Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/118

 God; from popular Mythology he accepts certain names of deities, and certain traditional expressions, which he understands, however, in a sense quite different from any interpretation current in the popular views, while, at the same time, he never uses these names and expressions without an air and attitude of the most pious regard. The philosophical part of his teaching on the nature of God is largely Greek, but by no means entirely so, and neither is it the teaching of any particular school of Greek philosophy. The Demiurgus of the Timæus: the One and Absolute of the Pythagoreans: the [Greek: Prôton kinoun], the [Greek: noêsis], [Greek: noêseôs noêsis] of Aristotle; the material immanent World-Soul—the [Greek: logos ho en tê hylê]—of the Stoics:—one and all contribute qualities to the Plutarchic Deity, and show how irresistible the necessity for unity had become in the spiritual, as in the political, world. The metaphysical Deity thus created from these diverse elements is made personal by the direct ethical relation into which He is brought with mankind (as in the punishment of sin), while the suggestion of personality is aided by the use of the Greek popular names of the deities to describe the attributes of the One Supreme God. Thus it has already been noted that while Plutarch is ostensibly discussing the attributes of Apollo he is actually defining his position with reference to abstract Deity. This ill-harmonizing combination of metaphysics and popular belief is further placed in contact with views originated by Oriental creeds, with Zoroastrianism, with Manichæism, with "certain slight and obscure hints of the truth, which are to be found scattered here