in the plural, is used of the false deities of the Heathens, many
of which were only creatures to whom divine honours and worship were
superstitiously paid. The Greeks and Latins, it is observable, did not
mean, by the name _God_, an all-perfect being, whereof eternity,
infinity, omnipresence, &c, were essential attributes: with them the
word only implied an excellent and superior nature; and, accordingly,
they give the appellation _gods_ to all beings of a rank or class,
higher or more perfect than that of men, and especially to those who
were inferior agents in the divine administration, all subject to the
one Supreme. Thus men themselves, according to their system, might
become gods after death, inasmuch as their souls might attain to a
degree of excellence superior to what they were capable of in life. The
first idols, or false gods, that are said to have been adored were the
stars, sun, moon, &c, on account of the light, heat, and other benefits
which we derive from them. (See _Idolatry_.) Afterward the earth came to
be deified, for furnishing fruits necessary for the subsistence of men
and animals: then fire and water became objects of divine worship, for
their usefulness to human life. In process of time, and by degrees, gods
became multiplied to infinity; and there was scarce any thing but the
weakness or caprice of some devotee or other, elevated into the rank of
deity: things useless or even destructive not excepted. The principal of
the ancient gods, whom the Romans called _dii majorum gentium_, and
Cicero celestial gods, Varro select gods, Ovid _nobiles deos_, others
_consentes deos_, were Jupiter, Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana,
Venus, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Vulcan, and Apollo. Jupiter is considered
as the god of heaven; Neptune, as god of the sea; Mars, as the god of
war; Apollo, of eloquence, poetry, and physic; Mercury, of thieves;
Bacchus, of wine; Cupid, of love, &c. A second sort of gods, called
demi-gods, _semi-dii_, _dii minorum gentium_, _indigetes_, or gods
adopted, were men canonized and deified. As the greater gods had
possession of heaven by their own right, these secondary deities had it
by merit and donation, being translated into heaven because they had
lived as gods upon earth.
2. The Heathen gods may be all reduced to the following classes: (1.)
Created spirits, angels, or demons, whence good and evil gods; Genii,
Lares, Lemures, Typhones, guardian gods, infernal gods, &c. (2.)
Heavenly bodies; as, the sun, moon, and other planets; also, the fixed
stars, constellations, &c. (3.) Elements; as air, earth, ocean, Ops,
Vesta; the rivers, fountains, &c. (4.) Meteors. Thus the Persians adored
the wind: thunder and lightning were honoured under the name of Geryon;
and several nations of India and America have made themselves gods of
the same. Castor, Pollux, Helena, and Iris, have also been preferred
from meteors to be gods; and the like has been practised in regard to
comets: witness that which appeared at the murder of Cæsar. (5.) They
erected minerals or fossils into deities. Such was the Bætylus. The
Finlanders adored stones; the Scythians, iron; and many nations, silver
and gold. (6.) Plants have been made gods. Thus leeks and onions were
deities in Egypt; the Sclavi, Lithuanians, Celtæ, Vandals, and
Peruvians, adored trees and forests; the ancient Gauls, Britons, and
Druids, paid a particular devotion to the oak; and it was no other than
wheat, corn, seed, &c, that the ancients adored under the names of Ceres
and Proserpina. (7.) They took themselves gods from among the waters.
The Syrians and Egyptians adored fishes; and what were the Tritons, the
Nereids, Syrens, &c, but fishes? Several nations have adored serpents;
particularly the Egyptians, Prussians, Lithuanians, Samogitians, &c.
(8.) Insects, as flies and ants, had their priests and votaries. (9.)
Among birds, the stork, raven, sparrowhawk, ibis, eagle, grisson, and
lapwing have had divine honours; the last in Mexico, the rest in Egypt
and at Thebes. (10.) Four-footed beasts have had their altars; as the
bull, dog, cat, wolf, baboon, lion, and crocodile, in Egypt and
elsewhere; the hog in the island of Crete; rats and mice in the Troas,
and at Tenedos; weasels at Thebes; and the porcupine throughout all
Zoroaster’s school. (11.) Nothing was more common than to place men
among the number of deities; and from Belus or Baal, to the Roman
emperors before Constantine, the instances of this kind are innumerable:
frequently they did not wait so long as their deaths for the apotheosis.
Nebuchadnezzar procured his statue to be worshipped while living; and
Virgil shows that Augustus had altars and sacrifices offered to him; as
we learn from other hands that he had priests called _Augustales_, and
temples at Lyons, Narbona, and several other places, and he must be
allowed the first of the Romans in whose behalf idolatry was carried to
such a pitch. The Ethiopians deemed all their kings gods: the Velleda of
the Germans, the Janus of the Hungarians, and the Thaut, Woden, and Assa
of the northern nations, were indisputably men. (12.) Not men only, but
every thing that relates to man, has also been deified; as labour, rest,
sleep, youth, age, death, virtues, vices, occasion, time, place,
numbers, among the Pythagoreans; the generative power, under the name of
Priapus. Infancy alone had a cloud of deities; as, Vagetanus, Levana,
Rumina, Edufa, Potina, Cuba, Cumina, Carna, Ossilago, Statulinus,
Fabulinus, &c. They also adored the gods Health, Fever, Fear, Love,
Pain, Indignation, Shame, Impudence, Opinion, Renown, Prudence, Science,
Art, Fidelity, Felicity, Calumny, Liberty, Money, War, Peace, Victory,
Triumph, &c. Lastly, Nature, the universe, or τὸ ϖὰν, was reputed a
great god.
3. Hesiod has a poem under the title of Θεογονία, that is, “The
Generation of the Gods,” in which he explains their genealogy and
descent, sets forth who was the first and principal, who next descended
from him, and what issue each had: the whole making a sort of system of
Heathen theology. Beside this popular theology, each philosopher had his
system, as may be seen from the “Timæus” of Plato, and Cicero “_De
Natura Deorum_.” Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix,
Lactantius, Eusebius, St. Augustine, and Theodoret, show the vanity of
the Heathen gods. It is very difficult to discover the real sentiments
of the Heathens with respect to their gods: they are exceedingly
intricate and confused, and even frequently contradictory. They admitted
so many superior and inferior gods, who shared the empire, that every
place was full of gods. Varro reckons up no less than thirty thousand
adored within a small extent of ground, and yet their number was every
day increasing. In modern oriental Paganism they amount to many
millions, and are, in fact, innumerable.
4. The name of God, in Hebrew, _Elohim_, is very ambiguous in Scripture.
The true God is often called so, as are sometimes angels, judges, and
princes, and sometimes idols and false gods; for example: “God created
the heaven and the earth,” Gen. i, 1. The Hebrew _Elohim_ denotes, in
this place, the true God. “He who sacrificeth unto any god, (_Elohim_,)
shall be put to death,” Exodus xxii, 20. And again: “Among the gods
there is none like unto thee,” Psalm lxxxvi, 8. Princes, magistrates,
and great men are called gods in the following passages: “If a slave is
desirous to continue with his master, he shall be brought to the
judges,” Exod. xxi, 6, in the original, to the _gods_. Again: “If the
thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto
the judges,” Exod. xxii, 8, in the original, to the gods; and in the
twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter, “Thou shalt not speak evil of
the gods;” that is, of the judges or great men. The Psalmist says that
the Lord “judgeth among the gods,” Psalm lxxxii, 1. And again, God says
to Moses, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,” Exod. vii, 1. The pious
Israelites had so great an aversion and such an extreme contempt for
strange gods, that they scorned even to mention them; they disguised and
disfigured their names by substituting in the room of them some term of
contempt; for example, instead of _Elohim_, they called them _Elilim_,
“nothings, gods of no value;” instead of _Mephibaal_, _Meribaal_, and
_Jerubaal_, they said “Mephibosheth, Meribosheth, and Jeribosheth.”
_Baal_ signifies master, husband; and _bosheth_, something to be ashamed
of, something apt to put one in confusion. God forbade the Israelites to
swear by strange gods, and to pronounce the names of them in their
oaths, Exod. xxiii, 13.
of which were only creatures to whom divine honours and worship were
superstitiously paid. The Greeks and Latins, it is observable, did not
mean, by the name _God_, an all-perfect being, whereof eternity,
infinity, omnipresence, &c, were essential attributes: with them the
word only implied an excellent and superior nature; and, accordingly,
they give the appellation _gods_ to all beings of a rank or class,
higher or more perfect than that of men, and especially to those who
were inferior agents in the divine administration, all subject to the
one Supreme. Thus men themselves, according to their system, might
become gods after death, inasmuch as their souls might attain to a
degree of excellence superior to what they were capable of in life. The
first idols, or false gods, that are said to have been adored were the
stars, sun, moon, &c, on account of the light, heat, and other benefits
which we derive from them. (See _Idolatry_.) Afterward the earth came to
be deified, for furnishing fruits necessary for the subsistence of men
and animals: then fire and water became objects of divine worship, for
their usefulness to human life. In process of time, and by degrees, gods
became multiplied to infinity; and there was scarce any thing but the
weakness or caprice of some devotee or other, elevated into the rank of
deity: things useless or even destructive not excepted. The principal of
the ancient gods, whom the Romans called _dii majorum gentium_, and
Cicero celestial gods, Varro select gods, Ovid _nobiles deos_, others
_consentes deos_, were Jupiter, Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana,
Venus, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Vulcan, and Apollo. Jupiter is considered
as the god of heaven; Neptune, as god of the sea; Mars, as the god of
war; Apollo, of eloquence, poetry, and physic; Mercury, of thieves;
Bacchus, of wine; Cupid, of love, &c. A second sort of gods, called
demi-gods, _semi-dii_, _dii minorum gentium_, _indigetes_, or gods
adopted, were men canonized and deified. As the greater gods had
possession of heaven by their own right, these secondary deities had it
by merit and donation, being translated into heaven because they had
lived as gods upon earth.
2. The Heathen gods may be all reduced to the following classes: (1.)
Created spirits, angels, or demons, whence good and evil gods; Genii,
Lares, Lemures, Typhones, guardian gods, infernal gods, &c. (2.)
Heavenly bodies; as, the sun, moon, and other planets; also, the fixed
stars, constellations, &c. (3.) Elements; as air, earth, ocean, Ops,
Vesta; the rivers, fountains, &c. (4.) Meteors. Thus the Persians adored
the wind: thunder and lightning were honoured under the name of Geryon;
and several nations of India and America have made themselves gods of
the same. Castor, Pollux, Helena, and Iris, have also been preferred
from meteors to be gods; and the like has been practised in regard to
comets: witness that which appeared at the murder of Cæsar. (5.) They
erected minerals or fossils into deities. Such was the Bætylus. The
Finlanders adored stones; the Scythians, iron; and many nations, silver
and gold. (6.) Plants have been made gods. Thus leeks and onions were
deities in Egypt; the Sclavi, Lithuanians, Celtæ, Vandals, and
Peruvians, adored trees and forests; the ancient Gauls, Britons, and
Druids, paid a particular devotion to the oak; and it was no other than
wheat, corn, seed, &c, that the ancients adored under the names of Ceres
and Proserpina. (7.) They took themselves gods from among the waters.
The Syrians and Egyptians adored fishes; and what were the Tritons, the
Nereids, Syrens, &c, but fishes? Several nations have adored serpents;
particularly the Egyptians, Prussians, Lithuanians, Samogitians, &c.
(8.) Insects, as flies and ants, had their priests and votaries. (9.)
Among birds, the stork, raven, sparrowhawk, ibis, eagle, grisson, and
lapwing have had divine honours; the last in Mexico, the rest in Egypt
and at Thebes. (10.) Four-footed beasts have had their altars; as the
bull, dog, cat, wolf, baboon, lion, and crocodile, in Egypt and
elsewhere; the hog in the island of Crete; rats and mice in the Troas,
and at Tenedos; weasels at Thebes; and the porcupine throughout all
Zoroaster’s school. (11.) Nothing was more common than to place men
among the number of deities; and from Belus or Baal, to the Roman
emperors before Constantine, the instances of this kind are innumerable:
frequently they did not wait so long as their deaths for the apotheosis.
Nebuchadnezzar procured his statue to be worshipped while living; and
Virgil shows that Augustus had altars and sacrifices offered to him; as
we learn from other hands that he had priests called _Augustales_, and
temples at Lyons, Narbona, and several other places, and he must be
allowed the first of the Romans in whose behalf idolatry was carried to
such a pitch. The Ethiopians deemed all their kings gods: the Velleda of
the Germans, the Janus of the Hungarians, and the Thaut, Woden, and Assa
of the northern nations, were indisputably men. (12.) Not men only, but
every thing that relates to man, has also been deified; as labour, rest,
sleep, youth, age, death, virtues, vices, occasion, time, place,
numbers, among the Pythagoreans; the generative power, under the name of
Priapus. Infancy alone had a cloud of deities; as, Vagetanus, Levana,
Rumina, Edufa, Potina, Cuba, Cumina, Carna, Ossilago, Statulinus,
Fabulinus, &c. They also adored the gods Health, Fever, Fear, Love,
Pain, Indignation, Shame, Impudence, Opinion, Renown, Prudence, Science,
Art, Fidelity, Felicity, Calumny, Liberty, Money, War, Peace, Victory,
Triumph, &c. Lastly, Nature, the universe, or τὸ ϖὰν, was reputed a
great god.
3. Hesiod has a poem under the title of Θεογονία, that is, “The
Generation of the Gods,” in which he explains their genealogy and
descent, sets forth who was the first and principal, who next descended
from him, and what issue each had: the whole making a sort of system of
Heathen theology. Beside this popular theology, each philosopher had his
system, as may be seen from the “Timæus” of Plato, and Cicero “_De
Natura Deorum_.” Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix,
Lactantius, Eusebius, St. Augustine, and Theodoret, show the vanity of
the Heathen gods. It is very difficult to discover the real sentiments
of the Heathens with respect to their gods: they are exceedingly
intricate and confused, and even frequently contradictory. They admitted
so many superior and inferior gods, who shared the empire, that every
place was full of gods. Varro reckons up no less than thirty thousand
adored within a small extent of ground, and yet their number was every
day increasing. In modern oriental Paganism they amount to many
millions, and are, in fact, innumerable.
4. The name of God, in Hebrew, _Elohim_, is very ambiguous in Scripture.
The true God is often called so, as are sometimes angels, judges, and
princes, and sometimes idols and false gods; for example: “God created
the heaven and the earth,” Gen. i, 1. The Hebrew _Elohim_ denotes, in
this place, the true God. “He who sacrificeth unto any god, (_Elohim_,)
shall be put to death,” Exodus xxii, 20. And again: “Among the gods
there is none like unto thee,” Psalm lxxxvi, 8. Princes, magistrates,
and great men are called gods in the following passages: “If a slave is
desirous to continue with his master, he shall be brought to the
judges,” Exod. xxi, 6, in the original, to the _gods_. Again: “If the
thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto
the judges,” Exod. xxii, 8, in the original, to the gods; and in the
twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter, “Thou shalt not speak evil of
the gods;” that is, of the judges or great men. The Psalmist says that
the Lord “judgeth among the gods,” Psalm lxxxii, 1. And again, God says
to Moses, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,” Exod. vii, 1. The pious
Israelites had so great an aversion and such an extreme contempt for
strange gods, that they scorned even to mention them; they disguised and
disfigured their names by substituting in the room of them some term of
contempt; for example, instead of _Elohim_, they called them _Elilim_,
“nothings, gods of no value;” instead of _Mephibaal_, _Meribaal_, and
_Jerubaal_, they said “Mephibosheth, Meribosheth, and Jeribosheth.”
_Baal_ signifies master, husband; and _bosheth_, something to be ashamed
of, something apt to put one in confusion. God forbade the Israelites to
swear by strange gods, and to pronounce the names of them in their
oaths, Exod. xxiii, 13.