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CHAPTER VIII.
Sincerity of Plutarch's belief in Dæmons—Function of the Dæmons as Mediators not confined to oracular inspiration—Dæmons in their personal relationship with the human soul—The De Dæmonio Socratis—This tract not a formal treatise on Demonology—Various explanations of the Socratic "Dæmon"—Ethical value of the conception of Dæmons as spiritual guardians of individual men—"Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things"—Dangers of the conception—Superstition: Plutarch's general attitude towards that Vice.
The evident sincerity of Plutarch's piety—his attitude of more than toleration towards everything consecrated by the religious tradition of his age and country—render it impossible for us to regard his system of Dæmonology as a mere concession made by Rationalism to Superstition.[1] But it is not the less clear
- ↑ "As to Plutarch's theology, he was certainly a monotheist. He probably had some vague belief in inferior deities (demons he would have called them) as holding a place like that filled by angels and evil spirits in the creed of most Christians; yet it is entirely conceivable that his occasional references to these deities are due merely to the conventional rhetoric of his age" (Andrew P. Peabody: Introduction to a translation—already referred to—of the De Sera Numinis Vindicta). It is a little difficult to be patient with the ignorance displayed in the italicized part of this citation. That Plutarch's "references to these deities" are not "occasional" is a matter of fact; that they are not "due merely to conventional rhetoric" it is hoped that the analysis in
