69 



nity had predicted. ' And perhaps/ said lie, ' I shall be a 

 spectator of what will follow.' He likewise then learnt some 

 particulars about Osiris, which would shortly happen, and 

 others which would take place at some greater distance of 

 time, viz. when the boy Horus would choose, as his associate 

 in battle, a wolf instead of a lion. But who the wolf is, 

 is a sacred narration, which it is not holy to divulge, even 

 in the form of a fable." 



Typhos, however, through his tyranny, was at length 

 dethroned, and Osiris recalled from exile ; and Synesius, 

 towards the end of this treatise, observes, " that the blessed 

 body which revolves in a circle is the cause of the events in 

 the sublunary world. For both are parts of the universe, 

 and they have a certain relation to each other. If, there- 

 fore, the cause of generation * in the things which surround 

 us originates in the natures which are above us, it follows 

 that the seeds of things which happen here descend from 

 thence. And if some one should add, since astronomy im- 

 parts credibility to this, that there are apocatastatic-^ periods 

 of the stars and spheres, some of which are simple, but 

 others compounded ; such a one will partly accord with the 

 Egyptians, and partly with the Grecians, and will be per- 

 fectly wise from both, conjoining intellect to science. A 

 man of this kind therefore will not deny, that, in conse- 

 quence of the same motions returning, effects also will re- 

 turn, together with their causes; and that lives on the 

 earth, generations, educations, dispositions, and fortunes, will 

 be the same with those that formerly existed. We must 

 not wonder, therefore, if we behold a very ancient history 



* Instead of ti ^n yivtvif tv rais Tti^t hp-us, ctinot, ytvurtus iv rots 

 vxt fiftag, it is necessary to read, conformably to the above transla- 

 tion, ti ovi yivtffiuf iv <rots rti^t fifta;, KITIX 'yivtrai, , T> A. 



f i, e. restitutions to a pristine form or condition. 



