36 



rtolemics probably adopted many of the Greek fables and 

 superstitious. 



As Herodotus, Lib. 2, § 53, ascribes the earliest Greek 

 tlicogony to Homer and Hesiod, many have thought that 

 ihey were the fabricators of it. Certainly the expression of 

 Herodotus is ambiguous, as the term ne..,, signifies either to 

 J'abricate, or to compose in verse ; it is in this last sense I 

 think Herodotus should be understood, for, as ]\Ir. Beloc 

 justly remarks, " it were as unreasonable to imagine that 

 " PJomer was the, first author of tUeir mythology, as it would 

 '* be to think Homer first taught them to read and write." 

 Nay, Herodotus himself frequently acknowledges that the 

 Gods of Greece were of foreign origin, Lib. 2, § 43, 

 50, 52. 



The introduction of Polytheism into Greece must then 

 be attributed solely to the Phenicians, who not only visited 

 it as traders, but settled a colony there in a very early age. 

 Pride wovild not suffer the Greek historians to own that they 

 ■were indebted for any part of their institutions to a people 

 so inconsiderable as the Phenicians Avere long thought to 

 be, in every other respect than as skilful merchants and 

 navigators. On the other hand it was rather creditable to 

 the Greeks to have received their religious knowledge from 

 the Egyptians, who, in the remotest age, as that of Cecrops 

 and Moses, and long after, were esteemed the wisest, most 

 civilized, and powerful people then known ; and hence, 



according 



