[9]i. e. It must not be admitted, that Apollo was actually connected with Pythaïs; for this would be absurd in the extreme; but the assertion of Epimenides, Eudoxus, and Xenocrates must be considered as one of those mythological narrations in which heroes are said to have Gods for their fathers, or Goddesses for their mothers, and the true meaning of it is as follows: According to the ancient theology, between those perpetual attendants of a divine nature called _essential_ heroes, who are impassive and pure, and the bulk of human souls who descend to earth with passivity and impurity, it is necessary there should be an order of human souls who descend with impassivity and purity. For as there is no vacuum either in incorporeal or corporeal natures, it is necessary that the last link of a superior order, should coalesce with the summit of one proximately inferior. These souls were called by the ancients, _terrestrial_ heroes, on account of their high degree of proximity and alliance to such as are essentially heroes. Hercules, Theseus, Pythagoras, Plato, &c. were souls of this kind, who descended into mortality both to benefit other souls, and in compliance with that necessity by which all natures inferior to the perpetual attendants of the Gods are at times obliged to descend.
But as, according to the arcana of ancient theology, every God beginning from on high produces his proper series as far as to the last of things, and this series comprehends many essences different from each other, such as Dæmoniacal, Heroical, Nymphical, and the like; the lowest powers of these orders, have a great communion and physical sympathy with the human race, and contribute to the perfection of all their natural operations, and particularly to their procreations. “Hence” (says Proclus in MSS. Schol. in Crat.) “it often appears, that _heroes_ are generated from the mixture of these powers with mankind; for those that possess a certain prerogative above human nature, are properly denominated _heroes_.” He adds: “Not only a dæmoniacal genus of this kind sympathizes physically with men, but other kinds sympathize with other natures, as Nymphs with trees, others with fountains, and others with stags or serpents.”