from time to time, improved by the early, middle, and later philosophers, to hide the deformities of vulgar polytheism; I think proper to consider what he hath to say in support of such an undertaking.

Now against my various reasoning in confutation of this pagan system, I find not so much as one argument opposed; and in support of the system itself, but one; and this one borrowed from Cudworth.* It is put thus: "Euhemerus and his FOLLOWERS, ere we join with them in mortalizing the first divinities, must satisfy us, why the poetical sages, the instructors of mankind, termed their grand work, the basis of their doctrine, not only a THEOGONY, or an account of the birth and pedigree of the gods, but a COSMOGONY, or an account of the birth and creation of the world? Or, plainer still, a COSMOPOEIA, a making or framing of the universe? The PLATONIC philosophy had no hand in the cosmogonies, or histories of the creation written by Taaut or Thoth, by Linus, by Orpheus, &c. It was plain, therefore, the allegory did not come too late," &c.-These last are my words.

If Euhemerus supposed, as it appears he did, that the FIRST pagan divinities were mortal men, he would have found it difficult to answer this objection of Cudworth. But the FOLLOWER of Euhemerus (for with this title he honours the author of the Divine Legation) who supposes no such thing, but hath evinced the contrary, will find no difficulty at all. For he holds, that the first gods of Greece were the heavenly bodies. And if the makers of these cosmogonies, such as Thoth, Linus, and Orpheus, held the same, then their THEOGONIES, or accounts of the birth and pedigrees of these gods, could be no other than COSMOGONIES, or accounts of the birth and creation of the world; these gods being parts of it.

But things seem here to be confounded by our Letter-writer. These cosmogonies have just as much, and no more, to do with Platonic allegories, than the elements of speech with the ornaments of rhetoric.

There are two errors likewise, in this matter, which our Letter-writer seems to have laboured under. The one is, that Euhemerus was the inventor of the mortalizing system: whereas, I had shown, it was taught in all the mysteries long before Euhemerus had any being. He, indeed, maliciously carried it much farther than the mysteries intended: he made planetary worship symbolical of the heroic: and, from thence, inferred the political origin of religion: for which, he passed with antiquity, and perhaps justly, for an atheist. Whereas the mysteries, as we see from the fragment of Sanchoniatho, § kept these two species of idolatry distinct; and assigned the proper order of time to each of them.

The other error this lively writer falls into, is in supposing, that this * See Intellectual System.-Contents annexed to first edition, p. 234.

† Pp. 211, 212.

See above.

§ See above, and likewise, p. 227..

follower of Euhemerus, against whom he writes, holds all the first, as well as last, gods of Greece to have been mortal men: whereas he distinguished between the gods of civilized and uncivilized Greece: the first, he supposes to have been heavenly bodies; and the latter only dead men deified.

From censuring the learning of Euhemerus's followers, the Letterwriter proceeds to censure their morals. "It is not easy," he says, "to ascertain what should make some warm ecclesiastics, for the wiser are far above such weakness, so angry at the allegories of ancient poets, now, when all danger from their deities is over. Of old, indeed, when temples and revenues belonged to them; when wealth and dignities of the church, were annexed to the allegorical devotion, and vested in its teachers, no wonder the good FATHERS should fulminate against the wild and impious worship. But now, when the struggle is long since over, when the father of gods and men has not so much as a lamb offered, nor his daughter [i. e. Minerva or WISDOM] a single grain of incense burnt upon her altar for near a thousand years, it is hard to tell what should awake this preposterous zeal, or make them so eager to mortalize the EMBLEMS of antiquity. Is there not, as I was hinting, some infection in the case? Has not the reading the FLAMING INVECTIVES of the primitive fathers, who were actually in the struggle, a little infected their followers with the same fiery spirit and INDECENT LANGUAGE?”*

As to these flaming invectives, the Letter-writer seems to lie under a small mistake. For though such invectives may perhaps be thought characteristic of the FATHERS' zeal, the terms are not here in their place. They reserved their invectives for a better occasion, to fulminate the malice of their enemies, and the follies of their friends. On this point, viz. the mortalizing the emblems of antiquity, I can assure him, they appeared much at their ease; and more disposed to quibble than to rail; as he might have seen by one of the most serious of them, and who least understood raillery when he was pressed, I mean St Austin; who, in his confutation of Varro and his emblems, could afford to be thus jocular: "Sed, hæc omnia inquit [Varro] referuntur ad mundum; videatne potius ad immundum."+

As to the indecent language; it is to be found in the fourth volume of the Divine Legation; where it is said, that the ancients adopted into the number of their greater gods, ravishers, adulterers, pathics, vagabonds, thieves, and murderers. But it is pleasant to hear this Letterwriter talk of decency to a set of PHANTOMS, EMBLEMS, and SYMBOLS; for such he esteems these greater gods to be; and yet observe it so little to the MINISTERS of the Christian religion. For he is at a loss, the reader sees, to account for their warmth, where their private interest is *Pp. 226, 227. Civ. Dei, lib. vii. cap. 27.

Book iv. sect. 4.

not concerned. And in seeking for the cause of it, when he cannot fix it on their avarice and ambition, rather than allow them a motive becoming their character and office, he will throw it upon their passions and prejudices. He supposes, they catched the infection from the fathers, whose worldly interests, he imagines, were much concerned in the quarrel. But if he deserves the opinion I have of his candour, he will be pleased to find his suspicions ill grounded: and that the ECCLESIASTICS, who engage so warmly in this question, do it on important reasons, becoming their character of ministers of the truth.

The Bible represents ancient idolatry in the most odious colours, and the whole gentile world as given up to its delusions. A species of modern mythologists, hinted at above, had, on the revival of learning in the west, endeavoured to evade this charge, by borrowing the defences of the ancient philosophers; who allegorized the fables of the popular religion, to screen it from the contempt of the more knowing vulgar; as learning, at one time, and Christianity, at another, had severally shaken the seat of superstition. In those allegories, all the national gods were reduced to mere SYMBOLS, expressive of the attributes of the first Cause: and, consequently, the scripture-charge against the gentiles, of worshipping the creature for the Creator, rendered groundless, or at least, uncandid. These modern mythologists, a late French writer hath well described in the following words," Au commencement du seizième siécle quelquesuns des savans, qui contribuérent au retablissement des lettres, étoient, dit-on, païens dans le cœur, plus encore par PEDANTERIE, que par libertinage: ensorte qu'il n'eût pas tenu à eux de ramener le culte des dieux d'HOMERE et de Virgile-ils emploïoient ce qu'ils avoient de literature et d'esprit, pour donner au paganisme un tour plausible, et en former un système moins insensé, Ils avoüoient que la MYTHOLOGIE étoit insoutenable prise à la lettre: mais, en même tems, elle contenoit, selon eux, sous l'EMBLEME des fictions les profondeurs de la PHYSIQUE, de la MORALE, et de la THEOLOGIE."t-In this state and representation of things, some ecclesiastics have thought it of their office to MORTALIZE these pretended emblems of antiquity; and to show, that the greater national gods were dead men deified: and, consequently, that their worshippers were REAL IDOLATERS; and of the worst sort too, as they frequently had for their objects the worst kind of men.

But so little of this matter entered into the Letter-writer's views, that he says; "This, which was formerly a grand religious controversy, is now turned to a point of pure speculation. What, in the days of polytheism, raised the indignation of the priests, and inflamed the rival zeal of the fathers of the church, now raises a little squabble amongst the

* See p. 575.

Vie de L'Emp. Julien. pp. 48, 49.

antiquaries, as a question of mere curiosity: to wit, whether all the gods of antiquity were not mortal men.

Now, if the Letter-writer will needs suppose, that where the CLERGY have no oblique and interested designs, they have no reasonable ones, he will be often out in his reckoning: and (what to be sure is greatly to be lamented) unequal to the office of a censor on their manners.

After all, perhaps, I may understand him as little, as he appears to have understood me, if I think him in earnest. The whole of his Letters, if one may judge by hints dropt here and there, seems to be only the wanton exercise of a sophist; and just such an encomium on the WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS, as Erasmus's was on the FOLLY OF THE MODERNS. It is certain, at least, that in the prosecution of his argument, his chief concern is for FICTION AND ITS INTERESTS. Thus, in one page, he tells us, "That this eager zeal to MORTALIZE these emblems of antiquity is DESTRUCTIVE OF ALL TRUE POETRY."† And in another, "That this prevailing PROSAIC TASTE has neither dignity of manners, nor strength of genius, nor extent of fancy." But he explains himself more fully, where speaking of SYMBOLS and ALLEGORIES, and the inseparable as well as accidental marks by which they may be unraveled, he illustrates his subject by Abbé Pluche's hypothesis: which, however, in several places, he treats for what it is, an idle and a groundless fancy. "Symbols," says he, carry natural marks that strike a sagacious mind, and lead it, by degrees, to their real meaning. A hint in one author brightens the obscurities in many others; as one single observation of Macrobius proved the clew to Abbé Pluche's (how justly I say not) to unravel the whole mystery of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Grecian gods." He had no occasion to consider how justly, if he were in jest. Otherwise, a man might have seen, that the justness of unraveling depended on the reality of the clew: which, too, though dignified by the name of clew, is indeed no other than a number of odd ends, that wanted to be made consistent, rather than to be unraveled. For the rest, as our learned critic would immortalize the pagan deities in reverence to the CLASSICS, So this Abbé Pluche (of whom he speaks with so much honour) has attempted to draw them out of their mortal state, in order to cover the disgraces of POPERY; to which that superstition is obnoxious, from the protestant parallels between saint and hero-worship.

66

But as if all this had not been enough to show us that his concern was not for TRUTH but FICTION, he gravely professes to credit all BACON'S visions, as the genuine wisdom of the ancients, which every body else admires as the sportive effort of modern wit. As he is in so pleasant a humour, he may not be displeased to hear the determination of DOCTOR RABELAIS upon this question, who thus addresses the allegorizers of his † P. 215.

* P. 208.

P. 214.

time: "Croyez-vous, en vostre foy, qu'oncques HOMERE, escripvant l'Iliade et l'Odyssée, pensast és ALLEGORIES lesquelles de luy ont calefreté Plutarche, Heraclide de Ponticq, Eustatie, Phornute, et ce que d'iceulx POLITIAN ha descrobé? Si le croyez, vous n'approchez ne de piedz, ne de mains à mon opinion: qui DECRETE icelles aussi peu avoir esté songées de Homere, que d'Ovide en ses Metamorphoses, les sacremens de l'evangile, lesquelz ung Frere Lubin, vray croquelardon, s'est efforcé demonstrer si d'adventure il rencontroit gens aussi folz que luy." This facetious satirist had here in his eye those very mythologists of the sixteenth century, whom the learned author of the Life of Julian, quoted above, so very justly censures.

And thus much for this GRAND KEY OF MYTHOLOGY, as this Letterwriter is pleased to call his fancies.*

To return to the patrons of the other extreme, that the heavenly bodies were only SYMBOLS of the hero-gods. Having thus shown the worship of the elements to be prior to that of dead men, I have not only overthrown this argument, for the proof of the atheistic notion of the origin of religion, but likewise the notion itself. For if, as our adversaries own, the worship of dead men were the first religious institution after entering into civil society; and if (as I have proved) the worship of the heavenly bodies preceded that of dead men: the consequence is, that religion was in use before the civil magistrate was in being. But I need not our adversaries' concession for this consequence; having proved from ancient testimony, that planetary worship was the only idolatry long before civil society was known; and continued to be so, by all unpolicied nations, long after.

II. I come, in the next place, to direct fact: from whence it appears, that the lawgiver, or civil magistrate, did not invent religion.

Here the atheist's gross prevarication ought not to pass uncensured.— . From the notoriety of the magistrate's care of religion, he would conclude it to be his INVENTION: and yet, that very antiquity, which tells him this, as plainly and fully tells him this other; namely, that religion was not invented by him: for, look through all Greek, Roman, and barbaric antiquity; or look back on what we have extracted from thence in the second section of the foregoing book, and it will appear, that not one single lawgiver ever found a people, how wild or unimproved soever, without a religion, when he undertook to civilize them. On the contrary, we see them all, even to the lawgivers of the Thracians and American Indians, addressing themselves to the savage tribes, with the credentials of that God who was there professedly acknowledged and adored. But this truth will be farther seen from hence: it appears by the history of the lawgivers; by the sayings recorded of them; and by the fragments

* P. 409.