DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5386#0135
108
obvious emblems of the Grecian mysteries to embellish their
works, apply them not incongruously, a nice attention to the
more sophisticated symbols may be very well excused.
A veil seems to have been kindly drawn by Providence, for
ages past, over the disgusting errors of paganism, which, having
answered its purpose, may now perhaps be innocently removed,
provided this be done with no irreverent hand. The most
polished states of Greece have been, perhaps designedly, possessed
by an ignorant people, whose ferocity long rendered many parts
inaccessible to the curious traveller, or whose jealousy prevented
his search. Not to mention the complete destruction of Roman
grandeur by the northern nations, volcanoes, kindled by a wise
hand, have produced a moral as well as a physical change in
many parts of Italy and Asia Minor, and burying whole tracts of
country in oblivion, with their monuments and rites, may,
perhaps, have in some measure contributed to furnish smooth
footway for Christianity to advance upon.
As no impropriety can now attend discussions of the present
nature, if we consider the result of our discoveries, and the object
to which the asnigmatical allusions of this mysterious theology
seem to have been ultimately directed, it will appear that a know-
ledge of the relative situation of man with regard to the Deity,
was attempted through an exposition of the economy of the
universe ; that renovation from water, first brought to knowledge
by ancient tradition, and afterwards traced through various phe-
nomena, was considered as a pledge of re-existence and a future
state; but the continual succession of decay and renovation ob-
servable in nature was blended with these speculations.
That many truths had been handed down by early tradition
from the purest sources was the firm opinion of many of the
ancient philosophers ; but probably they little suspected how
much those truths had been disfigured in their passage to them.
This great fact, the renovation of created beings from water, after
obvious emblems of the Grecian mysteries to embellish their
works, apply them not incongruously, a nice attention to the
more sophisticated symbols may be very well excused.
A veil seems to have been kindly drawn by Providence, for
ages past, over the disgusting errors of paganism, which, having
answered its purpose, may now perhaps be innocently removed,
provided this be done with no irreverent hand. The most
polished states of Greece have been, perhaps designedly, possessed
by an ignorant people, whose ferocity long rendered many parts
inaccessible to the curious traveller, or whose jealousy prevented
his search. Not to mention the complete destruction of Roman
grandeur by the northern nations, volcanoes, kindled by a wise
hand, have produced a moral as well as a physical change in
many parts of Italy and Asia Minor, and burying whole tracts of
country in oblivion, with their monuments and rites, may,
perhaps, have in some measure contributed to furnish smooth
footway for Christianity to advance upon.
As no impropriety can now attend discussions of the present
nature, if we consider the result of our discoveries, and the object
to which the asnigmatical allusions of this mysterious theology
seem to have been ultimately directed, it will appear that a know-
ledge of the relative situation of man with regard to the Deity,
was attempted through an exposition of the economy of the
universe ; that renovation from water, first brought to knowledge
by ancient tradition, and afterwards traced through various phe-
nomena, was considered as a pledge of re-existence and a future
state; but the continual succession of decay and renovation ob-
servable in nature was blended with these speculations.
That many truths had been handed down by early tradition
from the purest sources was the firm opinion of many of the
ancient philosophers ; but probably they little suspected how
much those truths had been disfigured in their passage to them.
This great fact, the renovation of created beings from water, after