Page:Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians (IA b24884170).pdf/272

 or a certain member, as the heart of a cock; or other things of the like kind which are surveyed about nature, if they are considered as the causes of the efficacy in sacrifices. For from these things the Gods are not demonstrated to be supernatural causes; nor, as such, to be excited by sacrifices. But they are considered as physical causes detained by matter, and as physically involved in bodies, and coexcited and becoming quiescent together with them, these things also existing about nature. If, therefore, any thing of this kind takes place in sacrifices, it follows as a concause, and as having the relation of that without which a thing is not effected; and thus it is suspended from precedaneous causes.

is better, therefore, to assign as the cause of the efficacy of sacrifices friendship and familiarity, and a habitude which binds fabricators to the things fabricated, and generators to the