Myth, Ritual and Religion — Volume 1 by Andrew Lang
page 57 of 391 (14%)
page 57 of 391 (14%)
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element in the world. As for his own explanation of the myths,
Eusebius holds that they descend from a period when men in their lawless barbarism knew no better than to tell such tales. "Ancient folk, in the exceeding savagery of their lives, made no account of God, the universal Creator [here Eusebius is probably wrong] . . . but betook them to all manner of abominations. For the laws of decent existence were not yet established, nor was any settled and peaceful state ordained among men, but only a loose and savage fashion of wandering life, while, as beasts irrational, they cared for no more than to fill their bellies, being in a manner without God in the world." Growing a little more civilised, men, according to Eusebius, sought after something divine, which they found in the heavenly bodies. Later, they fell to worshipping living persons, especially "medicine men" and conjurors, and continued to worship them even after their decease, so that Greek temples are really tombs of the dead.[1] Finally, the civilised ancients, with a conservative reluctance to abandon their old myths (Greek text omitted), invented for them moral or physical explanations, like those of Plutarch and others, earlier and later.[2] [1] Praep. E., ii. 5. [2] Ibid., 6,19. As Eusebius, like Clemens of Alexandria, Arnobius, and the other early Christian disputants, had no prejudice in favour of Hellenic mythology, and no sentimental reason for wishing to suppose that the origin of its impurities was pure, he found his way almost to |
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