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
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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.

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    celebrated. For after the fountain of a river the place where it begins to flow is surveyed. But those divinities who are peculiarly denominated total intellectual Gods, of whom the great Saturn is the father, are properly called fontal. For “ from him leap forth the implacable thunders,” says the Oracle concerning Saturn. But concerning the vivific fountain Rhea, from which all life, divine, intellectual, psychical, and mundane is generated, the Chaldean Oracles thus speak, Pari tol poeputv panapop TTpyr] re pot] re. IIcivtojv yap 7rpojrri dvva/iug koXttoktip atpoacroig At%apLEvt], yevepv £7rt 7rav 7rpo%ea rpoxaovaav. i. e. u Rhea23 is the fountain and river of the blessed intel¬ lectual Gods. For first receiving the powers of all things in her ineffable bosoms, she pours running generation into every thing.” For this divinity gives subsistence to the infinite diffusion of all life, and to all never failing powers. She likewise moves all things according to the measures of divine mo¬ tions, and converts them to herself; establishing all things in herself, as being coordinate to Saturn. Rhea, therefore, is so called from causing a perpetual influx of good, and through being the cause of divine facility, since the life of the gods is attended with ease (9eoi ptia Zatpreg). Ocean is the cause to all the Gods of acute and vigorous energy, and bounds the separations of the first, middle, and last orders ; converting himself to himself, and to his proper principles, through swiftness of intellect, but moving all things from himself, to energies accommodated to their natures ; perfecting their powers, and causing them to have a never failing subsistence. But Tethys imparts perma¬ nency to the natures which are moved by Ocean, and 23 Gesner, misled by Patricius, has inserted these lines among the Orphic fragments, in his edition of the works of Orpheus.