Critical History of Dogmas and Cults [with] Supplement

languages. The works of criticism by Father Simon are very fortunate to have appeared in the French language; and if this Author had made it a necessity to appear only in the language of the Scholars, the printer would not have had nearly as much profit. It is not to imitate Father Simon, who gave as the title to his principal work, Critical History of the Old and New Testament, that one has taken that of Critical History of Dogmas & Cults &c. For this work being truly a history, one could not deny it that name; and being elsewhere mixed with so much Criticism, one ought not to have hidden it from a century that has so much love for this species of literature.

We do not judge it very necessary to put an Errata here. There are too few faults and too few that are considerable. They are above all in the spelling of words in foreign languages, and principally of Hebrew and Greek. But those who are ignorant of these languages will do very well without these corrections, and those who know them will make them well themselves: There are few in the Latin language; one will find in a passage of Horace, expressum pressed out instead of cupressum cypress, page 401. On page 467, one reads in a passage of Suetonius futuræ trais multa prodigia extiterant many portents of future sadness had appeared. This has no sense: one must read, futuræ mortis of future death. On page 333, compararion instead of comparution appearance/summons: one will find some faults in the articles. But the Public is sufficiently persuaded that we know our language well enough to avoid these kinds of faults. There is only one essential correction in things less than in words. It is on page 671, where one reads: It is clear that the 70 Interpreters understood that Astaroth and Asheroth referred to the same divinity. This is precisely the opposite of what one intended to say, which is why one must read: The 70 Interpreters did not sufficiently understand that Astaroth and Asheroth are the same thing and the same divinity.

I believe that we will find here the true reason why the Greeks and Romans gave the eagle to Jupiter as his bird: it is said that it is because this bird is the King of birds because of its size and its strength: But a large kite is as strong as an eagle. It is therefore apparent that they borrowed this from the Assyrians and the Orientals, like all the rest of their Theology: it is because Nimrod, having become the Jupiter Belus Jupiter Baal of the Babylonians, had the eagle for his symbol, and this eagle being placed on the statue of Jupiter, was worshipped jointly with the God of whom it was the symbol, and it even communicated its name of Nisroch a deity worshipped by Sennacherib to him.