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ever, does not ordain laws for a man of this kind; for he is superior to all law;[1] but it promulgates a law such as that of which we are now speaking, to those who are in want of a certain divine legislation.[2] It says, therefore, that as the world has one coarrangement from many orders, thus also it is necessary that the consummation of sacrifices, being never failing and entire, should be conjoined to the whole order of more excellent natures. If, however, the world is multiform, and all-perfect, and is united from many orders, it is also necessary that sacred operations should imitate its omniform variety through the whole of the powers which they employ. Hence, in a similar manner, since the things which surround us are all-various, it is not fit that we should be connected with the divine causes
- ↑ Plotinus was a man of this description, to whom, most probably, Iamblichus alludes in what he now says.
- ↑ In the original θυμου τινος: but it is doubtless requisite to read with Gale, θεσμου τινος. This I have translated a certain divine legislation, because we are informed by Proclus, in Platon. Theol. lib. iv. p. 206, "that θεσμος is connected with deity, and pertains more to intelligibles; but that νομος, which unfolds intellectual distribution, is adapted to the intellectual fathers." Ο γαρ θεσμος συμπλεκεται τῳ θεῳ, και προσηκει μαλλον τοις νοητοις· ο δε νομος την νοεραν εμφαινων διανομην, οικειος εστι τοις νοεροις πατρασι.
