances were most frequent. The reason of these attachments seems to be obvious. Polytheism took its rise in countries scorched by a burning sun; and daemons by their composition being necessarily subject in some degree to the influence of heat and cold, it was natural to suppose that they, like men, would delight in the shady grove and in the purling stream. Hence the earliest altars of paganism were generally built in the midst of groves, or on the banks of rivers; because it was believed that in such places were assembled multitudes of those intelligences, whose office it was to regulate the affairs of men, and to carry the prayers and oblations of the devout to the far distant residence of the celestial gods. Hence too are to be derived the mountain and river gods, with the dryads and hamadryads, the satyrs, nymphs, and fauns, which held a place in the creed of ancient paganism, and make so conspicuous a figure in the Greek and Roman poets.

These different orders of intelligences, which, though worshipped as gods or demigods, were yet believed to partake of human passions and appetites, led the way to the deification of departed heroes and other eminent benefactors of the human race. By the philosophers Deification all souls were believed to be emanations from the divinity; but "gratitude and admiration, the warmest heroes, and most active affections of our nature, concurred to Warburton's Divinize the object of religious worship, and to make man regard the inventors of arts and the founders of society Leg., as having in them more than a common ray of the divinity. So that god-like benefits, bespeaking as it were a god-like mind, the decafeated parent of a people was easily advanced into the rank of a daemon. When the religious bias was in so good a train, natural affection would have its share in promoting this new mode of adoration. Piety to parents would naturally take the lead, as it was supported by gratitude and admiration, the primum mobile of the whole system; and in those early ages, the natural father of the tribe often happened to be the political father of the people, and the founder of the state. Fondness for the offspring would next have its turn; and a disconsolate father, at the head of a people, would contrive to soothe his grief for the untimely death of a favourite child, and to gratify his pride under the want of succession, by paying divine honours to its memory." "For a father afflicted with untimely mourning, when he had made an image of his child soon taken away, now honoured him as a god, xiv. 15, who was then a dead man, and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices." That this was the origin and progress of the worship of departed souls, we have the authority of the famous fragment of Sanchoniathon already quoted, where the various motives for this species of idolatry are recounted in express words. "After many generations (says he) came Chryfor; and he invented many things useful to civil life, for which, after his decease, he was worshipped as a god. Then flourished Ouranos and his sister Ge, who deified and offered sacrifices to their father Hypheas, when..." when he had been torn in pieces by wild beasts. Afterwards Cronos consecrated Muth his son, and was himself consecrated by his subjects."

In the reign of Cronos flourished a personage of great reputation for wisdom, who by the Egyptians was called Thoth, by the Phoenicians Taautos, and by the Greeks Hermes. According to Plutarch, he was a profound politician, and chief counsellor to Osiris, then the king, and afterwards the principal divinity, of Egypt: and we are told by Philo Byblitis, the translator of Sanchoniathon, "that it was this Thoth or Hermes who first took the matters of religious worship out of the hands of unskilful men, and brought them into due method and order." His object was to make religion serviceable to the interests of the state. With this view he appointed Osiris and other departed princes to be joined with the stars and worshipped as gods; and being by Cronos made king of Egypt, he was, after his death, worshipped himself as a god by the Egyptians. To this honour, if what is recorded of him be true, he had indeed a better title than most princes; for he is said to have been the inventor of letters, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and hieroglyphics, and was therefore one of the greatest benefactors of the human race which any age or country has ever produced.

That the gods of Greece and Rome were derived from Egypt and Phoenicia, is so universally known, that it is needless to multiply quotations in order to prove that the progress of polytheism among the Greeks and Romans was the same with that which we have traced in more ancient nations. The following translation, however, of the account given by Hesiod of the deification of departed heroes, with which we have been favoured by a learned and ingenious friend, is so just, and in our opinion so beautiful, that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of giving it to our readers.

"The gods who dwell on high Olympus' hill, First fram'd a golden race of men, who liv'd Under old Saturn's calm auspicious sway. Like gods they liv'd, their hearts devoid of care, Beyond the reach of pain and piercing woes; Their nerves with youthful vigour strung, their days In jocund mirth they past, remote from ills.— Now when this godlike race was lodg'd in earth, By Jove's high will to demigods they rose, And airy daemons, who benign on earth Converse—the guides and guardians of mankind. In darkness veill'd, they range earth's utmost bound, Dispensing wealth to mortals. This reward From bounteous Jove awaits illustrious deeds."

The deification of departed heroes and statesmen was that which in all probability introduced the universal belief of national and tutelar gods, as well as the practice of worshipping those gods through the medium of statues cut into a human figure. When the founder of a state or any other public benefactor was elevated to the rank of a god, as he was believed still to retain human passions and affections, it was extremely natural to suppose that he would regard with a favourable eye that nation for which he had done so much upon earth; that he would oppose its enemies, and protect the laws and institutions which he himself had given it. By indulging the same train of sentiment, each city, and even every family of consequence, found Lares and Penates among their departed ancestors, to whom they paid the warmest adoration, and under whose protection they believed their private affairs to be placed. As these national and household gods were believed to be in their deified state clothed with airy bodies, so these bodies were supposed to retain the form which their groser bodies had upon earth. The image of a departed friend might perhaps be formed by the hand of sorrowful affection, before the statue or the shrine of a deity was thought of; but when that friend or benefactor became the object of religious adoration, it was natural for his votaries to enliven their devotion by a view of his multitude. Maximus Tyrius tells us, that "there is no difference of men, whether barbarian or Grecian, living on the sea-coast or on the continent, wandering in deserts or living in cities, which hath not consecrated some kind of symbol or other in honour of the gods." This is certainly true; but there is no good evidence that the first symbols of the gods were statues of men and women. Whilst the sun and other heavenly bodies continued to be the sole objects of religious worship, the symbols consecrated to them were pillars of a conical or pyramidal figure; and if such pillars are ever called graven images by Moses and other ancient writers, it was probably on account of the allegoric figures and characters, or hieroglyphic writing, with which they were inscribed.

Hitherto we have considered the souls of departed heroes as holding the rank only of daemons or demi-gods; but they generally rose in the scale of divinities, till they dethroned the heavenly bodies, and became themselves the dii majorum gentium. This revolution was effected by the combined operation of the prince and the tary, priest; and the first step taken towards it seems to have been the complimenting of their heroes and public benefactors with the name of that being which was most esteemed and worshipped. "Thus a king for his benevolence was called the sun, and a queen for her beauty the moon." Diodorus relates, that Sol first reigned in Egypt, called to from the luminary of that name in the heavens. This will help us to understand an odd passage in the fragment of Sanchoniathon, where it is said that Cronos had seven sons by Rhea, the youngest of whom was a god as soon as born. The meaning probably is, that this youngest son was called after some luminary in the heavens to which they paid divine honours; and these honours came in process of time to be transferred to the terrestrial nameake. The same historian had before told us, that the sons of Genos, mortals like their father, were called by the names of the elements—light, fire, and flame, of which they had discovered the use."

"As this adulation advanced into an established worship, they turned the compliment the other way, and called the planet or luminary after the hero, the better to accustom the people, even in the act of Planet-worship, to this new adoration. Diodorus, in the passage which I have already quoted, having told us, that by the first inha-time it inhabitants of Egypt the sun and moon were supposed to be the principal and eternal gods, adds, that the former was called Osiris, and the latter Isis. This was indeed the general practice; for we learn from Macrobius, that the Ammonites called the sun Moloch; the Syrians Syrians Adad; the Arabs Dionysus; the Assyrians Belus; the Phoenicians Saturn; the Carthaginians Hercules; and the Palmyrians Eleazarus. Again, by the Phrygians the moon was called Cybele, or the mother of the gods; by the Athenians Minerva; by the Cyprians Venus; by the Cretans Diana; by the Sicilians Proserpine; by others Hecate, Bellona, Vesta, Urania, Lucina, &c. Philo Byblius explains this practice: "It is remarkable (says he) that the ancient idolaters imposed on the elements, and on those parts of nature which they esteemed gods, the names of their kings; for the natural gods which they acknowledged were only the sun, moon, planets, elements, and the like; they being now in the humour of having gods of both classes, the mortal and the immortal."

"As a farther proof that hero-worship was thus superinduced upon the planetary, it is worthy of observation, that the first statues consecrated to the greater hero-gods—those who were supposed to be supreme—were not of a human form, but conical or pyramidal, like those which in the earliest ages of idolatry were dedicated to the sun and planets. Thus the scholiast on the Vespae of Aristophanes tells us, that the statues of Apollo and Bacchus were conic pillars or obelisks; and Pausanias, that the statue of Jupiter Meilichius represented a pyramid; that of the Argive Juno did the same, as appears from a verse of Phonoris quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus*; and indeed the practice was universal as well amongst the early barbarians as amongst the Greeks. But it is well known that the ancients represented the rays of light by pillars of a conical or pyramidal form; and therefore it follows, that when they erected such pillars as representatives of their hero-gods, these latter had succeeded to the titles, rights, and honours of the natural and celestial divinities†."

But though it seems to be certain that hero-worship was thus engravened on the planetary, and that some of those heroes in process of time supplanted the planets themselves, this was such a revolution in theology as could not have been suddenly effected by the united influence of the prince and the priest. We doubt not the fact that so much was believed to have reigned in Egypt, and was afterwards worshipped under the name Osiris; but it was surely impossible to persuade any nation, however stupid or prone to idolatry, that a man, whom they remembered discharging the duties of their sovereign and legislator, was the identical fun whom they beheld in the heavens. Osiris, if there was in Egypt a king of that name, may have been deified immediately after his death, and honoured with that worship which was paid to good demons; but he must have been dead for ages before any attempt was made to persuade the nation that he was the supreme God. Even then great address would be requisite to make such an attempt successful. The prince or priest who entered upon it would probably begin with declaring from the oracle, that the divine intelligence which animates and governs the sun had descended to earth and animated the person of their renowned legislator; and that, after their laws were framed, and the other purposes served for which the descent was made, the same intelligence had returned to its original residence and employment among the celestials. The possibility of this double transmigration from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven, would without difficulty be admitted in an age when the pre-existence of souls was the universal belief. Having proceeded thus far in the apotheosis of dead men, the next step taken in order to render it in some degree probable that the early founders of states and inventors of arts, were divine intelligences clothed with human bodies, was to attribute to one such benefactor of mankind the actions of many of the same name. Voitius, who employed vast erudition and much time on the subject, has proved, that before the era of the Trojan wars most kings who were very powerful, or highly renowned for their skill in legislation, &c., were called Jove; and when the actions of all these were attributed to one Jove of Crete, it would be easy for the crafty priest, supported by all the power and influence of the state, to persuade an ignorant and barbarous people, that he whose wisdom and heroic exploits so far surpassed those of ordinary men must have been the supreme God in human form.

This short sketch of the progress of polytheism and vices of the idolatry will enable the reader to account for many circumstances recorded of the pagan gods of antiquity, which at first view seem very surprising, and which at last brought the whole system into contempt among the philosophers of Athens and Rome. The circumstances to which we allude are the immoral characters of those divinities, and the abominable rites with which they were worshipped. Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, and the whole rabble of them, are described by the poets as ravishers of women and notorious adulterers. Hermes or Mercury was a thief, and the god of thieves. Venus was a prostitute, and Bacchus a drunkard. The malice and revenge of Juno were implacable; and so little regard was any of them supposed to pay to the laws of honour and rectitude, that it was a common practice of the Romans, when besieging a town, to evoke the tutelar deity, and to tempt him by a reward to betray his friends and votaries‡. In a word, they were, in T. Livii, lib. v. c. 21, et Macrob. Satyr. lib. iii. c. 9.

This was the natural consequence of their origin. Having once animated human bodies, and being supposed for still to retain human passions and appetites, they were believed, in their state of deification, to feel the same sensual desires which they had felt upon earth, and to pursue the same means for their gratification. As the men could not well attempt to surpass the gods in purity and virtue, they were easily persuaded by artful and profligate priests, that the most acceptable worship which could be rendered to any particular deity, was to imitate the example of that deity, and to indulge in the practices over which he presided. Hence the worship of Bacchus was performed during the night by men and women mixing in the dark after intemperate eating and drinking. Hence too it was the practice in Cyprus and some other countries, to sacrifice to Venus the virginity of young women some days before their marriage, in order, as it was pretended, to secure their chastity ever afterwards; and, if Herodotus may be credited, every woman among the Babylonians was obliged once in her life to prostitute herself in the temple of the goddess Mylitta (Venus), that she might henceforward be proof against all temptation.

The progress of polytheism, as far as we have traced it, it has been regular; and after the enormous error of forsaking the worship of the true God was admitted, every subsequent step appears to be natural. It would be no difficult task to prove that it has likewise been universal. Sir William Jones, the learned president of the Asiatic Society, has discovered such a striking resemblance between the gods of Ancient Greece and those of the pagans of Hindoostan†, as puts it beyond a doubt that those divinities had the same origin. The Ganesa of the Hindoos he has clearly proved to be the Janus of the Greeks and Romans. As the latter was represented with two and sometimes with four faces, as emblems of prudence and circumspection, the former is painted with an elephant's head, the well-known symbol among the Indians of sagacious discernment. The Saturn of Greece and Rome appears to have been the same personage with the Menu or Satyavrata of Hindoostan, whose patronymic name is Vaivaswata, or child of the sun; which sufficiently marks his origin. Among the Romans there were many Jupiters, of whom one appears from Ennius to have been nothing more than the firmament personified.

Aspice hoc sublime candens, quem invocant omnes Jovem.

But this Jupiter had the same attributes with the Indian god of the visible heavens called Indra or the king, and Divespetir or the lord of the sky, whose comfort is Sachi, and whose weapon is vajra or the thunderbolt. Indra is the regent of winds and showers; and though the east is peculiarly under his care, yet his Olympus is the north-pole, allegorically represented as a mountain of gold and gems. With all his power he is considered as a subordinate deity, and far inferior to the Indian triad Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva or Siva*, who are three forms of one and the same godhead. The president having traced the resemblance between the idolatry of Rome and India through many other gods, observes, that "we must not be surprized at finding, on a close examination, that the characters of all the pagan deities melt into each other, and at last into one or two; for it seems a well-founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods and godesses in ancient Rome, and likewise in Hindoostan, mean only the powers of nature, and principally those of the sun, expressed in a variety of ways, and by a multitude of fanciful names."

Nor is it only in Greece, Rome, Egypt, and India, that the progress of idolatry has been from planetary to hero-worship. From every account which modern travellers have given us of the religion of savage nations, it appears that those nations adore, as their first and greatest gods, the sun, moon, and stars; and that such of them as have any other divinities have proceeded in the same road with the celebrated nations of antiquity, from the worship of the heavenly bodies to that of celestial demons, and from celestial demons to the deification of dead men. It appears likewise that they universally believe their hero-gods and demigods to retain the passions, appetites, and propensities of men.

That the Scandinavians and our Saxon ancestors had the same notions of the gods with the other pagans whose opinions we have stated, is evident from their calling the days of the week by the names of their divinities, and from the forms of the statues by which those divinities were represented†.

1. The idol of the sun, from which Sunday is derived, among the Latins dies Solis, was placed in a temple, and adored and sacrificed to; for they believed that the sun did cooperate with this idol. He was represented like a man half naked, with his face like the sun, holding a burning wheel with both hands on his breast, signifying his course round the world; and by its fiery gleams, the light and heat with which he warms and nourisheth all things.

2. The idol of the moon, from which cometh our Monday, dies Luna, anciently Moonday, appears strangely singular, being habited in a short coat like a man. Her holding a moon expresses what she is; but the reason of her short coat and long-eared cap is lost in oblivion.

3. Tuifco, the most ancient and peculiar god of the Germans, represented in his garment of a skin according to their ancient manner of clothing, was next to the sun and moon, the idol of highest rank in the calendar of northern paganism. To him the third day in the week was dedicated; and hence is derived the name Tuesday, anciently Tuifday, called in Latin dies Martis, though it must be confessed that Mars does not so much resemble this divinity as he does Odin or Woden.

4. Woden was a valiant prince among the Saxons. His image was prayed to for victory over their enemies; which, if they obtained, they usually sacrificed the prisoners taken in battle to him. Our Wednesday is derived from him, anciently Wodeneday. The northern histories make him the father of Thor, and Friga to be his wife.

5. Thor was placed in a large hall, sitting on a bed canopied over, with a crown of gold on his head, and 12 stars over it, holding a sceptre in his right hand. To him was attributed the power over both heaven and earth; and that as he was pleased or displeased he could send thunder, tempests, plagues, &c. or fair, pleasurable weather, and cause fertility. From him our Thursday derives its name, anciently Thoriday; among the Romans dies Jovis, as this idol may be substituted for Jupiter.

6. Friga represented both sexes, holding a drawn sword in the right hand and a bow in the left; denoting that women as well as men should fight in time of need. She was generally taken for a goddess; and was reputed the giver of peace and plenty, and causer of love and amity. Her day of worship was called by the Saxons Frigedag, now Friday, dies Veneris; but the habit and weapons of this figure have a resemblance of Diana rather than Venus.

7. Seater, or Grodo, stood on the prickly back of a perch. He was thin-vifaged and long-haired, with a long beard, bare-headed and bare-footed, carrying a pail of water in his right hand wherein are fruit and flowers, and holding up a wheel in his left, and his coat tied with a long girdle. His standing on the sharp fins of this fish signified to the Saxons, that by worshipping him they should pass through all dangers unhurt: by his girdle flying both ways was shown the Saxons freedom; and by the pail with fruit and flowers, was denoted that he would nourish the earth. From him, or from the Roman deity Saturn, comes Saturday.

Such were the principal gods of the northern nations: but these people had at the same time inferior deities, who were supposed to have been translated into heaven for their heroic deeds, and whose greatest happiness consisted in drinking ale out of the skulls of their enemies in the hall of Woden. But the limits prescribed to the present article do not permit us to pursue this subject; nor is it necessary that we should pursue it.

The attentive reader of the article Mythology, of the histories given in this work of the various divinities of paganism, and of the different nations by whom those divinities were worshipped, will perceive that the progress of polytheism and idolatry has been uniform over the whole earth.

There is, however, one species of idolatry more wonderful than any thing that has yet been mentioned, of which our readers will certainly expect some account. It is the worship of brutes, reptiles, and vegetables, among the Egyptians. To the Greeks and Romans, as well as to us, that superstition appeared so monstrous, that to enumerate every hypothesis, ancient and modern, by which philosophers have endeavoured to account for it, would swell this article beyond all proportion. Brute-worship prevailed at so early a period in Egypt, that the philosophers of antiquity, whose writings have descended to us, had little or no advantage over the moderns in pursuing their researches into its origin; and among the modern hypotheses, those of Molyneux and Warburton appear to us by much the most probable of any that we have seen (n). The former of these learned writers attributes it wholly to the policy of the prince and the craft of the priest. The latter contends, with much earnestness and ingenuity, that it resulted from the use of hieroglyphic writing. We are strongly inclined to believe that both these causes contributed to the production of so portentous an effect; and that the use of hieroglyphics as sacred symbols, after they were laid aside in civil life, completed that wonderful superstition which the craft of the priest and the policy of the prince had undoubtedly begun.

We learn from Herodotus*, that in his time the number of useful animals in Egypt was so small as hardly to be sufficient for tillage and the other purposes of civil life; whilst serpents and other noxious animals, such as the crocodile, wolf, bear, and hippopotamus, abounded in that country. From this fact

†Cudworth, Intellec.

Syb. cap. iv.

N°158.

(B) There is, however, another hypothesis worthy of some attention, if it were only for the learning and ingenuity of its author. The celebrated Cudworth infers, from the writings of Philo and other Platonists of the Alexandrian school, that the ancient Egyptians held the Platonic doctrine of ideas existing from eternity, and constituting, in one of the persons of the godhead, the intelligible and archetypal world. (See PLATONISM). Philo, he observes, did not himself consider those ideas as so many distinct substances and animals, much less as gods; but he mentions others who deified the whole of this intelligible system as well as its several parts. Hence, when they paid their devotions to the sensible sun, they pretended only to worship the divine idea or archetype of that luminary; and hence, thinks our learned author, the ancient Egyptians, by falling down to bulls, and cows, and crocodiles, meant at first to worship only the divine and eternal ideas of those animals. He allows, indeed, that as few could entertain any thoughts at all of those eternal ideas, there were scarcely any who could persuade themselves that the intelligible system had so much reality in it as the sensible things of nature; and hence he thinks the devotion which was originally paid to the divine ideas had afterwards no higher object than the brutes and vegetables of which those ideas were the eternal patterns.

This hypothesis is ingenious, but not satisfactory. There is no evidence that the mysterious doctrine of Plato concerning ideas had anywhere been thought of for ages after brute-worship was established in Egypt. Of the state of Egyptian theology at that early period, Philo, and the other philosophers of the Alexandrian school, had no better means of forming a judgment than we have; and they laboured under many Grecian prejudices, which must have prevented them from judging with our impartiality. city called Lycopolis, because its inhabitants worshipped the wolf, while the inhabitants of Thebes, or Heliopolis, paid their devotions to the eagle, which was probably looked upon as sacred to the sun. Our author, however, holds it as a fact which will admit of no dispute, that there was not one noxious animal or beast of prey worshipped by the Egyptians till after the conquest of their country by the Persians. That the earliest gods of Egypt were all benevolent beings, he appeals to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus; but he quotes Herodotus and Plutarch as agreeing that the latter Egyptians worshipped an evil principle under the name of Typhon. This Typhon was the inveterate enemy of Osiris, just as Ahuranan was of Ormuzd; and therefore he thinks it in the highest degree probable that the Egyptians derived their belief of two self-existent principles, a good and an evil, from their Persian conquerors, among whom that opinion prevailed from the earliest ages.

From whatever source their belief was derived, Typhon was certainly worshipped in Egypt, not with a view of obtaining from him any good, for there was nothing good in his nature, but in hopes of keeping him quiet, and averting much evil. As certain animals had long been sacred to all the benevolent deities, it was natural for a people so befuddled with superstition as the Egyptians to consecrate emblems of the same kind to their god Typhon. Hence arose the worship of serpents, crocodiles, bears, and other noxious animals and beasts of prey. It may indeed seem at first sight very inconsistent to deify such animals, after they had been in the practice for ages of worshipping others for being their destroyers; but it is to be remembered that long before the deification of crocodiles, &c., the real origin of brute worship was totally forgotten by the people, if they were ever acquainted with it. The crafty priest who wishes to introduce a gainful superstition, must at first employ some plausible reason to delude the multitude; but after the superstition has been long and firmly established, it is obviously his business to keep its origin out of sight.

Such is Mosheim's account of the origin and progress of that species of idolatry which was peculiar to Egypt; and with respect to the rise of brute-worship, it appears perfectly satisfactory. But the Egyptians worshipped several species of vegetables; and it surely could be no part of the policy of wise legislators to preserve them from destruction, as vegetables are useful only as they contribute to animal subsistence. We are therefore obliged to call in the aid of Warburton's hypothesis to account for this branch of Egyptian superstition.

That learned and ingenious author having proved*, with great clearness and strength of argument, that hieroglyphic writing was prior to the invention of alphabetic characters; and having traced that kind of writing from such rude pictures, as those which were in use among the Mexicans, through all the different species of what he calls eurilologic, tropical, and symbolic hieroglyphics (see Hieroglyphics)—shows, by many quotations from ancient authors, that the Egyptian priests by the wrapt up their theology in the symbolic hieroglyphics, after alphabetic characters had banished from the transactions of civil life a mode of communicating information necessarily too obscure. These symbols were the figures of animals and vegetables, denoting, from some imaginary analogy, certain attributes of their divinities; and when the vulgar, forgetting this analogy, ceased to understand them as a species of writing, and were yet taught to consider them as sacred, they could not well view them in any other light than as emblems of the divinities whom they adored. But if rude sculptures upon stone could be emblematical of the divinities, it was surely not unnatural to infer, that the living animals and vegetables which those sculptures represented must be emblems of the same divinities more striking and more sacred. Hence the learned author thinks arose that wonderful superstition peculiar to the Egyptians, which made them worship not only animals and vegetables, but also a thousand chimeras of their own creation; such as figures with human bodies and the heads or feet of brutes, or with brutal bodies and the heads and feet of men.

These two hypotheses combined together appear to us to account sufficiently for the idolatry of Egypt, monstrous as it was. We are persuaded that with respect to the origin of brute-worship, Mosheim is in the right; and it was a very easy step for people in so good training to proceed upon the crutches of hieroglyphics to the worship of plants and those chimeras, which, as they never had a real existence in nature, could not have been thought of as emblems of the divinity, had they not been used in that symbolic writing which Warburton so ably and ingeniously explains.

To this account of the origin of brute-worship, we are fully aware that objections will occur. From a learned friend, who perused the article in manuscript, we have been favoured with one which, as it is exceedingly plausible, we shall endeavour to obviate. "Brute-worship was not peculiar to Egypt. The Hindoos, it is well known, have a religious veneration for the cow and the alligator; but there is no evidence that in India the number of useful animals was ever so small as to make the interference of the prince and the priest necessary for their preservation; neither does it appear that the Hindoos adopted from any other people the worship of a self-existent principle of evil." Such is the objection. To which we reply,

That there is every reason to believe that brute-carried worship was introduced into India by a colony of Egyptians at a very remote period. That between these two nations there was an early intercourse, is universally

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* Div. Leg. book iv. sect 4.

(c) To prove that it was merely to preserve and increase the breed of useful animals in Egypt, that the prince and the priest first taught the people to consider such animals as sacred, he argues thus: "Hec ita effe, non ex co tantum liquet, quod paulo ante obfervavi, nullas beftias universo Ægyptiorum populo facras fuisse, praeter eas, quae manifestam regioni utilitatem comparent; sed inde quoque apparat, quod longe major ratio habita fuit famellarum inter animalia, quam marium. Boves dìs immolare licebat, vaccas nullo modo. Canes foemine contumulabantur, non item mares." Lege HERODOT. Històr, lib. ii. cap. 41. & cap. 67. settled in India. To him who is not satisfied with our Theogony, reasoning on this subject, we beg leave to recommend an attentive perusal of Maurice's Indian Antiquities, where he will find many facts brought together, which tend to prove that Egypt has a just claim to a higher antiquity than India.

Having thus traced the rise and progress of polytheism, theism, and idolatry as they prevailed in the most celebrated nations of antiquity, we now proceed to inquire into the real opinions of those nations concerning the God, nature of the gods whom they adored. And here it is evident from the writings of Homer, Hesiod, and the other poets, who were the principal theologians among the Greeks and Romans, that though heaven, earth, hell, and all the elements, were filled with divinities, there was yet one who, whether called Jove, Osiris, Ormuzd, or by any other title, was considered as supreme over all the rest. "Whence each of the gods was generated (says Herodotus*), or whether they have all existed from eternity, and what are their forms," is ac. 51. thing that was not known till very lately; for Hesiod and Homer were, as I suppose, not above four hundred years my seniors; and these were they who introduced the theogony among the Greeks, and gave the gods their several names." Now Hesiod†, towards the beginning of his theogony, expressly invokes his muse to celebrate in suitable numbers the generation of the immortal gods who had sprung from the earth, the dark night, the starry heavens, and the salt sea. He calls up from her likewise to say, "in what manner the gods, the whom the earth, the rivers, ocean, stars, and firmament, were generated, and what divine intelligences had sprung from them, there cannot be a doubt but that he understood benevolent daemons. The first principles of all things, according to the same Hesiod, were Chaos, and Tartarus, and Love; of which only the last being active, must undoubtedly have been conceived by this father of Grecian polytheism to be the greatest and only self-existing god. This we may justly conclude from Hesiod's belief, unless by Tartarus we here understand a self-existing principle of evil; and in that case his creed will be the same with that of the ancient Persians, who, as we have seen, believed in the self-existence as well of Ahuramazda as of Ormuzd.

Hesiod is supposed to have taken his theology from Orpheus; and it is evident that his doctrine concerning the generation of the gods is the same with that taught in certain verses usually attributed to Orpheus, in Argonautica, which Love and Chaos are thus brought together, p. 17. "We will first sing (says the poet) a pleasant and delightful song concerning the ancient Chaos, how the heavens, earth, and seas, were formed out of it; as also concerning that all-wise Love, the oldest and self-perfect principle, which actively produced all these things, separating one from another." In the original passage, Love is said not only to be πρωτότοκος, of much wisdom or sagacity, and therefore a real intelligent substance; but Theogony, also to be ἀγεωμέτρητος and αὐτοτελής, the oldest and self-perfect, and therefore a being of superior order to the other divinities who were generated together with the elements over which they were conceived to preside.

With the theology of Homer our readers of all descriptions are so well acquainted, that we need not fowl the article with quotations, to prove that the father of epic poetry held Jove to be the father of gods and men. But the doctrine of the poets was the creed of the vulgar Greeks and Romans; and therefore we may conclude, that those nations, though they worshipped gods and lords innumerable, admitted but one, or at the most two (D), self-existent principles; the one good and the other evil. It does not indeed appear, that in the system of vulgar paganism the subordinate gods were accountable to their chief for any part of their conduct, except when they transgressed the limits of the provinces assigned them. Venus might conduct the amours of heaven and earth in whatever manner she pleased; Minerva might communicate or withhold wisdom from any individual with or without reason; and we find, that in Homer's battles the gods were permitted to separate into parties, and to support the Greeks or Trojans according as they favoured the one or the other nation. Jove indeed sometimes called them to order; but his interference was thought partial, and an instance of tyrannical force rather than of just authority. The vulgar Greeks, therefore, although they admitted but one, or at most two, self-existent principles, did not consider the inferior divinities as mediators between them and the supreme, but as gods to whom their worship was on certain occasions to be ultimately directed.

The creed of the philosophers seems to have been different. Such of them as were thieves, and believed in the administration of Providence, admitted of but one God, to whom worship was ultimately due; and they adored the subordinate divinities as his children and ministers, by whom the course of Providence was carried on. With respect to the origin of these divinities, Plato is very explicit; where he tells us*, that "when all the gods, both those who move visibly round the Theogony heavens, and those who appear to us as often as they please, were generated, that God, who made the whole universe, spoke to them after this manner: Ye gods of gods, of whom I myself am father, attend." Cicero teaches the very same doctrine with Plato concerning the gods†; and Maximus Tyrius, who seems to have‡ Tufc. understood the genius of polytheism as thoroughly as Quint. lib. any man, gives us the following clear account of that de Nat. system as received by the philosophers.

"I will now more plainly declare my sense‡ by this passage. Imagine a great and powerful kingdom or Differt. principality, in which all agree freely and with one consent to direct their actions according to the will and command of one supreme king, the oldest and the best; and then suppose the bounds and limits of this empire not to be the river Halys, nor the Hellefpon, nor the Meotian lake, nor the shores of the ocean; but heaven above, and the earth beneath. Here then let that great king fix immovable, prescribing to all his subjects laws, in the observance of which confine their safety and happiness: the partakers of his empire being many, both visible and invisible gods; some of which that are nearest, and immediately attending on him, are in the highest regal dignity, feasting as it were at the same table; others again are their ministers and attendants; and a third sort are inferior to them both: and thus you see how the order and chain of this government descends down by steps and degrees from the supreme god to the earth and men." In this passage we have a plain acknowledgement of one supreme God, the sovereign of the universe, and of three inferior orders of gods, who were his ministers in the government of the world: and it is worthy of observation, that the same writer calls these intelligences θεοί, θεοὶ παιδεῖς καὶ πρόσωπα, gods, the sons and friends of gods. He likewise affirms, that all ranks of men, and all nations on earth, whether barbarous or civilized, held the same opinions respecting one supreme Numen and the generation of the other gods.

"If there were a meeting (says he*) called of all* Ibid. these

(D). Plutarch is commonly supposed, and we think justly supposed, to have been a believer in two self-existent principles, a good and an evil. His own opinion, whatever it was, he declares (de Ifide et Ofride) to have been most ancient and universal, and derived from theologers and lawgivers, by poets and philosophers. "Though the first author of it be unknown, yet (says he) it hath been so firmly believed everywhere, that traces of it are to be found in the sacrifices and mysteries both of the barbarians and the Greeks. There is a confused mixture of good and evil in every thing, and nothing is produced by nature pure. Wherefore it is not one only dispenser of things, who, as it were, out of several vessels distributeth these several liquors of good and evil, mingling them together, and dashing them as he pleases; but there are two distinct and contrary powers or principles in the world, one of them always leading, as it were, to the right hand, but the other tugging the contrary way. For if nothing can be made without a cause, and that which is good cannot be the cause of evil, there must needs be a distinct principle in nature for the production of evil as well as good."

That this is palpable manicheism (see MANICHEISM), appears to us so very evident as to admit of no debate. It appeared in the same light to the learned Cudworth; but that author labours to prove that Plutarch mistook the sense of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Plato, when he attributed to them the same opinions which were held by himself. Mohein, on the other hand, has put it beyond a doubt, that whatever was Plutarch's belief respecting the origin of evil, and the existence of two independent principles, it was taken implicitly from the writings of Plato. But the pious chancellor of Gottingen, actuated by the same motives with Cudworth, wishes to persuade his readers, that by Plato and Plutarch nothing active was understood by their evil principle, but only that tendency to confusion which was then deemed inseparable from matter. But that something more was meant seems undeniable: for immediately after the words which we have quoted, Plutarch proceeds to affirm that the wisest men declare θεοὶ ἴδιοι ἐν τῇ καθάρσει ἀσύλητοι, that there are two gods, as it were, of contrary trades or crafts, of which one is the author of all good and the other of all evil. See Mohein, ed. Cudworth. Syst. Intellect. lib. i. cap. 4. § 13. these several professions, a painter, a statuary, a poet, and a philosopher, and all of them were required to declare their sense concerning the Gods; do you think that the painter would say one thing, the statuary another, the poet a third, and the philosopher a fourth? No; nor the Scythian neither; nor the Greek, nor the Hyperborean. In other things we find men speaking very discordantly, all men as it were differing from all. But amidst this war, contention, and discord, you may find everywhere, throughout the whole world, one uniform law and opinion, that there is one God, the King and Father of all, and many gods, the Sons of God, who reign with God. These things both the Greek and Barbarian affirm, both the inhabitants of the continent and of the sea-coast, both the wise and the unwise."

This account of philosophical polytheism receives no small support from the Asiatic Researches of Sir William Jones. "It must always be remembered (says that accomplished scholar), that the learned Indians, as they are instructed by their own books, acknowledge only one supreme Being, whom they call Brahma, or the Great One, in the neuter gender. They believe his essence to be infinitely removed from the comprehension of any mind but his own; and they suppose him to manifest his power by the operation of his divine spirit, whom they name Vishnu the pervader, and Ne'ra'yan or moving on the waters, both in the masculine gender; whence he is often denominated the first male. When they consider the divine power as exerted in creating or giving existence to that which existed not before, they call the deity Brahma; when they view him in the light of destroyer, or rather changer of forms, they give him a thousand names, of which Siva, Isvara, and Mahadeva, are the most common; and when they consider him as the preserver of created things, they give him the name of Vishnu. As the soul of the world, or the pervading mind, so finely described by Virgil, we see Jove represented by several Roman poets; and with great sublimity by Lucan in the well-known speech of Cato concerning the Ammonian oracle, 'Jupiter is wherever we look, wherever we move.' This is precisely the Indian idea of Vishnu: for since the power of preserving created things by a superintending providence belongs eminently to the godhead, they hold that power to exist transcendently in the preserving member of the triad, whom they suppose to be everywhere always, not in substance, but in spirit and energy." This supreme god Brahma, in his triple form, is the only self-existent divinity acknowledged by the philosophical Hindoos. The other divinities Genesa, Indra, Cuviera, &c., are all looked upon either as his creatures or his children; and of course are worshipped only with inferior adoration.

It was upon this principle of the generation of the gods, and of their acting as ministers to the supreme Numen, that all the philosophers of Greece, who were not atheists, worshipped many divinities, though they either openly condemned or secretly deplored the traditions of the poets respecting the amours and villanies of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and the rest of the tribe. It was the same principle finery admitted, and not an ill-timed jest, as has been absurdly supposed, that made Socrates, after he had swallowed the poison, request his friend to offer a votive cock for him to Eucratius.

But a theogony was not peculiar to the Greeks, Romans, and the Hindoos; it made part of every system of polytheism. Even the Egyptians themselves, the greatest of all idolaters, believed in one self-existing God, from whom all their other divinities descended by generation. This appears probable from the writings of Horus Apollo, Jamblicus, Porphyry, and many other ancient authors; but if the inscription on the gates of the temple of Neith in Saïs, as we have it from Plutarch and Proclus, be genuine, it will admit of no doubt. This famous inscription, according to the last of these writers, was to this purpose: "I am whatever is, whatever shall be, and whatever hath been. My veil no man hath removed. The offspring which I brought forth was the sun (ε)."

The Persian magi, as we have seen, believed in two self-existing principles, a good and an evil: but if Diogenes Laertius deserves to be credited, they held that fire, earth, and water, which they called gods, were generated by these two. It was observed in the beginning of this article, that the first object of idolatrous worship was probably the sun, and that this species of idolatry took its rise in Chaldea or Persia. But when it became the practice of eastern monarchs to conceal themselves wholly from their people, the custom, as implying dignity, was supposed to prevail as well in heaven as on earth; and Zoroaster, the reformer of the Persian theology, taught, that "Ormuzd was as far removed from the sun as the sun is removed from the earth." According to this modification of magianism, the sun was one of the generated gods, and held the office of prime minister or vicegerent to the invisible fountain of light and good. Still, however, a self-existing principle of evil was admitted; but though he could not be destroyed or annihilated by any power, it was believed that he would at last be completely vanquished by Ormuzd and his ministers, and rendered thenceforward incapable of producing any mischief.

From this short view of polytheism, as we find it delineated by the best writers of antiquity, we think ourselves warranted to conclude, that the whole pagan world believed in but one, or at most two, self-existing gods, from whom they conceived all the other divinities to have descended in a manner analogous to human generation. It appears, however, that the vulgar pagans considered each divinity as supreme and unaccountable within his own province, and therefore intitled to worship, which rested ultimately in himself. The philosophers,

(ε) Τα ὑπάρχοντα, και τα προσώπων, και τα γεγονότα, του είμι. Τοι μετα χρόνων συνειδης απελαύνεις. Οι ενωμένοι, ἀλλος τοις ἀλλοῖς. The antiquity of this inscription is admitted by Cudworth, denied by Mosheim, and doubted by Jablonki. The reader who wishes to know their arguments may consult Mosheim's edition of the Intellectual System, and Jablonki's Pantheon Ægyptiorum.