Theodicy Part 12

one attains salvation only through many sufferings, and by bearing the cross of Jesus Christ. These evils serve to make the elect imitators of their master, and to increase their happiness.

123. VIII. 'The greatest and the most substantial glory that he who is the master of others can gain is to maintain amongst them virtue, order, peace, contentment of mind. The glory that he would derive from their unhappiness can be nothing but a false glory.'

If we knew the city of G.o.d just as it is, we should see that it is the most perfect state which can be devised; that virtue and happiness reign there, as far as is possible, in accordance with the laws of the best; that sin and unhappiness (whose entire exclusion from the nature of things reasons of the supreme order did not permit), are well-nigh nothing there in comparison with the good, and even are of service for greater good. Now since these evils were to exist, there must needs be some appointed to be subject to them, and we are those people. If it were others, would there not be the same appearance of evil? Or rather, would not these others be those known as We? When G.o.d derives some glory from the evil through having made it serve a greater good, it was proper that he should derive that glory. It is not therefore a false glory, as would be that of a prince who overthrew his state in order to have the honour of setting it up again.

124. IX. 'The way whereby that master can give proof of greatest love for virtue is to cause it, if he can, to be always practised without any mixture of vice. If it is easy for him to procure for his subjects this advantage, and nevertheless he permits vice to raise its head, save that he punishes it finally after having long tolerated it, his affection for virtue is not the greatest one can conceive; it is therefore not infinite.'

I am not yet half way through the nineteen maxims, and already I am weary of refuting, and making the same answer always. M. Bayle multiplies unnecessarily his so-called maxims in opposition to my dogmas. If things connected together may be separated, the parts from their whole, the human kind from the universe, G.o.d's attributes the one from the other, power from wisdom, it may be said that G.o.d _can cause_ virtue to be in the world without any mixture of vice, and even that he can do so _easily_. But, since he has permitted vice, it must be that that order of the universe which was found preferable to every other plan required it. One must believe that it is not permitted to do otherwise, since it is not [198]

possible to do better. It is a hypothetical necessity, a moral necessity, which, far from being contrary to freedom, is the effect of its choice.

_Quae rationi contraria sunt, ea nec fieri a Sapiente posse credendum est_.

The objection is made here, that G.o.d's affection for virtue is therefore not the greatest which can be conceived, that it is not _infinite_. To that an answer has already been given on the second maxim, in the a.s.sertion that G.o.d's affection for any created thing whatsoever is proportionate to the value of the thing. Virtue is the n.o.blest quality of created things, but it is not the only good quality of creatures. There are innumerable others which attract the inclination of G.o.d: from all these inclinations there results the most possible good, and it turns out that if there were only virtue, if there were only rational creatures, there would be less good.

Midas proved to be less rich when he had only gold. And besides, wisdom must vary. To multiply one and the same thing only would be superfluity, and poverty too. To have a thousand well-bound Vergils in one's library, always to sing the airs from the opera of Cadmus and Hermione, to break all the china in order only to have cups of gold, to have only diamond b.u.t.tons, to eat nothing but partridges, to drink only Hungarian or Shiraz wine--would one call that reason? Nature had need of animals, plants, inanimate bodies; there are in these creatures, devoid of reason, marvels which serve for exercise of the reason. What would an intelligent creature do if there were no unintelligent things? What would it think of, if there were neither movement, nor matter, nor sense? If it had only distinct thoughts it would be a G.o.d, its wisdom would be without bounds: that is one of the results of my meditations. As soon as there is a mixture of confused thoughts, there is sense, there is matter. For these confused thoughts come from the relation of all things one to the other by way of duration and extent. Thus it is that in my philosophy there is no rational creature without some organic body, and there is no created spirit entirely detached from matter. But these organic bodies vary no less in perfection than the spirits to which they belong. Therefore, since G.o.d's wisdom must have a world of bodies, a world of substances capable of perception and incapable of reason; since, in short, it was necessary to choose from all the things possible what produced the best effect together, and since vice entered in by this door, G.o.d would not have been altogether good, altogether wise if he had excluded it.

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125. X. 'The way to evince the greatest hatred for vice is not indeed to allow it to prevail for a long time and then chastise it, but to crush it before its birth, that is, prevent it from showing itself anywhere. A king, for example, who put his finances in such good order that no malversation was ever committed, would thus display more hatred for the wrong done by factionaries than if, after having suffered them to batten on the blood of the people, he had them hanged.'

It is always the same song, it is anthropomorphism pure and simple. A king should generally have nothing so much at heart as to keep his subjects free from oppression. One of his greatest interests is to bring good order into his finances. Nevertheless there are times when he is obliged to tolerate vice and disorders. He has a great war on his hands, he is in a state of exhaustion, he has no choice of generals, it is necessary to humour those he has, those possessed of great authority with the soldiers: a Braccio, a Sforza, a Wallenstein. He lacks money for the most pressing needs, it is necessary to turn to great financiers, who have an established credit, and he must at the same time connive at their malversations. It is true that this unfortunate necessity arises most often from previous errors. It is not the same with G.o.d: he has need of no man, he commits no error, he always does the best. One cannot even wish that things may go better, when one understands them: and it would be a vice in the Author of things if he wished to change anything whatsoever in them, if he wished to exclude the vice that was found there. Is this State with perfect government, where good is willed and performed as far as it is possible, where evil even serves the greatest good, comparable with the State of a prince whose affairs are in ruin and who escapes as best he can? Or with that of a prince who encourages oppression in order to punish it, and who delights to see the little men with begging bowls and the great on scaffolds?

126. XI. 'A ruler devoted to the interests of virtue, and to the good of his subjects, takes the utmost care to ensure that they never disobey his laws; and if he must needs chastise them for their disobedience, he sees to it that the penalty cures them of the inclination to evil, and restores in their soul a strong and constant tendency towards good: so far is he from any desire that the penalty for the error should incline them more and more towards evil.'

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To make men better, G.o.d does all that is due, and even all that can be done on his side without detriment to what is due. The most usual aim of punishment is amendment; but it is not the sole aim, nor that which G.o.d always intends. I have said a word on that above. Original sin, which disposes men towards evil, is not merely a penalty for the first sin; it is a natural consequence thereof. On that too a word has been said, in the course of an observation on the fourth theological proposition. It is like drunkenness, which is a penalty for excess in drinking and is at the same time a natural consequence that easily leads to new sins.

127. XII. 'To permit the evil that one could prevent is not to care whether it be committed or not, or is even to wish that it be committed.'

By no means. How many times do men permit evils which they could prevent if they turned all their efforts in that direction? But other more important cares prevent them from doing so. One will rarely resolve upon adjusting irregularities in the coinage while one is involved in a great war. And the action of an English Parliament in this direction a little before the Peace of Ryswyck will be rather praised than imitated. Can one conclude from this that the State has no anxiety about this irregularity, or even that it desires it? G.o.d has a far stronger reason, and one far more worthy of him, for tolerating evils. Not only does he derive from them greater goods, but he finds them connected with the greatest goods of all those that are possible: so that it would be a fault not to permit them.

128. XIII. 'It is a very great fault in those who govern, if they do not care whether there be disorder in their States or not. The fault is still greater if they wish and even desire disorder there. If by hidden and indirect, but infallible, ways they stirred up a sedition in their States to bring them to the brink of ruin, in order to gain for themselves the glory of showing that they have the courage and the prudence necessary for saving a great kingdom on the point of perishing, they would be most deserving of condemnation. But if they stirred up this sedition because there were no other means than that, of averting the total ruin of their subjects and of strengthening on new foundations, and for several centuries, the happiness of nations, one must needs lament the unfortunate necessity (see above, pp. 146, 147, what has been said of the force of[201]

necessity) to which they were reduced, and praise them for the use that they made thereof.'

This maxim, with divers others set forth here, is not applicable to the government of G.o.d. Not to mention the fact that it is only the disorders of a very small part of his kingdom which are brought up in objection, it is untrue that he has no anxiety about evils, that he desires them, that he brings them into being, to have the glory of allaying them. G.o.d wills order and good; but it happens sometimes that what is disorder in the part is order in the whole. I have already stated this legal axiom: _Incivile est nisi tota lege inspecta judicare_. The permission of evils comes from a kind of moral necessity: G.o.d is constrained to this by his wisdom and by his goodness; _this necessity is happy_, whereas that of the prince spoken of in the maxim is _unhappy_. His State is one of the most corrupt; and the government of G.o.d is the best State possible.

129. XIV. 'The permission of a certain evil is only excusable when one cannot remedy it without introducing a greater evil; but it cannot be excusable in those who have in hand a remedy more efficacious against this evil, and against all the other evils that could spring from the suppression of this one.'

The maxim is true, but it cannot be brought forward against the government of G.o.d. Supreme reason constrains him to permit the evil. If G.o.d chose what would not be the best absolutely and in all, that would be a greater evil than all the individual evils which he could prevent by this means. This wrong choice would destroy his wisdom and his goodness.

130. XV. 'The Being infinitely powerful, Creator of matter and of spirits, makes whatever he wills of this matter and these spirits. There is no situation or shape that he cannot communicate to spirits. If he then permitted a physical or a moral evil, this would not be for the reason that otherwise some other still greater physical or moral evil would be altogether inevitable. None of those reasons for the mixture of good and evil which are founded on the limitation of the forces of benefactors can apply to him.'

It is true that G.o.d makes of matter and of spirits whatever he wills; but he is like a good sculptor, who will make from his block of marble only that which he judges to be the best, and who judges well. G.o.d makes of matter the most excellent of all possible machines; he makes of spirits the most excellent of all governments conceivable; and over and above all that, he establishes for their union the most perfect of all harmonies, [202]

according to the system I have proposed. Now since physical evil and moral evil occur in this perfect work, one must conclude (contrary to M. Bayle's a.s.surance here) that _otherwise a still greater evil would have been altogether inevitable_. This great evil would be that G.o.d would have chosen ill if he had chosen otherwise than he has chosen. It is true that G.o.d is infinitely powerful; but his power is indeterminate, goodness and wisdom combined determine him to produce the best. M. Bayle makes elsewhere an objection which is peculiar to him, which he derives from the opinions of the modern Cartesians. They say that G.o.d could have given to souls what thoughts he would, without making them depend upon any relation to the body: by this means souls would be spared a great number of evils which only spring from derangement of the body. More will be said of this later; now it is sufficient to bear in mind that G.o.d cannot establish a system ill-connected and full of dissonances. It is to some extent the nature of souls to represent bodies.

131. XVI. 'One is just as much the cause of an event when one brings it about in moral ways, as when one brings it about in physical ways. A Minister of State, who, without going out of his study, and simply by utilizing the pa.s.sions of the leaders of a faction, overthrew all their plots, would thus be bringing about the ruin of this faction, no less than if he destroyed it by a surprise attack.'

I have nothing to say against this maxim. Evil is always attributed to moral causes, and not always to physical causes. Here I observe simply that if I could not prevent the sin of others except by committing a sin myself, I should be justified in permitting it, and I should not be accessary thereto, or its moral cause. In G.o.d, every fault would represent a sin; it would be even more than sin, for it would destroy Divinity. And it would be a great fault in him not to choose the best. I have said so many times. He would then prevent sin by something worse than all sins.

132. XVII. 'It is all the same whether one employ a necessary cause, or employ a free cause while choosing the moments when one knows it to be determined. If I imagine that gunpowder has the power to ignite or not to ignite when fire touches it, and if I know for certain that it will be disposed to ignite at eight o'clock in the morning, I shall be just as much the cause of its effects if I apply the fire to it at that hour, as I should be in a.s.suming, as is the case, that it is a necessary cause. [203]

For where I am concerned it would no longer be a free cause. I should be catching it at the moment when I knew it to be necessitated by its own choice. It is impossible for a being to be free or indifferent with regard to that to which it is already determined, and at the time when it is determined thereto. All that which exists exists of necessity while it exists. [Greek: To einai to on hotan ei, kai to me einai hotan me ei, ananke.] "Necesse est id quod est, quando est, esse; et id quod non est, quando non est, non esse": Arist., _De Interpret._, cap. 9. The Nominalists have adopted this maxim of Aristotle. Scotus and sundry other Schoolmen appear to reject it, but fundamentally their distinctions come to the same thing. See the Jesuits of Coimbra on this pa.s.sage from Aristotle, p. 380 _et seq._)'

This maxim may pa.s.s also; I would wish only to change something in the phraseology. I would not take 'free' and 'indifferent' for one and the same thing, and would not place 'free' and 'determined' in ant.i.thesis. One is never altogether indifferent with an indifference of equipoise; one is always more inclined and consequently more determined on one side than on another: but one is never necessitated to the choice that one makes. I mean here a _necessity_ absolute and metaphysical; for it must be admitted that G.o.d, that wisdom, is prompted to the best by a _moral_ necessity. It must be admitted also that one is necessitated to the choice by a hypothetical necessity, when one actually makes the choice; and even before one is necessitated thereto by the very truth of the futurition, since one will do it. These hypothetical necessities do no harm. I have spoken sufficiently on this point already.

133. XVIII. 'When a whole great people has become guilty of rebellion, it is not showing clemency to pardon the hundred thousandth part, and to kill all the rest, not excepting even babes and sucklings.'

It seems to be a.s.sumed here that there are a hundred thousand times more d.a.m.ned than saved, and that children dying unbaptized are included among the former. Both these points are disputed, and especially the d.a.m.nation of these children. I have spoken of this above. M. Bayle urges the same objection elsewhere (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 178, p. 1223): 'We see clearly', he says, 'that the Sovereign who wishes to exercise both justice and clemency when a city has revolted must be content with the punishment of a small number of mutineers, and [204]

pardon all the rest. For if the number of those who are chastised is as a thousand to one, in comparison with those whom he freely pardons, he cannot be accounted mild, but, on the contrary, cruel. He would a.s.suredly be accounted an abominable tyrant if he chose punishments of long duration, and if he eschewed bloodshed only because he was convinced that men would prefer death to a miserable life; and if, finally, the desire to take revenge were more responsible for his severities than the desire to turn to the service of the common weal the penalty that he would inflict on almost all the rebels. Criminals who are executed are considered to expiate their crimes so completely by the loss of their life, that the public requires nothing more, and is indignant when executioners are clumsy. These would be stoned if they were known deliberately to give repeated strokes of the axe; and the judges who are present at the execution would not be immune from danger if they were thought to take pleasure in this evil sport of the executioners, and to have surrept.i.tiously urged them to practise it.' (Note that this is not to be understood as strictly universal. There are cases where the people approve of the slow killing of certain criminals, as when Francis I thus put to death some persons accused of heresy after the notorious Placards of 1534. No pity was shown to Ravaillac, who was tortured in divers horrible ways. See the _French Mercury_, vol. I, fol.

m., 455 _et seq._ See also Pierre Matthieu in his _History of the Death of Henry IV_; and do not forget what he says on page m. 99 concerning the discussion by the judges with regard to the torture of this parricide.) 'Finally it is an exceptionally notorious fact that Rulers who should be guided by St. Paul, I mean who should condemn to the extreme penalty all those whom he condemns to eternal death, would be accounted enemies of the human kind and destroyers of their communities. It is incontestable that their laws, far from being fitted, in accordance with the aim of legislators, to uphold society, would be its complete ruin. (Apply here these words of Pliny the Younger, _Epist._, 22, lib. 8: Mandemus memoriae quod vir mitissimus, et ob hoc quoque maximus, Thrasea crebro dicere solebat, Qui vitia odit, homines odit.)' He adds that it was said of the laws of Draco, an Athenian lawgiver, that they had not been written with ink, but with blood, because they punished all sins with the extreme penalty, and because d.a.m.nation is a penalty even worse than death. But it must be borne in mind that d.a.m.nation is a consequence of sin. Thus I [205]

once answered a friend, who raised as an objection the disproportion existing between an eternal punishment and a limited crime, that there is no injustice when the continuation of the punishment is only a result of the continuation of the sin. I will speak further on this point later. As for the number of the d.a.m.ned, even though it should be incomparably greater among men than the number of the saved, that would not preclude the possibility that in the universe the happy creatures infinitely outnumber those who are unhappy. Such examples as that of a prince who punishes only the leaders of rebels or of a general who has a regiment decimated, are of no importance here. Self-interest compels the prince and the general to pardon the guilty, even though they should remain wicked. G.o.d only pardons those who become better: he can distinguish them; and this severity is more consistent with perfect justice. But if anyone asks why G.o.d gives not to all the grace of conversion, the question is of a different nature, having no relation to the present maxim. I have already answered it in a sense, not in order to find G.o.d's reasons, but to show that he cannot lack such, and that there are no opposing reasons of any validity. Moreover, we know that sometimes whole cities are destroyed and the inhabitants put to the sword, to inspire terror in the rest. That may serve to shorten a great war or a rebellion, and would mean a saving of blood through the shedding of it: there is no decimation there. We cannot a.s.sert, indeed, that the wicked of our globe are punished so severely in order to intimidate the inhabitants of the other globes and to make them better. Yet an abundance of reasons in the universal harmony which are unknown to us, because we know not sufficiently the extent of the city of G.o.d, nor the form of the general republic of spirits, nor even the whole architecture of bodies, may produce the same effect.

134. XIX. 'Those physicians who chose, among many remedies capable of curing a sick man, whereof divers were such as they well knew he would take with enjoyment, precisely that one which they knew he would refuse to take, would vainly urge and pray him not to refuse it; we should still have just cause for thinking that they had no desire to cure him: for if they wished to do so, they would choose for him among those good medicines one which they knew he would willingly swallow. If, moreover, they knew that rejection of the remedy they offered him would augment his sickness to[206]

the point of making it fatal, one could not help saying that, despite all their exhortations, they must certainly be desirous of the sick man's death.'

G.o.d wishes to save all men: that means that he would save them if men themselves did not prevent it, and did not refuse to receive his grace; and he is not bound or prompted by reason always to overcome their evil will.

He does so sometimes nevertheless, when superior reasons allow of it, and when his consequent and decretory will, which results from all his reasons, makes him resolve upon the election of a certain number of men. He gives aids to all for their conversion and for perseverance, and these aids suffice in those who have good will, but they do not always suffice to give good will. Men obtain this good will either through particular aids or through circ.u.mstances which cause the success of the general aids. G.o.d cannot refrain from offering other remedies which he knows men will reject, bringing upon themselves all the greater guilt: but shall one wish that G.o.d be unjust in order that man may be less criminal? Moreover, the grace that does not serve the one may serve the other, and indeed always serves the totality of G.o.d's plan, which is the best possible in conception. Shall G.o.d not give the rain, because there are low-lying places which will be thereby incommoded? Shall the sun not shine as much as it should for the world in general, because there are places which will be too much dried up in consequence? In short, all these comparisons, spoken of in these maxims that M. Bayle has just given, of a physician, a benefactor, a minister of State, a prince, are exceedingly lame, because it is well known what their duties are and what can and ought to be the object of their cares: they have scarce more than the one affair, and they often fail therein through negligence or malice. G.o.d's object has in it something infinite, his cares embrace the universe: what we know thereof is almost nothing, and we desire to gauge his wisdom and his goodness by our knowledge. What temerity, or rather what absurdity! The objections are on false a.s.sumptions; it is senseless to pa.s.s judgement on the point of law when one does not know the matter of fact. To say with St. Paul, _O alt.i.tudo divitiarum et sapientiae,_ is not renouncing reason, it is rather employing the reasons that we know, for they teach us that immensity of G.o.d whereof the Apostle speaks. But therein we confess our ignorance of the facts, and we acknowledge, moreover, before we see it, that G.o.d does all the best [207]

possible, in accordance with the infinite wisdom which guides his actions.

It is true that we have already before our eyes proofs and tests of this, when we see something entire, some whole complete in itself, and isolated, so to speak, among the works of G.o.d. Such a whole, shaped as it were by the hand of G.o.d, is a plant, an animal, a man. We cannot wonder enough at the beauty and the contrivance of its structure. But when we see some broken bone, some piece of animal's flesh, some sprig of a plant, there appears to be nothing but confusion, unless an excellent anatomist observe it: and even he would recognize nothing therein if he had not before seen like pieces attached to their whole. It is the same with the government of G.o.d: that which we have been able to see hitherto is not a large enough piece for recognition of the beauty and the order of the whole. Thus the very nature of things implies that this order in the Divine City, which we see not yet here on earth, should be an object of our faith, of our hope, of our confidence in G.o.d. If there are any who think otherwise, so much the worse for them, they are malcontents in the State of the greatest and the best of all monarchs; and they are wrong not to take advantage of the examples he has given them of his wisdom and his infinite goodness, whereby he reveals himself as being not only wonderful, but also worthy of love beyond all things.

135. I hope it will be found that nothing of what is comprised in the nineteen maxims of M. Bayle, which we have just considered, has been left without a necessary answer. It is likely that, having often before meditated on this subject, he will have put there all his strongest convictions touching the moral cause of moral evil. There are, however, still sundry pa.s.sages here and there in his works which it will be well not to pa.s.s over in silence. Very often he exaggerates the difficulty which he a.s.sumes with regard to freeing G.o.d from the imputation of sin. He observes _(Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 161, p. 1024) that Molina, if he reconciled free will with foreknowledge, did not reconcile the goodness and the holiness of G.o.d with sin. He praises the sincerity of those who bluntly declare (as he claims Piscator did) that everything is to be traced back to the will of G.o.d, and who maintain that G.o.d could not but be just, even though he were the author of sin, even though he condemned innocence. And on the other side, or in other pa.s.sages, he seems to show more approval of the opinions of those who preserve G.o.d's goodness at [208]

the expense of his greatness, as Plutarch does in his book against the Stoics. 'It was more reasonable', he says, 'to say' (with the Epicureans) 'that innumerable parts' (or atoms flying about at haphazard through an infinite s.p.a.ce) 'by their force prevailed over the weakness of Jupiter and, in spite of him and against his nature and will, did many bad and irrational things, than to agree that there is neither confusion nor wickedness but he is the author thereof.' What may be said for both these parties, Stoics and Epicureans, appears to have led M. Bayle to the [Greek: epechein] of the Pyrrhonians, the suspension of his judgement in respect of reason, so long as faith is set apart; and to that he professes sincere submission.

136. Pursuing his arguments, however, he has gone as far as attempting almost to revive and reinforce those of the disciples of Manes, a Persian heretic of the third century after Christ, or of a certain Paul, chief of the Manichaeans in Armenia in the seventh century, from whom they were named Paulicians. All these heretics renewed what an ancient philosopher of Upper Asia, known under the name of Zoroaster, had taught, so it is said, of two intelligent principles of all things, the one good, the other bad, a dogma that had perhaps come from the Indians. Among them numbers of people still cling to their error, one that is exceedingly p.r.o.ne to overtake human ignorance and superst.i.tion, since very many barbarous peoples, even in America, have been deluded by it, without having had need of philosophy.

The Slavs (according to Helmold) had their Zernebog or black G.o.d. The Greeks and Romans, wise as they seem to be, had a Vejovis or Anti-Jupiter, otherwise called Pluto, and numerous other maleficent divinities. The G.o.ddess Nemesis took pleasure in abasing those who were too fortunate; and Herodotus in some pa.s.sages hints at his belief that all Divinity is envious; which, however, is not in harmony with the doctrine of the two principles.

137. Plutarch, in his treatise _On Isis and Osiris_, knows of no writer more ancient than Zoroaster the magician, as he calls him, that is likely to have taught the two principles. Trogus or Justin makes him a King of the Bactrians, who was conquered by Ninus or Semiramis; he attributes to him the knowledge of astronomy and the invention of magic. But this magic was apparently the religion of the fire-worshippers: and it appears that he looked upon light and heat as the good principle, while he added the [209]

evil, that is to say, opacity, darkness, cold. Pliny cites the testimony of a certain Hermippus, an interpreter of Zoroaster's books, according to whom Zoroaster was a disciple in the art of magic to one named Azonacus; unless indeed this be a corruption of Oromases, of whom I shall speak presently, and whom Plato in the _Alcibiades_ names as the father of Zoroaster. Modern Orientals give the name Zerdust to him whom the Greeks named Zoroaster; he is regarded as corresponding to Mercury, because with some nations Wednesday _(mercredi)_ takes its name from him. It is difficult to disentangle the story of Zoroaster and know exactly when he lived. Suidas puts him five hundred years before the taking of Troy. Some Ancients cited by Pliny and Plutarch took it to be ten times as far back. But Xanthus the Lydian (in the preface to Diogenes Laertius) put him only six hundred years before the expedition of Xerxes. Plato declares in the same pa.s.sage, as M.

Bayle observes, that the magic of Zoroaster was nothing but the study of religion. Mr. Hyde in his book on the religion of the ancient Persians tries to justify this magic, and to clear it not only of the crime of impiety but also of idolatry. Fire-worship prevailed among the Persians and the Chaldaeans also; it is thought that Abraham left it when he departed from Ur of the Chaldees. Mithras was the sun and he was also the G.o.d of the Persians; and according to Ovid's account horses were offered in sacrifice to him,

_Placat equo Persis radiis Hyperiona cinctum,_ _Ne detur celeri victima tarda Deo._

But Mr. Hyde believes that they only made use of the sun and fire in their worship as symbols of the Divinity. It may be necessary to distinguish, as elsewhere, between the Wise and the Mult.i.tude. There are in the splendid ruins of Persepolis or of Tschelminaar (which means forty columns) sculptured representations of their ceremonies. An amba.s.sador of Holland had had them sketched at very great cost by a painter, who had devoted a considerable time to the task: but by some chance or other these sketches fell into the hands of a well-known traveller, M. Chardin, according to what he tells us himself. It would be a pity if they were lost. These ruins are one of the most ancient and most beautiful monuments of the earth; and in this respect I wonder at such lack of curiosity in a century so curious as ours.

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138. The ancient Greeks and the modern Orientals agree in saying that Zoroaster called the good G.o.d Oromazes, or rather Oromasdes, and the evil G.o.d Arimanius. When I pondered on the fact that great princes of Upper Asia had the name of Hormisdas and that Irminius or Herminius was the name of a G.o.d or ancient hero of the Scythian Celts, that is, of the Germani, it occurred to me that this Arimanius or Irminius might have been a great conqueror of very ancient time coming from the west, just as Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine were later, coming from the east. Arimanius would therefore have come from the north-west, that is, from Germania and Sarmatia, through the territory of the Alani and Ma.s.sagetae, to raid the dominions of one Ormisdas, a great king in Upper Asia, just as other Scythians did in the days of Cyaxares, King of the Medes, according to the account given by Herodotus. The monarch governing civilized peoples, and working to defend them against the barbarians, would have gone down to posterity, amongst the same peoples, as the good G.o.d; but the chief of these devastators will have become the symbol of the evil principle: that is altogether reasonable. It appears from this same mythology that these two princes contended for long, but that neither of them was victorious. Thus they both held their own, just as the two principles shared the empire of the world according to the hypothesis attributed to Zoroaster.

139. It remains to be proved that an ancient G.o.d or hero of the Germani was called Herman, Arimanius or Irminius. Tacitus relates that the three tribes which composed Germania, the Ingaevones, the Istaevones and the Herminones or Hermiones, were thus named from the three sons of Mannus. Whether that be true or not, he wished in any case to indicate that there was a hero named Herminius, from whom he was told the Herminones were named.

Herminones, Hermenner, Hermunduri all mean the same, that is, Soldiers.

Even in the Dark Ages Arimanni were _viri militares,_ and there is _feudum Arimandiae_ in Lombard law.

140. I have shown elsewhere that apparently the name of one part of Germania was given to the whole, and that from these Herminones or Hermunduri all the Teutonic peoples were named _Hermanni_ or _Germani_. The difference between these two words is only in the force of the aspiration: there is the same difference of initial letter between the _Germani_ of the Latins and _Hermanos_ of the Spaniards, or in the _Gammarus_ of the Latins and the _Hummer_ (that is, marine crayfish) of the Low Germans. [211]

Besides it is very usual for one part of a nation to give the name to the whole: so all the Germani were called Alemanni by the French, and yet this, according to the old nomenclature, only applied to the Suabians and the Swiss. Although Tacitus did not actually know the origin of the name of the Germani, he said something which supports my opinion, when he observed that it was a name which inspired terror, taken or given _ob metum_. In fact it signifies a warrior: _Heer_, _Hari_ is army, whence comes _Hariban_, or 'call to Haro', that is, a general order to be with the army, since corrupted into _Arriereban_. Thus Hariman or Ariman, German _Guerre-man_, is a soldier. For as _Hari_, _Heer_ means army, so _Wehr_ signifies arms, _Wehren_ to fight, to make war, the word _Guerre_, _Guerra_ coming doubtless from the same source. I have already spoken of the _feudum Arimandiae_: not only did Herminones or Germani signify the same, but also that ancient Herman, so-called son of Mannus, appears to have been given this name as being pre-eminently a warrior.

141. Now it is not the pa.s.sage in Tacitus only which indicates for us this G.o.d or hero: we cannot doubt the existence of one of this name among these peoples, since Charlemagne found and destroyed near the Weser the column called _Irminsaule_, erected in honour of this G.o.d. And that combined with the pa.s.sage in Tacitus leaves us with the conclusion that it was not that famous Arminius who was an enemy of the Romans, but a much greater and more ancient hero, that this cult concerned. Arminius bore the same name as those who are called Hermann to-day. Arminius was not great enough, nor fortunate enough, nor well enough known throughout Germania to attain to the honour of a public cult, even at the hands of remote tribes, like the Saxons, who came long after him into the country of the Cherusci. And our Arminius, taken by the Asiatics for the evil G.o.d, provides ample confirmation of my opinion. For in these matters conjectures confirm one another without any logical circle, when their foundations tend towards one and the same end.

142. It is not beyond belief that the Hermes (that is, Mercury) of the Greeks is the same Herminius or Arimanius. He may have been an inventor or promoter of the arts and of a slightly more civilized life among his own people and in the countries where he held supremacy, while amongst his enemies he was looked upon as the author of confusion. Who knows but that he may have penetrated even into Egypt, like the Scythians who in [212]

pursuit of Sesostris came nearly so far. Theut, Menes and Hermes were known and revered in Egypt. They might have been Tuiscon, his son Mannus and Herman, son of Mannus, according to the genealogy of Tacitus. Menes is held to be the most ancient king of the Egyptians; 'Theut' was with them a name for Mercury. At least Theut or Tuiscon, from whom Tacitus derives the descent of the Germani, and from whom the Teutons, _Tuitsche_ (that is, Germani) even to-day have their name, is the same as that _Teutates_ who according to Lucan was worshipped by the Gauls, and whom Caesar took _pro Dite Patre_, for Pluto, because of the resemblance between his Latin name and that of _Teut_ or _Thiet_, _t.i.tan_, _Theodon_; this in ancient times signified men, people, and also an excellent man (like the word 'baron'), in short, a prince. There are authorities for all these significations: but one must not delay over this point. Herr Otto Sperling, who is well known for various learned writings, but has many more in readiness to appear, in a special dissertation has treated the question of this Teutates, G.o.d of the Celts. Some observations which I imparted to him on that subject have been published, with his reply, in the _Literary News of the Baltic Sea_.

He interprets this pa.s.sage from Lucan somewhat otherwise than I do:

_Teutates, pollensque feris altaribus Hesus,_ _Et Tamaris Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae._

Hesus was, it appears, the G.o.d of War, who was called Ares by the Greeks and Erich by the ancient Germani, whence still remains _Erichtag_, Tuesday.

The letters R and S, which are produced by the same organ, are easily interchanged, for instance: _Moor_ and _Moos_, _Geren_ and _Gesen_, _Er war_ and _Er was_, _Fer_, _Hierro_, _Eiron_, _Eisen_. Likewise _Papisius_, _Valesius_, _Fusius_, instead of _Papirius_, _Valerius_, _Furius_, with the ancient Romans. As for Taramis or perhaps Taranis, one knows that _Taran_ was the thunder, or the G.o.d of Thunder, with the ancient Celts, called _Thor_ by the Germani of the north; whence the English have preserved the name 'Thursday', _jeudi_, _diem Jovis_. And the pa.s.sage from Lucan means that the altar of Taran, G.o.d of the Celts, was not less cruel than that of Diana in Tauris: _Taranis aram non mitiorem ara Dianae Scythicae fuisse_.