religion – think-and-discern

* RELIGION OF MONARCHIES–“We may well say that despotism cannot be sustained without an established religion, an union of Church and State. A government tolerating freedom of opinion in religion, must tolerate freedom of opinion in politics; for as religion comprehends duties to society as well as to God, and as rights and duties in society are correlative, freedom in religion necessarily leads to freedom in everything else. All great despots have understood this, and have, therefore, always endeavored to surround themselves with an “odor of sanctity,” by courting a connection between religion and politics. For this purpose Constantine the Great professed Christianity, made it the religion of the Roman Empire; and, to counteract its free tendencies, he corrupted it with the old State religion, that Heathen Mythology in which he had been educated. He, therefore, converted the Pantheon into a Church, gave to all its statues of gods and demigods and goddesses the nicknames of he and she saints, stuck up an old statue of Jupiter as an image of St. Peter, and changed all the fast and feast days of the gods in the Calendar to Saints’ Days. Diana became the Virgin Mary, Venus, Mary Magdalene, and Minerva, so handy with her needle, was metamorphosed into Saint Dorcas, the patroness of sewing societies. Thus Christianity, which is purely spiritual, (they say,) which tolerates no idolatry, which places no human intermediaries (except Jesus) between God and man, was defiled with the grossness of the very superstitions which it was sent to dispel, to enable a crafty politician to stupefy mankind for the purpose of governing them absolutely.”