Let us now attend to the moral and political effects produced by this new version of the old mythology, to which, with regard to its absurd and unnatural dogmas, St Paul is the principal contributor. After it had grown strong under the protection of the cruel, kin-killing Constantine, and his parasite Eusebius, it soon turned persecutor in its turn, and began to engender legions of other moral and physical evils, which gradually overwhelmed the Roman empire, in proportion as the human mind became debased and emasculated by abject slavery, under an intolerant superstition--the gorgeous demon of Catholic despotism, erected on the ruins of the less degrading and less expensive Paganism.* Each succeeding year and age was marked by the onward degeneracy and baseness of the Roman spirit. The new modelled mystery of a triune godhead, with its accompanying train of chimeras,** sunk all classes into mental imbecility, and such was the infatuation that nothing but the grossest supernatural follies excited their attention; and as these were made up of insignificant mummeries--theological cant and jargon altogether unintelligible, they caused the bitterest disputes and animosities in both the empires; and glorious high-minded Pagan Italy became the land of pious frauds, clerical knavery, and lies,*** in which absurdities the effeminate and contemptible emperors joined, with their trains of monks and eunuchs. * In the mythology of the Pagans, their Theogony consisted of full thirty thousand bearded and unbearded divinities. We have reduced that establishment to three only; yet nevertheless, (unaccountable as it may appear) it has been so contrived by our modern hierophants, that the service of this triune deity, with their hosts of privileged deputies, holy days, etc., and taxing the people in one-seventh of their time, and one-tenth of their substance, has entailed on human industry, a tax of one hundred times the amount of that which was contributed to regale the nasal senses of the whole celestial army of antiquity! ** In imitation of the Pagans, the crafty Christian priests soon perceived the advantages of polytheism, and that it would tend greatly to their interest to associate some other subaltern gods along with the deity of Moses; for, by thus introducing a plurality of gods, they would not only more effectually embarrass and perplex the minds of the credulous people; but by multiplying the objects of worship, and constituting themselves the acting attornies for these deities, they would increase their stipends and other exactions, in proportion to the various rites and ceremonies they invented for each. *** Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, A cowled and hypocritical monk Prays, curses, and deceives.--Shelley.