"It is said that the five gods travel through the world representing themselves to men, sometimes in the form of sacred living creatures, and sometimes in the form of men. And this is not a fable, but very possible, if it be true that these give birth to all things." DIOD. SIC. 1. I. c. 12.

Ovid tells how

Jupiter, and the god who reigns in the wide ocean, and Mercury, took their journey together," &c.-Ov. Fast. 1. v. v. 495 and v. 688.

"Full oft, while piety was yet revered

By pristine man, the gods on earth appear'd,
And, entering oft some hero's pure abode,
To human crowds immortal beauty show'd."

CATUL. Carm. LXIV. v. 387.

3. And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:

4.

Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:

And

5. And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on for therefore are ye come to your servant. they said, So do, as thou hast said.

"They, seeing guests arrived, together all

Advanced, and grasping courteously their hands
Invited them to sit."-Hoм. Odyss. 1. 3. v. 34.

"Miltiades, as he sat before the door of his house, perceived the Dolonci passing by, and as by their dress and spears they appeared to be foreigners, he called to them. On their approach he offered them the use of his house and the rites of hospitality."

HDT. 1. VI. c. 35.

แ "According to these laws, it is meet to receive all strangers, both male and female from another country, and to send out our own people, doing honour to Zeus, who presides over hospitality."-PLAT. de leg. 1. XII. c. 6.

Among the Germans, to refuse admitting under your roof any man whatsoever is held wicked and inhuman. Every man receives every comer and treats him with repasts as long as his ability can possibly furnish them. -TAC. Germ. c. 21.

6. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.

7. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.

8. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.

times.

Homer gives a similar picture of the simplicity and hospitality of patriarchal

"Patroclus o'er the blazing fire

Heaps in a brazen vase three chines entire :
The brazen vase Automedon sustains,
Which flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains:
Achilles at the genial feast presides,

The parts transfixes and with skill divides.
Meanwhile Patroclus sweats, the fire to raise ;
The tent is brightened with the rising blaze:

Then, when the languid flames at length subside,
He shows a bed of glowing embers wide,
Above the coals the smoking fragment turns,
And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns;
With bread the glittering canisters they load
Which round the board Menoetius' son bestowed;
Himself, opposed to Ulysses, full in sight,
Each portion parts, and orders every rite.
The first fat offering, to the immortals due,
Amidst the greedy flames Patroclus threw ;
Then each, indulging in the social feast,

His thirst and hunger soberly repress'd."-HOм. Il. 1. IX. v. 206.

17. And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18. Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him ?

19.

For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Apollo manifests himself not to every one, but to a good man only."
CALLIM. H. in Apoll. v. 9.

"The good......are God's peculiar care,

And such as honour him shall heav'nly honour share."

Ov. Metam. 1. vIII. v. 724.

"To whom could I suppose that the Gods of Heaven would rather reveal and disclose their secrets, than the truth to the hallowed Cato? Assuredly thy life has ever been regulated according to the laws of heaven, and thou art a follower of the God." LUCAN. Phars. 1. IX. v. 557.

25. That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Contrast the following:

"The deity, deeming fortune common, is wont, in the ruin of him that is depraved, to destroy him that is not depraved and has done no evil."-EURIP. Suppl. v. 226.

GENESIS XIX.

8. Therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

The ancients, and especially those of Eastern countries, were very strict in their observance of the rites of hospitality. No sacrifice was too great to offer in defence of those who had broken bread or tasted salt under their roof. Even an enemy, having once been received as a guest, might expect protection. Lycaon had been a captive to Achilles who sent him to Lemnos, to be sold; but he escaped from thence and was again found by Achilles on the field of battle. He thus pleads for life,

"Thy well-known captive, great Achilles! see,

Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee.

Some pity to a suppliant's name afford,

Who shared the gifts of Ceres at thy board."-Hoм. П. 1. xxI. v. 74.

11. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

So the Phæacians were blinded that they could not see Ulysses.
"Secret he moves along the crowded space,

Unseen of all the rude Phæacian race.

So Pallas order'd. Pallas to their eyes

The mist objected, and condensed the skies."

HOM. Odyss. 1. VII. v. 38.

"MINERVA. He (Ajax) will not see thee, be thou e'er so near.
"ULYSSES. Impossible! his eyes are still the same.
"MINERVA. But I shall throw a veil of darkness o'er them."

SOPH. Ajax. Act I. v. 83.

"Propitious to the journey, Juno shrouds
The Colchian city in a veil of clouds;
That safely they may reach the monarch's seat;
Nor insult from the swarming rabble meet."

APOL. RHOD. Arg. 1. III. v. 210.

17. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

The history of Lot and the angels seems to have been preserved among the Romans in the story of Jupiter and Mercury visiting the house of Baucis and Philemon, and as a recompense for their hospitality, delivering them from the destruction with which all the other inhabitants of the place were visited for their wickedness.

"Jove, with Hermes came; but in disguise

Of mortal men, conceal'd their deities;

One laid aside his thunder, one his rod;

And many toilsome steps together trod :

For harbour at a thousand doors they knock'd,

Not one of all the thousand but was lock'd.

At last an hospitable house they found.

Baucis and Philemon receive them hospitably, and Jove declares himself.

"The neighbourhood, said he,

Shall justly perish for impiety:

You stand alone exempted; but obey

With speed, and follow where we lead the way:
Leave these accurs'd, and to the mountains' height
Ascend; nor once look backward in your flight.
They haste, and what their tardy feet denied,
The trusty staff, their better leg, supplied.

An arrow's flight they wanted to the top,
And there secure, but spent with travel, stop;
Then turn their now no more forbidden eyes;
Lost in a lake the floated level lies.

OVID. Metam. 1 viii. v. 626-697.

24. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

25. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

"The country about the Lacus Asphaltites being of an igneous character, and exhaling bad odours, renders the inhabitants sickly and short-lived."

DIOD. SIC. 1. XIX. c. 98.

"Near Moasada (a place near the lake Asphaltites, called Masada by Josephus) are to be seen rugged rocks, bearing the marks of fire; fissures in many places; a soil like ashes; pitch falling in drops from the rocks; rivers boiling up, and emitting a fetid odour to a great distance; dwellings in every direction overthrown; whence we are inclined to believe the common tradition of the natives that thirteen cities once existed there, the capital of which was Sodom, but that a circuit of about sixty stadia around it escaped uninjured; shocks of earthquake, however, eruptions of flames, and hot springs containing asphaltus and sulphur, caused the lake to burst its bounds, and the rocks took fire; some of the cities were swallowed up, others were abandoned by such of the inhabitants as were able to make their escape."-STRAB. 1. XVI. c. 2.

"Not far from the Dead Sea lie the desert plains, such as they report to have been of old a fruitful and flourishing country, full of populous cities, which were consumed by lightnings and thunderbolts; they add that the traces and monuments of such desolation still exist, and that the soil itself looks scorched, and has ever since lost its fertility . . . To speak my own sentiments, I would allow that cities, once very great and important, were burnt here by fire from heaven, and that the soil is infected by exhalations from the lake."-TAC. Hist. 1. v. c. 7.

"The lake Asphaltites produces nothing whatever except bitumen, to which it owes its name."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. v. c. 16. IBID. 1. XXXv. c.15.

The story of Phaeton may, perhaps, have originated in some tradition of this great burning by the fire sent down from heaven.

"The fire prevail'd, when the sun's furious horse,
Disdaining Phaethon's young feeble force,
Ran through the sky in an unusual course;
And, falling near the earth, burnt all below,
Till angry Jove did dreadful thunder throw,
And quenched the hot-brained fiery youth in Po."

LUCRET. de rer. nat. 1. v. v. 340.

"The highlands smoke, cleft by the piercing rays,
Or, clad with woods, in their own fuel blaze.
Next o'er the plains, where ripened harvests grow,

The running conflagration spreads below.

But these are trivial ills: whole cities burn,

And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn."—Óv. Metam. 1. II. v. 210.

26. But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt.

Medea charges Jason, that after performing mystical rites to Hecate,
"This ended, home return with backward pace,
Nor turn at startling noise thy heedless face;
Though hurried steps along the causeway sound,
Or mastiffs hoarsely bay, with note profound;
Should'st thou, ill-fated, rashly turn thy head,
Vain are the rites, and hopes of safety fled."

APOL. RHOD. Arg. 1. III. v. 1037.

Orpheus recovers Eurydice from Tartarus on the condition that

Orpheus

"If, before he reach the realms of air,

He backward cast his eyes to view the fair,
The forfeit grant, that instant void is made,
And she for ever left a lifeless shade.

"His longing eyes impatient, backward cast
To catch a lover's look, but look'd his last;
For, instant dying, she again descends,
While he to empty air his arms extends."

Ov. Metam. 1. x. v. 50.

Niobe was turned to stone while grieving over the death of her children.
"Thee too I reverence as a goddess, thee,
Unhappy Niobe! for still thou weep'st,

And from the marble, tears eternal flow."-SOPH. Electra, v. 150.
"Widow'd and childless, lamentable state!
A doleful sight, among the dead she sate;
Harden'd with woes, a statue of despair,
To ev'ry breath of wind unmov'd her hair;
Action and life from ev'ry part are gone;
And ev'n her entrails turn to solid stone."

Ov. Metam. 1. vi. v. 301.

GENESIS XX.

3. And God came to Abimelech in a dream.

"The gods know all things and fore-shew them to whom they please by auguries, by omens, and in dreams."-XEN. Hipparch. c. 9.

For further notices of dreams see Job xxxii. 15.

3. Thou art but a dead man.

"He that deserves to die is dead already, though he may still sup on a hundred Gaurian oysters, and plunge in a whole bath of the perfumes of Cosmus."

Juv. Sat. VIII. v. 85.

11. And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake. Ulysses exclaims

"Into what land am I come? Are these people wild, cruel, without law, doing all things by violence? or are they given to hospitality; having the fear of God in their minds."-HOм. Odyss. 1. VI. v. 119.

12. And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.

The Athenians were permitted by the law of Solon to marry their sisters by the father's side; but not their uterine sisters. "The son of thy mother" is mentioned, Deut. XIII. 6, as of nearer affinity than others.

"A brother, O averter of ill! debauched his sister, the child of his own mother! " ARISTOPH. Nub. v. 1372. "Cimon married his half-sister Elpinice in accordance with the custom of his country. For an Athenian is allowed to marry the daughter of his own father." CORN. NEP. Cimon, c. 1.