74:0 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



priesthoods, though quite normal as we here see, appears to 

 many persons anomalous. Carrying back modern ideas 

 to the interpretation of ancient usages, writers comment on 

 the &quot; tolerance &quot; shown by the Eomans in leaving intact the 

 religions of the peoples conquered by them. But considered 

 from their point of view instead of from our point of view, 

 this treatment of local gods and their priests was quite 

 natural. If everywhere, from ancestor-worship as the root, 

 there grow up worships of known founders of tribes and 

 traditional progenitors of entire local races, it follows that 

 conquerors will, as a matter of course, recognize the local 

 worships of the conquered while bringing in their own. The 

 corollary from the universally-accepted belief is that the gods 

 of the vanquished are just as real as those of the victors. 



Sundry interpretations are yielded. Habitually in the 

 ancient world, conquerors and settlers took measures to pro 

 pitiate the local gods. All they heard about them fostered 

 the belief that they were powerful in their respective 

 localities, and might be mischievous if not prayed to or 

 thanked. Hence, probably, the fact that the Egyptian Nekos 

 sacrificed to Apollo on the occasion of his victory over 

 Josiah, king of Judah. Hence, to take a case from a remote 

 region, the fact that the Peruvian Yncas, themselves Sun- 

 worshippers, nevertheless provided sacrifices for the various 

 liuacas of the conquered peoples, &quot; because it was feared 

 that if any were omitted they would be enraged and would 

 punish the Ynca.&quot; 



Co-existence of different cults is in some cases maintained 

 by the belief that while the allegiance of each man to his 

 particular deity or deities is obligatory, he is not required, cr 

 not permitted, to worship the deities belonging to fellow- 

 citizens of different origin. Thus in early times in Greece, 

 &quot; by the combination of various forms of religious worship 

 Athens had become the capital, and Attica one united whole. 

 But . . . Apollo still remained a god of the nobility, and 

 his religion a wall of separation. . . According to the 



