The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy
The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy
The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy
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ADDITIONAL NOTES. 173<br />
fore who looks without attention to the name <strong>of</strong> Saturn<br />
will consider it as signifying insolence. For to him who<br />
suddenly hears it, it manifests satiety and repletion. Why<br />
therefore, since a name <strong>of</strong> this kind is expressive <strong>of</strong> inso-<br />
lence, do we not pass it over in silence, as not being<br />
auspicious and adapted to the Gods? May we not say that<br />
the royal series l4 <strong>of</strong> the Gods, beginning with Phanes and<br />
ending in Bacchus, and producing the same sceptre super-<br />
nally as far as to the last kingdom, Saturn being allotted<br />
the fourth royal order, appears according to the fabulous<br />
pretext, differently from the other kings, to have received<br />
the sceptre insolently from Heaven, and to have given it to<br />
Jupiter ? For Night receives the sceptre from Phanes ;<br />
14 This royal series consists <strong>of</strong> Phanes, Night, Heaven, Saturn, Jupiter,<br />
Bacchus. "Ancient theologists (says Syrianus, in his Commentary on<br />
the fourteenth book <strong>of</strong> Aristotle's Metaphysics) assert that Night and<br />
Heaven reigned, and prior to these the mighty father <strong>of</strong> Night and<br />
Heaven, who distributed the world to Gods and mortals, and who first<br />
possessed royal authority, the illustrious Ericapeus.<br />
Night succeeded Ericapeus, in the hands <strong>of</strong> whom she has a sceptre :<br />
To Night Heaven succeeded, who first reigned over the Gods after mother<br />
Night.<br />
Chaos transcends the habitude <strong>of</strong> sovereign dominion : and, with respect<br />
to Jupiter, the oracles given to him by Night manifestly call him not the<br />
first, but the fifth immortal king <strong>of</strong> the Gods.<br />
According to these theologists therefore, that principle which is most<br />
emiuently the first, is the one or the good, after which, according to<br />
Pythagoras, are those two principles Bther and Chaos, which are supe-<br />
rior to the possession <strong>of</strong> sovereign dominion. In the next place succeed<br />
the first and occult genera <strong>of</strong> the Gods, in which first shines forth the<br />
father and king <strong>of</strong> all wholes, and whom on this account they call<br />
Phanes."