his deities, described existing sovereigns and people; supposing Jupiter to have represented a king of Ethiopia or Arabia, in Egypt; Juno, the kingdom of Syria; Neptune, that of Caria; Apollo, that of Assyria; and so of others*. Cræsius, who discerned Sacred Inscriptions in every monument, found, in the descriptions of Homer, a detail of the history of the Israelites to the time in which they subdued the land of Canaan under the command of Joshua, conceiving it to be disguised under foreign representations, and blended with feigned circumstances, and considering the names, however different from those of Hebrew etymology, as having the same signification †.

This writer imagines the Odyssey, to which he assigns the earliest and highest rank, to shadow out the events, which occurred to the Patriarchs and Israelites, from the going out of Lot from Sodom, to the death of Moses, on Mount Nebo; and the Iliad to contain a disguised relation of the attack and fall of Jericho, and other cities of

⚫ Fabricius Homeri Doctrin. lib. ii. c. 6.

+ Crasius Homero Hebræo, sive Hist Hebræorum ab Homero. See Fabrici, Homeri Doctrin.

Canaan, by Joshua and the Israelites, with the addition of various circumstances.

Another penetrating writer is so anxious to constrain Homer into the service of religion, and to render him instrumental to the indulgence of his own prejudices, that he supposes him to have been endued with a prophetic spirit, and to have predicted by a divine suggestion, under the fiction of the Trojan story, and the Grecian fables, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the life, miracles, and passion of our Saviour, together with the events of the primitive Church under the emperors: and he pushes the absurd theory so far as to imagine that the poet satirized the Dutch nation, under the description of the Harpies; Martin Luther, under the characters of Antinous and Leiodes, the augur suitors of Penelope; Calvin, under another personage; and the Lutherans, under the designation of the Lotophagi* ; conceits so chimerical and ludicrous as not to have deserved mention, if they had not been thought entitled to serious refutation by some worthy Protestant †.

Jacob King's vera Hist. Rom. 4to. Rom. 1655. + Eberti Rudolph. Rothii. Exercit. Edit. Jenæ.

The general representations given by the poet, with respect to prayer, prophecy *, sacrifice, lustration, and religious rites, seem to intimate an acquaintance with, or some direct or indirect imitation of the ceremonies and institutions which are sanctioned by Revelation. The convictions also with regard to a prophetic spirit, foretelling future events at the hour of death, should seem to have originated in circumstances recorded in Scripture. Homer likewise specifies three modes of inspiration agreeably to the sacred accounts †.

In the generation of his Deities, Homer gives them an origin little more exalted than that which Hesiod ascribes to them. They seem raised from the ocean, or watery chaos, or born of parents subsequent to the creation. It has been supposed, however, that Jupiter is not included, nor was understood to be included in the general Theogony +, but was himself the Creator, or Father of Gods and men,

"Unde porro ista divinatio?" "Sed quî ista intellecta sunt, a philosophis debeo discere, præsertim cum pluribus "de rebus ista divini mentiantur Unde oriatur (sc. divinatio) "non intelligo." Cicero de Natur. Deor. lib. iii. § 6. Iliad. lib i. v. 62, 63.

Plutarch de Isid. et Osirid. Arist. de Repub. lib. i. c. 12. and Cudworth, ch. iv. p $60.

the ruler over inferior Deities. Nevertheless, he appears often actuated by human passions, and addicted to sensual pleasures *. The Gods, divested of the fictitious imagery in which they are dressed, may be considered as merely personifications of the elements, or of the passions; but they are described with qualities, and dignified with the reputation of actions, which we know to have been transcribed from real characters and events.

In the mythology employed to adorn his works, Homer conforms to the persuasions of popular credulity, and adopts the superstition of his time, exhibiting every where the grossest improbabilities, scarcely concealed by the drapery and embellishments of fancy thrown over them. The sublime eloquence, however, of the poet, raised by reflection on the Divine nature, and by some dispersed notices scattered by the teachers of revealed truth, occasionally encircles Jupiter with a majesty borrowed from the manifestations of the true God. He describes him as the supreme and most powerful being, subject only to fate as an unerring rule of rectitude,

Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad Gent. vol. i. p. 28. Edit. Potter. + Iliad. lib. ii. 1, 117. Pausan. Cor. c. 7. p. 126. Edit.

possessing infinite wisdom, and beholding under one comprehensive view the past, the present, and the future. He seems to speak of him as the Creator of heaven and earth, of the sea, and of all the wonders which they contain. They, however, who read Homer in the beautiful translation of Pope, will suppose the poet to speak with more sacred dignity of expression than the original work strictly warrants us to admit: the translator's mind having been familiar with the diction of the Scriptures, he sometimes, unconsciously, applies to the Heathen deities expressions which bear the stamp of inspiration, and which are consecrated in the hallowed language of the Bible.

Still, however, considering the imperfect views which Homer entertained with respect to the Divinity in general, we are not surprized that he sometimes exposed himself to censure, by degrading representations of his deities, and by introducing them upon trivial occasions; not only when, with mock solemnity, he described them as taking a part in the ludicrous battles between the frogs and

See the description of the Shield of Achilles, and Præp Evan. lib. xiii. c. 13. p. 674. Edit. Par. 1627.