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510 $402. SACRIFICES, PRAYERS, FESTIVALS, ETC.

certain altars at Athens, which bore the inscription, ayvooroLS Drois, to the unknown gods, Pausanias IN ATTICIS, I. 1. IN ELIACIS V. 14. Diogenes Laertius I. 10, 3.

Paul (Acts 17: 23.) has given this inscription in the singular number, viz. ayváry 989; as Jerome, (Epist. ad Magn. episc. ET COMMENT. AD TIT. III.) has remarked. As God was originally worshipped by his creatures under the open sky, it afterwards came to be the case, as was very natural, to select shady groves for the purposes of devotion. Hence it eventually happened,

that,

IV. Groves were planted around the heathen Temples, especially if the deities were believed to patronize immodesty and prostitution, Horace Lib. I. Ode 12. Hence it is forbidden, (Deut. 12: 2. 16: 21.) to plant trees near the Sanctuary, and the Hebrews are commanded, (Deut. 7: 5. 12: 3.) to cut down and burn the groves of the Canaanites.

V. Priests and priestesses performed the duties of these Temples. Their heads were bound with fillets. The victims and the altars were adorned in the same manner. The priests made known to the people what services were to be performed on their part, and gave responses, Potter's Antiquities, Part I. p. 503. Acts 14: 13.

402. SACRIFICES, PRAYERS, FESTIVALS, PURIFICATIONS, MYSTERIES.

It was by no means the tendency of the worship of these deities to produce in their votaries moral integrity and innocence of life. They were resorted to, and supplications were offered, for the purpose of obtaining some external good or eliciting some response, and it was for these, that thanks were returned to them.

The MEHESTANI alone, whose idolatry was of a more refined kind, prayed with many supplications for purity of thought, word and deed, but what this purity was, we are not told. Like other Gentiles, they mingled with their worship many absurd ceremonies, and attributed a superstitious efficacy to certain forms of prayer. They believed, that the guilt of the most atrocious crimes might be done away by expiatory sacrifices, though the moral character, at the same time, remained the same. They even made the commission of crimes a part of the divine wor

$402. SACRIFICES, Prayers, festivals, etc.

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ship, and it is no wonder, for it was an article of their creed, that their gods were not free from vice.

The principal parts of idol worship were,

cense.

I. Sacrifices, viz. victims, salt cakes, libations, honey, and inIt was necessary, that the person who offered them, should be washed, be clad in newly-washed garments, and be pure, i. e. have abstained from sexual intercourse. The victims were different according to the different deities; they were to be free from all defect, and omens were gathered from them by an inspection of the internal parts, especially the liver. Not only animals, but human beings also were immolated by almost all the nations to their gods, Eusebius, PRAEP. EVANG. L. IV. c. 16. 155-161. Pliny, HIST. Nat. XXVIII. 3. Diodor. Siculus V. 32.

p.

By the Canaanites especially, the most promising of their offspring were sacrificed, Lev. 18: 21. 20: 1--9. Deut. 18: 9--14. Libations of wine were poured out between the horns of the victim, Ovid, METAMORPHOSES, VII. 59: 3; but when no victims were slain, they were poured upon the earth.

II. Prayers. The worshippers, in the intervals of time between the offering of the successive supplications, were accustomed to employ themselves in kissing or embracing the hands and knees of the idols. Great care was taken, in respect to the formularies of supplication, that nothing might be omitted or improperly uttered, and that no title of honour should be passed by for any thing of this kind rendered the prayers, to which the persuasive power was attributed, inefficacious, Pliny, HIST. NAT. XXVIII. 3. Valerius Maximus XIII. 1, 5. In consequence of these feelings on the subject, their prayers were uttered syllable for syllable, and both syllables and words were often repeated; a practice, which is condemned by our Saviour, Matt. 6: 7. When they prayed, they often wounded their bodies, or shouted and leaped around the altar, 1 K. 18: 26-29. Strabo. p. 801. Lucian DE SALT. Athenaeus SYMPOS, Lib. II. 1.

III. Festivals were celebrated by the heathen in honour of their false deities; on which occasions sacrifices were offered, feasts were held, there were various sports and exercises; and solemn processions, in representation of their mythological history, proceeded through the streets. To the Mysteries, which were celebrated on certain of these festivals, no one had access, but

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those, who were initiated; and still it does not appear, that any more correct religious notions were taught in them, than on other occasions. On the contrary, Cicero, (DE Nat. Deorum Lib. I. 42.) remarks, that they were occupied rather with an explication of the nature of things, than of the science of the gods; but he makes a further remark, however, in his Tusculan Questions, Bk. II. I, that the doctrine prevailed in them, that the gods were formerly men.

IV. Purifications. These were performed by water, blood, fire, sulphur, and among the Mehestani, by the urine of oxen also; by which all impurity was taken away, and as they believed expiation could be made for any crime whatever, Zend-Avesta, P. II. p. 340–342. 343–378. P. III. p. 209–220.

V. A part of the worship in question consisted in the prostitution of females and boys; and in Egypt bestiality likewise made a part of it, Herodot. 1. 93. 182. 199. Valerius Maximus III. 6, 15. Athenaeus SYMPOS. XIII. Strabo. p. 272. In the temple of Venus at Corinth, there were more than a thousand prostitutes, Strabo. 378. comp. 1 Cor. 5: 9--11. 6: 9, 13, 18. 2 Cor. 12: 21.

$403. CONCERNing Divinations, etc.

In the early ages of antiquity, numerous divinations and sleights of hand were practised, and the imposters, who understood them, were held in distinguished honour.

I. As early as the time of Joseph, there appeared in Egypt persons of this description, called D, in the Egyptian dialect CHERTOM, i. e. workers of miracles, otherwise called iɛgoyoaμμαTεis, or those skilled in the interpretation of hieroglyphical characters. We find, that, in the history of the patriarch just alluded to, these persons were held in much honour, as interpreters of dreams, Gen. 41: 8. and in the history of Moses, we find them making attempts at miracles, Exod. 7: 11-18. Two of these workers of wonders, the Jews agree in calling Jannes and Jambres, 2 Tim. 3: 8. comp. Jabloniskii OPUSC. I. 401. Eichhorn's Repert. XIII. 18. The astrologers, who are mentioned, Dan. 1: 20. 2: 2, 10. 4: 4——6. 5: 11. and are denominated, do not appear to have been the same with those in Egypt, although they professed to interpret dreams. Perhaps, in order to ascertain the

$403. CONCERNING DIVINATIONS, ETC.

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true meaning of the term, by which they are designated in these instances, we ought to compare the Chaldee word with the Persian word DHARDAMAND, i. e. one skilled in science. II. Necromancers, niais, 27, were very numerous. was one of the Laws of Moses, that persons of this description should be put to death by stoning; for those, who attributed to the dead a knowledge of future events, which belongs to God alone, virtually disclaimed his allegiance, Lev. 20: 26. The Hebrew words above quoted properly signify the spirits of the dead, and are applied to Necromancers by metonymy; for the Arabic Ain

Vav verb, which is the root of 18, means to return, so that we may consider the strict meaning of the derivative to be a spirit returned, i. e. from the dead; while the other word, (from

to know) means those that know, i. e. the spirits of the dead, who were supposed to reveal the events of the future. In the same way, the Greek daiμon is derived from dalo, the Latin DISco, Lev. 19: 31. 20: 27. Deut. 18: 11. 1 Sam. 28: 3--10. 2 K. 21: 6. 23:24. The imposters, who bore the name of Necromancers, and who were designated in the Hebrew by the words, upon which we have now remarked, pretended, that they were able by their incantations to summon back departed spirits from their abodes; and hence we find, that they are coupled in the same passage (Deut. 18: 11.) with enchanters, an. They themselves uttered the communications, which they pretended to receive from the dead. They doled them out syllable by syllable, sometimes muttering in a low tone, and sometimes peeping like a chicken. Hence they are denominated in Isaiah 2 those, that mutter and peep, Is. 8: 19. 29: 4. The ventriloquists, D, mentioned in Is. 19: 3, do not appear to have been essentially different from these.

III. Other sorts of diviners were, (1) those, who drew their

; מְעוֹנְנִים, עֹבְרִים auspices from the clouds, denominated in Hebrew

(2) those, who founded their predictions on the condition of the internal parts of animals, and are called

drew their omens from serpents, called

pip; (3) those, who

; (4) the astrolo

gers properly so called,, . The latter class were, at a late period, known to the Romans by the name of Chaldeans.

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$403. CONCERNing divinations, etc.

The Hebrew words, however, which are found not only in the books of Moses, but in all parts of the Old Testament Scriptures, are much broader in signification, than the term used by the Romans. (5) There was another class of persons, who pretended, that they could render serpents innocuous by their incantations. If the serpent happened to bite, notwithstanding the skill of the charmer, they said, he was deaf, Ps. 58: 4, 5. Jer. 8: 17. Eccles. 10: 11. Pliny, HIST. NAT. XVIII. 4. XXVIII. 6. These persons, who are very well known by the name of PSYLLI, are found at the present day in the East.

IV. Omens and prodigies were noticed by all nations, especially by the Romans; hence they are carefully mentioned by their historians. We have to reckon among these prodigies not only monsters, comets, eclipses of the sun and moon, meteors, showers of blood or stones, and the speeches of cows and oxen; but also others, which occurred every day, as the flight of birds, the sneezing of men, cross or squinting eyes, a ringing in the ears, words spoken in one sense and understood in another, the casual meeting of certain men and animals, for instance a negro, a cat, and a hare. But they were none of them supposed to be attended with any injurious effect, provided they were not seen, Valerius Max. I. 4-7. Suetonius IN AUGUSTO 92. Pliny, XXVIII. 5. 7. Arrianus, EXPED. ALEXANDRI, VII. 24. Jer. 10: 2.

There was also a sort of divination or lot practised among the inhabitants of the East, by means of arrows of different colours, to which custom one may notice a reference in the signification of a number of Arabic words, Hos. 4: 12. Ezek. 21: 21, 22. (Comp. Jerome's Commentary on these passages.) Dreams also were considered in all places, as possessing an ominous significancy, Judg. 7: 13, 15. Deut. 13: 2, 3. Jer. 23: 32. Macrobius DE SOMNIO SCIPIONIS, I. 3. Valerius Max. I. 7.

V. Oracles were consulted previously to any transactions of great moment, especially before the commencement of warlike expeditions, but not without the presentation of gifts. Croesus, before engaging in war with Cyrus, interrogated almost all the Oracles, but received nothing but ambiguous responses, Herodot. I. 46-55. 90, 91. Is. 41: 21-24. 44: 7. The Oracle of Beelzebub was in the city of Accaron. He, who consulted the Oracle, was first obliged to purify himself. He then offered up

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