Farther still, in the Septuagint version of verse the 4th of the 19th Psalm, God is said to have placed hit tabernacle in the tun, (« rce nhm rf/rs to o-xtevtapet awrou) which is doubtless the genuine readiug, and not that of the vulgar translation, " In them (i. e. the heavens) hath he set a tabermV cle for the sun." For this is saying nothing more of the suu than what may be said of any of the other slurs, and produces in us no exalted conception of the artificer of the universe. But to say that God dwells in the sun, gives us a magnificent idea both of that glorious luminary, and the deity who dwells enshrined, as it were, in dazzling splendor. To which we may add in confirmation of^ this version of the Septuagint, that in Psalm xi. v. 4. it is said, " The Lord's throne Is in heaten." And again in Isaiah Ixvi. v. l. « Thus with the Ix>rd, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." If therefore the heavens are the throne, and the sun the tabernacle of deity, they must evidently be deified. For nothing can come into immediate contact with divinity without being divine. Hence, says Siroplicius,' " That it is connascent with the human soul to think the celes- tial bodies are divine, is especially evident from (hose, (the Jews) who look to these bodies through preconception* about divine natures. For tbey also say that the heavens are the habitation of God, and the throne of God, and are alone sufficient to reveal the glory and excellence of God to those «tho are worthy ; than which assertions what can be more venerable ?"
• In his eommeBUry on the second book of Ari»UiuV«. treaiKc On the Hovn v
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IHTBODOCMOM.
Indeed, that lb* heavens are not the inanimate throne and residence of deity, is also evident from the assertion in the 19th Psalm, " That the heavens declare the glory of God." For R. Moses, a very learned Jew, says/ " that the word utphar, to declare or set forth, is never attributed to
is no other than that of those blessed intelligences, who govern the stars, and dispose them into such letters as Cod has ordained ; declaring unto us men by means of this writing, what events we are to expect. And hence, this same writing is called by all the ancients cktlab kamtlachim, that is to say, the writing of the angeli."
The Gods therefore, which were distributed to all the nations but the Jews, were the sun and moon, and the other celestial bodies, yet not so far as they are bodies, but so far as they are ani- mated beings. Hence the Hebrew prophets never leprobate and prohibit the worship of the stars as things which neither see, nor hear, nor understand, as they do the worship of statues. Thus in Deuteron. iv. and 28. " And there ye shall serve Gods the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear, nor eat, nor smell." And the Psalmist, " They have a mouth but apeak not, &c.« These, and wany other things of the like kind arc said by the prophet, of the Jews against the worship of images and statues, but never of the sun and moon, and the other stars. But when they blame the worship of the heavenly bodies, they assign as the cause (hat the people of Israel are not attributed to them as other nations are, in consequence of being the inheritance of the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. This is evident from the before cited passage in the 4th chapter of Deuteronomy, in which it is said that the stars are divided unto ail nations under the whole heaven but the Jews.
Indeed, as the emperor Julian* justly observes, " unless a certain ethnarchic God presides over every nation, and under this God there is an angel, a daemon, and a peculiar genus of souls, sub- arises, — unless this is admitted, let it be shown by any other how this difference is produced. For it is not sufficient to say, " God said, and it was done," but it is requisite that the natures of things which are produced should accord with the mandates of divinity. But I will explain more clearly what I mean. God, for instance, commanded that fire should tend upward, and earthly masses downward ; is it not therefore requisite, in order that the mandate of God may be aceom-
« See Gaflarcl-s Unheard-*! CuriosiUes, p. 391. » A pud Cyril.
IITTiOBUCtroH. XT
plished, that die formed should be light, and the latter heavy t Thus also in a similar manner in other things, tllus too, m' divine concerns. But the reasori of (his is, because the human race is frail and corruptible. Hence also, the works oP man are corruptible and mutable, and subject to all-various revolutions, But God being eternal, it is also fit that his mandates should be eternal. And being such, they are either the natures of things, or conformable to the natures of things. For how can nature contend with the mandate of divinity } How can it fall off from this concord ? If, there- fore, as he ordered that there should be a confusion of tongues, and that they should not accord i other, so likewise he ordered that the political concerns of nations should be dis- l; he has not only effected this by his mandate, but has rendered us naturally adapted to this dissonance. For to effect this, it would he requisite, in the first place, that the natures of those should be different, whose political concerns among nations are to be different. This, indeed, is seen in bodies, li an> one directs his attention to the Germans and Scythians, ami considers how much the bodies of these differ from those of the Lybi&ru and Ethiopians. Is this therefore, a
respect to the celestial bodies f "
Julian adds, " Moses, however, though he knew the truth of this, concealed it ; nor doea he ascribe the confusion of tongues to God alone. For he says, that not only God descended, nor one alone with him, but many, though he does not say who they were. But it is very evident, that he conceived those who descended with God to be similar to him. If, therefore, not the Lord only, but those who were with him contributed to this confusion of tongues, they may justly be
lh R C ft U 8 ^ - S of llllA '
In short, that the heavens and the celestial bodies are animated by certain divine souls, was not only the opinion of the ancient poets and philosophers, but also of the mo?l celebrated fathers of the church, and the most learned and acute of the schoolmen. Thus for instance, this is asserted by Jerom in his exposition of the 6th verse of the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. And by Origen in his book On Principles, who says that the heavenly bodies must be animated, because they are said to receive the mandates of God, which is only consentaneous to a rational nature. This too is inserted by Eusebius in his Theological Solutions, and by Augustine in bis Enchiridion. Among the schoolmen too, this was the opinion of Albert us Magnus in his book De quatuor Coteqiuwis ; of Thomas Aquinas in his treatise De Spiritualibus Creaturis; and of Johannes Scotus Super Sccundo Sententiarum. To these likewise may be added, the most learned Cardinal Nicolaos i indeed strenuously contends for the truth of this <
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IKTXODCCTIOH.
( the celestial bodies with outward worship (dulia cultu) and to implore says, that he has no other objection to thin : be the occasion of idolatry. Hence, though it may seem ridiculous to most of the present time, that divine souls should be placed in the stars, and preside over regions and cities, tribes and people, nations and tougues, yet it did not appear so to the more intelligent Christians of former times.
I had almost forgotten however tlie wisest of the ancient Christians, but as he was the best of them, I have done well hi reserving liioi to the last ; and this u no other than the Platonic bishop Syncsiuf . This cither of the church therefore, in his third hymn, sings as follows :
Si, irartg xwpaw,
OUT Ml I it 'Ml,
ciMcyc; amur. <r« juv 01 »0«JOI
« Si Juxruutysi, ovs rtgi kXiim»
x°t™"-
*««•« s-f fuA*?i ynta. fuuMgaw.
•I Tff I HOVjUV,
•i Kara »r/uv, •i t* mfymt
afLQiPaTips, 0) iraja uKurtVf
INTRODUCTION. ITU TS, Tf KO&|»v
J*X« T* soXnnif,
vii. " Thee, father of the worlds, father of the •ones/ artificer of the Gad*, it is hot/ to j Thee, O king, the intellectual Gods sing, thee, O blessed God, the Cotmagi, those fulgid eyes, and starry intellect*, celebrate, rouDd which the illustrious body [of the world] dances. All the race of the blessed sing thy praise, those that are about, and those that are in the world, the tonic Gods, and aluo the szorTic,* who govern the parts of the world, wise itinerants, stationed about the illus- trious pilots [of the universe,] and which the angelic series pours forth. Thee too, the renowned
by occult paths pervades the
In another part also of the same hymn, he informs us that he adored the powers that preside over Thrace snd Chakedou.
' What these ire will be shortly eiplained, when we come to speak of the Apostle PauL *Syne*ius does not here speak conformably tothe Chaldean theelogists, from whom he has derived these ap- pellations. For the i<n*M and the •fmst, are according to tbem Goda, the farmer being the divinities af the stars,
and the latter forming that order of Gods which is called by Proehis in the sixth book of this week amxvnfi &• Urated. Both these orders therefore, are superior to the angelic series. Thisunseiai
Jews, hut to all the fathers of the church, and all th.Christjan divines tLt^succeede i J '
Ptoc. Vol. I.
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• INTRODUCTION. »i r curntifar
i. e. " I have supplicated the ministrant Gods that possess the Thracian soil, and also those that, in an opposite direction, govern the Chalcedonian land."
And in the hurt place he says (in Hymn I.)
tXrya fur, <»AA*
eur*{, uf w iram)
xvn; oupovw ihttvtf to J* »Acr t»vrs ftAwrw,
• 8| XOI geiroiTi fl"«rp«* ^ttMSD tUfff*
The substance of which is, " lhat incorruptible intellect which is wholly an emanation of divinity, is totally diffused through the whole world, convolves the heavens, and preserves the universe with which it is present distributed in various forms. That one part of this intellect is distributed among the stars, and becomes, as it were, their charioteer ; but another part among the angelic choirs ; and another part is bound in a terrestrial form."
I confess I am wholly at a loss to conceive what could induce the moderns to controvert the dogma, that the stars and the whole world arc animated, as it is an opinion of infinite antiquity, and is frieadly to the most unperverted, spontaneous, and accurate conceptions of the human mind. Indeed, the rejection of it appears to me to be just as absurd as it would be in a maggot, if it
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Introduction. Six
were capable of syllogizing, to infer that man is a machine impelled by some external force he walk*, because it never saw any animated reptile so large.