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Despite Byron himself having been called “irreligious” for his unorthodox religiousideas, the poet here represents a non-religious attitude as “worse than steel, and flame,and ages slow” (2.1.6) in its destructive capacity. Byron’s note on the passage links itto the appropriation of the statuary by Lord Elgin and his agents, attacking thatactivity on religious grounds, albeit by the valuation of devotion to a ‘pagan’ deity.Such piety is configured as a positive value. The note on this passage then takes thesame value of piety and extends it farther:The Parthenon, before its destruction in part, by fire during the Venetian siege,had been a temple, a church and a mosque. In each point of view it is anobject of regard: it changed its worshippers, but still it was a place of worshipthrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrilege. But –“Man, vain man,Drest in a little brief authority,Plays such fantastic tricks before high heavenAs makes the angels weep.” (McGann 2.190:6).The poet’s claim is not that Elgin is not a Christian, but rather that Elgin lacks aproper veneration of Athēna and so does not honour “the sacred shrine” (2.12.106) inthe way that he should. It is sacred to the poet not because it is a site holy toChristianity, but because it is a site “sacred to devotion”. This pluralism is not strictlyChristian, in that it is not exclusively so, but it is devoutly religious, and stands insharp contradiction to the Anti-Jacobin Review’s claims.The consideration of time’s effect upon religion continues in the meditation upon how“Even gods must yield” (2.3.23), which so disturbed many of his contemporarycritics. Of course, that to which even gods must yield is Time: “religions take theirturn” (3.23). Time and chance happeneth to them all, and even gods die (2.53.475).Nevertheless, it is not time which is the immediate cause, but the decay of thesanctifying faith which proves fatal to gods and religions. This can be evaded if faithis built not upon the ephemera of human construction, but upon the lasting forms of44