BY THOMAS TAYLOR, A>Ji Ttn, trrt, *eu T»f tyytKif Xoyy, There are, there are, though laugh the scoSSer may, Jove aiid die Gods, who mortal ills survey.
umf nvt (mi toXAoi, uu xugioi «oXXm. Corinth. I. Cap. 8. v. 5.
As there be GoD« many, and Lords many.
TWO VOLUMES.:".'-• VOL. L."rj.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, By J. J. Falpy, Tooke^s Court, Chancery Latu.
fiXD SOLD BY MESSRS. LAW AND Co.; LONGMAN AND Co.; BALDWIN AND Co.; AND ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS.
18l6r TO WILLIAM MEREDITH, ESQUJRE^ yrno with a firmness and munificence, UNPARALLELED IN MODERN TIMES, HAS PATRONIZED THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE, AND ITS ENGLISH PROMULGATOR; AS AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF NO COMMON ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND A TRIBUTE OF THE WARMEST GRATTTDDE FOR HIS PATRONAGE, THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY THE TRANSLATOR, THOMAS TAYLOR.
INTRODUCTION.
I REJOICE in the opportunity which is afforded me of presenting the truly philosophic reader, in the present work, with a treasure of Grecian theology; of a theology, which was first mystically and symbolically promulgated by Orpheus, afterwards disseminated enigmatically through images b^ Pythagoras, and in the last place scientifically unfolded by Plato and his genuine disciples. The peculiarity indeed, of this dieology is, that it is no less scientific than sublime; and that by a geo- metrical series of reasoning originating from the most self-evident truths, it developes all the deified progressions fi-om the ineffable principle of things, and accurately exhibits to our view all the Imki of that golden cham of which deity is the one extreme, and body the other.
That also which is most admirable and laudable in this theology is, that it produces in the mind properly prepared for its reception the most pure, holy, venerable, and exalted conceptions of the great cause of all. For it celebrates this immense principle as something superior even to being itself; as exempt from the whole of things, of which it is nevertheless ineffiibly the source, and does not therefore tbuik fit to connumerate it with any triad, or order of beings. Indeed, it even apologises for attempting to give an appropriate name to this principle, which is in reality inefiable, and ascribes the attempt to the imbecility of human nature, which striving intently to behold it, gives the appellation of the most simple of its conceptions to that which is beyond all knowledge and all conception. Hence it denominates it the one, and the good; by the former of these names indica- ting its transcendent simplicity, and by the latter its subsistence as the object of desire to all beings. For all things desire good. At the same time however, it asserts that these appelhitions are in reality nothmg more than, the parturitions of the soul which standing as it were in the vestibules of the X INTRODUCTION.
X INTRODUCTION.
adytum of deity, announce nothing pertaining to the ineffable, but only indicate her spontaneous tendencies towards it, and belong rather to the immediate offspring of the first God, than to the first itself.
Hence, as the result of this most venerable conception of the supreme, when it ventures not only to denominate the inefiable, but also to assert something of its relation to other things, it con- siders this as pre-eminently its peculiarity, that it is the principle of principles; it being necessary diat the characteristic property of principle, after the same mamier as other things, should not begin firom multitude, but should be collected into one monad as a summit, and which is the principle of all principles. Conformably to this, Proclus, in the second book of this work' says, with match- less magnificence of diction: '^ Let us as it were celebrate the first God, not as establishing the earth and the heavens, nor as giving subsistence to souls, and the generation of all animals; for he produced these indeed, but among the last of things; but prior to these, let us celebrate him as unfolding mto light the whole intelligible and intellectual genus of Gods, together with all the fupermundane and mundane divinities as the God of all Gods, the unity of all unities, and beyond the first adyta,* — as more ineffable than all silence, and more unknown than all e,— as holy among the holies, and concealed in the intelligible Gods.'* The scientific reasoning from which this dogma is deduced is the following: As the principle of dl things is ike one, it is necessary that the progression of beings should be continued, and that no mu^uum should intervene either in incorporeal or corporeal natures. It is also necessary that every thing which has a naturid progression should proceed through similitude. In consequence of this, it is likewise necessary that every producing principle should generate a number of the same order with itself^ viz. nature, a natural number; sotU, one that is psychical (i. e. belonging to soul); and intellect, an intellectual number. For if whatever possesses a power of generating, generates simi- lars prior to dissimilars, every cause must deliver its own form and characterbtio peculiarity to its progeny; and before it generates that which gives subsistence to progressions far distant and separate firom its nature, it must constitute diings proximate to itself according to essence, and con- joined with it through similitude. It is therefore necessary firom these premises, since there is one umty the principle of die universe, that this unity should produce from itself, prior to every thing else, a multitude of natures characterized by unity, and a number the most of all things allied to its cause; and tliese natures are no other than the Gods.
According to this theology tlierefore, from the immense principle of priikciple^^ in which all ' P. 139. f L e. The highest order of intelligibles.
INTRODUCTION. «i tfaings causally subsist, absorbed in superesseotial light, and involved in unfathomable depths, a beauteous progeny of principles proceed, ail largely partaking of the ineffable, all stamped widi the occult characters of deitjr, all possessing an overflowing fulness of good. From these dazzling sum- mits, these ineffable blossoms, these divine propagations, being, life, intellect, soul, nature, and body depend; monads suspended from unities, deified natures proceeding from deities. Each of these monads too, is the leader of a series which extends from itself to the last of diings, add which while it proceeds from, at the same time abides in, and returns, to its leader. And all these principles and all their progeny are finally centered and rooted by their summits in the first great iA-compre« bending one. Thus all beings proceed from, and are comprehended in the first being; all intel^ lects emanate from one first intellect; all souls from one first soul; all natures blossom from otie first nature; and aU. bodies proceed from the vital and luminous body of die world.. And lastly, all these great monads are comprdiended in the first one, from which both they and all their depending series are unfolded into light. Hence this first one is truly the unity of unities, the monad of monads, the principle of principles, the God of Gods, one and all things, and yet one prior to aH.
No objections of any weight, no arguments but such as are sophistical, can be urged against this most sublime theory which is so congenial to the unperverted conceptions of die human mind, that it can only be treated with ridicule and contempt in degraded, barren, and barbarous ages. Igno^ ranee and priestcraft, however, have hitherto conspired to defame diose inestimable wori^s,' in which this and many odio* grand and important dogmas can alone be found; and the theology of the Greeks has been attacked with all the insane fury of ecclesiastical zeal, and all die imbecil flashes of mistaken wit, by men whose conceptions on the subject, like those of a man between sleeping mid waking, have been turbid and wild, phantastic and confused, preposterous and vain.
Indeed, that after the great incomprehensible cause of all, a divine multitude subsists, co-operating with this cause in the production and government of the universe, has always been, and is still admitted by all nations, and all religions, however much they may differ in dieir opinions respecting the nature of the subordinate deities, and the veneration which is to be paid to them by man; and however barbarous the conceptions of some nations ou this subject may be when compared with those of others. Hence, says the elegant Maximus Tyrius, *' You will see one according law and assertion in all the earth, that there is one God, the king and father of all things, and many Gods, sons of God, ruling together with him. This the Greek says, and the Barbarian says, the inhabitant of the Continent^ ' Viz. the present and other workt of Produs, together with those of Plotinus, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Syrianus, Ammonius, Damascius, Olympiodorus^ and SimpUcius.
xii INTBODUCTIOK.
and he who dwells near the sea, the wise and the unwise. And if you proceed as/ar as to the utmost shores of the ocean, there also there are Gods, rising very near to some, and setting very near to others." ' This dogma, too, is so far from heing opposed hy either the Old or New Testament, tliat it is admitted by both, though it forbids the religious veneration of the inferior deities^ and enjoins the worship of one God alone, whose portion is Jacob, and Israel the line of his inheritance. The following testimonies willj I doubt not, convuice the liberal reader of the truth of this assertion.
In die first place it appears from the d2d chapter of Deuteronotoy, v. 8. in the SeptuaginI version, that ** the division of the nations was made accerJUng to the number of the angeb of God,** and not according to the number of the children of Israel, as the present Hebrew text asserts. This reading was' adopted by the most celebrated fathers of the Christian church, such as,i among the Greeks, Origen, Basil, and Chrysostom, and among the Latins, Jerom and Gr^pr^'.. That this too, is the genuine reading, is evident from ^ 4th chapter of the same book and the ]9tk verse, in which it is said, '' And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven/* Here it is said that the stars are divided to all the nations, which is equivalent to saying that the nations were divided according to the number of the stars ^ the Jewish legislator at the same time, considering his own nation as an exception, and as being under the government of the God of Israel alone. For in the following verse it is added, ^* But the Lord hath taken you (i. e. the Jews),, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inlieri- ' tance, asj^e are to this day." By the angels of God therefore (in Deuteron.32. v. 8.) the stars are signified; and these in the same book (chapter!?• v» 3.) are expressly called Gods; '' And hath gone and served other Gods, and worshipped them, either the sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded" In the 3d chapter idso, and tiie £4tk verse, it is implied in the question which is there asked, that the God of the Jews is superior to all the celestial and terrestrial Gods: '' For what God is there in heaven, or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might r" As the attention of the Jews was solely confined to the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they but little regarded the powers whom they conceived to be subordinate to this God, and considering all of them as merely the messengers of. their God, they gave them the general appellation of angels; though as we shall shordy prove from iKTBODUCTIOir. xiii the testimony of the Ajpostle Paid, they were not consistent in confonndmg angiU pn>perly so called with Gods.
But that the stars are not called Gods by the Jewish legislator as thii^ inanimate like status fashioned of wood or stone, is evident from what is said in the book of Job^ and the Psidms: *' Behold even the moon and it sbineth not, yea the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man that is a worm, and the son of man which is a worm P' (Job. xxv. v. 5» and 6.) And, '' When I consider diy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mmdful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him.'^ (Psalm viii. v. 3. and 4.) It is evident therefore from diese passages, that the heavens and the stars are more excellent than man; but nothing inanimate can be more excellent than that which is animated. To which may be ' added, that in the following verse David says, that God has made man a little lower than the angels. But the stars, as we have shown, were considered by Moses as angels and Gods; and consequently, they are aniniated beings, and superior to man.
Farther still, in the Septuagint version of verse the 4th of the 19th Psalm, God is said to have placed kis tabernacle in the sun, (fv r^ i)XMp iitro ro trKifivwiiM atnov) which is doubdess the genuine reading, and not that of the vulgar translation, ^' In them (i. e. the heavens) bath he set a tabemt- cle for the sun.'' For this is saying nothing more of the sun than what may be said of any of the other stars, 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 dweUs enshrined, as it were, in dazzling splendor. To which we may add in cofifirmation of this version of the Septuagint, that in Psalm xi. v. 4. it is said, ^' The Lord's throne is in heaven" And again in Isaiah Ixvi. v. 1. '' Thus saith the Lord, 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 bang divine. Hence, says Simplicius,' '' That it is connascent with the human soul to think the celes* tial bodies are divine, is especially evident firom those, (the Jews) who look to theses bodies through preconceptions about divine natures. For they ako 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 who are worthy; than which assertions what can be more venerable?''
* In his commentary on the second book of Aristotle's treutise Ou the Heavens.
XIV tNTBODVCTION.
Indeed, Chat tbe heaveiu are not the inaaimate throne and residence ef deitj, is also evident from the assertion in Ae l^th Psalm, '* That the heavens declare the glory of God." For R. Moses, a very teamed Jew, says,* '' that the word saphar, to declare or set forth, is never attributed to thinga inanimate." Hence he concludes, '' that the heavens are not without some soul, which, says he, is no other than that of those blessed intelligences, who govern the stars, and dispose diem into such letters as God hat 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 chetab hamelachim, that is to fay, the writing of the angeb" 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 fiu* as they are ani- snated beings. Hence the Hebrew prophets never reprobate 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 die 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 many other things of the like kind are said by the prophets of the Jews against the worship of images and statues, but never of the sun and moon, and the other •tars. But when they blame the worship of die heavenly bodies, they assign as the cause that 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 die 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 all 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 uuder this God there is an angel, a daemon, and a peculiar genus of souls, sub- •ervient and minbtont to more excellent natures, from which the difference in laws and manners arises,-*unle8s 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 whidi 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 accom* INTRODUCTION. XT* pUsbed> that Uie foroier should be lights and the latter heavy i Thus ako in a similar Hftannef in other things. Thus too^ in divine concerns. But tfie reason of this is, because the hamao race is fratt and corruptible. Hence also, the works of nan are corruptible and oHitable, and subject to aU-^ariotts revolutions. But God being eternal, it is also fit that his mandates should be eternal* And being 8Utb« they are eidier the natures of things, or confomiable to the natures of tUiigs. For how can nature contend with the mandate of divinity i Uctw can it fall off from this concord i If, thero^' fore, as he ordered that there should be a confusion of tongues, and that they should not accord with each other, so likewise he ordered that the political concerns of nations should be dis- cordant; he has not only effected this by his mandate, but lias rendered us naturally adapted to this dissonance. For to effect this, it would be 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, if any one directs his attention to the Germans and Scythians, and considers how much the bodies of these differ firom those of the Lybians and Ethiopians. Is thb therefore^ a mere mandate, and does the air contribute nothing, nor the relation and position of the r^on with respect to the celestial bodies?''
Julian adds, '' Moses, however, though he knew the truth of this, concealed it; nor does 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. B^t it is veiy evident, that he conceived those who descended with God to be similar to him. If, therefor^ not the Lord only, but those who were with him contributed to this confusion of tongues, they may jusdy be consi* dered as the causes of this dissonance.^^ la short, that the heavens and the celestial bodies are animated by certain divine souls, wa» not only the opinion of the ancient poets and philosophers, but also of the most celebrated fathers of the church, and the most learned and acute of the schoolmen. Thus for instance, tliis is asserted by Jerom in his exposition of the 6tii verse of tlie 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 asserted by Eusebius in his Theological Solutions, and by Augustine in his Enchiridion. Among the schoolmen too, this was the opinion of Albertus Magnus in his book De quatuor Cosqua^vis; of Thomas Aquinas in his treatise De Spiritual ibus Creaturis^ and of Johannes Scotus Super Secundo Sententiarum. *To these likewise may be added, the most learned Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus. Aureolus indeed strenuously contends for the truth of this opinion, and does not even tm i^TROOVCTION.
tm i^TROOVCTION.
think it improper to venemte the celestial bodies with outward worship (duliae cuitu) and to implore dieir favour and assistance. And Thomas Aquinas says, that he has no other objection to diis than that it might be the occasion of idolatry. Hence, diough it may seem ridiculous to most of the present time> that divine sods should be placed in the stars, and preside over regions and cities, tribes and pe6ple, nations and tongues, yet it did not appear so to the mo^e intelligent Christians of former times.
I had almost forgotten however the wisest of the ancient Christiana, but as be was the best of them, I have done well in reserving him to the last; and this is no other than die Platonic bishop ^ynesius. This father of the church therefore, in his third hymn, sings as follows: Se, irotTsg xocfMiv, xctreq OLiosvwv^ avnvgyi diwv, evonyti ffivfiv. O'f (itv 01 voe^oi (Tff Sf xoo-fbayof, o/AfMeroA«preif, voeg amqtoij u/tvovo'f fiaxocg, 'xeura ire iMXiret 01 (oOVMOi, 01 r' A^flovof XO^fMtl piAigCtg ▼iz. '^ Thee^ father of the worlds, &dier of the aeoDes,' artificer of die Gods, it is holy to praise. Thee, O king, the intellectual Gods sing, thee, O blessed God, the Coimagi^ those fulgid eyes, and starry intellects, celebrate, ronnd which the illustrious body [of die world] dances. All the race of die blessed sing thy praise, those that are about, and those that are in the world, the sonic Gods, and also the azonic,* who govern the parts of the world, wise itinerants, stationed about the illus- trious pilots [of the universe,] and which the angelic series pours fordi. Thee too, the renowned genus of heroes celebrates, which by occult paths pervades die works of mortals, and likewise the soul which does not incline to die regions of mortality, and the soul which descends into dark terresr trial In another part also of the same hymn, he informs us that he adored the powers that preside over Thrace and Chalcedon.
' What these are will be shortly explained, when we come to speak of the Aposde Paul * Synesius does not here speak conformably to the Chaldean theologists, from whom he has derived these ap- pellations. For the frnww* and the •{mm, are according to them Gods, the fonner being the divinities of the 8^r8, and the latter forming that order of Gods which b called by Proclus in the sixth book of this work mtoXv**;, Ik berated. Both these'Oiderstliev«fine,awsuperk>rtodie angelic series. l/hisunsdenCific manner both the highest and lowest divine powers by the common name afaqgels, lis ^ot psKailifir to Syoeshi^ |ind the Jews, but to all the fathers of the church, and all the Christian divines that succeeded them.
Proe. Vol. I. c X^ii INTRODUCTION.
01 r* avrnngaf fff fffrovo-i yvtof.
i. e. '' I have supplicated the nuDistrant Goda that possess die TbraciaD soil, and also those diat, in an opposite direction^ govern the Chalcedonian land/' And in the last place be says (in Hymn I.)
oXiya fiMv, oXX' txf iMoy oAof WTOf, as rt wtamii oXof nf oAov ititnuos, TO 9* oAoy rouro ^Ao^o'coy^ 0 fjLtf, wmfwf itffiuus, 0 S* ff( ctyytXmv x^f^^p Xtovwif wgnc [iAffw.
Hie substance of which is, *^ that 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 thb intellect is distributed among the stars, and becomes, as it were, Aeir charioteer; but anodier 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 modems to controvert the dogma, that the stars and the whole worid are animated, as it is ui opinion of infinite antiquity, and is firiendly to the most unperverted, spontaneous, and accurate conceptions of the human mind. Indeed^ the rejectioi| of it appears to me to be just as absurd as it would be m a maggot, if it iNTBODyCTiaN. xix were capable of syllogizing^ to infer that man is a machine impelled by some external force when he walks, because it never saw any animated reptile so large.