testimony. Gerhard Vossius prolongs his life to the year 1370, and others place it still later. Towards the close of his life Planudes, it i- said, was imprisoned on account of his partiality for the doctrines oi the < Ihurch "t Rome; and when afterwards compelled to write against that church, to have done bo in Mich a manner ami with Mich feeble arguments that cardinal Bessarion declared that the loan of Planudes had no -hare in what he had written on that occasion. His works, of which several exist only in M>. form, are not of suffi- cient importance to in- enumerated lore. They con- sist of mations and homilies; translations from Latin into Greek of several works of such classics as Caesar, < »\id, etc; also of Boethius's /» I St Augustine, De Trimtate and /'. Civitatt Dei; a col- lection of .K.«>)>'s Fables; commentaries on the Rhetoric ■ if Hermogenes, and other Greek writings. See Fabri- cius, Bibl. Graca, \i. 682 sq.; Hoffman, Lexi Hog. Script. Grose. b.v. — Smith. Diet, of Gr, and Rom. Bioff. and Mythol. a. v.
Plassmann, Heinrich Ernst, !>.!>.. a German
Roman Catholic divine, was born in 1*17 at Paderborn, where he also afterwards lain. red as professor of theol- ogy. He then went to Rome, where he was appointed rector ot the (Jen nan National Church. He was also hon- ored with the degree of " Magister Sanitse Theologise" by the Dominican college St. Thorns de Drbe. He died at Tivoli, Italy. July •_':',. 1865. He wrote Di* Schui des />■ //. Thomas 1 Soest, 1857), a great but unfin- ished work. See Literarischer Uandweiser Jvr das hatholische Deutsckland, 1865, p. 27 sq.; Zuchhold, Bib- liotheca Theologica, ii. I' (B.P.)
Plaster, Mason's (""•"• .'/"'• so called from its effer- vescence, linu : Sept. Kovia; Dan. v. 5; "chalk." Isa. xxvii, 0: also T"l\ sid, from its boiling, linn. Dent, xxvii. ■_'. I: "lime," Isa. xxviii. 12; Amos ii, 1; as a verb, ri"«. tuach, /<> smear, Lev. xiv, 42, 43, 48; else- where "daub," etc.). The mode of making plaster- cement has been described elsewhere. See Mortar. Plaster i- mentioned on three occasions in Scripture:
1. Where, when a house was infected with "leprosy" (Lev. xiv. 42, 18), the priest was ordered to take away the portion of infected wall and replaster it (Michaelis, Laws 0/ Moses, $ --Ml. iii. 297 305, ed. Smith 1. See
Iliu -I ; l.i PROSV.
2. The words of the law were ordered to he engraved on Mount Ebal on stones which had been previously coated with plaster (Deut. xxvii. -J. 1 ; Josh. \iii. 32),
the pillars being covered with plaster, and the law- written mi this (see Thomson, Land and Book, ii. 204 sq. 1. Michaelis. however t vol. i. bk. iii . supposes that the words were cut in stone and plaster afterwards put upon it. that when the plaster should fall off the words might still he legible. Of this, however, no evidence appears. The process lure mentioned wa- probably of a similar kind to that adopted in Egypt for receiving bass-reliefs. The wall was lir.-t made sm.ii.th. and its interstices, if necessary, tilled up with plaster. When the figures had heen drawn, and the stone adjacent cut awaj SO a- lo leave them in relief, a coat of lime w hite- wash was laid on. and followed by one of varnish after the painting of the figures was complete. In the case of the natural rock the process was nearly the same. The ground was covered with a thick layer of tine pla- ter, consisting of lime and gypsum, carefully smoothed
and polished. I'poti this a coat of lime whitewash was laid, and on it the colors were painted, and sel bymeanS of glue or wax. The whitewash appear- in most in- stances to have been made of shell-limestone not much
burned, which of itself is tenacious e gh without glue
or other binding material | Long, quoting from Belzoni, Eg.Ant.ii, 49, 50). At Behistun.in Persia, the surface ofthe inscribed rock-tablet was covered with a varnish to preserve it from weather; hut it seems likely that in ofthe Thai tahkt? the inscription was cut while
PLASTER
271
PLATINA
the plaster was still moist (Layard, Nineveh, ii, 188; Vaux, Nin. and Persep. p. 172). See Stone.
3. It was probably a similar coating of cement on which the fatal letters were traced by the mystic hand " on the plaster of the wall" of Belshazzar's palace at Babylon (Dan. v, 5). We here obtain an incidental confirmation of the Biblical narrative. For while at Nineveh the walls are panelled with alabaster slabs, at Babylon, where no such material is found, the builders were content to cover their tiles or bricks with enamel or stucco, fitly termed plaster, fit for receiving ornamen- tal designs (Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 529 ; Diod. ii, 8). See Bricks.
Plaster, Medicinal (tTlE, mardch, to rub, hence to anoint with a healing salve or similar substance, Isa. xxxviii, 21). See Medicine.
Plastic Nature, an absurd doctrine, which some have thus described : " It is an incorporeal created sub- stance, endued with a vegetative life, but not with sen- sation or thought; penetrating the whole created uni- verse, being co-extended with it; and, under God, moving matter, so as to produce the phenomena which cannot be solved by mechanical laws : active for ends unknown to itself, not being expressly conscious of its actions, and yet having an obscure idea of the action to be entered upon." To this it has been answered that, as the idea itself is most obscure, and, indeed, inconsistent, so the foundation of it is evidently weak. It is intended by this to avoid the inconvenience of subjecting God to the trouble of some changes in the created world, and the meanness of others. But it appears that, even upon this hypothesis, he would still be the author of them ; besides, to Omnipotence nothing is troublesome, nor those things mean, when considered as part of a system, which alone might appear to be so. See Dod- dridge, Lectures, lect. 37 ; Cudworth, Intellectual System, p. 149, 172 ; More, Immortality of the Soul, lib. iii, c. 12 ; Bay, Wisdom of God, p. 51, 52; Lord Monboddo, An- cient Metaphysics; Young, Essay on the Powers and Mechanism of Nature ; Cocker, Theism; Tulloch, Eng- lish Prot. Theol. ii, 269, 273, 397.