every one who owed his support or progress in life to chance, went thither in procession from Rome; freeborn persons of the lowest orders, and slaves, went on foot, or down the river in gondolas, which were crowned with festive garlands of branches and flowers. On this occasion it was not considered a shame, says Ovid, 'to return home drunk.' Thousands laid themselves on the ground round the temple, forgot their distress in confidence in lucky chance,' and thought the while of old king Servius, who, though the son of a slave, had become the king of Rome, and had been the friend of the poor.*

It was in this union of the natural, political, and moral element, that the peculiarity of the Roman religion consisted, at the time when the existence of this nation was in vigorous activity,

The sacerdotal body of the Pontiffs watched over the maintenance of the Roman, and the exclusion of foreign worship. The public worship of foreign gods, i.e., of such as were not recognised by the Senate, was, at Rome, forbidden.

Still, from the want of a definite doctrine, and the uncertainty of religious feeling, the Roman Religion was not able to preserve its peculiar character. Rome itself had increased by the adoption of foreigners. To the ancient people of patrons and clients, had been added a fresh set of inhabitants, the Plebs. It was from this quarter that the Latin Diana was next adopted. The Plebs, too, it was which founded the temple of Mercury, the giver of gain, the god of merchants and of tradesmen, and then that of Ceres and her children, Liber and Libera.†

Afterwards there came, from peculiar causes, other Grecian divinities; Castor and Pollux, the horsemen brothers, whom the Roman knights loved to look up to as their guardians; Apollo, the raging god of pestilence, or the succouring god of healing; Esculapius from Epidaurus; Venus from Mount Eryx in Sicily,

Ovid, Fast. vi. 771, describes the festival According to the Calendarium Amiterninum, (see Orelli, Inser. Lat. tom. i. p. 392,) the temple lay 'ad milliarium primum et sext.' from Rome. According to Livy, x. 46, the Consul Carvilius, in the year 293 B.C., erected another temple adjoining the old one of Servius; according to Tacitus, Annal. ii. 4, the Emperor Tiberius, in the year A.D. 16, built a temple of Fors. Fortuna, in Caesar's Garden; probably this was only a restoration of the old one.

t. The temple of Diana was common to the Latins and Romans; the plebeian hero, King Servius, had erected it upon the Aventine, the seat of the Plebs. See Livy, i. 45. The temple of Mercury was consecrated, not by one of the patrician consuls, but by a plebeian centurion, Livy, ii. 27. That the temple of Ceres and her children (see Livy, iii. 55, and Dionys. vi. 17) was plebeian, is proved by the circumstance, that the plebeian ædiles were entrusted with its superintendence; that the fines imposed by the Plebs were there paid; and that the decrees of the Senate, connected with the privileges of the Plebs, were there deposited.

but unaccompanied by her voluptuous train; and lastly, Cybele, the great mother of the gods, this being the character under which she was worshipped at Pessinus, in Asia Minor, long after she had found access into Greece. Bellona, War, is a Roman abstract goddess of a noxious kind, one to be averted. With her was afterwards joined the service of the mighty Assyrian goddess of Comana, with whom the Roman armies had become acquainted in Cappadocia.*

Thus did foreign worships force their way in, and it was but too often that the Senate fell in with the opinion of the Pontiffs, and gave their sanction to the adoption of a foreign divinity, whenever the conceptions attached to it were not too far removed from Roman notions, or its worship did not offend against the strictness of Roman morality. In disastrous times, when the soul was oppressed by painful helplessness, and the prophetic volumes were unclosed, then especially was a proneness manifested to have recourse to foreign aid as a means of deliverance.

Still there always continued to be a striking distinction between the old Roman State gods, and these new adopted divinities.

It was only to Cybele, the great mother of the gods, that public festivals, with games, were allotted immediately after her reception. Scenic games were held in her honour, on the Megalesia in April, in imitation of the Grecian custom; persons went about to their acquaintances in masks and disguises, and gave mutual repasts.† It was not till late that, in consequence of some oracles, fixed festivals, with scenic games, were instituted for Apollo and Ceres,‡ and it is precisely to these Grecian worships that literature owed the rise and cultivation of the Roman drama. But Diana, Castor and Pollux, Mercury, Esculapius, and Venus, had no public

*The Assyrian goddess was called Anaitis, and was akin to the Tauric Diana. Two different places of the name of Comana, in Cappadocia and Pontus, were the seat of her worship, which was held sacred by the nations who dwelled near the upper part of the Euphrates. Both temples were very magnificent; the high priests had all the dignity and power of royalty. Cæsar, Bell. Alex. c. 66. În the Mithridatic wars, the Roman soldiers, credulous and superstitious as they were, were struck with awe at this fearful religion, and Sulla was the means of transplanting the Assyrian goddess to Rome, where she became united with the conceptions already entertained of Bellona. Plutarch, Sull. 9.

The first games were celebrated on the consecration of the temple of Magna Mater, in the year 191 B.C. Livy, xxxvi. 36. Persons of rank feasted each other by turns, on these days, according to Grecian custom. Cicero, Cat. Maj. 13; Aul. Gellius, ii. 24. Masquerades took place. See Herodian, i. 10.

The Apollinarian games were instituted in a time of the greatest distress, during the war with Hannibal, 212 B.C., in compliance with an oracle of the celebrated prophet Marcius. Livy, xxv. 12; xxvii. 23. The Cerealia were first celebrated in the year 202 B.C. See Livy, xxx. 39.

festivals, and the fanatical service of Bacchus was actually suppressed by law. The Roman Liber, the son of Ceres, when compared with the riotous Bacchus, is a modest youth, the god of rural cultivation, whose heart is even more set upon honey than wine. His festival, on the 17th of March, was celebrated exclusively by female cooks, who, on this day, were crowned with ivy, baked honey-cakes in the streets, and forced them upon the passers by, in honour of the god.*

Again, the service of the foreign gods continued in so far to partake of a foreign character, as their priests were, for the most part, fetched from foreign lands. The Ceres at Rome had a Grecian priestess, while the old Roman form of worship was otherwise attended to. The fanatical service of Cybele and Bellona was conducted in an Asiatic manner, since their priests inflicted wounds on their own persons, so that blood flowed from their bodies. But these priests were not Romans, but Galli from Asia Minor, (Galatians in Phrygia,) as they were in fact called.†

- The Roman religion, which originally possessed greater purity and morality than the other creations of heathenism, suffered foreign influences to spread themselves over it, and was not able to shield itself from them, as it was not based in a doctrine of Divine orign, but only in the vague feeling of human dependence upon higher powers.

To have deified mortal and sinful men, is Rome's greatest reproach during the time of the emperors. But this ignominious mixture of the Divine and the human nature, had been for centuries prevalent in Grecian Asia, and was of extreme antiquity in Egypt. Augustus took the greatest pains to keep Rome and Italy free from this error, but he was only partially successful.‡ In Rome, however, only deceased emperors had Divine honours paid to them, by public decree: to look on living men as gods on earth, was Asiatic depravity, and was unknown to the Romans.

The Egyptian worship of Isis and Osiris, worked itself into Rome by force a short time before the birth of Christ. The Senate repeatedly forbade it, and the Consuls more than once

* Ovid, Fast. iii. 761. Melle pater fruitur, &c.

The priestess of Ceres was generally brought from Neapolis or Velia, Cicero, p. Balb. 24. On the service of Cybele, and how no Roman took part in the procession, in which the Molles Ministri' collected alms for the temple, see Dionys. ii. 19. In like manner, I think that the Bellonarii, the ministers of the Gaudens Bellona cruentis,' were not Romans.

Augustus was compelled to yield to the urgent solicitations of the Greeks, and allowed a temple to be consecrated in honour of him by the province of Asia at Pergamum, and by the Bithynians at Nicomedia; but, by his express desire, only in conjunction with the goddess Roma. But as respected Italy and Rome, he most obstinately refused, Dio Cass. li. 20, and in Rome, at least, with success. Sueton. Aug. 52.

employed force against it. Lucius Paullus, in the year 50 B.C., seized an axe himself to break open the door of the temple, not finding any workman willing to do it. But a little later it proved in vain to make resistance against the Egyptian religion. The number of the Oriental population at Rome was too great: their attachment and that of their proselytes to the magical service of the shorn priests in linen garments overcame every obstacle,-sufferance was forced to be conceded to it; and under the emperors, there were erected two double temples of Isis and Serapis in Rome, the one on the field of Mars, on the other side of the Pantheon, the other on the Esquiline hill, in one of the most populous wards in Rome, which thence bore the name of 'Isis et Serapis.'*

What was it which so much recommended Isis and Serapis to the people? It was the doctrine of Immortality, which was symbolically visible in the ceremonial service. Isis went in quest of her husband, the murdered Osiris, and all faithful believers sought with her, and were sorrowful. She found his scattered limbs; and the deceased Osiris rose up, grown young again, in the character of Serapis, the god of the lower world, to the joy and comfort of conviction of all the disciples.†

This doctrine, however much or little inculcated, gave to the initiated more confidence concerning the dark side of human existence, than the open and joyous worship of Nature among the

The contest between the votaries of Isis and the Roman authorities begins to be historical in the year 58 B.C., when the Consul Gabinius, on the first of January, was urgently entreated to grant some animals for sacrifice in the Egyptian service; see Tertullian, Adv. Gentes. i. 10, taken from Varro. Thence it may be followed up as a constant topic in Dio Cassius's History. Concerning L. Æmilius Paullus, see Valer. Max. i. 3, 3. Dio states that, a year after Caesar's death, 43 B.C., the triumvirs resolved upon building a temple of Isis and of Serapis. There is no doubt that, by this step, they were seeking to win the favour of the people. But as soon as Augustus had made his monarchy secure, he forbade the Egyptian worship within the city, (Dio, liii. 2, in the year B.C. 26,) and afterwards, (Dio Cass. liv. 6,) he even banished it from the suburbs to the distance of a mile from Rome. Notwithstanding this, the number of the disciples increased; and about the time of the birth of Christ, and subsequently, no religious worship was so zealously and faithfully followed in Rome, as the Egyptian service, especially by the female sex. This is proved by the frequent and in part serious allusions, that are made to it by the poets of the time. During the reign of Tiberius, the outrageous seduction of a pious female disciple, to which some bribed priests had lent a hand, brought on a storm of persecution, in which the temple, according to Josephus, Ant. Jud. xviii. 3, was again destroyed. It was not till the time of the Emperors of the Flavian family, that the Egyptian Religion met with entire and certain acknowledgment, and the Emperors Commodus, Caracalla, and Alexander Severus, evinced particular attachment for it.

See Lactant. Instit. Christ. i. 21. Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 78.

ancient, or the abstract worship among the later Romans. The state had long since lost its Divine existence.

I cannot here follow up the fall of heathenism, and the transition of the Roman Religion to a new and higher order of things. Neither the Egyptian worship of Isis, nor the Persian Mithras, (the mediator between Ormuz and Ahriman, the good principle of light, and the bad principle of darkness,) were able to triumph over Roman heathenism. Even Judaism could not overcome it; but Christianity obtained a decisive victory by its Divine doctrines. But yet even the endeavours of heathenism to guide and adorn the life of man by religion, are not unworthy of our serious contemplation.

IV.

ANIMADVERSIONS. UPON THE ARTICLE ON THE DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE.'

TO THE EDITORS.

IN the March Number of The Biblical Review there appeared an article upon The Date of the Apocalypse,' which has been followed by papers upon 'The Poetry of the Apocalypse,' it may be presumed from the same pen. I have no suspicion of the quarter from which they proceed; but, having the strongest conviction that the views of the writer are completely erroneous, and that the tendency of the articles is pernicious, I am induced with reluctance to offer some animadversions upon what appears to me so unhappy a specimen of critical license and extravagance.

The true character of the Apocalypse is obviously the first and most important consideration. The writer contends, indeed, that the inquiry respecting the date is of primary importance for the right understanding of all its prophecies, and not merely a curious literary question. But, if the Apocalypse were what Professor Stuart, following the German critics, styles it, 'a book of poetry in its very mode of conception,'-' an Epopée,' an oriental parable, I apprehend that the inquiry, whether it was composed in the reign of Nero or in that of Domitian, would become altogether trivial. The date is important; but it is not true, that the whole system of interpretation exhibited in Mr. Elliott's 'Hora Apocalyptica' is based on the opinion that it was written so late as the closing years of the first century. The writer's assertion, that, as an exposition of Scripture, that system must stand or fall with this foundation,' is rash and unsupported. Even had the visions been seen in the reign of Nero, and the predictions been delivered a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple,' there would have been no reason to conclude that the visions of the seven-sealed scroll related

*Biblical Review, vol. i. p. 171.