PAGANISM

A general appellation for the religions worship of the whole human race, except of that portion which has embraced Christianity, JiuUeism, or Mohammedanism. Under the head Polytheism, we have given a brief outline of the different kinds of pagan worship, and we shall in this place confine our remarks to the origin of the system.That in the most ancient times one God, sole, eternal, in divisible, the creator of the universe, was acknowledged arid worshipped, has been proved by the most profound investigators of antiquity. The existence of this belief may not only be traced in the tradition of all people, but is expre ly affirmed by some of the greatest philosophers of the heathen world. Nothing, indeed, could exceed the contempt with which some of them regarded the gods of the vulgar, though fear of danger or some other cause often taught them to conceal the sentiment. The causes of idolatry were manifold, and were mostly of oriental growth. A great king regarded it as below his dignity to enter into the minute details of administration: he placed vicars or ministers over provinces and cities, over the great departments of national polity. If the onerous charge was inapplicable to an earthly, it was still more so to the celestial Sovereign: hence the subordinate deities which we perceive in the religious systems of all nations — the presiding genii of the Chaldieans, the numerous gods of Greece and Rome. The worship due to the Supreme alone was soon transferred to those imaginary entities, which, from functionaries, were transferred into so many independent chiefs, until the simple primeval notion of the divine unity was lost. The other causes of idolatry are foreign to our purpose: the one already a igned, which is indisputably the most ancient and the most obvious, is of itself sufficient to account for the fact. In its origin paganism, as a system, was simple. A few great divinities were placed in heaven to guide the affairs of the visible and invisible worlds. By degrees each great planet, each law of nature, each region and city, nay each river, fountain, wood, tree, mineral, had its tutelary divinity. The laws of nature were often inexplicable; what more obvious than to infer that each was subject to a superior power? As the ideas of men became more precise and refined, gods were placed over human faculties and pa ions: thus the understanding and the will, love and revenge, were the offspring of certain deities. Mere abstractions were similarly personified; until the empire of reason, of sentiment, and of morals, was as much pervaded as earth, air, and ocean with these visionary beings. But might not men themselves attain to that mysterious dignity? might they not become at least a sort of demigods — a distinction earned by some uncommon merit? In all countries we find instances of deification. Nor need this surprise. The human mind is naturally prone to exaggeration — the human heart to be led astray by the intensity of its own feelings. Thus he who during life, proved himself a benefactor to his countrymen, who taught them useful arts, or freed them from some impending evil,would be regarded with affectionate admiration byhis contemporaries; and time, which so constantly increases every object, would convert a great exploit, a shining virtue, into a divine effort. But it not unfrequently happened that men were often deified for brute strength, una companied by those elevated mental qualities which form the noblest distinction of the hero. It may, however, be observed,that in such cases men were always reverenced for the quality most wanted in a state. If a district were infested by wild beasts, or by predatory savages, a Hercules arose to free it. If a country required laws, a Minos established them. If the culture of the grape was unknown, a Bacchus appeared to teach it. Such benefactors, it was believed, deserved,as they certainly obtained, the peculiar favour of heaven — rewards which far transcended those bestowed on other men. In most cases, however, each was held to be a divinity, or at least the offspring of one. As the generation of the gods was a received tenet, and their union with mortals of constant occurrence, imagination had little difficulty in the filiation of a benefactor. Most nations were eager to proclaim a god as their founder; and when one laid claim to the honour, the example was speedily followed by others number with equal of divinities;appearance heaven of justice.and hell,Hence the the earth pro dig'ousand the planets, air and ocean, the whole frame of nature, every part of the universe, visible and invisible, even the realms of imagination, being pervaded by their.; and hence idolatry became as in its a objects.complicated system, endle in its forms of wo* ' It has indeed been contended that even in the most unen lightened times, men — except, perhaps, the gro est in comprehension—were never so absurd as to receive this almost infinite plurality of deities; that each derived its name from its being a distinct manifestation of the divine energy; that [s. 886]