Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/80

 62 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP. I. We have already described the rehgious harmony ^^' of tlie ancient world, and the facility with which the TiiF. FinsT most different and even hostile nations embraced, or at ZeaTofthe '^^^^ respected, each other's superstitions. A single jews. people refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind. The jews, who, under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves", emerged from <)l)scurity under the successors of Alexander ; and as they multiplied to a surprising degree in the east, and afterwards in the west, they soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations ''. The sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and unsocial manners, seemed to mark them out a distinct species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their implacable hatred to the rest of human kind^ Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of the Greeks'*. According to the maxims of universal toler- ation, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised *. The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be offered for his pros- perity in the temple of Jerusalem '^ ; while the meanest 3 Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas oriens fuit, despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who visited Asia whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly mentions the Syrians of Pales- tine, who, according to their own confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See 1. ii. c. 104. 1 — 9 ; Justin, xxxvi. 2, 3. <= Tradidit arcano quascunque volumine Moses, Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti, Quaesitos ad fontes solos deducere verpas. The letter of this law is not to be found in the present volume of Moses. But the wise, the humane Maimonides openly teaches, that if an idolater fall into the water, a jew ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 1. vi. c. 28. •^ A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort of occasional con- formity, derived from Herod, by whose example and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But their numbeis were so incon- siderable, and their duration so short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice. See Prideaux's Connection, vol. ii. p. 285. " Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28. f Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a perpetual sacri-
 * > Diodorus Siculus, 1. xl. ; Dion Cassius, 1. xxxvii. p. 121 ; Tacit. Hist. v.