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    appeared . They brought the Gods down almost to earth . What wonder then they raised a man to Heaven , especially , since man in the creed of the many was descended from the Gods—being their workmanship—possessing a soul the same in substance with them ; nay , was begotten " after the flesh , " as was held to be the Case with some mortals , by the intercourse of deities with the sons and daughters of earth ? The idea of deification , then , presented

    tio difficulty to the mind of a Pagan ; on the contrary , he was most familiar with it . All the great benefactors of man the Pagans had deified . Deification , in consequence , became in the mind of a Pagan the appropriate reward of any one who was remarkable for his beneficence . It would be difficult , therefore , for a Pagan to avoid ascribing divine honours to the Saviour of the world . Even Tiberius the Roman Emperor , not a convert to the Christian faith , proposed , on hearing of the deeds of Jesus , to the Roman Senate that he should be added to the number of the Gods of Rome .

    Such at least is the statement of Tertullian and other ecclesiastical writers , the truth of which Lardner is inclined to admit . But whether the proposal took place or not , the currency of the story serves to shew the feelings which a Roman was likely to entertain on hearing of the gracious deeds of the Saviour of mankind . A religious impostor in the person of Alexander we know was deified . That a religious benefactor should receive a similar distinction is

    surely then no matter of surprise . Peregrinus , another knave , and Neryllinus , an obscure mortal , had statues erected to them at Troas and Parium , to which divine honours / vere paid . Epiphanes , the son of the heretic Carpocrates , and a heretic as well as his father , was deified about the middle of the second century . We hardly need subjoin to these instances the well known fact , that hardly need subjoin to these instances the well known fact , that

    the Romans , borrowing the practice from the Asiatic Greeks , were accustomed to deify and adore their emperors either before or after their decease , though they might be the vilest of mankind . Even the subordinate magistrates of the Roman Empire were Very frequently adored as provincial deities , with the pomp of altars and temples , of festivals and sacrifices . Nor was this transference of the honour of God to his creature man limited to

    the heathen world . Before the middle of the second century , as we learn from Justin Martyr , the worship of angels had begun . In the Apostolical constitutions , as they are called , a work exhibiting under a false name a true picture of Christian antiquity , Moses and the Apostles are termed Divine , and the Christian

    bishops Gods . Scarcely were the disciples of Christ themselves , in the homage which they rendered to the emperors of Rome , inferior to the unenlightened heathen . The ceremonies of deification were laid aside , but the titles of God were still lavished on mortals , and the tongues of Christians could style a fellow-creature your Divinity—your Godship—your Eternity . Nor did the Christian Church , as soon as she had power to follow her own inclinations ,

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    20 Rise and Progress of the doctrine of the trinity .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/20/