The X tinguished from teachers of natural science. By Imagination prophets perceive the revelations of God and transcend the limits of the Scientific Understanding. This is why they impart what they perceive almost always in parables, expressing spiritual truths by means of sensible images; for this is the method which their faculty naturally prescribes. Prophets are not endowed with a more perfect Intelligence, but with a more vivid Imagination than other men. Prophecy, as it depends on Imagination, does not per se involve certainty prophets are not made certain of the revelation of God by the revelation itself, but by a sign. Thus Abraham (Genesis xv. 8), on hearing the promise of God, asked for a sign. He, indeed, believed God, and did not ask for a sign in order that he might believe God, but in order that he might know that the thing was actually promised to him by God.1 Herein prophecy is inferior to natural knowledge, which needs no sign, but has its certainty in itself. prophet's certainty is not metaphysical but moral. The prophet may be recognised by three marks: (1) he imagines the things revealed as vividly as if they were objects of waking sense, (2) he needs a sign, and (3)—and chiefly-he has a mind inclined to that which is just and good. Though this may seem to show that prophecy and revelation are uncertain, yet they have much that is certain; for God never deceives pious men, "His Elect." He uses them as instruments of His goodness, as he uses the wicked as instruments of His wrath. Now, since the signs are merely to persuade the prophet in a matter where the certainty is not metaphysical but moral, it follows that the signs are suited to the opinions and capacity of the prophet; and the revelation (i.e. the thing imagined) varies with the temperament (gay or sad), and the beliefs, of the prophet. The conclusion of all is that prophecy never adds to the knowledge of the prophet or of others, but leaves them in their preconceived opinions; so that, in merely speculative matters, we are not at all bound to believe prophets; but in matters which concern righteousness and moral character we are.2 1 Similarly, miracles do not make us believe in the existence of God. We must believe in the existence of God before we can believe in the occurrence of miracles. 2 Prophecy, says Professor P. Gardner (Jowett Lectures, 1901, p. 117), "is I offer no particular remarks on the foregoing passage, but merely recommend it to the attention of the reader, as defining the use of Prophecy in a manner similar to that in which I think the use of the Platonic Myth ought to be defined. With Spinoza's view of the end of Prophecy, Henry More's view of the end of Scripture has much in common. The interpretation of the literal text, he explains, must always depend on what we have learned from Philosophy, not from Scripture; but the sole end of the Scripture is the furthering of the Holy Life. 2 Similarly, John Smith says, "Christ's main scope was to promote an Holy Life as the best and most compendious way to a right Belief. He hangs all true acquaintance with Divinity upon the doing God's will. If any man will do his will he shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God." This view of the meaning of Prophecy, and generally of inspired scriptures, held by the Cambridge Platonists in independent agreement with Spinoza, is one which finds much favour at the present day among those critical students of the Bible whose paramount interest is still in religion as a practical concern. Their teaching on the subject of "inspiration" and "divine revelation," in my view, throws much light on the subject of this work. I would summarise my advice to those who wish to realise for themselves the function of the Platonic Myth as follows:-After reading Plato's Myths, each one in its own context, seal the effect of the whole by reading the work of some other great master of Myth-best of all the Divina Commedia; then turn to the writings of those modern critics of the Bible whose paramount interest is still in religion as a practical concern. Were the student to undertake the last-mentioned part of this programme, he would probably find the word "inspiration" a difficulty. would probably think that the use made of the word by the based on insight, and sees not future events but the tendency of existing forces, and looks beneath the surface of the present and sees its true inwardness. . The Jewish prophet dealt far less with the future than with the present. He was first and foremost a teacher of righteousness-one who explained the purposes of God and made his ways bare to man. He was, in fact, a preacher." He 1 Appendix to the Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala, ch. xii., especially § 3, pp. 150, 151, ed. 1662. 2 Select Discourses (1660), p. 9 ("The True Way or Method of attaining Divine Knowledge"), and cf. pp. 169 ff. ("Of Prophesie"). critics is vague and uncertain. But let him remember that Plato's use of the corresponding epos (especially where ěpws and piλocopía are identified, as in Diotima's Discourse) is equally vague. Precision is not to be looked for in the description of such a condition or gift. Indeed, Diotima's piλooopía is perhaps even more vague than the "inspiration" of these critics; for the former is the condition of an individual, while the community rather than the individual is the recipient of the latter-"It is not the individual so much as the society or community which is the recipient of divine inspiration," says Professor P. Gardner,1 interpreting Ritschl. While the "inspiration" of the individual is an abnormal condition, difficult to describe psychologically, and still more difficult to estimate in respect of " value," the "inspiration" received by a community is something which can be definitely reviewed, being the series of ideas of betterment which spring up in the community one after another and actually determine its development. The historian may find it difficult to show how this idea or that arose; but he can generally describe the circumstances in which, having arisen, it "caught on" and became an effective factor in the development of the community. The "idea of emancipating slaves" may serve as an example of what is meant when the "inspiration received by a community" is spoken of; and a prophet is one who can put such an idea before his contemporaries so vividly that it must perforce, sooner or later, realise itself in practice. When we look back over the past life of a nation we see how true it is that the grain of mustard seed becomes the great tree. How the seed came we seldom can tell; it is so small that we should not even have noticed it at all, unless the tree had grown out of it. We rather infer it from the tree; and if the tree is good we are apt to think of the seed as "divinely implanted" in some special way. What we can trace clearly to antecedents we do not regard with religious feeling; but when we come to some little inexplicable thing, which we recognise, after the 1 Jowett Lectures, p. 270. Expressing his own view Professor Gardner says: "It may be that in this matter Ritschl goes too far, for, after all, it is only in the consciousness of individuals that divine inspiration can be realised; religious utterances must come from individuals; and the will of individuals must lead society in the right way nevertheless there is profound and most important truth in the recognition of the divine mission of the society." event, as source of great things, we say that it comes by divine dispensation—θείᾳ μοίρᾳ. As the influence of the new biology makes itself more and more felt in the field of historical study, we may expect that the doctrine of "inspiration received by the community" will recommend itself more and more to religious minds, as a solution of the difficulty which few indeed are content to put by wholly the difficulty of conceiving how the development of beautifully articulated organisms can take place along lines opened up by "accidental variations." This difficulty the new biology has brought home to us thoroughly, by showing us how decisive is the part played in evolution by these "accidental variations" among the factors which maintain the moving equilibrium of life. The objections which stand. in the way of accepting the alternative solution-Weismann's theory, which explains "accidental variations" as provided for in the original germ-plasma-seem to be at least as formidable as those which might be brought against the theory of "divine inspiration of which the community or race is the recipient." II EXCURSUS ON THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF DAEMONS (Symposium, 202 E) The doctrine, here enunciated, of daiμoves who perform the office of interpreters and mediators between the Gods and Men, played a great part in the History of Religious Belief. In its original sense Saípov is synonymous with eós, and means simply "a divine immortal being." But Hesiod's δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι] introduced a specification of the term. These δαίμονες ἐπιχθόνιοι are indeed “ divine immortal beings, but they are not ἐπουράνιοι οι Ολυμπον ἔχοντες, "divine immortal beings who dwell in Heaven"; they dwell in "the parts about the Earth," and more especially "in the Air." They are, in fact, the disembodied spirits of the men of a long past age-the Golden Age. When these men died, 1 O. et D. 108. 2 The region described as repì yêv in Phaedrus, 257 a. their bodies were buried; but their immortal spirits remained in the neighbourhood of the Earth, and will ever remain there, to be the Guardians and Patrons of mortal men :— χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων When the men of the Silver Age died, their spirits went under the Earth. They became ὑποχθόνιοι μάκαρες θνητοί -a difficult phrase, on which Rohde may be consulted. They too, although their works on Earth were displeasing to the Gods, receive honour and worship from men. The third age was that of the Copper Men. They did evil on Earth, and went down nameless to the black pit of Hades.* The fourth age was that of the Heroes - those who fought at Thebes and Troy. Some of them died; some of them were translated in the flesh to the Islands of the Blessed, where they enjoy everlasting felicity : τοὺς μὲν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε, τοῖς δὲ δίχ ̓ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ ἤθὲ ὀπάσσας ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι, παρ' Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνην, τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα,5 The fifth age is the present-that of the Men of Iron." 10. et D. 97 ff. 50. et D. 150 ff. 20. et D. 125. |