and therefore it does not belong to our plan to give their history. But we might, nevertheless, expect thus much of a religion which has in it any moral power at all, viz. that among the common people, where it mostly predominates, it should prevent the prevalence of immorality to such an extent as it reached in Rome.

But not to go into particulars, let us bring before our eyes the picture of that age as a whole, drawn by a cotemporary. Seneca thus speaks of his own time :245 "All is full of criminality and vice; indeed much more of these is committed than can be remedied by force. A monstrous contest of abandoned wickedness is carried on. The lust of sin increases daily; and shame is daily more and more extinguished. Discarding respect for all that is good and sacred, lust rushes on wherever it will. Vice no longer hides itself. It stalks forth before all eyes. So public has abandoned wickedness become, and so openly does it flame up in the minds of all, that innocence is no longer seldom, but has wholly ceased to exist."

In the French revolution, when the people made a public renunciation of the God that had created and redeemed them, all the vices became prevalent of which human beings who have broken loose from the Holy God of Christians, are capable; but still, never did this abandonment, even in its wildest intoxication, proceed to such excesses as appear throughout the whole succession of the Roman emperors. An emperor who fought naked before the people at the shows of the gladiators, like several of the Roman emperors; an emperor who established a brothel in his palace, and required the toll to be paid to himself like Caligula; an emperor who drove through the streets of his capital with his naked mistress, like Nero; an empress who publicly commended herself to the coarsest lovers, and exposed her embraces for sale, like Messalina; an emperor who first dishonoured and then murdered his sister, like Commodus; an emperor who distributed the highest offices according to the greater or less degree of capacity for debauchery, like Heliogabalus ;-emperors, who caused persons to be murdered in sport, that they might see how they would die; who caused bridges to be suddenly broken down, that they might enjoy the sight of a multitude of people sinking in the waves ;such rulers, even degenerate Byzantium had not; for only when centuries shall have obliterated every vestige of Christianity in

245 Seneca de Ira, II. 8.

the world and in the hearts of men, is it possible that such enor-` mities should be perpetrated.

That the heathen did in fact justify themselves in their sins and transgressions by the examples of the gods, could be properly shown only by an intimate knowledge of popular life; but besides this, we have also examples of the fact in the writings of the ancients. Meleager frequently appeals for exculpation of his paederastia, to the gods; just as Jupiter carried off Ganymede; Apollo, Cyparissus and Cinyras; and Poseidon, Pelops.246 The same is indicated by Athenaeus :247 "Why should we not strive to get possession of the beauty of boys and girls, since even gods did the same? Indeed among the goddesses, Aurora carried off Cephalus and Cleitus; Demeter, Jasion; and Aphrodite, Anchises and Aeneas; all on account of their beauty." -So Martial finds fault with his wife, for scolding when she finds him with a beautiful boy.248 "How often," says he, "has not Juno been compelled to say the same to the thunderer Jupiter?"-So says a stripling in Terence,249 whose character is taken directly from the life, and who is relating how, he was about to commit unchastity: "While the girl was sitting in the apartment, she looked up towards the ceiling, and there saw Jupiter portrayed as he descended in a golden shower into the lap of Danae. I also began to look there, and rejoiced to see, that a god had already done what I was about to do. And what a god! he who thunders through the vault of heaven! Ego homuncio hoc non facerem? Ego vero illud feci ac lubens.". -In Ovid,250 Byblis, inflamed with passion for her brother Caunus, appeals to the example which the gods have given for incest; and in another passage, ,251 the same loose poet admonishes a maiden not to go into the temple, for there Jupiter has often caused maids to become mothers.-Kindling with indignation at this frightful influence of such worthless gods, Antisthenes, the

40.

246 Meleagri Epigrammata, ed. Graef. Leips. 1811. Epgr. 10, 14,

247 Athen. Deip. XIII. 20.

248 Martialis Epigrammata, XI. 44.

249 Terentii Eunuchus, Act. 3. Sc. 5. v. 34.

250 Metamorph. IX. 789.

251 Ovid. Trist. II. 287.

friend of Socrates, declared boldly of Venus,252 "Could I but only seize Aphrodite, I would pierce her through with a javelin ; so many virtuous and excellent women has she seduced among

us!"

We close here these views, from which the eye of the Christian gladly turns away.* Nevertheless, it is salutary, not entirely to avoid them; for when the believing Christian, who has experienced the grace of the Redeemer in his heart, returns back again to himself from the contemplation of all the sinful abominations of heathenism; and finds, that not merely in his external life there is no vestige of these heathenish pollutions, but that also his heart, if not wholly free from thoughts of sin, still never dwells with pleasure upon them; and finds, too, that love to holiness is no longer a mere law to him, but that a sincere abhorrence of all that is not heavenly and a glowing love to all that is divine, dwell in his soul;-he becomes deeply affected with the unspeakable compassion of Jesus, who, by the power of his sanctifying spirit, has new created the old man, has eradicated sin, has brought into existence a new world of glory in his soul, where before there was nothing, has enlightened the eyes of our understanding, that we may know what is the hope of our calling, and the glorious riches of the inheritance appointed for us among the saints.253

252 Theodoreti de Graec. affect. Cur. Disp. III. Opp. T. IV. p. 774.

253 Eph. i. 18.

* "GLADLY” indeed! will doubtless be the response of the reader, as it surely is of the translator, who has often been tempted even to omit some of the worst passages; and nothing but a sense of the important end to be gained by a full exhibition of these odious details, could induce him to give them in English. And so, most deeply, felt the pious author; as is manifested by such admirable remarks as those which follow in the text. TRANS.

SECTION III.

The impotency of the heathen religions to effect any deep and fundamental improvement either of the whole human race, of particular classes of men, or of the powers of the soul in any individual; together with the consequences thence accruing to morality.

The

THE ROOT OF ALL HUMAN IMProvement is Religion. most ancient traces of national cultivation, are connected with temples, the priesthood, and the worship of God. For this reason, we must also consider, and endeavour accurately to apprehend, the developement of the mental energies of men, from the principles of their religion. And here we shall at once perceive, that heathenism is by no means adequate to produce a complete expansion and harmony of the human mind.

No nation, as history every where shows us, attains to a cultivated state, independently of other nations; but as the individual man becomes a man only in the social intercourse of families, so nations attain the cultivation of which man is susceptible, only through intercourse with nations. Divine worship, political institutions, and arts and sciences, were transplanted from the higher regions of interior Asia, from nation to nation, even to the most distant extremities of Europe and Africa; from whence they passed over to America.

At that primitive period, when this communication from Asia to Europe was first effected in the families of the Pelasgi, the character of individual tribes was not yet developed. They had not yet established themselves in their destined lands; and therefore the nature of these countries could not yet exert its influence in the formation of the various national characters. If therefore, at that time, religion, art, and customs passed from one people to another, no revolution could thence ensue in their whole mental formation; since almost every where, there prevailed a similar want of cultivation in general. But when the various masses of Asiatic population had established themselves in Asia, Europe, and Africa, each in its own domain; and when, from the small and imperfect knowledge and traditions they had brought with them, there was developed among some of them a complete system of improvement and civilization; then each of these self-formed nations assumed its peculiar mental stamp, VOL. II. No. 7. ⚫ 59

which was thenceforward manifested in religion, government, arts, and sciences. The central points of this peculiar mental cultivation in the West, were Egypt and Greece.

If now, from both these self-cultivated countries, religion was to extend itself further; as there certainly was need, because so many nations were yet destitute of almost all divine worship; then the great and utter deficiencies of the heathen religions became immediately apparent. For these religions were so intimately blended with the peculiarities of the people and country, that, instead of occasioning new and original developement of mind in those foreign lands where they were introduced, there passed over to those lands, along with the religions of the Greeks and Egyptians, also the entire national character of those countries, and converted those foreign nations into Greeks and Egyptians. Thus Nubia and Abyssinia adopted the Egyptian manners and customs along with the Egyptian religion; just as Egypt itself had before received the cultivation of Colchis along with its religious ritual. Thus Thrace, Macedonia, and Lower Italy received, with the Grecian religion, also the peculiarities of Greece. Thus Greece made a breach upon the national developement of Rome; when with her gods she transferred also her science to Rome.254 And thus also Rome afterwards caused Gaul, Spain, and many other lands, to become Roman, and suppressed in them the formation of any peculiar character. We may even see this also among the Israelites. According to the divine injunction, they were to have a religious establishment which was to be most intimately amalgamated with all their political institutions, for the purpose primarily of an external emblematic representation of an heavenly kingdom. When the Jews received any people into their religious community, as the Idumeans, and later so many Syrians and Greeks, these became thereby also Jews in politics, sciences, and arts.

That all nations should subject themselves to one particular mode of divine worship, must hence have appeared to a heathen a visionary idea; as Celsus also expresses himself as cited by Origen.

Christianity alone rendered a universal religion possible; and

254 Had not the Grecian mythology supplanted the Roman, a peculiar taste and character in tragedy and the fine arts, would have developed themselves in Rome; as is shown by A. W. Schlegel in his Dramaturgie.