Opuscula psychologica, theologica, daemonologica

 After the judgment of the thoughts, an exact discernment of how the thoughts happen to be, whether they are good or otherwise but imagination is the

 to divide for us, by the established terms, the sesquitertian ratios into both the sesquioctave ratios and the leimmata, we would have stopped at thes

 having split it, he bent each one into a circle, bringing them together middle to middle with each other like a chi, having joined 7 them both to them

 left, or rather the one is an image of mind, the other of soul. And in the soul itself, the right is that which is turned toward the intelligible thin

 regarding the explanation of the Platonic psychogony, this we now discharge for you as a kind of debt. For Plato's statement that the division of thes

 and of exegesis. And there is a letter of mine placed among my books that has traced out and carefully examined the meaning in the sayings. But it is

 a ruler drives a team of two then of the 14 horses, one of them is noble and good and of such stock, but the other is from opposite stock and is oppo

 a body from one of the seeing things, such that it is able to be extended as far as the stars. But it was better, he says, than to say that the extern

 through which it is not swept into material disorder, but is joined to the divine light, holds it in its own place and makes it unmixed with matter, l

 of knowledge. For there is something intelligible, which you must understand with the flower of the intellect. And he says that the one in us is twofo

 agrees, but among them the salty is more than the drinkable. They say, for example, that every soul is either divine or changing from intellect to min

 to be deemed worthy of pardon in repenting. If the soul is a body according to some of the ancients, what is it that contains it? every body is three-

 distinction. Two kinds of air according to Aristotle, the vaporous from the exhalation of water and the smoky from the extinguishing of fire. The latt

 Plato. Pleasure is not a coming-to-be for coming-to-be is of things that are not, while pleasure is of things that are. And coming-to-be is swift and

 is natural, while habit is acquired and taught. Providence is the care for existing things that comes from God. Epicurus says: the blessed and incorr

 but such powers are simply and imperceptibly desired. What then? Do we have three souls? Solution: just as the soul, when united to the body, seems to

 When this is dimmed they also are dimmed the soul flourishes when this 34 withers. Further, everything desires to preserve its own substrate. If the

 actuality, as physicians, others in relation to something, others a double or one-and-a-half ratio. Potentiality is found in substance, as a man in th

 concerning form, matter and cause, for example the matter of the celestial bodies is not the four elements, but a certain fifth, spherical one, as be

 as knowledge (for knowledge is a transition from defined things to defined things for this reason it is also knowledge, as leading the mind to a stat

 this, for indeed the flesh also moves downwards and is none of the elements. Aporia: but matter, that is the element, is not soul, but the form that c

 definitions have as their beginning the most general things, as their end the most specific things. If, then, these are finite, so are the definitions

 and it acts according to one part and another. It seems to act in these ways as being one. For if it is divided, it is necessary for the parts to be e

 the rest, but this is about hot and soft, heavy and light, rare and dense, and many opposites. In humans, the cause of local motion is intellect, in i

 is nourished {which} is twofold: either as Matter or as an instrument. And the instrument is twofold: either moving and being moved, like the innate h

 is equal in distance to the zodiac signs. Light is not a body. for if it were a body, how would it be possible for it to have instantaneous movement,

 we see the introduction of the forms of things seen entering the sight, but how do we see the interval of the air in between? Solution: It is not that

 with a violent collision. In soft things no sound is produced, because the air is broken up in their pores and dispersed as in sponges. In things that

 a buzzing which is conveyed back to the sense of hearing. Others say that the sound occurring in the ears after the blockage is of the external air th

 For instance, fish, not having this, are cooled through their gills. Those that have a windpipe also have a lung. Fish have neither these nor a heart.

 the sense organs of touch, it is clear for every sense organ is both separated and known. Aristotle speaks of the senses both as one each and as many

 Aristotle in On the Soul : if sensation ceased, the sense-organ would also cease. But if the second is not, neither is the first. Sensation and sense-

 Some add also a sixth, the attentive [faculty], as when a man says, I perceived, I thought, I opined. To this part they also add the activities of t

 We can say ten, but not indeed opine it, so that opinion is not up to us. But neither do we imagine what we wish for we see at night what we do not w

 in the case of children, the one according to state, and the one in act, as the one governing all things or the one entering from without. Plato says

 theoretical versus the practical. The theoretical corresponds to a vision discerning of forms, while the practical corresponds to a vision not only kn

 organs. Moreover, at night the nutritive faculty is more active, but the locomotive faculty is not at all. A difficulty: the vegetative faculty produc

 simpler, or rather the things inherent in the matter, into which the matter is also divided, which are also prop[erly] called its elements. I say then

 he hints that it is not completed from both of the things mixed, but is produced in the union of the soul and the body, not by the soul itself giving

 closing the senses, so as to know unknowingly the transcendent substance of that which is. For according to their own opinions, the philosopher who ha

 he himself will also pardon his own student for the apparent 78 opposition to him and others will come here again to bear witness for us, the philoso

 it grows and is naturally constituted to decay, must in every way grow along with and decay along with the other in a connate manner for that by whic

 a demonstration, so also the soul in an infant's body and a more imperfect one, if it were in another, perfect body, would immediately have shown its

 I shall use the argument. In what do you say virtue is inherent? or again, is it superimposed on the formless and incorporeal and uncompounded nature,

 Porphyry has philosophized in harmony with this. For in discussing the soul, he says: “Just as insomniacs, by the very act of wanting to sleep and wat

 have they cast off? Perhaps those who hold the contrary opinion will vex us with these things. But their objection is like a spider's web, which will

 to have received watchwords from the first father, nor that they possess the fullness of many bosoms, nor would I accept that they stand before the bo

 both the Sibylline and the Orphic ones, and those according to which the Berytian Bulls came to be and Amous the Egyptian, and Socrates and Plato (for

 of the bonds by which they were bound, and after this, turning their minds upward, they will approach God. And if the account told about the Sibyl wer

 has the front part? What then do you think? a mind scattered in so great a size is from this cause for him both slack and weak, and the soul is simply

 would remember any of the things here. But as many of the souls as were allotted to more humble portions and their whole mind has not been snatched aw

 Let us not altogether reject the analogy of the eye in the case of the soul, let it be and be called a more precise substance of the soul but if some

 The manner of the entry of souls, and likewise of their release or separation from hence, both are most difficult or hard to explain for of the first

 but by such powers the soul is led like some kind of thing moved by another, being drawn towards whatever the leaders happen to lead it, but then rath

 For that which is according to reason, knowledge is readily at hand, but that which is contrary to reason, is so because it has received such a nature

 of beasts, but perhaps the matter which reason has shown not to exist. Therefore our bodies will be resurrected, and there will be nothing to prevent

 fitting and gluing it to that by means of a suitable analogy, not placing the rational and intellectual substance into any of the animals for this is

 are generated from these powers alone, for this reason, having abandoned the others, they divided the substance of the soul into these alone. But if y

 it is in fourths, when one might contemplate these both in the third order of the intellectual virtues and in the fourth of the paradigmatic virtues,

 and so interpreting the Platonic opinion, but they do not seem to me to have grasped the precise meaning of his doctrine. But if I shall clarify for y

 and with nothing separating them, it is necessary for the one to be ordered, and the other to order and the one which is ordered has its form divided

 what is hard and resistant in them has been smoothed out by me. But what follows from this must be attributed to them alone for, proposing to speak a

 proceeds from it and returns to it.” Then indeed he works out the point by division. For if it only remained, it would in no way differ from its cause

 in our sacred writings, neither a whole soul nor any whole nature, apart from the partial ones, has been dogmatically established1. I for my part reje

 by the energy, then also the substance is perfected according to it, and these things stand in each other according to one energy. For he who does not

 having a life activated according to intellect and reason the psychic is defined according to reason 124 and takes care of divisible souls the physi

 tormenting them. But there are, they say, both on earth divine daimons and in the air, guardians of the animals there, and <in> the water, extending t

 make it superior to the confusion of life, but, if possible, may you not even leave behind in the terrestrial world the very body which you have put o

 cast under your mind: for there is no plant of truth on earth» that is: do not busy your mind with the great measures of the earth, as the geographer

 Gregory by reason and contemplation leads the soul up to the more divine things by reason that is according to us, the more intellectual and better,

 such a lion-bearing fount of heaven and the stars, but the ruling part of its own existence conceals the vision of them. Chaldaean Oracle. From all si

 often appearing, they feign the semblance of some goodness towards the one being initiated. Chaldean Oracle. The soul of mortals will draw God into it

 they can. Whence everything they say and show is false and insubstantial for they know existing things through forms but that which knows future thi

 and fear is the holding back of his goodness towards us for the sake of the economy. Chaldean Oracle. The Father snatched himself away, not even enclo

 they are possessed by passions. Therefore, it is necessary for these also to receive their part of the whole judgment and, having been filled up with

 for it is higher than being venerated, than being uttered, and than being conceived. A Chaldean Oracle. The Iynges, being conceived by the Father, the

 an unknown password, spoken and unspoken. And they often bring the soul down 148 into the world for many reasons, either through the shedding of its w

 of truth and of love. After which are the demiurgic fountains, such as that of the ideas, according to which the cosmos and the things in it have shap

 enclosing the triad towards itself and they call these also intelligible. After these, another order of the intelligible and at the same time intelle

 to the setting [sun], and the pit to the one just at mid-heaven. And thus, gently separating the membrane of the liver, [which is placed] upon the org

 parts of philosophy is necessary. For according to moral philosophy it is necessary to assume that not all things are and come to be by necessity, but

 knowledge and sees not only the essences themselves, but also their powers and their activities, both those according to nature and those contrary to

 he acquired. For even before the birth of both, God knew that the one would be good, and the other would turn out bad and this knowledge is an unchan

 from the one who knows, and it revolves around the thing known and is made like the one who knows. I mean something like this: the knowledge of the so

 they fabricate. For I too had a certain little man, ignoble in soul, but by no means the least of storytellers to him, at any rate, such phantoms pre

enclosing the triad towards itself; and they call these also intelligible. After these, another order of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual, this too divided in three, into Iynges and Synocheis and Teletarchs. And after the middle order is the intellectual, having one paternal triad, that of the once beyond and of Hecate and of the twice beyond, and another of the three implacables, and one, the Hypezokos. 152 And these are seven fountains. And after these fountains the Hyperarchioi, then the Azonoi, then the Zonaioi, after whom are angels, then daimons, heroes after them, after whom are souls. And finally the corporeal cosmos. And they say there are seven corporeal cosmoses; one empyrean and first, and three aetherial after it; then three hylic, the fixed, the wandering and the sublunar. And they assign the first according to the intellect, the aetherial according to the soul, and the hylic according to nature. And they say that Hecate is the fountain of angels and daimons and souls and natures. And they often bring the soul down into the cosmos for many reasons, either through the shedding of wings or through the paternal will to adorn the earthly realm. And they hold that the cosmos is eternal. And they speak of Hades in many ways, and now they name him a god, the ruler of the earthly realm, now the sublunar place, now the region between the aetherial and the hylic cosmos, now the irrational soul, and they place the rational in it, not essentially, but relatively, when it is in sympathy with it. And they consider the Ideas now as the thoughts of the father, now as the universal principles, intelligible, psychic, and natural, which the intellect gives to the soul, and the soul to nature. And they say that the things above sympathize with the things below, and especially the sublunar things. And they restore souls according to the measures of their proper purifications in all the parts of the cosmos; and some they even lead up beyond the cosmos. And of these doctrines, both Aristotle and Plato accepted the greater part, and those around Plotinus and Iamblichus and Porphyry and Proclus followed them all and accepted these things as divine utterances. Of the same, concerning the art of sacrifice Concerning the science of sacrifice you asked me to write for you some starting points, it having been completely abandoned in our way of life and with no one understanding its principles. And may it be completely veiled, and may our 153 altars be pulled down, and may the sacrificial places also be pulled down, and may as many things as the formidable wisdom of the Greeks accomplished be silenced. What, at any rate, it is fitting for a wise man to know who wishes to neglect none of the ancient accounts, such, to speak in summary, is its power. The Greeks, applying the name of god to many things, for what we call holy powers standing around God and what has fallen from the divine order and been separated into a contrary portion, and heaven and the wandering and fixed stars, they decreed, so to speak, that all these shared in the name of god; then, deeming it right to sacrifice to the gods so named among them, to the aetherial gods they would offer the reddish or white animals, on account of the aetherial color and the purity of their nature, but to the subterranean they sacrificed animals of the opposite color, and to the aerial they offered variegated and mixed-colored ones. Then, indeed, they also varied the manner of the sacrifice in the victims, for the super-cosmic gods slitting the throat of the kid or the ram high up (for so, at any rate, Homer also introduces the Greeks sacrificing to the gods: "They first drew back the head," he says, "and slaughtered and flayed"), but for those who had been allotted the subterranean region, they would drag the head of the victim downward, and thus cut the tendons of the neck; but for the middle ones, turning the sacrificial victims sideways, they would sever their heads; then, indeed, slitting open their bellies, they first cut out the heart, and its membrane they sacrificed to the ancestral gods, and of the entrails, the right side they sacrificed to the rising sun, but the left

συγκλείοντα πρὸς ἑαυτὴν τὴν τριάδα· καλοῦσι δὲ ταύτας καὶ νοητάς. μεθ' ἃς ἄλλον διάκοσμον τῶν νοητῶν ἅμα καὶ νοερῶν, τριχῇ καὶ τοῦτον διῃρημένον, εἰς ἴυγγας καὶ συνοχέας καὶ τελετάρχας. μετὰ δὲ τὸν μέσον διάκοσμον ὁ νοερός ἐστι μίαν μὲν ἔχων τριάδα πατρικήν, τὴν τοῦ ἅπαξ ἐπέκεινα καὶ τῆς Ἑκάτης καὶ τοῦ δὶς ἐπέκεινα, ἑτέραν δὲ τὴν τῶν ἀμειλίκτων τριῶν ὄντων, καὶ ἕνα τὸν ὑπεζωκότα. 152 πηγαὶ δὲ αὗται ἑπτά. μετὰ δὲ τὰς πηγὰς ταύτας οἱ ὑπεράρχιοι, εἶτα ἄζωνοι, ἔπειτα ζωναῖοι, μεθ' οὓς ἄγγελοι, εἶτα δαίμονες, ἥρωες μετ' αὐτούς, μεθ' οὓς ψυχαί. καὶ λοιπὸν ὁ κόσμος ὁ σωματικός. Ἑπτὰ δέ φασι κόσμους σωματικούς· ἐμπύριον ἕνα καὶ πρῶτον, καὶ τρεῖς μετ' αὐτὸν αἰθερίους· ἔπειτα τρεῖς ὑλαίους, τὸ ἀπλανές, τὸ πλανώμενον καὶ τὸ ὑπὸ σελήνην. καὶ τὸν μὲν πρῶτον ἀφορίζουσι κατὰ τὸν νοῦν, τοὺς δὲ αἰθερίους κατὰ τὴν ψυχήν, τοὺς δὲ ὑλαίους κατὰ τὴν φύσιν. πηγὴν δὲ ἀγγέλων καὶ δαιμόνων καὶ ψυχῶν καὶ φύσεων τὴν Ἑκάτην εἶναί φασι. Καταβιβάζουσι δὲ πολλάκις τὴν ψυχὴν εἰς τὸν κόσμον δι' αἰτίας πολλάς, ἢ διὰ πτερορρύησιν ἢ διὰ βούλησιν πατρικὴν εἰς τὸ κοσμῆσαι τὴν περίγειον λῆξιν. δοξάζουσι δὲ καὶ τὸν κόσμον ἀίδιον. λέγουσι δὲ καὶ τὸν ᾅδην πολλαχῶς, καὶ νῦν μὲν αὐτὸν θεὸν ὀνομάζουσιν ἀρχηγὸν τῆς περιγείου λήξεως, νῦν δὲ τὸν ὑπὸ σελήνην τόπον, νῦν δὲ τὴν μεσότητα τοῦ αἰθερίου κόσμου καὶ τοῦ ὑλαίου, νῦν δὲ τὴν ἄλογον ψυχήν, καὶ τιθέασιν ἐν αὐτῇ τὴν λογικήν, οὐκ οὐσιωδῶς, ἀλλὰ σχετικῶς, ὅταν συμπαθῶς ἔχῃ πρὸς αὐτήν. ἰδέας δὲ νομίζουσι νῦν μὲν τὰς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐννοίας, νῦν δὲ τοὺς καθόλου λόγους, νοητοὺς ψυχικοὺς καὶ φυσικούς, οὓς δίδωσι μὲν ὁ νοῦς τῇ ψυχῇ, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ τῇ φύσει. συμπαθεῖν δὲ τὰ ἄνω τοῖς κάτω φασὶ καὶ μάλιστα τὰ ὑπὸ σελήνην. ἀποκαθιστῶσι δὲ τὰς ψυχὰς κατὰ τὰ μέτρα τῶν οἰκείων καθάρσεων ἐν ὅλαις ταῖς τοῦ κόσμου μερίσι· τινὰς δὲ καὶ ὑπὲρ τὸν κόσμον ἀναβιβάζουσι. Τούτων δὲ τῶν δογμάτων τὰ πλείω καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Πλάτων ἐδέξαντο, οἱ δὲ περὶ Πλωτῖνον καὶ Ἰάμβλιχον Πορφύριόν τε καὶ Πρόκλον πᾶσι κατηκολούθησαν καὶ ὡς θείας φωνὰς ταῦτα ἐδέξαντο. Τοῦ αὐτοῦ περὶ θυτικῆσ Περὶ τῆς θυτικῆς ἐπιστήμης ἠξίωσας γράψαι σοι ἀφορμάς, ἐλλελειμμένης παντάπασι τῷ καθ' ἡμᾶς βίῳ καὶ μηδενὸς τοὺς λόγους αὐτῆς ἐπισταμένου. καὶ εἴη μὲν παντάπασι συγκεκαλυμμένη, καὶ καθαιρεθεῖεν 153 μὲν ἡμῖν οἱ βωμοί, καθαιρεθεῖεν δὲ καὶ [θυ]τήρια, καὶ κατασιγασθείη ὁπόσ[α] ἡ τῶν Ἑλλήνων δεινὴ ἐτέλει σοφ[ία.] ὃ γοῦν εἰκὸς εἰδέναι σοφὸν ἄνδρα μηδενὸς τῶν ἀρχαίων [ἀμελεῖν] λόγων ἐθέλοντα, τοιαύτη τίς ἐστιν, ὡς ἐν κεφαλαίῳ εἰπεῖν, ἡ ταύτης δύναμις. Εἰς πολλὰ περιέποντες Ἕλληνες τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ὄνομα, ἃς γὰρ ἡμεῖς φαμεν ἁγίας δυνάμεις ἑστηκυίας περὶ θεὸν καὶ ἃς τῆς θείας ἀποπεπτωκυίας τάξεως καὶ εἰς ἀντίπαλον μοῖραν ἀποκριθείσας, οὐρανόν τε καὶ ἀστέρας πλανωμένους καὶ ἀπλανεῖς, μέτοχα πάντα τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ προσηγορίας, οὕτως εἰπεῖν, ἐδογμάτιζον· εἶτα δὴ θύειν τοῖς οὕτω παρ' αὐτοῖς ὠνομασμένοις θεοῖς ἀξιοῦντες, τοῖς μὲν αἰθερίοις τὰ πυρρὰ ἢ λευκὰ τῶν ζῴων προσῆγον διά τε τὸ αἰθέριον χρῶμα καὶ τὴν καθαρότητα τῆς ἐκείνων φύσεως, τοῖς δέ γε ὑποχθονίοις ἐζωοθύτουν ἀντίχροια, ἀερίοις δὲ ποικίλα προσῆγον καὶ τοῖς χρώμασι σύμμικτα. Εἶτα δὴ καὶ τὸν τῆς θυσίας τρόπον παρήλλαττον ἐν τοῖς θύμασι, τοῖς μὲν ὑπερκοσμίοις ὑψοῦ τὸν ἔριφον ἢ τὸν κριὸν λαιμοτομοῦντες (οὕτω γοῦν καὶ Ὅμηρος θεοθυτοῦντας εἰσάγει τοὺς Ἕλληνας· «αὖ ἔρυσαν μὲν πρῶτα» φησί «καὶ ἔσφαξαν καὶ ἔδειραν»), τοῖς δὲ τὸν ὑπόγειον λαχοῦσι χῶρον κάτω τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ θύματος ἕλκοντες, οὕτω τοὺς αὐχενίους ἀπέκοπτον τένοντας· τοῖς δέ γε μέσοις πλαγιάζοντες τὰ θυόμενα ἀπεδειροτόμουν τὰς κεφαλάς· εἶτα δὴ τὰς γαστέρας αὐτῶν ἀνασχίζοντες, τὴν καρδίαν πρώτην κατέτεμνον, καὶ τὸν μὲν ὑμένα ταύτης θεοῖς [πα]τρίοις ἀπέθυον, τῶν δέ γε κοιλιῶν τὴν μὲν δεξιὰν ἀνατέλλοντι [τῷ] ἡλίῳ κατέθυον, τὴν δὲ εὐώνυμον