Cyropaedia or The institution of Cyrus Author:Xenophon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The different turns that have been given to eftablifh'd religions, as governments have differ'd from each other, or chang'd within themfelves, will ferve to... more » illuftrate this diftinction of religion into real and political. The Greek religion differ'd remarkably in cities and people that d'tffer'd in their genius and policy. The beft and braveft of the Greeks applied their principal worfhip to the nobleft and moft chafte of their deities, as to Juno or Pallas: others of them, that were more tyrannical in their form of civil govenment, and more loofe in their manners, addrefs'd their principal worfhip to a Venus or Bacchus. The fame deities had a chafte and decent worfhip paid them in one place ; and in another a more pompous one, and more loofe. This partiality of particular cities and people to particular deities, as their different forms of government and genius lead them, is intimated in Homer by the great partiality he expreffes in particular deitites to particular cities and people. This divine partiality reach'd even to private men, and differ'd according to their characters : one deity favour'd Achilles; another UfyJ/es; another Paris: as amongft ilates, which are political perfons, and different in characters, one deity favour'd Athens, another Argos, and another Pa- phos. The Roman religion, by the account of their hiftorians, was more plain and decent in their earlier and better times; but in the time of Julius Cafar it was become full of lewdnefs and extravagance. Not very long after Jutius, chriftianity arofe; it was the real and truereligion in the breafts of its few true prof effors, long before its name' was embrac'd by multitudes, armies, and emperors, and fo became the publick religion. After this its eftablifh- ment, what has been the variety of forms it h...« less