Palæographia sacra. Or discourses on sacred subjects / By William Stukeley.

  • Stukeley, William, 1687-1765.
Date:
1763
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Palæographia sacra. Or discourses on sacred subjects / By William Stukeley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    134/158 (page 118)
    [ ”8 ] / ' men arife; which means the prizes and contentions at feats of arms, on celebrating the religions folemnity at the temple, as ufual in old times. All this was at founding the city, in the early ages, he and his wife at length, are turn’d into fnakes. this means their immortal date, after death, fo Virgil makes a fnake come forth, from the tumulus of Anchifes\ when VRneas facrific’d to his Manes, the people ere<fted a tumulus over Cadmus and his wife ; hard by the Dra- contium. he became the guardian genius of the city, and coins are ftruck in memory of him : on one fide, he is reprefented as throwing a great ftone at a fnake. on others, a great ftone is figured with a fnake twifted round it. We are to remark, that the Greeks report all the moft ancient ftorys, of people of the patriarchal reli¬ gion, in the ftyle and manner of their own times, lapfed into idolatry: though the perfons fpoken of were not idolaters. In after ages, when the worfhip oft the Hebrew Je¬ hovah under the name of Bacchus, became famous, and was brought over to Thebes ; they engrafted it, into the houfe of their founder. Semele, a daughter of Cadmus, is become with child by Jupiter, array’d in divine majefty: whofe fplendor confumes her. the child young Bacchus, is fnatch’d from the flames, fued up in his father’s thigh, and there fulfils his time, to the birth. Thus he is twice born, by human and divine geni- ture. he is of two natures, God and man. as often denominated in Orpheus's hymns, he is given to the nymphs