The priests of barbarous nations are commonly invested with power, because they have
both that authority which is due to them from their religious character,
and that influence which among such a people is the offspring of
superstition. Thus we see in Tacitus that priests were held in great
veneration by the Germans, and that they presided in the assemblies of
the people.
[61]
They alone were permitted
[62]
to chastise, to bind, to
smite; which they did, not by order of the prince, or as his ministers
of justice, but as by an inspiration of that Deity ever supposed to be
present with those who made war.
We ought not, therefore, to be astonished when, from the very
beginning of the first race, we meet with bishops the dispensers of
justice,
[63]
when we see them appear in the assemblies of the nation;
when they have such a prodigious influence on the minds of sovereigns;
and when they acquire so large a share of property.
