Chapter 1090
[←1081]
Whenever such analogies between the Gentiles and the Jews, and later the Christians, have been pointed out, it has been the invariable custom of the latter to say that it was the work of the Devil who forced the Pagans to imitate the Jews for the purpose of throwing a slur on the religion of the one, true living God. To this Faber says very justly: “Some have imagined that the Gentiles were servile copyists of the Israelites, and that each point of similitude was borrowed from the Mosaical Institutes. But this theory will by no means solve the problem. Both because we find the very same resemblance in the ceremonies of nations far distant from Palestine, as we do in the rites of those who are in its immediate vicinity, and because it seems incredible that all should have borrowed from one which was universally disliked and despised.” (Pagan Idolatry, i. 104.)