Julian

“ But perhaps it is better to cite a proof from the remote past. The beginning of the cycle of the year is placed at different times by different peoples. Some place it at the spring equinox, others at the height of summer, and many in the late autumn; but they each and all sing the praises of the most visible gifts of Helios. One nation celebrates the season best adapted for work in the fields, when the earth bursts into bloom and exults, when all the crops are just beginning to sprout, and the sea begins to be safe for sailing, and the disagreeable, gloomy winter puts on a more cheerful aspect ”

“ For she [101] is very near to Helios, and when she pursues the same course as he and approaches him, she fills the skies with fair weather and gives generative power to the earth: for she herself takes thought for the continuous birth of living things. And though of that continuous birth King Helios is the primary creative cause, yet Aphrodite is the joint cause with him, she who enchants our souls with her charm and sends down to earth from the upper air rays of light most sweet and stainless, aye, more lustrous than gold itself. ”

“ I said then that Helios holds sway among the intellectual gods in that he unites into one, about his own undivided substance, a great multitude of the gods: and further, I demonstrated that among the gods whom we can perceive, who revolve eternally in their most blessed path, he is leader and lord; since he bestows on their nature its generative power, and fills the whole heavens not only with visible rays of light but with countless other blessings that are invisible ”

“ For it cannot be that a god's substance is one thing, and his power another, and his activity, by Zeus, a third thing besides these. For all that he wills he is, and can do, and puts into action. For he does not will what is not, nor does he lack power to do what he wills, nor does he desire to put into action what he cannot. In the case of a human being, however, this is otherwise. For his is a two-fold contending nature of soul and body compounded into one, the former divine, the latter dark and clouded. ”

“ Moreover to mankind Athene gives the blessings of wisdom and intelligence and the creative arts. And surely she dwells in the capitols of cities because, through her wisdom, she has established the community of the state. I have still to say a few words about Aphrodite, who, as the wise men among the Phoenicians affirm, and as I believe, assists Helios in his creative function. She is, in very truth, a synthesis of the heavenly gods, and in their harmony she is the spirit of love and unity. ”

“ But if I must also describe these things one by one, in order that we may discern with our intelligence how his intermediary nature, in its various forms, is related both to the highest and the lowest, even though it is not easy to recount it all, yet let me try to say what can be said.
Wholly one is the intelligible world, pre-existent from all time, and it combines all things together in the One. Again is not our whole world also one complete living organism, wholly throughout the whole of it full of soul and intelligence, "perfect, with all its parts perfect"? ”

“ Now the Good is, I suppose, the cause for the intelligible gods of beauty, existence, perfection, and oneness, connecting these and illuminating them with a power that works for good. These accordingly Helios bestows on the intellectual gods also, since he has been appointed by the Good to rule and govern them, even though they came forth and came into being together with him, and this was, I suppose, in order that the cause which resembles the Good may guide the intellectual gods to blessings for them all, and may regulate all things according to pure reason. ”

“ For the distribution of his rays over the whole universe, and the unifying power of his light, prove him to be the master workman who gives an individual existence to everything that is created.
Now though there are many more blessings connected with the substance of the god and apparent to us, which show that he is midway between the intelligible and the mundane gods [59] let us proceed to his last visible province. His first province then in the last of the worlds is, as though by way of a pattern, to give form and personality to the sun's angels. ”

“ Why should I go on to speak to you of Horus [94] and of the other names of gods, which all belong to Helios? [149] For from his works men have learned to know this god, who makes the whole heavens perfect through the gift of intellectual blessings, and gives it a share of intelligible beauty; and taking the heavens as their starting-point, they have learned to know him both as a whole and his parts also, from his abundant bestowal of good gifts. For he exercises control over all movement, even to the lowest plane of the universe. ”

“ Next is his province of generating the world of sense-perception, of which the more honourable part contains the cause of the heavens and the heavenly bodies, while the inferior part guides this our world of becoming, and from eternity contains in itself the uncreated cause of that world. Now to describe all the properties of the substance of this god, even though the god himself should grant one to comprehend them, is impossible, seeing that even to grasp them all with the mind is, in my opinion, beyond our power. ”

“ For just as through his light he gives sight to our eyes, so also among the intelligible gods through his intellectual counterpart — which he causes to shine far more brightly than his rays in our upper air — he bestows, as I believe, on all the intellectual gods the faculty of thought and of being comprehended by thought. ”

“ Again, to take another point of view, the creator of the whole is one, but many are the creative gods [55] who revolve in the heavens. Midmost therefore of these also we must place the creative activity which descends into the world from Helios. But also the power of generating life is abundant and overflowing in the intelligible world; and our world also appears to be full of generative life. It is therefore evident that the life-generating power of King Helios also is midway between both the worlds: and the phenomena of our world also bear witness to this. ”

“ Ever does his gift of blessings descend evenly upon the earth. For now one country now another receives them, to the end that becoming may not cease nor the god ever benefit less or more than is his custom this changeful world. For sameness, as of being so also of activity, exists among the gods, and above all the others in the case of the King of the All, Helios ”

“ And we call this same god Hades Serapis also, namely the Unseen [36] and Intellectual, to whom Plato [37] says the souls of those who have lived most righteously and justly mount upwards. For let no one conceive of him as the god whom the legends teach us to shudder at, but as the mild and placable, since he completely frees our souls from generation: and the souls that he has thus freed he does not nail to other bodies, [38] punishing them and exacting penalties, but he carries aloft and lifts up our souls to the intelligible world. ”

“ For when Homer says that "Ox-eyed Hera, the queen, sent unwearied Helios to go, all unwilling, to the streams of Oceanus," [45] he means that, by reason of a heavy mist, it was thought to be night before the proper time. And this mist is surely the goddess herself, and in another place also in the poem he says, "Hera spread before them a thick mist." [46] But let us leave the stories of the poets alone. For along with what is inspired they contain much also that is merely human. And let me now relate what the god himself seems to teach us, both about himself and the other gods. ”

“ For Plato himself says somewhere [111] that our race was by nature doomed to toil, and so the gods pitied us and gave us Dionysus and the Muses as playfellows. And we recognised that Helios is their common lord, since he is celebrated as the father of Dionysus and the leader of the Muses. And has not Apollo, who is his colleague in empire, set up oracles in every part of the earth, and given to men inspired wisdom, and regulated their cities by means of religious and political ordinances? ”

“ But there would be no limit to the account if one should endeavour to describe all his gifts of this sort. For there is no single blessing in our lives which we do not receive as a gift from this god, either perfect from him alone, or, through the other gods, perfected by him.
Moreover he is the founder of our city. [113] For not only does Zeus, who is glorified as the father of all things, inhabit its citadel [114] together with Athene and Aphrodite, but Apollo also dwells on the Palatine Hill, and Helios himself under this name of his which is commonly known to all and familiar to all. ”

“ The region of the earth contains being in a state of becoming. Then who endows it with imperishability? Is it not he [47] who keeps all together by means of definite limits? For that the nature of being should be unlimited was not possible, since it is neither uncreated nor self-subsistent. And if from being something were generated absolutely without ceasing and nothing were resolved back into it, the substance of things generated would fail. ”

“ For surely everyone knows how terrible is night without a moon or stars, so that from this he can calculate how great a boon for us is the light of the sun? And this very light he supplies at night, without ceasing, and directly, from the moon in those upper spaces where it is needed, while he grants us through the night a truce from toil. ”

“ For since we said that the god is established midmost among the midmost intellectual gods, may King Helios himself grant to us to tell what is the nature of that middleness among things of which we must regard him as the middle. ”

“ But since the multitude of his powers and the beauty of his activities is so great that we shall now exceed the limit of what we observed about his substance, — for it is natural that when divine things come forth into the region of the visible they should be multiplied, in virtue of the superabundance of life and life-generating power in them, — consider what I have to do. ”

“ But the omnipotent Zeus of Greek mythology is now a creative force which works with Helios and has no separate existence. Tradition had made Athene the child of Zeus, but Julian regards her as the manifestation of the intelligent forethought of Helios. Dionysus is the vehicle of his fairest thoughts, and Aphrodite a principle that emanates from him. He contrives that all the more important gods of Greece, Egypt and Persia shall play their parts as manifestations of Helios. The lesser gods are mediating demons as well as forces. ”

“ For the priests of the mysteries tell us what they have been taught by the gods or mighty daemons, whereas the astronomers make plausible hypotheses from the harmony that they observe in the visible spheres. It is proper, no doubt, to approve the astronomers as well, but where any man thinks it better to believe the priests of the mysteries, him I admire and revere, both in jest and earnest. ”

“ Accordingly this god, moving in due measure, raises up and stimulates this substance when he approaches it, and when he departs to a distance he diminishes and destroys it; or rather he himself continually revivifies it by giving it movement and flooding it with life. ”

“ Nevertheless from the other intellectual gods also, forces clearly discernible descend to this world. And now what does this mean? Are we not excluding the others when we assert that the leadership has been assigned to Helios? Nay, far rather do I think it right from the visible to have faith about the invisible. [49] For even as this god is seen to complete and to adapt to himself and to the universe the powers that are bestowed on the earth from the other gods for all things, after the same fashion we must believe that among the invisible gods also there is intercourse with one another ”

“ And indeed molten gold in the rough is simply gold, and not yet a statue or an image, until the craftsman give it its proper shape. So too all the objects of sight, unless they are brought under the eyes of the beholder together with light, are altogether deprived of visibility. ”

“ But no such object could one find, however carefully one might search for it. For the theory that some have supposed to be held by the theogonists, that the two hemispheres of the universe are meant, has no meaning. For how one could call each one of the hemispheres "alternate of days" is not easy to imagine, since the increase of their light in each separate day is imperceptible. ”

“ Some say then, even though all men are not ready to believe it, that the sun travels in the starless heavens far above the region of the fixed stars. And on this theory he will not be stationed midmost among the planets but midway between the three worlds: that is, according to the hypothesis of the mysteries, if indeed one ought to use the word "hypothesis" and not rather say "established truths," using the word "hypothesis" for the study of the heavenly bodies. ”

“ But since eyes, as the saying goes, are more trustworthy than hearing — although they are of course less trustworthy and weaker than the intelligence — come, let me endeavour to tell also of his visible creative function ”

“ Again, does he not set . in motion the whole of nature and kindle life therein, by bestowing on it generative power from on high? But for the divided natures also, is not he the cause that they journey to their appointed end? [107] For Aristotle says that man is begotten by man and the sun together. [108] Accordingly the same theory about King Helios must surely apply to all the other activities of the divided souls. ”