of mankind. Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that when Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the Cæsarean Mauritania.10 The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy suc cessively penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests both of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the progress of reason and faith, of error and passion, from the school of Plato, tc the decline and fall of the empire.

The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt,11 had ventured to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the Atheni an sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification-of the first cause, the reason, or Logos, and the soul or spirit of the

10 Tillemont, Mém. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. part i. p. 253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered Augustin, the great doctor of the system of predestination.

1 Plato Ægyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris numeros et caelestia acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of the Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian fathers, that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not accessible to Greek curiosity till mors than one hundred years after the death of Plato. See Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144. Le Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.

universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three archical or original principles were represented in the Platonic system as three Gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly considered under the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more recent disciples of Plato,* could not be

This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears to me contrary to the true sense of that philosopher's writings. The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato. he has established no mysterious generation between the three pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he conceived only as attributes of the Deity, or of matter, those ideas, of which it is supposed that he made substances, real beings.

Before

According to Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity. the creation of the world, matter had in itself a principle of motion, but without end or laws: it is this principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world, (aλoyos tuxn;) because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to impress form upon matter, that is to say, 1. To mould matter, and make it into a body; 2. To regulate its motion, and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in this operation, could not act but according to the ideas existing in his intelligence: their union filled this, and formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world, this divine intelligence, existing with God from all eternity, and called by Plato vous or Aéyos, which he is supposed to personify, to substantialize; while an attentive examination is sufficient to convince us that he has never assigned it an existence external to the Deity, (hors de la Divinité,) and that he considered the Aoyos as the aggregate of the ideas of God, the divine understanding in its relation to the world. The contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his philosophy: thus he says (Timæus, p. 348, edit. Bip.) that to the idea of the Deity is essentially united that of an intelligence, of a logos. He would thus have admitted a double logos; one inherent in the Deity as an attribute, the other independently existing as a substance. He affirms (Timæus, 316, 337, 348, Sophista, v. ii. p. 265, 266) that the intelligence, the principle of order, vous or λoyos, cannot exist but as an attribute of a soul, (xn,) the principle of motion and of life, of which the nature is unknown to us. How, then, according to this, could he consider the logos as a substance endowed with an in dependent existence? In other places he explains it by these two words, niornun, (knowledge, science,) and diá vola, (intelligence,) which signify the attributes of the Deity. (Sophist. v. ii. p. 299.) Lastly, it fellows from several passages, among others from Phileb. v. iv. p. 247, 248, that Plato has never given to the words vous, yos, but one of these two meanings: 1. The result of the action of the Deity; that is, order, the collect ve laws which govern the world: and 1. The rational soul of the world, (Xoyiorien чũxn,) or the cause of this result, that is to say, the divine intelligence. When he separates God, the Heal archetype of the world and matter it is to explain how, according to his system, God has proceeded, at the creation, to unite the principle of

perfectly understood, till after an assidious study of thirty years,12

The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria."

12 The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of the Platonic system are Cudworth, (Intellectual System, p. 568-620,) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, l. iv. c. 4, p. 53-86,) Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit. vii p. 194-209,) and Brucker, (Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 675-706.) As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention different, an Inquisitive observer may derive instruction from their disputes, and certainty from their agreement.

18 Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357. The Alexan drian school is celebrated by Strabo (1. xvii.) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6.)*

order, which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the Aoyos, the principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the irrational soul, the ἄλογος ψυχη, which was in matter. When he speaks of the place occupied by the ideal world, (τóños vonτòs,) it is to designate the divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part of his writings do we find a true personification of the pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a trinity and if this personification existed, it would equally apply to many other notions, of which might be formed many different trinities.

This error into which many ancient as well as modern interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural. Besides the snares which were concealed in his figurative style; besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to this error. When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and the continual illusions of the senses were acknowledged, and had given rise to a general scepticism. Socrates had aimed at raising morality above the influence of this scepticism: Plato endeavored to save metaphysics, by seeking in the human intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the aggregate formed, according to him, the ideal world, and affirmed that these ideas were real attributes, not only attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of the objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might obtain a knowledge. He gave, then, to these ideas a positive existence as attributes; his commentators could easily give them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms which he used to designate them, αυτο το κάλον, αυτο τὸ ἀγαθον, essential beauty, essential goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization, (hypostasis.) - G.

We have retained this view of the original philosophy of Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of Plato was rather metaphysipal than impersonative: his poetry was in his language, rather than, like that of the Orientals, in his conceptions. - M.

*The philosophy of Plato was not the only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria. That city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone great shanges by this intercourse, endeavored to reconcile Platonism with their

A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital.14 While the bulk of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation.15 They cultivated with diligence, and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by

14 Joseph. Antiquitat. 1. xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, 1. vii. c. 7.

15 For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. According to Philo, the Therapeuta studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 787) that they gave the preference to that of Plato.

new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely: lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored on their side to reconcile their own with those of their neighbors. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism. We find in these books, and in those of the later prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in Plato, but which are manifestly aerived from the Orientals. Thus God represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad angels; paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental philosophy, however little it may be knowr is recognized at every instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover) more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe. This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo ventured this personification. The Deity, aceording to him, has a double logos; the first (oyos Evdiáteros) is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal world, the first-born of the Deity; the second (λoyos πроpóρikos) is the word itself of God, personified under the image of a being acting to create the sensible world, and to make it like to the ideal world: it is the second-born of God. Following out his imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal world, under the image of a celestial man, (dvoários avoownos,) the primitive type of man, and the sensible world under the image of another man less perfect than the celestial man. ain notions of the Oriental philosophy may have given rise to this strange abuse of allegory, which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source. Philo, moreover, of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose Platonism is the most pure. (See Buhle, Introd. to Hist. of Mod. Philosophy Michaelis, Introd. to New Test. in German, part ii. p. 973.) It is from this mixture of Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which has produced so many theological and philosophical extravagancies, and in which Oriental notions evidently predominate.

G.

Cer

a fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked, as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired Wisdom of Solomon.16 A simi. lar union of the Mosaic faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of Augustus.17 The material soul of the universe 18 might offend the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the LoGoS to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal Cause.19

The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority

16 See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p. 277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of the fathers as the work of that monarch; and although rejected by the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained, with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of Trent.

17 The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit. viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, 1. iv. c. 5) has clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were composed before the death, and most probably before the birth, of Christ. In such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is more astonishing than his errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. i. p. 12.

18 Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.

Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562) in Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in Plato himself, a superior, spiritual upercosmian soul of the universe. But this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le Clerc, as an idle fancy of the latter Platonists.

19 Petav. Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. 1. viii. c. 2, p. 791. Buil, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. 1. p. 8, 13. This notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely adopted in the Christian theology. Tertul lian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16) has a remarkable and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with indiscreet wit, the nature of God, and the actions of Jehovah, he concludes: Scilicet ut hæc de filio Dei non credenda fuisse, si non scripta essent; fortasse non credenda de Patre licet scripta.*

Tertullian is here arguing against the Patripassians; those who as serted that the Father was born of the Virgin, died and was buried. — M.

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