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no means the case. For the exhalation which ascends after a divine manner from animals that are sacrificed, as it is comprehended by, and does not comprehend, the Gods, and as it is also connected with the universe, but does not conjoin wholes and the Gods to itself, is in consequence of this coadapted to superior beings and to total causes, but does not restrain them and coadapt them to itself.
Nor is that which so greatly disturbs you, and for which you so strenuously contend, attended with any difficulty, I mean abstinence from animals,[1] if it is rightly understood. For those who worship the Gods do not abstain from animals, lest the Gods should be defiled by the vapours arising from them. For what exhalation from bodies can approach those who, before any thing material can come into contact with their power, intangibly amputate matter? Nor is it the power of the Gods only that abolishes all bodies, and causes them to vanish,
- ↑ Iamblichus here alludes to the excellent treatise of Porphyry, περι της των εμψυχων αποχης, On Abstinence from Animal Food, from which work the English reader will find several admirable extracts in one of the Introductory Dissertations prefixed to my translation of Proclus on Euclid.
