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Review . ' ^ -Ben Davids Reply to Tieo Deist teat Worbs . 623
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Homer , Odyss . w 535 . Besides , to shed blood and to eat ifc , sounds alike in the ears of civilized society * And not only Moses but the common feelings of our nature , forbid the use of it . Things strati
gled , meant animals that were killed without letting their blood : and we are assured , that the offering of victims deprived of life by strangulation was hi the number of the Pagan rites . We meet with a remarkable instance of this kind
in the Georgics of Virgil , lib . iv . 299 . Aiistaeus , at the direction of his mother Cyrene , sacrifices four bullocks to appease the wood-nymphs for the restoration o £ his bees * The manner in which one of them is killed , is thus described : ' Then
is sought a steer , whose forehead winds with biennial horns ; wKile he violently struggles , both his nostrils and the breath 6 f his mouth are stopped up ; and when he is beaten to death , Ms crushed bowels putTify , while his skin remains entire . ' We shall find reason to believe that this
vile practice prevailed in Egypt , whence it was borrowed by the Greeks and Romans as early as the days of Moses , and that it is one of the offensive impurities against which his prohibition is levelled . The question in debate was the observance of
the ceremonial law . This law consisted of rites that , though not immoral , were useless , burdensome , and odious to the new converts , or of prohibitions that were irrational and debasing in the extreme . Of the first kind was the rite of
circumcision ; of the second were offerings made to idols ,, the use of blood and of animals strangled , with every species of inapdrity known to attend the Pagan worship . The decree proposed by James had for its object to cancel every rite that was merely national or ceremonial ; while It
acknowledged and enforced the perpetual obligation of those prohibitions , which Were calculated to prevent the c <) rruptioti of moralsj atid thus to co-Operate with the purifying influence of the gospel . " The reason which this Apostle gives
for the resolutioits proposed by him , is worthy of observation : For Moses from ancient times lias In everjp city those wlio preach hirfi , lie being fead in the synagogue every Sabbath : ' which is to this effect : < It is in vain for us to hold put
to the Gentiles the duty of abstaining from their idolatrous rites and the impurities consequent on them , on the authority of Moses ; for this experiment has been tried , and tried in vain , for fcgfcs ; it is necessary , th £ ref 6 re , to forbid the
same things oh a higher authority—the authority of Christ through us ; and in his name to enjoin a total abstinence from all such debasing practices ad disqualify them to become members of a nobler
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cftfatmVfcf ty lit a fiitttte world / "—P 6 . 5527 —229 . * In a note Cpp . 281—2 $$ ) on the quotation of Virgil in this passage , the author displays itiore than his wonted ingenuity . ( BeQ David and Essenus are the same author . )
" The passage in Virgil i& thus : — r- ' Turn viVulus , bima curvans jam coritua fronte , Quseritur ; huic getain& nates , et spi * ritus oris Malta reluctanti obstruitur ; plagisque perempto Tunsa per integram aolvuntur viscera pellem /
" Presently it is said that a swarm of bees flew but of this carcase , as a shower from the clouds . Now , if we take this story in a literal sense , it must appear false and ridiculous , But in truth it was never intended to be so understood * The
poet intimates , that it originated in Egypt , see Georg . lib . m 285 . In a little work , entitled " A New Version of the First Three Chapters of Genesis , accompanied with Dissertations , illustrative 6 f the Creation , the Fall of Man , the Principle
of Evil , and the Plagues of Egypt / by Essenus , it is shewn that the facts of the Mosaic history form the basis of the Egyptian mythology . The fable of Aris t&us and his . bees is another illustration
of that assertion . The calf here intended was apis , whom the Israelites , as devoted to Egyptian superstition at first worshiped ; see Exodv xKsAh The bees which issued from the carcase Of tins
Apis were the Israelites themselves , who escaped from Egyptian bongage > and on the fruits of whose labour , while in' slavery , the Egyptians lived bs drones in a hive . The Greeks at first seebi to tiave
called b 6 es ( 3 BfQW »* , < O # * tegoit * en 9 ato Idea evidently derived with their mylhdl ^ gy from Egypt ; ' ^ nd it in still mote remarkable , that the Latins have preserved > without any change , the oiiginal Afis as a geueral nkme for be <* $ > * A plague ffefi on the befes ttiid ^ ttle 6 f Ai istaeus , be ^ taSO he hkd vi olated
Eitridice , a beautiful woinai ^ atid the Strife of Orpheus . If we ciut off the termination of this last name , dud re ^ d it from right to left , Orpheas In Hebi'ew is precisely Pktiroah—hence We discover ttht origin of the fable - A plague was tsent on that monarch and his house , because of his
conduct to Sarah , rtffe of Ab ^ hato . Gen . xii . 17 . Eurydice in escaping is torn by a serpent , and Orpheus recovers Bet- from hades by the charms of tils music , but on condition th ^ t hfc ahould not took bakhf as alie followed him to the
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1824, page 623, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2529/page/47/
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