How little they knew, and with what
carelessness they judged of these matters, appears, I think, pretty
plainly from an example of no less weight than that of Tacitus, who, in
a grave and professed discourse upon the history of the Jews, states
that they worshipped the effigy of an ass. (Tacit. Hist. lib. v. c. 2.)
The passage is a proof how prone the learned men of those times were,
and upon how little evidence, to heap together stories which might
increase the contempt and odium in which that people was holden. The
same foolish charge is also confidently repeated by Plutarch. (Sympos.
lib. iv. quaest. 5.)
It is observable that all these considerations are of a nature to
operate with the greatest force upon the highest ranks; upon men of
education, and that order of the public from which writers are
principally taken: I may add also upon the philosophical as well as the
libertine character; upon the Antonines or Julian, not less than upon
Nero or Domitian; and, more particularly, upon that large and polished
class of men who acquiesced in the general persuasion, that all they had
to do was to practise the duties of morality, and to worship the Deity
more patrio; a habit of thinking, liberal as it may appear, which shuts
the door against every argument for a new religion.
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