We may even go still farther in our apology, and maintain, that if he did hold that the heavenly bodies were ani. mated, or that they were severally under the care of distinct spirits, there was, in the latter opinion at least, no serious error, even when viewed in the light of revelation itself. The Bible not obscurely teaches that the personal destinies of individual men are, in a measure, under the direction and guardianship of supernatural beings. Churches are said to have their guardian angels, according to Revelations, ii., 1, which we prefer to take in this literal sense, rather than to adopt any other interpretation which has been forced upon it in the controversy respecting ecclesiastical government. The same doctrine is pretty clearly intimated in respect to nations, Daniel, x., 20, 21, where Greece and Persia are said each to have their invisible champion, whether of a good or of an evil nature. There is also a remarkable passage, Deuteronomy, xxxii., 8, which, if taken according to the Septuagint version, would directly establish the same doctrine: When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel, pp, as it is in the Hebrew, but, according to the number of the angels of God-kaтà åpιÐμòv ȧyyéλwv dɛov—as it stands in the Greek of the Septuagint. We cannot account for the difference, but it certainly seems as though the Greek version was more consonant with the context which follows, and which asserts that Israel is the Lord's peculiar inheritance, in distinction from the other nations, who seem to have been left to the subordinate care of other directing powers. This very passage, too, it should be remarked, is quoted by Eusebius, Præp. Evang., xi., 26, to prove that Plato obtained his doctrine of the Aaíuoves from Moses. That such an idea prevailed among the heathen nations, especially the Persians, is evident from Herodotus, vii., 53: θεοὶ τοὶ Περσίδα γῆν λελόγχασι. The Bible teaches us also that even the ordinary courses of physical events are under the controlling agency of angelic beings. He maketh his angels winds, his ministers a flaming fire; as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews renders it. Science, with all its modern boasting, can affirm nothing in opposition to this. It is a view which interferes not at all with the regularity and the apparent laws of physical phenomena, and, as we have seen, the Bible quite plainly reveals it. Nay, more, may there not be found some countenance there to this very doctrine of Plato? If individuals, and churches, and nations, and every department in nature, have their presiding invisible powers, why not the heavenly bodies? Why not an angel of the sun, of the moon, and of each planet? Did the ancient Hebrew writers mean only physical instead of psychical powers, when they spoke of the hosts of heaven, and used that most sublime epithet, nisay in, Jehovah Tsebhaoth, or Lord of Hosts? The Septuagint, by rendering it kúplos dvváμɛwv, have seemed to refer it to physical rather than to spiritual agencies; but it is a serious question, whether much more than this is not contained in the Hebrew. Was it simply a sublime personification, when it was said, He bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name?* or when we are told that, at the creation of our earth, the stars of the morning sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? We have no hesitation in preferring this, extravagant as it may appear, to that modern extreme, which would leave such an immense, unanimated solitude between man and the Deity, instead of filling it up, as the old Patristic theology did, with daíuoves, angels, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers: With helmed Cherubim, And sworded Seraphim, and all that array of invisible beings, whose existence the * Isaiah, xl., 26. + Job, xxxviii., 7. Bible does seem to take for granted, although some, in former times, may have carried it to an extravagant extent. Surely we may still maintain the precious Protestant doctrine, that no one but the Supreme Lord of Hosts is entitled to any the least species of religious adoration, and yet believe in many an order of being, which, although of far higher rank, yet constitute, with man, an immense brother. hood of created intelligences, all intended for the manifestation of the glory of Him, by whom, and for whom, all things were created, whether visible or invisible, whether in the earth or in the heavens. There is some reason to fear that Protestants, under the guise of a hyperspirituality, have gone too far in the opposite direction, to what is really a materializing and physical hypothesis. When we discover a disposition to banish in our minds all intermediate spiritual agencies, and, by magnifying natural causes, to place the Deity at the most remote distance possible, it does really seem as though, if we could or durst, we would dispense with his presence also in the regulation of the universe. In all ages, a tendency to that sadduceeism which barely saves the doctrine of the soul's existence in another state, has been held, and justly held, to be near of kin to infidelity, if not to downright atheism. Far better to believe too much on this subject than too little, even if we cannot agree, with Plato, that there is a presiding spiritual superintendence assigned to each celestial body. XXXV. Three Hypotheses in respect to the Animation of the Heavenly Bodies. PAGE 39, LINE 7. Ως ἢ ἐνοῦσα ἐντὸς τῷ περιφερεῖ τού τῳ, κ. τ. λ. We have here three hypotheses. The first would make the sun itself an animated being; the second would regard it as under the direction of an external angel, or Aaípov, having a material yet highly æthereal body, and making use of a sort of impulsive motion; the third would represent it as under the care of a pure, unimbodied spirit or intellect (ǹ owμatos ovσa), either the Universal Numen, or some delegated power specially assigned to that office. If by the last is meant only a particular exercise of the energy of the Universal Soul (which view is perfectly consistent with his present argument against the atheist, although it does not fully agree with some things he says elsewhere), there would be no need of any defence of Plato against the charges to which we have referred. The second, however, as we have seen, may be held by a firm believer in the Christian revelation. The first is only the doctrine of the anima mundi applied to particular parts of the universe. It may be maintained, as Plato did maintain it, in perfect consistency with a pure theism, or a recognition of an Eternal Spirit, not only above the anima mundi, but regarded, also, as its creator and constant guide. There is most abundant proof of this in the Timæus, and, indeed, we have every reason to believe that Plato meant no more by his soul of the world, whether in respect to the universe or to particular parts, than Cudworth intends by his famous Plastic Nature, to which, in some places, he seems inclined to ascribe a species of obscure animate existence.* In fact, some such hypothesis must be adopted by those who would make nature a distinct thing from the Deity, or a subordi. nate cause under the Divine reason and wisdom; as all must do who are averse to the doctrine that God does all things by his own immediate agency, or the systematic intervention of angelic or spiritual beings. The only escape from one or the other of these is in that philosophy of occult qualities, which is a mere play upon words, a mere apology for ignorance, and which, when carried to its le * Cudworth's Intellectual System, vol. i., page 346, Engl. ed. gitimate results, is, as we have seen, the most favourable of all hypotheses to atheism. The independent, unoriginated essence (avтółɛoç), which is above nature and above the soul of the world, is called, in the Timæus, 'Atdioç IIarnp, and represented as the genera. tor of xn, and even of Novç. Elsewhere, and especially in the Republic, Plato is fond of styling him Tò 'Aya✪óv, The Good. XXXVI. Examination of a Re гñs "Oxnμa, or Vehiculum Mundi. PAGE 39, LINE 17. év åpμaoiv éxovoa ημîv ñλiov. This cannot be rendered, having the sun in a chariot or vehicle; for the sense evidently requires that the sun itself be regarded as the vehiculum of the indwelling spirit. 'Ev here is equivalent to in loco—ἐν ἅρμασιν—ὡς ἅρματα—in loco currus for a vehicle.* By a similar phraseology, the body is elsewhere styled öxnua, vehiculum; as in the Timæus, 41, C.: `èμbibáoɑs is ɛis öxnua. In that place, however, Plato has reference, not to the animating souls of the heavenly bodies, but to human souls, placed, or, as he says, sown there previous to their more intimate connexion with matter in their earthly existence, that they might learn those universal truths which were to be recalled to recollection in their subsequent stage of being.† In the Troades of Euripides the same term is applied, in a manner directly the opposite of this, to signify, not the corporeal vehiculum, but the animating, moving power. On account of its deep, intrinsic interest, we give the passage in full, and dwell upon it at some length: * So, also, Laws, xi., 913, C.: ἐν οὐσίᾳ κεκτῆσθαι. + Compare Origen contra Celsum, ii., 60. From this came those doctrines which Origen held respecting the pre-existence of souls. |