“He is One, self-born, and all was born of One.”
But he confides to the subordinate gods the care of the stars, the elements, the seas, and the bowels of the earth. His wife, who represents the expanse of space that he fills, is Juno. His daughter, who is eternal wisdom, his word, is Minerva. His other daughter, Venus, is the lover of the poetical generation. She is the mother of love, inflaming all sensitive beings, uniting them, reproducing by the attraction of pleasure all that necessity devotes to death. All the gods have made presents to mortals. Ceres has given them corn, Bacchus the vine, Pomona fruit; Apollo and Mercury have taught them the arts.
The great Zeus, the great Demiourgos, had made the planets and the earth. He had brought men and animals into existence on our planet. The first man was, according to the account of Berosus, Alora, father of Sares, grandfather of Alaspara, who begot Amenon, of whom was born Metalare, who was the father of Daon, father of Everodao, father of Amphis, father of Osiarte, father of the famous Sixutros or Xixutrus, King of Chaldæa, under whom occurred the well-known deluge, which the Greeks called “the deluge of Ogyges”; a flood of which the precise date is still uncertain, as is that of the other great inundation, which swallowed up the isle of Atlantis and part of Greece about six thousand years ago.
We have another theogony in Sanchoniathon, without a deluge. Those of the Hindoos, Chinese, and Egyptians are very different again.
All events of antiquity are lost in a dark night; but the existence and blessings of Jupiter are clearer than the light of the sun. The hero who, stirred by his example, did good to men was known by the holy name of Dionysos, son of God. Bacchus, Hercules, Perseus, and Romulus also received this divine name. Some went so far even as to say that the divine virtue was communicated to their mothers. The Greeks and Romans, although they were somewhat debauched, as are to-day all Christians of a sociable nature, rather drunken, like the canons of Germany, and given to unnatural vices, like the French king Henry III. and his Nogaret, were very religious. They offered sacrifice and incense, walked in processions, and fasted.
But everything becomes corrupt in time. Religion changed. The splendid name of Son of God—that is to say, just and benevolent—was afterwards given to the most unjust and cruel of men, because they were powerful. The ancient piety, which was humane, was displaced by superstition, which is always cruel. Virtue had dwelt on the earth as long as the fathers of families were the only priests, and offered to Jupiter and the immortal gods the first of their fruits and flowers; but all this was changed when the priests began to shed blood and wanted to share with the gods. They did share in truth; they took the offerings, and left the smoke to the gods. You know how our enemies succeeded in crushing us, adopting our earlier morals, rejecting our bloody sacrifices, calling men to the Church, making a party for themselves among the poor until such time as they should capture the rich. They took our place. We are annihilated, they triumph; but, corrupted at length like ourselves, they need a great reform, which I wish them with all my heart.
XXII
DISCOURSE OF A JEW
Take no notice of this idolatrous Pagan who would turn God into a Dutch president, and offer us subordinate gods like members of parliament.
My religion, being above nature, can have no resemblance to others.
The first difference between them and us is that the source of our religion was hidden for a very long time from the rest of the earth. The dogmas of our fathers were buried, like ourselves, in a little country about a hundred and fifty miles long and sixty in width. In this well dwelt the truth that was unknown to the whole world, until certain rebels, going forth from among us, took from it the name of “truth” in the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; and presently boasted that they were establishing a new truth.