Frothingham says, speaking of St. Peter's Cathedral, in Rome:
"Into what depths of antiquity the ceremonies carried me back! To the
mysteries of Eleusis; to the sacrificial rites of Phoenicia. The boys
swung the censors as censors had been swung in the adoration of Bacchus.
The girdle and cassock of the priests came from Persia; the veil and
tonsure were from Egypt; the alb and chasuble were prescribed by Numa
Pompilius; the stole was borrowed from the official who used to throw it
on the back of the victim that was to be sacrificed; the white surplice
was the same as described by Juvenal and Ovid."
Although it is evident that many thousands of years must have passed
since the men who wrote in Sanscrit, in Northwestern India, could have
dwelt in Europe, yet to this day they preserve among their ancient books
maps and descriptions of the western coast of Europe, and even of
England and Ireland; and we find among them a fuller knowledge of the
vexed question of the sources of the Nile than was possessed by any
nation in the world twenty-five years ago.
This perpetuation of forms and beliefs is illustrated in the fact that
the formulas used in the Middle Ages in Europe to exorcise evil spirits
were Assyrian words, imported probably thousands of years before from
the magicians of Chaldea.
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