was practifed, and they imagined that the rife of the Nile depended on the observance of them. Thefe this Chriftian emperor ordered to be discontinued; and whereas the fuperftitious heathens had imagined that the confequence of this fuppreffion would be that the river would not rife as ufual, the Chriftians faid it rose higher than before.

Sodomy, fays Julius Firmicus, who wrote in the time of the fons of Conftantine, was then practifed in the temple of Juno. He adds that they were fo far from being ashamed of it, that they gloried in it. And it appears from various writers, that the gains of this abominable kind of proftitution were a source of revenue to the heathen temples, as well as those of the women who belonged to them. And yet of this religion Voltaire fays, that "it could not be of any prejudice to man"kind*."

Befides

felves; and Marco Polo fays that the like custom prevailed at Camul, and that when it was forbidden by the Mahometan prince Mongou Khan, and the order had been obeyed three years, the people fent deputies to get it repealed, as they faid that their fields had not been so fruitful as they had been before.

*How the rites of the goddess Cybele operated as

an

Befides the rites which were performed in public, and at which all perfons were permitted, and often required, to be prefent, there were in the ancient heathen religions rites of a private nature, to which none were admitted but under an oath of fecrecy, the violation of which was deemed to be the greatest act of impiety. Some have supposed that the defign of thefe myfteries, as thofe rites were called, was to fhew the abfurdity of the popular worship; but this is in the

an incentive to lewdness, may be seen in Juvenal, Sat. vi. 313, &c.

That these practices, thus fanctioned by religion, had a fatal influence on the public opinion and the public morals, is evident from the writings of the heathens, especially those of the poets, which abound with the most disgusting obscenities. One of the most admired eclogues of Virgil, who is esteemed the chafteft of the Roman poets, celebrates the love of a man to a boy; and the only remaining, and much admired poem, of the Greek poetess Sappho, defcribes that of a woman to a woman, which is an abundant confirmation of what to us appears most incredible in the apoftle Paul's reprefentation of the depravity of the Gentile world. And with the disbelief of revelation we find, in fact, that the juft abhorrence which all the Chriftian world entertain for thefe unnatural vices disappears; a proof of which might be given in fome well authenticated anecdotes of the late king of Pruffia, but not to be related in this place.

highest degree improbable. Indeed, nothing which should have been fufpected to have that tendency would have been borne with, and they who made the greatest account of thefe myfteries were the most devoted to the popular fuperftitions. The most probable

opinion is, that whatever was the original intention of these private myfteries, they became a scene of such exhibitions and practices as were worse than any that were tranfacted in public.

Socrates, the moft moral of all the heathen philofophers, and the least attached to the vulgar fuperftition, would never be initiated into these mysteries. In the time of Cicero, the very term myfteries was almoft fynonymous to abominations; and we may well suppose what the nature of them must have been, when it is known that they were celebrated in the night, in honour of Bacchus, Venus, or Cupid, and that indecent images were carried in proceffion in them, so that they could not fail to countenance that impurity, and diffolutenefs of manners, which was fo general in the Pagan world. To these mysteries it is most probable that Paul refers when he fays, Ephef. v. 12, It is a

Shame

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Shame even to speak of those things which are done by them in fecret. Clemens Alexandrinus called these mysteries "the mysteries of " atheistical men ;" adding, "I may rightly "call them atheists, who are deftitute of the knowledge of him who is truly God, and "who most impudently worship a boy torn "in pieces by the Titans, women lamenting, and the parts which modesty forbids "" to name.' A Roman conful discovered that "the Bacchanalian mysteries confifted of "fuch things as the most unbounded prosti"tution could exhibit in private and noctur"nal affemblies, that no perfon could be "initiated into them without renouncing "his modefty, while the priests who prefided "over them prescribed in public, to those "who were to be admitted to them, a ten

days abftinence." Conftantine, who forbad the practice of fodomy in the religious rites of the Egyptians, forbad all fecret rites of initiation in all the Roman empire.

But there is no occafion to pry into the fecret mysteries of the heathen religion for fcenes fufficiently fhocking to decency. Public games and plays, in which the flagitious actions of the heathen gods were reprefented,

were always confidered as acts of religion, and celebrated in their honour, though fome of the wifer of the ancients were afhamed of thefe exhibitions. Cicero, fpeaking of the adulteries of Jupiter, his ravishing the boy Ganymede, and carrying him off to be his cup-bearer, fays, "Homer feigned these things, and afcribed human actions and

ce

qualities to the gods. I had rather that he "had raised man to the imitation of what is "divine." It is not, however, true that Homer invented thofe ftories. He only introduced into his poems what was generally believed in his time. "The fame gods," fays Austin, "that were ridiculed on the "theatre were adored in the temples." And what is particularly remarkable is, that worse things were afcribed to gods of the greatest dignity, as Jupiter, than to any of an inferior rank. Such was the religion which Voltaire reprefents as perfectly innocent, with refpect to its moral tendency.

Some of the rites of the ancient heathen religions, which were not remarkable for their cruelty or lewdnefs, confifted of fuch inftances of favage ferocity and extravagance, as are not easily accounted for. But what