G? 



it will be in the same sign, and in the same part of the 

 heavens, as it was at that time ; all the stars likewise re- 

 turning to the same place." Macrob. in Somn. Scip. lib. ii. 



Hence, as the greater mundane apocatastasis consists of 

 300,000 years, and 15,000 years make a mundane year, the 

 greater apocatastasis will consist of 20,000 mundane years. 



This greater apocatastasis is also alluded to by Synesius 

 in his treatise On Providence, and likewise in the Asclepian 

 Dialogue ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. The extract 

 from Synesius, who informs us that his treatise is an Egyp- 

 tian narration relative to Osiris and Typhos, is as follows : 



" Some time after this, Typhos obtained the kingdom by 

 fraud and force, and Osiris was banished : but during the 

 evils arising from the tyrannical government of Typhos, 

 some God manifestly appeared to a certain philosopher who 

 was a stranger in Egypt, and who had received great bene- 

 fits from Osiris, and ordered him to endure the present cala- 

 mities, because they were months only, and not years, in which 

 the Fates had destined that the Egyptian sceptres should 

 raise the nails of the wild beasts *, and depress the heads of 

 the sacred birds f. But this is an arcane symbol. And the 

 philosophic stranger above mentioned knew that a represen- 

 tation of this was engraved in obelisks and in the sacred 

 recesses of the temples. The divinity also unfolded to him 

 the meaning of the sacred sculpture, and gave him a sign of 

 the time in which it would be verified. For when those, said 

 he, who are now in power, shall endeavour to make an innova- 

 tion in our religion, then in a short time after expect that the 



* i. e. material daemons, or Snps %6<nos, the wild beasts of the 

 earth, as they are called in the Chaldean oracles. 



f i. e. the whole choir of beneficent natures superior to man. But 

 by the depression of the heads of the sacred birds, the inaptitude of 

 persons and places to receive divine influence is denoted. 

 F 2 



