VIII. churches of the North of Europe, and especially CHAP. in those of Denmark and Norway, the traces of notice of the traveller in his journey through Greece and Asia, there are some hitherto not sufficiently regarded: and yet they are of importance, as being connected with the religious opinions of the Antients, and as being prototypes of a custom existing at this day in Christian countries. I allude to the votive offerings which were presented to some Deities, on the restoration to health, after a bodily complaint or disease. The eyes, the feet, the hands, sometimes the whole body, were, as soon as health returned to the invalid, formed in marble, earthenware, and other materials, and offered to a presiding Deity. In Italy, and in other Roman-Catholic countries †, this custom still prevails; and in the Greek churches we have witnessed similar representations, in silver, wax, and other substances, dedicated to patron saints. "A question here arises concerning the antiquity of this practice: In what country, and at what period, did it first commence? On these points we are in possession of an authentic fact, by which we are enabled to answer, in some degree, the question: at least, we are informed by it, that the antiquity of the custom is great; and that it prevailed in the East, and was thence probably introduced into Greece. "When the Philistines had taken away the Ark of the God of Israel, the band of the Lord, we read, was heavy upon them; and he smote them. When they determined to send back the ark, they asked their priests what offering they should make to the Lord, that they might be relieved from the disorder which attacked their bodies, and from the other calamity, that of mice, which destroyed the land. The priests answered, 'Ye shall make golden images of your emerods, and 'images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel; peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you. In the Island of Santorin there are some singular representations, on the rock. Tomasini gives the votive figure of a man in a dropsical state. "Ea quippe licentia, (says Baronius,) quâ Deorum delubra in Ecclesias Christianorum sunt laudabiliter commutata, alii quoque ritus a nobis benedictionibus expiati divino sunt cultui consecrati." CHAP. this antient custom may yet be observed; the dona votiva being often suspended in the form of VIII. 'you. And they did so; and they laid the Ark of the Lord upon the 'cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold, and with the images of their emerods*.* "This, we have no doubt, is the earliest mention of the custom we are considering. We have observed at Phocæa in the antient Lydia, at Eleusis, at Athens, and other parts of Greece, holes of a square form, cut in the limestone rock, for the purpose of receiving these votive offerings: sometimes the offerings themselves, eyes, feet, hands, have been discovered. At Cyzicum there is a representation of two feet on marble, with an inscription; probably the vow of some person who had performed a prosperous journey. The same subject is referred to in the engraving of a tablet published by Tomasini, on which are seen two feet, accompanied with these letters, QVIE IANAE H D, shewing that it was an offering by a person of the name of Jana to Hygeia and if the word Quie be properly explained, quiescentis, the whole has reference, as we have observed, to a journey performed with safety. "Women, after child-birth, made votive offerings; and a representation of the girdle was consecrated to DIANA†. Acantherus explains the subject of a marble, in which a person of the name of Laōmedon makes an offering to the Lochian Diana, on the safe delivery of his wife. "All these offerings, which were made either during illuess, or after recovery from it, were termed χαριστήρια τῆς σωτηρίας: the words δώρον Xágioμa, ávábnua, were also used and in Latin, Dona, and Donaria. As the temples of Neptune received the votive tributes of those who had escaped the dangers of the sea; so the temples of Esculapius were adorned with tablets presented by persons restored to health. Invalids were allowed to sleep in the porticoes, and the interior, of the fanes of Isis and Esculapius; and there, by the way of dream, they received 1 Samuel vi. 5, 11. "Solebant Veteres, (says Bochart, on this passage,) alique metu vel periculo defuncti, præteritorum malorum insignia ac monumenta illis Diis consecrare, a quibus sé liberatos putabant." Hieroz, lib. xi. c. 36. + Called Diana Availwvos. Zonam solvere, in Latin, has reference to marriage, among the Greeks, it referred to the birth of the first child. Scaliger on Catullus. pictures representing hair-breadth escapes, a СНАР. deliverance from banditti, or a recovery from VIII. received advice concerning the remedies they should use to procure their health. Julian (says an old inscription) vomited blood; and was given over: the God told him to come and take the cones of a pine-tree, and eat them, with honey, for three days. He received his health, and came and returned thanks in the presence of the 'people,' "Valerius Aper, a soldier, was blind. The God told him to take the blood of a white cock; to mix it with honey, and make an oint"ment of it; and apply it to his eyes for three days. He gained his sight, and came and returned thanks.' "On these, and similar occasions, we must suppose the votive offerings were presented; many of which are found in Greece and Asia. They were fixed, as we have observed, sometimes in the rock, near the sacred precincts of a temple; sometimes appended to the walls and columns of the temples: they were fastened also, by wax, to the knees, or other parts of the statues of the Gods t. "When we say, that the offerings were made in the temple of Isis, we must understand, that the honour was paid particularly to Serapis, joint-tenaut of the temple, as the God of Medicine. Ego Mediciná a Serapi utor,' says Varrot. See also Cicero, in his second book, De Divinut. Nor did those only who recovered from illness pay their votive tribute of gratitude to the Gods; their friends often united with them in this act of devotion. "The period of the first introduction into the Christian church of this custom, once so prevalent in Pagan Italy and Greece, cannot be precisely fixed. But Theodoret, one of the Greek Fathers, has a passage in his Therapeutics §, which attests the existence of the practice, in the fifth century, of Christians offering, in their Churches, representations The medicine itself was sometimes placed in the temples; as in the case of a goldsmith, who, on his death-bed, bequeathed an ointment to a temple, which those who were unable to see the physicians might use.-Etius, Tetr. xi. Serm. 4. ↑ Juven, Sat. x. 54. Prudent. contra Symm. lib. i. Lucian, Philop. + Turn. Adv. lib. iii. c. 8. "An Esculapius, an Serapis, potest præscribere per omnium curationem valetudinis." Cicero de Divin. § Lib. viii. VIII. CHAP. sickness; and these pictures are frequently · inscribed with the particulars of the case thereby commemorated. It was from a list of remedies collected in the temples, that Hippocrates of Cos framed a regular set of canons for the art of medicine, and reduced the practice of physic to a system'. representations of parts of the body restored to health: 'Some,' he says, 'offer up effigies (ixruxáuara) of eyes; others, of feet; others, "of hands; made of gold and silver.' "The same spirit of religious feeling which prompted the Pagans to make the offerings we have adverted to, urged them to consider themselves, in every transaction and situation of life, as under the presiding care of some Deity; to whom, consequently, some manifestation of gratitude was due, in all successful undertakings. The husbandman, after harvest, offered up his instruments of husbandry; poets, and men of genius, consecrated their harps, lyres, and volumes, to Minerva and Apollo; conquerors presented some of the spoils won in war*. The temples of the Greeks were, we know, used, by different States, as Banks to this circumstance was owing, in part, the vast wealth which they contained;, and this was increased by the costly offerings + in gold and silver, presented on various occasions." WALPOLE'S MS. Journal. (1) "Tunc eam revocavit in lucem Hippocrates, genitus in insuld Coo, in primis clarâ ac validâ, et Æseulapio dicatâ. Is, cum fuisset mos, liberatos morbis scribere in templo ejus Dei, quid auxiliatum esset, ut postea similitudo proficeret, exscripsisse ea traditur, atque (ut Varro apud nos credit) jam templo cremato, instituisse medicinam hanc, quæ Clinice vocatur." Plin. Hist. Nat. 7. xxix. c. 1. tom. III. p. 187. L. Bat. 1635. Of this description is the antient Argive helmet found in the alluvial soil of the Alpheus, at Olympia, by Mr. Morritt; now in the possession of Mr. Knight. + One of the most antient offerings in Greece was that bearing an inscription, in Cadmean letters, on a tripod, at Thebes. Herod. lib. v. p. 400. 'Audiтpówv μ'åvéßnker. ἰὼν ἀπὸ Τηλεβοάων, ιών is the emendation of Balguarnera, νέων is preferred by Villoison, (Anec. ii. 129.) with ȧvénke. VIII. Singular Mohamme A remarkable cause was tried while we were CHAP. in Cos; and a statement of the circumstance on which it was founded will serve to exhibit a very part of the singular part of the Mohammedan law; namely, dan Law. that which relates to "Homicide by implication." An instance of a similar nature was before noticed, when it was related that the Capudan Pasha reasoned with the people of Samos upon the propriety of their paying for a Turkish frigate which was wrecked upon their territory; "because the accident would not have happened unless their island had been in the way." This was mentioned as a characteristic feature of Turkish justice, and so it really was; that is to say, it was a sophistical application of a principle rigidly founded upon the fifth species of homicide, according to the Mohammedan law; or "Homicide by an intermediate cause," which is strictly the name it bears. The case which occurred at Cos fell more immediately under the cognizance of this law. It was as follows. A young man desperately in love with a girl of Stanchio, earnestly sought to marry her; but (2) See the communication made to the author by Mr. Keene, as published in Note (1), pp. 242, 243, of Vol. III. Octavo edition. |