328 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK IV. which with the very tree, still flourishes in that university. But of 

 '"-"'"^f'^^ these enough, and perhaps too much. 



Cyril. Alex- Wc shall now, in the next place, endeavour to shew how this innocent 

 J3. Deur'xiv! veneration for groves passed from the people of God to the Gentiles, and 

 4. 8 Reg. S.VI. ^^Yiat degrees it degenerated into dangerous superstitions : for the 

 MeichiorA- dcvil was always God's ape, and did so ply his groves, altars, and sacri- 

 E^i"^ "ap! fices, and alrhost all other rites belonging to his worship, that every green 

 ccxxxiv. ^^^g of his abominations, and numerous places were devoted 



to his impure service : Hcsc fuere (says Pliny, speaking of groves) 

 numinum templa, &c. " These were of old the temples of the gods ; 

 " and (after that simple, but ancient custom) men at this day consecrate 

 " the fairest and goodliest trees to some deity or other ; nor do we more 

 " adore our glittering shrines of gold and ivory than the groves in which, 

 " with a profound and awful silence, we worship them." Quintilian, 

 speaking of the veneration paid an old umbrageous Oak, adds. In quihus 

 grandia, et antiqua rohora jam noii tantam haheiit speciem, quantum reli- 

 Mariana in oionem : foY, in trutli, the very tree itself was sometimes deified, and that 



3. Paralip. O ' ' J 



xxviii. 4. Celtic statue of Jupiter was no better than a prodigious tall Oak, whence, 

 it is said, the Chaldean theologues derived their superstition towards it ; 

 and the Persians, we read, used that tree in all their mysterious rites. 

 And, as for wood in general, they paid it that veneration for its main- 

 taining their deity, (represented by their perennial fire,) that they would 

 not suffer any sort of wood to be used for coffins to inclose the dead in, 

 (but wrapt them in plates of iron,) counting it a profanation. In short, 

 so much were people given up to this devilish and unnatural blindness, 

 as to offer human sacrifices, not to the tree-gods only, but to the trees 

 themselves as real gods. 



Omnis et humanis lustrata cruoribus arbos. lucan. 

 Each tree besprinkled was with human gore. 



Procopius teUs us plainly, that the Sclavii worshipped trees and whole 

 forests of them : see Jo. Dubravius, lib. i. Hist. Bohem. And that for- 

 merly the Gandenses did the like, Surius, the legendary, reports in the 

 life of St. Amadus ; so did the Vandals, says Albert Crantz ; and e\en 

 those of Peru, as I learn from Acosta, lib. v. cap. xi. But one of the first 

 idols which procured particular veneration in them, was the Sidonian 



