[9]i. e. It must not be admitted, that Apollo was actually connected with Pythaïs; for this would be absurd in the extreme; but the assertion of Epimenides, Eudoxus, and Xenocrates must be considered as one of those mythological narrations in which heroes are said to have Gods for their fathers, or Goddesses for their mothers, and the true meaning of it is as follows: According to the ancient theology, between those perpetual attendants of a divine nature called essential heroes, who are impassive and pure, and the bulk of human souls who descend to earth with passivity and impurity, it is necessary there should be an order of human souls who descend with impassivity and purity. For as there is no vacuum either in incorporeal or corporeal natures, it is necessary that the last link of a superior order, should coalesce with the summit of one proximately inferior. These souls were called by the ancients, terrestrial heroes, on account of their high degree of proximity and alliance to such as are essentially heroes. Hercules, Theseus, Pythagoras, Plato, &c. were souls of this kind, who descended into mortality both to benefit other souls, and in compliance with that necessity by which all natures inferior to the perpetual attendants of the Gods are at times obliged to descend.
But as, according to the arcana of ancient theology, every God beginning from on high produces his proper series as far as to the last of things, and this series comprehends many essences different from each other, such as Dæmoniacal, Heroical, Nymphical, and the like; the lowest powers of these orders, have a great communion and physical sympathy with the human race, and contribute to the perfection of all their natural operations, and particularly to their procreations. “Hence” (says Proclus in MSS. Schol. in Crat.) “it often appears, that heroes are generated from the mixture of these powers with mankind; for those that possess a certain prerogative above human nature, are properly denominated heroes.” He adds: “Not only a dæmoniacal genus of this kind sympathizes physically with men, but other kinds sympathize with other natures, as Nymphs with trees, others with fountains, and others with stags or serpents.”
Olympiodorus, in his life of Plato, observes of that philosopher, “That an Apolloniacal spectre is said to have had connexion with Perictione his mother, and that appearing in the night to his father Aristo, it commanded him not to sleep with Perictione during the time of her pregnancy; which mandate Aristo obeyed.” The like account of the divine origin of Plato, is also given by Apuleius, Plutarch, and Hesychius.
[10]i. e. The priests of Jupiter.
[11]From what has been said in the note, [p. 4], respecting the divine origin of Pythagoras, it follows that he was a terrestrial hero belonging to the series of Apollo. Thus too the Esculapius who once lived on the earth, and was the inventor of medicine, proceeded, according to the ancient mythology, from the God Esculapius, who subsists in Apollo, just as the hero Bacchus proceeded from the Bacchus who subsists in Jupiter. Hence the Emperor Julian (apud Cyril.) says of Esculapius: “I had almost forgotten the greatest of the gifts of Jupiter and the Sun, but I have very properly reserved it to the last. For it is not peculiar to us only, but is common also, I think, to our kindred the Greeks. For Jupiter, in intelligibles, generated from himself Esculapius; but he was unfolded into light on the earth, through the prolific light of the sun. He therefore, proceeding from heaven to the earth, appeared uniformly in a human shape about Epidaurus. But thence becoming multiplied in his progressions, he extended his saving right hand to all the earth. He came to Pergamus, to Ionia, to Tarentum, and afterwards to Rome. Thence he went to the island Co, afterwards to Ægas, and at length to wherever there is land and sea. Nor did we individually, but collectively, experience his beneficence. And at one and the same time, he corrected souls that were wandering in error, and bodies that were infirm.”
[12]Those Gods, according to the Orphic theology, that contain in themselves the first principle of stability, sameness, and being, and who also were the suppliers of conversion to all things, are of a male characteristic; but those that are the causes of all-various progressions, separations, and measures of life, are of a feminine peculiarity.
[13]This inventor of names was called by the Egyptians Theuth, as we are informed by Plato in the Philebus and Phædrus; in the latter of which dialogues, Socrates says: “I have heard, that about Naucratis in Egypt, there was one of the ancient Gods of the Egyptians, to whom a bird was sacred, which they call Ibis; but the name of the dæmon himself was Theuth. According to tradition, this God first discovered number and the art of reckoning, geometry and astronomy, the games of chess and hazard, and likewise letters.” On this passage I observe as follows, in Vol. 3. of my translation of Plato: The genus of disciplines belonging to Mercury, contains gymnastic, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and the art of speaking and writing. This God, as he is the source of invention, is called the son of Maia; because investigation, which is implied by Maia, produces invention: and as unfolding the will of Jupiter, who is an intellectual God, he is the cause of mathesis or discipline. He first subsists in Jupiter, the artificer of the world; next among the supermundane Gods; in the third place, among the liberated Gods; fourthly, in the planet Mercury; fifthly, in the Mercurial order of dæmons; sixthly, in human souls, who are the attendants of this God; and in the seventh degree, his properties subsist in certain animals, such as the ibis, the ape, and sagacious dogs. The narration of Socrates in this place, is both allegorical and anagogic or reductory. Naucratis is a region of Egypt eminently subject to the influence of Mercury, though the whole of Egypt is allotted to this divinity. Likewise, in this city a man once florished full of the Mercurial power, because his soul formerly existed in the heavens of the Mercurial order. But he was first called Theuth, that is, Mercury, and a God, because his soul subsisted according to the perfect similitude of this divinity. But afterwards a dæmon, because from the God Mercury, through a Mercurial dæmon, gifts of this kind are transmitted to a Mercurial soul.
[14]Iamblichus derived this very beautiful passage from Heraclides Ponticus, as is evident from Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. lib. v. 3. who relates the same thing of Pythagoras, from the aforesaid author.
[15]i. e. With intelligibles properly so called.
[16]Iliad, lib. 17. The translation by Pope.