(But perhaps it is worth while to raise the following question also. There are two equinoxes, but men pay more honour to the equinox in the sign of Capricorn than to that in the sign of Cancer.(862) Surely the reason for this is evident. Since the sun begins to approach us immediately after the spring equinox,—for I need not say that then the days begin to lengthen,—this seemed the more agreeable season. For apart from the explanation which says that light accompanies the gods, we must believe that the uplifting rays(863) of the sun are nearly akin to those who yearn to be set free from generation. Consider it clearly: the sun, by his vivifying and marvellous heat, draws up all things from the earth and calls them forth and makes them grow; and he separates, I think, all corporeal things to the utmost degree of tenuity, and makes things weigh light that naturally have a tendency to sink. We ought then to make these visible things proofs of his unseen powers. For if among corporeal things he can bring this about through his material heat, how should he not draw and lead upwards the souls of the blessed by the agency of the invisible, wholly immaterial, divine and pure substance which resides in his rays? We have seen then that this light is nearly akin to the god, and to those who yearn to mount upwards, and moreover, that this light increases in our world, so that when Helios begins to enter the sign of Capricorn the day becomes longer than the night. It has also been demonstrated that the god’s rays are by nature uplifting; and this is due to his energy, both visible and invisible, by which very many souls have been lifted up out of the region of the senses, because they were guided by that sense which is clearest of all and most nearly like the sun. For when with our eyes we perceive the sun’s light, not only is it welcome and useful for our lives, but also, as the divine Plato said when he sang its praises, it is our guide to wisdom. And if I should also touch on the secret teaching of the Mysteries in which the Chaldean,(864) divinely frenzied, celebrated the God of the Seven Rays, that god through whom he lifts up the souls of men, I should be saying what is unintelligible, yea wholly unintelligible to the common herd, but familiar to the happy theurgists.(865) And so I will for the present be silent on that subject.)