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a knowledge of the Pythagorean principles is to be derived differ from each other. Timæus the Locrian supports the view taken by Cudworth, but Ocellus Lucanus asserts that the world was neither created nor arranged, having had no origin, and destined to have no end: and in another passage he seems to consider it as the Deity and the Cause of all things. The Eleatic school identified God with the world. Plato refined upon the doctrines of Pythagoras, and taught the more elevated philosophy of Anaxagoras, in separating the supreme Deity from matter: and though he makes a divinity of the law of nature, by assigning a divine Intelligence or Soul to the world, who guides and directs it to artificial ends, he

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* Δοκεῖ γὰρ μοι τὸ πᾶν ἀνώλεθρον εἶναι καὶ ἀγένητον ἀεί τε γὰρ ἦν καὶ ἔσται. Ocellus Lucanus, Gale, Opusc. Mythol. cap. 1. p. 506. edit. 1688,

Ὁ δέ γε ΚΟΣΜΟΣ, αἴτιός ἐστι τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῦ εἶναι καὶ τοῦ σώζε σθαι, καὶ τοῦ αὐτοτελῆ εἶναι. p. 510.

Conf. p. 531. Τὰς ὀρέξεις ΥΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ διδομένας—καθ ̓ ἕκαστον, ἀναπλήρωσεν Ο ΘΕΟΣ. Vide also Justin Martyr, Brucker, 1075.

s Timæus, passim.

Alcinous, as interpreter of Plato's doctrines, gives the following description of the Deity: Πατὴρ δέ ἐστι τῷ αἴτιος εἶναι πάντων καὶ κοσμεῖν τὸν οὐράνιον νοῦν καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ κόσμου πρὸς ἑαυ τὸν καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἑαυτοῦ νοήσεις. κατὰ γὰρ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ΒΟΥΛΗΣΙΝ ἐμπέπληκε πάντα ἑαυτοῦ, τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ κόσμου ἐπεγείρας καὶ εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέψας τοῦ νοῦ αὐτῆς αἴτιος ὑπάρχων. ὃς κοσμηθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς διακοσμεί σύμπασαν φύσιν ἐν τῷδε τῷ κόσμῳ. Alcinous, cap. Io.

never confounds this secondary god with the one first Cause and Creator of all things.

In the works of Aristotle, few as the indications are which they afford of his opinions on the subject, it is not impossible to discover that he does not confound the Deity with the universet. In the Politics he clearly marks the distinction between the two ideas, and in his metaphysical works, the same distinction may be traced.

Among the followers of Plato in the Academy, no important deviation from his system is to be perceived". The statements of Xenocrates and Polemo are far from being irreconcileable with the principles inculcated by the founder of the school.

Into the doctrines of the middle and new Academy it is unnecessary to enter, because, as

t Aristot. Pol. lib. vii. cap. 3. Σχολὴ γὰρ ἂν Ο ΘΕΟΣ ἔχοι καλῶς και ΠΑΣ Ο ΚΟΣΜΟΣ οἷς οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐξωτερίκαι πράξεις παρὰ τὰς οἰ kelas tàs aʊtãy. Vid. also Metaphys. lib. xiv. cap. 7. in which the Deity is said to be ἀΐδιος, ἀκινήτος, κεχωρισμένος τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ¿jeρns Kai àdiaíperos.-De Coelo, lib. ii. cap. 1. In which Aristotle argues, that if the Deity were confounded with the universe, he would have the fate of Ixion.

u Brucker, pp. 738. 742. Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. cap. 4. sect. 24. p. 418. Speusippus autem et Xenocrates qui primi Platonis rationem auctoritatemque susceperant et post hos Polemo, et Crates unaque Crantor in Academia congregati diligenter ea quæ a superioribus acceperant, tuebantur. Cicero, Academ. Quæst. lib. i. cap. 9.

was before remarked, they virtually made it their principle to have no established system, and they are therefore justly classed by Warburton with professed Pyrrhonists.

The Peripatetics by no means uniformly adhered to the tenets of their master, and one of them, Strato Lampsacenus, is distinguished for having plunged into a depth of atheism beyond that of any other philosophical teacher, and to have inculcated more degrading notions respecting the Deity than those of the Stoics; for he maintained that there was no other God than a kind of plastic life in nature, without sense or consciousness. The Stoics, like Strato, considered God and matter to form one nature inseparably united, but they maintained the existence (if such a difference between these two forms of atheism can clearly be conceived) of a kind of divine reason,

× Opinabor was their professed principle: Quæro enim, quid sit, quod comprehendi possit-Incognito nimirum assentiar, id est, opinabor. Cic. Academ. Quæst. lib. iv. 35.

y A short account of Strato's life, but not of his doctrines, is given in Diog. Laërt. and his works also are enumerated: he succeeded Theophrastus in his school, and had been preceptor to Ptolemy Philadelphus, Diog. Laërt. p. 186. He is described by St. Augustine as something between an atheist and a theist. For his opinions, vide Cudworth, lib. i. cap. 3. sect. 4. p. 107. Brucker, pars ii. lib. ii. cap. 7. pp. 845-847. Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. i. cap. 13. Academ. Quæst. lib. i. cap. 9. lib. iv. cap. 38.

divina ratio toti mundo insita", while their rivals above alluded to allowed the divinity of plastic force only. The distinction must be considered more verbal than reala, if we remember that the god of the Stoics, notwithstanding the magnificent language in which they sometimes extol him, was corporeal made up of fire and liquid ether, finite, inseparably united to matter, and subject to its control, without free-will, and apparently without personality. They taught that the soul of man was a part of the divine essence, a πνεῦμα ἔνθερμον 5, that it partook of the same qualities, was an emanation from it, and, after the destined period, would be resolved into it, when the eternal law of fate,

z Zeno autem naturalem legem divinam esse censet. Aliis autem libris rationem quandam, per omnem naturam rerum pertinentem ut divinam esse affectam (divina vi affectam) putat. Cicero, de Natura Deorum, lib. i. cap. 14. ratione mundus utitur. Animans est mundus composque rationis. lib. ii. cap. 8.

a

Brucker, pars ii. lib. ii. cap. 9. p. 937. Tennemann, Stoiker, s. 121. Diog. Laërt. lib. vii. De Natura Deorum, Cicero, lib. i. lib. ii. cap. 14, 15. Academ. Quæst. lib. iv. cap. 41. Cudworth, lib. i. cap. 4. p. 419. Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel. lib. xv. cap. 15, 16. S. Epiphanii Responsio ad Epist. Acacii et Pauli, p. 7. Adv. Hæreses. lib. i. 5.

b Diog. Laërt. lib. vii. p. 291.

̓Αρέσκει δὲ τοῖς πρεσβυτατοῖς τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς αἱρέσεως ταύτης ἐξαεροῦ σθαι πάντα κατὰ περιόδους τινὰς τὰς μέγιστας εἰς πῦρ αἰθερῶδες ἀναλυομévwv TávτWY. Eusebius, Præp. Evangel. lib. xv. cap. 18. Idem

from similar principles, would again produce similar combinations; a new universe would arise from its elementary fire, destined to become in the developement of all its successive phenomena, physical and moral, whether trifling or important, the exact counterpart of the old: from the eruption of volcanoes, or the convulsion of empires, to the smallest blade of grass, and the most minute accident in the character and fortunes of every individual that before existed.

a The opinions of Epicurus are too well known to require examination. The Romans were copyists of the Greek philosophers, rather than inventors of independent systems, and in the interpretation of their sentiments they are frequently superficial, and not always to be relied on. In the time of Cicero the philosophy of Epicurus, of the Stoics, and of the old and new Academy, was most studied. Cicero himself, next to the works of the new Academy, his own sect, was most conversant in the writings of the Stoics. In speaking of Aristotle he observes, that his philosophy was little read even by the learned e. It appears that those

cap. 19. Diog. Laërt. lib. vii. p. 284. edit. 1570. Warburton, book iii. sect. 3. vol. ii. p. 72. Vide also Origen contra Cel ́sum, lib. v. p. 244, 245. edit. Spencer. 1677. Even Socrates's worn out clothes were to appear again in this regeneration. d Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i.

e Rhetor autem ille magnus hæc Aristotelica se ignorare re

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