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is one and the same in the whole of things. Hence our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes. If, therefore, we participate of a portion of this God, adapted and commensurate to our powers, you do well to propose your theological doubts to the priests, as friends, and to make these doubts known to them. I also very properly conceiving that the epistle sent to my disciple Anebo was written to me, shall give you a true answer to your inquiries. For it would not be becoming, that Pythagoras and Plato, Democritus and Eudoxus, and many other of
προκειμενην του Ηορφυριου επιστολην, ο θεσπεσιος εστιν Ιαμβλιχος· και δια το της υποθεσεως οικειον και ακολουθον, υποκρινεται προσωπον Αιγυπτιου τινος Αβαμωνος· αλλα και το της λεξεως κομματικον και αφοριστικον, και το των εννοιων πραγματικον, και γλαφυρον, και ενθουν, μαρτυρει του Ηροκλου καλως και κριναντα, και ιστορησαντα. i. e. "It is requisite to know that the philosopher Proclus, in his Commentary on the Enneads of the great Plotinus, says that it is the divine Iamblichus who answers the prefixed Epistle of Porphyry, and who assumes the person of a certain Egyptian of the name of Abammon, through the affinity and congruity of the hypothesis. And, indeed, the conciseness and definiteness of the diction, and the efficacious, elegant, and divine nature of the conceptions, testify that the decision of Proclus is just." That this, indeed, was the opinion of Proclus, is evident from a passage in his Commentaries on the Timæus of Plato, which has escaped the notice of Gale, and which the reader will find in a note on the fourth chapter of the eighth section of the following translation.
