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| Argument: The Object of All Nations, and Especially of the Romans, in Worshipping Their Divinities, Has Been to Attain for Their Worship the Supreme Dominion Over the Whole Earth. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
VI.—Argument: The Object of All Nations, and Especially of
the Romans, in Worshipping Their Divinities, Has Been to Attain for
Their Worship the Supreme Dominion Over the Whole Earth.
“Since, then, either fortune is certain or nature
is uncertain, how much more reverential and better it is, as the high priests of
truth, to receive the teaching of your ancestors, to cultivate the
religions handed down to you, to adore the gods whom you were first
trained by your parents to fear rather than to know1728
1728 “To think of
rather than to know” in some texts. | with familiarity; not to assert an opinion
concerning the deities, but to believe your forefathers, who, while the
age was still untrained in the birth-times of the world itself,
deserved to have gods either propitious to them, or as their
kings.1729
1729 Neander quotes this
passage as illustrating the dissatisfied state of the pagan mind with
the prevailing infidelity at that time. | Thence,
therefore, we see through all empires, and provinces, and cities, that
each people has its national rites of worship, and adores its local
gods: as the Eleusinians worship Ceres; the Phrygians,
Mater;1730
1730 Or, “the great
mother” [i.e., Cybele. S.]. | the Epidaurians,
Æsculapius; the Chaldæans; Belus; the Syrians, Astarte; the
Taurians, Diana; the Gauls, Mercurius; the Romans, all
divinities. Thus their power and authority has occupied the
circuit of the whole world: thus it has propagated its empire
beyond the paths of the sun, and the bounds of the ocean itself; in
that in their arms they practise a religious valour; in that they
fortify their city with the religions of sacred rites, with chaste
virgins, with many honours, and the names of priests; in that, when
besieged and taken, all but the Capitol alone, they worship the gods
which when angry any other people would have despised;1731
1731 Or, “which
another people, when angry, would have despised.” | and through the lines of the Gauls,
marvelling at the audacity of their superstition, they move unarmed
with weapons, but armed with the worship of their religion; while in
the city of an enemy, when taken while still in the fury of victory,
they venerate the conquered deities; while in all directions they seek
for the gods of the strangers, and make them their own; while they
build altars even to unknown divinities, and to the Manes. Thus,
in that they acknowledge the sacred institutions of all nations, they
have also deserved their dominion. Hence the perpetual course of
their veneration has continued, which is not weakened by the long lapse
of time, but increased, because antiquity has been accustomed to
attribute to ceremonies and temples so much of sanctity as it has
ascribed of age.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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