Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/102

 81 THE DECLINE AND FALL CUAP. tality of the soul was inculcated with more dilifjence as XV. . . . . ^ . well as success in India, in Assyria, in Egypt, and in among the Gaul ; and since we cannot attribute such a difference ' to the superior knowledge of the barbarians, we must ascribe it to the influence of an established priesthood, which employed the motives of virtue as the instrument of ambition''. among the We might naturally expect, that a principle so es- ■'^^^' sential to religion would have been revealed in the clearest terms to the chosen people of Palestine, and that it might safely have been intrusted to the heredi- tary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent on us to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence ', when we discover, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is omitted in the law of Moses ; it is darkly insinuated by the prophets, and during the long period which elapsed between the Egyptian and the Babylo- nian servitudes, the hopes as well as fears of the jews appear to have been confined within the narrow com- pass of the present life *". After Cyrus had permitted the exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra had restored the ancient records of their religion, two celebrated sects, the sadducees and the pharisees, insensibly arose at Jerusalem". The former, satire of Juvenal, and the second satire of Persius : these popular discourses express the sentiment and language of the multitude. ^ If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may observe, that they in- trusted not only their lives, but even their money, to the security of another world. Vetus ille mos Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius INIaximus, 1. ii. c. 6. p. 10.) quos meraoria proditum est, pecunias mutuas, quae his apud inferos redderentur, dare solitos. The same custom is more darkly insinuated by Mela, 1. iii. c. 2. It is almost needless to add, that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of the merchant, and that the druids derived from their hoi} profession a character of responsibility, which could scarcely be claimed by any other order of men. ' The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of Moses assigns a very curious reason for the omission, and most ingeniously retorts it on the unbelievers. "' See Le Clerc (Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast. sect. i. c. 8.) His au- thority seems to carry the greater weight, as he has written a learned and judicious commentary on the books of the Old Testament. " Joseph. Antiquilat. 1. xiii. c. 10; De Bell. Jud. ii. 8. According to the most natural interpretation of his words, the sadducees admitted only the pentateuch ; but it has pleased some modern critics to add the prophets to their creed, and to suppose, that they contented themselves with reject- ing the traditions of the pharisees. Dr. Jortin has argued that point in his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 103.