452 DR DONALDSON ON THE EXPIATORY AND SUBSTITUTIONARY 
foreign worships became fashionable, Eastern and Western ideas blended in a 
strange manner, the great pagan writers strove after a pure paganism, and the 
great masses of the people were devoted to the most abject and contemptible 
superstitions. I must also notice that it was a period when scandalous stories 
of every kind received ready credence, and especially that it was a common 
belief that Christians feasted on the blood and bodies of infants, and indulged 
in promiscuous intercourse. 
1. This period furnishes us with incontestable proof that the mass of pagans 
believed that the gods devoured the fumes from the victims of sacrifice, and 
delighted in them. There is a treatise on sacrifices ascribed to Lucian, but 
which in all probability was written at a later date, and by a Christian. This 
treatise presents us with the common opinions, and is a satire upon them. 
The writer expresses his doubts whether “ we ought to call these people pious, 
or, on the contrary, enemies to the gods, who have formed such a low and base 
conception of the Divine Being as to believe that he stands in need of men,* 
and delights in being flattered by them, and is vexed at being neglected.” Is 
it really possible, he argues, that all the calamities that happened in connection 
with Meleager and the Calydonian boar could have occurred because Artemis 
was left out of a feast alone of all the gods? People who believe these stories, 
he affirms, represent the gods as selling goods to men, health for a little ox, 
wealth for four oxen, a kingdom for a hecatomb, and the voyage from Aulis to 
Ilium for a royal maiden. After banter of this kind, the writer proposes an 
ascent into heaven, and there he finds the gods looking down to earth with out- 
stretched necks to see “if they can observe a fire being lighted, or the odour of 
the fat borne aloft rolling up in smoke ; and if any one sacrifices, they all feast, 
gaping over the smoke, and drinking the blood that is poured round the altars 
like flies ; but if they take their food at home, they sup on nectar and ambrosia.” 
The reference to the blood in this passage is peculiar, and is no doubt con- 
nected with the changed ideas which now began to prevail among cultivated 
heathens as to the nature of the gods. A deep spirit of piety arose in the 
second century, combined with an earnest moral feeling. The common mytho- 
logical tales proved in this state of mind a great obstacle, and a way out of the 
difficulty must be found. It was found in the demonic theory. This theory, 
which Plutarch says was held by Pythagoras, Xenocrates, and the old theo- 
logians,t is explained in the Symposium of Plato, and expounded in the Isis and 
Osiris of Plutarch. According to this theory, the so-called gods of the Greeks 
were not the true gods, but beings of extraordinary power, not necessarily good 
* This mode of speaking is eminently characteristic of the Christian writers. “ But we must not 
bribe,” says Tatian, ‘“ the ineffable God; for he who needs nothing, must not be misrepresented by us 
as being needy.” The same word évdens occurs in both. (Tatian, Orat. ad Grecos, ce. 4.) “ Worship- 
ping God who needs not (avevde7) blood and libations and incense” (Justin Martyr, Apol.i.13). See 
also Acts xvii. 25. + Isis and Osiris, 25. 


