The mystical hymns of Orpheus / Translated from the Greek, and demonstrated to be the invocations which were used in the Eleusinian mysteries, by Thomas Taylor.
- Date:
- 1824
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The mystical hymns of Orpheus / Translated from the Greek, and demonstrated to be the invocations which were used in the Eleusinian mysteries, by Thomas Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.
20/278
![in their inelfable principle (as Proclus in Parmenid. beautifully observes), like the roots of trees in the earth; so that they are all as much as possible superessential, just as trees are eminently of an earthly nature, without at the same time being earth itself. For the nature of the earth, as being a whole, and therefore having a perpetual subsistence, is superior to the partial natures which it produces. The intelligible triad therefore, from existing wholly according to the super- essential, possesses an inconceivable profun¬ dity of union both with itself and its cause; and hence it appears to the eye of intellect as one simple indivisible splendour, beaming from an unknown and inaccessible fire. The Orphic theology, however, concerning the intelligible Gods, or the highest order of divinities, is, as we are informed by Damas- cius4, as follows: “ Time [as we have already observed] is symbolically said to be the one principle of the universe; but ether and chaos5 are celebrated as the two principles imme¬ diately posterior to this one. And being, 4 Yid. Wolfiii Anecdot. Grasc. tom. iii. p. 252. 5 These two principles are called by Plato, in the Phile- bus, bound and infinity.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29340548_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
