the forest of Nemea, the cave of the Nemean lion is still to be seen. According to traditions recorded by him, this lion was a terrible creature that dealt destruction on all the surrounding country, till he was slain by Hercules after a severe and deadly contest. The moral of the fable intimates that the god of the cave, represented by a symbolical lion, and worshipped there by human sacrifices numerous and desolating the adjacent country, (for the lion wrought such evils,) was subdued by Hercules; that is, by his votaries; but not without long-continued efforts. At the city of Nemea, about three miles distant from the cave, there is a temple dedicated to Jupiter the Nemean, which, the antiquary says, is worthy of notice, but that the roof had fallen, and there was no image. These particulars, indicative of great antiquity, shew that the worship of Jupiter was substituted for that of the carnivorous lion, a symbol which represented the God supreme in ages anterior to that of Hercules; and the use of the cave shews that worship in caves had been practised during many ages anterior to the war at Troy. In the Samicus, a district of Elis, is a cave not far from a river, sacred to nymphs called Anigridæ. Any person afflicted with the leprosy may obtain a cure at this cave by the following observances. The patient enters the cave, and there engages to offer prayers and a sacrifice of any kind to the nymphs: he then removes the leprous scales from his body, and swims across the river. By this process his disease is left in the water, and he returns wholly relieved from the disorder. It appears from this statement, that miracles were wrought at these caves, seemingly upon the same principles as those at the Celtic tolmens. The name, Anigridæ, of the nymphs to whom this cave was sacred, not being found in the modern Greek pantheon, is a decisive proof that this cave was held in reverence during the early ages of Greece, and indeed of the world. The same may be inferred from e Pausan. lib. v. c. 5, s. 6. the following record of the cave near Corinth, in which the god Palæmon is said to be present, but in invisible concealment. If any person, whether Corinthian or stranger, make an oath in that cave, if he violate that oath he cannot by any device whatever avoid the consequences of the perjury. The oath taken in the cave may be presumed to be thus obligatory, upon the principle that the person so sworn becomes a new man, by a new birth, on coming forth from the cave,—that any prior obligation then ceases, and the new obligation, single and strong, admitting no evasion whatever, because the violation becomes an act of his new life. From this transaction, it seems that absolution from the consequences of transgression was easily attainable by the votaries of the heathen gods. The sanctity of caves may be said to have been generally admitted in all ages subsequent to the first adoption of the idea. The Grecian antiquary found sacred caves in every district of his survey. A cave called Steunos was seen by him, dedicated to Cybele, the mother of the gods, and in it an image, of wood, and consequently ancient. Venus, a goddess of later ages, was worshipped in a cave near Naupactus, by widows desirous of marriage. It were easy to adduce more instances, serving to shew that caves, either natural or artificial, were dedicated to every god of the several heathen nations; that, in fact, caves were used as temples. Perhaps this position is already sufficiently proved: it will be farther illustrated in subsequent pages. The sanctity thus ascribed to caves in Greece may well be supposed to have been admitted by the idolatrous nations of Palestine. That caves were temples, may be seen from the following event of the history of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, under the command of Joshua. Five kings of the Amorites united their forces to attack and destroy the g Ibid. lib. x. c. 32, s. 3. h Ibid. lib. x. c. 38, s. 6. Pausan. lib. ii. c. 2, s. 1. city of Gibeon. Their armies were defeated with great slaughter, so that few of them remained; and those few fled to different cities and states for refuge, and the kings were left alone and utterly unattended. In this emergency they took refuge in a cave near a city called Makkedah, about ten or fifteen miles from the field of battle. From this cave they were taken, and put to death with circumstances of great indignity, by the express command of the victorious Joshua.i Why they should retire to the cave rather than into the city near the cave, or why, like the remnant of their troops, they should not fly to distant cities, must seem inexplicable, unless it be presumed that they fled to the cave, open as it was, as to a place of sanctuary, the cave being regarded as a sacred place, the temple of some god. This admitted, the conduct of the conqueror will be found to have been proper, and reason for the command for the utter extermination of the Canaanites will appear. It was a maxim universally adopted, especially in the early ages of antiquity, that the prosperity of nations, and especially success in war, depended on the pre-eminence of the power of the gods worshipped by each nation, for each nation had its patron god. To take the kings from the sanctuary of the cave would be regarded by the Israelites as a decisive proof of the pre-eminence of the God of their fathers above all other gods, when they saw that the god of the sacred cave was not able to give safety to his votaries, and that indeed he was no god, since he could not deliver them from the extremity of insult and suffering. Cruelties such as were practised on this occasion, were evidences, in those ages, of religious truth. It may be said, that the extirpation of the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan was the only means by which the knowledge of the true God could have been maintained. The death of the kings of the Amorites, as an argument in vindication of the true God, would be most decisive with the Israelites on the supposition that i Joshua x. the cave near Makkedah was held by the nations to be a temple, a place of safe refuge, and capable of affording to the suppliants the sure protection of its god. That the unfortunate kings thought that they must have been safe in such an asylum is evident; otherwise their conduct in retiring to that cave must be ascribed to folly, and the insults inflicted wanton and uncalled for, even by the Mosaic Law. During several ages of the early history of Greece, immediately following the simple idolatry rendered to Ouranus and Gaia, or the heaven and the earth, religious worship was paid to consecrated stones, set up as fancy led or occasion required. In times somewhat later, the religious rites addressed to these idols were performed in caves, of which several instances have been given. The history of the use either of sacred stones or of temple caves will not be properly intelligible, unless some account be given of the persons who paid such worship, and some notice taken of the circumstances which led to the suppression of that worship and the desertion of the cave, and the general use of temples built above ground, and improved continually till they attained to that degree of magnificence, which is beheld with wonder and admiration even when the structures are desecrated and in ruins. The Theogony of Hesiod states that the activity of the idolatrous principle had in very early ages given personification to a host of divinities, which, though occasionally mentioned by profane writers, are almost unknown. At length Saturn, one of those divinities, offended at the ceaseless increase, with artful violence deprived his parent Ouranus of his divine privileges; and restraining the power of farther increase of the number of gods, endeavoured to secure to himself the right to religious worship. In this attempt, however, he was only in part successful. To enter into a farther detail of these circumstances were to give the history of idolatry instead of sacred structures: the attention is therefore invited to the following circumstances only. All the profane authorities concurring state that Titan and Saturn were the sons of Ouranus, or Heaven, and Gaia, or Earth; that is, the worship paid to these figurative personages proceeded from that paid to the personifications of the male and female powers of nature, which earlier ages had been wont to honour with religious reverence. According to Diodorus, the worship of Saturn, a personification of Time, prevailed most especially in Africa; but that Titan, a personification of the Sun, was the deity most honoured by the nations of Greece and Eastern Europe. The idols, the symbolical representatives of both these deities, were stones, for the most part rude and unwrought, not shaped by art: any other form or idol of the divine presence being absolutely prohibited, especially by Saturn, who swallowed, or, speaking fable apart, endured no other idol representative of the powers of nature than the simple stone sanctified by the customary rites, signified by the swathing clothes supplied by the figurative mother Rhæa. Such was the mode of worship in the countries where Saturn and Titan reigned, till both were at length overcome and their worship entirely suppressed, both in Africa and Eastern Europe, by Jupiter, and Hercules his son. During their reign these gods were in high honour. The Orpheus of old, presented in his modern Athenian language, thus addresses the Titans, the personifications of the powers of their father: Titans, ye sons renowned of Earth and Heaven, From you, for all on earth derive their being, Should such, sent from our sires, approach our dwellings.' k Diod. Sic. lib. v. p. 231. C. 1 Orph. Hymn. 37. |