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things, in sacred operations, performed to them as passive? Invocations,—likewise, are made to the Gods as passive; so that not dæmons only are passive, but the Gods also, conformably to what Homer says,
"And flexible are e'en the Gods themselves."[1]
But if we assert with certain persons, that the Gods are pure intellects, but that dæmons, being psychical, participate of intellect; in a still greater degree will pure intellects be incapable of being allured, and will be unmingled with sensible natures. Supplications, however, are foreign to the purity of intellect, and therefore are not to be made to it. But the things which are offered [in sacred rites] are offered as to sensitive and psychical essences.
Are, therefore, the Gods separated from dæmons, through the former being incorporeal, but the latter corporeal? If, however, the Gods are incorporeal alone, how will the sun and moon, and the visible celestials, be Gods?
How, likewise, are some of the Gods beneficent, but others malefic?
What is it that connects the Gods in the heavens that have bodies, with the incorporeal Gods?
- ↑ Iliad, lib. x. v. 493.
