Hieratic Art Περί της ιερατικής τέχνης ( Perí tes hieratikés téknes )

(148.3) “Just as the dialecticians of love rise from sensible beauties until they encounter the very unique principle of all beauty and all intelligibility, so do the initiators of the holy mysteries (1), starting from the sympathy which unites all visible things among themselves and with invisible powers, and understanding that everything is in everything, they founded this hieratic science, not without being amazed to see in the first terms of the chains the terms the smallest and in these the very first, in heaven earthly things in their cause and in a celestial mode, here below celestial things in a mode proper to earth. Where does it come from that the heliotrope moves in accordance with the Sun, the selenotrope with the Moon, both following, to the extent of their strength, the luminaries of the world? For all beings pray according to the rank they occupy, they sing of the leaders who preside over their entire series, each praising in its own way, spiritual, rational, physical or sensitive: thus the heliotrope moves as much as it is easy for it to move, and if we could hear how it strikes the air while it turns on its stem, we would realize from this noise that it offers a sort of hymn to the King, such as that a plant can sing it.

We can therefore here below, in an earthly mode, see suns and moons, we can in heaven, in a celestial mode, see all the plants, stones and beasts, living a spiritual life. It is because they understood this that the Sages of old, relating one thing here below to one celestial being, another to that other, brought the divine powers to our mortal place and that they attracted them by resemblance, because resemblance is powerful enough to attach beings to one another...

(149.12) The lotus also manifests its affinity with the Sun: its flower is closed before the appearance of the solar rays, it opens gently when the Sun begins to rise, and as the star rises to the zenith, it unfolds, then folds again as it descends towards the sunset. Now what difference is there between the human way of singing to the Sun, by opening or closing the mouth and lips, and that of the lotus, which unfolds and folds its petals? Because these are his lips, this is his natural song.

But why talk about plants, where some trace of generative life still remains? Don't we see the stones themselves breathing in correspondence with the scents of the stars? Thus the helite , with its gold-colored rays, imitates the rays of the Sun; the stone which we call "eye of Bel" and whose appearance resembles the pupils of the eyes emits a brilliant light from the center of its pupil, which leads us to say that it should be called "eye of the Sun"; selenite changes shape and movement in accordance with the changes of the Moon, and helioselene is like an image of the meeting of the two luminaries , resembling the meetings and separations that take place in the sky.

Everything is therefore full of gods, the earth is full of celestial gods, the sky of supracelestial gods; each series proceeds, increasing in number, until its final terms. Indeed, what existed in unity before all things is manifested in all members of the series. Hence the organizations of souls, some dependent on one god, others on another. Hence again, for example, the large number of heliacal animals, such as the lion and the rooster, which also participate in the divine according to the rank they occupy. What is admirable is how, among these animals, the least endowed in strength and size make themselves feared by those who prevail on these two points: because the lion, it is said, retreats before the rooster (2). The reason is not to be found in the data of the senses, but in an intellectual consideration, that is to say a difference which goes back to the causes themselves. It is that, in truth, the presence in the rooster of the heliacal symbols (3)is more effective. He shows this well by his awareness of the circuit of the Sun: because he sings a hymn at the rising of the star and when the star turns towards the other centers (4)…

(150.19) In a word, certain beings only move in accordance with the circuit of the star, like the plants of which we have spoken; others imitate the shape of the rays like the palm tree; others the igneous essence, like laurel (5); and others something else. So that, these properties concentrated in the Sun, we can see them divided between the participating beings, angels, demons, souls, animals, plants, stones. From there, the masters of the hieratic art discovered, from what they had before their eyes, the means of honoring the powers on high, mixing certain elements, removing others as appropriate. If they mix, it is because they have observed that each of the separate elements does possess some property of the god, but nevertheless is not enough to evoke him: also, by mixing a large number of diverse elements, they unify the aforementioned effluvia, and, from this sum of elements, compose a single body resembling that whole which precedes the dispersion of the terms. This is how they often make, through these mixtures, images and aromatics, kneading into the same body the previously divided symbols and artificially producing and producing everything that the divinity understands in itself by essence, by uniting the multiplicity powers which, separated, each lose the point of its force, and which on the contrary, mixed, combine to reproduce the form of the model.

It happens that a single herb or a single stone is enough for the operation: thus, for a theophany, the kneôron (6); for a phylactery, laurel, thorny buckthorn, squill, coral, diamond, jasper; for prognosis, the mole's heart; for purifications, sulfur and sea water.

So, by means of sympathy, they attracted (7)to them certain divine powers and they repulsed others by means of antipathy, for example by purifications of sulfur and bitumen or sprinklings of sea water: for sulfur purifies by the pungency of the odor , water because it participates in igneous power. Furthermore, in initiations and other ceremonies of divine worship, they chose animals and other suitable substances. From these and other similar objects, they became acquainted with “demonic” powers including (8)the essences are in continuity with the force scattered in nature and in bodies, and, by this means, they attracted the demons to enter into commerce with them. Then, demons, they became emboldened to the point of operating on the gods, instructed by the gods themselves or moved of their own accord to the happy discovery of appropriate symbols. And so finally, leaving nature and natural forces to the earth, they made use of the divine powers which operate at the head of the chain” (9).

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Notes by André-Jean Festugière

1. oï ιερατικοί , 148.5. This translation is justified by Procl., in remp. , II, 154.5 ff. Kroll: ά μή πρότερον φάσματα καί ποιοϋσι θεωρούς, οΰτω καίή έν τφ κόσμφ (sc. κή) πρό τής παρ' ήμΐν εις ποΛΛάς τούτο δρά ψυχάς τάς αξίας τής τοιαΰτης μα καριστής θέας (πρό γάρ τών μερών το όλον) καί τελεστικαίς χρήται δυνάμεσι καί εις αγγελική ν ανάγει τάξιν τάς τελουμένας τών ψυχών .

2. The legend of the lion who fears the rooster is very widespread and often repeated, cf. Orth in PW, sv Huhn (VIII, 2532. 66, 2536. 36 ff.). The meaning here seems to be that the rooster acquires, by the greater presence in him of solar influx, a superiority over the lion which has less.

3. ή των ηλιακών συμβόλων εις τόν άλεκτρυόνα παρουσία 150.9-10. Or, taking παρουσία in a sense specific to astrology (cf. κέντρα , 1.12): “the present situation of the Sun at such a point of the zodiac (cf. Vett. Val., p. 49. 26. Kroll) has more effective on the rooster. But in this case τών ηλιακών συμβόλων would make a bizarre pleonasm. Mr. Cumont would like to point out to me that we read in Glykas (p. 90 of the Byzantine of Bonn) a passage on the rooster and the sun analogous to the text of Proclus.

4. τα κέντρα in astronomy = the cardinal points of the ecliptic.

5. Laurel has an igneous essence because it is used to light fire, cf. Dar.-Saglio, sv Igniaria , and especially Cumont, The Stele of the Dancer of Antibes and its vegetal decoration (Paris, 1942), pp. 13-17.

6. Kind of laurel.

7. The elders? or the masters of hieratic art? It is notable in any case that Proclus speaks of these inventions as things past, long known: in fact, the doctrine of sympathy can go back to Posidonius and its application to therapy took shape between the 1st century BC and the 2nd s. after our era.

8. ών scripsi: ώς cod. (151.16). The correction seems to have already been made, implicitly, by Father Brémond (lc, p. 106) who writes: “the demonic powers whose essence is in continuity. »

9. ταίς πρωτουργαΐς καί θείαις έχρήσαντο δυνάμεσι (151. 22-23). I gave πρωτουργαΐς its original meaning. This is perhaps putting too much emphasis on a word which, no doubt, must have already been used: in this case, simply translating “primary and divine powers”.