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heart; for the king of the world is the demiurgic mind; and he holds out in his right hand either an eagle, because he rules over the gods that travel the air, as the eagle rules over the birds on high, or victory, because he himself has conquered all.” 3.9.6

10. REFUTATION AND OVERTHROW OF THEIR FORCED INTERPRETATION

This is from Porphyry for you, and when these things are interpreted in the aforesaid manner it is well to consider quietly and at leisure what kind of Zeus the verses say he is. For I think it is no other than the visible world, composed of all kinds of parts, both those in heaven and aether and the stars that appear in them, set forth as in the head of a great body, 3.9.7 and those in the air and earth and sea and the like. At any rate, earth and mountains and hills are parts of the world, and the sea is wound around their midst like a belt, and fire and water and night and day would be parts of the same nature of the world. These things I think plainly indicate the visible world, unless I am mistaken, and teach that the whole is composed of 3.9.8 parts. For it says: For all these things lie in the great body of Zeus. And it explains what "all things" are: fire and water and earth and aether, night and day. His head indeed and beautiful face to be seen is the brilliant heaven, around which the golden tresses of the gleaming beautiful stars hang suspended, 3.9.9 and what follows this; in which he adds that the mind of Zeus is the aether and nothing else, according to the Stoics who say that the fiery and hot substance is the ruling principle of the world, and that god is a body and the creator himself is none other than the power of fire. For I think it has also been said in the verses in the same way: And his mind is unerring royal immortal aether, by which all things revolve and are considered. 3.9.10 By which, openly supposing the world to be a great living being, and calling it Zeus, he declared its mind to be the aether, and its body the other parts of the world. 3.9.11 Such, then, is the Zeus described in the verses. But the interpreter of the verses, beginning in accordance with the verses, says: "Zeus, therefore, is the whole world, a living being from living beings and a god from gods," having clearly interpreted that the Zeus of the theology is signified by the verses to be none other than the visible and sensible world. 3.9.12 But the account of the Egyptians, from whom Orpheus also received the theology and supposed the world to be god, is composed of many gods who are its parts, because the parts of the world also were shown before to be regarded as gods, and the cited words of the verses have made nothing more clear than this. 3.9.13 But after the first interpretation he adds a second of his own, saying that this is the Maker of all things, the god, the demiurgic mind 3.9.14 that is the subject of the theology. But how could he have made a theology about him, whom the poet of the verses did not know at all, whether he were Orpheus the Thracian or some other, if indeed the matters of theology came to him from the Egyptians or from the first Greeks, who were shown to know nothing intelligible nor contained in an invisible and incorporeal substance, if Plato is sufficient to convince anyone, who confesses in the Cratylus that the first men in Greece believed these alone to be gods, just as many of the 3.9.15 barbarians do now: sun and moon and earth and stars and heaven. And Chaeremon also a little before bore witness that the Egyptians believed in nothing else before the visible world, nor in any other gods than the planets and the other stars, interpreting all things in terms of the visible parts of the world and nothing in terms of incorporeal and living substances. 3.10.1 The poet, therefore, starting from these, from where or how or from whom did he receive into the verses the one beyond the world

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καρδία· βασιλεὺς γὰρ τοῦ κόσμου ὁ δημιουργικὸς νοῦς· προτείνει δὲ τῇ δεξιᾷ ἢ ἀετόν, ὅτι κρατεῖ τῶν ἀεροπόρων θεῶν ὡς τῶν μεταρσίων ὀρνέων ὁ ἀετός, ἢ νίκην, ὅτι νενίκηκεν αὐτὸς πάντα.» 3.9.6

ιʹ. ΕΛΕΓΧΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΤΡΟΠΗ ΤΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥΤΩΝ ΒΕΒΙΑΣΜΕΝΗΣ ΑΠΟ∆ΟΣΕΩΣ

Ταῦτά σοι ὁ Πορφύριος, ὧν τὸν εἰρημένον τρόπον ἀποδεδομένων ἠρέμα καὶ ἐπὶ σχολῆς ἐπιθεωρῆσαι καλόν, τίνα ποτὲ ἄρα τὸν ∆ία φασὶν εἶναι τὰ ἔπη. ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ οὐδ' ἄλλον ἡγοῦμαι ἢ τὸν ὁρώμενον κόσμον ἐκ παντοίων συνεστῶτα μερῶν, τῶν τε κατ' οὐρανὸν καὶ αἰθέρα καὶ τῶν ἐν τούτοις φαινομένων ἄστρων, ὥσπερ ἐν μεγάλου σώματος κεφαλῇ προτεταγμένων, 3.9.7 τῶν τε ἐν ἀέρι καὶ γῇ καὶ θαλάσσῃ καὶ τοῖς παραπλησίοις. μέρη γοῦν κόσμου καὶ γῆ καὶ ὄρη καὶ βουνοὶ εἱλεῖταί τε αὐτῶν ἐν μέσῳ ζώνης τρόπον ἡ θάλασσα, καὶ πῦρ δὲ καὶ ὕδωρ νύξ τε καὶ ἡμέρα τῆς αὐτῆς εἶεν ἂν τοῦ κόσμου φύσεως μέρη. ταῦτα δ' ἄντικρυς τὸν ὁρώμενον ὑποφαίνειν ἡγοῦμαι κόσμον, εἰ μή τι καὶ σφάλλομαι, καὶ τὸ ὅλον συνεστὼς ἐκ 3.9.8 μερῶν διδάσκει. λέγει δ' οὖν· Πάντα γὰρ ἐν μεγάλῳ Ζηνὸς τάδε σώματι κεῖται. καὶ τίνα τὰ πάντα διασαφεῖ· πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γαῖα καὶ αἰθὴρ νύξ τε καὶ ἦμαρ. τοῦ δή τοι κεφαλὴ[ν] μὲν ἰδεῖν καὶ καλὰ πρόσωπα οὐρανὸς αἰγλήεις, ὃν χρύσεαι ἀμφὶς ἔθειραι ἄστρων μαρμαρέων περικαλλέες ἠερέθονται, 3.9.9 καὶ τὰ τούτοις ἀκόλουθα· ἐν οἷς ἐπιφέρει τὸν νοῦν τοῦ ∆ιὸς λέγων εἶναι τὸν αἰθέρα καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο, κατὰ τοὺς Στωϊκοὺς τὴν πυρώδη καὶ θερμὴν οὐσίαν τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν φάσκοντας εἶναι τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὸν θεὸν εἶναι σῶμα καὶ τὸν δημιουργὸν αὐτὸν οὐδ' ἕτερον τῆς τοῦ πυρὸς δυνάμεως. κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ γὰρ οἶμαι καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν εἰρῆσθαι· Νοῦς δέ οἱ ἀψευδὴς βασιλήϊος ἄφθιτος αἰθήρ, ᾧ δὴ πάντα κυκλεῖ καὶ φράζεται. 3.9.10 δι' ὧν ἀνεπικαλύπτως ζῷον μέγα τὸν κόσμον ὑποθέμενος, καὶ τοῦτον ∆ία προσειπὼν νοῦν μὲν αὐτοῦ τὸν αἰθέρα, σῶμα δὲ τὰ λοιπὰ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου 3.9.11 εἶναι ἀπεφήνατο. τοιοῦτος μέν τις ὁ διὰ τῶν ἐπῶν ὑπογραφόμενος τυγχάνει Ζεύς. ὁ δὲ τῶν ἐπῶν ἐξηγητὴς ἀρξάμενος μὲν τοῖς ἔπεσιν ἀκολούθως λέγει· «Ζεὺς οὖν ὁ πᾶς κόσμος, ζῷον ἐκ ζῴων καὶ θεὸς ἐκ θεῶν», σαφῶς τὸν θεολογούμενον ∆ία οὐδὲ ἄλλον ἢ τὸν ὁρώμενον καὶ αἰσθητὸν κόσμον δηλοῦσθαι διὰ τῶν ἐπῶν ἑρμηνεύσας. 3.9.12 Αἰγυπτίων δὲ ὁ λόγος, παρ' ὧν καὶ Ὀρφεὺς τὴν θεολογίαν ἐκλαβὼν τὸν κόσμον εἶναι τὸν θεὸν ᾤετο, ἐκ πλειόνων θεῶν τῶν αὐτοῦ μερῶν ὅτι καὶ τὰ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου θεολογοῦντες ἐν τοῖς πρόσθεν ἀπεδείχθησαν συνεστῶτα, καὶ τούτου πλέον οὐδὲν τὰ παρατεθέντα τῶν ἐπῶν ῥήματα 3.9.13 διεσάφησεν. ὁ δὲ μετὰ τὴν πρώτην ἑρμηνείαν δευτέραν ἐξ αὑτοῦ προστίθησι, τὸν τῶν ὅλων ποιητὴν θεὸν τὸν δημιουργικὸν νοῦν τοῦτον εἶναι 3.9.14 φάσκων τὸν τεθεολογημένον. πῶς δ' ἂν αὐτὸν τοῦτον ἐθεολόγει, ὃν μηδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔγνω ὁ τῶν ἐπῶν ποιητής, εἴτε ὁ Θρᾷξ εἴη Ὀρφεὺς εἴτε τις ἄλλος, εἰ δὴ παρ' Αἰγυπτίων ἢ καὶ παρὰ τῶν πρώτων Ἑλλήνων ἥκοντα ἦν εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ τῆς θεολογίας, οἱ δέ γε ἀπεδείχθησαν οὐδὲν νοητὸν ἐπιστάμενοι οὐδ' ἐν ἀφανεῖ καὶ ἀσωμάτῳ οὐσίᾳ περιεχόμενον, εἴ τῳ ἱκανὸς πιστώσασθαι ὁ Πλάτων, ὁμολογῶν ἐν Κρατύλῳ τοὺς πρώτους τῶν ἀνθρώπων περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα τούτους μόνους θεοὺς ἡγεῖσθαι, οὕσπερ νῦν πολλοὶ τῶν 3.9.15 βαρβάρων, ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ γῆν καὶ ἄστρα καὶ οὐρανόν. καὶ ὁ Χαιρήμων δὲ μικρῷ ἔμπροσθεν ἐμαρτύρει οὐδ' ἄλλο τι πρὸ τοῦ ὁρωμένου κόσμου τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους ἡγεῖσθαι οὐδ' ἄλλους θεοὺς πλὴν τῶν πλανητῶν καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ἀστέρων, πάντα τε εἰς τὰ ὁρώμενα τοῦ κόσμου μέρη καὶ οὐδὲν εἰς ἀσωμάτους καὶ ζώσας οὐσίας ἑρμηνεύοντας. 3.10.1 Ὁ δὴ οὖν ἐκ τούτων ὁρμώμενος ποιητὴς πόθεν ἢ πῶς ἢ παρὰ τίνος λαβὼν ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν τὸν ἐπέκεινα τοῦ κόσμου