(2) Thus the most holy Hierarchy of the supercelestial Beings has, for its initiation, its own possible and most immaterial conception of God and things Divine, and the complete likeness to God, and a persistent habit of imitating God, as far as permissible. And its illuminators, and leaders to this sacred consecration, are the very first Beings around God. For these generously and proportionately transmit to the subordinate sacred Ranks the ever deifying notions given to them, by the self-perfect Godhead and the wise-making Divine Minds. Now the Ranks, who are subordinate to the first Beings, are, and are truly called, the initiated Orders, as being religiously conducted, through those, to the deifying illumination of the Godhead. And after this,--the heavenly and supermundane Hierarchy,--the Godhead gave the Hierarchy under the Law, imparting its most holy gifts, for the benefit of our race, to them (as being children according to the Logion), by faint images of the true, and copies far from the Archetypes, and enigmas hard to understand, and types having the contemplation enveloped within, as an analogous light not easily discerned, so as not to wound weak, eyes by the light shed upon them. Now to this Hierarchy under the Law, the elevation to spiritual worship is an initiation. Now the men religiously instructed for that holy tabernacle by Moses,--the first initiated and leader of the Hierarchs under the Law,--were conductors; in reference to which holy tabernacle,--when describing for purposes of instruction the Hierarchy under the Law,--he called all the sacred services of the Law an image of the type shewn to him in Mount Sinai. But "initiated" are those who are being conducted to a more perfect revelation of the symbols of the Law, in proportion to their capacity. Now the Word of God calls our Hierarchy the more perfect revelation, naming it a fulfilment of that, and a holy inheritance. It is both heavenly and legal, like the mean between extremes, common to the one, by intellectual contemplations, and to the other, because it is variegated by sensible signs; and, through these, reverently conduces to the Divine Being. And it has likewise a threefold division of the Hierarchy, which is divided into the most holy ministrations of the Mystic Rites, and into the Godlike ministers of holy things, and those who are being conducted by them, according to their capacity, to things holy. And each of the three divisions of our Hierarchy, comformably to that of the Law, and the Hierarchy, more divine than ours, is arranged as first and middle and last in power; consulting both reverent proportion, and well-ordered and concordant fellowship of all things in harmonious rank.

(10) This is why Zeus, although the oldest of the gods and their sovereign, advances first towards that vision, followed by gods and demigods and such souls as are of strength to see. That Being appears before them from some unseen place and rising loftily over them pours its light upon all things, so that all gleams in its radiance; it upholds some beings, and they see; the lower are dazzled and turn away, unfit to gaze upon that sun, the trouble falling the more heavily on those most remote.

Of those looking upon that Being and its content, and able to see, all take something but not all the same vision always: intently gazing, one sees the fount and principle of Justice, another is filled with the sight of Moral Wisdom, the original of that quality as found, sometimes at least, among men, copied by them in their degree from the divine virtue which, covering all the expanse, so to speak, of the Intellectual Realm is seen, last attainment of all, by those who have known already many splendid visions.

The gods see, each singly and all as one. So, too, the souls; they see all There in right of being sprung, themselves, of that universe and therefore including all from beginning to end and having their existence There if only by that phase which belongs inherently to the Divine, though often too they are There entire, those of them that have not incurred separation.

This vision Zeus takes, and it is for such of us, also, as share his love and appropriate our part in the Beauty There, the final object of all seeing, the entire beauty upon all things; for all There sheds radiance, and floods those that have found their way thither so that they too become beautiful; thus it will often happen that men climbing heights where the soil has taken a yellow glow will themselves appear so, borrowing colour from the place on which they move. The colour flowering on that other height we speak of is Beauty; or rather all There is light and beauty, through and through, for the beauty is no mere bloom upon the surface.

To those that do not see entire, the immediate impression is alone taken into account; but those drunken with this wine, filled with the nectar, all their soul penetrated by this beauty, cannot remain mere gazers: no longer is there a spectator outside gazing on an outside spectacle; the clear-eyed hold the vision within themselves, though, for the most part, they have no idea that it is within but look towards it as to something beyond them and see it as an object of vision caught by a direction of the will.

All that one sees as a spectacle is still external; one must bring the vision within and see no longer in that mode of separation but as we know ourselves; thus a man filled with a god- possessed by Apollo or by one of the Muses- need no longer look outside for his vision of the divine being; it is but finding the strength to see divinity within.

(11) This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not himself attained to see. There were not two; beholder was one with beheld; it was not a vision compassed but a unity apprehended. The man formed by this mingling with the Supreme must- if he only remember- carry its image impressed upon him: he is become the Unity, nothing within him or without inducing any diversity; no movement now, no passion, no outlooking desire, once this ascent is achieved; reasoning is in abeyance and all Intellection and even, to dare the word, the very self; caught away, filled with God, he has in perfect stillness attained isolation; all the being calmed, he turns neither to this side nor to that, not even inwards to himself; utterly resting he has become very rest. He belongs no longer to the order of the beautiful; he has risen beyond beauty; he has overpassed even the choir of the virtues; he is like one who, having penetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the temple images behind him- though these become once more first objects of regard when he leaves the holies; for There his converse was not with image, not with trace, but with the very Truth in the view of which all the rest is but of secondary concern.

There, indeed, it was scarcely vision, unless of a mode unknown; it was a going forth from the self, a simplifying, a renunciation, a reach towards contact and at the same time a repose, a meditation towards adjustment. This is the only seeing of what lies within the holies: to look otherwise is to fail.

Things here are signs; they show therefore to the wiser teachers how the supreme God is known; the instructed priest reading the sign may enter the holy place and make real the vision of the inaccessible.

Even those that have never found entry must admit the existence of that invisible; they will know their source and Principle since by principle they see principle and are linked with it, by like they have contact with like and so they grasp all of the divine that lies within the scope of mind. Until the seeing comes they are still craving something, that which only the vision can give; this Term, attained only by those that have overpassed all, is the All-Transcending.

It is not in the soul's nature to touch utter nothingness; the lowest descent is into evil and, so far, into non-being: but to utter nothing, never. When the soul begins again to mount, it comes not to something alien but to its very self; thus detached, it is not in nothingness but in itself; self-gathered it is no longer in the order of being; it is in the Supreme.

There is thus a converse in virtue of which the essential man outgrows Being, becomes identical with the Transcendent of Being. The self thus lifted, we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from that heightened self we pass still higher- image to archetype- we have won the Term of all our journeying. Fallen back again, we awaken the virtue within until we know ourselves all order once more; once more we are lightened of the burden and move by virtue towards Intellectual-Principle and through the Wisdom in That to the Supreme.

This is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed among men, liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of earth, the passing of solitary to solitary.

(1) Here then, too, O excellent son, after the images, I come in due order and reverence to the Godlike reality of the archetypes, saying here to those yet being initiated, for the harmonious guidance of their souls, that the varied and sacred composition of the symbols is not without spiritual contemplation for them, as merely presented superficially. For the most sacred chants and readings of the Oracles teach them a discipline of a virtuous life, and previous to this, the, complete purification from destructive evil; and the most Divine, and common, and peaceful distribution of one and the same, both Bread and Cup, enjoins upon them a godly fellowship in character, as having a fellowship in food, and recalls to their memory the most Divine Supper, and arch-symbol of the rites performed, agreeably with which the Founder of the symbols Himself excludes, most justly, him who had supped with Him on the holy things, not piously and in a manner suitable to his character; teaching at once, clearly and Divinely, that the approach to Divine mysteries with a sincere mind confers, on those who draw nigh, the participation in a gift according to their own character.

INITIATIONS ATTEND Musæus to my sacred song, And learn what rites to sacrifice belong. Jove I invoke, the earth, and solar light, The moon's pure splendor, and the stars of night; Thee Neptune, ruler of the sea profound, Dark-hair'd, whose waves begirt the solid ground; Ceres abundant, and of lovely mien, And Proserpine infernal Pluto's queen The huntress Dian, and bright Phœbus rays, Far-darting God, the theme of Delphic praise; And Bacchus, honour'd by the heav'nly choir, And raging Mars, and Vulcan god of fire; The mighty pow'r who rose from foam to light, And Pluto potent in the realms of night; With Hebe young, and Hercules the strong, And you to whom the cares of births belong: Justice and Piety august I call, And much-fam'd nymphs, and Pan the god of all. To Juno sacred, and to Mem'ry fair, And the chaste Muses I address my pray'r; The various year, the Graces, and the Hours, Fair-hair'd Latona, and Dione's pow'rs; Armed Curetes, household Gods I call, With those who spring from Jove the king of all: Th' Idæan Gods, the angel of the skies, And righteous Themis, with sagacious eyes; With ancient night, and day-light I implore, And Faith, and Justice dealing right adore; Saturn and Rhea, and great Thetis too, Hid in a veil of bright celestial blue: I call great Ocean, and the beauteous train Of nymphs, who dwell in chambers of the main; Atlas the strong, and ever in its prime, Vig'rous Eternity, and endless Time; The Stygian pool, and placid Gods beside, And various Genii, that o'er men preside; Illustrious Providence, the noble train Of dæmon forms, who fill th' ætherial plain; Or live in air, in water, earth, or fire, Or deep beneath the solid ground retire. Bacchus and Semele the friends of all, And white Leucothea of the sea I call; Palæmon bounteous, and Adrastria great, And sweet-tongu'd Victory, with success elate; Great Esculapius, skill'd to cure disease, And dread Minerva, whom fierce battles please; Thunders and winds in mighty columns pent, With dreadful roaring struggling hard for vent; Attis, the mother of the pow'rs on high, And fair Adonis, never doom'd to die, End and beginning he is all to all, These with propitious aid I gently call; And to my holy sacrifice invite, The pow'r who reigns in deepest hell and night; I call Einodian Hecate, lovely dame, Of earthly, wat'ry, and celestial frame, Sepulchral, in a saffron veil array'd, Pleas'd with dark ghosts that wander thro' the shade; Persian, unconquerable huntress hail! 59 The world's key-bearer never doom'd to fail On the rough rock to wander thee delights, Leader and nurse be present to our rites Propitious grant our just desires success, Accept our homage, and the incense bless.

PLUTO, magnanimous, whose realms profound Are fix'd beneath the firm and solid ground, In the Tartarian plains remote from fight, And wrapt forever in the depths of night; Terrestrial Jove, thy sacred ear incline, And, pleas'd, accept thy mystic's hymn divine. Earth's keys to thee, illustrious king belong, 7 Its secret gates unlocking, deep and strong. 'Tis thine, abundant annual fruits to bear, For needy mortals are thy constant care. To thee, great king, Avernus is assign'd, The seat of Gods, and basis of mankind. Thy throne is fix'd in Hade's dismal plains, Distant, unknown to rest, where darkness reigns; Where, destitute of breath, pale spectres dwell, In endless, dire, inexorable hell; And in dread Acheron, whose depths obscure, Earth's stable roots eternally secure. O mighty dæmon, whose decision dread, The future fate determines of the dead, With captive Proserpine, thro' grassy plains, Drawn in a four-yok'd car with loosen'd reins, Rapt o'er the deep, impell'd by love, you flew 'Till Eleusina's city rose to view; There, in a wond'rous cave obscure and deep, The sacred maid secure from search you keep, The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display An entrance to the kingdoms void of day. Of unapparent works, thou art alone The dispensator, visible and known. O pow'r all-ruling, holy, honor'd light, Thee sacred poets and their hymns delight: Propitious to thy mystic's works incline, Rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.

(1) We must, then, most pious of pious sons, demonstrate from the supermundane and most sacred Oracles and traditions, that ours is a Hierarchy of the inspired and Divine and Deifying science, and of operation, and of consecration, for those who have been initiated with the initiation of the sacred revelation derived from the hierarchical mysteries. See, however, that you do not put to scorn things most holy (Holy of Holies); but rather treat them reverently, and you will honour the things of the hidden God by intellectual and obscure researches, carefully guarding them from the participation and defilement of the uninitiated, and reverently sharing holy things with the holy alone, by a holy enlightenment. For thus, as the Word of God has taught us who feast at His Banquet, even Jesus Himself--the most supremely Divine Mind and superessential, the Source and Essence, and most supremely Divine Power of every Hierarchy and Sanctification and Divine operation--illuminates the blessed Beings who are superior to us, in a manner more clear, and at the same time more intellectual, and assimilates them to His own Light, as far as possible; and by our love of things beautiful elevated to Him, and which elevates us, folds together our many diversities, and after perfecting into a uniform and Divine life and habit and operation, holily bequeaths the power of the Divine Priesthood; from which by approaching to the holy exercise of the priestly office, we ourselves become nearer to the Beings above us, by assimilation, according to our power, to their abiding and: unchangeable holy steadfastness; and thus by looking upwards to the blessed and supremely Divine self of Jesus, and reverently gazing upon whatever. we are permitted to see, and illuminated with the knowledge of the visions, we shall be able to become, as regards the science of Divine mysteries, purified and purifiers; images of Light, and workers, with God, perfected and perfecting.