as many as seven hundred verses. Besides this, he went to other philosophers, and spent the evening in conversation with them. And all these employments he executed in such a manner as not to neglect his nocturnal and vigilant piety to the Gods, and assiduously supplicating the sun when rising, when at his meridian altitude, and when he sets.”
Marinus farther observes of this most extraordinary man, “that he did not seem to be without divine inspiration. For words similar to the most white and thick-falling snow[1] proceeded from his wise mouth, his eyes appeared to be filled with a fulgid splendor, and the rest of his face to participate of divine illumination. Hence Rufinus, a man illustrious in the Republic, and who was also a man of veracity, and in other respects venerable, happening to be present with him when he was lecturing, perceived that his head was surrounded with a light. And when Proclus had finished his lecture, Rufinus rising, adored him, and testified by an oath the truth of the divine vision which he had seen.”
Marinus also informs us, “that Proclus being purified in an orderly manner by the Chaldean purifications, was an inspector of the lucid Hecatic visions, as he himself somewhere mentions in one of his writings. By opportunely moving likewise a certain Hecatic sphærula,[2] he procured showers of rain, and freed Athens from an unseasonable heat. Besides this, by certain phylacteria or charms, he stopt an earthquake, and had made trial of the divining energy of the tripod, having been instructed by certain verses respecting its failure. For when he was in his fortieth year, he appeared in a dream to utter the following verses:
High above æther there with radiance bright,
A pure immortal splendor wings its flight;[3]
Whose beams divine with vivid force aspire,
And leap resounding from a fount of fire.
- ↑ Alluding to the beautiful description given of Ulysses in the third book of the Iliad, v. 22. which is thus elegantly paraphrased by Pope.
But when he speaks what elocution flows!
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows
The copious accents fall with easy art;
Melting they fall and sink into the heart. - ↑ Nicephorus in his commentary on Synesius de Insomniis, p. 362. informs us that the Hecatic orb is a golden sphere, which has a sapphire stone inclosed in its middle part, and through its whole extremity characters, and various figures. He adds, that turning this sphere round, the Chaldeans perform invocations which they call Iyngæ. Thus too, according to Suidas, the magician Julian of Chaldæa, and Arnuphis the Egyptian brought down showers of rain, by a magical power. And by an artifice of this kind, Empedocles was accustomed to restrain the fury of the winds; on which account he was called αλεξανεμος, an expeller of wind.
- ↑ This signifies that the divine splendor which is the cause of the prophetic energy, would leave the earth, in consequence of the then existing inaptitude of persons, places, and instruments, to receive it.
