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of the Gods; those of archangels approximate in a greater degree to divine causes; but those of archons, if these powers appear to you to be the cosmocrators,[1] who govern the sublunary element, will be more various, but adorned in order; but if they are the powers that preside over matter, they will indeed be more various, and more imperfect, than those of the archons [properly so called]; and those of souls will appear to be all-various. And the phasmata, indeed, of the Gods will be seen shining with salutary light; those of archangels will be terrible, and at the same time mild; those of angels will be more mild; those of dæmons will be dreadful; those of heroes (which you have omitted in your inquiry, but to which we shall give an answer for the sake of truth) are milder than those of dæmons; but those of archons, if their dominion pertains to the world, produce astonishment, but if they are material, they are noxious and painful to the spectators; and those of souls are similar to the heroic phasmata, except that they are inferior to them.
Again, therefore, the phasmata of the Gods are entirely immutable, according to magnitude,
- ↑ The cosmocrators, or governors of the world, are the planets. See the fourth book of my translation of Proclus on the Timæus of Plato.
