In abyesum quendam
mysteriorum venerandae antiquitatis descendere videbar, quotiescunque
silente mundo, solis vigilantibus astris et luna, [Greek:
melanaephutous] istos hymnos ad manus sumsi.']
[Footnote B: '_Love, the sire of Fate_.'--L. 25. Fate is the
universal system of natural causes; the work of the Omnipotent Mind,
or of Love: so Minucius Felix:--'Quid enim aliud est fatum, quam
quod de unoquoque nostrum deus fatus est.' So also Cicero, in the
First Book on Divination:--'Fatum autem id appello, quod Graeci
EIMAPMENIIN: id est, ordinem seriemque causarum, cum causa causae nexa
rem ex se gignat--ex quo intelligitur, ut fatum sit non id quod
superstitiose, sed id quod physice dicitur causa asterna rerum.' To
the same purpose is the doctrine of Hierocles, in that excellent
fragment concerning Providence and Destiny. As to the three Fates,
or Destinies of the poets, they represented that part of the general
system of natural causes which relates to man, and to other mortal
beings: for so we are told in the hymn addressed to them among the
Orphic Indigitamenta, where they are called the daughters of Night
(or Love), and, contrary to the vulgar notion, are distinguished by
the epithets of gentle and tender-hearted.
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