79 



SECTION III. 



Morals and Religion. 



To determine the very early history of rehgion in Ireland, it 

 might be necessary to ascertain the state of human faith, in which the 

 alleged Scythian colony left the mother country; the inquiry, however, 

 would be here unwarranted, and it is only necessary to state, that pre- 

 vious to the birth of our Saviour, there seems to have been some im- 

 portation of what is called the classic polytheism into the island, which 

 possibly continued till some time after the Christian era. Foreign tes- 

 timony not only goes to the fact of such its existence, but also to its 

 having been so imported by the Phoenicians, for Strabo cites Artemi- 

 dorus, (a geographer who flourished about 100 years before the Chris- 

 tian era,) as saying, "that there is an island near Britain, where sacri- 

 fices were offered to Ceres and Proserpine, just as is the custom in the 

 isle of Samothrace."* And the geographer there expressly premi- 

 ses that this account is more probable than most others from the same 

 source; (" Ilepi dt rrig Ar]ixr]T()0£ kqi rrjg Koptjg iriaTOTepa, on (}>r](np 

 eipai. Sec") while Bochart also considers, that the inhabitants of Ire- 

 land received this mode of worship from the Phoenicians. " Therefore it 

 is to be concluded, that the same Phoenicians, from whom the Samo- 

 thraces received the religion of the Cabiri, must likewise have in- 

 structed the Irish in the same doctrine. "-f- 



♦ " <I>)J<ri» iltcti iHTDt TT^Cf TU B{[TT«KXn, «««'»» Ofitia TOIf f> "^Xftoi^XXtl TTl^i T>!» A)|^U«i»» 



K«i T>i» K»5D» u^trtturxi." — Strabo. Geog. lib. 4. p. 277. Falcon edition. 



t "Itaque superest ut iidem Phoenices, a quibus Cabirorum cultum Samothracesedidice- 

 rant, etiam hos instituerint in eadem disciplina." — Boch. Geog. Sacr. p. 2. 1. 1 . c. 39. 



