Philo: On Monarchy, Book I from the Ancient Writings of The Set-Apart Bible. Read free with the Sacred Names (Yahuah, Yahshua, Elohim) and audio narration.
1 Some persons have conceived that the sun, and the oon, and the other stars are independent gods, to whom ey have attributed the causes of all things that exist, it Moses was well aware that the world was created, and is like a very large city, having rulers and subjects in it ; o rulers being all the bodies which are in heaven, such as anets and fixed stars ; and the subjects being all the natures N 178 P1IIL0 JUDJ3US. beneath the moon, hovering in the air and adjacent to the earth. But that the rulers aforesaid are not independent and absolute, but are the viceroys of one supreme Being, the Father of all, in imitation of whom they administer with propriety and success the charge committed to their care, as he also presides over all created things in strict accordance with justice and with law. Others, on the contrary,' who have not discovered the supreme Governor, who thus rules everything, have attributed the causes of the different things which exist in the world to the subordinate powers, as if they had brought them to pass by their own independent act. But the most sacred lawgiver changes their ignorance into knowledge, speaking in the following manner : " Thou shalt not, when thouseest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and ali the host of heaven, be led astray and fall down and worship them."* "With great felicity and propriety has he here called the reception of these bodies as gods, an error ; for they who see that the different seasons of the year owe their existence to the advances and retreats of the sun, in which periods also the generation of animals, and plants, and fruits, are perfected according to well-defined times, and who see also that the moon is the servant and successor of the sun, taking that care and superintendence of the world by night which the sun takes by day ; and also that the other stars, in accordance with their sympathy with things on earth, labour continually and do ten thousand things which contribute to the duration of the existing state of things, have been led into an inextricable error, imagining that these bodies are the only gods. But if they had taken pains to travel along the straight and true road, they would soon have known that just as the outward sense is the subordinate minister of the mind, so ii the same manner all the objects of the outward senses an servants of that which is appreciable only by intellect, bein£ well contented if they can attain to the second place ii honour. But it is altogether ridiculous to imagine that thi mind, which is the smallest thing in us, being in fact invi sible, is the ruler of those organs which belong to th external senses, but that the greatest and most perfect rule * Deuteronomy iv. 19. ON MONARCHY. 179 F the whole universe is not the King of kings ; that the sing who sees, is not the ruler of those who do not see. We must, therefore, look on all those bodies in the heaven, hich the outward sense regards as gods, not as independent ilers, since they are assigned the work of lieutenants, being f their intrinsic nature responsible to a higher power, but j reason of their virtue not actually called to render in an :count of their doings. So that, transcending all visible isence by means of our reason, let us press forward to the mour of that everlasting and invisible Being who can be tmprehended and appreciated by the mind alone ; who is )t only the God of all gods, whether appreciable only by ie intellect or visible to the outward senses, but is also the eator of them all. And if any one gives up the service due the everlasting and uncreated God, transferring it to any ore modern and created being, let him be set down as mad id as liable to the charge of the greatest impiety.