sdi: Oil painting of the Heliconian Muse whispering inspiration to Hesiod. (Default)
sdi ([personal profile] sdi) wrote 2024-05-29 05:29 pm (UTC)

Lydus also summarizes the general Platonic teachings about dæmons in his discussion of the month of February:

"For the sublunar race of dæmons​ is divided into three parts, according to Iamblichus [cf. On the Mysteries II v]: The earthly part of it is punitive, the aerial part is purificatory, and the one near the orbit of the moon is salvific; we also know of this one as "heroic." It is said that this whole race is led by a certain very great dæmon—and this would pretty clearly be Pluto, as Iamblichus likewise says. [...] The Egyptian Hermes, in what is called his "Perfect Discourse"​ [e.g. the Asclepius] says that the punitive dæmons, being present in matter, exact vengeance from humanity in accordance with our deserts. The purificatory dæmons, being fixed in the air, purify the souls which are attempting after death to ascend, around the hail-filled and fiery zones of the air—which the poets (and Plato himself in the Phædo [cf. 112–4]) call Tartarus and Pyriphlegethon.​ And the salvific dæmons, being arrayed near the moon's region, save souls."

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