The Theology of Plato, in six books — trans. Thomas Taylor

" But if certain persons, inflated by ostentation, as Plato soys, having their soul at one and the same lime inflamed with youth and ignorance, have insolently assumed the appellulion of Gods, and had temples erected in their honour, yet this opinion of them flourished but for a short time, and afterwards they were charged with vanity and arrogance, in conjunction with impiety and lawless con luct j and thus,

Like smoke they flew away with swift-pae'd fate.

And being dragged from temples and altars like fugitive slave*, they have now nothing left them, but their monuments and tombs. Hence Arttigonus the elder said to one llermodotus, who had celebrated him in his poems us the offspring of the sun ami a God, 'he who empties my close-stool-pan knows no such thing of me.' Very properly also, did I.) sip pus the sculptor blame Apelles the painter, for drawing the picture of Alexander with a lliunder-bolt in his hand, whereas he had represented him with a spear, the glory of which, as being true and proper, no time would take away."

In another part of the same work also, he admirably reprobates the impiety of making the Gods to be things inanimate, which was very common with Latin writers of the Augustan age, and of the ages that accompanied the decliue and fall of the Roman empire. But what he says on this subject is as follows :

" In the s-ccond plac*. which is of still greater consc-nuence, men should be careful, and very much afraid, lest before they are aware, they tear in pieces and dissolve divine natures, into blast* of wind, streams of water, semination*, t arings of land, accidents of the earth, and mutations of the season*, us those do « ho male Bacchus to be vt ine, ami Vulcan flame. Cleanlhes also somewhere says, that Persephoue or Proserpine is the spirit or air that pasttt through ($tf«/*n»r) the fruits of the earth, and is then tlaitt, (4cnv5firvc>'.) Aud a certain poet says of reapers,

Then when the youth the limb* of Ceres cut.

INTRODUCTION.

For the*; men do not m any respect differ from those who conceive the tail*, the cable*, and the anchor of a ship, to be the pilot, the yarn and the web to be the weaver, and the bowl,1 or the mead, or the ptisan, to be the physician. But they also produce dire and atheistical opinions, by •firing the names of Gods to natures and things deprived of sense and Soul, and that are necessarily destroyed by men, who are in want of and use them.

or the mead, or the ptisan, to be the physician. But they also produce dire and atheistical opinions, by •firing the names of Gods to natures and things deprived of sense and Soul, and that are necessarily destroyed by men, who are in want of and use them. For it is not portable to conceive that these things are Gods; since, neither can any thing be a God to men, which is deprived of soul, or is subject to human power. From these things however, we are led to conceive those beings to be Gods, who both use them and impart them to us, and snpply them perpetually and without ceasing. Nor do we conceive that the Gods who bestow these, aie different in different countries, nor that some of them are peculiar to the Barbarians, but others to the Grecians, nor that some are southern, and others northern ; but as the sun and moon, the heavens, the land, end the $e«, are common to all men, yet are differently denominated by different nations; so the one reason that preside over all nations, have different appellations and honours assigned them according to law by different countries. Of those also that have been consecrated to their service, some employ obscure, but others clearer symbols, not without danger thus conducting our inteDectual conceptions to the apprehension of divine natures. For some, deviating from the true meaning of these symbols, have entirely slipt into superstition ; and others again flying from superstition as a quagmire, have unaware fallcu upon atheism as on a precipice. Heucc, in order to avoid these danger*, it is especially necessary that resuming the reasoning of Philosophy as our guide to mystic knowledge, we should conceive piously of every thing that is said or done in religion ; lot that, as Theodorus said, while he extended his arguments with his right hand, some of his auditors received them with their left, so we should fall into dangerous errors, by receiving what the laws have vvr'l instituted about sacrifices and festivals in a manner different from their original intention."

The Emperor Julian, as well as Plutarch appears to have been perfectly aware of this confusion in the religion of the Heathens arising from the dedication of men, and in the fragments of his treatise against the Christians, preserved by Cyril, he speaks of it as follows : " If any one. wishes to consider the truth respecting you [Christians,] he will find that your impiety is composed of the Judaic audacity, and the indolence and cuii/mion of the Ileathtnt.

inst the Christians, preserved by Cyril, he speaks of it as follows : " If any one. wishes to consider the truth respecting you [Christians,] he will find that your impiety is composed of the Judaic audacity, and the indolence and cuii/mion of the Ileathtnt. For deriving from both, not that which is most beautiful, but the worst, you have fabricated a web of evils. Willi tl.. Hebrew* ndeed, there are accurate and venerable laws pertaining to religion, ami inuuiiieral.lv precepts which require a in-jst holy life and deliberate choice. But ulnvn the Jewish legislator forbids the serving all the Gods, and eisjoius the worship of one alone, whose portion is Jacob, and

IKT ft«»«C*IOH. Uli

Israel ttwlim of k» nafc*ritsmce, end not only say* tkos, but also omits to odd, I think, yea not revise the Cod., the detestable wickedness and Mdacity of those in after times, wiping to take •way all religious reverence from (be mukitude, (bought that not to worship should be followed by blaspheming the Gods. Thia you hare alone tl>e»ce derived ; bat there ia no srtnihivtde in any ihiug else between you bik! them. Hence, from the innovation of the Hebrews, you bare seized blasphemy toward* the venerable Goda; but from our religion you hare coat tuidt reverence to tvx'rtf nature more excellent thou man, and the iov€ of paternal tHetttsstes -

" So great au apprehension indeed, rays Dr. Stillingfleet,' had the Heathen? of ihe Mceaarty of appropriate acts of divine worihip, that some of them have chosen to die, rather than to give them to what they did not believe to be God. We have a remarkable rtorv to this purpose in Arrian and Curtius* concerning CaUiathenes. Alexander arriving at that degree of vanity, as to desire to have divine worship given him, and the matter being started out of design among the courtiers, either by Anaxarchua, aa Arrian, or Cleo the Sicilian, as Curtius says ; and the way of doing it proposed, viz. by incense and prostration; CaOUtheaea vehemently opposed it, at that which would confound' the difference of human and divine worship, which had been preserved inviolable among them. The worship of the Gods had been kept up in temples, with altars, and images, and sacrifices, and hymns, and prostrations, and such like ; but it it by no meant fitting, says he, for U4 to confound thete things, either by lifting up nun to the honours of the Gods, or depressing the Gods to the honours of men.