408

THE DECLINE AND FALL

chap, infidels wasless vigorously prosecuted byprincesand bishops, who were more immediately alarm-ed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebel-lion. The extirpation of idolatry n might havebeen justified by the established principles ofintolerance: but the hostile sects, which alter-nately reigned in the imperial court, were mu-tually apprehensive of alienating, and perhapsexasperating, the minds of a powerful, thoughdeclining, faction. Every motive- of authorityand fashion, of intei’est and reason, now mili-tated on the side of Christianity ; but two orthree generations elapsed, before their victori-ous influence was universally felt. The reli-gion which had so long and so lately been es-

the cities of the empire ; the old religion, in the time of Prudentius (ailvers. Symmaclium, 1. i, ad fin) and Orosius (in Praefat. HUt.) re-tired and languished in obscure villages; and the word pagans, with itsnew signification, reverted to its primitive origin. 6. Since the wor-ship of Jupiter and his family has expired, the vacant title of paganshas been successively applied to all the idolaters and polytheists ofthe old and new world. 7. The Latin Christians bestowed it, with-out scruple, on their mortal enemies the mahometans; and thepurest Unitarians were branded with the unjust reproach of idolatryand paganism. See Gerard Vossius Etymologicon Linguae Latina?, inhis works, tom. i, p 420. Godefroy’s Commentary on the TheodosianCode, tom . vi, p. 250, and Dncange, mediae et infimiae Latinitat.Glossar .

n In the pure language of Ionia and Athens, Eitaxov andwere ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness,an apparition (Homer. Odyss. xi, 601) a representation, an image ,created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort ofservice or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the Hebrewscriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod xx, 4, 5) to thereligious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of the Hellenists,or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred and ecclesiasticalwriters 5 and the reproach of idolatry (EtJ*XoXaT£ua) has stigmatizedthat visible and abject mode of superstition, which some sects of Chris-tianity should not hastily impute to the polytheists of Greece andRome.