NOTES.

LECTURE I.

NOTE 1. It would not be difficult to enlarge the catalogue of idols, enumerated in the pages of the preceding Lecture, and to assign the different causes of their deification: but to unfold their character, which in that case it would be neces sary to do, would be an ungracious task to the writer, and would afford no pleasure to the reader. Our immortal poet has given an ample list of the objects of heathen adoration, under their scriptural names; which will be more familiar to the Bible reader; and while he has veiled their actions in modest lan guage, he has adorned the sad catalogue, so far as it is possible to ornament a barren list, with the nervous eloquence of his majestic versification. An abbreviation of his recital is extracted.

"Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last
Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery couch,
At their great emperor's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof."

- "First MOLOCH, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon.".

"Next CHEMOs, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons

From Aroar to Nabo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

It is not easy to determine to which of the heathen deities these Hebrew names apply. Saturn, probably, for his rites are nearly the

same.

And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flowery dale of Sibma, clad with vines,
And Eleale to th' Asphaltic pool.

PEOR, his other name, when he entic'd

With these came they who from the bordering flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names.
Of BAALIM and ASHTAROTH; those male,
These feminine.!”.

"With these in troop

Came Astoreth, whom the Phenicians call'd ASTARTE,* queen of heaven, with crescent horns; To whose bright image nightly, by the moon, Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."

"THAMUZ† came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day."

"Next came one

Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark
Maim'd his brute image

DAGON his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish:-

-dreaded through the coast

Of Palestine.".

Him follow'd RIMMON, whose delightful scat "Was fair Damascus.".

'After these, appear'd

A crew, who, under names of old renown,

OSIRIS, ISIS, ORUS, and their train,

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd

Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek

Their wandering gods, disguis'd in brutish forms

Called also Luna, Diana, Hecate.
#Probably Neptune.

tAdonis.

Rather than human. Nor did Israel. 'scape
Th' infection, when their borrow'd gold compos'd
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king

Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan."

"The rest were long to tell, though far renown'd;
Th' Ionian gods, of Javan's issue held

Gods, yet confess'd later than heav'n and earth,
Their boasted parents: TITAN, heav'n's first-born,
With his enormous brood, and birth-right, seiz'd
By younger SATURN; he from mightier Jove,
His own and RHEA's son, like measure found;
So Jove usurping reign'd: these first in Crete
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top
Of cold Olympus rul'd the middle air,
Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,
Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
Of Doric land; or who with SATURN old

Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields,

And o'er the Celtic roam'd the utmost Isles."

Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I. 1. 376--521,

NOTE 2.--The custom of the Carthaginians of consuming children in honor of Saturn.

Diodorus Siculus had been saying, that as the enemy approached the city, the Carthaginians imagined that they had offended Saturn by restraining their human sacrifices: he adds, "therefore that they might correct their errors without delay, they immolated in public sacrifice two hundred chosen boys of their principal nobility." And he thus describes the idol Saturn: "For there was with them a brazen statue of Saturn, which held its extended arms so inclined towards the earth, that the child when placed upon it rolled off, and plunged into a furnace full of fire." Diod. Sic. Lib. xx.

Justin speaks of the same cruel superstition, thus: "They immolated men as victims, and children, whose tender years excited the pity even of enemies, they placed upon their altars, purchasing peace of the gods by the blood of those for whose life they were accustomed principally to implore the gods." Just. His. Lib. xviii. cap. 6.

*The Oracle of Apollo.

This horrible custom is mentioned also by Herodotus, Lib.vii. The English reader may consult ROLLIN's Ancient History vol. i, p. 273.

NOTE 3. These are the meiancholy sentiments which Homer puts into the mouth of the shade of Achilles:

"Talk not of ruling in this dol❜rous gloom,

Nor think vain words (he cry'd) can ease my doom.

Rather I choose laboriously to bear

A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air,

A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread,
Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead!"

Pope's Odyss. Book xi, l. 595--600.

NOTE 4.--Socrates is represented by Plato as thus expressing his expectations of a legislator qualified to reveal the mind of Deity to the human race: "that it is necessary to wait till such a personage shall appear to teach them how they ought to conduct themselves, both towards God, and towards man." He goes on to exclaim with fervor-"() when shall that period arrive! And who shall be that teacher? How ardently do I desire to see this man, who he is! Alcibiad. II. de Precat.

In reference to the same personage he says, that this Legislator must be of higher than human extraction: for that as beasts are governed by men, must man be guided by a nature superior to his own. De Leg. lib. 4.

LECTURE II.

NOTE 3.-Among the ancient philosophers, various modifications of the hypothesis which supposes the eternity of the world, are to be found,

Ocellus Lucanus, who lived a short time before Plato, was one of the most ancient asserters of the world's eternity. A short treatise, bearing his name, yet remains, upon this subject: Ocell. Lucan. de Univ. p. 506. inter opusc. mythol. edit. per T. Gale, 1688. The arguments which he produces will not be considered as the most decisive and satisfactory that could be wished: for he asserts, that the world must be eternal, because its figure and motion are circular; and because it is impossible for any thing to arise out of nothing, or to fall again into nothing.

Aristotle maintained, that not only the world, but that mankind, and all species of animals, have existed from eternity, without any original production; and that the earth, with all its variations, and in all its parts, has ever been what it now is. The later Platonists deduce their principal arguments in favor of the eternity of the world, from the eternity of God's decree for its creation, "and the indivisibility of the real duration of God." They maintain that God always existed; that his decree was eternal; and that there could not be a time in which it did not exist in the Divine mind. Be it so: there remains still much perplexity in their reasoning; and, as it appears to me, much sophism in their deductions. There must be a difference between ideal (if the expression be lawful) and actual creation; and I do not see how it can be proved, that the decree was not anterior to the accomplishment of that decree.

Xenophanes and his followers supposed, that God and the world were one, and the same thing; and of course held its eternity and immutability. This, again, has been denied by others: but there is so much obscurity in the statement which these philosophers have made of their own opinions, that if they did not mean this, it is difficult to decide what hypothesis they did intend to convey.

Of one or the other of these opinions respecting the eternity of the world, appear to have been Strato, of Lampsacus, and Alexander the Epicurean, the contemporary of Plutarch.

Others supposed the matter of the world to be eternal, but not the form of it. These, in fact, held the eternity of the chaos, to which they attributed a certain motion arising from the action and reaction of the first four qualities, producing the earth by mere fortuitous fluctuations; and thus, this hypothesis resolves itself into the preceding one, viz. that the world itself was produced by chance.

The reader who may wish to see a larger and more laborious statement of these several hypotheses, and others, not brought forward in this note, will find a full and satisfactory discussion of them in Anc. Univ. Hist. vol. i, p. 77--91; title, The Cosmogony. But in some later 8vo. editions, these statements are transferred to vol. xviii, Appendix, p. 114–126.