The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
Such a canvas is too broad for the age of seventy, and especially of one
whose chief occupations have been in the practical business of life.
We must leave, therefore, to others, younger and more learned than
we are, to prepare this euthanasia for Platonic Christianity, and its
restoration to the primitive simplicity of its founder. I think you give
a just outline of the theism of the three religions, when you say that
the principle of the Hebrew was the fear, of the Gentile the honor, and
of the Christian the love of God.
An expression in your letter of September the 14th, that "the human
understanding is a revelation from its maker," gives the best solution
that I believe can be given of the question, "what did Socrates mean by
his Dæmon?" He was too wise to believe, and too honest to pretend, that
he had real and familiar converse with a superior and invisible being.
He probably considered the suggestions of his conscience, or reason, as
revelations or inspirations from the Supreme mind, bestowed, on important
occasions, by a special superintending Providence.
I acknowledge all the merit of the hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter, which
you ascribe to it. It is as highly sublime as a chaste and correct
imagination can permit itself to go. Yet in the contemplation of a being
so superlative, the hyperbolic flights of the Psalmist may often be
followed with approbation, even with rapture; and I have no hesitation
in giving him the palm over all the hymnists of every language and of
every time. Turn to the 148th psalm, in Brady and Tate's version. Have
such conceptions been ever before expressed? Their version of the 15th
psalm is more to be esteemed for its pithiness than its poetry. Even
Sternhold, the leaden Sternhold, kindles, in a single instance, with the
sublimity of his original, and expresses the majesty of God descending
on the earth, in terms not unworthy of the subject:
"The Lord descended from above,
And underneath his feet he cast
On Cherubim and Seraphim
And on the wings of mighty winds
And bowed the heav'ns most high;
The darkness of the sky.
Full royally he rode;
Came flying all abroad."--Psalm xviii. 9, 10.
The Latin versions of this passage by Buchanan and by Johnston, are but
mediocres. But the Greek of Duport is worthy of quotation,
Ουρανον αγκλινας κατεβη· υπο πὸσσι δ' εοισιν
Αχλύς αμφι μελαινα χυθη και νυξ ερεβεννη.
Ῥιμφα ποτατο χερουβω οχευμενος, ωσπερ εφ' ιππω·
Ἱπτατο δε πτερυγεσσι πολυπλαγκτου ανεμοιο.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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