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Hear, then, what Porphyry also relates about the same things in his letter to Anebo the Egyptian: 3.4.1

4. STILL CONCERNING THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE EGYPTIANS, AND THAT THEY APPLIED THE ENTIRE REFERENCE OF THEIR TROPICAL THEORY ONLY TO THE

PHENOMENA OF THE STARS IN THE SKY, AND ALSO TO WATER AND FIRE AND THE OTHER PARTS OF THE UNIVERSE

"For Chaeremon and the others believe in nothing else prior to the visible worlds, placing the Egyptians at the beginning of their account, nor other gods than the so-called planets and those that complete the zodiac, and all that rise with them, and the divisions into decans and the horoscopes and the so-called powerful rulers, whose names are also borne in the Almanacs, as well as cures for diseases and risings and settings and prognostications of future events. 3.4.2 For he saw that those who call the sun the demiurge, and interpret the myths about Osiris and Isis and all the priestly fables, refer them either to the stars and their appearances and occultations and risings, or to the waxings and wanings of the moon, or to the course of the sun, or to the nocturnal hemisphere or the diurnal, or to the river, and, in short, everything to physical things, and nothing to incorporeal and living substances. The majority of these also derived what is in our power from the motion of the stars, having bound everything, I know not how, with the indissoluble bonds of Necessity, which they call Fate, and having attached all things to these gods, whom they worship in temples and images and other ways as the only deliverers from Fate." 3.4.3 Let these things, then, be cited from the aforementioned letter, clearly proclaiming that the secret theology of the Egyptians theologized no others than the stars in the sky, both those called fixed and those called planets, and introduced as creator of the universe no incorporeal mind nor creative reason, nor indeed a god nor gods nor any intellectual and invisible powers, but only the visible sun. Therefore, they assigned the cause of all things to the stars alone, making everything dependent on Fate and on the motion and course of the stars, just as, of course, this opinion still prevails among them even now. 3.4.4 If, then, for the Egyptians, things were interpreted with reference only to the visible elements of the cosmos and nothing to incorporeal and living substances, and the elements and all visible bodies are by their own nature soulless and irrational, fluid in nature and perishable, see to what depths their theology has again fallen, deifying soulless substance and dead and irrational bodies, especially since nothing was referred by them to incorporeal and intellectual substances, 3.4.5 nor to a mind and creative reason of the universe. But since it has been previously acknowledged that the matters of theology were transmitted from the Egyptians to the Greeks, it is time for the Greeks to be consistent with these things, and to be convicted of philosophizing about nature in the same way as the Egyptians, and of deifying nothing more than soulless matter. For these were the solemn rites of the Egyptians according to the writing of the aforementioned author, who again, in the work he entitled *On Abstinence from Animal Food*, relates the following about the same things: 3.4.6 "Setting out from this discipline and familiarity with the divine, they recognized that the divine did not pass through man alone, nor did the soul dwell on earth in man alone, but almost the same soul passed through all living creatures. Therefore, they included every living creature in their deification and in a similar way they mixed 3.4.7 beasts and men, and again the bodies of birds and of men. For among them someone is represented as human-like down to the neck, but the face of a bird or a lion or some other

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ἄκουε δ' οὖν οἷα καὶ ὁ Πορφύριος ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἀνεβοὼ τὸν Αἰγύπτιον ἐπιστολῇ περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ἱστορεῖ· 3.4.1

δʹ. ΕΤΙ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΙΓΥΠΤΙΩΝ ΦΥΣΙΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΤΙ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΣΑΝ ΑΝΑΦΟΡΑΝ ΤΗΣ ΤΡΟΠΙΚΗΣ ΑΥΤΩΝ ΘΕΩΡΙΑΣ ΕΠΙ ΜΟΝΑ ΤΑ

ΦΑΙΝΟΜΕΝΑ ΚΑΤ' ΟΥΡΑΝΟΝ ΑΣΤΡΑ ΕΠΙ ΤΕ Υ∆ΩΡ ΚΑΙ ΠΥΡ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΛΟΙΠΑ ΜΕΡΗ ΤΟΥ ΚΟΣΜΟΥ ΜΕΤΗΓΟΝ

«Χαιρήμων μὲν γὰρ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι οὐδ' ἄλλο τι πρὸ τῶν ὁρωμένων κόσμων ἡγοῦνται, ἐν ἀρχῆς λόγῳ τιθέμενοι τοὺς Αἰγυπτίων, οὐδ' ἄλλους θεοὺς πλὴν τῶν πλανητῶν λεγομένων καὶ τῶν συμπληρούντων τὸν ζῳδιακὸν καὶ ὅσοι τούτοις παρανατέλλουσιν, τάς τε εἰς τοὺς δεκανοὺς τομὰς καὶ τοὺς ὡροσκόπους καὶ τοὺς λεγομένους κραταιοὺς ἡγεμόνας, ὧν καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα ἐν τοῖς Ἀλμενιχιακοῖς φέρεται καὶ θεραπεῖαι παθῶν καὶ ἀνατολαὶ καὶ δύσεις καὶ μελλόντων 3.4.2 σημειώσεις. ἑώρα γὰρ τοὺς τὸν ἥλιον δημιουργὸν φαμένους καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸν Ὄσιριν καὶ τὴν Ἶσιν καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἱερατικοὺς μύθους ἢ εἰς τοὺς ἀστέρας καὶ τὰς τούτων φάνσεις καὶ κρύψεις καὶ ἐπιτολὰς ἑλιττομένους ἢ εἰς τὰς τῆς σελήνης αὐξήσεις καὶ μειώσεις ἢ εἰς τὴν τοῦ ἡλίου πορείαν ἢ τό γε νυκτερι νὸν ἡμισφαίριον ἢ τὸ ἡμερινὸν ἢ τόν γε ποταμόν, καὶ ὅλως πάντα εἰς τὰ φυσικὰ καὶ οὐδὲν εἰς ἀσωμάτους καὶ ζώσας οὐσίας ἑρμηνεύοντας. ὧν οἱ πλείους καὶ τὸ ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἐκ τῆς τῶν ἀστέρων ἀνῆψαν κινήσεως, οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως δεσμοῖς ἀλύτοις Ἀνάγκης, ἣν Εἱμαρμένην λέγουσιν, πάντα καταδήσαντες καὶ πάντα τούτοις ἀνάψαντες τοῖς θεοῖς, οὓς ὡς λυτῆρας τῆς Εἱμαρμένης μόνους ἔν τε ἱεροῖς καὶ ξοάνοις καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις θεραπεύουσιν.» 3.4.3 Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἀπὸ τῆς δηλωθείσης ἐπιστολῆς κείσθω, σαφῶς διαγορεύοντα ὅτι καὶ ἡ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων ἀπόρρητος θεολογία οὐδὲ ἄλλους πλὴν τῶν κατ' οὐρανὸν ἀστέρων, τῶν τε ἀπλανῶν ὀνομαζομένων καὶ τῶν πλανητῶν καλουμένων, ἐθεολόγει δημιουργόν τε τῶν ὅλων εἰσῆγεν οὔ τινα νοῦν ἀσώματον οὐδὲ λόγον δημιουργικὸν οὐδὲ μὴν θεὸν οὐδὲ θεοὺς οὐδέ τινας νοερὰς καὶ ἀφανεῖς δυνάμεις, μόνον δὲ τὸν ὁρώμενον ἥλιον· διὸ καὶ μόνοις τοῖς ἄστροις τὴν τῶν ὅλων ἀνετίθεσαν αἰτίαν, τὰ πάντα Εἱμαρμένης ἐξάπτοντες καὶ τῆς τῶν ἄστρων κινήσεώς τε καὶ φορᾶς, ὥσπερ ἀμέλει εἰσέτι καὶ 3.4.4 νῦν ἥδε παρ' αὐτοῖς κεκράτηκεν ἡ δόξα. εἰ τοίνυν εἰς μόνα τὰ ὁρώμενα τοῦ κόσμου στοιχεῖα καὶ οὐδὲν εἰς ἀσωμάτους καὶ ζώσας οὐσίας ἡρμήνευται τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις, τὰ δὲ στοιχεῖα καὶ πάντα τὰ ὁρατὰ σώματα τῷ ἰδίῳ λόγῳ ἄψυχα καὶ ἄλογα ῥευστά τε τὴν φύσιν καὶ φθαρτὰ συνέστηκεν, θέα εἰς οἷα πάλιν αὐτῶν καταπέπτωκεν ἡ θεολογία, τὴν ἄψυχον οὐσίαν καὶ τὰ νεκρὰ καὶ ἄλογα σώματα θειάζουσα, μάλιστα ὅτε εἰς ἀσωμάτους καὶ νοερὰς οὐσίας οὐδὲν 3.4.5 αὐτοῖς ἀνεφέρετο οὐδ' ἐπὶ νοῦν καὶ λόγον δημιουργικὸν τῶν ὅλων. ἐπεὶ δὲ προωμολογήθη διὰ τῶν πρόσθεν εἰς Ἕλληνας παρ' Αἰγυπτίων τὰ τῆς θεολογίας μετακεκομίσθαι, ὥρα τούτοις στοιχεῖν καὶ Ἕλληνας καὶ τὰ αὐτὰ Αἰγυπτίοις φυσιολογεῖν ἀπελέγχεσθαί τε αὐτοὺς οὐδὲν πλέον τῆς ἀψύχου ὕλης θεοποιοῦντας. ταῦτα γὰρ ἦν τὰ σεμνὰ Αἰγυπτίων κατὰ τὴν τοῦ δεδηλωμένου συγγραφέως γραφήν, ὅστις πάλιν ἐν οἷς ἐπέγραψεν Περὶ τῆς τῶν ἐμψύχων ἀποχῆς τοιαῦτα περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν διέξεισιν· 3.4.6 «Ἀπὸ δὲ ταύτης ὡρμημένοι τῆς ἀσκήσεως καὶ τῆς πρὸς τὸ θεῖον οἰκειώσεως ἔγνωσαν ὡς οὐ δι' ἀνθρώπου μόνου τὸ θεῖον διῆλθεν οὐδὲ ψυχὴ ἐν μόνῳ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐπὶ γῆς κατεσκήνωσεν, ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν ἡ αὐτὴ διὰ πάντων διῆλθεν τῶν ζῴων. διὸ εἰς τὴν θεοποιίαν παρέλαβον πᾶν ζῷον καὶ ὁμοίως που ἀνέ3.4.7 μιξαν θηρία καὶ ἀνθρώπους καὶ πάλιν ὀρνέων σώματα καὶ ἀνθρώπων. εἴκασται γάρ τις παρ' αὐτοῖς μέχρι τραχήλου ἀνθρωποειδής, τὸ δὲ πρόσωπον ὀρνέου ἢ λέοντος ἢ ἄλλου τινὸς