Page images
PDF
EPUB

duces these passages of Diodorus, Macrobius, and Strabo, and adds some from other authors.

The writer de Dea Syria tells us that the beasts which were kept in this sacred place lost their natural fierceness. Ἐν δὲ τῇ αὐλῇ ἄφελοι νέμονται βόες μεγάλοι, καὶ ἵπποι, καὶ ἀετοὶ, καὶ ἄρκτοι, και λέοντες, καὶ ἀνθρώπες ὐδαμᾷ σίνονται, ἀλλὰ πάνες ἱροί τέ εἰσι, και χειροήθεις. Xerponbees. In aula soluti pascuntur boves magni, et equi, et aquila, et ursi, et leones, qui nequaquam nocent hominibus, sed sacri omnes sunt, et mansueti. § 41.

The city and temple also, as he informs us, swarmed with Galli, or castrated priests, who perhaps performed the same operation upon these wild beasts, which they had performed upon themselves; and this, together with due correction administered from time to time, and a good education, and seeing much company, and proper food, and a full belly, and three meals a day, would make these lions and bears as tame as lambs. The Meyano Bots were probably oxen, who grow to a much larger size than bulls; and a bull is a surly animal, with whom it is hard to cultivate any friendship.

Van Dale observes from Theophrastus, that cedar, and those sorts of wood which contain an oily moisture, will have a dew upon them in damp weather, and that statues made of them will sweat, which passed for a prodigy with silly people. He mentions this, as illustrating what is said in the book De Dea Syria concerning sweating images: but I rather think that the priests there had some surer contrivance to bring about this miracle, and could make their images sweat when they thought it proper.

The book De Dea Syria is very entertaining, and composed elegantly, and in the Ionic dialect: the author seems to have been a pagan who gave credit to

prodigies

prodigies, oracles, and the power of the gods, which was not Lucian's case. If Lucian wrote it, to whom it is ascribed, one might suspect that, as he proposed to follow Herodotus in style and manner, so he affected to imitate him in gravely relating marvellous and strange things. But if this were his design, it was of too refined a nature, and by the seriousness which runs through the whole composition, the jest has been hitherto lost. Lucian, Ver. Hist. ii. 31. banters Herodotus as a liar, though unjustly, I think; for in this charming historian there are some marks of credulity, but none of dishonesty. Whosoever made the book, and with whatsoever intent, his narration seems to be historically true, and much of it is confirmed by other writers. We are informed by Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. iii. 501. that Jurieu, in his History of the Jewish Rites and doctrines, has concluded that Lucian was not the author of this treatise, because it is written in the Ionic dialect. The argument proves nothing, for Lucian was an ingenious monkey, who could imitate what he would, and throw himself into all shapes; and he might affect this sweetly flowing style, for several reasons, or out of mere fancy; and Arrian, as Fabricius observes, wrote his Indica in this dialect, though he composed his other works in the Attic diction. I have not Jurieu's book to consult, and perhaps it is not worth the seeking. Jurieu made a figure in his time, and had more zeal than discretion. He wrote some tracts of devotion, and he was remarkable for two things; first, for misinterpreting the Apocalypse, and thence foretelling what never came to pass; sccondly, for publishing idle stories against Grotius, and other learned men, in a book called L'Esprit de Monsieur Arnauld. The book at first had a run, for censure VOL. I.

H

is

is of a healthy complexion, and thrives better than раnegyric; and as it has been said of a hog*, that his soul is given him instead of salt, to keep him from stinking, so what is called secret history will preserve even a slovenly performance from decaying, longer than one would imagine: but now this work would be little known, if Bayle, and Le Clerc, and others had not chastised it, in which, perhaps, they did it too much honour, Jurieu by treating Grotius as an infidel, went to work like a bungler, for Est ars etiam maledicendi, as Joseph Scaliger said upon a like occasion, and it requires something of a hand to throw dirt. Bossuet, though he did not fight with such weapons as Jurieu, yet attacked Grotius, as a dangerous author and a Socinian, and made remarks upon him which are mere declamation and verbiage. It is one thing to be bishop of Meaux, and another thing to be Hugo Grotius:

Οὐ γὰ ἐν μέσοισι κειται
Δώρα δυσμαχηλὰ Μοισάν
Τὠπιτυχόντι φέρειν το

Calmet, if I remember right, has also treated Grotius in the same manner, Grotius was inclined to think and to judge rather too favourably than too hardly of the church of Rome; for which some of the ecclesiastics of that communion have repaid him with the gratitude that was to be expected, and have taught by-standers, that he who endeavours to stroke a tiger into good humour, will at least have his fingers bitten off in the experiment. Herodotus

Cicero De Nat. Deor. ii. 64.
+ Non enim in medio jacent
Ardua dona Musarum
A quolibet auferenda,

Herodotus is of opinion that divination and oracles had their rise in Egypt, and thence came into Afric and Greece, and that the oracle at Dodona was the most ancient in Greece. L. ii. The opinion is very probable, for Egypt was the nursery of idolatry and superstition. Homer mentions the temple of Jupiter at Dodona, and that of Apollo at Pytho, or Delphi, as being illustrious in the time of the Trojan war, and represents the latter as immensely rich. II. п. 233, I.

404..

Herodotus shews us the great authority of oracles, from ancient times down to his own, by which kingdoms were disposed of, and war and peace were made, He relates that the Heraclidæ, who, before Gyges, reigned in Lydia, at Sardes, obtained the kingdom by an oracle, and that Gyges, who slew his master Candaules, had the kingdom adjudged to him by the Delphic oracle, which favour he rewarded by sending thither large gifts. Herodotus every where speaks of oracles, divination, and prodigies, as one who firmly believed in them, and who was displeased with those that slighted them. See viii. 77. He gives us there an oracle of Bacis, in which there is a remarkable expression, and in the style of the Scriptures,

Δια δίκη σβέσσει κρατερὸν κόρον, ὕβριος ψόν.

Compescet juvenem meritissima pana superbum, as Psalm lxxxix, 22.-nor the son of wickedness afflict him. 2 Sam. vii. 10. neither shall the children of wic kedness afflict them. Judas is called the son of perdition, John xvii. 12. where see Grotius.

Herodotus also relates prophetic dreams which were said to have been accomplished, as the dream of Crosus, of Astyages, and of others. Having travelled, says Prideaux, through Egypt, Syria, and several other

H 2

countries,

countries, in order to the writing of his history, he did, as travellers used to do, he put down relations upon trust, aš he met with them, and no doubt was imposed upon in many of them.

Van Dale, in his book De Oraculis, observes, that the Oracular temples were usually situated in mountainous places, which abounded with caverns fitted for frauds. That the oracles were delivered only at stated times. That at Delphi, the priestess had priests, prophets, and poets, to take down, and explain, and mend her gibberish; which served to justify Apollo from the imputation of making bad verses, for if they were defective, the fault was laid upon the amanuensis: That the consulters sometimes wrote their requests, and received answers in writing: That the priests had the art of opening letters, and closing them again with out breaking the seal: That the adyta, whence the ora> cles were delivered, were shaded with branches, and clouded with incense, to help the fraud: That in the temples sweet smells were suddenly diffused, to shew that the god was in good humour: That there are drugs, herbs, and fumigations which will make a man foam at the mouth, and be delirious, and that the priestess might use such methods: That it might also sometimes be grimace and artifice: That the god sometimes gave answers himself, by a voice, or by the motion of his statue, &c. This is what I had to offer concerning divination, and prophecy in general, the Sibylline oracles excepted, which shall be examined apart.

The prophecies relating to our Saviour, and to Christianity, have some of them a mixture of obscurity, and the interpretations which have been given of them are various but this ought to be matter neither of won

der

« PreviousContinue »