312

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XXI.

The sys-tem ofPlato,BeforeChrist 360

tarian controversy successively penetrated intoevery part of the Christian world. The formerwas an accidental quarrel, occasioned by theabuse of freedom; the latter was a high andmysterious argument, derived from the abuseof philosophy. From the age of Constantine tothat of Clovis and Theodoric , the temporal in-terests both of the Romans and barbarians weredeeply involved in the theological disputes ofarianism. The historian may therefore be per-mitted respectfully to withdraw the veil of thesanctuary; and to deduce the progress of rea-son and faith, of error and passion, from theschool of Plato to the decline and fall of theempire.

The genius of Plato, informed by his ownmeditation, or by the traditional knowledge ofthe priests of Egypt , 1 had ventured to explorethe mysterious nature of the deity. When hehad elevated his mind to the sublime contempla-tion of the first self-existent, necessary cause ofthe universe, the Athenian sage was incapableof conceiving how the simple unity of his es-sence could admit the infinite variety of distinctand successive ideas which compose the modelof the intellectual world ; how a being purelyincorporeal could execute that perfect model,

1 Plato Egyptum peragravit ut a saccrdotibus barbaris nnmcros etcaelestia accipcret. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The Egyptians might stillpreserve the traditional creed of the patriarchs. Josephus has per-suaded many of the Christian fatlurs, that Plato derived a part of hisknowledge from the Jews ; bnt this vain opinion cannot be reconciledwith the obscure state and unsocial manners of the Jewish people,■whose scriptures were not accessible to Greek curiosity till more thanone hundred years after the death of Plato. See Marsham, Canou,Clnon. p, 114 Lc Clerc Epistol. Clitic, vii, p, 177191.