He then observes, " Unit with respect to the Barbarian*, all of them in like manner admit the subsistence of divinity, but different nations among these adopt different symbols." After which lie adds, " O many and all-various statue* ! of which some are fashioned by art, and other* are embraced through indigcoce : some arc honoured through utility, ami others are venerated through the astonishment which they excite ; some arc considered as divine tlirough their magnitude, and others are celebrated for their beauty ! There is not indeed any nice of men, neither Barbarian nor Grecian, neither maritime nor continental, neither living a iwstonil life, nor dwelling in cities, which can endure t<> be without some symbols of the hononr of the Gods. How, therefore, dial! any one discuss the question whether it is proper that statues of the Gods should be fabricated or not ? For if we were to give laws to other men recently sprung from the earth, aud dwelling beyond our boundaries and our air, or who were fashioned by a certain Prometheus, ignorant of life, and law, and reason, it might perhaps demand consideration, whether this race should be permitted to adore tlicse spontaneous statues alone, which are not fashioned from ivory or gold, aud which are neither
" Of statues however, there is neither one law, nor one mode, nor one art, nor one matter. For the Greeks think it Jit to honour the Gods from things the most beautiful in the earth, from a pure matter, the human form, and accurate art : and their opinion is not irrational who fashion statues in the human resemblance. For if the human soul is most near and most similar to divinity, it is not reasonable to suppose that divinity would invest that which is most similar to himself with a most deformed body, but rather with one which would be an easy vehicle to immortal souls, light, and adapted to motion. for this alone, of all the bodies on the earth, raises its summit on high, is magnificent, superb, and full of symmetry, neither astonishing through its magnitude, nor terrible through its strength, nor moved with difficulty through its weight, nor slippery through its smooth- ness, nor repercussivc through its hardness, nor groveling through its coldness, nor precipitate through its beat, nor inclined to swim through its laxity, nor feeding on raw flesh through its fero- city, nor on grass through its imbecility ; but is harmomcally composed for its proper works, and is dreadful to timid animals, but mild to such as arc brave. It ia also adapted to walk by nature, but winged by reason, capable of swimming by art, feeds on com and fruits, and cultivates the earth, is of a good colour, stands firm, has a pleasing countenance, and a graceful beard. In the resemblance of such a body, die Greeks think fit to honour the Gods."
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INTBOBUCTION.
oaks nor cedars, nor rivers, nor bird*, but the rising sun, (be splendid moon, the variegated heaven, the earth itself and the air, all fire and all water ; or shall we constrain these men also to the nec ea- sily of honouring wood, or stones or images ? If, however, this is the common law of all men, let
bola a* well as their names.
" For divinity indeed, the father and fabricator of a)i things, is more ancient than the sun and the heavens, more excellent than time and eternity, and every flowing nature, and is a legislator with* out law, ineffable by voice, and invisible by the eyes. Not being able, however, to comprehend his
silver, to plants and rivers, to the summits of mountains, and to streams of water ; desiring indeed to understand his nature, hut tlu-ough imbecility calling him by the names of such things as appear to us to be beautiful. And in thus acting, we are affected in the same manner as lovers, who are delighted with surveying the images of the objects of their love, and with recollecting the lyre, the dart, and the seat of these, the circus in which they ran, and every thing in short, whkh excites tho memory of the beloved object. What then remains for me to investigate and determine respecting statues f only to admit the subsistence of deity. But if the art of Phidias excite* the Greeks to the recollection of divinity, honour to animals the Egyptians, a river others, and fire others, I do not condemn the dissonance : let them ouly know, let them only love, let them only be mindful of the object they adore."
With respect to the worship of animals, Plutarch apologizes for it in the following excellent man- ner in hi, treatise On Isis and Osiris.
" It now remains that we should speak of the utility of these animals to man, and of their sym- bolical meaning ; some of them partaking of one of these only, hut many of them of both. It is e\idcnl therefore tlifit tilt El^yptiHns worsliijir/jcti tlic ox^ tlic she*?^] sod tlic ic b DC Uikk 00 j OD 3fcCC OUf) t of their use and benefit, as the Letnnians did larks, for discovering the eggs of caterpillars and breaking them ; and the Thessalians storks, because, as their land produced abundance of ser- pents, the storks destroyed all of tbem as soon as they appeared. Hence also ibey enacted a law, that whoever killed a stork should be banished. But the Egyptians honoured the asp, the weezle, and the beetle, in consequence of observing in them certain dark resemblances of the power of the Gods, like that of the sun in drops of water. For at present, many believe and assert that the weezle engenders by the ear, and brings forth by the mouth, being thus an image of the generation of reason, [or the productive principle of things.] But the genus of beetles has no female; and
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all the males emit their sperm into a spherical piece of earth, which they roll about thrusting it backwards with their hind feet, while they themselves move forward ; just as the sun appears to revolve in a direction contrary to that of the heavens, in coasequence of moving from west to east. They also assimilated the asp to a star, is being esempt from old age, and performing its motions 1 by organs with agility and ease Nor was the crocodile honoured by them without a > ; but is said to have been considered by them as • resemblance of divinity, as being the only animal that is without a tongue. For the divine reason is unindigent of voice, and proceed- ing through a silent path, and accompanied with ' justice, conducts mortal affairs according to it. They also say it is the only animal living in water mat has the sight of its eyes covered with a thin film which descends from his forehead so thjt he sees without beinsr seen which r with the first God. But in whatever place the female crocodile may lay her eggs, this may with certainty be concluded to be the boundary of the increase of the Nile. For not being able to lay their eggs in the water, and fearing to lay them far from it, they have such an accurate pre-sensation of futurity, that though they enjoy the benefit of the river in its access, during the time of their laying and hatching, yet they preserve their eggs dry and untouched by the water. Tbey also lay sixty eggs, are the same number of days in hatching them, and those that are the *em, live just so many years ; which number ia the first of the measures
" Moreover, of those animals that were honoured for both reasons, we have before spoken of the dog. But the ibis, killing indeed all deadly reptiles, was the first that taught men the use of medi- cal evacuation, in consequence of observing that she is after this manner washed and purified by herself. Those priests also, that are most attentive to the laws of sacred rites, when they coose- crate water for lustration, fetch it from that place where the ibis had been drinking ; for ahe will neither drink nor come near unwholesome or infected water ; b t with the distance of her feet from each other, and her bill she makes an equilateral triangle. Farther still, the variety and mixture of her black wings about die white represents the moon when she is gibbous.
" We ought not, however, to wonder if the Egyptians love such slender similitudes, since the Greeks also, both in their pictures and statues, employ many such like resemblances of the Gods. Thus in Crete, there was a statue of Jupiter without ears. For it is fit that he who is the ruler and lord of all things, should bear no one.* Phidias also placed a dragon by the statue of
• Instead of «» I read
* i. e. Should be perfectly impartial.
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Minerva, and a snail by that of Venus at Elis, to show that virgins require a guard, and that keep* ing at home and silence become married women. But the trident of Neptune is a symbol of the third region of the world, which the sea possesses, having an arrangement after the heavens and the air. Hence also, they thus denominated Amphitritc and the Tritons. The Pythagoreans likewise adorned numbers and figures with the appellations of the Gods. For they called the equilateral triangle Minerva Coryphagenes, or begotten from the summit, and Tritogeneia, because it is divided by three perpendiculars drawn from tbe three angles. But they called die one Apollo, being per- •uaded to this by the obvious meaning of the word Apollo [which signifies a privation of multi- tude] and bv the simplicity of the monad.' Hie duad they denominated strife and audacity ; and the triad justice. For since injuring and being injured are two extremes subsisting according to excess and defect, justice through equality has a situation in the middle. But what is called the tctractys, being the number 36, was, as is reported, their greatest oath, and was denominated the world. For this number is formed from tbe composition of the four first even, and the four first odd numbers, collected into one sum.1 If therefore the most approved of the philosophers did not think it proper to neglect or despise any occult signification of a divine nature when" they perceived it even in things which are inanimate and incorporeal, it appears to me, that they in a still greater degree venerated those peculiarities depending on manners which they saw in such natures as had sense, aud were endued with soul, with passion, and ethical habits. We must embrace therefore, not those who honor these kings, but those who reverence divinity through these, as through most clear mirrors, and which are produced by nature, in a becoming manner, conceiving them to be the instru- ments or the art of the God by whom all things arc perpetually adorned. But we ought to think that no inanimate being cau be more excellent than one that is animated, nor an insensible than a sensitive being, not even though some one should collect together all the gold and emeralds in the universe. For tlie divinity is not ingeuerated either in colours, or figures, or smoothness; but such things as neither ever did, nor are naturally adapted to participate of life, have an allotment more ignoble than that of dead bodies. But the nature which lives and sees, and has the principle of motion from itself, and a knowledge of tilings appropriate and foreign to its being, has certainly derived an efflux and portion of that wisdom, which, as Heraclitus says, considers how both itself, aud the universe is governed. Hence the divinity is not worse represented in these animals, than in the workmanships of copper and stone, which in a similar manner suffer corruption ami decay, hut arc naturally deprived of all sense and consciousness. This then I consider as the best defence that cau be given of the adora- tion of animals by the Egyptians.
■ Instead of J'tm*™i as in the original, which is nooscim, it is necetsary to r*aJ, as in the above
translation ««>*t^ti tic pWo:.
1 For»+4+6+8=l«0; and 1+S+S+7=1«; and 20+16=30.
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I INTRODUCTION.
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