Platonic Theology (Thomas Taylor trans.)

xiv INTRODUCTION.

Indeed, that the 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,¹ “that the word saphar, to declare or set forth, is never attributed to
things 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 them into such
letters as God 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 chetab hamelachim, that is to
say, the writing of the angels.”

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 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 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
speak 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
stars. But when they blame the worship of the 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 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 all nations under the whole heaven but the Jews.

Indeed, as the emperor Julian² justly observes, “unless a certain ethnarchic God presides over
every nation, and under this God there is an angel, a dæmon, and a peculiar genus of souls, sub-
servient and ministrant to more excellent natures, from which the difference in laws and manners
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 accom-

¹ See Gaffarel’s Unheard-of Curiosities, p. 391. ² Apud Cyril.

[Bottom right: Digitized by Google]