The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

176 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
into light again embosoms and firmly establishes them in
himself. For the demiurgus of the universe, though he is a
divine intellect, yet he orderly arranges sensibles, and pro-
vides for subordinate natures. But the mighty Saturn is
essentialized in separate intellections, and which transcend
wholes. " For the fire which is beyond the first (says the
Chaldean Oracle) does not incline its power downwards."
13ut the demiurgus is suspended and proceeds from Saturn,
being himself an intellect subsisting about an immaterial
intellect, energizing about it as the intelligible, and pro-
ducing that which is occult in it, into ths apparent. For
the maker of the world is an intellect of intellect. And it
appears to me, that as Saturn is the summit of those Gods
that are properly called intellectual, he is intellect, as with
reference to the intelligible genus of Gods. For all the
intellectual adhere to the intelligible genus of Gods, and
are conjoined with them through intellections. " Ye who
understand the supermundane paternal profundity," says
the hymn to them. But Saturn is intelligible, with refer-
ence to all the intellectual Gods. Purity, therefore, indi-
cates this impartible and imparticipable transcendency of
Saturn. For the not corning into contact with matter, the
impartible, and an exemption from habitude, are signified
by purity. Such, indeed, is the transcendency of this God
with respect to all coordination with things subordinate,
and such his undefiled union with the intelligible, that he
does not require a Curetic guard, like Rhea, Jupiter, and
Proserpine. For all these, through their progressions into
secondary natures, require the immutable defence of the
Curetes. But Saturn being firmly established in himself,
and hastily withdrawing himself from all subordinate na-
tures, is established above the guardianship of the Curetes.
He contains, however, the cause of these uniformly in him-
self. For this purity, and the undefiled which he possesses,
give subsistence to all the progressions of the Curetes.
Hence, in the Oracles, he is said to comprehend the first
fountain of the Amilicti, and to ride on all the others.
" The intellect of the father riding on attenuated rulers,