[Greek: ]principles of good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman, emanate from this ineffable Cause, are content to designate it under the name of Eternity.[1] The Egyptians, so celebrated for their wisdom, the extent of their learning, and the multitude of their divine symbols, honoured with silence the God, principle and source of all things[2]; they never spoke of it, regarding it as inaccessible to all the researches of man; and Orpheus, their disciple, first author of the brilliant mythology of the Greeks, Orpheus, who seemed to announce the soul of the World as creator of this same God from which it emanated, said plainly:
"I never see this Being surrounded with a cloud."[3]
Moses, as I have said, was the first who made a public
dogma of the unity of God, and who divulged what, up to
that time had been buried in the seclusion of the sanctuaries;
for the principal tenets of the mysteries, those upon which
reposed all others, were the Unity of God and the homogeneity
of Nature.[4] It is true that Moses, in making this disclosure,
permitted no definition, no reflection, either upon the
essence or upon the nature of this unique Being; this is
very remarkable. Before him, in all the known world, and
after him (save in Judea where more than one cloud still
darkened the idea of divine Unity, until the establishment
of Christianity), the Divinity was considered by the theosophists
of all nations, under two relations: primarily as
unique, secondarily as infinite; as unique, preserved under
the seal of silence to the contemplation and meditation of
the sages; as infinite, delivered to the veneration and invocation
of the people. Now the unity of God resides in His
essence so that the vulgar can never in any way eitherVoyez Dacier, dans ses Remarques sur les Comment. d'Hiérocl.]
- ↑ Eulma Esclam. Note du Boun-Dehesh, p. 344.
- ↑ Porphyr., De Antr. Nymph., p. 126.
- ↑ [Greek: Auton d'ek horaô peri gar nephos esêriktai.
- ↑ Vitâ Pythagor.; Phot., Cod., 259; Macrob., Somn. Scip., l. i., c. 6, l. ii., c. 12; August., De Civit. Dei, l. iv., c. 9 et 11; Euseb., Præp. Evang., l. iii., c. 9; Lactant., De Fals. Relig., l. i., c. 6 et 7; Plot., Ennead., iii., l. ii.
