Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/98

 terms, as explained by Plutarch from the Stoical view of the Divine Nature, he says, "Surely God would be a less dignified figure than the child in the poem, since the pastime which the child plays with mere sand, building castles to throw them down again, God would thus be ever playing with the universe. On the contrary, God has mysteriously cemented the universe together, overcoming that natural weakness in it which tends perpetually to annihilation. It is the function of some other god, or, rather, of some dæmon, appointed to direct nature in the processes of generation and destruction, to do and suffer these changes." In both these views the literal acceptation of the mythological names is repudiated, and the two differ only in that the Stoics quoted in Plutarch's speech make the Supreme Ruler modify His essence to the production of phenomena, while Ammonius relegates that function to a subordinate power; keeping his Platonic Demiurgus pure from these undignified metamorphoses. It will subsequently appear, when we come to deal with the Dæmonology of Plutarch, that the latter view is theof the Stoics in finding explanations of the various names of the popular Deities (Quomodo Adolescens, 31 E. (De Natura Deorum, iii. 24) represents Cotta as charging the Stoics with supporting the crudest superstitions of the popular faith by the skill which they displayed in finding a mysterious significance in the current names and legends:-"Atque hæc quidem et ejusmodi ex vetere Græcia fama collecta sunt; quibus intelligis resistendum esse, ne perturbentur religiones. Vestri autem non modo hæc non repellunt, verum etiam confirmant, interpretando quorsum quidque pertineat."]