صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

APPENDIX.

No. I.

ON THE

DISCOVERY, BY COLONEL CAPPER,

OF THE EXISTENCE OF

ANTIENT PAGAN SUPERSTITIONS IN MOUNT LIBANUS,

PARTICULARLY THOSE WHICH RELATE TO THE WORSHIP OF VENUS.

THE superstition discovered by Colonel CAPPER can be considered as nothing less than the expiring embers of those holocausts which once blazed in honour of Sidonian Astarté1. The Venus of Libanus was called Asthoreth, from the

(1) Astarté, Astaroth, Ashtaroth, Asthoreth, ASTARA, (See the Inscriptions communicated to Part I. of these Travels, by CHARLES KELSALL, Esq. from the Cimmerian Bosporus, p. 402. Second Edition.) A ESTAR, (whence our word AESTER: See chap. X. p. 317. Note 2, of the former Volume: also GALE's Court of the Gentiles, B. ii. c. 2.) Nothing tends more to elucidate and simplify Heathen mythology, than the constantly bearing in recollection the identity of all those Pagan idols which were distinguished by these several names; (to which may be added the other less similar appellations of the same Phænician Goddess ;) víz. Atergatis, Juno, Isis, Hecate, Proserpine, Ceres, Diana, Europa, (Cicer. de Natur. Deor. lib. iii.) Venus, Urania, Dercetis, (Ovid. Metam. lib. iv.) and Luna. The Arabians called her Alilat, and still preserve their Aliluia. Among the Chaldeans she was called" Militta.

number of sacrifices offered to her. Eusebius mentions this situation of her temple: it was built in the most secluded solitude of that mountain'. Constantine overthrew the temple, and, according to Augustine, abolished its detestable rites; but these, however, have in some measure survived, and remain at the present day among those wretched superstitions which degrade a multitude of human beings, to whom the Holy Scriptures have been hitherto denied. However impious and abominable these superstitions at last became, they were, in their origin, of a purer nature; having resulted solely from the veneration paid by a grateful people to those luminaries of heaven, whence they supposed all their blessing to be derived. Before the coming of the Jews into the Promised Land, it is evident, from Scripture, that the worship of the Moon was cultivated by the original inhabitants

(1) Eusebius de Laudib. Constant. Orat. et de Præp. lib. iv. cap. 7. (2) Augustin. de Civitate Dei. lib. iv. cap. 10.

(3) It was from the Phænicians and Canaanites that the Israelites learned this worship. "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven." (Jerem. vii. 8.) The Canaanites and Phænicians called the moon Ashteroth, Astarté, Baaltis. Lucian expressly says, that Astarté, that is to say, the Venus of Libanus, or Queen of Heaven, was the moon ; and Herodotus (l·b. 5.) calls Astarté,'Aorpoáρxn; as it is said by Herodian that the Carthaginians did, who affirmed her

[ocr errors]

to

of the country; and there cannot be pointed out a truth connected with their history more capable of demonstration, than that the DEA SYRIA who obtained, by her ten thousand appellations, the epithet of Myrionymus, with all the fabulous history of her favourite Adonis, or the Earth', was, under all its modifications, but so many testimonies of this antient worship. The numerous instances of popular Pagan superstitions retained in the Greek and Roman churches have been often before noticed; these were made subservient to the propagation of a more enlightened system of faith and as, in our reformed religion, a part of the Liturgy of the Roman Church has been preserved, so it may be said that certain of the external forms, and even of the prayers, in use among the

to be the same with the moon.
Philistines in the shape of a fish.
in Phænicia; the upper part resembling a woman; the lower, a fish.
And to this Horace has been supposed to allude, in the following
line :

This deity was worshipped by the
Lucian (Dea Syria) saw the image

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

(5) See particularly the Harpocrates of Cuper, (p. 108. Utrecht, 1687,) and the figure of Isis, as engraved by him.

(6) The Ghospody Pomilui of the Russians, and “Lord have mercy upon us!" as it stands in our Liturgy, was a part of the Pagan Litany. (See Young's Diss. &c. Vol. II. p. 7. Lond. 1734.) Vossius says, that Kúpu iλinoov was an usual form of prayer among the Gentiles as well as

Jews.

a

Heathens, are still retained. A Roman-catholic, however, who prostrates himself before wooden crucifix, or a member of the Greek Church making the sign of the cross, will not really admit that the figure of a cross was used, as a symbol of resurrection from the dead, long before the sufferings of our SAVIOUR. Like Albericus examining the writings of Abelard', either of them reading such an assertion would deem it pregnant with the most noxious heresy ; and yet, exactly after the manner in which Abelard refuted the charge of Albericus, we have only to open a volume of one of their own Fathers, to prove that this is indisputably true3.

Jews. So Arrian (Epict. lib. ii. c. 7.) Tòv Oɛòv ¿ñikadovμevos deóμɛ0a avrov Kúpie ¿Xéŋoov. “Calling upon God, we pray, Lord have mercy upon us!"

(1) See that most entertaining History of the Lives of Abelard and Heloise, as compiled from original documents, by the Rev. Joseph Berrington, printed at Birmingham in 1787. The passage alluded to is in page 136, and contains a salutary lesson for bigots of every sect and denomination. Mr. Berrington's Work perhaps comprises the most able survey extant, and certainly the most amusing, of the state of literature in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

(2) See Berrington's Hist. of the Lives of Abelard and Heloise, p. 137.

(3) Socrates Scholasticus, lib. v. cap. 17. Camb. 1720.—See “Greek Marbles," p. 78. The learned author of "An Historical Dissertation on Idolatrous Corruptions," (Vol. II. p. 58, Note. Lond. 1734) says, The Cross in Egyptian Hieroglyphics denoted Life Eternal; and that

upon

« السابقةمتابعة »