customs of Colchis were when I was in Egypt.

ment was of great antiquity, and the ancient ceremonies of the country were observed with the most scrupulous exact

ness.

Pythagoras, when travelling among the Egyptians, was obliged to be circum"These inhabitants of the shores of the cised, in order to be admitted to their Euxine sea stated themselves to be a mysteries. It was, therefore, absolutely colony founded by Sesostris. As for my-necessary to be circumcised, to be a priest self, I should think this probable, not in Egypt. Those priests existed when merely because they are dark and woolly-Joseph arrived in Egypt. The governhaired, but because the inhabitants of Colchis, Egypt, and Ethiopia, are the only people in the world who, from time immemorial, have practised circumcision: for the Phenicians, and the people of The Jews acknowledge, that they rePalestine, confess that they adopted the mained in Egypt two hundred and five practice from the Egyptians. The Sy- years. They say that, during that period, rians, who at present inhabit the banks of they did not become circumcised. It is Thermodon, acknowledge that it is, com- } clear, then, that for two hundred and five paratively, but recently that they have years, the Egyptians did not receive circonformed to it. It is principally from cumcision from the Jews. Would they this usage that they are considered of have adopted it from them after the Jews Egyptian origin. had stolen the vessels which they had lent "With respect to Ethiopia and Egypt; them, and, according to their own acas this ceremony is of great antiquity in count, fled with their plunder into the both nations, I cannot by any means as-wilderness? Will a master adopt the certain which has derived it from the principal symbol of the religion of a robother. It is, however, probable, that the bing and runaway slave? It is not in Ethiopians received it from the Egyp-human nature.

tians; while, on the contrary, the Phe- It is stated in the book of Joshua, that nicians have abolished the practice of cir- the Jews were circumcised in the wildercumcising new-born children since theness. "I have delivered you from what enlargement of their commerce with the constituted your reproach among the Greeks." Egyptians." But what could this reFrom this passage of Herodotus it is proach be, to a people living between evident, that many people had adopted Phenicians, Arabians, and Egyptians, but circumcision from Egypt; but no nation something which rendered them conever pretended to have received it from temptible to these three nations? How the Jews. To whom, then, can we attri-effectually is that reproach removed by bute the origin of this custom; to a abstracting a small portion of the prepuce? nation from whom five or six others ac- Must not this be considered the natural knowledge they took it, or to another na- meaning of the passage? tion, much less powerful, less commercial, less warlike, hid away in a corner of Arabia Petræa, and which never communicated any one of its usages to any other people?

The book of Genesis relates, that Abraham had been circumcised before. But Abraham travelled in Egypt, which had been long a flourishing kingdom, governed by a powerful king. There is nothing to The Jews admit that they were, many prevent the supposition that circumcision ages since, received in Egypt out of cha-was, in this very ancient kingdom, an rity. Is it not probable that the lesser people imitated a usage of the superior one, and that the Jews adopted some customs from their masters?

Ciement of Alexandria relates, that

established usage. Moreover, the circumcision of Abraham led to no continuation; his posterity were not circumcised till the time of Joshua.

But, before the time of Joshua, the

Jews, by their own acknowledgment, adopted many of the customs of the Egyptians. They imitated them in many sacrifices, in many ceremonies; as, for example, in the fasts observed on the eves of the feasts of Isis; in ablutions; in the custom of shaving the heads of the priests; in the incence, the branched candlestick, the sacrifice of the red-haired cow, the purification with hyssop, the abstinence from swine's flesh, the dread of using the kitchen utensils of foreigners; everything testifies, that the little people of Hebrews, notwithstanding its aversion to the great Egyptian nation, had retained a vast number of the usages of its former masters. The goat Azazel, which was despatched into the wilderness laden with the sins of the people, was a visible imitation of an Egyptian practice. The rabbis are agreed,

even,

that the word Azazel is not Hebrew. Nothing, therefore, could exist to have prevented the Hebrews from imitating the Egyptians in circumcision, as the Arabs { their neighbours did.

Apella,"-"curti Judæi," never apply. such epithets to the Egyptians. The whole population of Egypt is at present circumcised, but for another reason than what operated formerly; namely, because Mahometanism adopted the ancient circumcision of Arabia. It is this Arabian circumcision which has extended to the Ethiopians, among whom males and females are both still circumcised.

We must acknowledge that this ceremony appears at first a very strange one; but we should remember that, from the earliest times, the oriental priests consecrated themselves to their deities by peculiar marks. An ivy leaf was indented with a graver on the priests of Bacchus. Lucian tells us, that those devoted to the goddess Isis, impressed characters upon their wrist and neck. The priests of Cybele made themselves eunuchs.

It is highly probable that the Egyptians, who revered the instrument of human production, and bore its image in pomp in their processions, conceived the idea It is by no means extraordinary that of offering to Isis and Osiris, through God, who sanctified baptism, a practice whom everything on earth was produced, so ancieni among the Asiatics, should a small portion of that organ with which also have sanctified circumcision, not less these deities had connected the perpetuaancient among the Africans. We have tion of the human species. Ancient orialready remarked, that he has a sovereignental manners are so prodigiously different right to attach his favours to any symbol that he chooses.

from our own, that scarcely anything will appear extraordinary to a man of even but little reading. A Parisian is excessively surprised when he is told that the Hottentots deprive their male children of one of the evidences of virility. The Hottentots are perhaps surprised that the Parisians preserve both.

As to what remains since the time when, under Joshua, the Jewish people became circumcised, it has retained that usage down to the present day: the Arabs, also, have faithfully adhered to it: but the Egyptians, who, in the earlier ages, circumcised both their males and females, in a course of time abandoned the practice entirely as to the latter, and at last THERE may be something perhaps still applied it solely to priests, astrologers, remaining for remark under this head, and prophets. This we learn from Cle- even after Du Cange's Dictionary and the ment of Alexandria, and Origen. In fact, Encyclopedia. We may observe, for init is not clear that the Ptolemies ever re-stance, that so wonderful was the respect ceived circumcision.

The Latin authors, who treat the Jews with such profound contempt as to apply to them in derision the expressions, "curtus Apella," "credat Judæus

CLERK-CLERGY.

paid to learning about the eleventh and twelfth centuries, that a custom was introduced and followed in France, in Germany, and in England, of remitting the punishment of the halter to every con{

demned criminal who was able to read. So necessary to the state was every man who possessed such an extent of knowledge.

William the Bastard, the conqueror of England, carried thither this custom. It was called benefit of clergy-"beneficium clericorum aut clergicorum."

priests of Diana; of the Pythia of Delphos; and, in more remote antiquity, of {the priestesses of Apollo, and even of the priestesses of Bacchus.

The priests of Cybele not only bound themselves by vows of chastity, but, to preclude the violation of their vows, became eunuchs.

Plutarch, in the eighth question of his "Table-talk," informs us that, in Egypt, there are colleges of priests which renounce marriage.

The first Christians, although profess

We have remarked, in more places than ɔne, that old usages lost in other countries are found again in England, as in the island of Samothrace were discovered the ancient mysteries of Orpheus. To this day, the benefit of clergy subsists amonging to lead a life as pure as that of the the English, in all its vigour, for man- Essenians and Therapeuta, did not conslaughter, and for any theft not exceeding sider celibacy as a virtue. We have seen a certain amount of value, and being the that nearly all the apostles and disciples first offence. The prisoner who is able were married. St. Paul writes to Titus: to read demands his "benefit of clergy," "Chuse for a priest him who is the husband which cannot be refused him. The judge of one wife, having believing children, and refers to the chaplain of the prison, who not under accusation of dissoluteness." presents a book to the prisoner, upon which the judge puts the question to the chaplain, "Legit?" "Does he read?" The chaplain replies, "Legit ut clericus." He seems to deem so highly of marri"He reads like a clergyman." After age, that, in the same epistle to Timothy, this, the punishment of the prisoner is re- he says:-"The wife, notwithstanding stricted to the application of a hot brand-her prevarication, shall be saved in childing iron to the palm of his hand. bearing."

Of the Celibacy of the Clergy. It is asked, whether, in the first ages of the church, marriage was permitted to the clergy, and when it was forbidden?

It is unquestionable, that the clergy of the Jewish religion, far from being bound to celibacy, were, on the contrary, urged to marriage, not merely by the example of their patriarchs, but by the disgrace attached to not leaving posterity.

He says the same to Timothy :-" Let the superintendant be the husband of one wife."

The proceedings of the council of Nice, on the subject of married priests, deserve great attention. Some bishops, according to the relations of Sozomen and Socrates, proposed a law commanding bishops and priests thenceforward to abstain from their wives; but St. Paphnucius the Martyr, Bishop of Thebes, in Egypt, strenuously opposed it; observing, “that marriage was chastity ;" and the council adopted his opinion.

Suidas, Gelasius, Cesicenus, Cassiodorus, and Nicephorus Calistus, record precisely the same thing.

In the times, however, that preceded the first calamities which befel the Jews, certain sects of rigorists arose: Essenians, Judaites, Therapeutæ, and Herodians; The council merely forbade the clergy in some of which-the Essenians and from living with agapetæ, or female assoTherapeutæ, for examples-the most de-ciates besides their own wives, except their vout of the sect abstained from marriage. This continence was an imitation of the chastity of the vestals, instituted by Numa Pompilius; of the daughter of Pythagoras, who founded a convent; of the

mothers, sisters, aunts, and others whose age would preclude suspicion.

After that time the celibacy of the clergy was recommended, without being commanded. St. Jerome, a devout re

cluse, was, of all the fathers, highest in his eulogiums of the celibacy of priests; yet he resolutely supports the cause of Carterius, a Spanish bishop, who had been married twice. "Were I," says he, "to enumerate all the bishops who have entered into second nuptials, I should name as many as were present at the council of Rimini."-" Tantus numerus congregabitur ut Riminensis synodus superetur."

countries, who would thus have no other family than the church.

This law was not established without great opposition.

It is a very remarkable circumstance, that the council of Basil, having deposed, at least nominally, Pope Eugenius IV. and elected Amadeus of Savoy, many bishops, having objected against that prince that he had been married, Eneas Sylvius, who was afterwards pope, under The examples of clergymen married, the name of Pius II. supported the and living with their wives, are innume-election of Amadeus in these wordsrable. Sydonius, Bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, in the fifth century, married Papianilla, daughter of the Emperor Avitus, and the house of Polignac claims descent from this marriage. Simplicius, Bishop of Bourges, had two children by his wife Palladia.

St. Gregory of Nazianzen was the son of another Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzen, and of Nonna, by whom that bishop had three children,-Cesarius, Gorgonia, and the saint.

In the Roman decretals, under the canon Osius, we find a very long list of bishops who were the sons of priests. Pope Osius himself was the son of a subdeacon Stephen; and Pope Boniface I. son of the priest Jocondo. Pope Felix III. was the son of Felix, a priest, and was himself one of the grandfathers of Gregory the Great. The priest Projectus was the father of John II.; and Gordian, the father of Agapet. Pope Sylvester was the son of Pope Hormisdas. Theodore I. was born of a marriage of Theodore, Patriarch of Jerusalem : a circumstance which should produce the reconciliation of the two churches.

"Non solum qui uxorem habuit, sed
uxorem habens, potest assume.'
"Not
only may he be made a pope who has
been married, but also he who is so."
This Pius II. was consistent. Peruse
his letters to his mistress, in the collec-
tion of his works. He was convinced,
that to defraud nature of her rights was
absolute insanity, and that it was the
duty of man not to destroy, but to con-
trol her.

However this may be, since the council of Trent there has no longer been any dispute about the celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy; there have been only desires.

All protestant communions are, on this point, in opposition to Rome.

In the Greek church, which at present extends from the frontiers of China to Cape Matapan, the priests may marry once. Customs everywhere vary; discipline changes conformably to time and place. We here only record facts; we enter into no controversy.

Of Clerks of the Closet (Clerks du Secret), since denominated Secretaries of Stute and Ministers.

At length, after several councils had been held without effect, on the subject Clerks of the closet, clerks of the king, of the celibacy which ought always to more recently denominated secretaries of accompany the priesthood, Pope Gre-state, in France and England, were origory excommunicated all married priests; ginally the "king's notaries." They either to add respectability to the church, were afterwards called "secretaries of by the greater rigour of its discipline,} orders”—(sécrétaires des commandémens). or to attach more closely to the court of This we are informed of by the learned Rome the bishops and priests of other and laborious Pasquier. His authority

is unquestionable, as he had under his inspection the registers of the chamber of accompts, which, in our own times, have been destroyed by fire.

reason and investigate, goes still farther than Fontenelle, when speaking of Persia. "The temperature of warm climates," says he, "enervates the mind as At the unfortunate peace of Chateau well as the body, and dissipates that fire Cambresis, a clerk of Philip II. having which the imagination requires for intaken the title of secretary of state, vention. In such climates men are inL'Aubepine, who was secretary of or- capable of the long studies and intense ders to the king of France, and his no- application which are necessary to the tary, took that title likewise, that the production of first-rate works in the lihonours of both might be equal, what-beral and mechanic arts," &c. ever might be the case with their emolu

ments.

Chardin did not consider that Sadi and Lokman were Persians. He did not recollect that Archimedes belonged to Si

three-fourths of Persia. He forgot that Pythagoras formerly taught geometry to the Brahmins.

The Abbé Dubos supported and developed, as well as he was able, the opinion of Chardin.

In England, before the reign of Henry VIII., there was only one secretary ofcily, where the heat is greater than in the king, who stood while he presented memorials and petitions to the council. Henry VIII. appointed two, and conferred on them the same titles and prerogatives as in Spain. The great nobles did not, at that period, accept these situations; but, in time, they have become of so much consequence, that peers of the realm and commanders of armies are now invested with them. Thus every thing changes. There is at present no relic in France of the government of Hugh Capet, nor in England of the administration of William the bastard.

CLIMATE.

Ir is certain that the sun and atmosphere mark their empire on all the productions of nature, from man to mush

rooms.

In the grand age of Louis XIV. the ingenious Fontenelle remarked:

One hundred and fifty years before them, Bodin made it the foundation of his system, in his" Republic" and in his "Method of History" he asserts that the influence of climate is the principle both of the government and the religion of nations.

Diodorus of Sicily was of the same opinion long before Bodin.

The author of the "Spirit of Laws," without quoting any authority, carried this idea farther than Chardin and Bodin. A certain part of the nation believed him to have first suggested it, and imputed it to him as a crime. This was quite in character with that part of the nation al"One might imagine that the torrid luded to. There are everywhere men and two frigid zones are not well suited { who possess more zeal than understandto the sciences. Down to the presenting. day, they have not travelled beyond We might ask those who maintain that Egypt and Mauritania, on the one side, climate does everything, why the Emnor on the other beyond Sweden. Per-peror Julian, in his Misopogon, says, haps it is not owing to mere chance that they are retained within Mount Atlas and the Baltic Sea. We know not whether these may not be the limits appointed to them by nature, or whether we may ever hope to see great authors among Laplanders or negroes."

Chardin, one of those travellers who

that what pleased him in the Parisians, was the gravity of their characters and the severity of their manners; and why these Parisians, without the slightest change of climate, are now like playful children at whom the government punishes and smiles at the same moment, and who themselves, the moment after, also,