DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0187
177
ages, that he is one of those, by whose example they justified the
practice of holy lying,' or asserting that which they knew to be
false in support of that which they believed to be true.
21.5. Among the numberless forgeries of greater moment which
this practice poured upon the world, is one in favor of this system,
written in the form of a letter from Alexander the Great to his
mother, informing her that an ^Egyptian priest named Leo had se-
cretly told him that all the gods were deified mortals. Both the
style and matter of it are below criticism ; it being in every respect
one of the most bungling counterfeits ever issued from that great
manufactory of falsehoods, which was carried on under the avowed
patronage of the leading members of the Church, during the se-
cond, third, and fourth centuries.1 Jablonski only wasted his eru-
dition in exposing it ;3 though Warburton, w hose multifarious
reading never gave him any of the tact or taste of a scholar, has
employed all his acuteness and all his virulence in its defence.*
21(3. The facility and rapidity, with which deifications were mul-
tiplied under the Macedonian and Roman empires, gave consi-
derable credit to the system of Euhemerus ; and brought propor-
tionate disgrace on religion in general. The many worthless
tyrants, whom their own preposterous pride or the abject servility
of their subjects exalted into gods, would naturally be pleased to
hear that the universally recognised objects of public worship had
no better title to the homage and devotion of mankind than they
themselves had ; and when an universal despot could enjoy the ho-
nors of a god, at the same time that consciousness of his crimes
prevented him from daring to enter a mystic temple, it is natural
that he should prefer that system of religion, which decorated him
1 Pro libro adv. Jovinian.
1 Hieronyni. ibid. Chrysosto:n. de Sacerdot.
3 Prolegom. s. 16. It is alluded to in the Apology of Athenagoras, and
therefore of the second century.
* Div. Leg. vol. i. r- 213.
M
ages, that he is one of those, by whose example they justified the
practice of holy lying,' or asserting that which they knew to be
false in support of that which they believed to be true.
21.5. Among the numberless forgeries of greater moment which
this practice poured upon the world, is one in favor of this system,
written in the form of a letter from Alexander the Great to his
mother, informing her that an ^Egyptian priest named Leo had se-
cretly told him that all the gods were deified mortals. Both the
style and matter of it are below criticism ; it being in every respect
one of the most bungling counterfeits ever issued from that great
manufactory of falsehoods, which was carried on under the avowed
patronage of the leading members of the Church, during the se-
cond, third, and fourth centuries.1 Jablonski only wasted his eru-
dition in exposing it ;3 though Warburton, w hose multifarious
reading never gave him any of the tact or taste of a scholar, has
employed all his acuteness and all his virulence in its defence.*
21(3. The facility and rapidity, with which deifications were mul-
tiplied under the Macedonian and Roman empires, gave consi-
derable credit to the system of Euhemerus ; and brought propor-
tionate disgrace on religion in general. The many worthless
tyrants, whom their own preposterous pride or the abject servility
of their subjects exalted into gods, would naturally be pleased to
hear that the universally recognised objects of public worship had
no better title to the homage and devotion of mankind than they
themselves had ; and when an universal despot could enjoy the ho-
nors of a god, at the same time that consciousness of his crimes
prevented him from daring to enter a mystic temple, it is natural
that he should prefer that system of religion, which decorated him
1 Pro libro adv. Jovinian.
1 Hieronyni. ibid. Chrysosto:n. de Sacerdot.
3 Prolegom. s. 16. It is alluded to in the Apology of Athenagoras, and
therefore of the second century.
* Div. Leg. vol. i. r- 213.
M