Platonic Theology (Thomas Taylor trans.)

xii INTRODUCTION.

and he who dwells near the sea, the wise and the unwise. And if you proceed as far as to the utmost
shores of the ocean, there also there are Gods, rising very near to some, and setting very near to
others."¹ This dogma, too, is so far from being opposed by either the Old or New Testament, that
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 will, I doubt not, convince the liberal reader of the truth of this assertion.

In the first place it appears from the 32d chapter of Deuteronomy, v. 8. in the Septuagint
version, that " the division of the nations was made according to the number of the angels 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,
among the Greeks, Origen, Basil, and Chrysostom, and among the Latins, Jerom and Gregory.
That this too, is the genuine reading, is evident from the 4th chapter of the same book and the 19th
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