Note 265 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 3)

There are distinct traces of a practice of taking oaths in the open air, i.e. under the sky; of Dius Fidius, unquestionably a form of Jupiter, Varro says (L.L. v. 66), "quidam negant sub tecto per hunc deiurare oportere." Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 28; R.F. p. 138. For the conception of a single great deity as primitive, see Lang, The Making of Religion, ch. xii.; Flinders Petrie, Religion of Egypt (in Constable's shilling series), ch. i.; Ross, The Original Religion of China, p. 128 foll.; Warneck, Die Lebenskräfte des Evangeliums, p. 20 (of the Indian Archipelago). The last reference I owe to Professor Paterson, of Edinburgh University.