Some limit themselves to observing that the birth of Jesus Christ is the first epoch of the cessation of oracles. But why, on such an occasion, should some demons have fled, while others remained? Besides, ancient history proves decidedly that many oracles had been destroyed before this birth. All the distinguished oracles of Greece no longer existed, or scarcely existed, and the oracle was occasionally interrupted by the silence of an honest priest who would not consent to deceive the people. "The oracle of Delphi," says Lucian, "remains dumb since princes have become afraid of futurity; they have prohibited the gods from speaking, and the gods have obeyed them."
It might be imagined that all the absurdities which degrade human nature were destined to come to us from Asia, the source at the same time of all the sciences and arts! It was in Asia and in Egypt that mankind first dared to make the life or death of a person accused, dependent on the throw of a die, or something equally unconnected with reason and decided by chance--on cold water or hot water, on red hot iron, or a bit of barley bread. Similar superstition, we are assured by travellers, still exists in the Indies, on the coast of Malabar, and in Japan.
This superstition passed from Egypt into Greece. There was a very celebrated temple at Trezène in which every man who perjured himself died instantly of apoplexy. Hippolytus, in the tragedy of "Phædra," in the first scene of the fifth act, addresses the following lines to his mistress Aricia:
_Aux portes de Trezène, et parmi ces tombeaux,_ _Des princes de ma race antiques sepultures,_ _Est un temple sacré formidable aux parjures._ _C'est là que les mortels n'osent jurer en vain;_ _Le perfide y reçoit un châtiment soudain;_ _Et, craignant d'y trouver la mort inévitable,_ _Le mensonge n'a point de frem plus redoubtable._
At Trezène's gates, amidst the ancient tombs In which repose the princes of my race, A sacred temple stands, the perjurer's dread. No daring mortal there may falsely swear, For swift the vengeance which pursues his crime, Inevitable death his instant lot; Nowhere has falsehood a more awful curb.
The learned commentator of the great Racine makes the following remark on these Trezenian proofs or ordeals: