776 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



human victims were occasionally sacrificed to Zeus ; and the 

 Iliad tacitly ascribes to the Greek gods natures lower than 

 it ascribes to men: lying, treachery, blood-thirstiness, 

 adultery, are without palliation attributed to them. The 

 fact that they took part in the battles of the men with whom 

 they respectively sided, reminds us of the Assyrians, among 

 whom also direct divine aid in fighting was alleged. Says 

 an inscription of Esarhaddon : 



&quot; Ishtar queen of war and battle, who loves my piety, stood by my 

 side. She broke their bows. Their line of battle in her rage she de 

 stroyed. To their army she spoke thus : * An unsparing deity am I. &quot; 



And kindred traits are directly or tacitly ascribed to the 

 primitive Hebrew god. I do not refer only to sacrifices of 

 human victims, or to such phrases as &quot; the Lord is a man of 

 war,&quot; and &quot; God himself is with us for our captain &quot; (2 Chron. 

 xiii, 12); but I refer more particularly to the indiscriminate 

 slaughter said to be ordered by God, and to the fact that a 

 religious war is assumed to be naturally a bloody war: 

 instance the statement in 1 Chron. v, 22 &quot; there fell down 

 many slain, because the war was of God.&quot; All which divine 

 traits, attributed by early historic peoples as well as by 

 existing barbarians, are accounted for when we remember 

 that mythologies, which habitually describe battles among 

 the gods for supremacy, are but transfigured accounts of 

 struggles among primitive rulers, in which the stronger, more 

 blood-thirsty, and more unscrupulous, usually prevailed. 



Fully to understand the original connexion between 

 military deeds and religious duties, we must recollect that 

 when gods are not supposed to be active participators in 

 the battles commanded or countenanced by them, they are 

 supposed to be present in representative idols, or in certain 

 equivalents for idols. Everywhere we find parallels to 

 the statement made by Cook, that the Sandwich Islanders 

 carry their war-gods with them to battle. Among the 

 ancient Mexicans when meeting a foe, &quot; the priests with 

 their idols marched in the front.&quot; Certain of the Yucatan esa 



