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and the same prophet also delivered the name of God, which pervades through the whole world.[1]But there are, likewise, many other coarrangements of the same things; so that you do not appear to me to act rightly in referring all things with the Egyptians to physical causes. For there are, according to them, many principles and many essences; and also supermundane powers, which they worship through sacerdotal sanctimony. To me, therefore these things appear to afford common auxiliaries to the solution of all the remaining
- ↑ Proclus, in MS. Comment, in Alcibiad. cites one of the Chaldean oracles, which says,
πορθμιον ουνομα το δ’ εν απειροις
Κοσμοις ενθρωσκον.i. e. "There is a transmitting name which leaps into the infinite worlds." And in his MS. Scholia in Cratyl. he quotes another of these oracles, viz.
Αλλα εστιν ουνομα σεμνον ακοιμητῳ στροφαλιγγι,
Κοσμοις ενθρωσκον, κραιπνην δια πατρος ενιπην.i. e. "There is a venerable name with a sleepless revolution, leaping into the worlds through the rapid reproofs of the father."
greatest city is Saïs, from which also King Amasis derived his origin. The city has a presiding divinity, whose name is, in the Egyptian tongue, Neith, but in the Greek Athena, or Minerva." It is singular that Gale, who is not deficient in philology, though but a smatterer in philosophy, should have omitted to remark in his notes this passage of Plato.
