need but open any classic author to meet with these gross representations of the deities; and Longinus[1] with reason observes, that such ideas of the divine nature, if literally taken, contain a true atheism.
Some writers[2] have been surprised, that the the impieties of Aristophanes should have been tolerated, nay publickly acted and applauded, by the Athenians; a people so superstitious and so jealous of the public religion, that, at that very time, they put Socrates to death for his imagined incredulity. But these writers consider not, that the ludicrous, familiar images, under which the gods are represented by that comic poet, instead of appearing impious, were the genuine lights, in which the ancients conceived their divinities. What conduct can be more criminal or mean, than that of Jupiter in the Amphitryon? Yet that play, which represented his gallant exploits, was supposed so agreeable to him, that it was always acted in Rome by public authority, when the State was threatened with pestilence, famine, or any general calamity[3]. The Romans supposed, that, like all old
- ↑ Cap. ix.
- ↑ Pere Brumoy, Theatre des Grecs; & Fontenelle, Histoire des Oracles.
- ↑ Arnob. lib. vii.
letchers,
