4. The Trinity described above, and consisting of abstractions or emanations from the divine nature, will be found exemplified in the following work in a vast variety of ways; but in all, the first principle will be found at the bottom of them. I know nothing in the works of the ancient philosophers which can be brought against them except a passage or two of Plato, and one of Numenius, according to Proclus.
Plato says, “When, therefore, that God, who is a perpetually reasoning divinity, cogitated about the god who was destined to subsist at some certain period of time, he produced his body smooth and equable; and every way from the middle even and whole, and perfect from the composition of perfect bodies.”[1]
Again Plato says, “And on all these accounts he rendered the universe a happy God.”[2] Again he says, “But he fabricated the earth, the common nourisher of our existence; which being conglobed about the pole, extended through the universe, is the guardian and artificer of night and day, and is the first and most ancient of the gods which are generated within the heavens. But the harmonious progressions of these divinities, their concussions with each other, the revolutions and advancing motions of their circles, how they are situated with relation to each other in their conjunctions and oppositions, whether direct among themselves or retrograde, at what times and in what manner they become concealed, and, again emerging to our view, cause terror, and exhibit tokens of future events to such as are able to discover their signification; of all this to attempt an explanation, without suspecting the resemblances of these divinities, would be a fruitless employment. But of this enough, and let this be the end of our discourse concerning the nature of the visible and generated gods.”[3]
How from these passages any ingenuity can make out that Plato maintained a trinity of the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, as the Supreme God or the Creator, I do not know, and I should not have thought of noticing them if I had not seen an attempt lately made in a work not yet published, to depreciate the sublime doctrines of the ancients by deducing from these passages that consequence.
The other passage is of Numenius the Pythagorean, recorded by Proclus, who says that he taught, that the world was the third God, ὁ γαρ κατ᾽ αυτον ὁ τριτος εστι Θεος.[4]
This is evidently nothing but the hearsay of hearsay evidence, and can only shew that these doctrines, like all the other mythoses, had become lost or doubtful to the Greeks. The latter quotation of this obscure author will be found undeserving of attention, when placed in opposition to the immense mass of evidence which will be produced in this work. And as for the passage of Plato, I think few persons will allow it to have any weight, when in like manner every construction of it is found to be directly in opposition to his other doctrines, as my reader will soon see.[5]
5. The doctrine as developed above by me, is said to be too refined for the first race of men. Beautifully refined it certainly is: but my reader will recollect that I do not suppose that man arrived at these results till after many generations of ignorance, and till after probably almost innumerable essays of absurdity and folly. But I think if the matter be well considered, the Pan-
- ↑ Plato’s Tim., Taylor, p. 483.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 484.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 499, 500.
- ↑ Comment in Tim. of Plat. II. 93.
- ↑ In the seventh chapter of the 2nd book of Arch. Phil. by Thomas Burnet, who was among the very first of modern philosophers, may be seen an elaborate and satisfactory proof that the ancient philosophers constantly held two doctrines, one for the learned, and one for the vulgar. He supports his proofs by an example from Jamblicus and Laertius, relative to some notions of Pythagoras, which accorded with the vulgar opinion of the Heavens, but which were contrary to his real opinions. He has completely justified the ancients from the attempts of certain of the moderns to fix upon them their simulated opinions. The fate of Socrates furnishes an admirable example of what would happen to those who in ancient times taught true doctrines to the vulgar, or attempted to draw aside the veil of Isis.
