PAN. The God Pan is not known in the sacred Books. But it is pretended1 that the Heathen have taken many Circumstances of the Life of Moses, and applied them to the God Pan. This false Deity was represented with Horns, like Moses; he carried a Wand in his Hand; he was the God of the Shepherds, of Hunters, of the Country People, as Moses was Head of a People of Shepherds, of Labourers, and of Country Men. Pan taught Apollo the Art of Divination, and that of playing upon the Flute. Moses gave to his Brother Aaron the Oracle of Urim and Thummim, and appointed the Levites to play upon Instruments in the Tabernacle of the Lord. Pan, we are told, commanded Armies, and formed Sieges; Moses was at the Head of a prodigious Army of Israelites. Pan upon the Mountains of Arcadia was in great Danger of being starved with Hunger, if he had not found Ceres,then who was seeking her Daughter Proserpine, and who furnished him with Provisions, and saved his Life.
The Scripture sometimes speaks of the Worship that the Hebrews had paid to shaggy Goats2. They shall no more offer their Sacrifices unto Devils; the Hebrew says, They shall no more offer their Sacrifices to Goats. ‘Tis known that the Egyptians worshipped the Goat in the City and Canton of Mendes. Herodotus3, Strabo4, and Diodorus Siculus5 give Testimony to this; Strabo also says, that they worshipped the God Pan, and a living Goat. What Moses adds, that they should no longer sacrifice to Goats, after whom they have gone a Whoring, agrees to that impure and abominable Worship which was paid to that shameful Deity. Prostitutions, the most contrary to Nature, were there exercised; and such was the God Pan of the Greeks, or the Mendes of the Egyptians. He was generally represented with the Body and Head of a Man, and the lower Parts from the Thighs downwards were those of a Goat, having a Staff in his Hand, and Horns upon his Forehead.
Ecclesiastical Authors6 have thought, that at the Birth of Jesus Christ, the God Pan, or the Demon which was adored under his Name, then died, or rather that his Power was then at an End. ‘Tis thus that Eusebius explains himself. “ It is “ worth while to take Notice of the Time, “ at which the Devil died. It happened “ under the Reign of Tiberius, during “ which the holy Scripture relates, that “ Jesus Christ lived, and began to drive “ out Devils, and to expel them from human Society, insomuch that some of “ them threw themselves at his Feet, and “ intreated him not to cast them into that “ Hell that was ready to receive them. “ Therefore you see here the determined “ Time for the Expulsion of Demons, “ which had never been driven out before.
This is all founded upon a Notion that some of the Antients had entertained, that after a certain Time the Demons might die; and upon a Story of Plutarch’s7, that some Merchants that were making a Voyage at Sea, heard a Voice crying out to them, that the great Pan was dead. But there is no Need to vouch for the Truth of this Piece of History, or much less for that Opinion that makes the Demons or Demi-gods mortal; this may be concluded on, that after the Birth and Death of our Saviour, the Empire of the Devil, and the Errors of Paganism, very sensibly declined, and at last are come to an intire Dissolution.
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