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Article CLASSICAL THEOLOGY.—IV. ← Page 2 of 3 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Classical Theology.—Iv.
judged so infamous , that if the drunkard committed a crime during his intoxication he was more severely punished than he would have been had he been sensible of the act , or sober when he committed it . But human laws , however wisely constructed on the principles of virtue and wisdom , are but human laws—are still but falliblewithout a divine
, superintendence . We shall be able , we trust , as we go on , to show how an idolatrous religion must end in ifcs own subversion ; it did so end with this refined and philosophic people so soon as the gospel was disseminated . And for this simple reason , because the good in it was subordinate to the evil of it . ' Taking Solon for our guide , we should say the
most perfect Pagan religion was the Grecian . At first the Greeks , like many other early nations , instinctively , that is , hy the promptings of the soul , as created beings , sought God , the Creator and Saviour—not as his sons and daughters , nor as "his creatures , " but as an unknown Godin his worksand not in himself—in plain factas
, , , the " Ignotv . s Deus . " The earth , the sky , the sea , the sun , the moon , the stars , and all the host of heaven were worshipped by them , and to them they paid divine homage . Their relig ious duties they performed in sacred places ; these consisted of three . —prayers , sacrifices , and lustrations . Their object in praying was to obtain some desired good or avert
some expected evil . In their ceremonies , they pressed the hand on the mouth before the deity of their adoration , and then extended ifc towards the image or the place where its emblem was kept . This ceremony , to substitute the Latin word for the Greek , was termed adorare . They usually prayed standing—in great danger or difficulty they knelt .
They turned themselves towards the sun , so that they mi ght look towards the east . In supplicating some bright celestial orb , by them deified , they used the form of lifting up tlie hands . Now all this appears to be very innocent . There is not much harm in turning oneself round to look towards the east , nor in lifting up our hands to some " bright
particular star , " if we knew of nothing better to do ; yet we might do many things ] iei * ehance worse . However , when as a consequence of worshipping " other gods , " and many a god , instead of the one Almighty , we discover among the ceremonies of this first duty , without considering the others , that they stretched forth their hands towards the sea , if ifc was that
element they were imploring , and that they smote the earth to invoke and address the infernal deities—such a spiritual Babel , such a scattering of prayers , are evidence in themselves that such a religion can be no religion at all—or it must bo ofthe synagogue of Satan—the religion of Beelzebub ( Baal ) . This is true with respect to heathen theology and its worship ; yet the Greeks wished to be religious . The spirit of the true regenerated religion hacl never entirely abandoned them from the time that Attica was first peopled ancl Greece
was known by the name of J avail , who was the son of Japhet . No sooner was the word of holy truth preached unto them than they recognized it , and St . Paul found all those who had that spirit in them soon became Christians . With Socrates , Plato , and the Peripatetics , the doctrine of the immortality of the soul w ; ts distinct from the belief in the immortality ofthe spirit ; they had no doubt about the
existence of the "Manes : " only ofthe eternity of the "Animie " had they any doubts . Contemporaneously with the adoption into their language of the names of the- Egyptian divinities , the Greeks built temples in their honour adorned with their statues , and on them bestowed divine worship , in imitation of what they had
seen in Egypt , whose people , perhaps , sought to imitate the . Hebrews in constructing the innermost sanctuary , or sacred recess of their temples , the aev-oy of the Greeks , wherein they kept the emblems of their most hi gh gods ; doubtless they thought ( hat these partook of the divine nature , which is not to be confounded with the fabulous character of them . To unite two meanings in a symbol of Mercury both the Grecians and Pioinaus usuall y hung a purse to his statue
containing a valuable piece of information in the place of a piece of money , to wit , his name of Dolius , the signification of which is , that he was the god of gain and the president of commerce , and therefore treachery and fraud were often consequences of traffic and profit . Mercury is represented with wings . Homer has encased his
gods in armour , and Milton buckled on his spirits strong and loud sounding harness : we are informed of the spasm that ensued in lopping off the shadowy limb which , like air , yielded and retaining its body undivided ; of course it was beneath the great genius ofthe poet to mention how the mending of the armour was accomplished . They gave to these gods
and spirits wings . We do not forget that the angels are sometimes recorded as being pemiated ; but the wings of Mercury were ridiculous , the ancients bestowed a pair on his shoos with the name of talaria ; and a pair on his hat , or basin helmet , calling it his petasus , for since he was the messenger of the godsthey would have it he should run as well as fly ; at
, all events , as Yirgil says : — " Primum pedibus talaria ncctit Aurca , qua ; subliineni alis sivc a-qunra supra Sou terrain rapido pariter cum iliuiiiiic port-ant . "
" His golden pinions on his feet he binds , . Viul flying , soars upon the lofty winds O ' er earth ancl sea , from realms to realms on high AVith instant speed they bear him through the sky . " We do not know whether this swiftness of motion , or his debit and credit , jirocured for him his rather bad name . He kept good company , and it is said " birds of a feather flock together . " Therefore , we are not going to rob him of liis other pair of wings , the mystical mark of his sovereign power , namely , his magical wand , or rod cadv . ceus : —
" Ille patris magni parere parabat Imperio , * * * Turn virgani capit . " * * » With it he not only sealed the eyes in sleep , soothed the passions and appeased the anger of mortals , but also to conciliate the very immortals of"High heaven ' s bright towers and low hell ' s dark caves . " *
This faculty , or sujiernaturally iiaeific virtue was , for the first time b y Mercury perceived to be in the rod , since it hacl been made a gift by Apollo , when upon his travels he witnessed a combat betw-een two serpents . And , like some other great events and discoveries , it was brought about by the chance of cause and effect . He placed it betwixt them , and
they became at once so mutually charmed ancl reconciled as to fondly embrace each other and to entwine evermore fast around the . rod that corrected them . It is written , " Be ye as wise as serpents . " But to fill up the blanks in our quotation and to refer our readers to the ^ Eneid itselfwe think mayperhapshelp us
, , , both in making out some of the offices and meanings of Mercury as described by those learned men who promulgated an unheavenly religion which outspread and ramified tho whole world over up to the Christian era .
Hae aninias ille evocat Oreo Pallentes , alias sub tristia Tartara mittit ; l ) at sonimos , atlimitque , et lumina morte resignnt . " We herein see him as the messenger , angel , or mmiiter sacer of the gods , raised into his ri ght place , having full power to attend upon the dying , in order to deliver their souls from the pains of deathancl fco show them their way
, to Orcus ( hell ) , or the nethermost pit ( Tartarus ) , as the case might be . Nevertheless , he also restored to renewed births and new bodies those souls of the good which hacl bfcn sprinkled with the waters of Lethe , and cleansed of their light offences contracted in their former humane , charitable and benevolent state of existence in this world , after having
* The Egyptians painted the iuee of Mercury , iu his imago , partly dark , as the black , on one side , and fair , as the white , on the other , to indicate that there- was a god over them both whose messenger WW s ometimes iu communication with tht internals as well as the celestials-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Classical Theology.—Iv.
judged so infamous , that if the drunkard committed a crime during his intoxication he was more severely punished than he would have been had he been sensible of the act , or sober when he committed it . But human laws , however wisely constructed on the principles of virtue and wisdom , are but human laws—are still but falliblewithout a divine
, superintendence . We shall be able , we trust , as we go on , to show how an idolatrous religion must end in ifcs own subversion ; it did so end with this refined and philosophic people so soon as the gospel was disseminated . And for this simple reason , because the good in it was subordinate to the evil of it . ' Taking Solon for our guide , we should say the
most perfect Pagan religion was the Grecian . At first the Greeks , like many other early nations , instinctively , that is , hy the promptings of the soul , as created beings , sought God , the Creator and Saviour—not as his sons and daughters , nor as "his creatures , " but as an unknown Godin his worksand not in himself—in plain factas
, , , the " Ignotv . s Deus . " The earth , the sky , the sea , the sun , the moon , the stars , and all the host of heaven were worshipped by them , and to them they paid divine homage . Their relig ious duties they performed in sacred places ; these consisted of three . —prayers , sacrifices , and lustrations . Their object in praying was to obtain some desired good or avert
some expected evil . In their ceremonies , they pressed the hand on the mouth before the deity of their adoration , and then extended ifc towards the image or the place where its emblem was kept . This ceremony , to substitute the Latin word for the Greek , was termed adorare . They usually prayed standing—in great danger or difficulty they knelt .
They turned themselves towards the sun , so that they mi ght look towards the east . In supplicating some bright celestial orb , by them deified , they used the form of lifting up tlie hands . Now all this appears to be very innocent . There is not much harm in turning oneself round to look towards the east , nor in lifting up our hands to some " bright
particular star , " if we knew of nothing better to do ; yet we might do many things ] iei * ehance worse . However , when as a consequence of worshipping " other gods , " and many a god , instead of the one Almighty , we discover among the ceremonies of this first duty , without considering the others , that they stretched forth their hands towards the sea , if ifc was that
element they were imploring , and that they smote the earth to invoke and address the infernal deities—such a spiritual Babel , such a scattering of prayers , are evidence in themselves that such a religion can be no religion at all—or it must bo ofthe synagogue of Satan—the religion of Beelzebub ( Baal ) . This is true with respect to heathen theology and its worship ; yet the Greeks wished to be religious . The spirit of the true regenerated religion hacl never entirely abandoned them from the time that Attica was first peopled ancl Greece
was known by the name of J avail , who was the son of Japhet . No sooner was the word of holy truth preached unto them than they recognized it , and St . Paul found all those who had that spirit in them soon became Christians . With Socrates , Plato , and the Peripatetics , the doctrine of the immortality of the soul w ; ts distinct from the belief in the immortality ofthe spirit ; they had no doubt about the
existence of the "Manes : " only ofthe eternity of the "Animie " had they any doubts . Contemporaneously with the adoption into their language of the names of the- Egyptian divinities , the Greeks built temples in their honour adorned with their statues , and on them bestowed divine worship , in imitation of what they had
seen in Egypt , whose people , perhaps , sought to imitate the . Hebrews in constructing the innermost sanctuary , or sacred recess of their temples , the aev-oy of the Greeks , wherein they kept the emblems of their most hi gh gods ; doubtless they thought ( hat these partook of the divine nature , which is not to be confounded with the fabulous character of them . To unite two meanings in a symbol of Mercury both the Grecians and Pioinaus usuall y hung a purse to his statue
containing a valuable piece of information in the place of a piece of money , to wit , his name of Dolius , the signification of which is , that he was the god of gain and the president of commerce , and therefore treachery and fraud were often consequences of traffic and profit . Mercury is represented with wings . Homer has encased his
gods in armour , and Milton buckled on his spirits strong and loud sounding harness : we are informed of the spasm that ensued in lopping off the shadowy limb which , like air , yielded and retaining its body undivided ; of course it was beneath the great genius ofthe poet to mention how the mending of the armour was accomplished . They gave to these gods
and spirits wings . We do not forget that the angels are sometimes recorded as being pemiated ; but the wings of Mercury were ridiculous , the ancients bestowed a pair on his shoos with the name of talaria ; and a pair on his hat , or basin helmet , calling it his petasus , for since he was the messenger of the godsthey would have it he should run as well as fly ; at
, all events , as Yirgil says : — " Primum pedibus talaria ncctit Aurca , qua ; subliineni alis sivc a-qunra supra Sou terrain rapido pariter cum iliuiiiiic port-ant . "
" His golden pinions on his feet he binds , . Viul flying , soars upon the lofty winds O ' er earth ancl sea , from realms to realms on high AVith instant speed they bear him through the sky . " We do not know whether this swiftness of motion , or his debit and credit , jirocured for him his rather bad name . He kept good company , and it is said " birds of a feather flock together . " Therefore , we are not going to rob him of liis other pair of wings , the mystical mark of his sovereign power , namely , his magical wand , or rod cadv . ceus : —
" Ille patris magni parere parabat Imperio , * * * Turn virgani capit . " * * » With it he not only sealed the eyes in sleep , soothed the passions and appeased the anger of mortals , but also to conciliate the very immortals of"High heaven ' s bright towers and low hell ' s dark caves . " *
This faculty , or sujiernaturally iiaeific virtue was , for the first time b y Mercury perceived to be in the rod , since it hacl been made a gift by Apollo , when upon his travels he witnessed a combat betw-een two serpents . And , like some other great events and discoveries , it was brought about by the chance of cause and effect . He placed it betwixt them , and
they became at once so mutually charmed ancl reconciled as to fondly embrace each other and to entwine evermore fast around the . rod that corrected them . It is written , " Be ye as wise as serpents . " But to fill up the blanks in our quotation and to refer our readers to the ^ Eneid itselfwe think mayperhapshelp us
, , , both in making out some of the offices and meanings of Mercury as described by those learned men who promulgated an unheavenly religion which outspread and ramified tho whole world over up to the Christian era .
Hae aninias ille evocat Oreo Pallentes , alias sub tristia Tartara mittit ; l ) at sonimos , atlimitque , et lumina morte resignnt . " We herein see him as the messenger , angel , or mmiiter sacer of the gods , raised into his ri ght place , having full power to attend upon the dying , in order to deliver their souls from the pains of deathancl fco show them their way
, to Orcus ( hell ) , or the nethermost pit ( Tartarus ) , as the case might be . Nevertheless , he also restored to renewed births and new bodies those souls of the good which hacl bfcn sprinkled with the waters of Lethe , and cleansed of their light offences contracted in their former humane , charitable and benevolent state of existence in this world , after having
* The Egyptians painted the iuee of Mercury , iu his imago , partly dark , as the black , on one side , and fair , as the white , on the other , to indicate that there- was a god over them both whose messenger WW s ometimes iu communication with tht internals as well as the celestials-