Note 101 — ON ABSTINENCE FROM ANIMAL FOOD. BOOK THE FOURTH.

The first subsistence of Maia, who, according to the Orphic theology, is the same with the Goddess Night, is at the summit of the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual order, and is wholly absorbed in the intelligible. As we are also informed by Proclus (in Cratylum), “She is the paradigm of Ceres. For immortal Night is the nurse of the Gods [according to Orpheus]. Night, however, is the cause of aliment intelligibly: for the intelligible is, as the Chaldean Oracle says, the aliment of the intellectual orders of Gods. But Ceres, first of all, separates the two kinds of aliment [nectar and ambrosia] in the Gods.” He adds, “Hence our sovereign mistress [δεσποινα], Ceres, not only generates life, but that which gives perfection to life; and this from supernal natures, to such as are last. For virtue is the perfection of souls.”