Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/567

 Chapter lxiii. What things may be called holy, what consecrated, and how these become so betwixt us and the Dieties; and of sacred times. Now those things are called sacred, which are made holy by the gods themselves, or their Demons, being (as I may say) dedicated to us by the gods themselves. By this account we call Demons holy, because in them God dwells, whose name they are often said to hear. Whence it is read in Exodus: I will send my Angel who shall go before thee; observe him, neither think that he is to be despised, because my name is in him. So also mysteries are called sacred. For a mystery is that which hath a holy and an occult vertue, and favour given by the gods or Demons, or dispensed by the most high God himself; such as are those sacred names and Characters, which have been spoken of. So the crosse is called holy and mysterious, being made so by the passion of Jesus Christ. Hence also certain prayers are called holy, and mysticall, which are not instituted by the devotion of man, but by divine Revelation, as we read in the Gospel that Christ instituted the Lords prayer. In like manner certain confections are called holy, into which God hath put the especiall beam of his vertue, as we read in Exodus of the sweet perfume, and oil of anointing, and as with us there is a sacred fountain, and a sacred ointment; There is also another kind of holiness, whereby we call those things holy which are dedicated and consecrated by man to God, as vows, and sacrifices, of which we have spoken already: Whence Virgil,

"But Cesar with a tripple triumph brought Into the City Rome, as most devout, Did dedicate unto the Italian gods An immortall vow -"