Chapter VIII-x

κᾳν επι του ωκεανου ελθῃς τας ηϊονας, κᾳκει θεοι, τοις μεν ανισχοντες αγχου μαλα, τοις δε καταδυομενοι. Dissert. i. Edit. Princ. 4 . “Diogenes Laertius says of Pythagoras, that he charged his disciples not to give equal degrees of honour to the Gods and heroes . Herodotus (in Euterpe) says of the Greeks, That they worshiped Hercules two ways, one as an immortal deity, and so they sacrificed to him; and another as a Hero, and so they celebrated his memory . Isocrates (Encom. Helen.) distinguishes between the honours of heroes and Gods, when he speaks of Menelaus and Helena. But the distinction is no where more fully expressed than in the Greek inscription upon the statue of Regilla, wife to Herodes Atticus, as Salmasius thinks, which was set up in his temple at Triopium, and taken from the statue itself by Sirmondus; where it is said, That she had neither the honour of a mortal nor yet that which was proper to the Gods . Ουδε ιερα θνητοις, αταρ ουδε θεοισιν ομοια. It seems by the inscription of Herodes, and by the testament of Epicteta, extant in Greek in the Collection of Inscriptions , that it was in the power of particular families to keep festival days in honour of some of their own family, and to give heroical honours to them. In that noble inscription at Venice, we find three days appointed every year to be kept, and a confraternity established for that purpose with the laws of it. The first day to be observed in honour of the Muses, and sacrifices to be offered to them as deities . The second and third days in honour of the heroes of the family; between which honour and that of deities, they showed the difference by the distance of time between them, and the preference given to the other. But whereinsoever the difference lay, that there was a distinction acknowledged among them appears by this passage of Valerius, in his excellent oration, extant in Dionysius Halicarnass. Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. p. 696. I call , says he, the Gods to witness, whose temples and altars our family has worshiped with common sacrifices; and next after them, I call the Genii of our ancestors, to whom we give δευτερας τιμας , the second honours next to the Gods , (as Celsus calls those, τας προσηκουσας τιμας , the due honours that belong to the lower dæmons .) From which we take notice, that the Heathens did not confound all degrees of divine worship , giving to the lowest object the same which they supposed to be due to the celestial deities , or the supreme God. So that if the distinction of divine worship will excuse from idolatry, the Heathens were not to blame for it.” See Stillingfleet’s Answer to a book entitled Catholics no Idolaters, p. 510, 513, &c. 5 . See the extracts from Plutarch, in which this is shown, in the Introduction to my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato. 6 . Answer to Catholics no Idolaters.