INTRODUCTION.

which is intelligible: but that he produces Earth¹¹ the first from thence, as a certain principle of the whole procession of the Gods. Unless perhaps Chaos is the second of the two principles: but Earth¹², Tartarus, and Love form the triple intelligible. So that Love is to be placed for the third monad of

¹¹ Note: The source text includes a technical note regarding a typographical error in the Greek text.

¹² As the whole of the Grecian theology is the progeny of the mystic traditions of Orpheus, it is evident that the Gods which Hesiod celebrates by the epithets of Earth, Heaven, etc., cannot be the visible Heaven and Earth: for Plato in the Cratylus, following the Orphic doctrine concerning the Gods, as we have evinced in our notes on that dialogue, plainly shows, in explaining the name of Jupiter, that this divinity is the artificer of the sensible universe; and consequently Saturn, Heaven, Earth, etc., are much superior to the mundane deities. Indeed if this be not admitted, the Theogony of Hesiod must be perfectly absurd and inexplicable. For why does he call Jupiter, agreeably to Homer, (pater andron te theon te), “father of gods and men”? Shall we say that he means literally that Jupiter is the father of all the Gods? But this is impossible; for he delivers the generation of Gods who are the parents of Jupiter. He can therefore only mean that Jupiter is the parent of all the mundane deities: and his Theogony, when considered according to this exposition, will be found to be beautifully consistent and sublime; whereas, according to modern interpretations, the whole is a mere chaos, more wild than the delirious visions of Swedenborg, and more unconnected than any of the impious effusions of methodistical rant.