The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

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32 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, were considered
deeply versed in all intellectual disciplines as late as the
time of Strabo. 1 ^
This state of affairs proved detrimental to the prog
ress of science. Researches were conducted according
to preconceived ideas and were perverted through
strange prejudices. Astrology and magic were the
monstrous fruit of a hybrid union. But all this cer
tainly gave religion a power it had never possessed
either in Greece or Rome.
All results of observation, all conquests of thought,
were used by an erudite clergy to attain the principal
object of their activities, the solution of the problem
of the destiny of man and matter, and of the relations
of heaven and earth. An ever enlarging conception of
the universe kept transforming the modes of belief.
Faith presumed to enslave both physics and metaphys
ics. The credit of every discovery was given to the
gods. Thoth in Egypt and Bel in Chaldea were the
revealers not only of theology and the ritual, but of all
human knowledge. 14 The names of the Oriental Hipparchi
and Enclids who solved the first problems of
astronomy and geometry were unknown ; but a con
fused and grotesque literature made use of the name
and authority of Hermes Trismegistus. The doctrines
of the planetary spheres and the opposition of the four
elements were made to support systems of anthro
pology and of morality ; the theorems of astronomy
were used to establish an alleged method of divination ;
formulas of incantation, supposed to subject divine
powers to the magician,
were combined with chemical
experiments and medical prescriptions.
This intimate union of erudition and faith continued
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