is impossible for a perishable body to be infinite, immense, or eternal. They have the confidence to quote Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, in their favour, who, in his Ecclesiastical History, book i. chap. 9, declares that it is absurd to imagine the uncreated and unchangeable nature of Almighty God taking the form of a man. They cite the fathers of the church, Justin and Tertullian, who have said the same thing: Justin, in his Dialogue with Triphonius, and Tertullian, in his Discourse against Praxeas. They quote St. Paul, who never calls Jesus Christ God, and who calls him man very often. They carry their audacity so far as to affirm, that the christians passed three entire ages in forming by degrees the apotheosis of Jesus; and that they only raised this astonishing edifice by the example of the pagans, who had deified mortals. At first, according to them, Jesus was only regarded as a man inspired by God, and then as a creature more perfect than others. They gave him some time after a place above the angels, as St. Paul tells us. Every day added to his greatness. He in time became an emanation, proceeding from God. This was not enough; he was even born before time. At last he was made God consubstantial with God. Crellius, Voquelsius, Natalis Alexander, and Hornbeck, have supported all these blasphemies by arguments, which astonish the wise and mislead the weak. Above all, Faustus Socinus spread the seeds of this doctrine in Europe; and at the end of the sixteenth century, a new species of christianity was established.* There were already more than three hundred. DIVORCE. IN the article DIVORCE, in the Encyclopædia, it is said that the custom of divorce having been brought into Gaul by the Romans, it was therefore that * Not in common law, says a great legal character; but what Bays common sense?-T. Bissine, or Bazine, quitted the king of Thuringia, her husband, in order to follow Childeric, who married her. Why not say, that because the Trojans established the custom of divorce in Sparta, Helen repudiated Menelaus according to law, to run away with Paris into Phrygia? The agreeable fable of Paris, and the ridiculous one of Childeric, who never was king of France, and who it is pretended carried off Bazine, the wife of Bazin, have nothing to do with the law of divorce. They all quote Cheribert, ruler of the little town of Luctetia, near Issy-Lutetia Parisiorum-who repudiated his wife. The abbé Velli, in his History of France, says, that this Cheribert, or Caribert, divorced his wife Ingoberg to espouse Mirefleur, the daughter of an artisan; and afterwards Theudegild, the daughter of a shepherd, who was raised to the first throne of the French empire. There was at that time neither first nor second throne among these barbarians, whom the Roman empire never recognised as kings. There was no French empire. The empire of the French only commenced with Charlemagne. It is very doubtful whether the word mirefleur was in use either in the Welch or Gallic languages, which were a patois of the Celtic jargon. This patois had no expressions so soft. It is also said that the ruler or governor Chilperic, lord of the province of Soissonnais, whom they call king of France, divorced his queen Andovere or Andove; and here follows the reason of this divorce. This Andovere, after having given three male children to the lord of Soissons, brought forth a daughter. The Franks having been in some manner christians since the time of Clovis, Andovere, after her recovery, presented her daughter to be baptised. Chilperic of Soissons, who was apparently very tired of her, declared that it was an unpardonable crime in her to 'be the godmother of her infant, and that she could no longer be his wife by the laws of the church. He therefore married Fredegond, whom he subsequently put away also, and espoused a Visigoth. To conclude, this scrupulous husband ended by taking Fredegonde back again. There was nothing legal in all this, and it ought no more to be quoted than anything which passed in Ireland or the Orcades. The Justinian code, which we have adopted in several points, authorises divorce; but the canonical law, which the catholics have placed before it, does not permit it. The author of the article says that divorce is practiced in the states of Germany, of the Confession of Augsbourg. He might have added, that this custom is established in all the countries of the north, among the reformed of all professions, and among all the followers of the Greek church. Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks more ancient; that is to say, men quarrelled with their wives at the end of five days, beat them at the end of a month, and separated from them after six weeks' cohabitation. Justinian, who collected all the laws made before him, to which he added his own, not only confirms that of divorce, but he extends it still further; so that every woman, whose husband is not a slave, but simply a prisoner of war during five years, may, after the five years have expired, contract another marriage. Justinian was a christian, and even a theologian; how is it then that the church derogates from his laws? It was when the church became the sovereign and the legislator. The popes had not much trouble to substitute their decretals instead of the civil code in the west, which was plunged in ignorance and barbarism. They took, indeed, so much advantage of the prevailing ignorance, that Honorius III. Gregory IX. and Innocent III. by their bulls, forbade the civil law to be taught. It may be said of this audacity, that it is not credible, but true. As the church alone took cognizance of marriages, so it alone judged of divorce. No prince effected a divorce and married a second wife, without previously obtaining the consent of the pope. Henry VIII. king of England, did not marry without his consent, until after having a long time solicited his divorce in the court of Rome in vain. This custom, established in ignorant times, is perpetuated in enlightened ones only because it exists. All abuse eternises itself; it is an Augean stable, and requires an Hercules to cleanse it. Henry IV. could not be the father of a king of France without the permission of the pope; which must have been given, as has already been remarked, not by pronouncing a divorce, but a lie; that is to say, by pretending that there had not been previous marriage* with Margaret de Valois.+ DOG. Ir seems as if nature had given the dog to man for his defence and pleasure; it is of all animals the most faithful; it is the best possible friend of man. It appears that there are several species absolutely different. How can we believe that a greyhound comes originally from a spaniel? it has neither its hair, legs, shape, ears, voice, scent, nor instinct. A man who had never seen any dogs but barbets or spaniels, and who saw a greyhound for the first time, would take it rather for a dwarf horse than for an animal of the spaniel race. It is very likely that each race was always what it now is, with the exception of the mixture of a small number of them.‡ It is astonishing that, in the Jewish law, the dog was considered unclean as well as the griffin, the hare, the pig, and the eel; there must have been some moral or physical reason for it, which we have not yet discovered. * See ADULTERY. + Napoleon managed his divorce from Josephine with infinitely more dignity.-T. We apprehend that the dogs themselves decide the point the other way.-T. * That which is related of the sagacity, obedience, friendship, and courage of dogs, is as extraordinary as true. The military philosopher Ulloa, assures us that, in Peru, the Spanish dogs recognise the men of the Indian race, pursue them, and tear them to pieces; and that the Peruvian dogs do the same with the Spaniards. This would seem to prove that each species of dog still retained the hatred which was inspired in it at the time of the discovery, and that each race always fought for its master with the same valour and attachment. Why then has the word dog become an injurious term? We say, for tenderness, my sparrow, my dove, my chicken; we even say, my kitten, though this animal is famed for treachery, and, when we are angry, we call people dogs! The Turks, when not even angry, speak with horror and contempt of the christian dogs. The English populace, when they see a man who, by his manner or dress, has the appearance of having been born on the banks of the Seine or of the Loire, commonly call him a French dog,—a figure of rhetoric which is neither just to the dog nor polite to the man. The delicate Homer introduces the divine Achilles telling the divine Agamemnon that he is as impudent as a dog—a classical justification of the English populace. The most zealous friends of the dog must, however, confess, that this animal carries audacity in its eyes; that several are morose; that they often bite strangers whom they take for their master's enemies, as sentinels assail passengers who approach too near the counterscarp. These are probably the reasons which have rendered the epithet dog insulting; but we dare not decide. Why was the dog adored and revered (as has been seen) by the Egyptians? Because the dog protects man. Plutarch tells us that after Cambyses had killed their bull Apis, and had had it roasted, no ani VOL. III. * Ulloa's Voyage to Peru. D |