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Since, therefore, these differ so greatly, I shall not use any other indications, in order to distinguish them, than those which are adduced by you. For when you say, "some standing on characters," you seem to signify nothing else than the cause of all the evils pertaining to these things. For there are some who, neglecting the whole business of the telesiurgic theory, both concerning the invoking [priest] and the inspector (εποπτης), and also despising the order of religion, and the most holy endurance of labours for a long time, and rejecting the sacred laws and ordinances, and other religious ceremonies, think that the standing on characters is alone sufficient, and that by doing
a divine nature; the same mode, as it appears to me, takes place in the speculation of wholes." That mitred sophist, Warburton, as I have elsewhere called him, from not understanding the former part of this latter extract from Proclus, ridiculously translates the words πολυειδεσι και πολυμορφοις των θεων προβεβλημενοις γενεσιν, "multiform shapes and species, that prefigure the first generation of the Gods." See his Divine Legation of Moses, book ii. p. 152, 8vo. a work replete with distorted conceptions and inaccurate translations. And yet, as great a sophist as Warburton was, and notwithstanding the work I have just mentioned abounds with false opinions, and such as are of the most pernicious kind, yet he is compelled by truth to acknowledge, in book ii. p. 172, "that the wisest and best men in the Pagan world are unanimous in this, that the mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest end by the worthiest means." But this by the way.
