Platonic Theology (Thomas Taylor trans.)

INTRODUCTION. xiii

the testimony of the Apostle Paul, they were not consistent in confounding angels properly so
called with Gods.

But that the stars are not called Gods by the Jewish legislator as things inanimate like statues
fashioned of wood or stone, is evident from what is said in the book of Job, and the Psalms:
“ Behold even the moon and it shineth 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 ?” (Job. xxv. v. 5. and 6.) And,
“ When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast
ordained ; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him ?”
(Psalm viii. v. 3. and 4.) It is evident therefore from these 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 animated 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 his tabernacle in the sun, ($εν\ τω\ ηλιω\ εθετ o\ τ o\ σκηνωμα\ αντ ov$) which is doubtless the genuine
reading, and not that of the vulgar translation, “ In them (i. e. the heavens) hath he set a taberna-
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 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 heaven.”
And again in Isaiah lxvi. 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 being
divine. Hence, says Simplicius,¹ “ That it is connascent with the human soul to think the celes-
tial bodies are divine, is especially evident from those, (the Jews) who look to these bodies through
preconceptions about divine natures. For they 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
who are worthy ; than which assertions what can be more venerable ?”

¹ In his commentary on the second book of Aristotle’s treatise On the Heavens.

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