ON MATTERS OF BELIEF. 53 



ing (temoniftic religion ; Pythagoras and Plato efpe- 

 cially feem adapted to ferve as a balls to thefe prieftly 

 arts. The pythagorean and platonic fyflems, particu- 

 larly the more foul and turbid they grew, were always 

 moft favoured by the priefte. The epicurean, on the 

 Other hand, which indeed in externals prudently con- 

 formed to the popular religion, but was the declared 

 s -enemy of all kinds of religious impofhire, all magic 

 and dealings with ghofb, all new oracles, all Superna- 

 tural arts and operations, remained as long as it lafled, 

 the utter deteftation of the facerdotal order, and by 

 them was rendered fo obnoxious to the people, that all 

 their . attempts againfc fuperltition, in the whole, and 

 in procefs of time, were able to ehxcl: but very little. 



The remarkable epocha of Alexander the Great, 

 when the principal part of Alia at that time known, as 

 well as iEgypt, was in Cubjeclion to grecian princes, 

 and the language, _ arts, fciences, religion, and manners 

 of the Greeks were fpread throughout the provinces 

 which had formerly owned the fovereignty of the perr 

 lian fceptre, became important by a natural confe- 

 quence of that commixture which neceflarily took 

 place by infenfible degrees between the Greeks and 

 Aiiatics, the Syrians, Medes, ^Egyptians, &c. as liker 

 wife by the influence of this mixture on the general 

 way of thinking and the fpirit of the times. The phi- 

 losophy of the Greeks gradually degenerated in thefe 

 countries, and was loit at length in the oriental magifm 

 or dsemonomania. Alexandria became the fchool of a 

 new philofophy, in which the molt incongruous ideas and 

 opinions were brought together, for fupporting all the 



% 3 poffibls 



