DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0184
174
211. Hence, in almost every country bordering upon the Medi-
terranean Sea, and even in some upon the Atlantic Ocean, traces
were to be found of the navigations and adventures of Ulysses,
Menelaus, iEneas, or some other wandering chieftain of that age ;
by which means sucli darkness and confusion have been spread over
their histon, that an ingenious writer, not usually given to doubt,
has lately questioned their existence ; not recollecting that he might
upon the same grounds have questioned the existence of the Apos-
tles, and thus undermined the very fabric which he professed to
support: for by quoting, as of equal authority, all the histories
which have been written concerning them in various parts of
Christendom during seventeen hundred years, he would have pro-
duced a medley of inconsistent facts, which, taken collectively,
would have startled even his own well-disciplined faith.1 Yet this
is what he calls a fair mode of analysing ancient prophane history ;
and, indeed, it is much fairer than that which he has practised: for
not content with quoting Homer and Tzetzes, as of equal autho-
rity, he has entirely rejected the testimony of Thucydides in his
account of the ancient population of Greece; and received in its
stead that of Cedrenus, Syncelhis, and the other monkish writers
of the lower ages, who compiled the Paschal and Nuremberg
Chronicles. It is rather hard upon our countrymen Chaucer and
Lydgate to be excluded ; as the latter would have furnished an ac-
count of the good king Priam's founding a chauntry in Troy to sing
requiems for the soul of his pious son Hector, with many other
curious particulars equally unknown to the antiquaries of Athens
' Metrodorus of Lampsactis anciently turned both the Homeric poems
into Allegory; and the Christian divines of the third and fourth centuries
did the same by the historical books of the New Testament; as their prede-
cessors the eclectic Jews had before done by those of the Old.
Metrodorus and his followers, however, never denied nor even questioned
the general fact of the siege of Troy, (as they have been mis-stated to have
done) any more than Tatian and Origen did the incarnation of their Re-
deemer, or Aristeas and Philo the passage ol the Red Sea.
Tasso in his later days declared the whole of his Jerusalem Delivered to
be an allegory ; but without, however, questioning the historical truth of
the crusades.
211. Hence, in almost every country bordering upon the Medi-
terranean Sea, and even in some upon the Atlantic Ocean, traces
were to be found of the navigations and adventures of Ulysses,
Menelaus, iEneas, or some other wandering chieftain of that age ;
by which means sucli darkness and confusion have been spread over
their histon, that an ingenious writer, not usually given to doubt,
has lately questioned their existence ; not recollecting that he might
upon the same grounds have questioned the existence of the Apos-
tles, and thus undermined the very fabric which he professed to
support: for by quoting, as of equal authority, all the histories
which have been written concerning them in various parts of
Christendom during seventeen hundred years, he would have pro-
duced a medley of inconsistent facts, which, taken collectively,
would have startled even his own well-disciplined faith.1 Yet this
is what he calls a fair mode of analysing ancient prophane history ;
and, indeed, it is much fairer than that which he has practised: for
not content with quoting Homer and Tzetzes, as of equal autho-
rity, he has entirely rejected the testimony of Thucydides in his
account of the ancient population of Greece; and received in its
stead that of Cedrenus, Syncelhis, and the other monkish writers
of the lower ages, who compiled the Paschal and Nuremberg
Chronicles. It is rather hard upon our countrymen Chaucer and
Lydgate to be excluded ; as the latter would have furnished an ac-
count of the good king Priam's founding a chauntry in Troy to sing
requiems for the soul of his pious son Hector, with many other
curious particulars equally unknown to the antiquaries of Athens
' Metrodorus of Lampsactis anciently turned both the Homeric poems
into Allegory; and the Christian divines of the third and fourth centuries
did the same by the historical books of the New Testament; as their prede-
cessors the eclectic Jews had before done by those of the Old.
Metrodorus and his followers, however, never denied nor even questioned
the general fact of the siege of Troy, (as they have been mis-stated to have
done) any more than Tatian and Origen did the incarnation of their Re-
deemer, or Aristeas and Philo the passage ol the Red Sea.
Tasso in his later days declared the whole of his Jerusalem Delivered to
be an allegory ; but without, however, questioning the historical truth of
the crusades.