Of idolatry a discourse, in which is endeavoured a declaration of, its distinction from superstition, its notion, cause, commencement, and progress, its practice charged on Gentiles, Jews, Mahometans, Gnosticks, Manichees Arians, Socinians, Romanists : as also, of the means which God hath vouchsafed towards the cure of it by the Shechinah of His Son / by Tho. Tenison ...

CHAP. IV. Of the Time in which the Vanity of Man in∣troduced Idolatry into the World. (Book 4)

THe Nature and Causes of Idolatry being con∣sidered, I intend in the next place to inquire into the time of its Birth, so far as the silence or un∣certainty of Tradition will permit. It is one of the Aphorisms of Philo the Elder (if he were the Au∣thor of the Book of Wisdom), that Idols a 1.1 were not from the beginning: And it is a question among the Learned, whether Idolatry was any of those pol∣lutions which defiled the old World, and brought the deluge upon it. It doth not appear that it was extant before the flood; and many believe it to be no older than Cham. Tertullian, it is true, was of opinion that Idolatry began in the days of Seth, and that Enoch restored true Religion, and is for that Reason said in Scripture to have walked with God. He hath given us his opinion, but he hath concealed the grounds of it: And I can think of nothing so likely to move him to this belief, as the reverence he had for the fictitious Prophesie of Henoch, which he often citeth b 1.2, and in which are contained severe Comminations, both against the makers, and worshippers of Idols.

S. Cyril of Alexandria is much of another mind, affirming in his first Book against Julian the Apostate, c 1.3 That all men, from Adam to the days of Noah, worshipped that God who by nature was one. And he strengtheneth his opinion with this Reason d 1.4, Be∣cause no man is[by Moses] accused as a worshipper of

other gods, and impure Demons. If that false Religion had then set foot in the World, it would scarce have escaped that Divine Historian; but he would, in like∣lihood, both have mention'd it plainly, and severely reproved it. For this is no sin of a mean stature: It is, in the judgment of Tertullian a 1.5, the principal crime of mankind, the chief guilt of the world; the to∣tal cause of Gods judgment, or displeasure. He meaneth that it is a kind of Mother-sin, containing in it all other evils, on which the Judg of the World passeth sentence of condemnation. Lactantius goeth higher still in his censure of it b 1.6, giving to it the name of an inexpiable wickedness. And S. Gregory Nazian∣zen sheweth what apprehension he had of the great∣ness of this guilt, when he calleth it c 1.7 The last and first of evils. So monstrous a sin, if it had been in those early times committed, it would, a man would think, have been as soon reflected on by Moses, as the violence or injustice which then filled the earth, d 1.8 or the unclean mixtures of the sons of God e 1.9 with the daughters of men: [That is, as I guess, (in the same sense in which the tall Trees of Lebanon are called the Cedars of God) the unbridled appetites of the High and Potent, who made their Power sub∣servient to their lust.]

In the infancy of the World, there were many Cau∣ses which might prevent the sin of Idolatry. By the fresh date of it from the Creation, in which God, al∣most beyond miracle it self, discovered his Almighty Being and Oneness; by the appearance of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Son of God to Adam and others [of which appear∣ance, largely afterwards]; by the long-lives of Adam and Seth, and the rest of the Holy Line, who could often inculcate to their families, what themselves were so abundantly assured of; and possibly also, by the

conviction of him who was the head of the degene∣rate Line, unrighteous Cain himself, who having seen God in his Shechinah, could not propagate either di∣rect Atheism or Idolatry, though he was the Father of evil manners: By these, and perhaps by other Causes to us unknown, it might come to pass, that the wor∣ship of Idols was either not in being, or at least, not in frequent exercise in those first Generations.

We know nothing of those times but by the Pen of Moses; and a doubtful word of his a 1.10 hath in∣clin'd some to refer the Origine of Idolatry to the days of Enos. In his time (saith Moses) men began to Profane, as some would render his Text, instead of translating it as our Church doth, to call upon, the Name of the Lord. It is true that the Hebrew word, Hochal, doth sometimes signifie Prophaned: But there is no Reason which may enforce such an exposition of it in this place; the Name of God having been for∣merly profaned, and with great irreverence abused in the irreligious Families of Cain and Lamech. Neither is the termination of our worship on the creature, in∣stead of the Sovereign God, the only prophanation of his Holy Name. A rude Tongue, and an immoral Life commit that offence; and not only an Idolatrous mind or body. Such profaneness the Arabian Meta∣phrast imputeth to that time, whilst he thus turneth the Hebrew of Moses: Then began men to recede from their obedience to God. But to me, the Chaldee Inter∣preter seemeth to come nigher to the scope of the Words, the sense of which he expresseth in this manner: In those days men began to make supplications in the name of the Lord. That is, the numbers of Families increa∣sing in the days of Enos, they appointed more publick places for Gods service, in which at set-times, they might together, and in a more solemn Congregation,

worship their great Creator. I must confess that this exposition doth much disagree with the mind of Mai∣monides. For he doth not only refer a 1.11 the be∣ginning of Idolatry to the times of Enos, but he ac∣cuseth Enos himself of that gross and stupid wicked∣ness. For thus he begins that short Book which he hath written on that Subject. In the days of Enos men erred very greatly; and the minds of the wise-men of that age were overborn with stupidness: Even Enos himself was one of them who thus erred. Now this was their error, the worship of the Stars. A very rash and rude reflexion upon so holy a Patriarch, and relishing of Rabbinical dotage. For certainly divers of those Writers, if any others, have had a flaw in their Ima∣ginations; though Maimonides, amongst them all, may be allowed the largest intervals of sobriety.

From Cham, therefore, rather than from Enos, the Learned derive the beginning of Idolatry; though I know not whether, under him, it may not be dated a little too soon. The heart of Cham being before the flood deeply depraved, it was rather hardened by the escape, than warned by the mighty danger of that general Deluge. Insomuch that it was just with God to give him up to the further seducement of his sensuality, and to the visible power of the old Serpent, who may seem to have been, for a time, chained down by the Curse in Paradise, but was now (as I con∣jecture) let loose again for the punishment of those, whom Gods severe and miraculous discipline did not cleanse of their folly. He therefore is esteemed the Father of Idolatry, that Monster in Religion, which in his corrupt Loyn was, by degrees, multiplied into innumerable heads. But S. Cyril of Alexandria, in two places beginneth Idolatry at the confusion of Lan∣guages, and with Belus rather than Cham b 1.12; esteem∣ing

the difference of their Dialects, and the distracti∣on of their opinions concerning God, to have com∣menced together b 1.13. For the critical minute, it is uncertain; yet for the first objects of Idolatry, we may assent to him; and them he makes to be the Sun and the other heavenly bodies: But the Sun in the first place. That was the most glorious object which ra∣vished the eye, and it shewed it self no-where more gloriously than in the plains of Chaldea. In those plains the Tower of Babel was built, and (as my pri∣vate imagination leadeth me to think) consecrated by the builders to the Sun, as to the most probable Cause of drying up mighty Waters. This Tower is thought to have beenbuilt inPyramidal form, according to theScheme which we have of it in the frontispiece of Verstegan. And this form was not improper (though much unlike the figure of its Globe) because it ex∣pressed its fiery nature; the fire ascending in a co∣nical shape. The Ancients (saith Porphyry c 1.14 ci∣ted by Eusebius) did set forth the nature of Fire by Pyramids and Obelisks; and dedicated Statues of di∣vers figures to the Olympick gods, as a Cone to the Sun, and a Cylinder to the Earth. But all will not allow this kind of reasoning to have place here; such Philosophical considerations being thought by them matters much later than the times of Babel. But for the building of Towers or Pyramids as Altaria, or high Altars, to the Sun and other heavenly bodies, the practice is ancient, and very general. The Sun was not, meerly, a god of the Hills; yet the Heathen thought it suitable to his advanced station, to ascend them, and to worship him upon ascents, either natu∣ral, or, as was necessary in such flat Countries, artifi∣cial; that they might come as nigh as they could to the Deity they worshipped. Accordingly Abenephius

the Arabian, in Kircher a 1.15, testifieth that the Pyra∣mids of Egypt were called, by their Priests, the Altars of the Gods, and that they wrote on them Theologi∣cal Mysteries. The same Kircher noteth, b 1.16 that the Coptites called them the Pillars and Altars of Dei∣ties: That Bama is said, by Vatallus, to signifie pro∣perly a very high place for sacrifice; that such a one is mentioned by Virgil, as sacred to Juno: And that Lu∣can c 1.17 speaketh of Pyramids, as the Egyptian Priests and Coptites had done. The Pyramids of Egypt were raised upon certain square Platforms set one upon the other, and gradually lessening until they ended in one least and blunt square of Stone. Monsieur Vattier, the Arabick Professor of the French King, believed those blunt-tops to have been as Pedestals for some Colosses or Obelisks. They might be sometimes put to that use, though not at first designed for it. For Caligula was pleased to set his Head on the shoulders of the Statues of the Grecian gods; yet those Statues were not made to serve as such Supporters. That Learned Professor might, possibly, have made a truer conje∣cture from a short passage in the Arabian Murtadi, whose Book he translated. For Murtadi d 1.18 speaks of the Maritine Pyramid, as of a Temple of the Stars, on which were placed the figures of Sun and Moon. Such a Tower was that (as I suppose) which the Tausi of China built, of a sudden, in the Piazza of Pe∣kin e 1.19. They built it in Pyramidal form, with Ta∣bles upon Tables, till it ended in one supreme Table: And on that they prayed for Rain, which the Sun, the Original Jupiter Pluvins, doth as a natural cause, both send and remove. The Corinthian Tower once belonged to Sol f 1.20: And it is very probable, that the Sun was of old worshipped on a very high Moun∣tain in Crete: The Hill, in the time of Peter Martyr

of Angleria a 1.21, was called by the name of the Hill of Jove, though the Cretians were then great stran∣gers to their ancient Demonology. A late Traveller b 1.22 hath informed us of a Pyramidal Tower in Mexico, on the top of which the Heathen Priests worshipped towards the Sun, an American Deity. I should have thought that he had meant the same with Cortesius c 1.23, and that which he called the Fane of the Id•…•… Horcolivo's. But they differ much in their measu•…•…: And the ascent of the former is said to be by 114 steps; the latter by no less than an Hundred and thirty. Among the Apalachites of Florida d 1.24, the Priests of the Sun, called by the remarkable name of Jaovas, worshipped their Idol on the top of a ve∣ry high, round, steep and rocky Hill; a full league in its winding Ascent. The builders of the Hill or Tower of Babel, surely, designed that much higher yet; so high that it might hide its head in the Clouds, and would, it may be, have put it, had it been finish∣ed, to the like Idolatrous use. It is reasonable for me, here to expect an objection from the Scripture, which seemeth to impute the building of the Tower of Babel to another end. Come, say the builders in the Eleventh of Genesis e 1.25, let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. To this objection two things may be replied; First, the end expressed is not exclusive of that which I sup∣posed; and it is not a wonder, if vain men to encou∣rage one another, how many ends soever they had, did propound that of their pomp and glory. Second∣ly, these builders designed a City, and not only a Tower which was but the Appendix to it, though such a necessary one as an Altar is to a Temple. And their design of getting them a Name, might rather re∣fer to the City, than distinctly to the Tower. They

intended to build a place of fixed Residence, which might be, as it were, the Head, and Center, and Me∣tropolis of all Towns, whenever their Families should so encrease as to need further room for habitation. They were resolved against the incommodities of a wandring life, and they purposed to unite themselves into a more orderly body, and to become a Corpora∣tion instead of a multitude. And this was the way to get them a Name, to be the first City of the World, and to be owned as the Mother-Place of all Nations.

But I am not so fond of this private fancy, as to contend further about the Legitimacy of it. In this I am more assured, that the Lights of Heaven, which in the clear firmament of those Countries, appeared so often and in such lustre, (whilest the Sun by day shone gloriously; and the Moon and Stars shewed beauti∣fully in the night, to them who lay either on the ground, or on flat Roofs, and found no evil influence from them); and which obtained afterwards the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 from their continual motion, were the first Idols of the World. Amongst these, the Sun ex∣celling, he was made the principal Idol, and was no∣where more in honour than at Babylon. Accordingly we read, so soon, of Bell, [the Babylonian] and Baal [the Phenician and Hebrew Name], in the The∣ology of the Gentiles, This Idol was originally, and principally, the Sun; though great men likewise, when deified after their deaths, obtained that Name, as a Title of highest renown. And from the many names of Canonized Heroes, given to the Sun, hath risen a great part of that uncertainty and confusion, with which the Reader is perplexed in the Labyrinths of Heathen Mythologers.

This, however, is generally confessed, that the Sun was the first Idol; instead of which why Jarchi

a 1.26 hath put men or herbs into the first place, is hard to understand, till he come, and be his own E∣lias. Maimonides begins with the Stars, and he hath ground, not only from natural Reason, but from the Authority also of Job and Moses. Job b 1.27 thus ex∣presseth the Idolatry of those ancient times in which he lived. If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the Moon walking in brightness. And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: [If, with devotion of Soul, or profession of outward Ce∣remony, I have worshipped those heavenly bodies which by their heighth, motion and lustre, ravish the senses]: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have denied the God that is above. Moses giveth caution to the people of Israel c 1.28 who were coming out of that Idolatrous Land of Egypt, and were journeying towards Idolatrous Canaan [who were coming from temptation, and going likewise to∣wards it]; That when they lifted up their eyes to the Heavens, they should arm their minds against that in∣chantment to which they were subject by the sensible glory of the Sun, Moon and Stars. Rabbi Levi Ben Ger∣son d 1.29 glossing upon this place in Moses, Observeth that the Sun is first named, because his vertues are most manifest. The most ancient inhabitants of the World (saith Diodorus Siculus, meaning them that lived soon after the Flood, and particularly the e 1.30 Egyptians) contemplating the World above them, and being astonished with high admiration at the nature of the Universe, believed that there were eternal Gods; and that the two principal of them were the Sun and the Moon: Of which they called the first Osiris, and the second Isis. And of late years, when the Mariners Compass directed men to a new World in America [peopled, no doubt, from several distant parts of the old;] many different

Idols were found in peculiar places; but for the Sun, it was a Deity both in Mexico and Peru.

Babylon was the Mother of this kind of Idolatry; not Egypt, as the Author de Dea Syria a 1.31, and some in Diodorus Siculus b 1.32, who make Sol the first King of it, have erroneously conjectured. For Egypt was not a Nation when the Sun began to be worship∣ped in Chaldea, where Ur, it may be in aftertimes, with respect to the worship of that hot Luminary, was a kind of lesser Babylon. Babylon infected Egypt, Assyria, Phaenicia; and they spread the contagion throughout the World.

To the worship of the Sun, Moon and Stars, and other appearances in Heaven or the Air, such as Co∣mets and Meteors, (for the worship of the former, was apt to draw on that of the latter) succeeded the false Religion towards Heroes, confounded, as I guess, with original Demons or Angels. And this came to pass in the days of Serug, according to Eusebius, Epi∣phanius, and Syncellus, The Sun was no sooner called Bel, Baal, or El, that is, Lord or Governour, but the souls of men of renown were also flattered with like Appellations, and became properly the Idols of the people. Nimrod and Osiris were Baals; and the King of Phaenicia was Bel; and they had Religious ve∣neration payed to them. If other Demons were worshipped (as no doubt they were, being permitted to appear to them); it is a question whether the Gen∣tiles did not, by them, misunderstand the deified Souls of some of their Ancestors, distinctly, or confusedly remembred; rather than natural Genii, or Angels: For such Beings owed much of their manifestation, as such, to the Tradition conveyed in the Loyn of A∣braham and Moses.

The worship of Demons was followed by that of Pil∣lars

or Artless Monuments of remembrance a 1.33. Such a Monument was that Pillar anointed by Jacob. It was no Idol in the quality in which he made it, but a Record of the Divine presence: But it is commonly thought that others did take from it a pattern of their follies. Statues or Images were of a like antient date, as is plain from the History of the Teraphim, though Artists were then rare: The infancy of this new World being, also, the infancy both of Mechanical and Liberal Arts. Idolaters likewise chose for their Deities, living Statues, such as the Bull in Egypt for the heavenly Taurus, according to Lucian b 1.34, or ra∣ther for the Deity of the Sun, or of an Hero, accor∣ding to truth. Pausanias, in his Survey of Greece, findeth Stones sharpened at the top, to have been the earliest Symbols of their Gods. [They were, it may be, Cones relating to the Sun, the parent of fire, which, as was before noted, ascendeth a Pyramis,] and was thought to be an element of Triangular figure by the ancient Philosophers of Greece c 1.35.] Scaliger, in that learned Appendix of his to his Book of the Emendation of the accounts of time, doth mention Rude Stones, as the original Statues in Phenicia. What the first Symbols amongst the Romans were, is not distinctly understood. One would guess by Nu∣ma's Temple, they were Symbols of the Universe. But for particular Images, we have it upon the good authority of a most learned Roman d 1.36, That an Hundred and Seventy years were passed ere they came in amongst them. Under Christianity; the vanity and veneration of Images succeeded the Symbol of the Cross. At this day the Barbarians on the Coasts of Africa reverence Stones, like our greater Land-marks, as Fetiches or Divine Statues e 1.37; believing them to be as ancient as the World it self.

It appeareth by this short account of the Original of Idols, that they may plead antiquity: But still their age is nothing, if we compare it to his who is God everlasting.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Wisd. 14. 13.
• b 1.2

  See Tertul. de Idolatr. Sect. 4. p. 87, &c.—Idem Enoch simul & culto∣res Idoli & fa∣bricatores in comminatione praedamnat.
• c 1.3

  S. Cyr. Alex. l. 1. contr. Jul. p. 16. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• d 1.4

  Cyr. Alex. Ibid. p. 17. A. & l. 3. p. 110. A.
• a 1.5

  Tertullian thus begins his Book de Idol. Principale crimen Generis bumani, summus seculi reatus, tota causa Ju∣dicii Idolatria.
• b 1.6

  Lactant. lib. 1. Instit. c. 18. p. 94.
• c 1.7

  Greg. Naz. Orat. 38. de Idol. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• d 1.8

  Gen. 6. 11, 12, 13.
• e 1.9

  Gen. 6. 1, 2.
• a 1.10

  Gen. 4. 26. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• a 1.11

  Maimon. de Idolatr. c. 1. p. 3.
• b 1.12

  Cyril. Alex. contra Julian. l. 1. p. 17. & l. 3. p. 110.
• b 1.13

  S. Cyr. ibid. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. See Elu∣cidar. (inter Op. Anselm.) I. 2. c. 20. p. 475. de Orig. Idol.—Apud Babel, &c.
• c 1.14

  Porphyr. ap. Euseb. de prap. Evang. l. 3. c. 7. p. 98.
• a 1.15

  Kircher in Oedip. Synt. 4. c. 12. p. 310.
• b 1.16

  Kircher ibi∣dem. See als•…•… p. 308, 309.
• c 1.17

  Vota{que} Pyra∣midum celsas solvuntur ad aras.
• d 1.18

  Murtadi of the Prodig. of Egypt acc. to the Arabi∣ans. p. 16.
• e 1.19

  Alvarez Si∣medo in Hist. Chin. part. 1. c. 18. p. 87.
• f 1.20

  See Laurenb. Corinth. & Si∣cyon. p. 23.
• a 1.21

  Pet. Mart. Legat. Babyl. l. 2. p. 80.
• b 1.22

  Gage in his new Survey of the West-Indies. c. 12. p. 113, 114.
• c 1.23

  See Kircher's Oedip. Synt. 5. c. 5. p. 421, 422.
• d 1.24

  Hist. of the Carib. Isl. b. 2. c. 8. p. 236, 237, &c. See Kirch. Oëd. Tom. 3. p: 27. c. 3. of Mount Pagoda;
• e 1.25

  Gen. 11. 4.
• a 1.26

  Jarchi ap. Dionys. Voss. in Maimon. de I∣dol. c. 1. p. 4.
• b 1.27

  Job 31. 26, 27, 28.
• c 1.28

  Deut. 4. 19.
• d 1.29

  Ap. Dionys. Voss. in Maim. de Idol. p. 4.
• e 1.30

  Diodor. Sicul. Bibl. Histor. l. 1. c. 11. p. 10.
• a 1.31

  Lucianus de deâ Syria. p. 1057. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• b 1.32

  Diodor. Sicul. Biblioth. l. 1. c. 13. p. 12.
• a 1.33

  See Mr. Sel∣den's Prolegom. to Synt. de Di∣is Syris. p. 39.
• b 1.34

  Lucian. de Astrologiâ. p. 540. D.
• c 1.35

  Plato ap. La∣ert. p. 228. l. 3, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
• d 1.36

  Varro ap. S. August. de Civ. Dei. l. 4. c. 31. p. 272.
• e 1.37

  Villault's Rel. of a Voy∣age to Guinee. p. 174.