The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

72 THE MYSTICAL HYMNS
Sprung from the head of Jove, of splendid mien,
Purger of evils, all-victorious queen.
essential separations supernally originate from that division
of first operating causes [i. e. from bound and infinity],
which is perfectly arcane ; and subsisting according to those
principles which are expanded above wholes, they dissent
from each other ; some being suspended from the unifying
monad bound, and about this determining their subsistence,
but others receiving in themselves a never failing power
from that in$nity which is generative of wholes, and is a
cause productive of multitude and progression, and about
this establishing their proper essence. Just, therefore, as
the first principles of things are separated from each other,
all the divine genera and true beings are divided from each
other, according to an orderly progression. Hence some of
them are the leaders of union to secondary natures, but
others impart the power of separation ; some are the cause4
of conve?.sion, ' convolving the multitude of progressions to
their proper principles ; but others bound the progressions,
and the subordinate gene~a~tion from the principles. Again,
some supply a generative abundance to inferior natures, but
others impart an immutable and undeJiled purity; some bind
to themselves the cause of separate good, but others of the
good which is consubsistent with the beings that receive it.
And thus in all the orders of being is such a contrariety of
genera diversified. Hence permanency, which establishes
things in themselves, is opposed to eficacious powers, and
which are full of life and motion. Hence, too, the kindred
communion of sameness receives a division according to
species opposite to the separations of diference; but the
genus of similitde is allotted an order contrary to dissimGitude;
and that of equality to inequality, according to the
same ana,logy. Is it, therefore, any longer wonderful, if
the authors of fables, perceiving such contrariety in the
Gods themselves and the first of beings, obscurely signified
this to their pupils through battles ? the divine genera, in-