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The FUMIGATION from AROMATICS. WITH holy voice I call the stars on high, Pure sacred lights and genii of the sky. Celestial stars, the progeny of Night, In whirling circles beaming far your light, Refulgent rays around the heav'ns ye throw, Eternal fires, the source of all below. With flames significant of Fate ye shine, And aptly rule for men a path divine. In seven bright zones ye run with wand'ring flames, And heaven and earth compose your lucid frames: With course unwearied, pure and fiery bright Forever shining thro' the veil of Night. Hail twinkling, joyful, ever wakeful fires! Propitious shine on all my just desires; These sacred rites regard with conscious rays, And end our works devoted to your praise.

(61) Here at His command wisdom was shed down like rain, Clouds and sun, and moon and lofty stars, All come and go in obedience to His ordinance; No one of them comes save at His appointed time; Whereas you understood not this secret, the prophets Have instilled this knowledge into stone and staff; So that you may infer that other inanimate things The obedience of stone and staff is shown to you, They cry, "We are all aware of God and obey Him; We are not destructive by mere fortuitous chance."

(1) Iximiprus saith:—I testify that the beginning of all things is a Certain Nature, which is perpetual, coequalling all things, and that the visible natures, with their births and decay, are times wherein the ends to which that nature brings them are beheld and summoned.* Now, I instruct you that the stars are igneous, and are kept within bounds by the air. If the humidity and density of the air did not exist to separate the flames of the sun from living things, then the Sun would consume all creatures. But God has provided the separating air, lest that which He has created should be burnt up. Do you not observe that the Sun when it rises in the heaven overcomes the air by its heat, and that the warmth penetrates from the upper to the lower parts of the air? If, then, the air did not presently breathe forth those winds whereby creatures are generated, the i Sun by its heat would certainly destroy all that lives. But the Sun is kept in check by the air, which thus conquers because it unites the heat of the Sun to its own heat, and the humidity of water to its own humidity. Have you not remarked how tenuous water.

is drawn up into the air by the action of the heat of the Sun, which thus helps the water against itself? If the water did not nourish the air by such tenuous moisture, assuredly the Sun would overcome the air. The fire, therefore, extracts moisture from the water, by means of which the air conquers the fire itself. Thus, fire and water are enemies between which there is no consanguinity, for the fire is hot and dry, but the water is cold and moist.. The air, which is warm and moist, joins these together by its concording medium; between the humidity of water and the heat of fire the air is thus placed to establish peace. And lock ye all how there shall arise a spirit from the tenuous vapour of the air, because the heat being joined to the humour, there necessarily issues something tenuous, which will become a wind. For the heat of the Sun extracts something tenuous out of the air, which also becomes spirit and life to all creatures. All this, however, is disposed in such manner by the will of God, and a coruscation appears when the heat of the Sun touches and breaks up a cloud.

The Turba saith:—Well hast thou described the fire, even as thou knowest concerning it, and thou hast believed the word of thy brother.

(2) Moreover, the lations of the stars approximate to the eternal circulations of the heavens, not only locally, but also in powers, and the irradiations of light. But these are moved conformably to the mandates of the celestial Gods. For the most pure, agile, and supreme part of the air, is adapted to be enkindled [ i. e. is most inflammable], so that when the Gods assent, it is immediately set on fire. And if some one thinks that certain effluxions of the celestial bodies are imparted to the air, his opinion will not be discordant with what is frequently effected by the divine art. The union, also, and sympathy of the universe, and the simultaneous motion of the most remote parts, as if they were near, and belonged to one animal, cause these signs to be sent from the Gods to men in the most luminous manner, primarily, indeed, through the heavens, but afterwards through the air.

(2) for on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before Him — the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctifi- cation, and the angels [of the spirit of fire and the angels] of the spirit of the winds,* and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices8 and of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer, and of all the spirits of His creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, (He created) the abysses and the darkness, eventide (and night), and the light, dawn and day, which He hath prepared in the know- ledge of His h,eart.

(6) But the fact that they are named winds denotes their rapid action, passing almost instantaneously to all things, and their transporting movement in passing from above to below, and again from below to above, their elevating the second to the height above, and moving the first to a common and provident advance of the inferior Orders. But perhaps some one would say that the appellation of wind, to the aerial spirit, also denotes the Divine likeness of the Heavenly Minds; for this also bears a likeness and type of the supremely Divine energy (as we have demonstrated more fully in the symbolic theology, in our explanation of the four elements) in accordance with the moving and life-producing, and the rapid and resistless development of Nature, and the Hiddenness of the moving sources and terminations to us unknown and invisible. For He says, "Thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth." But also the Word of God attributes to them the appearance of a cloud, signifying, through this, that the holy minds are filled super-mundanely with the hidden Light, receiving the first manifestation without boasting over it as such, which they distribute ungrudgingly to the second, as a secondary manifestation, and in proportion to capacity; yea, further, that the productive, and life-producing, and increasing, and perfecting power is enshrined in them, after the fashion of the intelligible production of showers, which summons the receptive womb of the earth, by fruitful rains, to the life-giving pangs of birth.

(142) The most celebrated of the Babylonians, together with Ostanes and Zoroaster, very properly call the starry Spheres "Herds"; whether because these alone among corporeal magnitudes, are perfectly carried about around a Centre, or in conformity to the Oracles, because they are considered by them as in a certain respect the bonds and collectors of physical reasons, which they likewise call in their sacred discourse "Herds" (agelous) and by the insertion of a gamma (aggelous) Angels. Wherefore the Stars which preside over each of these herds are considered to be Deities or Dæmons, similar to the Angels, and are called Archangels; and they are seven in number.

(68) Consider this Similitude: Out of the Sun and Stars go forth the Elements, and they make in the Salitter of the Earth a living Spirit, and the Stars remain in their Circle or Sphere, and that Spirit likewise gets the Quality of the Stars.

(19) And these shall serve To lay the foundations of the heaven, And to strengthen the earth, And to renew all the luminaries which are in the firmament."

(10) Second, from the Spirit he made Air and formed for speech twenty-two letters, three of which are mothers, A, M, SH, seven are double, B, G, D, K, P, R, T, and twelve are single, E, V, Z, CH, H, I, L, N, S, O, Tz, Q, but the spirit is first among these. Third, Primitive Water. He also formed and designed from his Spirit, and from the void and formless made earth, even as a rampart, or standing wall, and varied its surface even as the crossing of beams. Fourth, from the Water, He designed Fire, and from it formed for himself a throne of honor, with Auphanim, Seraphim, Holy Animals, and ministering Angels, and with these he formed his dwelling, as is written in the text "Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire." (Psalm civ. 4.)

(1) Now with reference to the divinities. — c Verily, I am going to blaze/ began the Fire. c I am going to give forth heat/ said the Sun. e I am going to shine/ said the Moon. So said the other divinities, each according to his divine nature. As Breath holds the central position among the vital breaths [or functions], so Wind among these divinities; for the other divinities have their decline, but not Wind The Wind is that divinity which never goes to rest.