Diique, deæque omnes—
in the sixth book of the Æneid observes, “more pontificum, per quos ritu veteri in omnibus sacris post speciales Deos, quos ad ipsum sacrum, quod fiebat necesse erat invocari, generaliter omnia numina invocabantur.” i. e. “This is spoken after the manner of the pontiffs, by whom, according to ancient rites, in all sacrifices, after the appropriate Gods whom it was necessary to invoke to the sacrifice, all the divinities were invoked in general.” And in his Annotations on the seventh of the Æneid he informs us, “that king Œneus offered a sacrifice of first fruits to all the divinities but Diana, who being enraged sent a boar [as a punishment for the neglect].” With respect to this anger, however, of Diana, it is necessary to observe with Proclus, “that the anger of the Gods does not refer any passion to them, but indicates our inaptitude to participate of them.” Ο γαρ των θεων χολος, ουκ εις εκεινας αναπεμπει τι παθος, αλλα την ημων δεικνυσι ανεπιτηδειοτητα της εκεινων μεθεξεως.
[115]. Plotinus was a man of this description, to whom, most probably, Iamblichus alludes in what he now says.
[116]. In the original θυμον τινος: but it is doubtless requisite to read with Gale, θεσμον τινος. This I have translated a certain divine legislation, because we are informed by Proclus, in Platon. Theol. lib. iv. p. 206, “that θεσμος is connected with deity, and pertains more to intelligibles; but that νομος, which unfolds intellectual distribution, is adapted to the intellectual fathers.” Ο γαρ θεσμος συμπλεκεται τῳ θεῳ, και προσηκει μαλλον τοις νοητοις ο δε νομος την νοεραν εμφαινων διανομην, οικειος εσι τοις νοεροις πατρασι.
[117]. “Perhaps,” says Proclus, in MS. Comment, in Parmenid. “it is necessary that, as in souls, natures, and bodies, fabrication does not begin from the imperfect; so likewise in matter, prior to that which is formless, and which has an evanescent being, there is that which is in a certain respect form, and which is beheld in one boundary and permanency.” This, therefore, will be the pure and divine matter of which Iamblichus is now speaking. Damascius also says, that matter is from the same order whence form is derived.
[118]. This particular respecting the apples of gold is added from the version of Scutellius, who appears to have translated this work from a more perfect manuscript than that which was used by Gale.
[119]. The conjecture of Gale, that for ἢ το εν Αβυδῳ in this place, we should read ἢ το εν αδυτῳ, is, I have no doubt, right. For the highest order of intelligibles is denominated by Orpheus the adytum, as we are informed by Proclus in Tim. By the arcanum in the adytum, therefore, is meant the deity who subsists at the extremity of the intelligible order (i. e. Phanes); and of whom it is said in the Chaldean Oracles, “that he remains in the paternal profundity, and in the adytum, near to the god-nourished silence.”
[120]. For εις το φαινομενον και ορφμενον σωμα, I read εις το φερομενον κ. τ. λ.
[121]. Here too for Αβυδῳ I read αδυτῳ.
[122]. Conformably to this, Martianus Capella also, in lib. ii. De Nuptiis Philol. &c. speaking of the sun, says, “Ibi quandam navim, totius naturæ cursus diversa cupiditate moderantem, cunctaque flammarum congestione plenissimam, et beatis circumactam mercibus conspicatur. Cui nautæ septem, germani tamen, suique similes præsidebant in prora. Præsidebat in prora felis forma depicta, leonis in arbore, crocodili in extimo.” For these animals, the cat, the lion, and the crocodile were peculiarly sacred to the sun. Martianus adds, “In eadem vero rate, fons quidem lucis æthereæ, arcanisque fluoribus manans, in totius mundi lumina fundebatur.” i. e. “In the same ship there was a fountain of etherial light flowing with arcane streams, which were poured into all the luminaries of the world.” Porphyry, likewise, in his treatise De Antro Nymph. says, “that the Egyptians placed the sun and all dæmons not connected with any thing solid or stable, but raised on a sailing vessel.”