Page:Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (IA b24884170).pdf/14

vii which also may be added, as the colophon of excellence, that it is the most copious, the clearest, and the most satisfactory defence extant of genuine ancient theology.

This theology, the sacred operations pertaining to which called theurgy are here developed, has for the most part, since the destruction of it, been surveyed only in its corruptions among barbarous nations, or during the decline and fall of the Roman empire, with which, overwhelmed with pollution, it gradually fell, and at length totally vanished from what is called the polished part of the globe. This will be evident to the intelligent reader from the following remarks, which are an epitome of what has been elsewhere more largely discussed by me on this subject, and which also demonstrate the religion of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Greeks to be no less scientific than sublime.

In the first place, this theology celebrates the immense principle of things as something superior even to being itself; as exempt from the whole of things, of which it is nevertheless ineffably the source; and