Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/321

 Antonine was, as we have said, in a peculiar position; he was young, powerful, and extremely religious; he ascribed the success of his house to the favour of his God, and desired to make some return in the shape of coercing men to that God's worship. To this Emperor the possession of supreme power meant limitless possibilities for the effecting of his scheme. Further, as we have seen, he came of religious stock, or rather of a family whose traditions were bound up with a very definite form of religious worship, which is generally considered the same thing.

The origin of religion is a much-disputed point. Some men have considered that the source of all religion is fright; others prefer love; both of which appeal to the superstitious instinct inherent in man. It may be that these instincts breed reverence, fear, or love for forces outside man's control, and incomprehensible to him; in any case, these forces were the first things to be deified in the history of religions, and took their precedence in the natural order of their mystery or usefulness, becoming a sort of aristocracy of talent, with a supreme head, the God of Gods.

In process of time the older religions of Greece and Rome gave way to philosophies; and the thinkers having reasoned away the potency of their deities, fought against what they considered a decadent and sentimental, not to say a baseless tradition, with all the aids that experience gave them. Then it was that signs, portents, and miracles which had bolstered up the faith of the