Copy 1, Volume 1

Of the origin and progress of language / [Anon].

  • James Burnett, Lord Monboddo
Date:
1774-1792
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Of the origin and progress of language / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    642/712 (page 614)
    as I am informed, with a Greek termination, fignifving, difpofuit, defignavit, determina- motion the general name of gods was derived. But I am perfuaded Herodotus’s etymology is the true one. For there is no evidence that the religion which the Pelafgi taught the Greeks was of that kind : But, on the con* trary, if we can believe Herodotus, it was the religion of Egypt that the Pelafgi imported into Greece, which was very different, at lead at. that time, from the religion of the antient Germans and Perfians, who worfhipped only the celeftial bodies and the elements. For Jupiter, whofe worfhip the Pelafgi introduced into Greece, from whence he is called by Homer, Z*y; lliXotrfixos, was certainly nei¬ ther fun nor moon, nor any of the ftars or elements - ) but a human perfonage, whofe birth the Greeks, with their ufual vanity, afcribed to their own country, and particularly to Crete, from whence, it is likely, that the Pelafgi brought the worfhip of him to Greece; though it cannot be doubted, but that he was originally of Egypt, the parent-country of the religion of the Greeks. And what I have faid of the human extraction of Jupiter, ap¬ plies equally to all the gods of Greece: For, as Hero¬ dotus tells us, they were all ; Herodot. b.ib. i. cap. 131. where we may obferve, in paffing, that Herodotus appears to forget here his ufual caution in, fpeaking of religious things, concerning which his com¬ mon laying is, TaJ]oc /xoi tvcflopix xcacr^jy. For that the objeds of the popular worfhip in Greece were of human extraction, was one of the chief points revealed to the initiated in the myfteries. This Cicero has very plainly told us : Quia ? Totum prope cceium, ne plures perfequar, itonne humano genere completum eft? Si vero fcrutari vetera, et ex his ea, quse fcriptores Grseciae prodiderunt, eruere coner, ipfi illi majorum gentium dii qui haben-