nk those Epistles through which we may be
able to arrive at the science about divine natures. For in these, mention
is made of the three kings; and many other divine dogmas worthy the
Platonic theory are delivered. It is necessary therefore, regarding
these, to explore in them each order of the gods.

Thus from the Philebus, we may receive the science respecting the one
good, and the two first principles of things (bound and infinity) together
with the triad subsisting from these. For you will find all these
distinctly delivered to us by Plato in that dialogue. But from the Timaeus
you may obtain the theory about intelligibles, a divine narration about the
demiurgic monad, and the most full truth about the mundane gods. From the
Phaedrus you may learn all the intelligible and intellectual genera, and
the liberated orders of the gods, which are proximately established above
the celestial circulations. From the Politicus you may obtain the theory of
the fabrication in the heavens, of the periods of the universe, and of the
intellectual causes of those periods. But from the Sophista you may learn
the whole sublunary generation, and the idiom of the gods who are allotted
the sublunary region, and preside over its generations and corruptions. And
with respect to each of the gods, we may obtain many sacred conceptions
from the Banquet, many from the Cratylus, and many from the Phaedo. For in
each of these dialogues more or less mention is made of divine names, from
which it is easy for those who are exorcised in divine concerns to discover
by a reasoning process the idioms of each.

"It is necessary, however, to evince that each of the dogmas accords with
Platonic principles and the mystic traditions of theologists. For all the
Grecian theology is the progeny of the mystic doctrine of Orpheus;
Pythagoras first of all learning from Aglaophemus the origins of the
gods, but Plato in the second place receiving an all-perfect science of
the divinities from the Pythagoric and Orphic writings. For in the
Philebus, referring the theory about the two forms of principles (bound
and infinity) to the Pythagoreans, he calls them men dwelling with the
gods, and truly blessed. Philolaus, therefore, the Pythagorean, has left
for us in writing admirable conceptions about these principles,
celebrating their common progression into beings, and their separate
fabrication. Again, in the Timaeus, endeavouring to teach us about the
sublunary gods a