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understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happenethto them all. 89This statement of fatalism is part of the sacred text of Christianity, and it is resolvedno more simply there than Byron’s pessimism is resolved in CHP. Byron’sexpressions of the same attitude ought not to be considered determineddemonstrations of anti- or non-Christian belief simply for their apparent fatalism orscepticism.This fatalism even extends to Time, as an agent, destroying human creations, andexpressing scorn of human attempts at permanence:Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,Titus or Trajan’s? No – ’tis that of Time:Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displaceScoffing; and apostolic statues climbTo crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime (4.110.986-90).If a religion can be employed to displace an empire, its own permanence is hardlycertain, and that “imperial urn” harks back to the urn amidst the temple ruins in2.4.36, and its religiously-configured image of entropy: “That little urn saith morethan thousand homilies.”The Death of ReligionLike the first, the second canto begins with an invocation, albeit an abortive one toAthēna, which commences the explicit discussion of the fall of religions. At thispoint, the fall is introduced not simply as a product of time, but ofthe dread sceptre and dominion direOf men who never felt the sacred glowThat thoughts of thee and thine on polish’d breasts bestow (2.1.7-9).89 Ecclesiastes 9:11.43