Chapter
VI.—Simon’s System Expounded in the Work, Great
Announcement; Follows Empedocles.
Now, to express myself briefly, inasmuch as the
fire is of this description, according to Simon, and since all things
are visible and invisible, (and) in like manner resonant and not
resonant, numerable and not subjects of numeration; he denominates in
the
Great Announcement
a perfect intelligible (entity), after
such a mode, that each of those things which, existing indefinitely,
may be infinitely comprehended, both speaks, and understands, and acts
in such a manner as Empedocles
621
speaks of:—
“For earth, indeed, by earth we see, and water by
water,
And air divine by air, and fire fierce by fire,
And love by love, and also strife by gloomy
strife.”
621
Emped.,
ed. Karst. v. 324.