Memoir of Francis Hodgson
John Ireland to Francis Hodgson, 28 March 1808
No. 1 Fludyer Street: March 28, 1808.
Dear Sir,—Your letter has found me here, being engaged
in the duties of my residence, and re-![]()
| CHRISTIANITY V. PAGANISM. | 91 |
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moved from the books which would have
afforded me the evidence proper for the point between us. As it is, I have only
the opportunity of saying that in the conclusion of your letter you have seized
the word, under which lay the whole force of my observation. I had talked to
you of the ignorance of the Pagan schools in the doctrine of a proper creation.
By this I meant, that in all the ancient cosmology which has descended to us,
the only doctrine taught is that of the form impressed upon bodies, or the
extraction of bodies from pre-existing matter; and that the primary matter, or
ύλή, is always supposed beforehand. The more you examine the
ancient evidence with this view, the more persuaded you will be that all these
passages, in which there is an appearance of creation, are to be popularly
interpreted, and that as the early Church teaches us through Eusebius, ‘It was peculiar to the Hebrew
doctrines to consider the God over all, the one maker of all things, and of
the substance which underlies bodies, which the Greeks denominate
matter.’ I cannot refer to the place, for I have not my
Eusebius with me, but am sure of the passage. I know
that several of the fathers talked of a creation, as really inculcated by the
Pagan writers; but I know that this ![]()
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untenable notion was
advanced by them with no other view than to win the later Greeks to the Gospel
through an approximation of the former Grecian writings to the Scriptures. This
was one of those injudicious accommodations of which the fathers were often
guilty, upon motives of mere Christian zeal. And you may be persuaded of the
futility of this doctrine, when you consider that the fathers have adduced
numbers of their proofs from the poets and play-writers—Sophocles, Menander, Philemon, &c.
In short, I will only beg you to read a short, but perfectly convincing
treatise on this subject. I mean that of Mosheim, ‘De Creatione Mundi ex
nihilo;’ you will find it among his ‘opuscula,’ or
in his edition of Cudworth’s
‘Intellectual
System,’ which indeed ought never to be read without it.
And now I must bid you farewell, for a thousand things press
upon me. I have given your kind remembrance to Gifford, who is but just recovered from a fever which gave me,
for a day or two, some uneasiness about him.
Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688)
Cambridge Platonist and master of Christ's College; he published
The
True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678).
Eusebius (263 c.-339 c.)
Greek historian, author of the
Ecclesiastical History in ten
books.
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Menander (342 BC c.-291 BC)
The leading figure in Attic New Comedy; apart from
Dyscolus his
works exist only in fragments.
Philemon (362 BC-262 BC)
Athenian comic poet whose works exist in fragments.
Sophocles (496 BC c.-406 BC c.)
Greek tragic poet; author of
Antigone and
Oedipus Rex.
