Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was one of the most prolific authors of all time. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic, worked on Latin documents, and made himself very well-informed about Christianity, but turned against it. But he was extremely naive about Jews; bear this in mind.
Click for Detailed notes on McCabe - scroll down for selections from A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (1948).
Here's the full A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (about 1.3 MBytes; Word format; includes notes on some of its limits)
Click for Detailed notes on McCabe - scroll down for selections from A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (1948).
Here's the full A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (about 1.3 MBytes; Word format; includes notes on some of its limits)
Lydians, The.
J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia
An Aryan people who passed from the Balkans, probably sailing over the Black Sea, to Asia Minor about 1000 B.C. and settled inland from the Ionian coast. They are interesting for two reasons. They created a very prosperous and attractive civilization - their King Croesus is still a symbol of wealth - by the seventh century B.C. - another instance of the educability of the Aryan "barbarians." The more interesting point is that, borrowing and humanizing the Hittite cult of Ma (the Earth Mother), they developed the corollary of the brotherhood of man more than any other ancient nation. Their life was one of gaiety and pleasure, and "Friend of All" was the most coveted epitaph for a man's tombstone. Through the Ionic cities, and then the Stoics and Epicureans, they had a most important influence on the evolving ethic of the race. With them began the "colleges" or trade unions of workers. The best work on this greatly underrated civilization is Radek's La Lydie et le monde grec (1892), but there is much appreciation in Sir W. Ramsay's Asianic [sic-RW] Elements in Greek Civilization (1927).Return to Joseph McCabe Selection
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