[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.
[5] The discourses of Socrates in Plato.
[6] For so the Christians were called by the heathens, when the
religion of the latter was rapidly declining, and that of the former
had gained the ascendency. Thus Porphyry, in a passage preserved
by Theodoret, (in lib. i. De Curat. Græc. Superst.) Χαλκοδετος
γαρ η προς θεους οδος, αιπεινη τε και τραχεια, ης πολλας ατραπους
Βαρβαροι μεν εξευρον, Ελληνες δε επλανηθησαν, οι δε κρατουντες
ηδη και διεφθειραν. i.e. “For the way which leads to the Gods is
bound with chains of brass, and is arduous and rough, many paths of
which were indeed discovered by the Barbarians; but the Greeks have
wandered from them, and they are entirely corrupted by _those who now
prevail_.”
This passage of Porphyry, derived its origin from the following
oracle of Apollo, preserved by Eusebius:
Αιπεινη γαρ οδος μακαρων τρηχεια τε πολλον,
Χαλκοδετοις τα πρωτα διοιγομενη πυλεωσιν.
Ατραπετοι δε εασσιν αθεσφατοι εγγεγαυιαι,
Ας πρωτοι μεροπων επ’ απειρονα πρηξιν εφηναν
Οι το καλον πινοντες υδωρ Νειλωτιδος αιης·
Πολλας και Φοινικες οδους μακαρων εδαησαν,
Ασσυριοι Λυδοι τε, και Εβραιων γενος ανδρων.
But for Εβραιων, in the last line, I read Χαλδαιων, it not being at
all reasonable to suppose that an oracle of Apollo would say that the
Hebrews knew many paths which led to the knowledge of the Gods. It is
probable, therefore, that either Aristobulus the Jew, well known for
interpolating the writings of the heathens, or the wicked Eusebius,
as he is called by the Emperor Julian, has fraudulently substituted
the former word for the latter. The Oracle, with this emendation,
will be in English as follows:
The path by which to deity we climb
Is arduous, rough, ineffable, sublime;
And the strong massy gates, through which we pass
In our first course, are bound with chains of brass.
Those men the first who of Egyptian birth
Drank the fair water of Nilotic earth,
Disclosed by actions infinite this road,
And many paths to God Phœnicians show’d.
This road the Assyrians pointed out to view,
And this the Lydians and Chaldeans knew.
But when Porphyry says that the Greeks have wandered from the path
which leads to divinity, he alludes to their worshipping men as Gods;
which, as I have shown in the Introduction to my translation of
Proclus On the Theology of Plato, is contrary to the genuine doctrine
of the heathen religion; and was the cause of its corruption, and
final extinction, among the Greeks and Romans.
[7] Odyss. lib. ix. v. 347.
[8] Fragments of this work are to be found in Photius. But they are
fragments of a treatise or treatises, On _Providence, Fate, and Free
Will_.
[9] An adept in the philosophy of Plato will at once be convinced
of the truth of this assertion, by comparing what Hierocles has
said about prayer in his Commentary On the Golden Verses of the
Pythagoreans, with what is said respecting it by Iamblichus, in
his Treatise on the Mysteries; and by Proclus, at the beginning of
the second book of his Commentary On the Timæus of Plato. See the
Introduction to the second Alcibiades, in Vol. 4. of my translation
of Plato, and the Notes to my translation of Maximus Tyrius; in which
the reader will find what Iamblichus, Proclus, and Hierocles have
said on this subject. And that he was not consummately accurate in
his knowledge, will be evident by comparing what he says in his above
mentioned Commentary, about that middle order of beings denominated
_the illustrious heroes_, with what Iamblichus and Proclus have
most admirably unfolded concerning them. And this will still more
plainly appear from what he says about the celebrated _tetrad_, or
_tetractys_ of the Pythagoreans, in p. 166, and 170, of the same
Commentary. For in both these places, he clearly asserts, that
this tetrad is the same with the _Demiurgus_, or _maker_ of _the
universe_. Thus, in the former of these places και την τετραδα πηγην
της αιδιου διακοσμησεως, αποφαινεται την αυτην ουσαν τῳ δημιουργῳ
θεῳ. i.e. “And the author of these verses shows that the tetrad,
which is the fountain of the perpetual orderly distribution of
things, is the same with the God who is the Demiurgus.” And in the
latter passage, εστι γαρ ως εφαμεν, δημιουργος των ολων και αιτια
η τετρας, θεος νοητος, αιτιος του ουρανιου και αισθητου θεου. i.e.
“For as we have said, the tetrad is the Demiurgus and cause of the
wholes of the universe, being an intelligible God, the source of the
celestial and sensible God.” The tetrad, however, or the _animal
itself_, (το αυτωζωον) of Plato; who, as Syrianus justly observes,
was the best of the Pythagoreans; subsists at the extremity of the
_intelligible_ triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in
the third book of his Treatise On the Theology, and in the fourth
book of his Commentary On the Timæus of Plato. But the Demiurgus,
as it is demonstrated by the same incomparable man, in the fifth
book of the former of these works, subsists at the extremity of the
_intellectual_ triad. And between these two triads another order of
Gods exists, which is denominated _intelligible, and at the same
time intellectual_, as partaking of both the extremes. The English
reader who has a genius for such speculations, will be convinced of
this by diligently perusing my translations of the above mentioned
works. Notwithstanding, however, the knowledge of Hierocles was not
so consummately accurate on certain most abstruse theological dogmas
as that of Iamblichus, Proclus, and Damascius, yet where ethics are
concerned, his notions are most correct, most admirable, and sublime.
[10] Thus, too, Plato in his Laws mingles his polity from a
democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. He was, however, decidedly of
opinion, as is evident from his Politicus, that the best form of
government is that in which either one man, who is a most excellent
character, is the supreme ruler, or a few excellent men rule
conjointly.
[11] In the original there is only πρωτος ὦν ο νομος, which is
evidently defective; but by adding εμψυχος the sense will be
complete. And in what immediately follows τουτω γαρ ο μεν βασιλευς
νομιμος which also is defective, Gesner adds τηρησει after τουτω γαρ,
but he should doubtless have added ει τηρησει.
[12] _i.e._ To a perfect subjugation of the passions to reason, and
not to a perfect insensibility, as is stupidly supposed by many who
do not understand the proper meaning of the word _apathy_, as used by
the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Stoics.
[13] The original is, I conceive, evidently defective in this place;
for it is, ουτε γαρ γα τως αυτως καρπως, ουτε ψυχα ανθρωπων ταν αυταν
αρεταν παραδεξασθαι δυναται. It appears, therefore, to me, that
πανταχου should be added after καρπως, and that for ουτε ψυχα we
should read ουτε πασα ψυχα.
[14] Among the Lacedæmonians the three men were thus denominated, who
were chosen by the Ephori to preside over the equestrian order. But
the ephori were magistrates corresponding to the _tribunes_ of the
people among the Romans.
[15] In the original, α μεν γαρ πλεονεκτια γινεται περι το αγουμενον
μερος τας ψυχας· λογικα γαρ α επιθυμια. But for αγουμενον, I read
αλογον; and for λογικα, it is necessary to read ου λογικα. For the
vices, according to the Pythagoreans, subsist about the irrational
part of the soul, which consists, according to them, as well as
according to Plato, of _anger_ and _desire_. Hence Metopus, the
Pythagorean, says: “Since there are two parts of the soul, the
rational and the irrational, the latter is divided into the irascible
and the appetitive. And the rational part, indeed, is that by which
we judge and contemplate; but the irrational part is that by which we
are impelled and desire.” See my translation of Pythagoric Ethical
Fragments, at the end of my translation of Iamblichus’ Life of
Pythagoras.
[16] I here read, with Victorius, κατ’ οικειοτατα εγγενη, for και
οικειοτατον εν γενοιν.
[17] This sentence within the brackets is not to be found in Stobæus.
[18] i.e. God is not in want of ministers or servants to assist him
in the government of the universe: for he produces and provides for
all things at once by his own immediate energy. But the cooperation
of subordinate divine powers with him is necessary to the proper
participation of him by the different beings which the universe
contains.
[19] For οι μιμευμενοι των αυτων in this place, I read οι μιμευμενοι
τον αυτον.
[20] Instead of ενιοτε here, I read παντοτε.
[21] Conformably to this, Plato also in the Politicus says: “It is
requisite to call him royal who possesses the royal science, whether
he governs or not.”
[22] Plato says somewhere (I think in his Laws), that a greater evil
than impudence cannot befall either cities or individuals.
[23] _i.e._ The seed which pertains to the propagation of his
children.
[24] _i.e._ To his children while they live in his house under his
protection and are unmarried; and who are in danger through having a
stepmother of losing that property which ought to be theirs on the
death of their father.
[25] Pæan is a song of rejoicing, which was sung at festivals and on
other occasions, in honour of Apollo, for having slain the serpent
Python.
[26] A kind of harp beaten with sticks.
[27] In the original ουρανιον ζωον a _celestial_ animal; but as
Callicratidas is here speaking of the Demiurgus, or artificer of the
universe, who is an _intellectual_ god, for ουρανιον I read νοερον.
For the Demiurgus is the maker, and not one of the celestial gods.
But he is called an _animal_, as being the cause of _life_ to all
things. Thus, too, Aristotle, in the 12th book of his Metaphysics,
says, “that God is an animal eternal and most excellent.”
[28] This Perictyone is different from her who was the mother of
Plato.
[29] In this extract no mention whatever is made of the harmony of
a woman; for it wholly consists of the duty of children to their
parents.
[30] και νοσῳ is omitted in the original, but ought, as it appears to
me, to be inserted.
[31] It is well observed by Olympiodorus, on the Phædo of Plato,
“that the soul is not punished by divinity through anger but
medicinally; and that by eternity of punishment we must understand
punishment commensurate with the soul’s partial period; because souls
that have committed the greatest offences cannot be sufficiently
purified in one period.”
[32] For φρονεειν in this place, which is evidently erroneous, I read
φθονεειν.
[33] The whole of this extract is to be found in the fourth book
of Plato’s Laws. (See tom. viii. p. 187, and 188, of the Bipont
edition.) But there is occasionally some little difference between
the text of Plato and that of Aristoxenus, as the critical reader
will easily discover. Neither Fabricius nor the editors of Stobæus
have noticed the source of this extract.
[34] The whole of this extract is taken from the eleventh book of
Plato’s Laws, but what is there said is here somewhat amplified.
[35] See p. 137, and 138, of my Translation of Iamblichus on the
Mysteries.
[36] Iliad IX. v. 495. 6. 7.
[37] Iliad IX. v. 493. Hierocles is mistaken in saying that poetry
_rashly asserts that the Gods are flexible_. For as I have observed
in my Notes to Iamblichus on the Mysteries, divine flexibility
indicates in Homer, and other theological poets of antiquity,
that those who through depravity become unadapted to receive the
illuminations of the Gods, when they afterwards obtain pardon of
their guilt through prayers and sacrifices, again become partakers of
the goodness of the Gods. So that divine flexibility is a resumption
of the participation of divine light and goodness, by those who
through inaptitude were before deprived of it.
[38] See on this most interesting subject, that divinity is not the
cause of evil, my translation of the Fragments of Proclus on the
Subsistence of Evil, at the end of my translation of his six books On
the Theology of Plato.
[39] See Odyss. I. v. 32, 33, 34.
[40] See the first book of his Republic.
[41] i.e. Such things as are neither really good, nor really evil,
but media between these.
[42] After this last sentence, the words ταυτα χρη, follow in the
original; which evidently show that something is wanting: as they
are only the beginning of another sentence. This defect, however, is
supplied in my copy of Stobæus, (Eclog. Ethic. lib. II. p. 207), by
some one in manuscript, as follows: ταυτα χρη προνοειν, μη δια νου
τυφλοτητα και αγνωμοσυνην, τα (lege ταυτα) ημιν απαντασωσι; and he
has also added the following Latin translation of these words: “Hæc
oportet prospicere ne per mentis cæcitatem et ignorantiam hæc nobis
occurrant.” But the addition, from whatever source it was obtained,
does not appear to me to be at all apposite; and therefore I conceive
it to be spurious.
[43] This is true of the whole which consists of parts, so as not to
be able to subsist without them. For whole has a triple substance;
viz. it is either prior to parts, or in other words, is a whole
containing parts causally; or it consists of parts; or is in a part,
so that a part, also, becomes a whole according to participation. A
city, therefore, is a whole consisting of parts, any part of which
being absent, diminishes the whole. See Prop. 67 of my translation of
Proclus’ Elements of Theology; and the second book of my translation
of Proclus on the Timæus.
[44] When the intelligent reader considers that Hierocles flourished
about the middle of the fifth century after Christ, he will
immediately understand what the _recent customs_ are to which
Hierocles, in the above passage, alludes. Needham, in his translation
of this passage, either did not understand the meaning of it, or
wilfully omitted to translate it.
[45] The honours which we pay to divinity can be of no advantage to
him, but benefit us; but the honours which we pay to our parents are
beneficial to them. And in this sense, and in this only, the latter
are to be honoured more than the former.
[46] This reminds me of what Pope, no less piously than pathetically
says, respecting his mother, in the following most beautiful lines:
“Me let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mothers breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death;
_Explore the thought, explain the asking eye_,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky.”
_See his Seventh Epistle, near the end._
[47] The following extract from Sir William Jones, as given by Moor
in his Hindu Pantheon, p. 421, demonstrates the great antiquity of
this precept:
“Our divine religion has no need of such aids as many are willing to
give it; by asserting that the wisest men of this world were ignorant
of the two great maxims—that _we must act in respect of others as we
should wish them to act in respect of ourselves_—and that, _instead
of returning evil for evil, we should confer benefits on those who
injure us_. But the first rule is implied in a speech of Lysias, and
expressed in distinct phrases by Thales and Pittacus; and I have
even seen it word for word, in the original of Confucius, which I
carefully compared with the Latin translation. If the conversion,
therefore, of the _Pandits_ and _Maulavis_, in India, shall ever be
attempted by protestant missionaries, they must beware of asserting,
while they teach the gospel, what those _Pandits_ and _Maulavis_
would know to be false. The former would cite the beautiful _Arya_
couplet, which was written at least three centuries before our era,
and which pronounce the duty of a good man, even in the moment of
destruction, to consist, _not only in forgiving, but even in a desire
of benefiting his destroyer_—as _the sandal tree, in the instant of
its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe which fells it_. And the
latter would triumph, in repeating the verse of SADI, who represents
_a return of good for good as a slight reciprocity_; but says to the
virtuous man, ‘_Confer benefits on him who has injured thee_:’ using
an _Arabic_ sentence, and a maxim apparently of the ancient Arabs.
Nor would the _Mussulmans_ fail to recite four distichs of _Hafiz_,
who has illustrated that maxim with fanciful but elegant allusions:—
“Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe:
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride,
Emblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side.
Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower
With fruit nectarious, or the balmy flower:
All nature calls aloud—‘Shall man do less
Than heal the smiter, and the railer bless?’”
_As. Res. Vol. IV._
[48] viz. Such circumstances as induced Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, and
many other ancient philosophers, not to engage in wedlock, because
they found that they could give greater assistance to philosophy by
continuing single; but Pythagoras and Socrates, though they rank
among the wisest men that ever lived, did not find a married life
incompatible with the cultivation of philosophy in the highest
perfection possible to man. Wedlock, therefore, is never to be
avoided from any sordid and selfish motives.
[49] Hence Diogenes, in perfect conformity with that dignified
independence of character which he so eminently possessed, and
which is to be found more or less in the conduct of all the ancient
philosophers, when a certain wealthy and ostentatious man brought him
to a fine house which he had built, and desired him not to spit, as
he perceived he begun to hawk, spit in the man’s face, observing at
the same time, that he could not find a worse place to spit in.
[50] Odyss. lib. 7, v. 183.
[51] This admirable passage is so conformable to the following
beautiful lines in Pope’s Essay on Man, that it is most probably the
source from whence they were derived. The lines are these:
“Self love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake,
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads,
Friend, parent, neighbour first it will embrace,
His country next, and next all human race;
Wide and more wide th’ o’erflowings of the mind,
Take every creature in of every kind.”
In Hierocles, however, the circles are scientifically detailed;
but in Pope they are synoptically enumerated. Pope, too, has added
another circle to that which is the outermost with Hierocles, viz.
the circle which embraces every creature of every kind. But as
Hierocles in this fragment is only speaking of our duties to kindred,
among which the whole human race is, in a certain respect, included,
he had no occasion to introduce another circle, though the Platonic
doctrine of benevolence is as widely extended as that of Pope.
As the selflove, however, mentioned here by our poet is of a
virtuous nature, and is wholly different from that selflove which is
reprehensible, and is possessed by the vulgar, I shall present the
reader with what Aristotle says concerning the former in the 9th book
of his Nicomachean Ethics, as the distinction between the two is at
present but little known.
Aristotle, therefore, having observed, that the selflove of the
multitude leads them to distribute to themselves the greater part in
wealth and honours, and corporeal pleasures, and that in consequence
of vindicating to themselves more of these things than is fit, they
are subservient to desires and passions, and the irrational part of
the soul, adds as follows:
“He who always earnestly endeavours to act justly or temperately,
or to act according to any other of the virtues, the most of all
things, and, in short, who always vindicates to himself that which
is beautiful in conduct; such a man will never be called by any one
a lover of himself, nor will he be blamed by any one. It would seem,
however, that such a man as this is, in a greater degree, a lover
of himself; for he distributes to himself things which are most
eminently beautiful and good, is gratified in his most principal
part [intellect], and in all things is obedient to it. But as that
which is the most principal thing in a city appears to be most
eminently the city, and this is the case in every other system of
things; thus, also, that which is most principal in man is especially
the man. He, therefore, who loves this principal part of himself,
is especially a lover of himself, and is gratified with this. That
every man, therefore, is principally intellect, and that the worthy
man principally loves this is not immanifest. Hence, he will be
especially a lover of himself, according to a different species of
selflove from that which is disgraceful, and differing as much from
it as to live according to reason differs from living according
to passion, and as much as the desire of that which is beautiful
in conduct differs from the desire of that which appears to be
advantageous. Hence it is necessary that a good man should be a lover
of himself; for he himself is benefited by acting well, and he also
benefits others. But it is not proper that a depraved man should be a
lover of himself; for he will hurt both himself and his neighbours,
in consequence of being subservient to base passions. With the
depraved man, therefore, there is a dissonance between what he ought
to do and what he does; but _with the worthy man, those things which
he ought to do he also does_.”
Conformably to what Aristotle asserts in this last sentence, Seneca
also says, “Sapiens nihil facit quod non debet, et nihil prætermittit
quod debet.” i.e. “_The wise man does nothing which he ought not to
do, and omits nothing which he ought to do._”
[52] There is a deficiency here in the original, which I have
endeavoured to supply in the translation by the words in the
brackets. It appears to me, therefore, that the words χρησθαι καλως
are wanting.
[53] For ενστασεως, in this place in the original, I read
επιστασεως.
* * * * *