Origine de tous les cultes ou religion universelle ([1795] 'an 3') - Page 18

the white poplar was the reward for the victors. Philip, the father of Perseus and King of Macedonia, having climbed to the summit of Mount Haemus, sacrificed to the sky and the sun original: "Tite-Liv. l. 40, c. 22." referring to Livy. In Lacedaemon Sparta, the sacred fire, which the priests were responsible for maintaining, was carried before the army original: "Xenoph. de Rep. Lac. c. 13." referring to Xenophon: the worship of fire related to the Ethereal fire and to the Sun, which is its principal hearth. In reading Pausanias Pausanias was a second-century Greek traveler and geographer, who has given us the description of Greece and its religious monuments, one finds traces of the worship of Nature everywhere: one sees there altars, temples, and statues raised to the sun, the moon, and the earth: to rivers, to the night, to the celestial charioteer, and so on. The Lacedaemonians consecrated the summit of Mount Taygetus to the Sun, and went upon this mountain to sacrifice horses to him.

There was in Sparta a temple dedicated to the earth. In the vicinity of Helos in Laconia, Helios the Sun, son of Perseus, had established the worship of Ceres. It was in Laconia that one found seven columns raised to the seven planets. The Sun had his statue, and the moon her sacred fountain at Thalmae in that same country.

The inhabitants of Megalopolis sacrificed to the wind Boreas every year, and had planted a sacred grove for him: there was no God for whom they had greater veneration.

At Olympia, the earth had its altar and its oracle: the sun and the moon had their statues at Elis. Inachus built, it is said, Iopolis in honor of the moon which he adored, and to which he gave this name, because Io the Moon was the name of this planet in the mystic language of the Argives. This is the same name she still has in the language of the Copts, or the descendants of the ancient Egyptians original: "Chronicon. Alex. p. 96.". He raised in this

(1) Livy, Book 40, Chapter 22.
(2) Xenophon, On the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Chapter 13.
(3) Pausanias, pages 48, 60, 203, 334, 74, 263, 243; 109; 30, 97, 93, 162, 277, 20, 228, 233; 256; 356. Pausanias, page 103, Greek Edition, Frankfurt, 1633, in-folio.
(4) Alexandrian Chronicle, page 96.

city a temple to the moon, and bronze columns upon which was engraved this inscription: To the blessed Io, who dispenses light.

Saint Epiphanius gives the name of Apis to this Inachus original: "Epiph. Adv. Hær. c. 1.". Lucian says this Apis represents the Celestial Bull in Egypt, in which the moon had the place of its exaltation, as was seen above original: "Ci-dessus, p. 9.". We know by the Arundel Marbles also known as the Oxford Marbles, a collection of ancient Greek inscriptions, which have preserved for us a very ancient treaty, that the Greeks recognized the divinity of the Sun, since they take this star as a witness of their engagement, just as we have seen Agamemnon do in Homer. Alexander the Great, on the eve of an eclipse of the moon, sacrificed to the sun, the moon, and the earth, which all three concur to form it original: "Arrien. l. 3, p. 56." referring to Arrian. The Macedonians adored Estia Hestia, or fire, and offered prayers to Bedy the element of water, so that it might be favorable to them. Parmenides of Elea placed the earth and fire among the number of the Gods. One can see in Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods; in Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Arnobius, Tatian, Tertullian, Justin, etc., that most of the Greek philosophers had placed divinity in all parts of Nature: in the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the sky, the earth, etc. Philosophy on this point was generally in agreement with the ancient worship and with the popular religion. This led Abulfarage to say rightly, in his examination of Sabism the worship of the celestial bodies, that this religion had been that of most of the Greeks, and that the statues and images they revered were so many monuments of this worship. Eusebius equally recognizes that all the philosophy of the Greeks, through the

(5) Epiphanius, Against Heresies, Chapter 1.
(6) Above, page 9.
(7) Oxford Marbles.
(8) Arrian, Book 3, page 56.
(9) Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, pages 42, 43.
(10) Abulfarage, History of the Dynasties, page 62.
(11) Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, Book 3, Chapter 6, page 36.

pompous veil with which it adorns itself, allows one to perceive that the spirit of their sages stopped at the sensible world, and that it was Plato who first spoke of the invisible and intellectual world. This chimera, which in the following years met with some success, changed nothing of the primitive religion of the Greeks, and the natural Gods remained in possession of their altars.

If it is true that the religion of the Greeks underwent some changes, it was many centuries before Plato, when the Pelasgians and the Egyptian colonies came to mingle with the savage nations that inhabited Greece. According to the admission of Plato, these nations had no other Gods than those whom the Barbarians of his time adored: namely, the sun, the moon, and the stars.

These changes in worship affected only its form, and not its nature. The Egyptians, in civilizing the Greeks, modified their religion, just as they modified their laws, their customs, and their political institutions. They did not take away their religion; but they gave it a more regular form. They put more pomp into the ceremonies, more elegance into the worship, and the religion of the Greeks—originally simple and crude like themselves—felt the influence of the sciences and the arts brought in the wake of civilization. Temples were built that were better constructed and better decorated. They were adorned with images and symbolic statues. More ingenious and poetic hymns were sung in honor of the Gods or the parts of Nature that were personified. Finally, religion took on such a brilliant garment that soon Nature was unrecognized by her own worshippers. It was no longer the sun that was depicted and sung, but an invincible hero, clothed with all the attributes of strength, traversing a career divided into twelve spaces, in each of which were found monsters that he had to tame. Astronomy, for its needs, had already painted these monstrous emblems in the sky. Poetry and painting made them enter into the picture of the combats and victories of the God who holds Nature chained under his eternal laws. Each sign through which the sun traveled in the circle of celestial animals, which fix the twelve great divisions of the year, was the subject of a song in the sacred poems that the priests composed in honor of the God who engenders the months and the seasons. These are the religious fictions that the Egyptians and the Phoenicians had, according to Eusebius, spread throughout the entire Universe.

This scholar agrees that originally one did not know all these theogonies, which later became so famous among the Greeks and even among the Barbarians, nor this crowd of Gods who compose the religious hierarchy of the different peoples of the world. He adds that it was the Phoenicians and the Egyptians who were the inventors, and that these ideas passed from their country to other peoples, and particularly to the Greeks.

The Rabbis have held the same opinion of the Sabism star worship of the Egyptians, and of its influence on the religious worship of the other peoples of the world.

"They believed," says
one of the most learned among them, "that the
stars were the first causes of
all the operations of Nature; in
consequence, they have given to each
of them the name of a divinity; they
have honored them by different ceremo-
nies, raised idols to them, and
sought to represent them in every
way. These religious forms,
which at first were specific and particu-
lar to the Egyptians, who were the
inventors, passed then among

(1) Above, page 13.
(2) Eusebius, Book 1, Chapter 9, Preparation for the Gospel.
(3) Moreh Nevukhim. Isaac Maronit. in Philosoph. l. 2, c. 6. Kirker. Œdip. t. 1, p. 172. This likely refers to Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed, cited here via Athanasius Kircher.