But whatever may have been the views explicitly maintained by Plutarch in this connexion, it is his constant practice to shift on to the shoulders of the Dæmons the responsibility for all those legends, ceremonies, and practices, which, however appropriate and necessary parts of the national faith they may be, are yet inconsistent with the qualities rightly attributable to Deity.[1] We have already noticed his unwillingness to impugn the immutability of the Creator by regarding His essence as capable of metamorphosis into the phenomena of the created world.[2] "It is," says Ammonius, "the function of some other god to do and suffer these changes—or, rather, of some Dæmon appointed to direct Nature in the processes of generation and destruction." This relationship of the Dæmons to the supreme power as conceived by philosophy is more completely stated in the short tract, "De Fato,"[3] where we are told that (1) there is a first and supreme Providence which is the intelligence of the First Deity, or,apud Delphos, 394 A.]
- ↑ Cf. Apuleius, De Deo Socratis.—"Neque enim pro majestate Deûm cælestium fuerit, ut eorum quisquam vel Annibali somnium pingat, vel Flaminio hostiam conroget, vel Accio Nævio avem velificet, vel sibyllæ fatiloquia versificet, etc. Non est operæ Diis superis ad hæc descendere. Quad cuncta" (he says elsewhere) "cælestium voluntate et numine et auctoritate, sed Dæmonum obsequio et opera et ministerio fieri arbitrandum est."
- ↑ De [Greek: E
- ↑ De Fato, 572 F, sqq.—Bernardakis "stars" this tract as doubtfully Plutarch's. But the passage quoted, at any rate, is not discrepant from Plutarch's views elsewhere, though expressing them more concisely, and with more appearance of system than usual with him. The similarity to Plato's tripartite division of the heavenly powers in the Timæus is, of course, evident, but the text has a note of sincerity which is lacking in the Platonic passage.
