DORETA PEPPA

SOME ETERNAL PRINCIPLES

OF THE ANCIENT HELLENIC RELIGION

“Every God is Good, he is not the object of any passion, he is immutable` and this because every mutable entity can become better or worse` but if it becomes worse, then it reaches evil, and if it becomes better, this means that it was evil in the first place.” (Salustius, “About the Gods and the World”)

“There is no way the Whole to be divine and its parts not to be divine.” (Celsus, “True word against the Christians”)

“God is everything and can do everything. Everything is full of him and only him worths to be studied and to be honored, because of his blissfulness.” (Ιamblichus, “About Mysteries and theurgy*1”)

“Every prediction or every act of the eternal works is the Gods’ work and it is not done because of any necessity, neither because of any human causes, but because of some causes known only to the Gods.” (Ιamblichus, “About Mysteries and theurgy”)

“Τhe Gods’ essences had not been created, because everything existing eternally cannot ever be born.” (Salustius, “About the Gods and the World”)

“Gods are not formed in bodies, because the bodies’ powers have no body.” (Salustius, “About the Gods and the World”)

“Gods give to everybody these goods which have their provenance from the perceptible world,  but they provide the mental truths only to the wises.” (Salustius, “About the Gods and the World”)

“Which God gives something and demands to get something else back? Every demand shows that there is a need, but God has not any need.” (Celsus, “True word against the Christians”)

“The divine work is never spontaneous (because everything spontaneous has not a real cause and of course, it comes from a disorder’s situation). Also, every divine work does not result from any human cause.” (Ιamblichus, “About Mysteries and theurgy”)

“The Gods’ mills are grinding very slowly and the result of this grinding will be obvious to our children’s children, which will be born later, much more later into the future.” (Celsus’ oracle about our time, from his work “True word against the Christians”)

1 Theurgy: the knowledge of the practice of worshipping