The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus - Platonic Philosophy

184 ADDITIONAL NOTES.
Homerg0 does not ascend beyond the Saturnian order,
but evincing that Saturn is the proximate cause of the
demiurgus, he calls Jupiter, who i~ the demiurgus, the son
of Saturn. He also calls the divinities coordinate with him
Juno, Neptune, and Mars ; and he denominates Jupiter the
father of men and Gods. But he does not introduce Saturn
as either energizing or saying anything but as truly ayKu-
Xo~qns, in consequence of being converted to himself.
Orpheus greatly availed himself of the license of fables,
and manifests every thing prior to Heaven by names, as far
as to the first cause. He also denominates the ineffable,
who transcends the intelligible unities, Time ; whether because
Time presubsists as the cause of all generation, or
because, as delivering the generation of true beings, he
thus denominates the ineffable, that he may indicate the
order of true beings, and the transcendency of the more
total to the more partial ; that a subsistence according to
Time may be the same with a subsistence according to
cause ; in the same manner as generation with an arranged
progression. But Hesiod venerates many of the divine
natures in silence, and does not in short name the first.
For that what is posterior to the first proceeds from something
else, is evident from the verse,
" Chaos of all things was the first produced."
For it is perfectly impossible that it could be produced
without s cause ; but he does not say what that is which
gave subsistence to Chaos. He is silent indeed with respect
to both the fathers21 of intelligibles, the exempt, and the
coordinate ; for they are perfectly ineffable. And with
20 Homer, however, appears to have ascended as far as to the Goddess
Night, or the summit of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual
order.
21 That is to say, the &-st cause, and bound which is called by Orpheus
cether.