OF THE FIRST EDITION

...is established from those things handed down. One might rightly think that the rites of invoking the Gods, calling them to witness, and slaughtering sacrificial victims in the most ancient sacred ceremonies of the Syrians were perhaps no different from those encountered among the Europeans—unless one excepts perhaps more obscure differences, or those which are nowhere sufficiently indicated—save for where specific peculiarities are observed.

I admit that many other authors occur, to whom Rabbi Moses Ben-Maimon Maimonides (1138–1204), a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and scholar who sought to explain the rational basis for biblical laws, Alexander of Hales A 13th-century English Franciscan theologian known as the "Irrefragable Doctor", and others among them relate all the ceremonies of the Old Covenant. But these authors are of such a kind that it remains entirely hidden to which of our Deities each individual rite should be attributed: we know that most institutions of the Syrian sanctuaries were held in common with Greece and Latium The region of central Italy where Rome was founded. The Old Instrument The Old Testament teaches this throughout. An excellent example from a more recent age is also found regarding a treaty struck at Babylon according to ancestral rite; Claudian Claudius Claudianus (c. 370–404 AD), a Latin poet at the court of the Emperor Honorius recalls it thus in Book 1 of On the Praises of Stilicho:

With heaps of fragrant incense and the Sabean harvest
The altars win peace; they have snatched the hallowed Fire
From the inner sanctuaries, and with Chaldean rite
The Magi have laid low the bullocks. The King himself
Tilts the slanting bowl with his right hand, and calls to witness
The secrets of Belus and Mithras, who turns the wandering stars.
original: "Thuris odoratæ cumulis & messe Sabea / Pacem conciliant aræ Penetralibus Ignem / Sacratum rapuere adytis, rituq; juvencos / Chaldæo stravere Magi. Rex ipse nutantem / In linat dextra pateram, secretaq; Beli / Et Vaga testatur volventem sidera Mithram."