Moreover, it had really no foundation. The truth is far
otherwise than that Pagan deities were dreams. Far from it. They were as
real as any other beings. The accommodation, therefore, which St. Paul
most wisely granted was--to eat socially, without regard to any ceremony
through which the food might have passed. So long as the Judaizing
Christian was no party to the religious ceremonies, he was free of all
participation in idolatry. Since if the mere open operation of a Pagan
process could transform into the character of an accomplice one who with
no assenting heart ate of the food, in that case Christ Himself might by
possibility have shared in an idolatrous banquet, and we Christians at
this day in the East Indies might for months together become unconscious
accomplices in the foul idolatries of the Buddhist and Brahminical
superstitions.

But so essentially were the convivial banquets of the Pagans interwoven
with their religious rites, so essentially was a great dinner a great
offering to the Gods, and _vice versa_--a great offering to the Gods a
great dinner--that the very ministers and chief agents in religion were
at first the same. Cocus, or [Greek: mageirost], was the very same
person as the Pope, or presiding arbiter in succession to a Pope. 'Sunt
eadem,' says Casaubon, 'Cocus et Pope.' And of this a most striking
example is yet extant in Athenaeus. From the correspondence which for
many centuries was extant between Alexander the Great, when embarked
upon his great expeditions, and his royal mother Olympias, who remained
in Macedon, was one from which we have an extract even at this day,
where he, as we learn from the letter quoted, had been urging his mother
to purchase for him a good cook. And what was made the test supreme of
his skill? Why, this, that he should be [Greek: thysihon hempeirost], an
artist able to dress a sacrificial banquet. What he meant is this: I do
not want an ordinary cook, who might be equal to the preparation of a
plain (or, what is the same thing, secular) dinner, but a person
qualified or competent to take charge of a hecatomb dinner. His mother's
reply addresses itself to that one point only: [Greek: Peligua ton
mageiron labe hapd thest metrost], which is in effect: 'A cook is it
that you want? Why, then, you cannot do better than take mine. The man
is a reliable table of sacrifices; he knows the whole ritual of those
great official and sacred dinners given by the late king, your