5

148 *l'HE HISTORY
particular, for honoring of such stones, or for
having stony symbols of the Deity ;
but to show
they were neither more ig-norant nor barbarous
in this respect than the politest of nations, the
Greecs and the Romans, that here I must make
a short literary excursion.
Wherefore, I beg your
lordship to remember, that Kermand Kelstach
was not the onely Mercury of rude stone, since
the Mercury of the Greecs was not portray'd antiently
in the shape of a youth, with wings to his
heels and a caduceus in his hand; but without
hands or feet, being a square stone*, says Phumutus,
and I say without any sculpture.
The reason
given for it by the divines of those days, was.
" that as the square figure betoken'd his solidity
and stability;
so he wanted neither hands nor
feet to execute what he was commanded by Jove.
Thus their merry-making Bacchus was figur'd
among the Thebans by a pillar oaelyf". So the
Arabians worship I know not what God (says
Maximus Tyrius:j;) and t^e statue that I saw of
him, was a square stone." I shall say nothing
here of the oath of the Romans per Jovetn JLapidem.
But nobody pretends that the Gauls were
more subtil theologues or philosophers, tlian
the
* nXaTTETttt ti Hat *X^'P»
*"' *'^'"^5| X** TETpaywvo; T« r^^nfjirttrtf J'Epjtt>:f : tetmj'ajve?
jMEV, TO iifam ts itai airaXcc SX^tf— ''X^'P ^^ **' a^ouj, ettej ovtl -jTiiSiuv nil ysj,
fiov hnm, 5rptc to avuEtv to ^rpoxEijUEvov aurw. De Tfat. Dear, cap, 16.
t iTi/Xoc ©E^'aioto-i AiwTOff-roc ffoXyyflSt)?, Clem. Ahx, Stromat, lib, 1,
J ApaCisi ffl^tairi /wEvoiTiva J'lun tiJa : a« Je oj-aXjxa o ttJtv Xi8o« nt n-rfayifti-.
Strm. 33.