How far this new divinity retained his honours after the accession of Alexander Severus, we are not informed; but he probably shared the downfall of his imperial pontiff. Enough, however, has been adduced to shew the extent to which oriental superstitions were diffused in the west; and we can scarcely doubt that the religion of the conquerors was received with at least equal facility by the conquered nations. The adoption of Eastern deities with their peculiar rites was naturally attended by the admission of other superstitions. The science of astrology was not a native of the west; but had its birth when the ancient Chaldees watched the rising and setting of the stars upon the unbroken horizon of their interminable plains. Unable by their unassisted observations to discover the material laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies, they imagined them to be endowed with divine intellect and power, and not only to influence the vicissitudes of sublunary events, but by their aspect and configuration to reveal them. There was another theory of astrology, which is mentioned by Dr. Cudworth in his reinarks on Mathematical or Astrological Fate *: « There was too much attributed to astrology also by those that were no fatalists; both Heathen and Christian philosophers, such as were Plotinus, Origen, Simplicius, and others; who, though they did not make the stars to necessitate all human actions here below, yet supposed that Divine Providence (foreknowing all things) had contrived such a strange coincidence of the motions and configurations of the heavenly bodies with such actions here upon earth, as that the former might be prognostics of the latter." As these philosophers, at leas the Platonists, supposed that the heavenly bodies, although animated by intellectual principles, yet moved according to certain laws, this theory in their confused creed was united with the former; as Cudworth has remarked in the conclusion of the same passage. Lucian, in a treatise written in the same style of grave irony as his disquisition on the Syrian goddess, has pretended to shew the antiquity of astrology among the Greeks; but the forced interpretations which his ingenuity has affixed to various mythological and heroic fables, prove most satisfactorily that he could discover at that early period no real traces of the science. All the modes by which the elder Greeks or Romans sought to penetrate into futurity, are enumerated by the Prometheus of Eschylus as the fruits of his benevolence to man †. He made them familiar with the observation of *Intellectual System, Book I. Chap. i. Sect. 2. Prom. vv. 494-508. dreams and omens, the flight and voice of birds, the entrails of the victim, and the flames of the altar; but if he taught them to observe the stars, it was only, That or of winter, or the flowery spring, v. 463. Comets might be supposed from their horrid hair to shake pestilence and war; prophets might labour to interpret an eclipse, with fear of change perplexing monarchs; but astrology was never made a regular science, till the credulity of the vulgar, and the curiosity of the learned, became conversant with the superstitions and occult knowledge of the East. Diodorus, in his 17th Book, where he mentions the deputation of Chaldæan priests and prophets, who deprecated the ill-fated entrance of Alexander into Babylon, has strongly marked the contempt with which they were regarded by the Grecian philosophers of the Macedonian court, and the reverence with which the knowledge of their nation was considered in the age of Augustus. It is true, that, after the destruction of the Assyrian Empire, while the purer system of Persian theology was predominant in the East, the power of the Chaldæan priesthood was diminished, and the Chaldæan philosophy and science were degraded: and though they might meet with more toleration under the Macedonian monarchs, still they were far from holding that exalted rank which once belonged to them, "when the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldæans, for to show the king his dreams: so they came, and stood before the king*. The wise men no longer formed a regularly constituted order in the state; they stood no longer in the presence of princes; and their name was usurped by wandering impostors, who lived upon the fears and credulity of the populace. This degenerate tribe penetrated into the West; and we are told by Valerius Maximust, that, shortly after the destruction of Carthage, in the consulship of Popilius Lænas and Calpurnius Piso, A. U. C. 614, the prætor ordered all Chaldæans within ten days to depart from Rome and Italy, on account of the mode in which they obtained money from persons of weak minds by their fallacious interpretation of the stars. Similar edicts, for similar causes, were issued under the Emperors: and Juvenal has described at once the punishments to which they were exposed, and the Tac. Ann. II. c. 32. Suet. Vit. c. 14. Domit. c. 15. vulgar infatuation which encouraged them to persevere in their perilous, but lucrative, profession*: Chaldæis sed major erit fiducia: quicquid Post ipsam ; quid enim majus dare numina possunt ? And, in the following lines, he inveighs with yet more humour against the ladies who were not content with consulting astrologers, but were themselves professors of the science. But we shall see that, notwithstanding the discredit thus attached to the study of astrology, it found its way again into the courts of princes, that it was professed by men of rank and education, and was at last received into the very bosom of philosophy. It is probable that Berosus, the Babylonian priest of Belus, who shortly after the age of Alexander settled at Cos, and there taught the Chaldæan sciences, and was honoured with a statue in the Gymnasium of Athens, was the first person who brought astrology into repute among the western nations. These remarks have been introduced chiefly on account of the intimate connexion of astrology and magic. Both were more peculiarly the offspring of eastern superstition: both were frequently practised by the same individuals; or, at least, the profession of the mysterious science of the stars almost invariably subjected the astrologer to the suspicion of being familiar with more occult and dangerous arts. There were three species of magic, the Natural, Goëtic, and Theurgic. Natural magic was only the knowledge of the less obvious properties of natural substances. In an age, when even the most educated men were profoundly ignorant of natural science, a very small portion of it might enable a person to accomplish chemical changes or optical illusions, which the * Sat. vi. 552. vulgar would readily consider as supernatural. The profession of sciences, which had no foundation in the nature of things, as astrology and the Pythagorean science of the occult properties of numbers; the supposition of powers and virtues in natural substances, which they did not really possess; a belief in the sympathy of intellectual or spiritual beings with the material substances which they were supposed to pervade and animate; a faith in the intrinsic efficacy of sacrifices, and rites, and prayers, and in the influence of spells and incantations over the material world; and enthusiastic misconceptions of the nature of the gods, and of the human mind; were among the principal errors which transformed Natural Magic into the Goëtic and Theurgic. Between these, it is difficult to ascertain the imaginary line of distinction, which was so scrupulously drawn by the professors of the nobler art. Theurgy, however, or Theurgic Magic, was supposed to be allied with philosophy, piety, and benevolence; while Goëtic Magic included all that is commonly comprehended under the odious name of sorcery. Theurgic Magic, although it scrupled not occasionally to employ inferior agency, consisted chiefly in the knowledge of the nature of gods and demons, and of the rites by which they might be propitiated and approached; and in such a purification and exaltation of the human mind, as fitted it to hold communion with them: and thus the philosopher, by the favour of superior powers, and his participation of their nature, or by the command which he acquired over inferior powers, above whom he had elevated himself in the scale of intellectual being, exercised his dominion in the material and spiritual world, and was enabled to work miracles, or was illuminated with visions and revelations. To a person familiar with the spirit of classical antiquity, it is evident, at once, that this species of magic is entirely alien from it. In the earlier ages of Greece and Rome, every portent and oracle proceeded immediately from the god, and no power or knowledge was supposed to be inherent in the person of his minister. The aboriginal classical magic was of a peculiarly simple character. It may seem strange to say, that magic was at first a branch of medicine; yet, such was apparently the fact. Pliny, indeed, has not scrupled to declare his opinion, that all the magic of the East sprung from the same source:"Natam primum è medicina nemo dubitat, ac specie salutari irrepsisse, velut altiorem sanctioremque medicinam *." shall soon see reason to believe that this assertion is too general; but of the ancient classical magic it seems undoubtedly true. This consisted chiefly in the knowledge of * Lib. xxx. c. 1. We the secret properties of herbs, and other natural productions. When Circe changed the companions of Ulysses into swine, "she mingled with their food baneful medicaments, that they might altogether forget their native land *;" and it was by the virtue of the herb Moly, that the hero himself resisted her enchantments: by an unguent Medea enabled Jason to withstand the breath of the Colchian bulls†; and by a medicated robe she wreaked her vengeance on Creusa. Even incantations formed, originally, a part of medicine. By incantation the wound was stanched, which Ulysses received from the Parnassian boar‡; and although even the mention of this species of medical magic may be considered as one of the proofs that this episode is not the genuine production of Homer, still it must be the composition of some very ancient poet. By Pindar, incantation is mentioned along with medicine and surgery, as one of the arts of Esculapius §; and Eschylus alludes to the same superstition ||. It is doubtful to what class of the priests or philosophers of the east the term of Magi should be strictly applied; whether it should be confined to the ministers of the religion of fire, or whether, in its earlier signification, it might not include the sacerdotal order among the Sabæan worshippers of the host of heaven, and the votaries of the grosser polytheism of the Chaldees. However, whatever was their religion, the Magi appear to have been properly the Median priests **; and the name of magic was transferred from their secret knowledge to all occult science of a similar nature. From the statement of Pliny, and from his enumeration of magical specifics tt, it is clear that much of their art was connected with medicine, and an acquaintance with the real or fancied qualities of natural substances. At the same time, from their priestly character, and the mode in which the term magic is used by Grecian writers, it is no less clear that they were chiefly conversant with the nature of the deity, the miraculous manifestations of divine power ‡‡, and the revelation of future events §§. We have the direct testimony of Plato, one of the very earliest authorities on the subject, that the magic of Zoroaster, the son of Oromasdes, in which the Persian kings were carefully instructed, consisted in the worship of the gods. The knowledge of this magic was first introduced into Greece by Ostanes, who accompanied the army of Xerxes. According Odyss. x. v. 235. Pind. Pyth. iv., v. 393. § Pyth. iii. v. 92. Odyss. xix. v. 457. Lib. xxx. Eur. Supp. v. 1110, Orest. v. 1509. §§ Soph. Ed. T. 387. Alcib.i. |