(1) In order, therefore, that from an abundance of arguments we may contend against the objection which is now adduced, we will grant, if you please, the contrary to what we have asserted, viz. that certain unjust things are performed in this business of invocations. That the Gods, however, are not to be accused as the causes of these is immediately manifest. For those that are good are the causes of good; and the Gods possess good essentially. They do nothing, therefore, that is unjust. Hence other causes of guilty deeds must be investigated. And if we are not able to discover these causes, it is not proper to throw away the true conception respecting the Gods, nor on account of the doubts whether these unjust deeds are performed, and how they are effected, to depart from notions concerning the Gods which are truly clear. For it is much better to acknowledge the insufficiency of our power to explain how unjust actions are perpetrated, than to admit any thing impossible and false respecting the Gods; since all the Greeks and Barbarians truly opine the contrary to be the case with divine natures. After this manner, therefore, the truth respecting these particulars subsists.

(1) We shall, therefore, deliver to you the peculiar dogmas of the Assyrians; and also clearly develop to you our own opinions; collecting some things from the infinite writings of the ancients, but others from those particulars which were comprehended by the ancients in one treatise, and pertain to the whole knowledge of divine natures. If also you should propose any philosophic inquiry, we shall discuss it for you, according to the ancient pillars of Hermes, which Plato and Pythagoras knew before, and from thence constituted their philosophy. But such things as exhibit foreign inquiries, or which are contradictory and contentious, we shall assist mildly and aptly, or we shall demonstrate their absurdity. Such, likewise, as proceed conformably to common conceptions, we shall endeavour to discuss in a way perfectly known and clear. And things, indeed, which require the experience of divine operations to an accurate knowledge of them, we shall explain, as far as this is possible to be effected by words alone; but such as are full of intellectual theory, we shall develop with a view to the purification of the soul.

(1) Hermes, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the Gods is one and the same in the whole of things. Hence our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes. If, therefore, we participate of a portion of this God, adapted and commensurate to our powers, you do well to propose your theological doubts to the priests, as friends, and to make these doubts known to them. I also very properly conceiving that the epistle sent to my disciple Anebo was written to me, shall give you a true answer to your inquiries. For it would not be becoming, that Pythagoras and Plato, Democritus and Eudoxus, and many other of the ancient Greeks, should have obtained appropriate instruction from the sacred scribes of their time, but that you who are our contemporary, and think conformably to those ancients, should be frustrated of your wish by those who are now living, and who are called common preceptors. I, therefore, thus betake myself to the present discussion; and do you, if you please, conceive that the same person to whom you sent the letter returns you an answer. Or, if it should seem fit to you, admit it to be me who discourses with you in writing, or some other prophet of the Egyptians, for this is of no consequence. Or, which I think is still better, dismiss the consideration whether the speaker is an inferior or a superior character, but direct your attention to what is said, so as readily to excite your mind to survey whether what is asserted is true or false.

(1) Hence you in vain doubt, “ that it is not proper to look to human opinions .” For what leisure can he have whose intellect is directed to the Gods to look downward to the praises of men? Nor do you rightly doubt in what follows, viz. “ that the soul devises great things from casual circumstances .” For what principle of fictions can there be in truly existing beings? Is it not the phantastic power in us which is the maker of images? But the phantasy is never excited when the intellectual life energizes perfectly. And is not truth essentially coexistent with the Gods? Is it not, likewise, concordantly established in intelligibles? It is in vain, therefore, that things of this kind are disseminated by you and others. But neither do those things for which certain futile and arrogant men calumniate the worshipers of the Gods, the like to which have been asserted by you, at all pertain to true theology and theurgy. And if certain things of this kind germinate in the sciences of divine concerns, as in other arts evil arts blossom forth; these are doubtless more contrary to such sciences than to any thing else. For evil is more hostile to good than to that which is not good.

(2) These assertions, therefore, are unworthy of the conceptions which we should frame of the Gods, and foreign from the works which are effected in theurgy. But an investigation of this kind suffers the same thing as the multitude suffer, about the fabrication of the universe and providence. For not being able to learn what the mode is in which these are effected, and refusing to ascribe human cares and reasonings to the Gods, they wholly abolish the providential and fabricative energy of divinity. As, therefore, we are accustomed to answer these, that the divine mode of production and providential inspection is very different from that which is human, and which it is not proper wholly to reject through ignorance, as if it had not from the first any subsistence; thus, also, it may be justly contended against you, that all prediction, and the performance of divine works, are the works of the Gods, as they are not effected through other and these human causes, but through such as are alone known to the Gods.

(7) It is likewise said, that these men expelled lamentations and tears, and every thing else of this kind. They also abstained from entreaty, from supplication, and from all such illiberal adulation, as being effeminate and abject. To the same conception likewise the peculiarity of their manners must be referred, and that all of them perpetually preserved among their arcana, the most principal dogmas in which their discipline was chiefly contained, keeping them with the greatest silence from being divulged to strangers, committing them unwritten to the memory, and transmitting them orally to their successors, as if they were the mysteries of the Gods. Hence it happened, that nothing of their philosophy worth mentioning, was made public, and that though for a long time it had been taught and learnt, it was alone known within their walls. But to those out of their walls, and as I may say, to the profane, if they happened to be present, these men spoke obscurely to each other through symbols, of which the celebrated precepts that are now in circulation retain a vestige; such as, Dig not fire with a sword , and other symbols of the like kind, which, taken literally, resemble the tales of old women; but when unfolded, impart a certain admirable and venerable benefit to those that receive them.

(383) Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. I grant that. Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials ‘Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this—he it is who has slain my son 15 .’ These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.

(3) “ Nor do we frame conceptions of a divine nature, contrary to its real mode of subsistence. ” But conformably to the nature which it possesses, and to the truth concerning it, which those obtained who first established the laws of sacred religion, we persevere in our conceptions of divinity. For if any thing else in religious legal institutions is adapted to the Gods, this must certainly be immutability. And it is necessary that ancient prayers, like sacred asyla, should be preserved invariably the same, neither taking any thing from them, nor adding any thing to them which is elsewhere derived. For this is nearly the cause at present that both names and prayers have lost their efficacy, because they are continually changed through the innovation and illegality of the Greeks. For the Greeks are naturally studious of novelty, and are carried about every where by their volatility; neither possessing any stability themselves, nor preserving what they have received from others; but rapidly relinquishing this, they transform every thing through an unstable desire of discovering something new. But the Barbarians are stable in their manners, and firmly continue to employ the same words. Hence they are dear to the Gods, and proffer words which are grateful to them; but which it is not lawful for any man by any means to change. And thus much we have said in answer to you concerning names, which though they are inexplicable, and are called Barbaric, yet are adapted to sacred concerns.

(2) But you say, the Sophist Apollophanes rails at me, and calls me parricide, as using, not piously, the writings of Greeks against the Greeks. Yet, in reply to him, it were more true for us to say, that Greeks use, not piously, things Divine against things Divine, attempting through the wisdom of Almighty God to eject the Divine Worship. And I am not speaking of the opinion of the multitude, who cling tenaciously to the writings of the poets, with earthly and impassioned proclivities, and Worship the creature rather than the Creator; but even Apollophanes himself uses not piously things Divine against things Divine; for by the knowledge of things created, well called Philosophy by him, and by the divine Paul named Wisdom of God, the true philosophers ought to have been elevated to the Cause of things created and of the knowledge of them. And in order that he may not improperly impute to me the opinion of others, or that of himself, Apollophanes, being a wise man, ought to recognise that nothing could otherwise be removed from its heavenly course and movement, if it had not the Sustainer and Cause of its being moving it thereto, who forms all things, and "transforms them " according to the sacred text. How then does he not worship Him, known to us even from this, and verily being God of the whole, admiring Him for His all causative and super-inexpressible power, when sun and moon, together with the universe, by a power and stability most supernatural, were fixed by them to entire immobility, and, for a measure of a whole day, all the constellations stood in the same places; or (which is greater than even this), if when the whole and the greater and embracing were thus carried along, those embraced did not follow in their course; and when a certain other day was almost tripled in duration, even in twenty whole hours, either the universe retraced contrary routes for so long a time, and (was) turned back by the thus very most supernatural backward revolutions; or the sun, in its own course, having contracted its five-fold motion in ten hours, retrogressively again retraced it in the other ten hours, by traversing a sort of new route. This thing indeed naturally astounded even Babylonians, and, without battle, brought them into subjection to Hezekiah, as though he were a somebody equal to God, and superior to ordinary men. And, by no means do I allege the great works in Egypt, or certain other Divine portents, which took place elsewhere, but the well-known and celestial ones, which were renowned in every place and by all persons. But Apollophanes is ever saying that these things are not true. At any rate then, this is reported by the Persian sacerdotal legends, and to this day, Magi celebrate the memorials of the threefold Mithrus. But let him disbelieve these things, by reason of his ignorance or his inexperience. Say to him, however, "What do you affirm concerning the eclipse, which took place at the time of the saving Cross?" For both of us at that time, at Heliopolis, being present, and standing together, saw the moon approaching the sun, to our surprise (for it was not appointed time for conjunction); and again, from the ninth hour to the evening, supernaturally placed back again into a line opposite the sun. And remind him also of something further. For he knows that we saw, to our surprise, the contact itself beginning from the east, and going towards the edge of the sun's disc, then receding back, and again, both the contact and the re-clearing, not taking place from the same point, but from that diametrically opposite. So great are the supernatural things of that appointed time, and possible to Christ alone, the Cause of all, Who worketh great things and marvellous, of which there is not number.

(60) Before a proper appreciation of the deeper scientific aspects of Greek mythology is possible, it is necessary to organize the Greek pantheon and arrange its gods, goddesses, and various superhuman hierarchies in concatenated order. Proclus, the great Neo-Platonist, in his commentaries on the theology of Plato, gives an invaluable key to the sequence of the various deities in relation to the First Cause and the inferior powers emanating from themselves. When thus arranged, the divine hierarchies may be likened to the branches of a great tree. The roots of this tree are firmly imbedded in Unknowable Being. The trunk and larger branches of the tree symbolize the superior gods; the twigs and leaves, the innumerable existences dependent upon the first and unchanging Power.

(2) There are, however, but few mature minds in the world; and thus it was that the philosophic-religious doctrines of the pagans were divided to meet the needs of these two fundamental groups of human intellect--one philosophic, the other incapable of appreciating the deeper mysteries of life. To the discerning few were revealed the esoteric, or spiritual, teachings, while the unqualified many received only the literal, or exoteric, interpretations. In order to make simple the great truths of Nature and the abstract principles of natural law, the vital forces of the universe were personified, becoming the gods and goddesses of the ancient mythologies. While the ignorant multitudes brought their offerings to the altars of Priapus and Pan (deities representing the procreative energies), the wise recognized in these marble statues only symbolic concretions of great abstract truths.

(1) DID that divine knowledge which constituted the supreme possession of the pagan priestcrafts survive the destruction of their temples? Is it yet accessible to mankind, or does it lie buried beneath the rubbish of ages, entombed within the very sanctuaries that were once illuminated by its splendor? "In Egypt," writes Origen, "the philosophers have a sublime and secret knowledge respecting the nature of God. What did Julian imply when he spoke of the secret initiations into the sacred Mysteries of the Seven-Rayed God who lifted souls to salvation through His own nature? Who were the blessed theurgists who understood them profundities concerning which Julian dared not speak? If this inner doctrine were always concealed from the masses, for whom a simpler code had been devised, is it not highly probable that the exponents of every aspect of modern civilization--philosophic, ethical, religious, and scientific-are ignorant of the true meaning of the very theories and tenets on which their beliefs are founded? Do the arts and sciences that the race has inherited from older nations conceal beneath their fair exterior a mystery so great that only the most illumined intellect can grasp its import? Such is undoubtedly the case.

(4) Through thee I Poet was, through thee a Christian; But that thou better see what I design, To colour it will I extend my hand. Already was the world in every part Pregnant with the true creed, disseminated By messengers of the eternal kingdom; And thy assertion, spoken of above, With the new preachers was in unison; Whence I to visit them the custom took. Then they became so holy in my sight, That, when Domitian persecuted them, Not without tears of mine were their laments; And all the while that I on earth remained, Them I befriended, and their upright customs Made me disparage all the other sects. And ere I led the Greeks unto the rivers Of Thebes, in poetry, I was baptized, But out of fear was covertly a Christian, For a long time professing paganism; And this lukewarmness caused me the fourth circle To circuit round more than four centuries. Thou, therefore, who hast raised the covering That hid from me whatever good I speak of, While in ascending we have time to spare,

(2) But if any one think well to accept the sacred compositions as of things simple and unknown in their own nature, and beyond our contemplation, but thinks the imagery of the holy minds in the Oracles is incongruous, and that all this is, so to speak, a rude scenic representation of the angelic names; and further says that the theologians ought, when they have come to the bodily representation of creatures altogether without body, to represent and display them by appropriate and, as far as possible, cognate figures, taken, at any rate, from our most honoured and immaterial and exalted beings, and ought not to clothe the heavenly and Godlike simple essences with the many forms of the lowest creatures to be found on the earth (for the one would perhaps be more adapted to our instruction, and would not degrade the celestial explanations to incongruous dissimilitudes; but the other both does violence without authority to the Divine powers, and likewise leads astray our minds, through dwelling upon these irreverent descriptions); and perhaps he will also think that the super-heavenly places are filled with certain herds of lions, and troops of horses, and bellowing songs of praise, and flocks of birds, and other living creatures, and material and less honourable things, and whatever else the similitudes of the Oracles, in every respect dissimilar, describe, for a so-called explanation, but which verge towards the absurd, and pernicious, and impassioned; now, in my opinion, the investigation of the truth demonstrates the most sacred wisdom of the Oracles, in the descriptions of the Heavenly Minds, taking forethought, as that wisdom does, wholly for each, so as neither, as one may say, to do violence to the Divine Powers, nor at the same time to enthral us in the grovelling passions of the debased imagery. For any one might say that the cause why forms are naturally attributed to the formless, and shapes to the shapeless, is not alone our capacity which is unable immediately to elevate itself to the intelligible contemplations, and that it needs appropriate and cognate instructions which present images, suitable to us, of the formless and supernatural objects of contemplation; but further, that it is most agreeable to the revealing Oracles to conceal, through mystical and sacred enigmas, and to keep the holy and secret truth respecting the supermundane minds inaccessible to the multitude. For it is not every one that is holy, nor, as the Oracles affirm, does knowledge belong to all.

(1) Since it is usual with all men of sound understandings, to call on divinity, when entering on any philosophic discussion, it is certainly much more appropriate to do this in the consideration of that philosophy which justly receives its denomination from the divine Pythagoras. For as it derives its origin from the Gods, it cannot be apprehended without their inspiring aid. To which we may also add, that the beauty and magnitude of it so greatly surpasses human power, that it is impossible to survey it by a sudden view; but then alone can any one gradually collect some portion of this philosophy, when, the Gods being his leaders, he quietly approaches to it. On all these accounts, therefore, having invoked the Gods as our leaders, and converting both ourselves and our discussion to them, we shall acquiesce in whatever they may command us to do.

We shall not, however, make any apology for this sect having been neglected for a long time, nor for its being concealed by foreign disciplines, and certain arcane symbols, nor for having been obscured by false and spurious writings, nor for many other such-like difficulties by which it has been impeded. For the will of the Gods is sufficient for us, in conjunction with which it is possible to sustain things still more arduous than these. But after the Gods, we shall unite ourselves as to a leader, to the prince and father of this divine philosophy; of whose origin and country we must rise a little higher in our investigation.

(2) When, therefore, does the deception mentioned by you “ of speakingly boastingly ” take place. For when a certain error happens in the theurgic art, and not such autoptic , or self-visible, images are seen as ought to occur, but others, instead of these, then inferior powers assume the form of the more venerable orders, and pretend to be those whose forms they assume; and hence arrogant words are uttered by them, and such as exceed the authority which they possess. For, as it appears to me, if any fraud germinates from the first principle, much falsehood is derived from the perversion, which it is necessary the priest should learn from the whole order in the phasmata, and by the proper observation of which they are able to confute and reject the fictitious pretext of these inferior powers, as by no means pertaining to true and good spirits. Nor is it proper to introduce errors in the true judgment of things; for neither in other sciences or arts do we judge of their works from the aberrations which may happen to take place in them. You should not, therefore, here characterize things which are scarcely performed with rectitude through ten thousand labours, from the errors which may, through ignorance, befall them; but rather assert something else of them.

(2) Perhaps also, this is worthy of apology, that whilst our illustrious leader, Hierotheus, is compiling his Theological Elements, in a manner above natural capacity, we, as if those were not sufficient, have composed others, and this present theological treatise. And yet, if that man had deigned to treat systematically all the theological treatises, and had gone through the sum of all theology, by detailed expositions, we should not have gone to such a height of folly, or stupidity, as to have attempted alone theological questions, either more lucidly or divinely than he, or to indulge in vain talk by saying superfluously the same things twice over, and in addition to do injustice to one, both teacher and friend, and that we, who have been instructed from his discourses, after Paul the Divine, should filch for our own glorification his most illustrious contemplation and elucidation. But, since in fact, he, whilst teaching things divine, in a manner suitable to presbyters, set forth comprehensive definitions, and such as embraced many things in one, as were suitable to us, and to as many as with us were teachers of the newly-initiated souls, commanding us to unfold and disentangle, by language commensurate with our ability, the comprehensive and uniform compositions of the most intellectual capacity of that illustrious man; and you, yourself, have oftentimes urged us to this, and sent back the very book, as being of transcendent value; for this reason, then, we too distinguish him as a teacher of perfect and presbyterial conceptions for those who are above the common people, even as certain second Oracles, and next to the Anointed of God. But for people, such as we are, we will transmit things Divine, according to our capacity. For, if strong meat belongs to the perfect, how great perfection is required that the same should feed others. Correctly, then, we have affirmed this, that the self-perceptive vision of the intelligible Oracles, and their comprehensive teaching, needs presbyterial power; but the science and the thorough teaching of the reasons which lead to this, fittingly belong to those purified and hallowed persons placed in a subordinate position. And yet, we have insisted upon this with the utmost care, that, as regards the things that have been thoroughly investigated by him, our divine leader, with an accurate elucidation, we should not, in any way, handle the same tautologically, for the same elucidation of the Divine text expounded by him. For, amongst our inspired hierarchs (when both we, as you know, and yourself, and many of our holy brethren, were gathered together to the depositing of the Life-springing and God-receptive body, and when there were present also James, the brother of God, and Peter, the foremost and most honoured pinnacle of the Theologians, when it was determined after the depositing, that every one of the hierarchs should celebrate, as each was capable, the Omnipotent Goodness of the supremely Divine Weakness), he, after the Theologians, surpassed, as you know, all the other divine instructors, being wholly entranced, wholly raised from himself, and experiencing the pain of his fellowship with the things celebrated, and was regarded as an inspired and divine Psalmist by all, by whom he was heard and seen and known, and not known. And why should I say anything to thee concerning the things there divinely spoken? For, if I do not forget myself, many a time do I remember to have heard from thee certain portions of those inspired songs of praise; such was thy zeal, not cursorily, to pursue things Divine.

(2) Those who were wise among the Greeks and the barbarians have advanced to the powers which have come into being by way of imagination and vain thought. Those who have come from these, in accord with the mutual conflict and rebellious manner active in them, also spoke in a likely, arrogant and imaginary way concerning the things which they thought of as wisdom, although the likeness deceived them, since they thought that they had attained the truth, when they had (only) attained error. (They did so) not simply in minor appellations, but the powers themselves seem to hinder them, as if they were the Totality. Therefore, the order was caught up in fighting itself alone, because of the arrogant hostility of one of the offspring of the archon who is superior, who exists before him. Therefore, nothing was in agreement with its fellows, nothing, neither philosophy nor types of medicine nor types of rhetoric nor types of music nor types of logic, but they are opinions and theories. Ineffability held sway in confusion, because of the indescribable quality of those who hold sway, who give them thoughts.

(377) for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them. Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater. Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind. But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,—as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are the stories which you mean? First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,—I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him 8 . The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed. Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.

(380) ‘God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.’ And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe—the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur—or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery—the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious. I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,—that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. That will do, he said.