As men rarely form precise ideas, and still less express them with precision, we call the Gentiles, and still more the Polytheists, idolaters. An immense number of volumes have been written in order to develop the various opinions upon the origin of the worship rendered to the deity. This multitude of books and opinions proves nothing, except ignorance.
It is not known who invented coats, shoes, and stockings, and yet we would know who invented idols. What signifies a passage of Sanchoniathon, who lived before the battle of Troy? What does he teach us when he says that _Chaos_--the spirit, that is to say, the breath--in love with his principles, draws the veil from it, which renders the air luminous; that the wind _Colp_, and his wife _Bau_, engendered _Eon_; that _Eon_ engendered _Genos_, that _Chronos_, their descendant, had two eyes behind as well as before; that he became a god, and that he gave Egypt to his son _Thaut_? Such is one of the most respectable monuments of antiquity.
Orpheus will teach us no more in his "Theogony," than Damasius has preserved to us. He represents the principles of the world under the figure of a dragon with two heads, the one of a bull, the other of a lion; a face in the middle, which he calls the face of God, and golden wings to his shoulders.
But, from these fantastic ideas may be drawn two great truths--the one that sensible images and hieroglyphics are of the remotest antiquity; the other that all the ancient philosophers have recognized a First Principle.
As to polytheism, good sense will tell you that as long as men have existed--that is to say, weak animals capable of reason and folly, subject to all accidents, sickness and death--these men have felt their weakness and dependence. Obliged to acknowledge that there is something more powerful than themselves; having discovered a principle in the earth which furnishes their aliment; one in the air which often destroys them; one in fire which consumes; and in water which drowns them--what is more natural than for ignorant men to imagine beings which preside over these elements? What is more natural than to revere the invisible power which makes the sun and stars shine to our eyes? and, since they would form an idea of powers superior to man, what more natural than to figure them in a sensible manner? Could they think otherwise? The Jewish religion, which preceded ours, and which was given by God himself, was filled with these images, under which God is represented. He deigns to speak the human language in a bush; He appeared once on a mountain; the celestial spirits which he sends all come with a human form: finally, the sanctuary is covered with cherubs, which are the bodies of men with the wings and heads of animals. It is this which has given rise to the error of Plutarch, Tacitus, Appian, and so many others, of reproaching the Jews with adoring an ass's head. God, in spite of his prohibition to paint or form likenesses, has, therefore, deigned to adapt himself to human weakness, which required the senses to be addressed by sensible beings.