Origine de tous les cultes ou religion universelle

continually raised their voices, striving to contain within spiritualism disciples always ready to escape them. The author of one of these works, known under the name of the Book of Wisdom, expresses himself thus: (1) "all men who do not have the knowledge of God are but vanity; they could not understand, by the sight of the things they admire, him who is, nor recognized the creator in his works; but they imagined that fire, or wind, or the most subtle air, or the multitude of stars, or the abyss of waters, or the sun and the moon, were the Gods who governed the whole world; that if they believed them to be Gods because they took pleasure in seeing their beauty, let them conceive from this how much more beautiful he who is their ruler must be; for it is the author of all beauty who gave being to all these things; that if they admired the power and effects of these creatures, let them understand from this how much more powerful is he who created them; for the grandeur and beauty of the creature can make the creator known and render him in some way visible." The author, however, excuses those who hold to visible power and do not feel the need to imagine another outside of nature; "and nevertheless, he says, these men are a little more excusable than others; for if they fall into error, one can say that it is while seeking God and striving to find him; they seek him among his works, and they are seduced by the beauty of the things they see." This admission shows more frankness than the reasoning contains logic; for, before tracing back to the beauty of the invisible author by seeing the beauty of the visible cause, it was necessary to prove that this cause was an effect, a work which precisely is the subject of the question and not to suppose it. It always results from this passage that, except for a small number of men more clear-sighted than others, and who guessed what neither they nor others had ever seen, and were never to see, the rest of men knew no other universal cause and no other divinity than Nature and its parts; the Universe in their eyes seemed to contain in itself, originally and by essence, the principle of life, movement, and harmony that one notices there.

The learned nations of the East, the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, two peoples who have most influenced the religious opinions of the rest of the Universe, knew no other Gods, heads of the administration of the world, than the sun, the moon, the stars and the heaven that contains them, and sang only of Nature in their hymns and their theogonies. Diodorus Siculus, Eusebius, and all the authors who have spoken of the religion of these peoples have only one and the same sentiment on this. "(2) The Phoenicians and the Egyptians, says Eusebius, were the first to attribute divinity to the sun, the moon, and the stars, and regarded them as the only causes of all beings produced and destroyed. It is they who then spread throughout the Universe all the opinions found there on the generation and filiation of the Gods. One had not yet carried one's mind beyond the visible causes of nature and celestial phenomena, except for a small number of men known among the Hebrews, who, with the help of the eyes of the soul, rising above the visible world, recognized and adored the sovereign fabricator and architect of the world. Struck by the wisdom and power they believed they perceived in his work, persuaded that he is the only God, they

Footnotes at bottom of page 4
(1) Chapter 13, Verse 1.
(2) Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel original: "Præp. Ev.", book 1, chapter 6 ... chapter 9.

made of the dogma of the unity of God the
base of the theology they transmi-
tted to their children, who conser-
ved it as the true, the fir-
st and unique doctrine one should
have of the divinity..... The rest of
men, seduced by the spectacle of the
heavens, regarded as Gods these
luminous bodies that shine in the firma-
ment, offered sacrifices to them,
prostrated themselves before them, and did not
raise their soul or their worship
beyond the visible heaven. The errors
of the Phoenicians and Egyptians
passed to the Greeks with the mysteries
of Orpheus and with the knowledge
of letters." The same Eusebius says
elsewhere (1) "that the Hebrews were the
only mortals who first regarded the
primary elements—earth, water, air
and fire—the sun, the moon, the stars,
and all the parts that compose
the Universe, not as so many
Gods, but as the works of
the divinity; and that they imagined an
intelligent substance superior to
all that, which directed its move-
ments, regulated its order, and main-
tained this admirable economy."

But they are forced to agree, these Hebrews, that this religion of the Spiritualists was not their primitive worship, and that their Abraham, if it is true that he ever existed, was born and raised in Sabaeanism the worship of the heavenly bodies and in the religion of the worshipers of fire and of entire Nature. The Chaldeans, the Canaanites, the Syrians, in the midst of whom they lived and from whom one sought to separate them by spiritualism, had no other Gods (2). The Canaanites had consecrated horses and chariots to the sun, their great divinity. The inhabitants of Emesa in Phoenicia adored this God under the name of Heliogabalus Elagabalus, a sun god, and had raised a magnificent temple to him, where gold, silver, and the most precious stones shone (3). Not only the inhabitants of the country, but kings and chiefs of neighboring nations went there every year to bring the richest offerings, Herodian tells us. Hercules was the great divinity of the Tyrians; and the sacred traditions of the country held that he was the same as the sun (4), and that the fable of the twelve labors expressed the course of this star in the twelve signs of the zodiac. We will have occasion to prove elsewhere that the authors of this tradition were right.

The Syrians adored the stars of the constellation of the fish (5), and had consecrated images of them in their temples (6). The worship of Adonis was established in Byblos and in the neighborhood of Lebanon (7); and all scholars agree that it was the sun (8) that was adored under this title, which corresponds to that of "Lord." This star had a magnificent temple in Palmyra, which was plundered by the soldiers of Aurelian (9), and of which this prince ordered the restoration and a new dedication. The Pleiades (10), under the name of Succoth-Benoth booths of daughters, associated with the Pleiades or Venus, were honored with a public cult by the Babylonian colonies established in the country of the Samaritans. Saturn, or the planet of this name, is called Remphan a name for Saturn used in the Septuagint and Acts among the Copts (11), and the Acts of the Apostles reproach the Jews for having adopted the worship of the star Remphan (12); which does not allow for doubt that the peoples in the midst of whom they lived, and whose idols they sometimes honored, rendered a cult to this planet. (13) The planet Jupiter bore the name

Footnotes at bottom of page 5
(1) Book 7, chapter 3.
(2) Hyde, On the Religion of the Ancient Persians original: "de Vet. Pers. Rel.", page 117.
(3) Herodian, book 5, page 201.
(4) Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 3, chapter 11.
(5) Hyginus, book 2, chapter 42.
(6) Germanicus Caesar, chapter 36.
(7) Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess original: "de Deâ Syria", page 878.
(8) Macrobius, Saturnalia, book 1, chapter 21.
(9) Flavius Vopiscus, Life of Aurelian.
(10) Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, volume 1, page 350.
(11) Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, volume 1, page 383.
(12) Acts of the Apostles, chapter 7, verse 43.
(13) Salmasius, De Annis Climactericis, page 566; Kircher, Oedipus, volume 2, page 425.