Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/53

 CDAP. IV. DOMESTIC RELIGION. 47 which they were even forbidden to reveal to strangers. It was the same in India. " I am strong against my enemies," says the Brahmin, "from the songs which I receive from my family, and which my father lias trans- mitted to me." * Thus religion dwelt not in temples, but in the house ; each house had its gods ; each god protected one fam- ily only, and was a god only in one house. We cannot reasonably suppose that a religion of this character was revealed to man by the powerful imagination of one among them, or that it was taught to them by a priestly caste. It grew up spontaneously in the human mind ; its cradle was the family ; each family created its own gods. This religion could be propagated only by generation. The father, in giving life to his son, gave hini at the same time his creed, his worship, the right to continue the sacred fire, to offer the funeral meal, to pronounce the formulas of prayer. Generation established a mys- terious bond between the infant, who was born to life, and all the gods of the family. Indeed, these gods were his family — Oeol iyyEvsig i they were of his blood < — Ocol ai'vaifioi.^ The child, therefore, received at his birth the right to adore them, and to offer them sac- rifices ; and later, when death should have deified him, he also would bo counted, in his turn, among these goda of the family. Manu often mention rites peculiar to each family. "VII. 3 ; IX. 7. Aristophanes, Wasps, 388; iEschylus, Pers., 404; Sophoclos, Electra, 411; &toi y(vi6Xiot, Plato, Laws, V. p. 729; Di Generis, Ovid, Fast., II.
 * Eig- Veda, Langlois' trans., v. i. p. 113. Tho Laws of
 * Sophocles, Aniig., 199; Uid., C59. Comp. naxQwoi 6io'i in