"Know that there are eight virtues in heaven: I have observed them,
which is easy to all the world. The sun is one of its virtues, the moon
another; the third is the assemblage of stars; and the five planets,
with these three virtues, make the number eight. Be careful of thinking
that these virtues, or those which they contain, and which animate them,
either move of themselves or are carried in vehicles; be careful, I say,
of believing that some may be gods and others not; that some may be
adorable, and others such as we should neither adore or invoke. They are
all brothers; each has his share; we owe them all the same honors; they
fill all the situations which the Word assigned to them, when it formed
the visible universe."
Here is the Word already found: we must now find the three persons. They
are in the second letter from Plato to Dionysius, which letters
assuredly are not forged; the style is the same as that of his
dialogues. He often says to Dionysius and Dion things very difficult to
comprehend, and which we might believe to be written in numbers, but he
also tells us very clear ones, which have been found true a long time
after him. For example, he expresses himself thus in his seventh letter
to Dion:
"I have been convinced that all states are very badly governed; there is
scarcely any good institution or administration. We see, as it were, day
after day, that all follow the path of fortune rather than that of
wisdom." After this short digression on temporal affairs, let us return
to spiritual ones, to the Trinity. Plato says to Dionysius:
"The King of the universe is surrounded by His works: all is the effect
of His grace. The finest of things have their first cause in Him; the
second in perfection have in Him their second cause, and He is further
the third cause of works of the third degree."
The Trinity, such as we acknowledge, could not be recognized in this
letter; but it was a great point to have in a Greek author a guaranty of
the dogmas of the dawning Church. Every Greek church was therefore
Platonic, as every Latin church was peripatetic, from the commencement
of the third century. Thus two Greeks whom we have never understood,
were the masters of our opinions until the time in which men at the end
of two thousand years were obliged to think for themselves.
SECTION II.
_Questions On Plato And Some Other Trifles._