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The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

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xxiv INTRODUCTION.<br />

last place, a procession correspondent to the<br />

in.teZZectual order, and which can be no other<br />

than the mundane Gods. For the Demiurgus<br />

is chiefly characterized according to diversity,<br />

and is allotted the boundary <strong>of</strong> all universal<br />

hypostases.<br />

All these orders are unfolded by Plato in<br />

the conclusions which the second hypothesis<br />

<strong>of</strong> his Parmenides contains ; and this in a<br />

manner so perfectly agreeable to the Orphic<br />

and Chaldaic theology, that he who can read<br />

and understand the incomparable work <strong>of</strong><br />

Proclus on Plato's theology will discover how<br />

ignorantly the latter Platonists have been<br />

abused by the moderns, as fanatics and cor-<br />

rupters <strong>of</strong> the doctrine <strong>of</strong> Plato.<br />

According to the theology <strong>of</strong> <strong>Orpheus</strong> there-<br />

fore, all things originate froin an immense<br />

principle, to which through the imbecility<br />

and poverty <strong>of</strong> human conception we give a<br />

name, though it is perfectly ineffable, and in<br />

the reverential language <strong>of</strong> the Egyptians, is<br />

a thrice unknom darhess16, in the contempla-<br />

l6 "Of the first principle (says Damascius, in MS. rcppc<br />

ap~wv) the Egyptians said nothing, but celebrated it as a<br />

darkness bejoncl all intellectual conception, a thrice unknown<br />

darkness," apwrTv apXTv avvpvqtcacwv, mores vacp<br />

7a~av UO~C~LY, UKOTOS ayuw~rov, rpis TOUTO ~ui$rpt~ovres.

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