Come O' King of the noeric fire, Golden Titan. Come O' benefactor of light, who holds the key to the source, You preserve life, governing the material worlds from above with complete and absolute harmony. Come, You who holds the cardinal abode of the sky, and the central radiant circle of the World. You have filled everything with your providence; stimulating the mind. Most excellent of the Gods, Flame-crowned, You are the image of the God who created everything, You elevate the souls. Hear me and cleanse me, remove the stains which infect my soul. Keep me far from punishment, soothing the sharp gaze of justice which sees everything. To my body grant resilience and health. And drive away that which is sent against us from the ever changing weaves of the Moirae, spun beneath the swirling stars. O' Great King, illuminate our minds and grant unimpaired light to our souls.
Commentarius · Commentary
A modern prayer from the service book of the LABRYS community, for the Sunday solar rite (Heliodites).
The provenance is modern: it has no ancient original and never had one. But its model can be identified precisely, and that is worth saying. It is built on Proclus' Hymn to Helios — that is, on fifth-century Neoplatonism, not on Homer and not on the Orphics. Hence "king of the noeric fire", "image of the god who created everything", "you elevate the souls".
Hence too a request unusual for a solar cult. Not for harvest and not for daylight, but: "cleanse me, remove the stains which infect my soul … and drive away that which is sent against us from the ever-changing weaves of the Moirai". The sun here is the visible image of the intelligible, and what is asked of it is the ascent of the soul.
So this is not a pastiche of antiquity but the continuation of a quite definite late tradition. In this corpus it is a rare case of a modern text standing on an identifiable foundation.
