THE END.
C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dissertation on Phalaris, p. 273.
[2] In Lib. de Philosophorum Sectis.
[3] The following extract from Bentley’s Eighth Sermon at Boyle’s Lectures, sufficiently shows the doctor’s deficiency in intellect. “Nor do we count it any absurdity, that such a vast and immense universe should be made for the sole use of such mean and unworthy creatures as the children of men. For if we consider the dignity of an intelligent being, and put that in the scales against brute inanimate matter, we may affirm, without overvaluing human nature, that the soul of one virtuous and religious man is of greater worth and excellency than the sun and his planets, and all the stars in the world.” For this opinion is not only stupid and arrogant in the extreme, but is also contrary to the doctrine of the Scriptures, of which the doctor was a teacher. For as I have observed in p. 13 of the Introduction to my translation of Proclus On the Theology of Plato, “the stars are not called Gods by the Jewish legislator, as things inanimate like statues fashioned of wood or stone.” This 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 I have demonstrated in the above mentioned Introduction, were considered by Moses as angels and Gods; and consequently they are animated beings, and superior to man.
Farther still, it is said in Psalm xi. v. 4, that “the Lord’s throne is in heaven.” And again, in Isaiah, chap. 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 of Deity, they must evidently be deified. For nothing can come into immediate contact with divinity, without being divine. Hence, says Simplicius, (in Comment in Lib. ii. de Cælo.) “That it is connascent with the human soul to think the celestial 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?”
Indeed, that the heavens are not the inanimate throne and residence of Deity, is also evident from the assertion in the nineteenth Psalm, that “the heavens declare the glory of God.” For R. Moses, a very learned Jew, (See Gaffarel’s Unheard-of Curiosities, p. 391.) says, “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.”
[4] In the Fragments of his Life of Isidorus the Platonist, preserved by Photius. The greater part of what Suidas has said about Hierocles is taken from these memoirs of Isidorus.