Page:Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (IA b24884170).pdf/187

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dæmons, who presiding over the elements of the universe, partial bodies, and every thing contained in the world, conduct with facility the phænomena, conformably to the will of the Gods. But these signs symbolically premanifest the decrees of divinity and of futurity, as Heraclitus says, "neither speaking nor concealing, but signifying;"[1] because they express the mode of fabrication through premanifestation. As, therefore, the Gods generate all things through forms[2], in a similar manner they signify all things through signs, impressed as it were by a seal (δια συνθηματων). Perhaps, likewise, they render by this mean our intelligence more acute. And thus much has been said by us in common concerning the whole of this kind of human art.




CHAP. XVI.

Descending, however, to particulars, the soul of animals, the dæmon who presides over them, the air, the motion of the air, and the circulation of the heavens, variously change the vis-

  1. These words of Heraclitus are also quoted by Plutarch in his treatise De Defectu Oraculorum.
  2. For εικονων here, I read ειδων.