and he who dwells near the sea, the wise and the unwise. And if you proceed as far as to the utmost shores of the ocean, there also there are Gods, rising very near to some, and setting very near to others.”[1] This dogma, too, is so far from being opposed by either the Old or New Testament, that it is admitted by both, though it forbids the religious veneration of the inferior deities, and enjoins the worship of one God alone, whose portion is Jacob, and Israel the line of his inheritance. The following testimonies will, I doubt not, convince the liberal reader of the truth of this assertion.
In the first place it appears from the 32d chapter of Deuteronomy, v. 8. in the Septuagint version, that “the division of the nations was made according to the number of the angels of God,” and not according to the number of the children of Israel, as the present Hebrew text asserts. This reading was adopted by the most celebrated fathers of the Christian church, such as, among the Greeks, Origen, Basil, and Chrysostom, and among the Latins, Jerom and Gregory. That this too, is the genuine reading, is evident from the 4th chapter of the same book and the 19th. verse, in which it is said, “And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” Here it is said that the stars are divided to all the nations, which is equivalent to saying that the nations were divided according to the number of the stars; the Jewish legislator at the same time, considering his own nation as an exception, and as being under the government of the God of Israel alone. For in the following verse it is added, “But the Lord hath taken you (i. e. the Jews), and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are to this day.” By the angels of God therefore (in Deuteron. 32. v. 8.) the stars are signified; and these in the same book (chapter 17. v. 3.) are expressly called Gods; “And hath gone and served other Gods, and worshipped them, either the sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded.” In the 3d chapter also, and the 24th verse, it is implied in the question which is there asked, that the God of the Jews is superior to all the celestial and terrestrial Gods: “For what God is there in heaven, or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?” As the attention of the Jews was solely confined to the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they but little regarded the powers whom they conceived to be subordinate to this God, and considering all of them as merely the messengers of their God, they gave them the general appellation of angels; though as we shall shortly prove from
- ↑ Ενα ιδοις αν εν πασα γῃ ομοφωνον νομον και λογον, οτι θεος εις παντων βασιλευς και πατηϱ, και θεοι πολλοι, θεου παιδες, συναϱχοντες θεῳ. Ταυτα και ο ελλην λεγει, και ο βαϱβαϱος λεγει, και ο ηπειϱωτης και ο θαλαττοις, και ο σοφος και ο ασοφος. Κᾳν επι του ωκεανου ελθῃς τ ας ηϊονας, κᾳκει θεοι, τοις μεν ανισχοντες αγχου μαλα, τοις δε καταδυομενοι. Dissert. I. Edit. Princ.
