|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 16
God exists then, but what do we know of his nature? Antoninus says that
the soul of man is an efflux from the divinity. We have bodies like
animals, but we have reason, intelligence, as the gods. Animals have
life ([Greek: psych�]) and what we call instincts or natural principles
of action: but the rational animal man alone has a rational, intelligent
soul ([Greek: psych� logik� noera]). Antoninus insists on this
continually: God is in man,[A] and so we must constantly attend to the
divinity within us, for it is only in this way that we can have any
knowledge of the nature of God. The human soul is in a sense a portion
of the divinity, and the soul alone has any communication with the
Deity; for as he says (xii. 2): "With his intellectual part alone God
touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived from
himself into these bodies." In fact he says that which is hidden within
a man is life, that is, the man himself. All the rest is vesture,
covering, organs, instrument, which the living man, the real[B] man,
uses for the purpose of his present existence. The air is universally
diffused for him who is able to respire; and so for him who is willing
to partake of it the intelligent power, which holds within it all
things, is diffused as wide and free as the air (viii. 54). It is by
living a divine life that man approaches to a knowledge of the
divinity.[C] It is by following the divinity within [Greek: daim�n] or
[Greek: theos], as Antonius calls it, that man comes nearest to the
Deity, the supreme good; for man can never attain to perfect agreement
with his internal guide ([Greek: to h�gemonikon]). "Live with the gods.
And he does live with the gods who constantly shows to them that his own
soul is satisfied with that which is assigned to him, and that it does
all the daemon ([Greek: daim�n]) wishes, which Zeus hath given to every
man for his guardian and guide, a portion of himself. And this daemon is
every man's understanding and reason" (v. 27).
[A] Comp. Ep. to the Corinthians, i. 3, 17, and James iv. 8,
"Drawnigh to God and he will draw nigh to you."
[B] This is also Swedenborg's doctrine of the soul. "As to what
concerns the soul, of which it is said that it shall live after
death, it is nothing else but the man himself, who lives in the
body, that is, the interior man, who by the body acts in the
world and from whom the body itself lives" (quoted by Clissold,
p. 456 of "The Practical Nature of the Theological Writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg, in a Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin
(Whately)," second edition, 1859; a book which theologians
might read with profit). This is an old doctrine of the soul,
which has been often proclaimed, but never better expressed
than by the "Auctor de Mundo," c. 6, quoted by Gataker in his
"Antoninus," p. 436. "The soul by which we live and have cities
and houses is invisible, but it is seen by its works; for the
whole method of life has been devised by it and ordered, and by
it is held together. In like manner we must think also about
the Deity, who in power is most mighty, in beauty most comely,
in life immortal, and in virtue supreme: wherefore though he is
invisible to human nature, he is seen by his very works." Other
passages to the same purpose are quoted by Gataker (p. 382).
Bishop Butler has the same as to the soul: "Upon the whole,
then, our organs of sense and our limbs are certainly
instruments, which the living persons, ourselves, make use of
to perceive and move with." If this is not plain enough, be
also says: "It follows that our organized bodies are no more
ourselves, or part of ourselves, than any other matter around
us." (Compare Anton, x. 38).
[C] The reader may consult Discourse V., "Of the existence and
nature of God," in John Smith's "Select Discourses." He has
prefixed as a text to this Discourse, the striking passage of
Agapetus, Paraenes. � 3: "He who knows himself will know God;
and he who knows God will be made like to God; and he will be
made like to God, who has become worthy of God; and he becomes
worthy of God, who does nothing unworthy of God, but thinks the
things that are his, and speaks what he thinks, and does what
he speaks." I suppose that the old saying, "Know thyself,"
which is attributed to Socrates and others, had a larger
meaning than the narrow sense which is generally given to it.
(Agapetus, ed. Stephan. Schoning, Franeker, 1608. This volume
contains also the Paraeneses of Nilus.)
There is in man, that is in the reason, the intelligence, a superior
faculty which if it is exercised rules all the rest. This is the ruling
faculty ([Greek: to h�gemonikon]), which Cicero (De Natura Deorum, ii.
11) renders by the Latin word Principatus, "to which nothing can or
ought to be superior." Antoninus often uses this term and others which
are equivalent. He names it (vii. 64) "the governing intelligence." The
governing faculty is the master of the soul (v. 26). A man must
reverence only his ruling faculty and the divinity within him. As we
must reverence that which is supreme in the universe, so we must
reverence that which is supreme in ourselves; and this is that which is
of like kind with that which is supreme in the universe (v. 21). So, as
Plotinus says, the soul of man can only know the divine so far as it
knows itself. In one passage (xi. 19) Antoninus speaks of a man's
condemnation of himself when the diviner part within him has been
overpowered and yields to the less honorable and to the perishable part,
the body, and its gross pleasures. In a word, the views of Antoninus on
this matter, however his expressions may vary, are exactly what Bishop
Butler expresses when he speaks of "the natural supremacy of reflection
or conscience," of the faculty "which surveys, approves, or disapproves
the several affections of our mind and actions of our lives."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|