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First, we have a number of deities of the first rank, housed in temples, embodied in statues, and recognised in all the Roman world; next a number of minor divinities whose operations and worship may be remotely rural or otherwise local, and whose functions are by no means always distinguishable from those of the greater gods; then a series of more or less unintelligible ceremonials carried out by ancient rule in honour of divinities often practically forgotten; outside these a number of vague powers presiding over small domestic and other actions; finally, a peculiar Roman tendency in keeping with the last to erect into divinities, and to symbolise in statue housed in temples, all manner of abstract qualities and states, such as Hope, Harmony, Peace, Wealth, Health, Fame, and Youth.
Touching the Gods of the Heathen, most reverend Father, thou art not ignorant that even now, as in the time of thy probation on earth, there is great dissension. That these feigned Deities and idols, the work of men's hands, are no longer worshipped thou knowest; neither do men eat meat offered to idols.
Such illegitimate mixing up of deities was accordant with the very essence of polytheism, and repugnant to that of the true worship of God. The one may be tolerant, the other cannot be. To unite Baal with Jehovah was to forsake Jehovah.
They will not punish with any less severity when people sin against them from ignorance, and without the chance of having had knowledge; they will take no excuses of this kind, but are even as the English law, which assumes itself to be known to every one. Moreover, they hold their deities to be quite regardless of motives.
O thou best and foremost of all Deities, thou must slay us at a spot that is absolutely uncovered. And, O thou of excellent eyes, we also desire to become thy sons. This is the boon that we desire, know then, O chief of the gods! Let not that O Deity, be false which thou hadst at first promised to us. The Holy One then replied unto them saying, 'Yes, I will do as ye desire.
A people worshiped its own god, because it regarded him as its master and protecting lord. In fact, according to the views then prevalent, a conflict between two nations was the conflict between two national deities.
The admiral's envoys returned to the port on the 6th of November, after a four days' absence. Two days had sufficed to bring them to a village composed of about fifty huts, where they were received with every mark of respect; the natives kissing their feet and hands, and taking them for deities descended from the skies.
The origin of such deities is involved in the obscurity of the remote past, but they are, each in his community, universal powers; their functions embrace all that their communities desire, and they represent each the total life of a people. It is the general rule that any popular custom may be introduced into the cult of the local god; of such sort of procedure there are many examples.
Ire, again, is regarded to be a child of Envy. Cupidity is the child of Deceit. Indeed, O Yudhishthira, he beheld the high-souled Manibhadra of great effulgence stationed in the midst of the deities, employed in giving his orders. There the gods seemed to be engaged in bestowing kingdoms and riches upon men, induced by their good deeds, and in taking them away when men fell off from goodness.
When the address is made to any of the superior and beneficent deities for assistance, and the priest directs an offering of a horse, cow, dog, hog, or fowl, care must be taken that the animal to be sacrificed is entirely white. They have also a vague and confused idea of the immortality of the human soul, and of a future state of happiness or misery.
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