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5o6
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
denounced as the "soul of lightning," its Daemon;* we have either
to apply the same explanation and definitions to the "lyord God
of Israel," under the same circumstances, or renounce our right of
abusing the Gods and creeds of other nations.
The foregoing statements, emanating as they do from two ardent and
learned Roman Catholics, are, to say the least, dangero7is, in the presence
of the Bible and its prophets. Indeed, if Jupiter, the "chief
Daemon of the Pagan Greeks," hurled his deadly thunder-bolts and
lightnings at those who excited his wrath, so did the lyord God of
Abraham and Jacob. For we read that:
The Lord thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice.
sent out arrows [thunder-bolts] and scattered them [Saul's armies];
discomfited them.t
And he
lightning, and
The Athenians are accused of having sacrificed to Boreas; and this
"Daemon" is charged with having submerged and wrecked 400 ships of
the Persian fleet on the rocks of Mount Pelion, and of having become
so furious that all the Magi of Xerxes could hardl)^ counteract him by
offering contra-sacrifices to Thetis.:): Very fortunately, no authenticated
instance is on the records of Christian wars, showing a like
catastrophe on the same scale happening to one Christian fleet, owing
to the "prayers" of its enemy—another Christian nation. But this is
from no fault of theirs,
for each prays as ardently to Jehovah for the
destruction of the other, as the Athenians prayed to Boreas. Both
resorted to a neat little piece of black magic con amove. Such abstinence
from divine interference being hardly due to
lack of prayers,
sent to a com7no7i Almighty God for mutual destruction, where, then,
shall we draw the line between Pagan and Christian
And who can
doubt that all Protestant England would rejoice and offer thanks to
the Lord, if during some future war, 400 ships of the hostile fleet were
to be wrecked owing to such holy prayers What is, then, the difference,
we ask again, between a Jupiter, a Boreas, and a Jehovah No
more than this: The crime of one's own next-of-kin, say of one's
father, is
always excused and often exalted, whereas the crime of our
neighbour's parent is ever gladly punished by hanging.
Yet the crime
is the same.
So far the "blessings of Christianity" do not seem to have made any
appreciable advance on the morals of the converted Pagans.
The above is not a defence of Pagan Gods, nor is it an attack on the
* op. ctl., III. 415. + II Sam., xxii. 14, 15. t Herodotus, Polymnia, 190, 191.