Chap. VII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 159 



not Gods, but Dtemons^ that is, beings Intermediate betwixt Gods 

 and men. This opinion he gives after informing us, that there 

 were fome, who thought that they were mere men, who afTum- 

 ed divine honours, and were confidered as Gods by the Egyp- 

 tians, on account of the many benefits they had conferred on them 

 by the difcovery of fo many arts. His own opinion he fupports by 

 the authority of Plato, Pythagoras *, Xenocrates, and Chryfippus, 

 who, in conformity with the antient theologifts, maintained that 

 fuch beings exifted, much fuperior to man, and participated, in fome 

 degree, of the divine nature, but not pure and unnixed. Plato, he 

 tells us, fays, that they were placed in the middle betwixt Gods 

 and men, and kept up a communication betwixt thefe two, carry- 

 ing to the Gods the prayers and fupplications of men, and bringing 

 from the Gods, to men, predictions of future events, and gifts of 

 good things. And he quotes Empedocles, the philofopher, who 

 fays, that fome of thofe Daemons were wicked, and committed 

 crimes, which they expiated by certain punifhments ; and then 

 they recovered the rank they had loft f. After this, Plutarch gives 

 us the opinions of thofe philofophers, who allegorifed the Egyptian 

 divinities, fuch as Ifis and Ofiris, and interpreted them to denote 

 parts and powers of nature [f. But the allegories of thofe authors 

 he rejeds, and gives what he himfelf thinks a better allegory § j 

 for allegorifmg had come much into fafhion at the time that P'u- 

 tarch wrote ; fo that both the Egyptian and Greek theology were 



allegorifed j 



* That It was the opinion of Pythagoras, that there was a clafs of beings that dwelt 

 on earth, L ut were of a nature luperior to man, is evident from the aurea carmbia of 

 Pythagoras, in which thay are called, ^uifiom xantjiionoi, (v. 2.) and the commentsny oS 

 Ilierodes upon that verfc, p. 38. edit. Needham. 



f Plutarch, de Ificle et 0/tridef p. 360. and 361 of the Paris edition, toI. II. 



% Ibid. p. 363. 



S Ibid. p. 373. 



