IN ORDER TO SUPPLY THE DEFICIENCY OF ANOTHER BOOK ON THIS SUBJECT,
WHICH WAS WRITTEN BY PROCLUS, BUT SINCE LOST.
ALSO, A TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK OF
PROCLUS’ ELEMENTS OF THEOLOGY.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED
A TRANSLATION OF THE TREATISE OF PROCLUS,
On Providence and Fate;
A TRANSLATION OF EXTRACTS FROM HIS TREATISE, ENTITLED,
TEN DOUBTS CONCERNING PROVIDENCE;
AND
A TRANSLATION OF EXTRACTS FROM HIS TREATISE
ON THE SUBSISTENCE OF EVIL;
As preserved in the Bibliotheca Gr. of Fabricius.
BY THOMAS TAYLOR.
Αλλ’ εστιν, εστι, χαν τις εγγελᾳ λογῳ,
Zευς, χαι θεοι, βροτεια λευσσοντες παθη.
Euripides.
There are, there are, though laugh the scoffer may,
Jove and the Gods, who mortal ills survey.
ωσπερ εισι θεοι πολλοι, χαι χυριοι πολλοι.
Corinth. I. Cap. 8. v. 5.
As there be Gods many, and Lords many.
TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, By A. J. Valpy, Tooke’s Court, Chancery Lane.
AND SOLD BY MESSRS. LAW AND Co.; LONGMAN AND Co.; BALDWIN AND Co.;
AND ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS.
1816.
To
WILLIAM MEREDITH, ESQUIRE,
WHO WITH A FIRMNESS AND MUNIFICENCE,
UNPARALLELED IN MODERN TIMES,
HAS PATRONIZED
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE,
AND ITS ENGLISH PROMULGATOR;
AS AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF NO COMMON ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,
AND A TRIBUTE OF THE WARMEST GRATITUDE FOR HIS PATRONAGE,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED
BY THE TRANSLATOR,
THOMAS TAYLOR.
INTRODUCTION.
I rejoice in the opportunity which is afforded me of presenting the
truly philosophic reader, in the present work, with a treasure
of Grecian theology; of a theology, which was first mystically
and symbolically promulgated by Orpheus, afterwards disseminated
enigmatically through images by Pythagoras, and in the last place
scientifically unfolded by Plato and his genuine disciples. The
peculiarity indeed, of this theology is, that it is no less scientific
than sublime; and that by a geometrical series of reasoning originating
from the most self-evident truths, it developes all the deified
progressions from the ineffable principle of things, and accurately
exhibits to our view all the links of that golden chain of which deity
is the one extreme, and body the other.
That also which is most admirable and laudable in this theology is,
that it produces in the mind properly prepared for its reception the
most pure, holy, venerable, and exalted conceptions of the great cause
of all. For it celebrates this immense principle as something superior
even to being itself; as exempt from the whole of things, of which it
is nevertheless ineffably the source, and does not therefore think
fit to connumerate it with any triad, or order of beings. Indeed, it
even apologises for attempting to give an appropriate name to this
principle, which is in reality ineffable, and ascribes the attempt
to the imbecility of human nature, which striving intently to behold
it, gives the appellation of the most simple of its conceptions to
that which is beyond all knowledge and all conception. Hence it
denominates it the one, and the good; by the former
of these names indicating its transcendent simplicity, and by the
latter its subsistence as the object of desire to all beings. For all
things desire good. At the same time however, it asserts that these
appellations are in reality nothing more than the parturitions of the
soul which standing as it were in the vestibules of the adytum of
deity, announce nothing pertaining to the ineffable, but only indicate
her spontaneous tendencies towards it, and belong rather to the
immediate offspring of the first God, than to the first itself.
Hence, as the result of this most venerable conception of the supreme,
when it ventures not only to denominate the ineffable, but also to
assert something of its relation to other things, it considers this as
pre-eminently its peculiarity, that it is the principle of principles;
it being necessary that the characteristic property of principle, after
the same manner as other things, should not begin from multitude,
but should be collected into one monad as a summit, and which is
the principle of all principles. Conformably to this, Proclus, in
the second book of this work[1] says, with matchless magnificence
of diction: “Let us as it were celebrate the first God, not as
establishing the earth and the heavens, nor as giving subsistence to
souls, and the generation of all animals; for he produced these indeed,
but among the last of things; but prior to these, let us celebrate
him as unfolding into light the whole intelligible and intellectual
genus of Gods, together with all the supermundane and mundane
divinities——as the God of all Gods, the unity of all unities, and
beyond the first adyta,[2]—as more ineffable than all silence, and
more unknown than all essence,—as holy among the holies, and concealed
in the intelligible Gods.”
The scientific reasoning from which this dogma is deduced is the
following: As the principle of all things is the one, it is
necessary that the progression of beings should be continued, and
that no vacuum should intervene either in incorporeal or corporeal
natures. It is also necessary that every thing which has a natural
progression should proceed through similitude. In consequence of
this, it is likewise necessary that every producing principle should
generate a number of the same order with itself, viz. nature,
a natural number; soul, one that is psychical (i.e. belonging
to soul); and intellect, an intellectual number. For if
whatever possesses a power of generating, generates similars prior to
dissimilars, every cause must deliver its own form and characteristic
peculiarity to its progeny; and before it generates that which gives
subsistence to progressions far distant and separate from its nature,
it must constitute things proximate to itself according to essence, and
conjoined with it through similitude. It is therefore necessary from
these premises, since there is one unity the principle of the universe,
that this unity should produce from itself, prior to every thing else,
a multitude of natures characterized by unity, and a number the most of
all things allied to its cause; and these natures are no other than the
Gods.
According to this theology therefore, from the immense principle
of principles, in which all things causally subsist, absorbed
in superessential light, and involved in unfathomable depths, a
beauteous progeny of principles proceed, all largely partaking of
the ineffable, all stamped with the occult characters of deity, all
possessing an overflowing fulness of good. From these dazzling summits,
these ineffable blossoms, these divine propagations, being, life,
intellect, soul, nature, and body depend; monads suspended
from unities, deified natures proceeding from deities. Each of
these monads too, is the leader of a series which extends from itself
to the last of things, and which while it proceeds from, at the same
time abides in, and returns to its leader. And all these principles
and all their progeny are finally centered and rooted by their summits
in the first great all-comprehending one. Thus all beings proceed
from, and are comprehended in the first being; all intellects emanate
from one first intellect; all souls from one first soul; all natures
blossom from one first nature; and all bodies proceed from the vital
and luminous body of the world. And lastly, all these great monads
are comprehended in the first one, from which both they and all their
depending series are unfolded into light. Hence this first one is truly
the unity of unities, the monad of monads, the principle of principles,
the God of Gods, one and all things, and yet one prior to all.
No objections of any weight, no arguments but such as are sophistical,
can be urged against this most sublime theory which is so congenial
to the unperverted conceptions of the human mind, that it can only be
treated with ridicule and contempt in degraded, barren, and barbarous
ages. Ignorance and priestcraft, however, have hitherto conspired to
defame those inestimable works,[3] in which this and many other grand
and important dogmas can alone be found; and the theology of the Greeks
has been attacked with all the insane fury of ecclesiastical zeal, and
all the imbecil flashes of mistaken wit, by men whose conceptions on
the subject, like those of a man between sleeping and waking, have been
turbid and wild, phantastic and confused, preposterous
and vain.
Indeed, that after the great incomprehensible cause of all, a divine
multitude subsists, co-operating with this cause in the production and
government of the universe, has always been, and is still admitted by
all nations, and all religions, however much they may differ in their
opinions respecting the nature of the subordinate deities, and the
veneration which is to be paid to them by man; and however barbarous
the conceptions of some nations on this subject may be when compared
with those of others. Hence, says the elegant Maximus Tyrius, “You
will see one according law and assertion in all the earth, that there
is one God, the king and father of all things, and many Gods, sons of
God, ruling together with him. This the Greek says, and the Barbarian
says, the inhabitant of the Continent, and he who dwells near the
sea, the wise and the unwise. And if you proceed as far as to the
utmost shores of the ocean, there also there are Gods, rising very
near to some, and setting very near to others.”[4] This dogma, too,
is so far from being opposed by either the Old or New Testament, that
it is admitted by both, though it forbids the religious veneration of
the inferior deities, and enjoins the worship of one God alone, whose
portion is Jacob, and Israel the line of his inheritance. The following
testimonies will, I doubt not, convince the liberal reader of the truth
of this assertion.
In the first place it appears from the 32d chapter of Deuteronomy, v.
8. in the Septuagint version, that “the division of the nations
was made according to the number of the angels of God,” and not
according to the number of the children of Israel, as the present
Hebrew text asserts. This reading was adopted by the most celebrated
fathers of the Christian church, such as, among the Greeks, Origen,
Basil, and Chrysostom, and among the Latins, Jerom and Gregory. That
this too, is the genuine reading, is evident from the 4th chapter of
the same book and the 19th verse, in which it is said, “And lest thou
lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the
moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be
driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath
divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” Here it is said
that the stars are divided to all the nations, which is equivalent
to saying that the nations were divided according to the number of
the stars; the Jewish legislator at the same time, considering his
own nation as an exception, and as being under the government of the
God of Israel alone. For in the following verse it is added, “But the
Lord hath taken you (i.e. the Jews), and brought you forth out of
the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people
of inheritance, as ye are to this day.” By the angels of God
therefore (in Deuteron. 32. v. 8.) the stars are signified; and these
in the same book (chapter 17. v. 3.) are expressly called Gods; “And
hath gone and served other Gods, and worshipped them, either the sun
or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded.”
In the 3d chapter also, and the 24th verse, it is implied in the
question which is there asked, that the God of the Jews is superior
to all the celestial and terrestrial Gods: “For what God is there
in heaven, or in earth, that can do according to thy works,
and according to thy might?” As the attention of the Jews was solely
confined to the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they
but little regarded the powers whom they conceived to be subordinate to
this God, and considering all of them as merely the messengers of their
God, they gave them the general appellation of angels; though as
we shall shortly prove from the testimony of the Apostle Paul, they
were not consistent in confounding angels properly so called
with Gods.
But that the stars are not called Gods by the Jewish legislator as
things inanimate like statues fashioned of wood or stone, is evident
from what is said in the book of Job, and the Psalms: “Behold even the
moon and it shineth not, yea the stars are not pure in his sight. How
much less man that is a worm, and the son of man which is a worm?”
(Job. xxv. v. 5. and 6.) And, “When I consider thy heavens, the work
of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what
is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou
visitest him.” (Psalm viii. v. 3. and 4.) It is evident therefore from
these passages, that the heavens and the stars are more excellent than
man; but nothing inanimate can be more excellent than that which is
animated. To which may be added, that in the following verse David
says, that God has made man a little lower than the angels. But the
stars, as we have shown, were considered by Moses as angels and Gods;
and consequently, they are animated beings, and superior to man.
Farther still, in the Septuagint version of verse the 4th of the 19th
Psalm, God is said to have placed his tabernacle in the sun, (εν
τῳ ηλιῳ εθετο το σκηνωμα αυτου) which is doubtless the genuine reading,
and not that of the vulgar translation, “In them (i.e. the heavens)
hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.” For this is saying nothing
more of the sun than what may be said of any of the other stars, and
produces in us no exalted conception of the artificer of the universe.
But to say that God dwells in the sun, gives us a magnificent idea both
of that glorious luminary, and the deity who dwells enshrined, as it
were, in dazzling splendor. To which we may add in confirmation of this
version of the Septuagint, that in Psalm xi. v. 4. it is said, “The
Lord’s throne is in heaven.” And again in Isaiah lxvi. v.
1. “Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my
footstool.” If therefore the heavens are the throne, and the sun the
tabernacle of deity, they must evidently be deified. For nothing can
come into immediate contact with divinity without being divine. Hence,
says Simplicius,[5] “That it is connascent with the human soul to think
the celestial bodies are divine, is especially evident from those, (the
Jews) who look to these bodies through preconceptions about divine
natures. For they also say that the heavens are the habitation of God,
and the throne of God, and are alone sufficient to reveal the glory and
excellence of God to those who are worthy; than which assertions what
can be more venerable?”
Indeed, that the heavens are not the inanimate throne and residence
of deity, is also evident from the assertion in the 19th Psalm, “That
the heavens declare the glory of God.” For R. Moses, a very
learned Jew, says,[6] “that the word saphar, to declare
or set forth, is never attributed to things inanimate.” Hence
he concludes, “that the heavens are not without some soul, which, says
he, is no other than that of those blessed intelligences, who govern
the stars, and dispose them into such letters as God has ordained;
declaring unto us men by means of this writing, what events we are to
expect. And hence, this same writing is called by all the ancients
chetab hamelachim, that is to say, the writing of the
angels.”
The Gods therefore, which were distributed to all the nations but the
Jews, were the sun and moon, and the other celestial bodies, yet not so
far as they are bodies, but so far as they are animated beings. Hence
the Hebrew prophets never reprobate and prohibit the worship of the
stars as things which neither see, nor hear, nor understand, as they
do the worship of statues. Thus in Deuteron. iv. and 28. “And there
ye shall serve Gods the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which
neither see nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.” And the Psalmist, “They have
a mouth but speak not, &c.” These, and many other things of the like
kind are said by the prophets of the Jews against the worship of images
and statues, but never of the sun and moon, and the other stars. But
when they blame the worship of the heavenly bodies, they assign as the
cause that the people of Israel are not attributed to them as other
nations are, in consequence of being the inheritance of the God that
brought them out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage.
This is evident from the before cited passage in the 4th chapter of
Deuteronomy, in which it is said that the stars are divided unto all
nations under the whole heaven but the Jews.
Indeed, as the emperor Julian[7] justly observes, “unless a certain
ethnarchic God presides over every nation, and under this God there
is an angel, a dæmon, and a peculiar genus of souls, subservient and
ministrant to more excellent natures, from which the difference in laws
and manners arises,—unless this is admitted, let it be shown by any
other how this difference is produced. For it is not sufficient to say,
“God said, and it was done,” but it is requisite that the natures of
things which are produced should accord with the mandates of divinity.
But I will explain more clearly what I mean. God, for instance,
commanded that fire should tend upward, and earthly masses downward;
is it not therefore requisite, in order that the mandate of God may be
accomplished; that the former should be light, and the latter heavy?
Thus also in a similar manner in other things. Thus too, in divine
concerns. But the reason of this is, because the human race is frail
and corruptible. Hence also, the works of man are corruptible and
mutable, and subject to all various revolutions. But God being eternal,
it is also fit that His mandates should be eternal. And being such,
they are either the natures of things, or conformable to the natures of
things. For how can nature contend with the mandate of divinity? How
can it fall off from this concord? If, therefore, as he ordered that
there should be a confusion of tongues, and that they should not accord
with each other, so likewise he ordered that the political concerns
of nations should be discordant; he has not only effected this by his
mandate, but has rendered us naturally adapted to this dissonance.
For to effect this, it would be requisite, in the first place, that
the natures of those should be different, whose political concerns
among nations are to be different. This, indeed, is seen in bodies,
if any one directs his attention to the Germans and Scythians, and
considers how much the bodies of these differ from those of the Lybians
and Ethiopians. Is this therefore, a mere mandate, and does the air
contribute nothing, nor the relation and position of the region with
respect to the celestial bodies?”
Julian adds, “Moses, however, though he knew the truth of this,
concealed it; nor does he ascribe the confusion of tongues to God
alone. For he says, that not only God descended, nor one alone with
him, but many, though he does not say who they were. But it is very
evident, that he conceived those who descended with God to be similar
to him. If, therefore, not the Lord only, but those who were with him
contributed to this confusion of tongues, they may justly be considered
as the causes of this dissonance.”
In short, that the heavens and the celestial bodies are animated by
certain divine souls, was not only the opinion of the ancient poets and
philosophers, but also of the most celebrated fathers of the church,
and the most learned and acute of the schoolmen. Thus for instance,
this is asserted by Jerom in his exposition of the 6th verse of the
first chapter of Ecclesiastes. And by Origen in his book On Principles,
who says that the heavenly bodies must be animated, because they are
said to receive the mandates of God, which is only consentaneous to a
rational nature. This too is asserted by Eusebius in his Theological
Solutions, and by Augustine in his Enchiridion. Among the schoolmen
too, this was the opinion of Albertus Magnus in his book De quatuor
Coæquævis; of Thomas Aquinas in his treatise De Spiritualibus
Creaturis; and of Johannes Scotus Super Secundo Sententiarum. To these
likewise may be added, the most learned Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus.
Aureolus indeed strenuously contends for the truth of this opinion,
and does not even think it improper to venerate the celestial bodies
with outward worship (duliæ cultu) and to implore their favour and
assistance. And Thomas Aquinas says, that he has no other objection
to this than that it might be the occasion of idolatry. Hence, though
it may seem ridiculous to most of the present time, that divine souls
should be placed in the stars, and preside over regions and cities,
tribes and people, nations and tongues, yet it did not appear so to the
more intelligent Christians of former times.
I had almost forgotten however the wisest of the ancient Christians,
but as he was the best of them, I have done well in reserving him to
the last; and this is no other than the Platonic bishop Synesius. This
father of the church therefore, in his third hymn, sings as follows:
Σε, πατερ κοσμων,
πατερ αιωνων,
αυτουργε θεων,
ευαγες αινειν.
σε μεν οι νοεροι
μελπουσιν, αναξ,
σε δε κοσμαγοι,
ομματολαμπεις,
νοες αστεριοι,
υμνουσι μακαρ,
ους περι κλεινον
σωμα χορευει.
πασα σε μελπει
γενεα μακαρων.
οι περι κοσμον,
οι κατα κοσμον,
οι ζωναιοι,
οι τ’ αζωνοι
κοσμου μοιρας
εφεπουσι, σοφοι
αμφιβατηρες,
οι παρα κλεινους
οιηκοφορους.
ους αγγελικα
προχεει σειρα
το, τε χυδηεν
γενορ ηρωων,
εργα τα θνητων
χρυφιαισιν οδοις
διανισσομενον,
εργα βροτεια.
ψυχα τ’ ακλινης,
και κλινομενα
ες μελαναυγεις
χθονιους ογκους.
viz. “Thee, father of the worlds, father of the æones,[8] artificer of
the Gods, it is holy to praise. Thee, O king, the intellectual
Gods sing, thee, O blessed God, the Cosmagi, those fulgid eyes,
and starry intellects, celebrate, round which the illustrious body [of
the world] dances. All the race of the blessed sing thy praise, those
that are about, and those that are in the world, the zonic Gods, and
also the azonic,[9] who govern the parts of the world, wise itinerants,
stationed about the illustrious pilots [of the universe,] and which
the angelic series pours forth. Thee too, the renowned genus of heroes
celebrates, which by occult paths pervades the works of mortals, and
likewise the soul which does not incline to the regions of mortality,
and the soul which descends into dark terrestrial masses.”
In another part also of the same hymn, he informs us that he adored the
powers that preside over Thrace and Chalcedon.
Ικετευσα Θεους,
δρηστηρας οσοι
γονιμον θρῃκης
κατεχουσι πεδον,
οι τ’ αντιπεραν
χαλκηδονιας
εφεπουσι γυιας.
i.e. “I have supplicated the ministrant Gods that possess the Thracian
soil, and also those that, in an opposite direction, govern the
Chalcedonian land.”
And in the last place he says (in Hymn I.)
Νοος αφθιτος, τοκηων
Θεοκοιρανων απορρωξ,
ολιγα μεν, αλλ’ εκεινων
ολος ουτος, εις τε παντη
ολος εις ολον δεδυκως,
κυτος ουρανων ελισσει
το δ’ ολον τουτο φυλασσων,
νενεμημεναισι μορφαι,
μεμερισμένος παρεστη·
ο μεν, αστερων διφρειαις,
ο δ’ ες ἀγγελῶν χορειας,
ο δε και ρεποντι δεσμῳ,
χθονιαν ευρετο μορφαν.
The substance of which is, “that incorruptible intellect which is
wholly an emanation of divinity, is totally diffused through the whole
world, convolves the heavens, and preserves the universe with which
it is present distributed in various forms. That one part of this
intellect is distributed among the stars, and becomes, as it were,
their charioteer; but another part among the angelic choirs; and
another part is bound in a terrestrial form.”
I confess I am wholly at a loss to conceive what could induce the
moderns to controvert the dogma, that the stars and the whole world are
animated, as it is an opinion of infinite antiquity, and is friendly
to the most unperverted, spontaneous, and accurate conceptions of the
human mind. Indeed, the rejection of it appears to me to be just as
absurd as it would be in a maggot, if it were capable of syllogizing,
to infer that man is a machine impelled by some external force when he
walks, because it never saw any animated reptile so large.
The sagacious Kepler, for so he is called even by the most modern
writers,[10] appears to have had a conception of this great truth; but
as he was more an astronomer than a philosopher, he saw this truth
only partially, and he rather embraced it as subservient to his own
astronomical opinions, than as forming an essential part of the true
theory of the universe. But from what I have of the writings of Kepler,
I have no doubt, if he had lived in the time of the Greeks, or if he
had made the study of the works of Plato and Aristotle the business
of his life, he would have become an adept in, and an illustrious
and zealous champion of their philosophy. Kepler then (in Harmonices
Mundi, lib. 4, p. 158) says, “That he does not oppose the dogma, that
there is a soul of the universe, though he shall say nothing about it
in that book. He adds, that if there is such a soul, it must reside
in the centre of the world, which, according to him, is the sun, and
from thence by the communication of the rays of light, which are in
the place of spirits in an animated body, is propagated into all
the amplitude of the world.”[11] In the following passages also he
confidently asserts that the earth has a soul. For he says, “That the
globe of the earth is a body such as is that of some animal; and that
what its own soul is to an animal, that the sublunary nature which he
investigates will be to the earth.”[12] He adds, “That he sees for
the most part every thing which proceeding from the body of an animal
testifies that there is a soul in it, proceeds also from the body of
the earth. For as the animated body produces in the superficies of
the skin hairs, thus also the earth produces [on its surface] plants
and trees; and as in the former lice are generated, so in the latter
the worms called erucæ, grasshoppers, and various insects and marine
monsters are produced. As the animated body likewise produces tears,
mucus, and the recrement of the ears, and sometimes gum from the
pustules of the face, thus also the earth produces amber and bitumen.
As the bladder too produces urine, thus likewise mountains pour forth
rivers. And as the body produces excrement of a sulphureous odour, and
crepitus which may also be inflamed, so the earth produces sulphur,
subterranean fires, thunder, and lightning. And as in the veins of an
animal blood is generated, and together with it sweat which is ejected
out of the body, so in the veins of the earth, metals, and fossils,
and a rainy vapour are generated.”[13] And in cap. 7, p. 162, after
having shown that there is in the earth the sense of touching, that it
respires, and is subject in certain parts to languors, and internal
vicissitudes of the viscera, and that subterranean heat proceeds from
the soul of the earth, he adds, “That a certain image of the zodiac is
resplendent in this soul, and therefore of the whole firmament, and is
the bond of the sympathy of things celestial and terrestrial.”[14]
Bishop Berkeley also was by no means hostile to this opinion, that the
world is one great animal, as is evident from the following extract
from his Siris, (p. 131).
“Blind fate and blind chance are at bottom much the same thing, and
one no more intelligible then the other. Such is the mutual relation,
connection, motion, and sympathy of the parts of this world, that they
seem, as it were, animated and held together by one soul: and such
is their harmony, order, and regular course, as shows the soul to be
governed and directed by a mind. It was an opinion of remote antiquity
that the world was an animal. If we may trust the Hermaic writings,
the Ægyptians thought all things did partake of life. This opinion was
also so general and current among the Greeks, that Plutarch asserts
all others held the world to be an animal, and governed by providence,
except Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. And although an animal
containing all bodies within itself, could not be touched or sensibly
affected from without; yet it is plain they attributed to it an inward
sense and feeling, as well as appetites and aversions; and that from
all the various tones, actions, and passions of the universe, they
supposed one symphony, one animal act and life to result.
“Iamblichus declares the world to be one animal, in which the
parts, however distant each from other, are nevertheless related
and connected by one common nature. And he teaches, what is also
a received notion of the Pythagoreans and Platonics, that there is
no chasm in nature, but a chain or scale of beings rising by gentle
uninterrupted gradations from the lowest to the highest, each nature
being informed and perfected by the participation of a higher. As air
becomes igneous, so the purest fire becomes animal, and the animal soul
becomes intellectual, which is to be understood, not of the change of
one nature into another, but of the connection of different natures,
each lower nature being, according to those philosophers, as it were, a
receptacle or subject for the next above it to reside and act in.
“It is also the doctrine of Platonic philosophers, that intellect
is the very life of living things, the first principle and exemplar
of all, from whence, by different degrees, are derived the inferior
classes of life; first the rational, then the sensitive, after that the
vegetable, but so as in the rational animal there is still somewhat
intellectual, again in the sensitive there is somewhat rational, and
in the vegetable somewhat sensitive, and lastly in mixed bodies, as
metals and minerals, somewhat of vegetation. By which means the whole
is thought to be more perfectly connected. Which doctrine implies that
all the faculties, instincts, and motions of inferior beings, in their
several respective subordinotions, are derived from, and depend upon
intellect.
“Both Stoics and Platonics held the world to be alive, though
sometimes it be mentioned as a sentient animal, sometimes as a plant
or vegetable. But in this, notwithstanding what has been surmised
by some learned men, there seems to be no atheism. For so long as the
world is supposed to be quickened by elementary fire or spirit, which
is itself animated by soul, and directed by understanding, it follows
that all parts thereof originally depend upon, and may be reduced unto,
the same indivisible stem or principle, to wit, a supreme mind; which
is the concurrent doctrine of Pythagoreans, Platonics, and Stoics.”
Compare now the Newtonian with this theory, that the heavenly bodies
are vitalized by their informing souls, that their orderly motion is
the result of this vitality, and that the planets move harmonically
round the sun, not as if urged by a centripetal force, but from an
animated tendency to the principle and fountain of their light, and
from a desire of partaking as largely as possible of his influence and
power. In the former theory all the celestial motions are the effect of
violence, in the latter they are all natural. The former is attended
with insuperable difficulties, the latter, when the principle on which
it is founded is admitted, with none. And the former is unscientific
and merely hypothetical; but the latter is the progeny of the most
accurate science, and is founded on the most genuine and unperverted
conceptions of the human mind.
I have said that I should prove from the testimony of the Apostle
Paul, that the Jews were not consistent in confounding angels
properly so called with Gods. And this appears to me to be evident in
the first place from the following passage in Hebrews ii. v. 3. πιστει
νοουμεν κατηρτισθαι τους αιωνας ρηματι θεου, εις το μη εκ φαινομενων
τα βλεπομενα γεγονεναι. This in the English version is erroneously
rendered; “Through faith we understand, that the worlds were framed by
the word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things
which do appear.” I say this is erroneously translated, because in the
first place, the worlds is evidently a forced interpretation
of αιωνας; and even admitting it is not, leaves the passage very
ambiguous, from the uncertainty to what worlds Paul alludes. If we
adopt ages, which is the general sense of the word in the New
Testament, we shall indeed avoid a forced and ambiguous interpretation,
but we shall render the meaning of the Apostle trifling in the extreme.
For as he has elsewhere said, “that all things were framed by the word
of God,” what particular faith does it require to believe, that by the
same word he framed the ages?
In the second place, from the definition of faith, given in the
first verse of this chapter, that it is “the evidence of things
not seen,” it is clear, that Paul is speaking in this passage of
something invisible. Since then αιωνας is neither worlds
nor ages, what shall we say it is? I answer, the æones of
the Valentinians. And agreeably to this, the whole passage should be
translated as follows: “By faith we understand, that the æones
were framed by the word of God, in order that things which are seen,
might be generated from such as do not appear (i.e. from things
invisible).” Every one who is much conversant with Greek
authors, must certainly be convinced that εις το means in order
that; and Bishop Pearson translates as I have done the latter part
of this verse.
Now we learn from the second book of Irenæus against the heretics,
that according to the Valentinians, all created things are the images
of the æones, resident in the pleroma, or fulness
of deity. And does it not clearly follow from the above version, that
according to Paul too, the æones are the exemplars of visible or
created things? To which we may add, that this sense of the passage
clearly accords with the assertion that “faith is the evidence of
things not seen.” For here the things which do not appear are the
æones; these, according to the Valentinians, subsisting in
deity. So that from our version, Paul might say with great propriety,
that “we understand by faith, that the æones were framed by the
word of God, in order that things which are seen, might be generated
from such as do not appear,” for this naturally follows from his
definition of faith.
I farther add, that among these æones of the Valentinians were
νους, βυθος, σιγη, αληθεια, σοφια, i.e. intellect, a profundity,
silence, truth, and wisdom, which as Gale well observes in his
notes on Iamblichus de Mysteriis, &c. prove their dogmas to be of
Chaldaic origin. For these words perpetually occur in the fragments
of the Chaldaic oracles. And the middle of the Chaldean intelligible
triad is denominated αιων æon,[15] i.e. eternity, and
is also perfectly conformable to the theology of Plato, as is very
satisfactorily shown by Proclus in the third book of the following
work. According to the Chaldeans therefore, the æones are Gods; and
considered as the exemplars of the visible universe, they are analogous
to the ideas of Plato, which also are Gods, as is evident from the
Parmenides of that philosopher.[16] According to Paul too, as the
æones are the fabricators of the visible world, they must be
beings of a much higher order than angels, and consequently must be
Gods; productive power being one of the great characteristics of a
divine nature.
Again, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. i. v. 21. Paul says that
God has exalted Christ “far above every principality, and power, and
might, and dominion,” υπερανω πασης αρχης και εξουσιας, και δυναμεως
και κυριοτητος. And in the 6th chapter and 12th verse he conjoins
with principalities and powers, the rulers of the world,
i.e. the seven planets, προς τας αρχας, προς τας εξουσιας, προς τας
κοσμοκρατορας. Augustin[17] confesses that he is ignorant what the
difference is between those four words, (principality, power, might,
and dominion,) in which the Apostle Paul seems to comprehend all the
celestial society. “Quid inter se distent quatuor illa vocabula, quibus
universam ipsam cœlestem societatem videtur Apostolus esse complexus,
dicant qui possunt, si tamen possunt probare quod dicunt; ego me ista
ignorare fateor.” Ignatius also (in Epist. ad Trallianos) speaks of
the angelic orders, the diversities of archangels and armies, the
differences of the orders characterised by might and dominion, of
thrones and powers, the magnificence of the æones,[18] and the
transcendency of Cherubim and Seraphim,” και γαρ εγω ου καθ’ ο, τι
δεδεμαι, και δυναμαι νοειν τα επουρανια, και τας αγγελικας ταξεις, και
τας των αρχαγγελων και στρατιων εξαλλαγας, δυναμεων τε και κυριστητων
διαφορας, θρονων τε και εξουσιων παραλλαγας, αιωνων δε μεγαλοτητας, των
τε χερουβιμ και σεραφιμ τας υπεροχας.
The opinion of Grotius[19] therefore, is highly probable, that the Jews
obtained the names of Powers, Dominations, and Principalities, from
their Babylonic captivity; and Gale in his notes on Iamblichus[20]
says, that certain passages of Zoroaster and Ostanes cited by the
author of Arithm. Theolog. confirm this opinion of Grotius. Indeed,
the appellation of αρχαι principles, which are the first of
the four powers mentioned by Paul, was given by the Chaldeans to that
order of Gods called by the Grecian theologists supermundane and
assimilative, the nature of which is unfolded by Proclus in the
sixth book of the following work; and Proclus in the fourth book of his
MS. Commentary On the Parmenides of Plato shows that the order of Gods
denominated νοητος και νοερος, intelligible and at the same time
intellectual, is according to the Chaldean oracles[21] principally
characterized by domination. In proof of this, the two following
oracles are cited by him, the first, concerning the empyrean, and the
second concerning the material Synoches.[22]
Τοις δε πυρος νοερου νοεροις πρηστηρσιν απαντα
Εικαθε δουλευοντα, πατρος πειθηνιδι βουλῃ.
i.e. “All things yield ministrant to the intellectual presters of
intellectual fire, through the persuasive will of the father.” And
αλλα και υλαιοις οσα δουλευει Συνοχευσι.
i.e. “But likewise such as are in subjection to the material Synoches.”
Farther still, Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. viii. v.
38, says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
&c.” From this arrangement therefore, it is evident that principalities
and powers are not the same with angels; and as according to Paul
they are beings so exalted, that in his Epistle to the Ephesians,
he could not find any thing more magnificent to say of Christ, than
that he is raised even above them, it follows that they must be Gods,
since they are superior to the angelic order. It is remarkable too,
that he coarranges height and depth (υψωμα και βάθος)
with principalities and powers; and βυθός is one of the æones
according to the Valentinians.
In the first Epistle to the Corinthians likewise, chap. viii. v. 5.
Paul expressly asserts that there is a divine multitude. For he says,
“Though there be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or in earth,
(as there be Gods many and Lords many;)” in the parenthesis of which
verse, it is incontrovertibly evident that he admits the existence of
a plurality of Gods, though as well as the heathens he believed that
one God only was supreme and the father of all things. Nor
am I singular in asserting that this was admitted by Paul. For the
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the second chapter of his treatise
On the Divine Names observes concerning what is here said by Paul as
follows: “Again, from the deific energy of God, by which every thing
according to its ability becomes deiform, many Gods are generated; in
consequence of which there appears and is said to be a separation and
multiplication of the one [supreme] God. Nevertheless, God himself,
who is the chief deity, and is superessentially the supreme, is still
one God, remaining impartible in the Gods distributed from him, united
to himself, unmingled with the many, and void of multitude.” And he
afterwards adds, “that this was in a transcendent manner understood
by Paul, who was the leader both of him and his preceptor, to divine
illumination,” in the above cited verse. And, “that in divine natures,
unions vanquish and precede separations, and yet nevertheless they
are united, after the separation which does not in proceeding depart
from the one, and is unical.”[23] Paul therefore, according
to this Dionysius, considered the Gods, conformably to Plato and the
best of his disciples, as deiform processions from the one, and
which at the same time that they have a distinct subsistence from,
are profoundly united to their great producing cause. Dionysius also
employs the very same expression which Proclus continually uses when
speaking of the separation of the Gods from their source; for he says
that the divine multitude ανεκφοιτητος του ενος, i.e. does not depart
from, but abides in the one. Hence Proclus in the fifth book
of his MS. Commentary On the Parmenides of Plato, speaking of the
divine unities says, “Whichever among these you assume, it is the
same with the others, because all of them are in each other, and are
rooted in the one. For as trees by their summits (i.e. their
roots) are fixed in the earth, and through these are earthly, after the
same manner also divine natures are rooted by their summits in the
one, and each of them is unity and one, through unconfused union
with the one itself.” Ην γαρ αν τουτων λαβῃς, την αυτην ταις
αλλαις λαμβανεις, διοτι δη πασαι και εν αλληλαις εισι, και ενερριζονται
τῳ ενι. Καθαπερ γαρ τα δενδρα ταις εαυτων κορυφαις ενιδρυνται τῃ γῃ,
και εστι γηινα κατ’ εκεινας, τον αυτον τροπον και τα θεια ταις εαυτων
ακροτησιν ενερριζωνται τῳ ενι, και εκαστον αυτων ενας εστι, και εν, δια
την προς το εν ασυγχυτον ενωσιν.
This Dionysius, who certainly lived posterior to Proclus, because
he continually borrows from his works, barbarously confounding that
scientific arrangement of these deiform processions from the
one, which is so admirably unfolded by Proclus in the following
work, classes them as follows. The first order, according to him,
consists of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. The second of the
divine essences characterized by dominion, might, and power. And
the third of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. Hence he has
transferred the characteristics of the intelligible triad of Gods to
Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. For symmetry, truth, and beauty,
which characterize this triad, are said by Plato in the Philebus
to subsist in the vestibule of the good; (επι μεν τοις του
αγαθου νυν ηδη προθυροις εφεσταναι) and Dionysius says[24] of his
first order that “it is as it were arranged in the vestibules
of deity.” Goodness, wisdom, and beauty also, are shown by
Proclus in the third book of the following work to belong to the
intelligible triad; goodness to its summit, wisdom to
the middle of it, and beauty to its extremity. And Dionysius
says, that according to the Hebrews, the word Cherubim signifies a
multitude of knowledge, or an effusion of wisdom, την δε χερουβιμ
εμφαινειν, πληθος γνωσεως, η χυσιν σοφιας. The characteristics of the
Gods called νοητοι και νοεροι intelligible and at the same time
intellectual, and of the Gods that are νοεροι intellectual
alone, he appears to have transferred to his middle triad which is
characterized by dominion, might, and power. And he has adapted
his third triad consisting of Principalities, Archangels,
and Angels, to the supermundane, liberated,
and mundane orders of Gods. For the supermundane Gods are
called by Proclus in the sixth book of the following work αρχαι
Principalities, or rulers, which is the word employed
by Dionysius and Paul. And the mundane Gods are said by Proclus (in
Parmenid.) to be the sources of a winged life, and angels are
celebrated by Dionysius as having wings. Hence it is evident
that Dionysius has accommodated the peculiarities of the different
orders of Gods to the nine orders which he denominates celestial
powers; and his arrangement has been adopted by all succeeding
Christian theologists.
Vestiges therefore of the theology of Plato may be seen both in the
Jewish and Christian religion; and in a similar manner, a resemblance
in the religions of all other nations to it might be easily pointed
out, and its universality be clearly demonstrated. Omitting however,
a discussion of this kind for the present, I shall farther observe
respecting this theology, that the deification of dead men, and the
worshipping men as Gods form no part of it when it is considered
according to its genuine purity. Numerous instances of the truth
of this might be adduced, but I shall mention for this purpose, as
unexceptionable witnesses, the writings of Plato, the Golden Pythagoric
verses,[25] and the treatise of Plutarch On Isis and Osiris. All the
works of Plato indeed, evince the truth of this position, but this is
particularly manifest from his Laws. The Golden verses order, that the
immortal Gods be honoured first as they are disposed by law; afterwards
the illustrious Heroes, under which appellation, the author of the
verses comprehends also angels and dæmons properly so called: and in
the last place the terrestrial dæmons, i.e. such good men as transcend
in virtue the rest of mankind. But to honour the Gods as they are
disposed by law, is, as Hierocles observes, to reverence them as they
are arranged by their fabricator and father; and this is to honour them
as beings superior to man. Hence, to honour men, however excellent
they may be, as Gods, is not to honour the Gods according to the rank
in which they are placed by their Creator, for it is confounding the
divine with the human nature, and is thus acting directly contrary to
the Pythagoric precept. Plutarch too in his above-mentioned treatise
most forcibly and clearly shows the impiety of worshipping men as Gods,
as is evident from the following extract:
“Those therefore, who think that things of this kind [i.e.
fabulous stories of the Gods as if they were men] are but so
many commemorations of the actions and disasters of kings
and tyrants, who through transcendency in virtue or power,
inscribed the title of divinity on their renown, and afterwards
fell into great calamities and misfortunes, these employ the
most easy method indeed of eluding the story, and not badly
transfer things of evil report, from the Gods to men; and they
are assisted in so doing by the narrations themselves. For the
Egyptians relate, that Hermes was as to his body, with one
arm longer than the other; that Typhon was in his complexion
red; but Orus white, and Osiris black, as if they had been by
nature men. Farther still, they also call Osiris a commander,
and Canopus a pilot, from whom they say the star of that name
was denominated. The ship likewise, which the Greeks call Argo,
being the image of the ark of Osiris, and which therefore in
honour of it is become a constellation, they make to ride not
far from Orion and the Dog; of which they consider the one as
sacred to Orus, but the other to Isis.
“I fear, however, that this [according to the proverb] would
be to move things immoveable, and to declare war, not only,
as Simonides says, against a great length of time, but also
against many nations and families of mankind who are under the
influence of divine inspiration through piety to these Gods;
and would not in any respect fall short of transferring from
heaven to earth, such great and venerable names, and of thereby
shaking and dissolving that worship and belief, which has been
implanted in almost all men from their very birth, would be
opening great doors to the tribe of atheists, who convert divine
into human concerns; and would likewise afford a large license
to the impostures of Euemerus of Messina, who devised certain
memoirs of an incredible and fictitious mythology,[26] and
thereby spread every kind of atheism through the globe, by
inscribing all the received Gods, without any discrimination,
by the names of generals, naval-captains, and kings, who
lived in remote periods of time. He further adds, that
they are recorded in golden characters, in a certain country
called Panchoa, at which neither any Barbarian or Grecian ever
arrived, except Euemerus alone, who, as it seems, sailed to the
Panchoans and Triphyllians, that neither have, nor ever had a
being. And though the great actions of Semiramis are celebrated
by the Assyrians, and those of Sesostris in Egypt; and though
the Phrygians even to the present time, call all splendid and
admirable actions Manic, because a certain person named Manis
who was one of their ancient kings, whom some call Masdes, was
a brave and powerful man; and farther still, though Cyrus among
the Persians, and Alexander among the Macedonians, proceeded
in their victories, almost as far as to the boundaries of the
earth, yet they only retain the name of good kings, and are
remembered as such, [and not as Gods.]
“But if certain persons, inflated by ostentation, as Plato says,
having their soul at one and the same time inflamed with youth
and ignorance, have insolently assumed the appellation of Gods,
and had temples erected in their honour, yet this opinion of
them flourished but for a short time, and afterwards they were
charged with vanity and arrogance, in conjunction with impiety
and lawless conduct; and thus,
Like smoke they flew away with swift-pac’d fate.
And being dragged from temples and altars like fugitive slaves,
they have now nothing left them, but their monuments and tombs.
Hence Antigonus the elder said to one Hermodotus, who had
celebrated him in his poems as the offspring of the sun and a
God, ‘he who empties my close-stool-pan knows no such thing
of me.’ Very properly also, did Lysippus the sculptor blame
Apelles the painter, for drawing the picture of Alexander with
a thunder-bolt in his hand, whereas he had represented him with
a spear, the glory of which, as being true and proper, no time
would take away.”
In another part of the same work also, he admirably reprobates the
impiety of making the Gods to be things inanimate, which was very
common with Latin writers of the Augustan age, and of the ages that
accompanied the decline and fall of the Roman empire. But what he says
on this subject is as follows:
“In the second place, which is of still greater consequence, men
should be careful, and very much afraid, lest before they are
aware, they tear in pieces and dissolve divine natures, into
blasts of wind, streams of water, seminations, earings of land,
accidents of the earth, and mutations of the seasons, as those
do who make Bacchus to be wine, and Vulcan flame. Cleanthes also
somewhere says, that Persephone or Proserpine is the spirit or
air that passes through (φερομενον) the fruits of the
earth, and is then slain, (φονευομενον.) And a certain
poet says of reapers,
Then when the youth the limbs of Ceres cut.
For these men do not in any respect differ from those who
conceive the sails, the cables, and the anchor of a ship, to
be the pilot, the yarn and the web to be the weaver, and the
bowl, or the mead, or the ptisan, to be the physician. But
they also produce dire and atheistical opinions, by giving the
names of Gods to natures and things deprived of sense and soul,
and that are necessarily destroyed by men, who are in want of
and use them. For it is not possible to conceive that these
things are Gods; since, neither can any thing be a God to men,
which is deprived of soul, or is subject to human power. From
these things however, we are led to conceive those beings to be
Gods, who both use them and impart them to us, and supply them
perpetually and without ceasing. Nor do we conceive that the
Gods who bestow these, are different in different countries, nor
that some of them are peculiar to the Barbarians, but others to
the Grecians, nor that some are southern, and others northern;
but as the sun and moon, the heavens, the land, and the sea, are
common to all men, yet are differently denominated by different
nations; so the one reason that adorns these things, and the
one providence that administers them, and the ministrant powers
that preside over all nations, have different appellations and
honours assigned them according to law by different countries.
Of those also that have been consecrated to their service, some
employ obscure, but others clearer symbols, not without danger
thus conducting our intellectual conceptions to the apprehension
of divine natures. For some, deviating from the true meaning of
these symbols, have entirely slipt into superstition; and others
again flying from superstition as a quagmire, have unaware
fallen upon atheism as on a precipice. Hence, in order to avoid
these dangers, it is especially necessary that resuming the
reasoning of Philosophy as our guide to mystic knowledge, we
should conceive piously of every thing that is said or done in
religion; lest that, as Theodorus said, while he extended his
arguments with his right hand, some of his auditors received
them with their left, so we should fall into dangerous errors,
by receiving what the laws have well instituted about sacrifices
and festivals in a manner different from their original
intention.”
The Emperor Julian, as well as Plutarch appears to have been perfectly
aware of this confusion in the religion of the Heathens arising from
the deification of men, and in the fragments of his treatise against
the Christians, preserved by Cyril, he speaks of it as follows: “If any
one wishes to consider the truth respecting you [Christians,] he will
find that your impiety is composed of the Judaic audacity, and the
indolence and confusion of the Heathens. For deriving from both,
not that which is most beautiful, but the worst, you have fabricated
a web of evils. With the Hebrews indeed, there are accurate and
venerable laws pertaining to religion, and innumerable precepts which
require a must holy life and deliberate choice. But when the Jewish
legislator forbids the serving all the Gods, and enjoins the worship
of one alone, whose portion is Jacob, and Israel the line of his
inheritance, and not only says this, but also omits to add, I think,
you shall not revile the Gods, the detestable wickedness and audacity
of those in after times, wishing to take away all religious reverence
from the multitude, thought that not to worship should be followed by
blaspheming the Gods. This you have alone thence derived; but there
is no similitude in any thing else between you and them. Hence, from
the innovation of the Hebrews, you have seized blasphemy towards the
venerable Gods; but from our religion you have cast aside reverence
to every nature more excellent than man, and the love of paternal
institutes.”
“So great an apprehension indeed, says Dr. Stillingfleet,[27] had the
Heathens of the necessity of appropriate acts of divine worship,
that some of them have chosen to die, rather than to give them to what
they did not believe to be God. We have a remarkable story to this
purpose in Arrian and Curtius[28] concerning Callisthenes. Alexander
arriving at that degree of vanity, as to desire to have divine worship
given him, and the matter being started out of design among the
courtiers, either by Anaxarchus, as Arrian, or Cleo the Sicilian, as
Curtius says; and the way of doing it proposed, viz. by incense and
prostration; Callisthenes vehemently opposed it, as that which would
confound the difference of human and divine worship, which had been
preserved inviolable among them. The worship of the Gods had been
kept up in temples, with altars, and images, and sacrifices, and hymns,
and prostrations, and such like; but it is by no means fitting,
says he, for us to confound these things, either by lifting up men
to the honours of the Gods, or depressing the Gods to the honours
of men. For neither would Alexander suffer any man to usurp his
royal dignity by the votes of men; how much more justly may the Gods
disdain for any man to take their honours to himself. And it appears by
Plutarch,[29] that the Greeks thought it a mean and base thing for any
of them, when sent on an embassy to the kings of Persia, to prostrate
themselves before them, because this was only allowed among them in
divine adoration. Therefore, says he, when Pelopidas and Ismenias were
sent to Artaxerxes, Pelopidas did nothing unworthy, but Ismenias let
fall his ring to the ground, and stooping for that was thought to make
his adoration; which was altogether as good a shift as the Jesuits
advising the crucifix to be held in the Mandarins’ hands while they
made their adorations in the Heathen temples in China.
“Conon[30] also refused to make his adoration, as a disgrace to
his city; and Isocrates[31] accuses the Persians for doing it,
because herein they shewed, that they despised the Gods rather than
men, by prostituting their honours to their princes. Herodotus
mentions Sperchius and Bulis, who could not with the greatest violence
be brought to give adoration to Xerxes, because it was against
the law of their country to give divine honour to men.[32] And
Valerius Maximus[33] says, the Athenians put Timagoras to death for
doing it; so strong an apprehension had possessed them, that the
manner of worship which they used to their Gods, should be preserved
sacred and inviolable.” The philosopher Sallust also in his treatise
On the Gods and the World says, “It is not unreasonable to suppose
that impiety is a species of punishment, and that those who have had a
knowledge of the Gods, and yet despised them, will in another life be
deprived of this knowledge. And it is requisite to make the punishment
of those who have honoured their kings as Gods to consist in being
expelled from the Gods.”[34]
When the ineffable transcendency of the first God, which was considered
as the grand principle in the Heathen theology, by its most ancient
promulgators Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, was forgotten, this
oblivion was doubtless the principal cause of dead men being deified
by the Pagans. Had they properly directed their attention to this
transcendency they would have perceived it to be so immense as to
surpass eternity, infinity, self-subsistence, and even essence itself,
and that these in reality belong to those venerable natures which are
as it were first unfolded into light from the unfathomable depths of
that truly mystic unknown, about which all knowledge is refunded into
ignorance. For as Simplicius justly observes, “It is requisite that he
who ascends to the principle of things should investigate whether it
is possible there can be any thing better than the supposed principle;
and if something more excellent is found, the same enquiry should again
be made respecting that, till we arrive at the highest conceptions,
than which we have no longer any more venerable. Nor should we stop in
our ascent till we find this to be the case. For there is no occasion
to fear that our progression will be through an unsubstantial void, by
conceiving something about the first principles which is greater and
more transcendent than their nature. For it is not possible for our
conceptions to take such a mighty leap as to equal, and much less to
pass beyond the dignity of the first principles of things.” He adds,
“This therefore is one and the best extension [of the soul] to [the
highest] God, and is as much as possible irreprehensible; viz. to know
firmly, that by ascribing to him the most venerable excellencies we can
conceive, and the most holy and primary names and things, we ascribe
nothing to him which is suitable to his dignity. It is sufficient
however, to procure our pardon [for the attempt,] that we can attribute
to him nothing superior.”[35] If it is not possible therefore to
form any ideas equal to the dignity of the immediate progeny of the
ineffable, i.e. of the first principles of things, how much less can
our conceptions reach that thrice unknown darkness, in the reverential
language of the Egyptians,[36] which is even beyond these? Had the
Heathens therefore considered as they ought this transcendency of the
supreme God, they would never have presumed to equalize the human with
the divine nature, and consequently would never have worshipped men as
Gods. Their theology, however, is not to be accused as the cause of
this impiety, but their forgetfulness of the sublimest of its dogmas,
and the confusion with which this oblivion was necessarily attended.
In the last place, I wish to adduce a few respectable testimonies to
prove that statues were not considered nor worshipped by any of the
intelligent Heathens as Gods, but as the resemblances of the Gods, as
auxiliaries to the recollection of a divine nature, and the means of
procuring its assistance and favour. For this purpose, I shall first
present the reader with what the philosopher Sallust says concerning
sacrifices and the honours which were paid to the divinities, in his
golden treatise On the Gods and the World. “The honours, says he, which
we pay to the Gods are performed for the sake of our advantage; and
since the providence of the Gods is every where extended, a certain
habitude or fitness is all that is requisite in order to receive
their beneficent communications. But all habitude is produced through
imitation and similitude. Hence temples imitate the heavens, but altars
the earth; statues resemble life, and on this account they are similar
to animals; prayers imitate that which is intellectual; but characters
superior ineffable powers; herbs and stones resemble matter; and
animals which are sacrificed the irrational life of our souls. But from
all these nothing happens to the Gods beyond what they already possess;
for what accession can be made to a divine nature? But a conjunction
with our souls and the Gods is by these means produced.
“I think however, it will be proper to add a few things concerning
sacrifices. And in the first place, since we possess every thing from
the Gods, and it is but just to offer the first fruits of gifts to the
givers; hence, of our possessions we offer the first fruits through
consecrated gifts; of our bodies through ornaments; and of our life
through sacrifices. Besides, without sacrifices, prayers are words
only; but accompanied with sacrifices they become animated words; the
words indeed corroborating life, but life animating the words. Add too,
that the felicity of every thing is its proper perfection; but the
proper perfection of every thing consists in a conjunction with its
cause. And on this account we pray that we may be conjoined with the
Gods. Since therefore life primarily subsists in the Gods, and there is
also a certain human life, but the latter desires to be united to the
former, a medium is required; for natures much distant from each other
cannot be conjoined without a medium. And it is necessary that the
medium should be similar to the connected natures. Life therefore must
necessarily be the medium of life; and hence men of the present day
that are happy, and all the ancients, have sacrificed animals. And this
indeed not rashly, but in a manner accommodated to every God, with many
other ceremonies respecting the cultivation of divinity.”[37]
In the next place, the elegant Maximus Tyrius admirably observes
concerning the worship of statues[38] as follows: “It appears to me
that as external discourse has no need, in order to its composition,
of certain Phœnician, or Ionian, or Attic, or Assyrian, or Egyptian
characters, but human imbecility devised these marks, in which
inserting its dulness, it recovers from them its memory; in like manner
a divine nature has no need of statues or altars; but human nature
being very imbecile, and as much distant from divinity as earth from
heaven, devised these symbols, in which it inserted the names and the
renown of the Gods. Those, therefore, whose memory is robust, and who
are able, by directly extending their soul to heaven, to meet with
divinity, have, perhaps,[39] no need of statues. This race
is, however, rare among men, and in a whole nation you will not find
one who recollects divinity, and who is not in want of this kind of
assistance, which resembles that devised by writing masters for boys,
who give them obscure marks as copies; by writing over which, their
hand being guided by that of the master, they become, through memory,
accustomed to the art. It appears to me therefore, that legislators
devised these statues for men, as if for a certain kind of boys, as
tokens of the honour which should be paid to divinity, and a certain
manuduction as it were and path to reminiscence.
“Of statues however, there is neither one law, nor one mode, nor one
art, nor one matter. For the Greeks think it fit to honour the Gods
from things the most beautiful in the earth, from a pure matter, the
human form, and accurate art: and their opinion is not irrational who
fashion statues in the human resemblance. For if the human soul is most
near and most similar to divinity, it is not reasonable to suppose
that divinity would invest that which is most similar to himself with
a most deformed body, but rather with one which would be an easy
vehicle to immortal souls, light, and adapted to motion. For this
alone, of all the bodies on the earth, raises its summit on high, is
magnificent, superb, and full of symmetry, neither astonishing through
its magnitude, nor terrible through its strength, nor moved with
difficulty through its weight, nor slippery through its smoothness, nor
repercussive through its hardness, nor groveling through its coldness,
nor precipitate through its heat, nor inclined to swim through its
laxity, nor feeding on raw flesh through its ferocity, nor on grass
through its imbecility; but is harmonically composed for its proper
works, and is dreadful to timid animals, but mild to such as are brave,
It is also adapted to walk by nature, but winged by reason, capable of
swimming by art, feeds on corn and fruits, and cultivates the earth,
is of a good colour, stands firm, has a pleasing countenance, and a
graceful beard, In the resemblance of such a body, the Greeks think fit
to honour the Gods.”
He then observes, “that with respect to the Barbarians, all of them in
like manner admit the subsistence of divinity, but different nations
among these adopt different symbols.” After which he adds, “O many and
all-various statues! of which some are fashioned by art, and others
are embraced through indigence: some are honoured through utility,
and others are venerated through the astonishment which they excite;
some are considered as divine through their magnitude, and others are
celebrated for their beauty! There is not indeed any race of men,
neither Barbarian nor Grecian, neither maritime nor continental,
neither living a pastoral life, nor dwelling in cities, which can
endure to be without some symbols of the honour of the Gods. How,
therefore, shall any one discuss the question whether it is proper
that statues of the Gods should be fabricated or not? For if we were
to give laws to other men recently sprung from the earth, and dwelling
beyond our boundaries and our air, or who were fashioned by a certain
Prometheus, ignorant of life, and law, and reason, it might perhaps
demand consideration, whether this race should be permitted to adore
these spontaneous statues alone, which are not fashioned from ivory or
gold, and which are neither oaks nor cedars, nor rivers, nor birds,
but the rising sun, the splendid moon, the variegated heaven, the earth
itself and the air, all fire and all water; or shall we constrain these
men also to the necessity of honouring wood, or stones or images? If,
however, this is the common law of all men, let us make no innovations,
let us admit the conceptions concerning the Gods, and preserve their
symbols as well as their names.
“For divinity indeed, the father and fabricator of all things, is more
ancient than the sun and the heavens, more excellent than time and
eternity, and every flowing nature, and is a legislator without law,
ineffable by voice, and invisible by the eyes. Not being able, however,
to comprehend his essence, we apply for assistance to words and names,
to animals, and figures of gold and ivory and silver, to plants and
rivers, to the summits of mountains, and to streams of water; desiring
indeed to understand his nature, but through imbecility calling him
by the names of such things as appear to us to be beautiful. And in
thus acting, we are affected in the same manner as lovers, who are
delighted with surveying the images of the objects of their love, and
with recollecting the lyre, the dart, and the seat of these, the circus
in which they ran, and every thing in short, which excites the memory
of the beloved object. What then remains for me to investigate and
determine respecting statues? only to admit the subsistence of deity.
But if the art of Phidias excites the Greeks to the recollection of
divinity, honour to animals the Egyptians, a river others, and fire
others, I do not condemn the dissonance: let them only know, let them
only love, let them only be mindful of the object they adore.”
With respect to the worship of animals, Plutarch apologizes for it in
the following excellent manner in his treatise On Isis and Osiris.
“It now remains that we should speak of the utility of these animals to
man, and of their symbolical meaning; some of them partaking of one of
these only, but many of them of both. It is evident therefore that the
Egyptians worshipped the ox, the sheep, and the ichneumon, on account
of their use and benefit, as the Lemnians did larks, for discovering
the eggs of caterpillars and breaking them; and the Thessalians
storks, because, as their land produced abundance of serpents, the
storks destroyed all of them as soon as they appeared. Hence also they
enacted a law, that whoever killed a stork should be banished. But the
Egyptians honoured the asp, the weezle, and the beetle, in consequence
of observing in them certain dark resemblances of the power of the
Gods, like that of the sun in drops of water. For at present, many
believe and assert that the weezle engenders by the ear, and brings
forth by the mouth, being thus an image of the generation of reason,
[or the productive principle of things.] But the genus of beetles has
no female; and all the males emit their sperm into a spherical piece
of earth, which they roll about thrusting it backwards with their hind
feet, while they themselves move forward; just as the sun appears to
revolve in a direction contrary to that of the heavens, in consequence
of moving from west to east. They also assimilated the asp to a star,
as being exempt from old age, and performing its motions unassisted by
organs with agility and ease. Nor was the crocodile honoured by them
without a probable cause; but is said to have been considered by them
as a resemblance of divinity, as being the only animal that is without
a tongue. For the divine reason is unindigent of voice, and proceeding
through a silent path, and accompanied with[40] justice, conducts
mortal affairs according to it. They also say it is the only animal
living in water that has the sight of its eyes covered with a thin and
transparent film, which descends from his forehead, so that he sees
without being seen, which is likewise the case with the first God. But
in whatever place the female crocodile may lay her eggs, this may with
certainty be concluded to be the boundary of the increase of the Nile.
For not being able to lay their eggs in the water, and fearing to lay
them far from it, they have such an accurate pre-sensation of futurity,
that though they enjoy the benefit of the river in its access, during
the time of their laying and hatching, yet they preserve their eggs
dry and untouched by the water. They also lay sixty eggs, are the same
number of days in hatching them, and those that are the longest lived
among them, live just so many years; which number is the first of the
measures employed by those who are conversant with the heavenly bodies.
“Moreover, of those animals that were honoured for both reasons, we
have before spoken of the dog. But the ibis, killing indeed all deadly
reptiles, was the first that taught men the use of medical evacuation,
in consequence of observing that she is after this manner washed and
purified by herself. Those priests also, that are most attentive to
the laws of sacred rites, when they consecrate water for lustration,
fetch it from that place where the ibis had been drinking; for she
will neither drink nor come near unwholesome or infected water; but
with the distance of her feet from each other, and her bill she makes
an equilateral triangle. Farther still, the variety and mixture of her
black wings about the white represents the moon when she is gibbous.
“We ought not, however, to wonder if the Egyptians love such slender
similitudes, since the Greeks also, both in their pictures and statues,
employ many such like resemblances of the Gods. Thus in Crete, there
was a statue of Jupiter without ears. For it is fit that he who is the
ruler and lord of all things, should hear no one.[41] Phidias also
placed a dragon by the statue of Minerva, and a snail by that of Venus
at Elis, to show that virgins require a guard, and that keeping at
home and silence become married women. But the trident of Neptune is
a symbol of the third region of the world, which the sea possesses,
having an arrangement after the heavens and the air. Hence also,
they thus denominated Amphitrite and the Tritons. The Pythagoreans
likewise adored numbers and figures with the appellations of the
Gods. For they called the equilateral triangle Minerva Coryphagenes,
or begotten from the summit, and Tritogeneia, because it is divided
by three perpendiculars drawn from the three angles. But they called
the one Apollo, being persuaded to this by the obvious meaning
of the word Apollo [which signifies a privation of multitude] and by
the simplicity of the monad.[42] The duad they denominated strife and
audacity; and the triad justice. For since injuring and being injured
are two extremes subsisting according to excess and defect, justice
through equality has a situation in the middle. But what is called the
tetractys, being the number 36, was, as is reported, their greatest
oath, and was denominated the world. For this number is formed from the
composition of the four first even, and the four first odd numbers,
collected into one sum.[43] If therefore the most approved of the
philosophers did not think it proper to neglect or despise any occult
signification of a divine nature when they perceived it even in things
which are inanimate and incorporeal, it appears to me, that they in
a still greater degree venerated those peculiarities depending on
manners which they saw in such natures as had sense, and were endued
with soul, with passion, and ethical habits. We must embrace therefore,
not those who honor these kings, but those who reverence divinity
through these, as through most clear mirrors, and which are produced by
nature, in a becoming manner, conceiving them to be the instruments or
the art of the God by whom all things are perpetually adorned. But we
ought to think that no inanimate being can be more excellent than one
that is animated, nor an insensible than a sensitive being, not even
though some one should collect together all the gold and emeralds in
the universe. For the divinity is not ingenerated either in colours,
or figures, or smoothness; but such things as neither ever did, nor
are naturally adapted to participate of life, have an allotment more
ignoble than that of dead bodies. But the nature which lives and sees,
and has the principle of motion from itself, and a knowledge of things
appropriate and foreign to its being, has certainly derived an efflux
and portion of that wisdom, which, as Heraclitus says, considers how
both itself, and the universe is governed. Hence the divinity is not
worse represented in these animals, than in the workmanships of copper
and stone, which in a similar manner suffer corruption and decay, but
are naturally deprived of all sense and consciousness. This then I
consider as the best defence that can be given of the adoration of
animals by the Egyptians.
“With respect however to the sacred vestments, those of Isis are of
various hues; for her power is about matter, which becomes and receives
all things, as light and darkness, day and night, fire and water, life
and death, beginning and end; but those of Osiris are without a shade
and have no variety of colours, but have one only which is simple and
luciform. Hence when the latter have been once used, they are laid
aside and preserved; for the intelligible is invisible and intangible.
But the vestments of Isis are used frequently. For sensible things
being in daily use and at hand, present us with many developements and
views of their different mutations: but the intellectual perception
of that which is intelligible, genuine, and holy, luminously darting
through the soul like a coruscation, is attended with a simultaneous
contact and vision of its object. Hence Plato and Aristotle call this
part of philosophy epoptic or intuitive, indicating that those who
have through the exercise of the reasoning power, soared beyond these
doxastic, mingled and all-various natures, raise themselves to that
first, simple, and immaterial principle, and passing into contact with
the pure truth which subsists about it, they consider themselves as
having at length obtained the end of philosophy.[44] And that which
the present devoted and veiled priests obscurely manifest with great
reverence and caution is that this God is the ruler and prince of
the dead, and is not different from that divinity who is called by
the Greeks Hades and Pluto, the truth of which assertion not being
understood, disturbs the multitude, who suspect that the truly sacred
and holy Osiris dwells in and under the earth, where the bodies of
those are concealed who appear to have obtained an end of their being.
But he indeed himself is at the remotest distance from the earth,
unstained, unpolluted, and pure from every essence that receives
corruption and death. The souls of men however, being here encompassed
with bodies and passions, cannot participate of divinity except as
of an obscure dream by intellectual contact through philosophy. But
when they are liberated from the body, and pass into the invisible,
impassive, and pure region, this God is then their leader and king,
from whom they depend, insatiably beholding him, and desiring to survey
that beauty which cannot be expressed or uttered by men; and which
Isis, as the ancient discourse evinces, always loving, pursuing, and
enjoying fills such things in these lower regions as participate of
generation with every thing beautiful and good.”
And lastly, the Emperor Julian, in a fragment of an Oration or Epistle
on the duties of a priest, has the following remarks on religiously
venerating statues: “Statues and altars, and the preservation of
unextinguished fire, and in short, all such particulars, have been
established by our fathers as symbols of the presence of the Gods;
not that we should believe that these symbols are Gods, but that
through these we should worship the Gods. For since we are
connected with body, it is also necessary that our worship of the Gods
should be performed in a corporeal manner; but they are incorporeal.
And they indeed have exhibited to us as the first of statues, that
which ranks as the second genus of Gods from the first, and which
circularly revolves round the whole of heaven.[45] Since, however,
a corporeal worship cannot even be paid to these, because they are
naturally unindigent, a third kind of statues was devised on the
earth, by the worship of which we render the Gods propitious to us.
For as those who reverence the images of kings, who are not in want
of any such reverence, at the same time attract to themselves their
benevolence; thus also those who venerate the statues of the Gods, who
are not in want of any thing, persuade the Gods by this veneration
to assist and be favourable to them. For alacrity in the performance
of things in our power is a document of true sanctity; and it is
very evident that he who accomplishes the former, will in a greater
degree possess the latter. But he who despises things in his power,
and afterwards pretends to desire impossibilities, evidently does not
pursue the latter, and overlooks the former. For though divinity is not
in want of any thing, it does not follow that on this account nothing
is to be offered to him. For neither is he in want of celebration
through the ministry of words. What then? Is it therefore
reasonable that he should be deprived of this? By no means. Neither
therefore is he to be deprived of the honour which is paid him through
works; which honour has been legally established, not for three,
or for three thousand years, but in all preceding ages, among all
nations of the earth.
“But [the Galilæans will say,] O! you who have admitted into your soul
every multitude of dæmons, whom, though according to you they are
formless and unfigured, you have fashioned in a corporeal resemblance,
it is not fit that honour should be paid to divinity through such
works. How, then, do not we [heathens] consider as wood and stones
those statues which are fashioned by the hands of men? O more stupid
than even stones themselves! Do you fancy that all men are to be drawn
by the nose as you are drawn by execrable dæmons, so as to think that
the artificial resemblances of the Gods are the Gods themselves?
Looking therefore to the resemblances of the Gods, we do not think them
to be either stones or wood; for neither do we think that the Gods
are these resemblances; since neither do we say that royal images are
wood, or stone, or brass, nor that they are the kings themselves, but
the images of kings. Whoever, therefore, loves his king, beholds with
pleasure the image of his king; whoever loves his child is delighted
with his image; and whoever loves his father surveys his image with
delight.[46] Hence also, he who is a lover of divinity gladly surveys
the statues and images of the Gods; at the same time venerating and
fearing with a holy dread the Gods who invisibly behold him.[47]
The Catholics have employed arguments similar to these, in defence of
the reverence which they pay to the images of their saints. Indeed,
it is the doctrine of the Church of England,[48] that the Catholics
form the same opinions of the saints whose images they worship as
the Heathens did of their Gods; and employ the same outward rites in
honouring their images, as the Heathens did in the religious veneration
of their statues. Thus as the Heathens had their tutelar Gods,
such as were Belus to the Babylonians and Assyrians, Osiris and Isis
to the Egyptians, and Vulcan to the Lemnians, thus also the Catholics
attribute the defence of certain countries to certain saints. Have
not the saints also to whom the safeguard of particular cities is
committed, the same office as the Dii Præsides of the Heathens?
Such as were at Delphi, Apollo; at Athens, Minerva; at Carthage, Juno;
and at Rome, Quirinus. And do not the saints to whom churches are built
and altars erected correspond to the Dii Patroni of the Heathens? Such
as were in the Capitol, Jupiter, in the temple at Paphos, Venus, in the
temple of Ephesus, Diana. Are not likewise, our Lady of Walsingham, our
Lady of Ipswich, our Lady of Wilsdon, and the like, imitations of Diana
Agrotera, Diana Coriphea, Diana Ephesia, Venus Cypria, Venus Paphia,
Venus Gnidia, and the like? The Catholics too, have substituted for the
marine deities Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor and Pollux, Venus, &c.
Saint Christopher, Saint Clement, and others, and especially our Lady,
as she is called by them, to whom seamen sing Ave Maris stella.
Neither has the fire escaped their imitation of the Pagans. For instead
of Vulcan and Vesta, the inspective guardians of fire according to
the Heathens, the Catholics have substituted Saint Agatha, on the day
of whose nativity they make letters for the purpose of extinguishing
fire. Every artificer likewise and profession has a special saint in
the place of a presiding God. Thus scholars have Saint Nicholas and
Saint Gregory; painters Saint Luke; nor are soldiers in want of a saint
corresponding to Mars, nor lovers of one who is a substitute for Venus.
All diseases too have their special saints instead of Gods, who are
invoked as possessing a healing power. Thus the venereal disease has
Saint Roche; the falling sickness Saint Cornelius, the tooth-ach Saint
Apollin, &c. Beasts and cattle also have their presiding saints: for
Saint Loy (says the Homily) is the horse-leach, and Saint Antony the
swineherd, &c. The Homily adds,[49] “that in many points the Papists
exceed the Gentiles in idolatry, and particularly in honouring and
worshipping the relics and bones of saints, which prove that they be
mortal men and dead, and therefore no Gods to be worshipped, which the
Gentiles would never confess of their Gods for very shame.” And after
enumerating many ridiculous practices of the Catholics in reference to
these relics, the Homily concludes with observing, “that they are not
only more wicked than the Gentile idolaters, but also no wiser than
asses, horses, and mules, which have no understanding.”
In the second place the Homilies shew[50] that the rites and ceremonies
of the Papists in honouring and worshipping their images or saints,
are the same with the rites of the Pagans. “This, say they, is evident
in their pilgrimages to visit images which had more holiness and
virtue in them than others. In their candle-religion, burning incense,
offering up gold to images, hanging up crutches, chairs, and ships,
legs, arms, and whole men and women of war, before images, as though
by them, or saints (as they say) they were delivered from lameness,
sickness, captivity, or shipwrack.” In spreading abroad after the
manner of the Heathens, the miracles that have accompanied images.
“Such an image was sent from heaven, like the Palladium, or Diana of
the Ephesians. Such an image was brought by angels. Such a one came
itself far from the east to the west, as Dame Fortune fled to Rome.
Some images though they were hard and stony, yet for tender-heart and
pity wept. Some spake more monstrously than ever did Balaam’s ass, who
had life and breath in him. Such a cripple came and saluted this saint
of oak, and by and by he was made whole, and here hangeth his crutch.
Such a one in a tempest vowed to Saint Christopher, and scaped, and
behold here is his ship of war. Such a one, by Saint Leonard’s help,
brake out of prison, and see where his fetters hang. And infinite
thousands more miracles by like, or more shameless lies were reported.”
After all this, I appeal to every intelligent reader, whether the
religion of the Heathens, according to its genuine purity as delineated
in this Introduction, and as professed and promulgated by the best
and wisest men of antiquity, is not infinitely preferable to that of
the Catholics? And whether it is not more holy to reverence beings
the immediate progeny of the ineffable principle of all things, and
which are eternally centered and rooted in him; and to believe that in
reverencing these, we at the same time reverence the ineffable,
because they partake of his nature, and that through these as media we
become united with him,[51] than to reverence men, and the images of
men, many of whom when living, were the disgrace of human nature? The
Church of England as we see prefers the Pagans to the Papists; and I
trust that every other sect of Protestant Christians will unanimously
subscribe to her decision. And thus much in defence of the theology of
Plato, and the religious worship of the Heathens.
It now remains that I should speak of the following work, of its
author, and the translation. The work itself then is a scientific
developement of the deiform processions from the ineffable principle
of things, and this, as it appears to me in the greatest perfection
possible to man. For the reasoning is every where consummately
accurate, and deduced from self-evident principles; and the conclusions
are the result of what Plato powerfully calls geometrical necessities.
To the reader of this work indeed, who has not been properly
disciplined in Eleatic and Academic studies, and who has not a genius
naturally adapted to such abstruse speculations, it will doubtless
appear to be perfectly unintelligible, and in the language of critical
cant, nothing but jargon and revery. This, however, is what Plato the
great hierophant of this theology predicted would be the case, if ever
it was unfolded to the multitude at large. “For as it appears to me,
says he, there are scarcely any particulars which will be considered
by the multitude more ridiculous than these; nor again, any which will
appear more wonderful and enthusiastic to those who are naturally
adapted to perceive them.”[52]
In his seventh epistle also he observes as follows: “Thus much,
however, I shall say respecting all those who either have written
or shall write, affirming that they know those things which are the
objects of my study (whether they have heard them from me or from
others, or whether they have discovered them themselves) that they have
not heard any thing about these things conformable to my opinion: for
I never have written nor ever shall write about them.[53] For a thing
of this kind cannot be expressed by words like other disciplines, but
by long familiarity, and living in conjunction with the thing itself, a
light[54] as it were leaping from a fire will on a sudden be enkindled
in the soul, and there itself nourish itself.” And shortly after he
adds; “But if it appeared to me that the particulars of which I am
speaking could be sufficiently communicated to the multitude by
writing or speech, what could we accomplish more beautiful in life than
to impart a mighty benefit to mankind, and lead an intelligible nature
into light, so as to be obvious to all men? I think, however, that an
attempt of this kind would only be beneficial to a few, who from some
small vestiges previously demonstrated are themselves able to discover
these abstruse particulars. But with respect to the rest of mankind,
some it will fill with a contempt by no means elegant, and others with
a lofty and arrogant hope that they shall now learn certain venerable
things.”[55]
The prediction of Plato therefore, has been but too truly fulfilled in
the fate which has attended the writings of the best of his disciples,
among whom Proclus certainly maintains the most distinguished rank.
This indeed, these disciples well knew would be the case; but
perceiving that the hand of Barbaric and despotic power was about
to destroy the schools of the philosophers, and foreseeing that
dreadful night of ignorance and folly which succeeded so nefarious
an undertaking, they benevolently disclosed in as luminous a manner
as the subject would permit, the arcana of their master’s doctrines,
thereby, as Plato expresses it, giving assistance to Philosophy, and
also preserving it as a paternal and immortal inheritance, to the
latest posterity. Proclus in the first book of this work has enumerated
the requisites which a student of it ought to possess; and it is most
certain that he who does not possess them, will never fathom the depths
of this theology, or perceive his mind irradiated with that admirable
light, mentioned by Plato in the foregoing extract, and which is only
to be seen by that eye of the soul which is better worth saving than
ten thousand corporeal eyes.
With respect to the diction of Proclus in this work, its general
character is that of purity, clearness, copiousness, and magnificence;
so that even the fastidious critic, who considers every Greek writer as
partially barbarous who lived after the fall of the Macedonian empire,
must, however unwillingly, be forced to acknowledge that Proclus is
a splendid exception. The sagacious Kepler, whose decision on this
subject, outweighs in my opinion, that of a swarm of modern critics,
after having made a long extract from the commentaries of Proclus on
Euclid, gives the following animated encomium of his diction. “Oratio
fluit ipsi torrentis instar, ripas inundans, et cœca dubitationum
vada gurgitesque occultans, dum mens plena majestatis tantarum rerum,
luctatur in angustiis linguæ, et conclusio nunquam sibi ipsi verborum
copiâ satisfaciens, propositionum simplicitatem excedit.” i.e. “His
language flows like a torrent, inundating its banks, and hiding the
dark fords and whirlpools of doubts, while his mind full of the majesty
of things of such a magnitude, struggles in the straits of language,
and the conclusion never satisfying him, exceeds by the copia of
words, the simplicity of the propositions.” If we omit what Kepler
here says about the struggle of the mind of Proclus, and his never
being satisfied with the conclusion, the rest of his eulogy is equally
applicable to the style of the present work, so far as it is possible
for the beauties of diction to be combined with the rigid accuracy of
geometrical reasoning.
With respect to the life of Proclus, it has been written with great
elegance by his disciple Marinus; and a translation of it by me
prefixed to my version of the commentaries of Proclus was published
in 1788. From the edition of that life therefore, by Fabricius,
the following particulars relative to this very extraordinary man
are extracted, for the information of the reader who may not have
the translation of it in his possession. According to the accurate
chronology then of Fabricius, Proclus was born at Byzantium in the year
of Christ 412, on the 6th of the Ides of February, and died in the one
hundred and twenty-fourth year after the reign of the emperor Julian,
on the seventeenth day of the Attic Munichion, or the April of the
Romans, Nicagoras the junior, being at that time the Athenian archon.
His father Patricius, and his mother Marcella, were both of them of
the Lycian nation, and were no less illustrious for their virtue
than their birth. As soon as he was born, his parents brought him to
their native country Xanthus, which was sacred to Apollo. And this,
says Marinus, happened to him by a certain divine allotment. “For, he
adds, I think it was necessary that he who was to be the leader of all
sciences, should be nourished and educated under the presiding deity of
the Muses.” The person of Proclus was uncommonly beautiful; and he not
only possessed all the moral and intellectual virtues in the highest
perfection, but the vestigies of them also, which are denominated the
physical virtues, were clearly seen, says Marinus, in his last and
shelly vestment the body. Hence he possessed a remarkable acuteness
of sensation, and particularly in the most honourable of the senses,
sight and hearing, which, as Plato says, were imparted by the Gods to
men for the purpose of philosophizing, and for the well being of the
animal life. In the second place, he possessed so great a strength
of body, that it was neither injured by cold, nor any endurance of
labours, though these were extreme, both by night and day. In the third
place, he was, as we have before observed, very beautiful. “For not
only, says Marinus, did his body possess great symmetry, but a living
light as it were beaming from his soul was efflorescent in his body,
and shone forth with an admirable splendor, which it is impossible to
describe.” Marinus adds, “Indeed he was so beautiful, that no painter
could accurately exhibit his resemblance; and all the pictures of him
which were circulated, though very beautiful, were very inferior to the
beauty of the original.” And in the fourth place, he possessed health
in such perfection, that he was not ill above twice or thrice in the
course of so long a life as seventy-five years.
Such then were the corporeal prerogatives which Proclus possessed, and
which may be called the forerunners of the forms of perfect virtue.
But he possessed in a wonderful manner what Plato calls the elements
of a philosophic genius.[56] For he had an excellent memory, learned
with facility, was magnificent and graceful, and the friend and ally of
truth, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Having for a short space
of time applied himself in Lycia to grammar, he went to Alexandria
in Egypt, and was there instructed in rhetoric by Leonas who derived
his lineage from Isaurus, and in grammar by Orion, whose ancestors
discharged the sacerdotal office among the Egyptians, and who composed
elaborate treatises on that art. A certain good fortune however, says
Marinus, brought him back to the place of his nativity. For on his
return his tutelar Goddess exhorted him to philosophy, and to visit the
Athenian schools. Having therefore, first returned to Alexandria and
bade farewell to rhetoric, and the other arts which he had formerly
studied, he gave himself up to the discourses of the philosophers then
resident at Alexandria. Here, he became an auditor of Olympiodorus,[57]
the most illustrious of philosophers, for the sake of imbibing
the doctrine of Aristotle; and was instructed in the mathematical
disciplines by Hero, a religious man, and eminently skilful in
teaching those sciences. Proclus however, not being satisfied with
the Alexandrian schools, went to Athens, “with a certain splendid
procession, says Marinus, of all eloquence and elegance, and attended
by the Gods that preside over philosophy, and by beneficent dæmons.
For that the succession of philosophy, might be preserved legitimate
and genuine, the Gods led him to the city over which its inspective
guardian presides.” Hence Proclus was called κατ’ εξοχην by way
of eminence, the Platonic Successor. At Athens therefore,
Proclus fortunately met with the first of philosophers, Syrianus,[58]
the son of Philoxenus, who not only much assisted him in his studies,
but made him his domestic as to other concerns, and the companion of
his philosophic life, having found him such an auditor and successor as
he had a long time sought for, and one who was capable of receiving a
multitude of disciplines and divine dogmas.
In less than two whole years therefore, Proclus read with Syrianus all
the works of Aristotle, viz. his logic, ethics, politics, physics,
and theological science. And being sufficiently instructed in these
as in certain proteleia, or things preparatory to initiation,
and lesser mysteries, Syrianus led him to the mystic discipline of
Plato, in an orderly progression, and not according to the Chaldean
oracle with a transcendent foot. He likewise enabled Proclus to survey
in conjunction with him, says Marinus, truly divine mysteries, with
the eyes of his soul free from material darkness, and with undefiled
intellectual vision. But Proclus employing sleepless exercise and
attention, both by night and by day, and synoptically and judiciously
committing to writing what he heard from Syrianus, made so great a
progress in a little time, that by then he was twenty-eight years
of age, he had composed a multitude of works and among the rest his
commentaries on the Timæus which are truly elegant and full of science.
But from such a discipline as this, his manners became more adorned;
and as he advanced in science he increased in virtue.
Marinus after this, shows how Proclus possessed all the virtues in the
greatest possible perfection; and how he proceeded from the exercise
of the political virtues, which are produced by reason adorning the
irrational part as its instrument, to the cathartic virtues which
pertain to reason alone, withdrawing from other things to itself,
throwing aside the instruments of sense as vain, repressing also
the energies through these instruments, and liberating the soul
from the bonds of generation. He then adds, “Proclus having made a
proficiency, through these virtues, as it were by certain mystic steps,
recurred from these to such as are greater and more telestic, being
conducted to them by a prosperous nature and scientific discipline.
For being now purified, rising above generation, and despising its
thyrsus-bearers,[59] he was agitated with a divinely inspired fury,
about the first essences, and became an inspector of the truly blessed
spectacles which they contain. No longer collecting discursively and
demonstratively the science of them, but surveying them as it were
by simple intuition, and beholding through intellectual energies the
paradigms in a divine intellect, assuming a virtue which can no longer
be denominated prudence, but which ought rather to be called wisdom,
or something still more venerable than this. The philosopher therefore
energizing according to this virtue, easily comprehended all the
theology of the Greeks and Barbarians, and that which is adumbrated
in mythological fictions, and brought it into light, to those who are
willing and able to understand it. He explained likewise every thing
in a more enthusiastic manner, and brought the different theologies
to an harmonious agreement. At the same time also, investigating
the writings of the ancients, whatever he found in them genuine, he
judiciously adopted; but if he found any thing of a spurious nature,
this, he entirely rejected as erroneous. He also strenuously subverted
by a diligent examination such doctrines as were contrary to truth.
In his associations too with others, he employed no less force and
perspicuity. For he was a man laborious beyond measure; as, in one day,
he gave five, and sometimes more lectures, and wrote as many as seven
hundred verses. Besides this, he went to other philosophers, and spent
the evening in conversation with them. And all these employments he
executed in such a manner as not to neglect his nocturnal and vigilant
piety to the Gods, and assiduously supplicating the sun when rising,
when at his meridian altitude, and when he sets.”
Marinus farther observes of this most extraordinary man, “that he did
not seem to be without divine inspiration. For words similar to the
most white and thick-falling snow[60] proceeded from his wise mouth,
his eyes appeared to be filled with a fulgid splendor, and the rest of
his face to participate of divine illumination. Hence Rufinus, a man
illustrious in the Republic, and who was also a man of veracity, and
in other respects venerable, happening to be present with him when he
was lecturing, perceived that his head was surrounded with a light. And
when Proclus had finished his lecture, Rufinus rising, adored him, and
testified by an oath the truth of the divine vision which he had seen.”
Marinus also informs us, “that Proclus being purified in an orderly
manner by the Chaldean purifications, was an inspector of the
lucid Hecatic visions, as he himself somewhere mentions in one of
his writings. By opportunely moving likewise a certain Hecatic
sphærula,[61] he procured showers of rain, and freed Athens from an
unseasonable heat. Besides this, by certain phylacteria or charms,
he stopt an earthquake, and had made trial of the divining energy of
the tripod, having been instructed by certain verses respecting its
failure. For when he was in his fortieth year, he appeared in a dream
to utter the following verses:
And in the beginning of his forty-second year he appeared to himself to
pronounce with a loud voice these verses:
Lo! on my soul a sacred fire descends,
Whose vivid power the intellect extends;
From whence far beaming thro’ dull body’s night,
It soars to æther deck’d with starry light;
And with soft murmurs thro’ the azure round,
The lucid regions of the Gods resound.
Besides, he clearly perceived that he belonged to the Mercurial
series; and was persuaded from a dream, that he possessed the soul of
Nicomachus the Pythagorean.”[63]
In the last place, Marinus adds, “that the lovers of more elegant
studies may be able to conjecture from the position of the stars under
which he was born, that the condition of his life, was by no means
among the last or middle, but among the first orders, we have thought
fit to expose in this place the following scheme of his nativity.”
☉
16°
26′
♒
☽
17
29
♊
♄
24
23
♉
♃
24
41
♉
♂
29
50
♐
♀
—
23
♓
☿
4
42
♒
Horos.
8
19
♈
Mid.
4
42
♑
Heaven.
☋ or the head of the dragon
24
33
♏
The new moon preceding his birth
8
51
♒
And thus much for the life of Proclus.
With respect to the translation of the following work, On the Theology
of Plato, I can only say that I have endeavoured to render it as
faithful as possible, and to preserve the manner as well as the matter
of the author; this being indispensably necessary, both from the
importance of the subject, and the scientific accuracy of the reasoning
with which it is discussed. I have added a seventh book in order to
render the work complete; for without the developement of the mundane
Gods, and the more excellent genera their perpetual attendants, it
would obviously be incomplete. From the catalogue of the manuscripts
in the late French king’s library, it is evident that Proclus had
written a seventh book,[64] as some chapters of it are there said
to be extant in that library. These I have endeavoured, but without
success, to obtain. The want of this seventh book by Proclus, will
doubtless be considered by all the friends of Greek literature, and
particularly by all who are lovers of the doctrines of Plato, as a
loss of no common magnitude. It is, however, a fortunate circumstance,
that in the composition of the seventh book I have been able to supply
the deficiency arising from the want of that which was written by
Proclus, in a great measure from other works of Proclus himself, and
particularly from his very elegant and scientific commentaries on the
Timæus of Plato. So that I trust the loss is in some measure supplied;
though I am sensible, very inadequately, could it be compared with the
book which was written by a man of such gigantic powers of mind as
Proclus, and who had also sources of information on the subject, which
at the present period, it is impossible to obtain.
A translation of the Elements of Theology is added in order to render
the treatise On the Theology of Plato, more complete, and to assist
the reader who wishes to penetrate the depths of that most abstruse
and sublime work; for the former elucidates, and is elucidated by the
latter.
In translating the treatise of Proclus On Providence and Fate, I had
great difficulties to encounter, as the original Greek is lost, and
nothing but a Latin translation, which Fabricius observes, is all
but barbarous, remains. If the reader compares that translation
with mine, he will at once acknowledge the truth of my remark. Indeed,
that translation is in some parts so barbarous, that nothing
but an intimate acquaintance with the writings of Proclus, and the
philosophy of Plato could enable any one to render them intelligible in
another language. The same observation is partially applicable to the
translation of the Extracts from two other treatises of Proclus.
The Greek text of Proclus abounds with errors, so that the emendations
which I have made, and the deficiencies which I have supplied in this
volume, amount to more than four hundred. And the Latin translation
of Portus is so very faulty, as to be almost beyond example bad.
Having discovered this to be the case, and having in so many places
corrected the original, I scarcely think that any of my critical
enemies will be hardy enough to say, that any part of this volume was
translated from the Latin, where the Greek could be obtained. As I am
conscious however, that in what is now offered to the public, I had no
other view than to benefit those who are capable of being benefited
by such sublime speculations; that wishing well to all mankind,
and particularly to my country, I have laboured to disseminate the
philosophy and theology of Plato, as highly favourable to the interests
of piety and good government, and most hostile to lawless conduct and
revolutionary principles; and that I have done my best to deserve the
esteem of the wise and worthy part of mankind, I am wholly unconcerned
as to the reception it may meet with from the malevolent, though I wish
for the approbation of the candid critics of the day. For in all my
labours I have invariably observed the following Pythagoric precept:
“Do those things which you judge to be beautiful, though in doing them
you should be without renown; for the rabble is a bad judge of a good
thing.”[65]
CONTENTS
of
THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
The Preface, in which the scope of the treatise is unfolded, together with the praise of Plato himself,
and of those that received the philosophy from him.
CHAPTER II.
What the mode of the discussion is in the present treatise, and what preparation of the auditors of
it is previously necessary.
CHAPTER III.
What a theologist is according to Plato, whence he begins, as far as to what hypostases he ascends,
and according to what power of the soul he particularly energizes.
CHAPTER IV.
The theological types or forms according to all which Plato disposes the doctrine concerning the
Gods.
CHAPTER V.
What the dialogues are from which the theology of Plato may especially be assumed; and to what
orders of Gods each of these dialogues refers us.
CHAPTER VI.
An objection against collecting the Platonic theology from many dialogues, in consequence of its
being partial, and distributed into minute parts.
CHAPTER VII.
A solution of the before mentioned objection, referring to one dialogue, the Parmenides, the
whole truth concerning the Gods according to Plato.
CHAPTER VIII.
An enumeration of the different opinions concerning the Parmenides, and a division of the objections
to them.
CHAPTER IX.
A confutation of those who assert that the Parmenides is a logical dialogue, and who admit that the
discussion in it is argumentative, proceeding through subjects of opinion.
CHAPTER X.
How far they are right who assert that the hypotheses of the Parmenides are concerning the principles
of things, and what is to be added to what they say from the doctrine of our preceptor
[Syrianus.]
CHAPTER XI.
Many demonstrations concerning the conclusions of the second hypothesis, and of the division of
it according to the divine orders.
CHAPTER XII.
The intention of the hypotheses, demonstrating their connexion with each other, and their consent
with the things themselves.[66]
CHAPTER XIII.
What the common rules concerning the Gods are, which Plato delivers in the Laws. And also
concerning the hyparxis of the Gods, their providence, and their immutable perfection.
CHAPTER XIV.
How the hyparxis of the Gods is delivered in the Laws, and through what media the discourse
recurs to the truly existing Gods.——How the providence of the Gods is demonstrated in
the Laws, and what the mode of their providence is according to Plato.[67]
CHAPTER XV.
Through what arguments in the same treatise [the Laws] it is demonstrated that the Gods provide
[for all things,] immutably.
CHAPTER XVI.
What the axioms are concerning the Gods which are delivered in the Republic, and what order
they have with respect to each other.
CHAPTER XVII.
What the goodness of the Gods is, and how they are said to be the causes of all good; and that
evil according to every hypostasis is itself adorned and arranged by the Gods.
CHAPTER XVIII.
What the immutability is of the Gods; where also it is shown what their self-sufficiency, and firm
impassivity are; and how we are to understand their possessing an invariable sameness of
subsistence.
CHAPTER XIX.
What the simplicity is of the Gods; and how that which is simple in them appears to be various
in secondary natures.
CHAPTER XX.
What the truth is in the Gods; and whence falsehood is introduced in the participations of the
Gods by secondary natures.
CHAPTER XXI.
From the axioms in the Phædrus concerning every thing divine [it follows] that every thing divine
is beautiful, wise, and good.
CHAPTER XXII.
A discussion of the dogmas concerning the goodness [of the Gods,] and an investigation of the
elements of the good in the Philebus.
CHAPTER XXIII.
What the wisdom of the Gods is, and what elements of it may be assumed from Plato.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Concerning divine beauty, and the elements of it, as delivered by Plato.
CHAPTER XXV.
What the triad is which is conjoined with the good, the wise, and the beautiful, and what auxiliaries
to the theory of it, Plato affords us.[68]
CHAPTER XXVI.
Concerning the axioms delivered in the Phædo,[69]
respecting an invisible nature. What the divine
nature is. What the immortal, and the intelligible[70] are; and what order these possess with
reference to each other.
CHAPTER XXVII.
What the uniform and indissoluble are, and how sameness of subsistence [and the unbegotten are]
to be assumed in divine natures.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
How paternal, and how maternal causes are to be assumed in the Gods.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Concerning divine names, and the rectitude of them as delivered in the Cratylus.
CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
A method leading to the superessential principle of all things, according to the intellectual conception
of the one and multitude.
CHAPTER II.
A second method unfolding the hypostasis of the one, and demonstrating it to be exempt from all
corporeal and incorporeal essences.
CHAPTER III.
Many arguments in confirmation of the same thing, and evincing the irreprehensible hypothesis of
the one.
CHAPTER IV.
A confutation of those who say that the first principle is not according to Plato above intellect, and
demonstrations from the Republic, the Sophista, the Philebus, and the Parmenides, of the
superessential hypostasis[71] of the one.
CHAPTER V.
What the modes are of ascent to the one according to Plato; and that the modes are two, through
analogy, and through negations. Likewise, where Plato treats of each of these, and through
what cause.
CHAPTER VI.
By what, and by how many names Plato unfolds the ineffable principle, and why he unfolds it by
such and by so many names. And how these names accord with the modes of ascent to it.
CHAPTER VII.
What the assertions are in the Republic concerning the first principle, through its analogy to the
sun; where also it is shown, how it is celebrated as the good, and as the most splendid of
being. How the sun is the offspring of the good; and that according to each order of
divine natures, there is a monad analogous to the first principle. And how the first principle
is the cause of all beings, and is itself prior to power and energy.
CHAPTER VIII.
What Plato in his Epistle to Dionysius says the first king is. And admonitions, that the first God
is discussed in that Epistle.
CHAPTER IX.
What the three conceptions are which are delivered [in that Epistle] concerning the first king. How
all things are about him. How all things are for his sake. How he is the cause of all
beautiful things. What the order is of these conceptions. And from what hypotheses they
are assumed.
CHAPTER X.
How in the first hypothesis of the Parmenides, Plato delivers the doctrine concerning the one,
employing for this purpose negations. And on what account the negations are such and so
many.
CHAPTER XI.
How it is necessary to enter on the theory concerning the one, through negations. And what disposition
of the soul is most adapted to discussions of this kind.
CHAPTER XII.
A celebration of the one, demonstrating through negative conclusions that it is exempt from all the
orders of beings, according to the order delivered in the Parmenides.
CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
That after the discussion in common of the one principle of things, it is requisite to treat of the
divine orders, and to show how many they are, and how they are divided from each other.
CHAPTER II.
That the multitude of unities according to which the Gods have their hypostasis, subsists after
the one.
CHAPTER III.
How many the particulars are which ought to be demonstrated previous to the discovery of the
multitude of the divine orders, and an uninterrupted narration of the doctrine of these.
CHAPTER IV.
That all the unities are participable. And that there is only one truly superessential one; but that
all the other unities are participated by essences.[72]
CHAPTER V.
That the participations of the unities which are nearer to the one, proceed into more simple hypostases;
but the participations of those that are remote from the one, proceed into more composite
hypostases.
CHAPTER VI.
What the natures are which participate of the divine unities, and what the order of them is with respect
to each other. And that being indeed, is the most ancient of these; life, the second;
intellect, the third; soul, the fourth; and body, the last. And that there are also as many
orders of the divine unities.[73]
CHAPTER VII.
A resumption of the doctrine concerning the one, and a discussion of the biformed principles posterior
to the one.
CHAPTER VIII.
What the two principles are of all things posterior to the one; how Socrates the Philebus calls
them bound and infinity; and of what things they are the causes[74]
to beings.[75]
CHAPTER IX.
What the third thing is which is produced from the two principles. Why Socrates in the Philebus
calls it that which is mixed. That it is nothing else than that which is primarily being.[76]
And how this proceeds from the two principles, and from the one.
CHAPTER X.
How from images also, it may be inferred, that the first thing which subsists from bound and infinity
is being. How this may be demonstrated. And how bound and infinity are twofold;
one order of these subsisting in being, but the other existing prior to being.[77]
CHAPTER XI.
What the triad is, which Socrates in the Philebus says is inherent in every thing that is mixed.[78]
CHAPTER XII.
Concerning the first intelligible triad in common; and how the second triad proceeds analogous to
this.[79]
CHAPTER XIII.
What the second intelligible triad is. A more accurate account of it, as subsisting from that which
predominates, from that which is participated, and from that which characterizes the mixture.
CHAPTER XIV.
What the third intelligible triad is; what that is which predominates, and is participated in this.
And at the end, a discourse in common concerning the distinction of the three triads.
CHAPTER XV.
How the intelligible triads are delivered in the Timæus. And many admonitions concerning animal
itself, [evincing] that it has the third order in intelligibles.
CHAPTER XVI.
Many demonstrations that eternity subsists according to the middle order of intelligibles.
CHAPTER XVII.
That the one in which eternity abides is the summit of intelligibles.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Concerning all the intelligible orders in common, according to the doctrine of Timæus. And a
more accurate account of the peculiarities in the intelligible triads.
CHAPTER XIX.
Concerning intelligible forms, and the doctrine unfolding the peculiarity of them. How likewise
they are four, and from what causes they subsist.
CHAPTER XX.
That also from what is said in the Sophista, it is possible to discover the three intelligible orders;
viz. in that part of the Sophista, in which it is shown what the one being, what whole, and
what all are.
CHAPTER XXI.
A summary account of what has been said concerning the intelligible triads. And admonitions
from Plato that it is possible to divide them into father, power, and intellect.
CHAPTER XXII.
How in the Phædrus it is said that every thing divine is beautiful, wise, and good. What triple
elements of each of these Plato delivers. And how from these it is possible to accede to the
union and separation of the intelligible triads.
CHAPTER XXIII.
How Parmenides delivers the multitude of Gods in the second hypothesis. And how we should
discourse about each order of them, employing for this purpose the conclusions of that
hypothesis.
CHAPTER XXIV.
What the first intelligible triad is according to Parmenides. Whence he begins, and how far he
proceeds, teaching concerning it.
CHAPTER XXV.
What the second intelligible triad is. How it is delivered by Parmenides in continuity with the
triad prior to it. And how far he produces the discourse concerning it.
CHAPTER XXVI.
What the third intelligible triad is. And how Parmenides unfolds it through the third conclusion.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Concerning the three conclusions in common, through which the three orders of intelligibles are
characterized. And how through these it is possible to dissolve the most difficult of theological
doubts.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A celebration of the intelligible Gods, unfolding at the same time the union of intelligibles themselves
with the good, and their exempt hyparxis.
CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
What the peculiarity is of the intelligible and intellectual Gods. How they illuminate imparticipable
life, and are in continuity with the intelligible Gods.
CHAPTER II.
How the intelligible and intellectual Gods subsist from the intelligible Gods. And how they communicate
with the intelligible Gods.
CHAPTER III.
What the division is of the intelligible and intellectual Gods according to triads. And what the difference
is of these triads with respect to the intelligible triads.
CHAPTER IV.
How Socrates in the Phædrus leads us to this order of Gods.
CHAPTER V.
That it is not proper to understand the Heaven, and celestial circulation [celebrated in the Phædrus]
as pertaining to sensibles; and many admonitions from the Platonic words themselves,
that these are to be referred to the first order of Heaven.
CHAPTER VI.
That the supercelestial place is not simply intelligible; but demonstrations from what is delivered
about it [in the Phædrus,] that it is allotted an intelligible order as in intellectuals.
CHAPTER VII.
That the subcelestial arch is the boundary of the intelligible and intellectual Gods, evinced from the
peculiarities of it.
CHAPTER VIII.
Why Plato characterizes this order of Gods from the middle which it contains, and delivers the
names of the extremes according to the habitude to this middle.
CHAPTER IX.
That Plato delivers the same mode of ascent to the intelligible, as is delivered by initiators into the
mysteries.
CHAPTER X.
What the supercelestial place is. How it proceeds from the first intelligibles. How it is supreme
in intellectuals. And how Plato demonstrates its prolific power.
CHAPTER XI.
How Plato has indicated the unknown peculiarity of the summit of intelligibles and intellectuals,
and why he celebrates it at one and the same time affirmatively and negatively.
CHAPTER XII.
What the negations are of the supercelestial place. That they are produced from the divine orders.
What kind of negations also designate the uncoloured, what, the unfigured, and what, the privation
of contact.
CHAPTER XIII.
What the things are which Plato affirms of the supercelestial place, and from what intelligible peculiarities,
he ascribes to it affirmative signs.
CHAPTER XIV.
What the three deities of the virtues, viz. science, temperance, and justice, are in the supercelestial
place; what order they have with respect to each other; and what perfection each of them
imparts to the Gods.
CHAPTER XV.
What the plain of Truth, and what the meadow are. What the unical form of intelligible nutriment
is. What the twofold nutriment of the Gods is which is distributed from this intelligible
food.
CHAPTER XVI.
Many admonitions that the supercelestial place is triadic. And what the signs are of the three
hypostases in it.
CHAPTER XVII.
Who Adrastia is. What the sacred law of Adrastia is. That she ranks in the supercelestial place.
And on what account she does so.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A summary account of what is said about the supercelestial place, unfolding the peculiarities of it.
CHAPTER XIX.
Demonstrations that the connectedly-containing order is in the intelligible and intellectual Gods.
And that it is necessary there should be three connective causes of wholes.
CHAPTER XX.
That according to Plato the celestial circulation is the same with the connective order.
CHAPTER XXI.
How we may obtain auxiliaries from what is said by Plato of the triadic division in the connective
deity. And why he especially venerates the union in this triad.
CHAPTER XXII.
What the theology in the Cratylus is concerning Heaven. And how it is possible to collect from it
by a reasoning process the middle of the intelligible and intellectual Gods.
CHAPTER XXIII.
That the most divinely-inspired of the interpreters have defined the subcelestial arch to be a certain
peculiar order. And that our preceptor has unfolded it in the most perfect manner.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Many admonitions that the peculiarity of the subcelestial arch is perfective, from what Plato has
delivered concerning it, and from the souls that are elevated to it.
CHAPTER XXV.
What the triadic division is of the perfective order, which Plato has delivered in the subcelestial
arch.
CHAPTER XXVI.
What the elevation is of souls separate from bodies to the intelligible and intellectual triads.
What the most blessed telete is. What muesis, and epopteia are. What the entire, simple,
and unmoved visions are. And what the end is of all this elevation.
CHAPTER XXVII.
How Plato unfolds in the Parmenides, from intelligibles the intelligible and intellectual orders.
And what that which is common, and that which is different are, in the theology concerning
these.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
How the intelligible and intellectual number proceeds from intelligibles. And in what it differs
from intelligible multitude.
CHAPTER XXIX.
How divine number adorns all beings. And what the powers in it are which are symbolically delivered
from the division of number.
CHAPTER XXX.
How Parmenides has delivered the feminine and generative peculiarity [of first number] in what he
says concerning number.
CHAPTER XXXI.
How we may discover in what is delivered concerning number, the triadic division of the summit of
intelligibles and intellectuals.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Whether it is proper to place number prior to animal itself, or in animal itself, or posterior to it.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Whence Parmenides begins to speak about number. How far he proceeds in what he says about
it. And how he unfolds the different orders in it.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
What the unknown is in divine numbers. What the generative is in them. And admonitions of
these things from what is elsewhere said by Plato concerning numbers.
CHAPTER XXXV.
How Parmenides delivers the middle order of intelligibles and intellectuals through the one, whole,
and finite. And what the peculiarities are of these.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Whence Parmenides begins to speak about this order. And how far he proceeds in what he says
about it. How he likewise unfolds the three monads in it conformably to what is said in the
Phædrus concerning them.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
How Parmenides delivers the third order of intelligibles and intellectuals. And how he unfolds
the perfective peculiarity, and triadic division of it.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
An admonition what the union is of the three intelligible and intellectual triads, from the conclusions
of Parmenides.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
How many theological dogmas we may assume, through the order of the conclusions delivered by
Parmenides in his discourse concerning the intelligible and intellectual Gods.
CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
How the intellectual orders proceed from the intelligible and intellectual Gods. And according to
what peculiarities they subsist.
CHAPTER II.
What the division is of the intellectual Gods. And the progression according to hebdomads in this
order of Gods.
CHAPTER III.
Who the three intellectual fathers are according to Plato. What the three undefiled monads are.
And who the seventh deity is, that is co-arranged with the two triads.
CHAPTER IV.
How from the writings of Plato, the procession of the intellectual Gods into seven hebdomads may
be collected by a reasoning process.
CHAPTER V.
Who the mighty Saturn is, according to the theology in the Cratylus. And how he is in a certain
respect intelligible, and in a certain respect intellectual. In which also, the dogmas are discussed
concerning the union of intellect with the intelligible, and its separation from it.
CHAPTER VI.
What the kingdom of Saturn is. In what manner it is delivered by Plato in the Politicus. And
of what it is the cause to the world, to the mundane Gods, and to partial souls.
CHAPTER VII.
What the Saturnian life of souls is. And what peculiarities of this circulation the Elean Guest
delivers.
CHAPTER VIII.
How souls are said to be nourished by intelligibles. And what the difference is of the nutriment
derived from different intelligibles.
CHAPTER IX.
What the orders are which the mighty Saturn causes to preside over wholes. In which also, who
the Saturnian intellect is that is delivered in the Gorgias is unfolded.
CHAPTER X.
How this God [Saturn] is peculiarly called by theologists insenescible, or free from old age. And
how Plato has delivered this peculiarity of him.
CHAPTER XI.
Who the vivific Goddess is. How she is the collector of the Saturnian and Jovian kingdoms. And
what orders she possesses conjoined with both these kingdoms.
CHAPTER XII.
Who the third father in intellectuals is. How he proceeds from the causes prior to him. And
that he is the demiurgus of the universe.
CHAPTER XIII.
Demonstrations that the whole demiurgus of the universe, is the third father of the intellectual
Gods.
CHAPTER XIV.
An answer to those who say that there are three demiurgi according to Plato, demonstrating
through many arguments that the demiurgic monad is arranged prior to the [demiurgic] triad,
in the third order of intellectuals.
CHAPTER XV.
That Timæus especially delivers the peculiarity of the demiurgus, by calling him intellect. And
that this pertains to the third of the intellectual fathers.
CHAPTER XVI.
How according to another method it is requisite to discover the peculiarity of the demiurgus. And
how the demiurgus is called in the Timæus effector and father. In which also, it is clearly
shown, where the paternal, where the paternal and at the same time effective, where the effective
and paternal, and where the effective only are, according to Plato. And in short, in
what effector and father differ.
CHAPTER XVII.
How following Timæus, according to a third method, we may purify our conceptions concerning
the demiurgic monad.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A theological explanation of the speech of the demiurgus in the Timæus, distinctly evolving our
conceptions about the demiurgic energy.
CHAPTER XIX.
What the second speech of the demiurgus is to divisible souls. In what it differs from the former.
And how in this all the measures of the life of souls are defined.
CHAPTER XX.
A summary of all that is said about the demiurgus, following the doctrine of Timæus.
CHAPTER XXI.
Admonitions from what is said in the Cratylus, that Plato attributes fabrication to Jupiter.
CHAPTER XXII.
Admonitions from what is said in the Cratylus of the fabrication of Jupiter. In which also the
concord is demonstrated of the theology from names, with the arrangement of the demiurgus
in the Timæus.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Admonitions of the fabrication of Jupiter from what is demonstrated in the Philebus. In which
also it is shown, what the royal soul, and the royal intellect are.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Demonstrations of the same thing, from what is said in the Protagoras about the political science.
CHAPTER XXV.
An argument shewing that Jupiter is the demiurgus and father of the universe[80]
according to Plato,
from what is said in the Politicus concerning the twofold circulation [of the universe.]
CHAPTER XXVI.
Admonitions of the same things, from what is said in the Laws concerning analogy, viz. that it is
the judgment of Jupiter.
CHAPTER XXVII.
How Jupiter subsists according to cause in animal itself, and how animal itself is in Jupiter.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
How Timæus attributes to the demiurgus the unknown and ineffable.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Why Timæus thinks fit to denominate animal itself, and is of opinion that it may be known, but
leaves the demiurgus unknown and ineffable.
CHAPTER XXX.
Concerning the Crater in the Timæus, a theology teaching what the genera are that are mingled in
it, and how it is the cause of the essence of souls.
CHAPTER XXXI.
That the Crater in the Timæus is fontal. And admonitions from the writings of Plato, concerning
the principle and fountain of souls.
CHAPTER XXXII.
That the three vivific fountains co-arranged with the demiurgus, may be assumed from what is said
in the Timæus, viz. the fountain of souls, the fountain of the virtues, and the fountain of
natures.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Admonitions concerning the undefiled Gods; that there are such Gods according to Plato; and
what the peculiarity is of their essence.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
More manifest demonstrations of the hypostasis of the undefiled Gods, according to Plato.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Admonitions through many arguments how it is proper to denominate the undefiled Gods according
to Plato. In which also, the union of them, what their separation, and what their peculiarity
are, is delivered.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
How from what is mystically asserted by Plato, auxiliaries may be obtained, concerning the seventh
monad of intellectuals.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
How Plato delivers in the Parmenides the summit of the intellectual Gods.[81]
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
How Parmenides unfolds the middle order of the intellectual breadth, and through what signs.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
How Parmenides defines the third order of intellectuals, and through what peculiarities.
CHAPTER XL.
A common theory of the intellectual hebdomad, from the conclusions of Parmenides.
CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK VI.
CHAPTER I.
That the ruling order of Gods is in continuity with the intellectual Gods. And that the division
into fountains and principles may be assumed from the writings of Plato, through the theory
about souls.
CHAPTER II.
How the ruling Gods proceed. And that the supermundane peculiarity pertains to these Gods
alone.
CHAPTER III.
What the peculiarity is of the ruling Gods. That the assimilative is especially characteristic of
them. And how the causes of assimilation are antecedently assumed in the demiurgus; and
how in the intelligible paradigm.
CHAPTER IV.
What the powers are of the assimilative Gods. What their energies. And how many goods are
imparted by them to the world, and to all mundane natures.
CHAPTER V.
What the divisions are of the assimilative Gods. And that the greatest part of the discourse about
them is concerning the middle orders in them.
CHAPTER VI.
Many demonstrations, that both according to Plato and other theologists, there is one demiurgus
prior to the three demiurgi.
CHAPTER VII.
That Jupiter is twofold; one indeed, being prior to the three sons of Saturn, [but the other being
one of them.] And how the three proceed from Saturn, and the one Jupiter.
CHAPTER VIII.
That according to Plato also, the demiurgic monad subsists prior to the three sons of Saturn.
Demonstrations of this from what is said in the Politicus, and in the Laws.
CHAPTER IX.
More manifest admonitions of the same things from what is said in the Gorgias, and in the
Cratylus.
CHAPTER X.
Who the three demiurgi are, and what order they have with reference to each other. Likewise
what their progressions are, and their divisions about the world.
CHAPTER XI.
What the vivific triad is among the ruling Gods. And whence we may derive auxiliaries from the
writings of Plato concerning the union and division of this triad.
CHAPTER XII.
What the convertive triad of the ruling Gods is; and what the monad which it contains. In which
also, the union of Apollo with the sun is demonstrated; and it is shewn, how from what is
said about Apollo we may be led to the theory of the solar orders.
CHAPTER XIII.
What the undefiled order is of the ruling Gods. And how from the writings of Plato conceptions
about it may be obtained.
CHAPTER XIV.
How Parmenides forms his conclusions about the ruling Gods, in continuity with the demiurgic
order. And that he characterizes the whole order of them, through similitude and dissimilitude.
CHAPTER XV.
What the supermundane and at the same time mundane genus of Gods is. And how through their
own medium they preserve the continuity of the Gods that proceed from the demiurgus.
CHAPTER XVI.
How the liberated Gods are characterized. And how from their liberated peculiarity they are
exempt from the universe, and are co-arranged with the mundane Gods.
CHAPTER XVII.
What the common powers, and what the common energies are of the liberated Gods, according
with the essence that has been delivered of them.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Concerning the twelve leaders or rulers mentioned in the Phædrus, and that they have a liberated
order.
CHAPTER XIX.
Many and clearer demonstrations that the great leader Jupiter, and all the dodecad of leaders,
are liberated.
CHAPTER XX.
An explanation from precedaneous causes whence the number of the dodecad in the liberated
Gods is derived.
CHAPTER XXI.
What the division of the liberated leaders is into two monads and one decad. And what the one
division of them is.
CHAPTER XXII.
The theology concerning each of the twelve Gods, unfolding the peculiarities of them from the
subjects of their government.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Concerning the mother of the Fates mentioned in the Republic. Likewise concerning the triad of
the Fates. What orders they have with reference to each other. What powers of them are
delivered through divine symbols. What their energies are. And how Plato characterizes
the liberated peculiarity.
CHAPTER XXIV.
How Parmenides forms his conclusions concerning the liberated Gods immediately after the assimilative
Gods. And how he characterizes the order of them by touching and not touching.
CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK VII.
CHAPTER I.
On the mundane Gods in general,—the source of their progression,—their orders, powers, and
spheres.
CHAPTER II.
On the division, and allotments of the mundane Gods.
CHAPTER III.
That the mundane do not differ from the supermundane Gods in habitudes to bodies, &c.—That
the providence of the Gods is not circumscribed by place.—That it pervades all things, and
like the light of the sun, fills whatever is capable of receiving it.
CHAPTER IV.
After what manner the visible celestial orbs are Gods.—That a celestial body is eminently allied
to the incorporeal essence of the Gods.—That the visible are connected with the intelligible
Gods.—And that the perfectly incorporeal are united to the sensible Gods, through the
essence of each being characterized by the one.
CHAPTER V.
The nature of the mundane Gods unfolded from the speech of the Demiurgus to them, in the
Timæus.—And what the whole conception of the speech is according to Proclus.
CHAPTER VI.
What the demiurgus effects in the multitude of mundane Gods by the first words of his speech.—That
the words of the Demiurgus are addressed to the composite from soul and animal, viz.
to the animal which is divine and partakes of a soul.—The meaning of the words, “Of
whom I am the demiurgus and father,” &c.
CHAPTER VII.
The meaning of the words unfolded in the speech of the Demiurgus, “Every thing therefore which
is bound is dissoluble, but to be willing to dissolve that which is beautifully harmonized and
well composed, is the province of an ill nature.”
CHAPTER VIII.
The following part of the speech of the Demiurgus to the mundane Gods unfolded.—The difference
between the primarily and secondarily immortal, and the primarily and secondarily
indissoluble.—And that the mundane Gods are neither primarily immortal, nor primarily
indissoluble.
CHAPTER IX.
That part of the speech of the Demiurgus unfolded, in which he says to the mundane Gods,
“Learn now therefore what I say to you indicating my desire.”
CHAPTER X.
The developement of the remaining part of the speech of the Demiurgus.
CHAPTER XI.
Who the junior Gods are, and why they are thus called.
CHAPTER XII.
Farther important particulars respecting the fabrication of the mundane Gods, collected from the
Timæus, and unfolded.
CHAPTER XIII.
Continuation of the developement of these particulars.
CHAPTER XIV.
The peculiarities of the celestial Gods separately discussed.—Why the one sphere of the fixed stars
comprehends a multitude of stars, but each of the planetary spheres convolves only one star.—And
that in each of the planetary spheres, there is a number of satellites, analogous to the
choir of the fixed stars, subsisting with proper circulations of their own.
CHAPTER XV.
The nature of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Sun unfolded.
CHAPTER XVI.
Extract from the Oration of the Emperor Julian to the Sovereign Sun.
CHAPTER XVII.
Extract from the MS. Scholia of Proclus on the Cratylus of Plato concerning Apollo, in which
the principal powers of the God are unfolded.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The nature of the Muses unfolded from the above MS. Scholia.
CHAPTER XIX.
The nature of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, unfolded.—The manner in which each of the seven planetary
divinities becomes an animal, and is suspended from a more divine soul; and what kind
of perfection it affords to the universe.
CHAPTER XX.
That all the celestial Gods are beneficent, and after a similar manner the causes of good.—And that
the participation of them, and the mixture of material with immaterial influences, become the
causes of the abundant difference in secondary natures.
CHAPTER XXI.
The nature of Minerva unfolded from the Commentaries of Proclus on the Timæus.—The spear
and shield with which this Goddess, in the statues of her, is represented as armed, explained
from Iamblichus.—And observations respecting the mundane allotment of this Goddess.
CHAPTER XXII.
The nature of the great mundane divinity, the earth, unfolded from Proclus on the Timæus of
Plato.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The manner in which the earth is said to be the most ancient, and the first of the Gods within the
heavens, explained.
CHAPTER XXIV.
On the essence of the sublunary deities.—What Plato says of them in the Timæus unfolded.
CHAPTER XXV.
Where the sublunary Gods are to be arranged.—And the meaning of the subsequent words of Plato
developed.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The nature of the sublunary Gods more fully unfolded.—On the dæmoniacal order.—And that
about each of the fabricators of generation, there is a coordinate angelical, dæmoniacal, and
heroical multitude, which retains the appellation of its producing monad.
CHAPTER XXVII.
What Pythagoras says in the Sacred Discourse.—What the Orphic traditions are concerning
Phanes, Night, Heaven, Saturn, Jupiter, and Bacchus.—That Plato begins the Theogony of
the sublunary Gods from Heaven and Earth, and not from Phanes and Night.—And why he
does so.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
On the two principles Heaven and Earth.—What each of them is; and particularly concerning the
power of Heaven.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The whole theory of Earth unfolded.—And also the theory of Ocean and Tethys.—That the causes
of these are in the intellectual Gods, and likewise in the sensible universe.
CHAPTER XXX.
The theory of Phorcys, Saturn, and Rhea, unfolded.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The nature of the sublunary Jupiter and Juno unfolded.—And why Plato comprehends in this
ennead, viz. Heaven and Earth, Ocean and Tethys, Phorcys, Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter, and Juno,
the Gods who are the fabricators of generation.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Why Plato denominates the sublunary deities, “such as become apparent when they please.”—General
observations respecting the Gods that govern generation.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
On the summit, or monad of all the mundane Gods, Bacchus.—And on the mundane soul which is
the immediate participant of the Bacchic intellect.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
How the mundane Gods are characterized in the Parmenides of Plato.
CHAPTER XXXV.
A developement of what Plato says in the Phædrus, about Boreas and Orithya, the Centaurs,
Chimæras, Gorgons, Pegasuses, Typhons, Achelous, and the Nymphs.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The meaning of Plato unfolded, in what he says about Pan, Tartarus, Prometheus, Cadmus, and
the Syrens.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A developement of Plato’s theological conceptions respecting Nature, Fate, and Fortune.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
What Time, Day and Night, Month and Year are, so far as they are deities, according to the
theology of Plato.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A discussion of the order of divine souls, who are deified by always participating of the Gods.
CHAPTER XL.
A developement of the nature of Love, from the MS. Commentary of Proclus on the First Alcibiades
of Plato.
CHAPTER XLI.
A continuation of the same subject.
CHAPTER XLII.
The nature of dæmons more fully disclosed.—An extract from the MS. Commentary of Proclus
on the First Alcibiades, on this subject.
CHAPTER XLIII.
On the dæmons who are allotted the superintendence of mankind.
CHAPTER XLIV.
On the dæmon of Socrates.—The peculiarity of this dæmon; and that it belonged to the Apolloniacal
series.
CHAPTER XLV.
Important information concerning dæmons from the MS. Scholia of Proclus on the Cratylus of
Plato.—And also from the MS. Commentary of Olympiodorus on the Phædo of Plato.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The nature of those human souls that are of an heroic characteristic unfolded.—What Plato says of
these souls in the Cratylus.—His meaning elucidated from the MS. Scholia of Proclus on
that dialogue.
CHAPTER XLVII.
How the triple genera that are the perpetual attendants of the Gods, are indicated in the Parmenides
of Plato.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
An elucidation from Proclus of what Plato says in the Timæus, in celebration of the divinity of the
World, so far as the whole of it is a God.
CHAPTER XLIX.
A further elucidation from Proclus of the same subject.
CHAPTER L.
The meaning of the words of Plato, “And causing circle to revolve in a circle, he established
heaven (i.e. the world) one, only, solitary nature,” unfolded from Proclus.
CHAPTER LI.
What Plato says in the Timæus about the name of the World,—with the elucidations of Proclus.
An explanation of certain terms which are unusual, or have
a meaning different from their common acceptation, and which
there was a necessity of introducing in the translation of this
work.
Composite, συνθετος. I have used the word composite instead
of compounded, because the latter rather denotes the mingling
than the contiguous union of one thing with another, which the former,
through its derivation from the Latin word compositus, solely
denotes.
Demiurgus of wholes, δημιουργος των ολων. The artificer of
the universe is thus denominated, because he produces the universe so
far as it is a whole, and likewise all the wholes it contains,
by his own immediate energy; other subordinate powers co-operating
with him in the production of parts. Hence he produces the universe
totally and at once.
Desire, επιθυμια. Is an irrational appetite solely directed to
external objects, and to the gratification arising from the possession
of them.
Dianoia, διανοια, from whence dianoetic, is the
discursive energy of reason; (διεξοδικη του λογου ενεργεια) or
according to its most accurate signification, it is that power of the
soul which reasons scientifically, deriving the principles of its
reasoning from intellect, or the power which sees truth intuitively.
Doxastic, formed from δοξα, opinion, is the last of the
gnostic powers of the rational soul; and knows that a thing is,
but is ignorant of the cause of it, or why it is. The knowledge
of the διοτι, or why a thing is, being the province of dianoia.
Guest, ξενος. This word, in its more ample signification
in the Greek, denotes a stranger, but properly implies one
who receives another, or is himself received at an entertainment. In
the dialogues of Plato therefore, (and consequently in this work of
Proclus when he cites the dialogues in which this word occurs) wherever
one of the speakers is introduced as a ξενος, I have translated this
word guest, as being more conformable to the genius of Plato’s
dialogues, which may be justly called rich mental banquets, and
consequently the speakers in them may be considered as so many guests.
Hence in the Timæus, the persons of that dialogue are expressly spoken
of as guests from having been feasted with discourse.
Hyparxis, υπαρξις. The first principle, or foundation as it
were, of the essence of a thing. Hence, also, it is the summit of
essence.
Imparticipable, αμεθεκτος. One thing is said to be
imparticipable with respect to another, to which it is superior, when
it is not consubsistent with it.
Intellectual projection. The immediate energy of intellect
is thus denominated, because it is an intuitive perception, or an
immediate darting forth, as it were, to its proper object, the
intelligible.
Monad, μονας, in divine natures is that which contains
distinct, but at the same time profoundly-united
multitude, and which produces a multitude exquisitely allied to
itself. But in the sensible universe, the first monad is the world
itself, which comprehends in itself all the multitude of which it is
the cause (in conjunction with the cause of all). The second monad is
the inerratic sphere. In the third place, the spheres of the planets
succeed, each of which is also a monad, comprehending an appropriate
multitude. And in the fourth and last place are the spheres of the
elements, which are in a similar manner monads. All these monads
likewise are denominated ολοτητες, wholenesses, and have a
perpetual subsistence.
Permanency, στασις. The proper word for rest, in Greek, is
ηρεμια. And Simplicius justly observes, that not every στασις is
ηρεμια, but that only which is after motion. This word is employed by
Plato in the Sophista, to express one of the five genera of being,
viz. essence, permanency, (στασις), motion,
sameness, and difference; in which place it evidently
does not signify rest.
Phantasy, or Imagination, φαντασια, is, μορφωτικη
νοησις, i.e. a figured intelligence, because all the perceptions
of this power are inward, and not external, like those of sense,
and are accompanied with figure.
Psychical, ψυχικος, i.e. pertaining to soul, in the
same manner as φυσικος, physical, is something pertaining to
nature.
Reason, λογος. This word in Platonic writers signifies either
that inward discursive energy called reasoning; or a certain productive
and seminal principle; or that which is indicative and definitive of
a thing. Hence λογοι or reasons in the soul, are, gnostically
producing principles.
Unical, ενιαιος, that which is characterized by unity.
Uniform, ενοειδης. This word when it occurs in Proclus, and
other Platonic writers, signifies that which has the form of the
one, and not as in Johnson, that which keeps its tenour, or is
similar to itself.
PROCLUS,
THE PLATONIC SUCCESSOR,
ON
The Theology of Plato.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
O Pericles, to me the dearest of friends, I am of opinion that the
whole philosophy of Plato was at first unfolded into light through
the beneficent will of superior natures, exhibiting the intellect
concealed in them, and the truth subsisting together with beings, to
souls conversant with generation (so far as it is lawful for them to
participate of such supernatural and mighty good); and again, that
afterwards having received its perfection, returning as it were into
itself, and becoming unapparent to many who professed to philosophize,
and who earnestly desired to engage in the investigation of true being,
it again advanced into light. But I particularly think that the mystic
doctrine respecting divine concerns, which is purely established on
a sacred foundation, and which perpetually subsists with the gods
themselves, became thence apparent to such as are capable of enjoying
it for a time, through one man,[82] whom I should not err in calling
the primary leader and hierophant of those true mysteries, into which
souls separated from terrestrial places are initiated, and of those
entire and stable visions, which those participate who genuinely
embrace a happy and blessed life. But this philosophy shone forth at
first from him so venerably and arcanely, as if established in sacred
temples, and within their adyta, and being unknown to many who have
entered into these holy places, in certain orderly periods of time,
proceeded as much as was possible for it into light, through certain
true priests, and who embraced a life corresponding to the tradition of
such mystic concerns. It appears likewise to me, that the whole place
became splendid, and that illuminations of divine spectacles every
where presented themselves to the view.
These interpreters of the epopteia (or mystic speculations)
of Plato, who have unfolded to us all-sacred narrations of divine
concerns, and who were allotted a nature similar to their leader, I
should determine to be the Egyptian Plotinus, and those who received
the theory from him, I mean Amelius and Porphyry, together with those
in the third place who were produced like virile statues from these,
viz.: Jamblichus and Theodorus, and any others, who after these,
following this divine choir, have energized about the doctrines of
Plato with a divinely-inspired mind. From these, he[83] who, after the
gods, has been our leader to every thing beautiful and good, receiving
in an undefiled manner the most genuine and pure light of truth in
the bosom of his soul, made us a partaker of all the rest of Plato’s
philosophy, communicated to us that arcane information which he had
received from those more ancient than himself, and caused us, in
conjunction with him, to be divinely agitated about the mystic truth of
divine concerns.
To this man, therefore, should we undertake to return thanks adequate
to the benefits which we have received from him; the whole of time
would not be sufficient. But if it is necessary, not only[84] that we
should have received from others the transcendant good of the Platonic
philosophy, but that we should leave to posterity monuments of those
blessed spectacles of which we have been spectators, and emulators
to the utmost of our ability, under a leader the most perfect of the
present time, and who arrived at the summit of philosophy; perhaps we
shall act properly in invoking the gods, that they will enkindle the
light of truth in our soul, and in supplicating the attendants and
ministers of better natures to direct our intellect and lead it to the
all-perfect, divine, and elevated, end of the Platonic theory. For
I think that every where he who participates in the least degree of
intelligence, will begin his undertakings from the Gods, and especially
in explications respecting the Gods: for we can no otherwise be able to
understand a divine nature than by being perfected through the light of
the Gods; nor divulge it to others unless governed by them, and exempt
from multiform opinions, and the variety which subsists in words,
preserving at the same time the interpretation of divine names. Knowing
therefore this, and complying with the exhortation of the Platonic
Timæus, we in the first place establish the Gods as leaders of the
doctrine respecting themselves. But may they in consequence of hearing
our prayers be propitious to us, and benignantly approaching, guide the
intellect of our soul, and lead it about the Vesta of Plato, and to
the arduous sublimities of this speculation; where, when arrived, we
shall receive all the truth concerning them, and shall obtain the best
end of our parturient conceptions of divine concerns, desiring to know
something respecting them, inquiring about them of others, and, at the
same time, as far as we are able, exploring them ourselves.
CHAPTER II.
And thus much by way of preface. But it is necessary that I should
unfold the mode of the proposed doctrine, what it is requisite to
expect it will be, and define the preparatives which a hearer of it
ought to possess; that being properly adapted, he may approach, not
to our discourses, but to the intellectually-elevated and deific
philosophy of Plato. For it is proper that convenient aptitudes of
auditors should be proposed according to the forms of discourses, just
as in the mysteries, those who are skilful in concerns of this kind,
previously prepare receptacles for the Gods, and neither always use the
same inanimate particulars, nor other animals, nor men, in order to
procure the presence of the divinities; but that alone out of each of
these which is naturally capable of participating divine illumination,
is by them introduced to the proposed mystic rites.
The present discourse, therefore, will first of all be divided by
me into three parts. In the beginning, considering all those common
conceptions concerning the Gods, which Plato summarily delivers,
together with the power and dignity every where of theological axioms;
but in the middle of this work, speculating the total orders of the
Gods, enumerating their peculiarities, defining their progressions
after the manner of Plato, and referring every thing to the hypotheses
of theologists; and, in the end, speaking concerning the Gods which are
in different places celebrated in the Platonic writings, whether they
are supermundane or mundane, and referring the theory respecting them
to the total genera of the divine orders.
In every part of this work, likewise, we shall prefer the clear,
distinct, and simple, to the contraries of these. And such things as
are delivered through symbols, we shall transfer to a clear doctrine
concerning them; but such as are delivered through images, we shall
transmit to their exemplars. Such things too as are written in a more
affirmative way, we shall examine by causal reasonings; but such as
are composed through demonstrations, we shall investigate; and besides
this, explain the mode of truth which they contain, and render it
known to the hearers. And of things enigmatically proposed, we shall
elsewhere discover perspicuity, not from foreign hypotheses, but from
the most genuine writings of Plato. But with respect to the things
which immediately occur to the hearers, of these we shall contemplate
the consent with things themselves. And from all these particulars,
one perfect form of the Platonic theology will present itself to our
view, together with its truth which pervades through the whole of
divine intellections, and the one intellect which generated all the
beauty of this theology, and the mystic evolution of this theory. Such,
therefore, as I have said, will be my present treatise.
But the auditor of the proposed dogmas is supposed to be adorned with
the moral virtues, and to be one who has bound by the reason of virtue
all the illiberal and inharmonious motions of the soul, and harmonized
them to the one form of intellectual prudence: for, as Socrates says,
it is not lawful for the pure to be touched by the impure. But every
vicious man is perfectly impure; and the contrary character is pure. He
must likewise have been exercised in all the logical methods, and have
contemplated many irreprehensible conceptions about analyses, and many
about divisions, the contraries to these, agreeably, as it appears to
me, to the exhortation of Parmenides to Socrates. For prior to such a
contest in arguments, the knowledge of the divine genera, and of the
truth established in them, is difficult and impervious. But in the
third place, he must not be unskilled in physics. For he who has been
conversant with the multiform opinions of physiologists, and has after
a manner explored in images the causes of beings, will more easily
advance to the nature of separate and primary essences. An auditor
therefore of the present work, as I have said, must not be ignorant of
the truth contained in the phenomena, nor unacquainted with the paths
of erudition, and the disciplines which they contain; for through these
we obtain a more immaterial knowledge of a divine essence. But all
these must be bound together in the leader intellect. Being likewise
a partaker of the dialectic of Plato, meditating those immaterial
energies which are separate from corporeal powers, and desiring to
contemplate by intelligence[85] in conjunction with reason [true]
beings, our auditor must genuinely apply himself to the interpretation
of divine and blessed dogmas, and fill his soul, according to the
Oracle, with profound love; since, as Plato somewhere observes, for the
apprehension of this theory, a better assistant than love cannot be
obtained.
He must likewise be exercised in the truth which pervades through all
things, and must excite his intelligible eye to real and perfect truth.
He must establish himself in a firm, immovable, and safe kind of
divine knowledge, and must be persuaded not to admire any thing else,
nor even to direct his attention to other things, but must hasten to
divine light with an intrepid reasoning energy, and with the power of
an unwearied life; and in short, must propose to himself such a kind
of energy and rest as it becomes him to possess who intends to be such
a coryphæus as Socrates describes in the Theætetus. Such then is the
magnitude of our hypothesis, and such the mode of the discourses about
it. Before, however, I enter on the narration of the things proposed,
I wish to speak about theology itself, its different modes, and what
theological forms Plato approves, and what he rejects; that these
being previously known, we may more easily learn in what follows, the
auxiliaries of the demonstrations themselves.
CHAPTER III.
All, therefore, that have ever touched upon theology, have called
things first, according to nature, Gods; and have said that the
theological science is conversant about these. And some, indeed, have
considered a corporeal essence, as that alone which has any existence,
and have placed in a secondary rank with respect to essence, all the
genera of incorporeal natures, considering the principles of things as
having a corporeal form, and evincing that the habit in us by which we
know these, is corporeal. But others, suspending indeed all bodies from
incorporeal natures, and defining the first hyparxis[86] to be in soul,
and the powers of soul, call (as it appears to me) the best of souls,
Gods; and denominate the science which proceeds as far as to these, and
which knows these, theology. But such as produce the multitude of souls
from another more ancient principle, and establish intellect as the
leader of wholes, these assert that the best end is a union of the soul
with intellect, and consider the intellectual form of life as the most
honourable of all things. They doubtless too consider theology, and
the discussion of intellectual essence, as one and the same. All these,
therefore, as I have said, call the first and most self-sufficient
principles of things, Gods, and the science respecting these, theology.
The divine narration however, of Plato alone, despises all corporeal
natures, with reference to principles. Because, indeed, every thing
divisible and endued with interval, is naturally unable either to
produce or preserve itself, but possesses its being, energy, and
passivity through soul, and the motions which soul contains. But Plato
demonstrates that the psychical essence [i.e. the essence pertaining
to soul] is more ancient than bodies, but is suspended from an
intellectual hypostasis. For every thing which is moved according to
time, though it may be self-moved, is indeed of a more ruling nature
than things moved by others, but is posterior to an eternal motion.
He shows, therefore, as we have said, that intellect is the father
and cause of bodies and souls, and that all things both subsist
and energize about it, which are allotted a life conversant with
transitions and evolutions.
Plato, however, proceeds to another principle entirely exempt from
intellect, more incorporeal and ineffable, and from which all things,
even though you should speak of such as are last, have necessarily a
subsistence. For all things are not naturally disposed to participate
of soul, but such things only as are allotted in themselves a more
clear or obscure life. Nor are all things able to enjoy intellect
and being, but such only as subsist according to form. But it is
necessary that the principle of all things should be participated by
all things, if it does not desert any thing, since it is the cause
of all things which in any respect are said to have a subsistence.
Plato having divinely discovered this first principle of wholes, which
is more excellent than intellect, and is concealed in inaccessible
recesses; and having exhibited these three causes and monads, and
evinced them to be above bodies, I mean soul, the first intellect,
and a union above intellect, produces from these as monads, their
proper numbers; one multitude indeed being uniform,[87] but the second
intellectual, and the third psychical. For every monad is the leader
of a multitude coordinate to itself. But as Plato connects bodies
with souls, so likewise he connects souls with intellectual forms, and
these again with the unities of beings. But he converts all things
to one imparticipable unity. And having run back as far as to this
unity, he considers himself as having obtained the highest end of the
theory of wholes; and that this is the truth respecting the Gods,
which is conversant with the unities of beings, and which delivers
their progressions and peculiarities, the contact of beings with them,
and the orders of forms which are suspended from these unical[88]
hypostases.
But he teaches us that the theory respecting intellect, and the
forms and the genera revolving about intellect, is posterior to the
science which is conversant with the Gods themselves. Likewise that
the intellectual theory apprehends intelligibles, and the forms
which are capable of being known by the soul through the projecting
energy of intellect; but that the theological science transcending
this, is conversant with arcane and ineffable hyparxes, and pursues
their separation from each other, and their unfolding into light from
one cause of all: whence, I am of opinion, that the intellectual
peculiarity of the soul is capable of apprehending intellectual forms,
and the difference which subsists in them, but that the summit, and,
as they say, flower of intellect and hyparxis, is conjoined with the
unities of beings, and through these, with the occult union of all
the divine unities. For as we contain many gnostic powers, through
this alone we are naturally capable of being conjoined with and
participating this occult union. For the genus of the Gods cannot be
apprehended by sense, because it is exempt from all bodies; nor by
opinion and dianoia,[89] for these are divisible and come into contact
with multiform concerns; nor by intelligence in conjunction with
reason, for knowledge of this kind belongs to true beings; but the
hyparxis of the Gods rides on beings, and is defined according to the
union itself of wholes. It remains, therefore, if it be admitted that a
divine nature can be in any respect known, that it must be apprehended
by the hyparxis of the soul, and through this, as far as it is
possible, be known. For we say that every where things similar can be
known by the similar; viz. the sensible by sense, the doxastic[90] by
opinion, the dianoetic by dianoia, and the intelligible by intellect.
So that the most unical nature must be known by the one, and the
ineffable by that which is ineffable.
Indeed, Socrates in the [First] Alcibiades rightly observes, that the
soul entering into herself will behold all other things, and deity
itself. For verging to her own union, and to the centre of all life,
laying aside multitude, and the variety of the all manifold powers
which she contains, she ascends to the highest watch-tower of beings.
And as in the most holy of the mysteries, they say, that the mystics at
first meet with the multiform, and many-shaped[91] genera, which are
hurled forth before the Gods, but on entering the interior parts of
the temple, unmoved, and guarded by the mystic rites, they genuinely
receive in their bosom divine illumination, and divested of their
garments, as they would say, participate of a divine nature;—the same
mode, as it appears to me, takes place in the speculation of wholes.
For the soul when looking at things posterior to herself, beholds the
shadows and images of beings, but when she converts herself to herself
she evolves her own essence, and the reasons which she contains. And
at first indeed, she only as it were beholds herself; but, when she
penetrates more profoundly into the knowledge of herself, she finds
in herself both intellect, and the orders of beings. When however,
she proceeds into her interior recesses, and into the adytum as it
were of the soul, she perceives with her eye closed, the genus of the
Gods, and the unities of beings. For all things are in us psychically,
and through this we are naturally capable of knowing all things, by
exciting the powers and the images of wholes which we contain.
And this is the best employment of our energy, to be extended to
a divine nature itself, having our powers at rest, to revolve
harmoniously round it, to excite all the multitude of the soul to this
union, and laying aside all such things as are posterior to the
one, to become seated and conjoined with that which is ineffable,
and beyond all things. For it is lawful for the soul to ascend, till
she terminates her flight in the principle of things; but arriving
thither, beholding the place which is there, descending thence, and
directing her course through beings; likewise, evolving the multitude
of forms, exploring their monads and their numbers, and apprehending
intellectually how each is suspended from its proper unity, then we
may consider her as possessing the most perfect science of divine
natures, perceiving in a uniform manner the progressions of the Gods
into beings, and the distinctions of beings about the Gods. Such then
according to Plato’s decision is our theologist; and theology is a
habit of this kind, which unfolds the hyparxis itself of the Gods,
separates and speculates their unknown and unical light from the
peculiarity of their participants, and announces it to such as are
worthy of this energy, which is both blessed and comprehends all things
at once.
CHAPTER IV.
After this all-perfect comprehension of the first theory, we must
deliver the modes according to which Plato teaches us mystic
conceptions of divine natures. For he appears not to have pursued every
where the same mode of doctrine about these; but sometimes according
to a deific energy, and at other times dialectically, he evolves the
truth concerning them. And sometimes he symbolically announces their
ineffable peculiarities, but at other times he recurs to them from
images, and discovers in them the primary causes of wholes. For in
the Phædrus being inspired by the Nymphs, and having exchanged human
intelligence for a better possession, fury, he unfolds with a divine
mouth many arcane dogmas concerning the intellectual Gods, and many
concerning the liberated rulers of the universe, who lead upwards the
multitude of mundane Gods to the monads which are intelligible and
separate from [mundane] wholes. But relating still more about those
Gods who are allotted the world, he celebrates their intellections, and
mundane fabrications, their unpolluted providence and government of
souls, and whatever else Socrates delivers entheastically [or according
to a divinely-inspired energy] in that dialogue, as he clearly
asserts, ascribing at the same time this fury to the deities of the
place.
But in the Sophista, dialectically contending about being, and the
separate hypostasis of the one from beings, and doubting
against those more ancient than himself, he shows how all beings
are suspended from their cause, and the first being, but that being
itself participates of the unity which is exempt from the whole of
things, that it is a passive one, but not the one itself, being
subject to and united to the one, but not being that which is
primarily one. In a similar manner too, in the Parmenides, he unfolds
dialectically the progressions of being from the one, and the
transcendency of the one, through the first hypotheses, and
this, as he asserts in that dialogue, according to the most perfect
division of this method. And again, in the Gorgias, he relates the
fable concerning the three demiurgi [or fabricators] and their
demiurgic allotment, which indeed is not only a fable, but a true
narration. But in the Banquet, he speaks concerning the union of Love.
And in the Protagoras, about the distribution of mortal animals from
the Gods; in a symbolical manner concealing the truth respecting divine
natures, and as far as to mere indication unfolding his mind to the
most genuine of his hearers.
If likewise, you are willing that I should mention the doctrine
delivered through the mathematical disciplines, and the discussion of
divine concerns from ethical or physical discourses, of which many
may be contemplated in the Timæus, many in the dialogue called the
Politicus, and many may be seen scattered in other dialogues; here
likewise to you who are desirous of knowing divine concerns through
images, the method will be apparent. For all these shadow forth the
powers of things divine. The Politicus, for instance, the fabrication
in the heavens. But the figures of the five elements delivered in
geometrical proportions in the Timæus,[92] represent in images the
peculiarities of the Gods who ride on the parts of the universe. And
the divisions of the psychical essence in that dialogue shadow forth
the total orders of the Gods.
I omit to mention that Plato composes polities, assimilating them to
divine natures, and to the whole world, and adorns them from the powers
which it contains. All these therefore, through the similitude of
mortal to divine concerns, exhibit to us in images, the progressions,
orders, and fabrications of divine natures. And such are the modes of
theologic doctrine employed by Plato.
It is evident however, from what has been already said, that they are
necessarily so many in number. For those who treat of divine concerns
in an indicative manner, either speak symbolically and fabulously, or
through images. But of those who openly announce their conceptions,
some frame their discourses according to science, but others according
to inspiration from the Gods. And he who desires to signify divine
concerns through symbols is Orphic, and in short, accords with those
who write fables concerning the Gods. But he who does this through
images is Pythagoric. For the mathematical disciplines were invented
by the Pythagoreans, in order to a reminiscence of divine concerns,
at which, through these as images they endeavour to arrive. For they
refer both numbers and figures to the Gods, according to the testimony
of their historians. But the entheastic character, or he who is under
the influence of divine inspiration, unfolding the truth itself by
itself concerning the Gods, most perspicuously ranks among the highest
initiators. For these do not think proper to unfold the divine orders,
or their peculiarities to their familiars, through certain veils, but
announce their powers and their numbers, in consequence of being moved
by the Gods themselves. But the tradition of divine concerns according
to science, is the illustrious prerogative of the philosophy of Plato.
For Plato alone, as it appears to me, of all those who are known to us,
has attempted methodically to divide and reduce into order, the regular
progression of the divine genera, their mutual difference, the common
peculiarities of the total orders, and the distributed peculiarities in
each. But the truth of this will be evident when we frame precedaneous
demonstrations about the Parmenides, and all the divisions which it
contains.
At present we shall observe that Plato does not admit all the fabulous
figments of dramatic composition, but those only which have reference
to the beautiful and the good, and which are not discordant with a
divine essence. For that mythological mode which indicates divine
concerns through conjecture is ancient, concealing truth under a
multitude of veils, and proceeding in a manner similar to nature, which
extends sensible figments of intelligibles, material, of immaterial,
partible, of impartible natures, and images, and things which have
a false being, of things perfectly true. But Plato rejects the more
tragical mode of mythologizing of the ancient poets, who thought proper
to establish an arcane theology respecting the Gods, and on this
account devised wanderings, sections, battles, lacerations, rapes and
adulteries of the Gods, and many other such symbols of the truth about
divine natures, which this theology conceals; this mode he rejects,
and asserts that it is in every respect most foreign from erudition.
But he considers those mythological discourses about the Gods, as more
persuasive, and more adapted to truth and the philosophic habit, which
assert that a divine nature is the cause of all good, but of no evil,
and that it is void of all mutation, ever preserving its own order
immutable, and comprehending in itself the fountain of truth, but
never becoming the cause of any deception to others. For such types of
theology, Socrates delivers in the Republic.
All the fables therefore of Plato, guarding the truth in concealment,
have not even their externally apparent apparatus discordant with our
undisciplined and unperverted anticipation respecting the Gods. But
they bring with them an image of the mundane composition, in which
both the apparent beauty is worthy of divinity, and a beauty more
divine than this, is established in the unapparent lives and powers of
the Gods. This therefore, is one of the mythological modes respecting
divine concerns, which from the apparently unlawful, irrational, and
inordinate, passes into order and bound, and regards as its scope the
composition of the beautiful and good.
But there is another mode which he delivers in the Phædrus. And this
consists in every where preserving theological fables, unmixed with
physical narrations, and being careful in no respect to confound or
exchange theology, and the physical theory with each other. For, as a
divine essence is separate from the whole of nature, in like manner,
it is perfectly proper that discourses respecting the Gods should be
pure from physical disquisitions. For a mixture of this kind is, says
he, laborious: and to make physical passions the end of mythological
conjecture, is the employment of no very good man; such for instance,
as considering through his [pretended] wisdom, Chimæra, Gorgon, and
things of a similar kind, as the same with physical figments. Socrates,
in the Phædrus, reprobating this mode of mythologizing, represents
its patrons as saying under the figure of a fable, that Orithya
sporting with the wind Boreas, and being thrown down the rocks, means
nothing more, than that Orithya who was a mortal, was ravished by
Boreas through love. For it appears to me, that fabulous narrations
about the gods, should always have their concealed meaning more
venerable than the apparent. So that if certain persons introduce to
us physical hypotheses of Platonic fables, and such as are conversant
with sublunary affairs, we must say that they entirely wander from the
intention of the philosopher, and that those hypotheses alone, are
interpreters of the truth contained in these fables, which have for
their scope, a divine, immaterial, and separate hypostasis, and which
looking to this, make the compositions and analyses of the fables,
adapted[93] to our inherent anticipations of divine concerns.
CHAPTER V.
As we have therefore enumerated all these modes of the Platonic
theology, and have shown what compositions and analyses of fables are
adapted to the truth respecting the Gods, let us consider, in the next
place, whence, and from what dialogues principally, we think the dogmas
of Plato concerning the Gods may be collected, and by a speculation of
what types or forms we may be able to distinguish his genuine writings,
from those spurious compositions which are ascribed to him.
The truth then concerning the Gods pervades, as I may say, through all
the Platonic dialogues, and in all of them conceptions of the first
philosophy, venerable, clear, and supernatural, are disseminated,
in some indeed, more obscurely, but in others more conspicuously;
conceptions which excite those that are in any respect able to
participate of them, to the immaterial and separate essence of the
Gods. And, as in each part of the universe, and in nature herself, the
demiurgus of all that the world contains, established resemblances of
the unknown hyparxis of the Gods, that all things might be converted
to a divine nature, through their alliance with it, in like manner I
am of opinion, that the divine intellect of Plato weaves conceptions
about the Gods in all his writings, and leaves nothing deprived of the
mention of divinity, that from the whole of them, a reminiscence of
wholes may be obtained, and imparted to the genuine lovers of divine
concerns.
If however, it be requisite to lay before the reader those dialogues
out of many, which principally unfold to us the mystic discipline
about the gods, I should not err in ranking among this number, the
Phædo and Phædrus, the Banquet, and the Philebus, and together with
these, the Sophista and Politicus, the Cratylus and the Timæus. For
all these are full through the whole of themselves, as I may say, of
the divine science of Plato. But I should place in the second rank
after these, the fable in the Gorgias, and that in the Protagoras;
likewise the assertions about the providence of the Gods in the Laws,
and such things as are delivered about the Fates, or the mother of the
Fates, or the circulations of the universe, in the tenth book of the
Republic. Again, you may, if you please, place in the third rank those
Epistles, through which we may be able to arrive at the science about
divine natures. For in these, mention is made of the three kings; and
very many other divine dogmas worthy the Platonic theory are delivered.
It is necessary therefore, looking to these, to explore in these each
order of the Gods.
Thus from the Philebus, we may receive the science respecting the
one good, and the two first principles of things, together with the
triad[94] which is unfolded into light from these. For you will find
all these distinctly delivered to us by Plato in that dialogue. But
from the Timæus, you may obtain the theory about intelligibles, a
divine narration about the demiurgic monad: and the most full truth
about the mundane Gods. But from the Phædrus, [you may acquire a
scientific knowledge of] all the intelligible and intellectual genera,
and of the liberated orders of Gods, which are proximately established
above the celestial circulations. From the Politicus, you may obtain
the theory of the fabrication in the heavens, of the uneven periods
of the universe, and of the intellectual causes of those periods. But
from the Sophista, the whole sublunary generation, and the peculiarity
of the Gods who are allotted the sublunary region, and preside over
its generations and corruptions. But with respect to each of the Gods,
we may obtain many conceptions adapted to sacred concerns from the
Banquet, many from the Cratylus, and many from the Phædo. For in each
of these dialogues, more or less mention is made of divine names, from
which it is easy for those who are exercised in divine concerns to
discover by a reasoning process the peculiarities of each.
It is necessary however, to evince that each of the dogmas accords with
Platonic principles, and the mystic traditions of theologists. For all
the Grecian theology is the progeny of the mystic tradition of Orpheus;
Pythagoras first of all learning from Aglaophemus the orgies of the
Gods, but Plato in the second place receiving an all-perfect science
of the divinities from the Pythagoric and Orphic writings. For in the
Philebus referring the theory about the two species of principles
[bound and infinity] to the Pythagoreans, he calls them men dwelling
with the Gods, and truly blessed. Philolaus therefore, the Pythagorean,
has left us in writing many admirable conceptions about these
principles, celebrating their common progression into beings, and their
separate fabrication of things. But in the Timæus, Plato endeavouring
to teach us about the sublunary Gods, and their order, flies to
theologists, calls them the sons of the Gods, and makes them the
fathers of the truth about those divinities. And lastly, he delivers
the orders of the sublunary Gods proceeding from wholes, according to
the progression delivered by them of the intellectual kings. Again,
in the Cratylus he follows the traditions of theologists, respecting
the order of the divine processions. But in the Gorgias, he adopts the
Homeric dogma, respecting the triadic hypostasis of the demiurgi. And
in short, he every where discourses concerning the Gods agreeably to
the principles of theologists; rejecting indeed, the tragical part of
mythological fiction, but establishing first hypotheses in common with
the authors of fables.
CHAPTER VI.
Perhaps, however, some one may here object to us, that we do not in
a proper manner exhibit the every where dispersed theology of Plato,
and that we endeavour to heap together different particulars from
different dialogues, as if we were studious of collecting together many
things into one mixture, instead of deriving them all from one and the
same fountain. For if this were the case, we might refer different
dogmas to different treatises of Plato, but we shall by no means have
a precedaneous doctrine concerning the Gods, nor will there be any
dialogue which presents us with an all-perfect and entire procession
of the divine genera, and their coordination with each other. But we
shall be similar to those who endeavour to obtain a whole from parts,
through the want of a whole prior to parts, and to weave together the
perfect from things imperfect; when, on the contrary, the imperfect
ought to have the first cause of its generation in the perfect. For
the Timæus, for instance, will teach us the theory of the intelligible
genera; and the Phædrus appears to present us with a methodical account
of the first intellectual orders. But where will be the coordination
of intellectuals to intelligibles? And what will be the generation of
second from first natures? In short, after what manner the progression
of the divine orders takes place from the one principle of all things,
and how in the generations of the Gods, the orders between the
one, and all-perfect number, are filled up, we shall be unable to
evince.
Farther still, it may be said, where will be the venerableness of your
boasted science about divine natures? For it is absurd to call these
dogmas which are collected from many places Platonic; and which, as
you acknowledge, are introduced from foreign names to the philosophy
of Plato; nor are you able to evince one whole entire truth about
divine natures. Perhaps, indeed, they will say, certain persons,
junior to Plato, have delivered in their writings, and left to their
disciples, one perfect form of theology. You, therefore, are able
to produce one entire theory about nature from the Timæus; but from
the Republic, or Laws, the most beautiful dogmas about manners, and
which tend to one form of philosophy. Alone, therefore, neglecting the
treatise of Plato, which contains all the good of the first philosophy,
and which may be called the summit of the whole theory, you will be
deprived of the most perfect knowledge of beings, unless you are so
much infatuated, as to boast on account of fabulous fictions, though
an analysis of things of this kind abounds with much of the probable,
but not of the demonstrative. Besides, things of this kind are only
delivered adventitiously in the Platonic dialogues; as the fable in
the Protagoras, which is inserted for the sake of the politic science,
and the demonstrations respecting it. In like manner, the fable in the
Republic is inserted for the sake of justice; but in the Gorgias, for
the sake of temperance. For Plato combines fabulous narrations with
investigations of ethical dogmas, not for the sake of the fables, but
for the sake of the leading design, that we may not only exercise the
intellectual part of the soul, through contending reasons, but that
the divine part of the soul may more perfectly receive the knowledge
of beings, through its sympathy with more mystic concerns. For, from
other discourses, we appear similar to those who are compelled to the
reception of truth; but from fables we suffer in an ineffable manner,
and call forth our unperverted conceptions, venerating the mystic
information which they contain.
Hence, as it appears to me, Timæus with great propriety thinks it fit
that we should produce the divine genera, following the inventors of
fables as the sons of the Gods,[95] and subscribe to their always
generating secondary natures from such as are first, though they
should speak without demonstration. For this kind of discourse is
not demonstrative, but entheastic, and was invented by the ancients,
not through necessity, but for the sake of persuasion, not regarding
mere discipline, but sympathy with things themselves. But if you are
willing to speculate not only the causes of fables, but of other
theological dogmas, you will find that some of them are scattered in
the Platonic dialogues for the sake of ethical,[96] and others for the
sake of physical considerations. For in the Philebus, Plato discourses
concerning bound and the infinite, for the sake of pleasure and a life
according to intellect. For I think the latter are species of the
former. In the Timæus, the discourse about the intelligible Gods, is
assumed for the sake of the proposed physiology. On which account it
is every where necessary that images should be known from paradigms;
but that the paradigms of material things should be immaterial, of
sensibles, intelligible, and that the paradigms of physical forms
should be separate.
But again in the Phædrus, Plato celebrates the supercelestial place,
the subcelestial profundity, and every genus under this, for the sake
of amatory mania: the manner in which the reminiscence of souls takes
place, and the passage to these from hence. But every where, as I
may say, the leading end is either physical or political, while the
conceptions about divine natures take place, either for the sake of
invention or perfection. How, therefore, can such a theory as yours be
any longer venerable and supernatural, and worthy to be studied beyond
every thing, when it is neither able to evince the whole in itself, nor
the perfect, nor that which is precedaneous in the writings of Plato,
but is destitute of all these, is violent and not spontaneous, and does
not possess a genuine, but an adventitious order, as in a drama? And
such are the objections which may be urged against our design.
CHAPTER VII.
I, however, to an objection of this kind, shall make, a just and
perspicuous reply. I say then, that Plato every where discourses about
the Gods agreeably to ancient rumour, and to the nature of things. And
sometimes indeed, for the sake of the cause of the things proposed,
he reduces them to the principles of the dogmas; and thence, as from
a watch tower, contemplates the nature of the thing proposed. But
sometimes he establishes the theological science as the leading end.
For in the Phædrus his subject respects intelligible beauty, and the
participation of beauty pervading from thence through all things; and
in the Banquet it respects the amatory order.
But if it be necessary to survey in one Platonic dialogue, the
all-perfect, whole, and connected, extending as far as to the compleat
number of theology, I shall perhaps assert a paradox, and which
will alone be apparent to our familiars. We ought however to dare,
since we have entered on such like arguments, and affirm against our
opponents, that the Parmenides, and the mystic conceptions it contains,
will accomplish all you desire. For in this dialogue all the divine
genera proceed in order from the first cause, and evince their mutual
connexion and dependence on each other. And those which are highest
indeed, connate with the one, and of a primary nature, are
allotted a unical, occult and simple form of hyparxis; but such as
are last, are multiplied, are distributed into many parts, and are
exuberant in number, but inferior in power to such as are of a higher
order; and such as are middle, according to a convenient proportion,
are more composite than their causes, but more simple than their
proper progeny. And in short, all the axioms of the theologic science,
appear in perfection in this dialogue, and all the divine orders are
exhibited subsisting in connexion. So that this is nothing else than
the celebrated generation of the Gods, and the procession of every
kind of being from the ineffable and unknown cause of wholes. The
Parmenides, therefore, enkindles in the lovers of Plato, the whole and
perfect light of the theological science. But after this, the before
mentioned dialogues distribute parts of the mystic discipline about the
Gods, and all of them, as I may say, participate of divine wisdom, and
excite our spontaneous conceptions respecting a divine nature. And it
is necessary to refer all the parts of this mystic discipline to these
dialogues, and these again to the one and all-perfect theory of the
Parmenides. For thus, as it appears to me, we shall suspend the more
imperfect from the perfect, and parts from wholes, and shall exhibit
reasons assimilated to things, of which, according to the Platonic
Timæus, they are interpreters. Such then is our answer to the objection
which may be urged against us; and thus we refer the Platonic theory to
the Parmenides; just as the Timæus is acknowledged by all who are in
the least degree intelligent, to contain the whole science about nature.
CHAPTER VIII.
I appear, however, by these means, to have excited for myself a twofold
contest against those who attempt to investigate the writings of Plato;
and I see two sorts of persons, who will oppose what has been said.
One of these does not think proper to explore any other design in the
Parmenides, than exercise through opposite arguments, or to introduce
in this dialogue a croud of arcane and intellectual dogmas, which are
foreign from its intention. But the other sort, who are more venerable
than these, and lovers of forms assert, that one of the hypotheses is
about the first God, another about the second God, and the whole of an
intellectual nature, and a third, about the natures posterior to this,
whether they are the more excellent genera, or souls, or any other kind
of beings. For the investigation of these particulars does not pertain
to the present discourse.
These, therefore, distribute three of the hypotheses after this
manner. But they do not think proper to busy themselves about the
multitude of Gods, the intelligible, and the intellectual genera, the
supermundane and mundane natures, or to unfold all these by division,
or busily explore them. For according to them, though Plato in the
second hypothesis, treats about intellectual beings, yet the nature of
intellect is one, simple and indivisible. Against both these therefore,
must he contend, who entertains that opinion of the Parmenides, which
we have before mentioned. The contest however against these is not
equal. But those who make the Parmenides a logical exercise, are again
attacked by those who embrace the divine mode of interpretation. And
those who do not unfold the multitude of beings, and the orders of
divine natures, are indeed, as Homer says, in every respect venerable
and skilful men, but yet for the sake of the Platonic philosophy, we
must doubt against them, following in this our leader to the most holy
and mystic truth. It is proper likewise to relate as far as contributes
to our purpose, what appears to us to be the truth respecting the
hypotheses of the Parmenides; for thus perhaps by a reasoning process,
we may embrace the whole theology of Plato.
CHAPTER IX.
In the first place then, let us consider those, who draw down the
design of this dialogue from the truth of things to a logical exercise,
and see whether they can possibly accord with the writings of Plato.
It is therefore evident to every one, that Parmenides proposes to
himself to deliver in reality the dialectic method, and that with this
view he cursorily assumes it in a similar manner in each of the things
which have a real being, as, in sameness, difference, similitude,
dissimilitude, motion, and permanency, &c.; exhorting at the same
time, those who desire to discover the nature of each of these in an
orderly method, to this exercise, as to a great contest. He likewise
asserts that it was by no means an easy undertaking to him who was
so much advanced in years, assimilates himself to the Ibycean horse,
and presents us with every argument to prove that this method is a
serious undertaking, and not a contest consisting in mere words. How
therefore, is it possible, that we can refer to empty arguments those
conceptions[97] about which the great Parmenides, evincing that they
require much serious discussion, composed this discourse? How likewise
is it reasonable to suppose that an aged man would busy himself with
mere verbal contests, and that he who loved to speculate the truth of
things, would bestow so much study on this method,—he who considered
every thing else, as having no real existence, and who ascended to
the high watch-tower of being itself? Indeed, he who admits this must
suppose that Parmenides is satirized by Plato in this dialogue, by
thus representing him drawn down to juvenile contests, from the most
intellectual visions of the soul.
But if you are willing, let us consider in addition to the above, what
Parmenides promises, and on what subject engaging to speak, he entered
on this discussion. Was it not then about being according to his
doctrine, and the unity of all beings, to which extending himself, his
design was concealed from the vulgar, while he exhorts us to collect
the multitude of beings into one undivided union? If, therefore, this
is the one being, or that which is the highest, and which is perfectly
established above the reasons conversant with opinion, is it not absurd
to confound dogmas about intelligibles with doxastic arguments? For
indeed, such a form of discourse is not adapted to the hypothesis about
true beings, nor does the intellection of unapparent and separate
causes harmonize with dialectic exercises; but these differ from each
other, so far as intellect is established above opinion, as Timæus
informs us, and not Timæus only, but likewise the dæmoniacal Aristotle,
who, discoursing on a power of this kind, exhorts us to make our
investigations, neither about things perfectly unapparent to us, nor
about such as are more known.
It is far therefore from being the case, that Parmenides, who places
the science of beings above that which appears to be truth to those
who rank sense before intellect, should introduce doxastic knowledge
to an intellective nature, since a knowledge of this kind is dubious,
various, and unstable; or that he should speculate true being with this
doxastic wisdom, and inane discussion. For a various form of knowledge
does not harmonize[98] with that which is simple, nor the multiform
with the uniform, nor the doxastic with the intelligible.
But still further, nor must this be omitted, that such a mode of
discourse is perfectly foreign from the discussion of Parmenides. For
he discourses about all beings, and delivers the order of wholes, their
progression beginning from the one, and their conversion ending
in the one. But the argumentative method is very remote from scientific
theory. Does it not therefore appear, that Plato must have attributed
a discordant hypothesis to Parmenides, if it be said that he merely
regards an exercise through opposite arguments, and that for the sake
of the power employed in this exercise, he excites the whole of this
evolution of reasons? Indeed, it will be found that in all the other
dialogues, Plato attributes hypotheses to each of the philosophers
adapted to their peculiar tenets. Thus to Timæus, he assigns the
doctrine about nature; to Socrates, that of a republic; to the Elean
guest, that about being; and to the priestess Diotima, that respecting
love. Afterwards, each of the other dialogues confines itself to those
arguments which are adapted to the writings of the principal person
of the dialogue. But Parmenides alone will appear to us wise in his
poems, and in his diligent investigation of true being, but in the
Platonic scene, he will be the leader of a juvenile muse. This opinion,
therefore, accuses Plato of dissimilitude of imitation, though he
himself condemns the poets, for ascribing to the sons of the Gods a
love of money, and a life subject to the dominion of the passions. How,
therefore, can we refer a discussion of doxastic and empty arguments to
the leader of the truth of beings?
But if it be necessary that omitting a multitude of arguments, we
should make Plato himself a witness of the proposed discussion, we will
cite if you please what is written in the Theætetus and Sophista; for
from these dialogues what we assert will be apparent. In the Theætetus
then Socrates being excited by a young man to a confutation of those
who assert that being is immoveable, attacks among these an opinion
of this kind entertained by Parmenides, and at the same time assigns
the cause. “I blush,” says he, “for Parmenides, who is one of these,
more than for all the rest; for I, when very young, was conversant
with him when he was very elderly, and he appeared to me to possess a
certain profundity perfectly generous. I am afraid therefore, lest we
do not understand what has been asserted, and much more am I fearful
that we fall short of the meaning of Parmenides.” With great propriety
therefore do we assert, that the proposed discussion does not regard
a logical exercise, and make this the end of the whole, but that it
pertains to the science of the first principles of things. For how
could Socrates using a power of this kind, and neglecting the knowledge
of things, testify that the discourse of Parmenides possessed a depth
perfectly generous? And what venerableness can there be in adopting a
method which proceeds doxastically through opposite reasons, and in
undertaking such an invention of arguments?
Again, in the Sophista, exciting the Elean guest to a perspicuous
evolution of the things proposed by him, and evincing that he was now
accustomed to more profound discourses: “Inform me,” says he, “whether
it is your custom to give a prolix discussion of a subject which you
are able to demonstrate to any one by interrogations; I mean such
discussions as Parmenides himself formerly used, accompanied with
all-beautiful reasons, and of which I was an auditor when I was very
young, and he was very elderly?” What reason then can be assigned, why
we should not believe Socrates, when he asserts that the arguments of
Parmenides were all-beautiful, and possessed a generous profundity,
and why we should degrade the discussion of Parmenides, hurl it
from essence and being, and transfer it to a vulgar, trifling, and
empty contest, neither considering that discourses of this kind are
alone adapted to youth, nor regarding the hypothesis of being
characterized by the one, nor any thing else which opposes such
an opinion?
But I likewise think it is proper that the authors of this hypothesis,
should consider the power of dialectic, such as it is exhibited
by Socrates in the Republic;—how, as he says, it surrounds all
disciplines like a defensive enclosure, and elevates those that use it,
to the good itself, and the first unities, purifies the eye
of the soul, establishes it in true beings, and the one principle of
all things, and ends at last in that which is no longer hypothetical.
For if the power of this dialectic is so great, and the end of this
path so mighty, it is not proper to confound doxastic arguments, with
a method of this kind. For the former regards the opinions of men,
but the latter is called garrulity by the vulgar. And the one is
perfectly destitute of disciplinative science, but the other is the
defensive enclosure of such sciences, and the passage to it is through
these. Again, the doxastic method of reasoning has for its end[99]
the apparent, but the dialectic method endeavours to arrive at the
one itself, always employing for this purpose steps of ascent, and
at last, beautifully ends in the nature of the good.
By no means therefore, is it fit that we should draw down to doxastic
arguments, a method which is established among the most accurate
sciences. For the merely logical method which presides over the
demonstrative phantasy, is of a secondary nature, and is alone
pleased with contentious discussions; but our dialectic, for the most
part, employs divisions and analyses as primary sciences, and as
imitating the progression of beings from the one, and their
conversion to it again. But it likewise sometimes uses definitions
and demonstrations, and prior to these the definitive method, and the
dividing method prior to this. On the contrary, the doxastic method
is deprived of the incontrovertible reasonings of demonstration. Is
it not, therefore, necessary that these powers must be separated from
each other, and that the discussion of Parmenides, which employs our
dialectic, must be free from the empty variety of mere argument, and
must fabricate its reasonings with a view to being itself, and not to
that which is apparent? And thus much may suffice in answer to those
who reprobate our hypotheses. For if all this cannot convince them,
we shall in vain endeavour to persuade them, and urge them to the
speculation of things.
CHAPTER Χ.
But a greater and more difficult contest remains for me, against
those lovers of the speculation of beings, who look to the science of
first causes, as the end proposed in the hypothesis of the Platonic
Parmenides; and this contest we will accomplish, if you please, by
numerous and more known arguments.
And in the first place, we shall define what that is, about which our
discourse against them will be employed; for this, I think, will render
the mystic doctrine of Plato concerning divine natures, apparent in
the highest degree. There are, therefore, nine hypotheses which are
discussed by Parmenides in this dialogue, as we have evinced in our
commentaries upon it. And the five precedaneous hypotheses suppose
that the one has a subsistence, and through this hypothesis,
that all beings, the mediums of wholes, and the terminations of the
progressions of things, may be supposed to subsist. But the four
hypotheses which follow these, introduce the one, not having
a subsistence, according to the exhortation of the dialectic method,
show that by taking away the one, all beings, and such things
as have an apparent existence, must be entirely subverted, and propose
to themselves the confutation of this hypothesis. And some of the
hypotheses evidently conclude every thing according to reason, but
others (if I may be allowed the expression) perfectly evince things
more impossible than impossibilities; which circumstance some prior
to us perceiving, as it appears to me, necessarily to happen in these
hypotheses, have considered it as deserving discussion,[100] in their
treatises on this dialogue.
With respect to the first of the hypotheses therefore, almost all agree
in asserting, that Plato through this celebrates the superessential
principle of wholes, as ineffable, unknown, and above all being.
But all do not explain the hypothesis posterior to this after the
same manner. For the ancient Platonists, and those who participated
the philosophy of Plotinus assert that an intellectual nature
presents itself to the view in this hypothesis, subsisting from the
superessential principle of things, and endeavour to harmonize to the
one and all-perfect power of intellect, such conclusions as are the
result of this hypothesis. But that leader of ours to truth about
the Gods, and confabulator of Plato (that I may use the language of
Homer) who transferred what was indefinite in the theory of the more
ancient philosophers, to bound, and reduced the confusion of the
different orders to an intellectual distinction, in the writings which
he communicated to his associates;—this our leader, in his treatise
on the present subject, calls upon us to adopt a distinct division
of the conclusions, to transfer this division to the divine orders,
and to harmonize the first and most simple of the things exhibited to
the first of beings; but to adapt those in the middle rank to middle
natures, according to the order which they are allotted among beings;
and such as are last and multiform, to ultimate progressions. For
the nature of being is not one, simple, and indivisible; but as in
sensibles, the mighty heaven is one, yet it comprehends in itself a
multitude of bodies; and the monad connectedly contains multitude, but
in the multitude there is an order of progression; and of sensibles,
some are first, some middle, and some last; and prior to these, in
souls, from one soul a multitude of souls subsists, and of these,
some are placed in an order nearer, but others more remote from their
wholeness, and others again fill up the medium of the extremes;—in
like manner, it is doubtless necessary that among perfectly true
beings, such genera as are uniform and occult, should be established
in the one and first cause of wholes, but that others should proceed
into all multitude, and a whole number, and that others should contain
the bond of these, in a middle situation. It is likewise by no means
proper to harmonize the peculiarities of first natures with such as are
second, nor of those that possess a subject order, with such as are
more unical, but it is requisite that among these, some should have
powers different from others, and that there should be an order in
this progression of true beings, and an unfolding of second from first
natures.
In short, being which subsists according to, or is characterized by
the one, proceeds indeed from the unity prior to beings, but
generates the whole divine genus, viz. the intelligible, intellectual,
supermundane, and that which proceeds as far as to the mundane order.
But our preceptor likewise asserts, that each of the conclusions is
indicative of a divine peculiarity. And though all the conclusions
harmonize to all the progressions of the one being, or of being
characterized by the one, yet I am of opinion, it is by no
means wonderful, that some conclusions should more accord with some
hypotheses than with others. For such things as express the peculiarity
of certain orders, do not necessarily belong to all the Gods; but such
as belong to all, are doubtless by a much greater reason present with
each. If, therefore, we ascribe to Plato, an adventitious division
of the divine orders,[101] and do not clearly evince that, in other
dialogues, he celebrates the progressions of the Gods from on high
to the extremity of things, sometimes in fables respecting the soul,
and at other times, in other theological modes, we shall absurdly
attribute to him, such a division of being, and together with this,
of the progression of the one. But if we can evince from other
dialogues, that he (as will be manifest in the course of this work)
has celebrated all the kingdoms of the Gods, in a certain respect,
is it not impossible, that in the most mystic of all his works, he
should deliver through the first hypothesis, the exempt transcendency
of the one with respect to all the genera of beings, to being
itself, to a psychical essence, to form, and to matter, but that he
should make no mention of the divine progressions, and their orderly
separation? For if it is proper to contemplate last things only, why
do we touch on the first principle before other things? Or if we think
fit to unfold the multitude of the proper hypotheses, why do we pass
by the genus of the Gods, and the divisions which it contains? Or if
we unfold the natures subsisting between the first and last of things,
why do we leave unknown the whole orders of those divine beings, which
subsist between the one, and natures that are in any respect
deified? For all these particulars evince, that the whole discourse is
defective, with respect to the science of things divine.
But still farther, Socrates, in the Philebus, calls upon those that
love the contemplation of beings, to use the dividing method, and
always to explore the monads of total orders, and the duads, triads,
or any other numbers proceeding from these. If this then is rightly
determined, it is doubtless necessary that the Parmenides, which
employs the whole dialectic method, and discourses about being which
is characterized by the one, should neither speculate multitude
about the one, nor remain in the one monad of beings, nor in
short, introduce to the one which is above all beings, the whole
multitude of first beings immediately, but should unfold, as in the
first order, such beings as have an occult subsistence, and are allied
to the one; but as in the middle rank, those genera of the Gods
which subsist according to progression, and which are more divided than
the extremely united, but are allotted a union more perfect, than such
as have proceeded to the utmost; and should unfold as in the last rank,
such as subsist according to the last division of powers, and together
with these, such as have a deified essence. If, therefore, the first of
the hypotheses is about the one which is above all multitude, it
is doubtless necessary that the hypothesis which follows this, should
not unfold being itself in an indefinite and indistinct manner, but
should deliver all the orders of beings. For the dividing method does
not admit, that we should introduce the whole of multitude at once to
the one, as Socrates teaches us in the Philebus.
Besides, we may evince the truth of what we assert from the very
method of the demonstrations. For the first of the conclusions become
immediately manifest from the least, most simple, most known, and as it
were common conceptions. But those which are next in order to these,
become apparent through a greater multitude of conceptions, and such
as are more various. And the last conclusions are entirely the most
composite. For he always uses the first conclusions, as subservient
to the demonstration of those that follow,[102] and presents us with
an intellectual paradigm of the order observed in geometry, or other
disciplines, in the connexion of these conclusions with each other.
If, therefore, discourses bring with them an image of the things of
which they are interpreters, and if, as are the evolutions from
demonstrations, such must the order necessarily be of the things
exhibited, it appears to me to be necessary, that such things as derive
their beginning from the most simple principles, must be in every
respect of a more primary nature, and must be arranged as conjoined
with the one; but that such as are always multiplied, and
suspended from various demonstrations, must have proceeded farther from
the subsistence[103] of the one.
For the demonstrations which have two conclusions, must necessarily
contain the conclusions prior to themselves; but those which contain
primary, spontaneous, and simple conceptions, are not necessarily
united with such as are more composite, which are exhibited through
more abundant media, and which are farther distant from the principle
of beings. It appears therefore, that some of the conclusions are
indicative of more divine orders, but others, of such as are more
subordinate; some, of more united, and others, of more multiplied
orders; and again, some, of more uniform, and others, of more multiform
progressions. For demonstrations are universally from causes,
and things first. If, therefore, first are the causes of second
conclusions, there is an order of causes, and things caused, in the
multitude of the conclusions. For, indeed, to confound all things, and
speculate them indefinitely in one, neither accords with the nature of
things, nor the science of Plato.
CHAPTER XI.
Again, therefore, let us discuss this affair in another way, and view
with the dianoëtic power, where any thing futile is delivered. For let
it be said, if you please, and we will first of all allow it, that the
conclusions of this second hypothesis are about true being. But as
this is multitude, and, not only one itself, like the one prior
to beings; for being is that which is passive to the one, as
the Elean guest in the Sophista informs us; and as it is universally
acknowledged by our opponents, who establish that which is first as
the one, but intellect, as one many, soul, as one and
many, and body, as many and one:—as therefore, this has
been asserted a thousand times, I mean that in true being there is
multitude together with union, whether will they say that these things
harmonize with the whole of being, but not with its parts, or both with
the whole and its parts? And again, we ask them, whether they attribute
all things to each part of being, or whether they ascribe different
things to different parts?
If, therefore, they are of opinion, that each particular should alone
harmonize with the whole of being, being will consist of non-beings,
that which is moved, of things immoveable, that which abides, of things
deprived of permanency, and universally, all things will consist of
their opposites, and we shall no longer agree with the discourse of
Parmenides, who says that the parts of being characterized by the
one, are in a certain respect wholes, and that each of them is one
and being, in a manner similar to the whole. But if we attribute all
things to each part, and there is nothing which we do not make all
things, how can the summit of being, and that which is most eminently
one, contain a wholeness, and an incomprehensible multitude of parts?
How can it at one and the same time contain the whole of number,
figure, motion and permanency, and in short all forms and genera? For
these differ from each other, and the hypothesis will assert things
impossible. For things near to, will be similarly multiplied with
things remote from the one, and that which is first, will not be
a less multitude than that which is last; nor again, will the last of
things be a less one than the first, and things in the middle will have
no difference with respect to division from the extremes.
As therefore, it is not proper to ascribe all this multitude of
conclusions to the whole alone, nor to consider all things in a
similar manner in all the parts of being, it remains that different
conclusions must harmonize with different things. It is necessary,
therefore, that either the enumeration of the conclusions should be
inordinate, or ordinate. But if they say they are inordinate, they
neither speak agreeably to the dialectic method, nor to the mode of
demonstrations, which always generate things secondary from such as
are first, nor to the science of Plato, which always accompanies the
order of things. But if they say the conclusions are regular, I think
it is entirely necessary, that they should either begin from things
first according to nature, or from things last. But if from things last
being characterised by the one will be the last, and that which
is moved according to time, the first. This, however, is impossible.
For that which participates of time, must by a much greater priority
participate of first being. But that which participates of first being,
does not necessarily participate of time. First being, therefore, is
above time. If then Plato begins from first being, but ends in that
which participates of time, he proceeds supernally from the first to
the last parts of true being. Hence, the first conclusions are to be
referred to the first orders, the middle, for the same reason, to the
middle orders, and the last, as is evident, to such as are last. For it
is necessary, as our discourse has evinced, that different conclusions
should be assigned to different things, and that a distribution of this
kind should commence from such things as are highest.
But likewise, the order of the hypotheses, as it appears to me, is a
sufficient argument of the truth of our assertion. For with us the
one which is exempt from all multitude, is allotted the first
order, and from this the evolution of all the arguments commences. But
the second order after this, is about true beings, and the unity which
these participate. And the third order in regular succession, is about
soul. Whether, therefore, is it about every soul or not? In answer to
this, we shall observe, that our leader Syrianus has beautifully shown,
that the discourse about whole souls is comprehended in the second
hypothesis. If, therefore, the order of these three hypotheses proceeds
according to the nature of things, it is evident that the second is
produced from the first, and the last from the second. For I would
ask those who are not entirely unskilled in discourses of this kind,
what can be more allied to the one, than being characterized
by the one, which the first of the conclusions of the second
hypothesis unfolds? Or what can be more allied to soul, than that which
participates of time, which subsists divisibly, and which is the last
thing exhibited in this hypothesis? For the life of partial as well as
of total souls is according to time. And first being is that which
first participates of the one, and through its connexion with
being, has a redundant hyparxis with respect to the imparticipable
unity. But if this hypothesis is the middle, and if we aptly harmonize
the highest conclusions with things highest, we should doubtless
harmonize middles with middles. For this hypothesis commencing from
first being, proceeds through all the genera posterior to it, till it
ends in a nature participating of time.
But, farther, from the common confession of those interpreters of
Plato, who were skilled in divine concerns, we can demonstrate the
same things as we have above asserted. For Plotinus, in his book On
Numbers, enquiring whether beings subsist prior to numbers, or
numbers prior to beings, clearly asserts that the first being subsists
prior to numbers, and that it generates the divine number. But if this
is rightly determined by him, and being is generative of the first
number, but number is produced by being, it is not proper to confound
the order of these genera, nor to collect them into one hypostasis,
nor, since Plato separately produces first being, and separately
number, to refer each of the conclusions to the same order. For it
is by no means lawful, that cause and the thing caused, should have
either the same power, or the same order: but these are distinct from
each other; and the science concerning them is likewise distinct, and
neither the nature, nor the definition of them is one and the same.
But, after Plotinus, Porphyry in his treatise On Principles,
evinces by many and beautiful arguments, that intellect is eternal,
but that at the same time, it contains in itself something prior to
the eternal, and through which it is conjoined with the one.
For the one is above all eternity, but the eternal has a
second, or rather third order in intellect. For it appears to me to
be necessary that eternity should be established in the middle of
that which is prior to the eternal, and the eternal. But of this
hereafter. At the same time, thus much may be collected from what has
been said, that intellect contains something in itself better than
the eternal. Admitting this, therefore, we ask the father of this
assertion, whether this something better than the eternal is not only
being characterized by the one, but is a whole and parts, and
all multitude, number and figure, that which is moved, and that which
is permanent; or whether we are to ascribe some of the conclusions
to it, but not others? For it is impossible that all these can accord
with a nature prior to eternity, since every intellectual motion, and
likewise permanency, are established in eternity. But if we are to
ascribe some of the conclusions to it, and not others, it is evident
that other orders in intellect are to be investigated, and that each of
the conclusions is to be referred to that order, to which it appears
particularly adapted. For intellect is not one in number, and an atom,
as it appeared to be to some of the ancients, but it comprehends in
itself the whole progression of first being.
But the third who makes for our purpose after these, is the divine
Jamblichus, who, in his treatise Concerning the Gods, accuses
those who place the genera of being in intelligibles, because the
number and variety of these is more remote from the one. But afterwards
he informs us where these ought to be placed. For they are produced in
the end of the intellectual order, by the Gods which there subsist. How
the genera of being, however, both are, and are not in intelligibles,
will be hereafter apparent. But if, according to his arrangement of
the divine orders, intelligibles are exempt from the genera of being,
much more are they exempt from similitude and dissimilitude, equality
and inequality. Each of the conclusions, therefore, ought not in a
similar manner to be accommodated to all things, so as to refer them
to the whole breadth of the intelligible, or intellectual order. Hence
from what the best of the interpreters have said, when philosophizing
according to their own doctrines, both the multitude of the divine
orders, and of the Platonic arguments, are to be considered as
proceeding according to an orderly distinction.
In addition, likewise, to what has been said, this also may be
asserted, that we cannot, on any other hypothesis, obtain a rational
solution of the many doubts which present themselves on this subject,
but shall ignorantly ascribe what is rash and vain to this treatise of
Plato. For in the first place, why are there only so many conclusions,
and neither more nor less? For there are fourteen conclusions. But
as there are so many, we cannot assign the reason of this, unless we
distribute them in conjunction with things themselves. In the second
place, neither shall we be able to find the cause of the order of the
conclusions with respect to each other, and how some have a prior,
and others a posterior establishment, according to the reason of
science, unless the order of the conclusions proceeds in conjunction
with the progression of beings. In the third place, why do some of
the conclusions become known from things proximately demonstrated,
but others from preceding demonstrations? For that the one
is a whole and contains parts, is demonstrated from being, which is
characterized by the one; but its subsistence in itself and
in another, is placed in a proximate order, after the possession of
figure, but is demonstrated from whole and parts. Or why are some
things often demonstrated, from two of the particulars previously
evinced, but others from one of them? For we shall be ignorant of each
of these, and shall neither be able scientifically to speculate their
number, nor their order, nor their alliance to each other, unless
following things themselves, we evince that this whole hypothesis is a
dialectic arrangement, proceeding from on high through all the middle
genera, as far as to the termination of first being.
Again, if we should say, that all the conclusions demonstrate
syllogistically only, in what respect shall we differ from those,
who assert that the whole of this discussion consists of doxastic
arguments, and only regards a mere verbal contest? But if it is
not only syllogistic, but likewise demonstrative, it is doubtless
necessary, that the middle should be the cause of, and by nature prior
to the conclusion. As, therefore, we make the conclusions of the
preceding reasons, the media of those that follow, the things which the
arguments respect, must doubtless have a similar order as to being, and
their progeny must be the causes of things subject, and generative of
such as are secondary. But if this be admitted, how can we allow that
all of them have the same peculiarity and nature? For cause, and that
which is produced from cause, are separated from each other.
But this likewise will happen to those who assert that one nature is to
be explored in all the arguments, that they will by no means perceive
how in the three first conclusions, the one remains unseparated
from being, but is first separated in the fourth conclusion. But in
all the following conclusions, the one is explored considered
as subsisting itself by itself. Is it not therefore necessary,
that these orders must differ from each other? For that which is
without separation, in consequence of having an occult and undivided
subsistence, is more allied to the one, but that which is
separated, has proceeded farther from the first principle of things.
Again, if you are willing to consider the multitude of the arguments,
and the extent of the hypothesis, how much it differs from that which
follows it,—neither from this will it appear to you to be entirely
about one and an unseparated nature. For reasonings about divine
concerns, are contracted in the more principal causes, because in these
the occult is more abundant than the perspicuous, and the ineffable
than the known. But they become multiplied and evolved, by proceeding
to divine orders more proximate to our nature. For such things as
are more allied to that which is ineffable, unknown, and exempt in
inaccessible places, are allotted an hyparxis more foreign from verbal
enunciation. But such things as have proceeded farther, are both more
known to us, and more apparent to the phantasy, than such as have a
prior subsistence.
This, therefore, being abundantly proved, it is necessary that the
second hypothesis, should unfold all the divine orders, and should
proceed on high, from the most simple and unical to the whole
multitude, and all the number of divine natures, in which the order
of true being ends, which indeed is spread under the unities of the
Gods, and at the same time is divided in conjunction with their occult
and ineffable peculiarities. If, therefore, we are not deceived in
admitting this, it follows, that from this hypothesis, the continuity
of the divine orders, and the progression of second from first
natures, is to be assumed, together with the peculiarity of all the
divine genera. And indeed, what their communion is with each other,
and what their distinction proceeding according to measure, likewise,
the auxiliaries which may be found in other dialogues respecting the
truth of real beings, or the unities which they contain, are all to be
referred to this hypothesis. For, here we may contemplate the total
progressions of the Gods, and their all-perfect orders, according
to theological science. For as we have before shown that the whole
treatise of the Parmenides has reference to the truth of things, and
that it was not devised as a vain evolution of words, it is doubtless
necessary, that the nine hypotheses which it discusses, employing the
dialectic method, but speculating with divine science, should be
about things and certain natures, which are either middle or last. If,
therefore, Parmenides acknowledges that his whole discourse will be
about the one, and how it subsists with respect to itself, and
all other things, it is evident that the speculation of the one,
must commence from that which is highest, but end in that which is the
last of all things. For the hyparxis of the one proceeds from on
high, as far as to the most obscure hypostasis of things.
CHAPTER XII.
As the first hypothesis, however, demonstrates by negations the
ineffable supereminence of the first principle of things, and evinces
that he is exempt from all essence and knowledge,—it is evident that
the hypothesis after this, as being proximate to it, must unfold the
whole order of the Gods. For Parmenides does not alone assume the
intellectual and essential peculiarity of the Gods, but likewise the
divine characteristic of their hyparxis through the whole of this
hypothesis. For what other one can that be which is participated
by being, than that which is in every being divine, and through which
all things are conjoined with the imparticipable one? For as bodies
through their life are conjoined with soul, and as souls through
their intellective part, are extended to total intellect, and
the first intelligence, in like manner true beings through the
one which they contain are reduced to an exempt union, and subsist
in unproceeding union with this first cause.
But because this hypothesis commences from that which is one
being, or being characterized by the one, and establishes
the summit of intelligibles as the first after the one, but ends
in an essence which participates of time, and deduces divine souls
to the extremities of the divine orders, it is necessary that the
third hypothesis should demonstrate by various conclusions, the whole
multitude of partial souls, and the diversities which they contain.
And thus far the separate and incorporeal hypostasis proceeds.
After this follows that nature which is divisible about bodies,
and inseparable from matter, which the fourth hypothesis delivers
supernally suspended from the Gods. And the last hypothesis is the
procession of matter, whether considered as one, or as various,
which the fifth hypothesis demonstrates by negations, according to
its dissimilar similitude[104] to the first. But sometimes, indeed,
the negations are privations, and sometimes the exempt causes of all
the productions. And what is the most wonderful of all, the highest
negations are only enunciative, but some in a supereminent manner, and
others according to deficiency. But each of the negations consequent
to these is affirmative; the one paradigmatically, but the other
iconically, or after the manner of an image. But the middle corresponds
to the order of soul, for it is composed from affirmative and negative
conclusions. But it possesses negations coordinate to affirmations.
Nor is it alone multiplied, like material natures,[105] nor does it
possess an adventitious one; but the one which it contains,
though it is still one, yet subsists in motion and multiplication, and
in its progressions is, as it were, absorbed by essence. And such are
the hypotheses which unfold all beings, both separable and inseparable,
together with the causes of wholes, as well exempt, as subsisting in
things themselves, according to the hyparxis of the one.
But there are four other hypotheses besides these, which by taking away
the one, evince that all things must be entirely subverted,
both beings and things in generation, and that no being can any longer
have any subsistence; and this, in order that he may demonstrate
the one to be the cause of being and preservation, that
through it all things participate of the nature of being, and that
each has its hyparxis suspended from the one. And in short, we
syllogistically collect this through all beings, that if the one
is, all things subsist as far as to the last hypostasis, and if it is
not, no being has any subsistence. The one, therefore, is both
the hypostatic and preservative cause of all things; which Parmenides
also himself collects at the end of the dialogue. With respect,
however, to the hypothesis of the Parmenides, its division, and the
speculation of its several parts, we have sufficiently treated in our
commentaries on that dialogue; so that it would be superfluous to
enter into a prolix discussion of these particulars at present. But as
from what has been said, it appears whence we may assume the whole of
theology, and from what dialogues we may collect into one the theology
distributed according to parts, we shall in the next place treat about
the common dogmas of Plato, which are adapted to sacred concerns, and
which extend to all the divine orders, and shall evince that each of
these is defined by him according to the most perfect science. For
things common are prior to such as are peculiar, and are more known
according to nature.
CHAPTER XIII.
In the first place, therefore, we shall assume the things which are
demonstrated in the Laws, and contemplate how they take the lead,
with respect to the truth about the Gods, and are the most ancient of
all the other mystic conceptions about a divine nature. Three things,
therefore, are asserted by Plato in these writings; that there are
Gods; that their providence extends to all things; and that they
administer all things according to justice, and suffer no perversion
from worse natures.
That these then obtain the first rank[106] among all theological
dogmas, is perfectly evident. For what can be of a more leading
nature, than the hyparxis of the Gods, or than boniform providence, or
immutable and undeviating power? Through which they produce secondary
natures uniformly, preserve themselves in an undefiled manner, and
convert them to themselves. But the Gods indeed govern other things,
but suffer nothing from subordinate natures, nor are changed with
the variety of the things to which their providence extends. We shall
learn, however, how these things are defined according to nature,
if we endeavour to embrace by a reasoning process the scientific
method of Plato about each of them; and prior to these, survey by
what irrefragable arguments he proves that there are Gods; and thus
afterwards consider such problems as are conjoined with this dogma.
Of all beings, therefore, it is necessary that some should move only,
but that others should be moved only, and that the natures situated
between these, should both move and be moved. And with respect to
these last it is necessary, either that they should move others being
themselves moved by others, or that they should be self-motive. These
four hypostases likewise, are necessarily placed in an orderly series,
one after another; that which is moved only and suffers, depending
on other primary causes; that which moves others, and is at the same
time moved, being prior to this; that which is self-motive, and
which is beyond that which both moves and is moved, beginning from
itself, and through its own motion imparting the representation of
being moved, to other things; and that which is immoveable, preceding
whatever participates either producing or passive motion. For every
thing self-motive, in consequence of possessing its perfection in a
transition and interval of life, depends on another more ancient cause,
which always subsists according to sameness, and in a similar manner,
and whose life is not in time, but in eternity. For time is an image of
eternity.
If, therefore, all things which are moved by themselves, are moved
according to time, but the eternal form of motion is above that which
is carried in time, the self-motive nature will be second in order, and
not the first of beings. But that which moves others, and is moved by
others, must necessarily be suspended from a self-motive nature: and
not this alone, but likewise every alter-motive fabrication, as the
Athenian guest demonstrates. For if all things, says he, should stand
still, unless self-motive natures had a subsistence among things, there
would be no such thing as that which is first moved. For that which
is immoveable, is by no means naturally adapted to be moved, nor will
there then be that which is first moved; but the alter-motive nature
is indigent of another moving power. The self-motive nature, therefore,
alone, as beginning from its own energy, will move both itself and
others in a secondary manner. For a thing of this kind imparts the
power of being moved to alter-motive natures, in the same manner as an
immoveable nature imparts a motive power to all beings. In the third
place, that which is moved only, must first of all be suspended from
things moved by another, but moving others. For it is necessary, both
that other things, and the series of things moved, which extends in an
orderly manner from on high to the last of things, should be filled
with their proper media.
All bodies, therefore, belong to those things which are naturally moved
only, and are passive. For they are productive of nothing, on account
of possessing an hypostasis endued with interval, and participating of
magnitude and bulk; since every thing productive and motive of others,
naturally produces and moves, by employing an incorporeal power.
But of incorporeal natures, some are divisible about bodies, but
others are exempt from such a division about the last of things. Those
incorporeals, therefore, which are divisible about the bulks of bodies,
whether they subsist in qualities, or in material forms, belong to the
number of things moved by another, but at the same time moving others.
For these, because they possess an incorporeal allotment, participate
of a motive power; but because they are divided about bodies, are
deprived of the power of verging to themselves, are divided together
with their subjects, and are full of sluggishness from these, they
are indigent of a motive nature which is not borne along in a foreign
seat, but possesses an hypostasis in itself. Where, therefore, shall
we obtain that which moves itself? For things extended into natures
possessing bulk and interval, or which are divided in these, and
subsist inseparably about them, must necessarily either be moved only,
or be motive through others. But it is necessary, as we have before
observed, that a self-motive nature should be prior to these, which is
perfectly established in itself, and not in others, and which fixes
its energies in itself, and not in things different from itself. There
is, therefore, another certain nature exempt from bodies, both in the
heavens and in these very mutable elements, from which bodies primarily
derive the power of being moved. Hence, if it be requisite to discover
what such an essence as this is, (rightly following Socrates, and
considering what the end of things is,) which by being present to
alter-motive natures, imparts to them a representation of self-motion,
to which of the above mentioned natures shall we ascribe the power of
things being moved from themselves? For all inanimate natures are alone
alter-motive, and whatever they suffer, they are adapted to suffer,
through a certain power externally moving and compelling. It remains,
therefore, that animated natures must possess this representation, and
that they are self-motive in a secondary degree, but that the soul
which is in them, primarily moves itself, and is moved by itself, and
that through a power derived from itself as it imparts life to bodies,
so likewise it extends to them from itself a representation of being
moved by themselves.
If, therefore, the self-motive essence is more ancient than
alter-motive natures, but soul is primarily self-motive, from which
the image of self-motion is imparted to bodies, soul will be beyond
bodies, and the motion of every body, will be the progeny of soul,
and of the motion it contains. Hence it is necessary that the whole
heaven and all the bodies it contains possessing various motions, and
being moved with these different motions, according to nature (for a
circulation is natural to every body of this kind) should have ruling
souls, which are essentially more ancient than bodies, and which are
moved in themselves, and supernally illuminate these with the power
of being moved. It is necessary, therefore, that these souls which
dispose in an orderly manner the whole world and the parts it contains,
and who impart to every thing corporeal which is of itself destitute
of life, the power of being moved, inspiring it, for this purpose,
with the cause of motion, should either move all things conformably to
reason, or after a contrary manner, which it is not lawful to assert.
But if indeed, this world and every thing in it which is disposed in
an orderly manner, and is moved equally and perpetually according to
nature, as is demonstrated, partly in the mathematical disciplines,
and partly in physical discussions, is suspended from an irrational
soul, which moving itself moves also other things, neither the order
of the periods, nor the motion which is bounded by one reason, nor the
position of bodies, nor any other of those things which are generated
according to nature, will have a stable cause, and which is able
to distribute every thing in an orderly manner, and according to an
invariable sameness of subsistence. For every thing irrational is
naturally adapted to be adorned by something different from itself,
and is indefinite and unadorned in its own nature. But to commit all
heaven to a thing of this kind, and a circulation revolving according
to reason, and with an invariable sameness, is by no means adapted,
either to the nature of things, or to our undisciplined conceptions. If
however, an intellectual soul, and which employs reason, governs all
things, and if every thing which is moved with a perpetual lation, is
governed by a soul of this kind, and there is no one of the wholes in
the universe destitute of soul (for no body is honorable if deprived
of such a power as this, as Theophrastus somewhere says) if this be
the case, whether does it possess this intellectual, perfect, and
beneficent power, according to participation, or according to essence?
For if, according to essence, it is necessary that every soul should be
of this kind, since each according to its own nature is self-motive.
But if, according to participation, there will be another intellect
subsisting in energy, more ancient than soul, which essentially
possesses intellection, and by its very being pre-assumes in itself the
uniform knowledge of wholes; since it is also necessary that the soul
which is essentialized according to reason, should possess that which
pertains to intellect through participation, and that the intellectual
nature should be twofold; the one subsisting primarily in a divine
intellect itself; but the other, which proceeds from this, subsisting
secondarily in soul. To which, you may add, if you please, the presence
of intellectual illumination in body. For whence is the whole of this
heaven either spherical or moved in a circle, and whence does it
revolve with a sameness of circulation according to one definite order?
For how could it always be allotted the same idea and power immutably
according to nature, if it did not participate of specific formation
according to intellect? For soul, indeed, is the supplier of motion;
but the cause of a firm establishment, and that which reduces the
unstable mutation of things that are moved, into sameness, and also a
life which is bounded by one reason, and a circulation which subsists
with invariable sameness, will evidently be superior to soul.
Body, therefore, and the whole of this sensible nature belong to
things which are alter-motive. But soul is self-motive, binding in
itself all corporeal motions; and prior to this is intellect which
is immoveable. Let no one, however, suppose that I assert this
immobility of intellect to resemble that which is sluggish, destitute
of life,[107] and without respiration, but that it is the leading cause
of all motion, and the fountain, if you are willing so to denominate
it, of all life, both of that which is converted to itself, and of that
which has its hypostasis in other things. Through these causes also,
the world is denominated by Timæus, an animal endued with soul and
intellect; being called by him an animal according to its own nature,
and the life pervading to it from soul, and which is distributed about
it, but animated or endued with soul, according to the presence of a
divine soul in it, and endued with intellect, according to intellectual
domination. For the supply of life, the government of soul, and the
participation of intellect connect and contain the whole of heaven.
If, however, this intellect is essentially intellect, since Timæus
indicating that the essence of intellect is the same with its
intellection, denominates it divine; for he says, that soul receiving
a divine intellect led an upright and wise life; if, therefore, this
be the case, it is necessary that the whole world should be suspended
from its divinity, and that motion indeed should be present to this
universe from soul, but that its perpetual permanency and sameness of
subsistence should be derived from intellect, and that its one union,
the conspiration in it and sympathy, and its all-perfect measure should
originate from that unity,[108] from which intellect is uniform, soul
is one,[109] every being is whole and perfect according to its own
nature, and every thing secondary together with perfection in its own
proper nature, participates of another more excellent peculiarity,
from an order which is always established above it. For that which is
corporeal being alter-motive, derives from soul the representation
of self-motive power, and is through it an animal. But soul being
self-motive participates of a life according to intellect, and
energizing according to time, possesses a never-ceasing energy, and
an ever-vigilant life from its proximity to intellect. And intellect
possessing its life in eternity, always subsisting essentially in
energy,[110] and fixing all its stable intellection at once in
intellect, is entirely deific through the cause prior to itself. For it
has twofold energies as Plotinus says, some as intellect, but others
as being inebriated with nectar. And elsewhere he observes, that this
intellect, by that which is prior to itself and is not intellect, is a
god; in the same manner as soul, by its summit which is above soul, is
intellect; and as body, by the power which is prior to body, is soul.
All things therefore, as we have said, are suspended from the
one through intellect and soul as media. And intellect indeed has
the form of unity; but soul has the form of intellect; and the body of
the world is vital. But every thing is conjoined with that which is
prior to itself. And of the natures posterior to these, one in a more
proximate, but the other in a more remote degree, enjoys that which is
divine. And divinity, indeed, is prior to intellect, being primarily
carried in an intellectual nature; but intellect is most divine, as
being deified prior to other things; and soul is divine, so far as it
requires an intellectual medium. But the body which participates of a
soul of this kind, so far as body indeed, is also itself divine; for
the illumination of divine[111] light pervades supernally as far as
to the last dependencies; yet it is not simply divine; but soul, by
looking to intellect, and living from itself, is primarily divine.
My reasoning is also the same about each of the whole spheres, and
about the bodies they contain. For all these imitate the whole heaven,
since these likewise have a perpetual allotment; and with respect to
the sublunary elements, they have not entirely an essential mutation,
but they abide in the universe according to their wholenesses, and
contain in themselves partial animals. For every wholeness has
posterior to itself more partial essences. As, therefore, in the
heavens, the number of the stars proceeds together with the whole
spheres, and as in the earth the multitude of partial terrestrial
animals subsists together with their wholeness, thus also it appears
to me to be necessary that in the wholes which have an intermediate
subsistence, each element should be filled up with appropriate numbers.
For how in the extremes can wholes which subsist prior to parts, be
arranged together with parts, unless there is the same analogy of them
in the intermediate natures?
But if each of the spheres is an animal, and is always established
after the same manner, and gives completion to the universe, as
possessing life indeed, it will always primarily participate of soul,
but as preserving its own order immutable in the world, it will be
comprehended by intellect, and as one and a whole, and the leader and
ruler of its proper parts, it will be illuminated by divine union. Not
only the universe, therefore, but each also of its perpetual parts
is animated and endued with intellect, and as much as possible is
similar to the universe.[112] For each of these parts is a universe
with respect to its kindred multitude. In short, there is indeed one
corporeal-formed wholeness of the universe, but there are many others
under this, depending on this one; there is one soul of the universe,
and after this, other souls, together with this disposing in an orderly
manner the whole parts of the universe with undefiled purity; one
intellect, and an intellectual number under this, participated by
these souls; and one god who connectedly contains at once all mundane
and supermundane[113] natures, and a multitude of other gods, who
distribute intellectual essences, and the souls suspended from these,
and all the parts of the world. For it is not to be supposed that each
of the productions of nature is generative of things similar to itself,
but that wholes and the first of mundane beings should not in a much
greater degree extend in themselves the paradigm of a generation of
this kind. For the similar is more allied, and more naturally adapted
to the reason of cause than the dissimilar, in the same manner as the
same than the different, and bound than the infinite. These things,
however, we shall accurately survey in what follows. But we shall now
direct our attention to the second of the things demonstrated in the
Laws, viz. that the Gods providentially attend at once to wholes and
parts, and shall summarily discuss the irreprehensible conception of
Plato about the providence of the Gods.
CHAPTER XIV.
From what has been said, therefore, it is evident to every one, that
the Gods being the causes of all motion, some of them are essential and
vivific, according to a self-motive, self-vital, and self-energetic
power. But others of them are intellectual, and excite by their very
being all secondary[114] natures to the perfection of life, according
to the fountain and principle of all second and third progressions of
motion. And others are unical, or characterized by unity, deifying
by participation all the whole genera of themselves, according to a
primary, all-perfect, and unknown power of energy, and who are the
leaders of one kind of motion, but are not the principle of another.
But again others supply to secondary natures motion according to place
or quality, but are essentially the causes of motion to themselves. For
every thing which is the cause of essence to other things is much prior
to this the cause to itself of its own proper energies and perfection.
Farther still, that which is self-motive is again the principle of
motion, and being and life are imparted by soul to every thing in
the world, and not local motion only and the other kinds of motion,
but the progression into being is from soul, and by a much greater
priority from an intellectual essence, which binds to itself the life
of self-motive natures and precedes according to cause all temporal
energy. And in a still greater degree do motion, being, and life
proceed from a unical hyparxis, which connectedly contains intellect
and soul, is the source of total good, and proceeds as far as to the
last of things. For of life indeed, not all the parts of the world are
capable of participating, nor of intellect and a gnostic power; but of
the one all things participate, as far as to matter itself,
both wholes and parts, things which subsist according to nature, and
the contraries to these; and there is not any thing which is deprived
of a cause of this kind, nor can any thing ever participate of being,
if it is deprived of the one. If, therefore, the Gods produce
all things, and contain all things, in the unknown comprehensions of
themselves, how is it possible there should not be a providence of all
things in these comprehensions, pervading supernally as far as to the
most partial natures? For it is every where fit that offspring should
enjoy the providential care of their causes. But all alter-motive are
the progeny of self-motive natures. And things which subsist in time,
either in the whole of time, or in a part of it, are the effects of
eternal natures; because that which always is, is the cause of that
which sometimes exists. And divine and unical genera, as they give
subsistence to all multiplied natures, precede them in existence.
In short, there is no essence, or multitude of powers, which is
not allotted its generation from the one. It is necessary,
therefore, that all these should be partakers of the providence of
preceding causes, being vivified indeed from the psychical gods,
and circulating according to temporal periods; and participating of
sameness and at the same time a stable condition of forms from the
intellectual gods;[115] but receiving into themselves the presence of
union, of measure, and of the distribution of good from the first Gods.
It is necessary, therefore, either that the Gods should know that a
providential care of their own offspring is natural to them, and should
not only give subsistence to secondary beings, and supply them with
life, essence and union, but also previously comprehend in themselves
the primary cause of the goods they contain, or, which it is not lawful
to assert, that being Gods, they are ignorant of what is proper and fit.
For what ignorance can there be of beautiful things, with those who are
the causes of beauty, or of things good, with those who are allotted
an hyparxis defined by the nature of the good? But if they are
ignorant, neither do souls govern the universe according to intellect,
nor are intellects carried in souls as in a vehicle, nor prior to
these do the unities of the Gods contractedly comprehend in themselves
all knowledge, which we have acknowledged they do through the former
demonstrations. If, therefore, they are not deprived of knowledge,
being the fathers, leaders and governors of every thing in the world,
and[116] to them as being such a providential care of the things
governed by, and following them, and generated by them, pertains,
whether shall we say that they knowing the law which is according
to nature, accomplish this law, or that through imbecility they are
deprived of a providential attention to their possessions or progeny,
for it is of no consequence as to the present discussion which of these
two appellations you are willing to adopt? For if through want of power
they neglect the superintendence of wholes, what is the cause of this
want of power? For they do not move things externally, nor are other
things indeed the causes of essence, but they assume the government of
the things they have produced, but they rule over all things as if from
the stern of a ship, themselves supplying being, themselves containing
the measures of life, and themselves distributing to things their
respective energies.
Whether also, are they unable to provide at once for all things, or
they do not leave each of the parts destitute of their providential
care? And if they are not curators of every thing in the world, whether
do they providentially superintend greater things, but neglect such as
are less? Or do they pay attention to the less, but neglect to take
care of the greater? For if we deprive them of a providential attention
to all things similarly, through the want of power, how, while we
attribute to them a greater thing, viz. the production of all things,
can we refuse to grant that which is naturally consequent to this, a
providential attention to their productions? For it is the province
of the power which produces a greater thing, to dispose in a becoming
manner that which is less. But if they are curators of less things, and
neglect such as are greater, how can this mode of providence be right?
For that which is more allied, and more similar to any thing, is more
appropriately and fitly disposed by nature to the participation of
the good which that thing confers on it. If, however, the Gods think
that the first of mundane natures deserve their providential care,
and that perfection of which they are the sources, but are unable
to extend their regard to the last of things, what is it which can
restrain the presence of the Gods from pervading to all things? What
is it which can impede their unenvying and exuberant energy? How can
those who are capable of effecting greater things, be unable to govern
such as are less? Or how can those who produce the essence even of the
smallest things, not be the lords of the perfection of them, through
a privation of power? For all these things are hostile to our natural
conceptions. It remains, therefore, that the Gods must know what is
fit and appropriate, and that they must possess a power adapted to the
perfection of their own nature, and to the government of the whole of
things. But if they know that which is according to nature, and this
to those who are the generating causes of all things is to take care
of all things, and an exuberance of power,—if this be the case, they
are not deprived of a providential attention of this kind. Whether,
also, together with what has been said, is there a will of providence
in them? Or is this alone wanting both to their knowledge and power?
And on this account are things deprived[117] of their providential
care? For if indeed knowing what is fit for themselves, and being able
to accomplish what they know, they are unwilling to provide for their
own offspring, they will be indigent of goodness, their unenvying
exuberance will perish, and we shall do nothing else than abolish
the hyparxis according to which they are essentialized. For the very
being of the Gods is defined by the good, and in this they have their
subsistence. But to provide for things of a subject nature, is to
confer on them a certain good. How, therefore, can we deprive the Gods
of providence, without at the same time depriving them of goodness?
And how if we subvert their goodness is it possible, that we should
not also ignorantly subvert their hyparxis which we established by
the former demonstrations? Hence it is necessary to admit as a thing
consequent to the very being of the Gods that they are good according
to every virtue. And again, it is consequent to this that they do not
withdraw themselves from a providential attention to secondary natures,
either through indolence, or imbecility, or ignorance. But to this I
think it is also consequent that there is with them the most excellent
knowledge, unpolluted power, and unenvying and exuberant will. From
which it appears that they provide for the whole of things, and omit
nothing which is requisite to the supply of good.
Let, however, no one think that the Gods extend such a providence about
secondary things, as is either of a busy or laborious nature, or that
this is the case with their exempt transcendency, which is established
remote from mortal difficulty. For their blessedness is not willing to
be defiled with the difficulty of administration, since even the life
of good men is accompanied with facility, and is void of molestation
and pain. But all labours and molestation arise from the impediments
of matter. If, however, it be requisite to define the mode of the
providence of the Gods, it must be admitted that it is spontaneous,
unpolluted, immaterial, and ineffable. For the Gods do not govern all
things either by investigating what is fit, or exploring the good of
every thing by ambiguous reasonings, or by looking externally, and
following their effects as men do in the providence which they exert
on their own affairs; but pre-assuming in themselves the measures of
the whole of things, and producing the essence of every thing from
themselves, and also looking to themselves, they lead and perfect all
things in a silent path, by their very being, and fill them with good.
Neither, likewise, do they produce in a manner similar to nature,
energizing only by their very being, unaccompanied with deliberate
choice, nor energizing in a manner similar to partial souls in
conjunction with will, are they deprived of production according to
essence; but they contract both these into one union, and they will
indeed such things as they are able to effect by their very being,
but by their very essence being capable of and producing all things,
they contain the cause of production in their unenvying and exuberant
will. By what busy energy, therefore, with what difficulty, or with
the punishment of what Ixion, is the providence either of whole souls,
or of intellectual essences, or of the Gods themselves accomplished,
unless it should be said, that to impart good in any respect is
laborious to the Gods? But that which is according to nature is not
laborious to any thing. For neither is it laborious to fire to impart
heat, nor to snow to refrigerate, nor in short to bodies to energize
according to their own proper powers. And prior to bodies, neither is
it laborious to natures to nourish, or generate, or increase. For these
are the works of natures. Nor again, prior to these, is it laborious to
souls. For these indeed produce many energies from deliberate choice,
many from their very being, and are the causes of many motions by alone
being present. So that if indeed the communication of good is according
to nature to the Gods, providence also is according to nature. And
these things we must say are accomplished by the Gods with facility,
and by their very being alone. But if these things are not according
to nature, neither will the Gods be naturally good. For the good is
the supplier of good; just as life is the source of another life, and
intellect is the source of intellectual illumination. And every thing
which has a primary subsistence in each nature is generative of that
which has a secondary subsistence.
That however, which is especially the illustrious prerogative of
the Platonic theology, I should say is this, that according to it,
neither is the exempt essence of the Gods converted to secondary
natures, through a providential care for things subordinate, nor is
their providential presence with all things diminished through their
transcending the whole of things with undefiled purity, but at the
same time it assigns to them a separate subsistence, and the being
unmingled with every subordinate nature, and also the being extended to
all things, and the taking care of and adorning their own progeny. For
the manner in which they pervade through all things is not corporeal,
as that of light is through the air, nor is it divisible about bodies,
in the same manner as in nature, nor converted to subordinate natures,
in the same manner as that of a partial soul, but it is separate
from body, and without conversion to it, is immaterial, unmingled,
unrestrained, uniform, primary and exempt. In short, such a mode of
the providence of the Gods as this, must at present be conceived. For
it is evident that it will be appropriate according to each order of
the Gods. For soul indeed, is said to provide for secondary natures in
one way, and intellect in another. But the providence of divinity who
is prior to intellect is exerted according to a transcendency both of
intellect and soul. And of the Gods themselves, the providence of the
sublunary is different from that of the celestial divinities. Of the
Gods also who are beyond the world, there are many orders, and the
mode of providence is different according to each.
CHAPTER XV.
The third problem after these we shall connect with the former, and
survey how we are to assume the unpervertible in the Gods, who perform
all things according to justice, and who do not in the smallest
degree subvert its boundary, or its undeviating rectitude, in their
providential attention to all other things, and in the mutations of
human affairs. I think therefore, that this is apparent to every one,
that every where that which governs according to nature, and pays all
possible attention to the felicity of the governed, after this manner
becomes the leader of that which it governs, and directs it to that
which is best. For neither has the pilot who rules over the sailors and
the ship any other precedaneous end than the safety of those that sail
in the ship, and of the ship itself, nor does the physician who is the
curator of the diseased, endeavour to do all things for the sake of any
thing else than the health of the subjects of his care, whether it be
requisite to cut them, or administer to them a purgative medicine. Nor
would the general of an army or a guardian say that they look to any
other end, than the one to the liberty of those that are guarded, and
the other to the liberty of the soldiers. Nor will any other to whom
it belongs to be the leader or curator of certain persons, endeavour
to subvert the good of those that follow him, which it is his business
to procure, and with a view to which he disposes in a becoming manner
every thing belonging to those whom he governs. If therefore we grant
that the Gods are the leaders of the whole of things, and that their
providence extends to all things, since they are good, and possess
every virtue, how is it possible they should neglect the felicity of
the objects of their providential care? Or how can they be inferior
to other leaders in the providence of subordinate natures? Since the
Gods indeed always look to that which is better, and establish this as
the end of all their government, but other leaders overlook the good
of men, and embrace vice rather than virtue, in consequence of being
perverted by the gifts of the depraved.
And universally, whether you are willing to call the Gods leaders, or
rulers, or guardians, or fathers, a divine nature will appear to be
in want of no one of such names. For all things that are venerable
and honorable subsist in them primarily. And on this account indeed,
here also some things are naturally more venerable and honorable
than others, because they exhibit an ultimate resemblance of the
Gods. But what occasion is there to speak further on this subject?
For I think that we hear from those who are wise in divine concerns
paternal, guardian, ruling and pæonian powers celebrated. How is
it possible therefore that the images of the Gods which subsist
according to nature, regarding the end which is adapted to them, should
providentially attend to the order of the things which they govern, but
that the Gods themselves with whom there is the whole of good, true and
real virtue, and a blameless life, should not direct their government
to the virtue and vice of men? And how can it be admitted, on this
supposition, that they exhibit virtue victorious in the universe,
and vice vanquished? Will they not also thus corrupt the measures
of justice by the worship paid to them by the depraved, subvert the
boundary of undeviating science, and cause the gifts of vice to appear
more honorable than the pursuits of virtue? For this mode of providence
is neither advantageous to these leaders, nor to those that follow
them. For to those who have become wicked, there will be no liberation
from guilt, since they will always endeavour to anticipate justice,
and pervert the measures of desert. But it will be necessary, which it
is not lawful to assert, that the Gods should regard as their final
end the vice of the subjects of their providence, neglect their true
salvation, and consequently be alone the causes of adumbrant good. This
universe also and the whole world will be filled with disorder and
incurable perturbation, depravity remaining in it, and being replete
with that discord which exists in badly governed cities. Though is it
not perfectly impossible that parts should be governed according to
nature in a greater degree than wholes, human than divine concerns, and
images than primary causes?
Hence if men properly attend to the welfare of men in governing them,
honoring some, but disgracing others, and every where giving a proper
direction to the works of vice by the measures of virtue, it is much
more necessary that the Gods should be the immutable governors of the
whole of things. For men are allotted this virtue through similitude
to the Gods. But if we acknowledge that men who corrupt the safety and
well-being of those whom they govern, imitate in a greater degree the
providence of the Gods, we shall ignorantly at one and the same time
entirely subvert the truth concerning the Gods, and the transcendency
of virtue. For this I think is evident to every one, that what is more
similar to the Gods is more happy than those things that are deprived
of them[118] through dissimilitude and diversity. So that if among
men indeed, the uncorrupted and undeviating form of providence is
honorable, it must undoubtedly be in a much greater degree honorable
with the Gods. But if with them, mortal gifts are more venerable
than the divine measures of justice, with men also earth-born gifts
will be more honorable than Olympian goods, and the blandishments
of vice than the works of virtue. With a view therefore to the most
perfect felicity, Plato in the Laws delivers to us through these
demonstrations, the hyparxis of the Gods, their providential care
extending to all things, and their immutable energy; which things,
indeed, are common to all the Gods, but are most principal and first
according to nature in the doctrine pertaining to them. For this triad
appears to pervade as far as to the most partial natures in the divine
orders, originating supernally from the occult genera of Gods. For
a uniform hyparxis, a power which providentially takes care of all
secondary natures, and an undeviating and immutable intellect, are in
all the Gods that are prior to and in the world.
CHAPTER XVI.
Again, from another principle we may be able to apprehend the
theological demonstrations in the Republic. For these are common to
all the divine orders, similarly extend to all the discussion about
the Gods, and unfold to us truth in uninterrupted connexion with what
has been before said. In the second book of the Republic therefore,
Socrates describes certain theological types for mythological poets,
and exhorts his pupils to purify themselves from those tragic
disciplines, which some do not refuse to introduce to a divine nature,
concealing in these as in veils the arcane mysteries concerning the
Gods. Socrates therefore, as I have said, narrating the types and laws
of divine fables, which afford this apparent meaning, and the inward
concealed scope, which regards as its end the beautiful and the natural
in the fictions about the Gods,—in the first place indeed, thinks
fit to evince, according to our unperverted conception about the Gods
and their goodness, that they are the suppliers of all good, but the
causes of no evil to any being at any time. In the second place, he
says that they are essentially immutable, and that they neither have
various forms, deceiving and fascinating, nor are the authors of the
greatest evil lying, in deeds or in words, or of error and folly. These
therefore being two laws, the former has two conclusions, viz. that
the Gods are not the causes of evils, and that they are the causes
of all good. The second law also in a similar manner has two other
conclusions; and these are, that every divine nature is immutable, and
is established pure from falsehood and artificial variety. All the
things demonstrated therefore, depend on these three common conceptions
about a divine nature, viz. on the conceptions about its goodness,
immutability and truth. For the first and ineffable fountain of good is
with the Gods; together with eternity, which is the cause of a power
that has an invariable sameness of subsistence; and the first intellect
which is beings themselves, and the truth which is in real beings.
CHAPTER XVII.
That therefore, which has the hyparxis of itself, and the whole of its
essence defined in the good, and which by its very being produces all
things, must necessarily be productive of every good, but of no evil.
For if there was any thing primarily good, which is not God, perhaps
some one might say that divinity is indeed a cause of good, but that
he does not impart to beings every good. If, however, not only every
God is good, but that which is primarily boniform and beneficent is
God, (for that which is primarily good will not be the second after the
Gods, because every where, things which have a secondary subsistence,
receive the peculiarity of their hyparxis from those that subsist
primarily)—this being the case, it is perfectly necessary that
divinity should be the cause of good, and of all such goods as proceed
into secondary descents, as far as to the last of things. For as the
power which is the cause of life, gives subsistence to all life, as the
power which is the cause of knowledge, produces all knowledge, as the
power which is the cause of beauty, produces every thing beautiful, as
well the beauty which is in words, as that which is in the phænomena,
and thus every primary cause produces all similars from itself and
binds to itself the one hypostasis of things which subsist according to
one form,—after the same manner I think the first and most principal
good, and uniform hyparxis, establishes in and about itself, the causes
and comprehensions of all goods at once. Nor is there any thing good
which does not possess this power from it, nor beneficent which being
converted to it, does not participate of this cause. For all goods are
from thence produced, perfected and preserved; and the one series and
order of universal good, depends on that fountain. Through the same
cause of hyparxis therefore, the Gods are the suppliers of all good,
and of no evil. For that which is primarily good, gives subsistence to
every good from itself, and is not the cause of an allotment contrary
to itself; since that which is productive of life, is not the cause of
the privation of life, and that which is the source of beauty is exempt
from the nature of that which is void of beauty and is deformed, and
from the causes of this. Hence, of that which primarily constitutes
good, it is not lawful to assert that it is the cause of contrary
progeny; but the nature of goods proceeds from thence undefiled,
unmingled and uniform.
And the divine cause indeed of goods is established eternally in
itself, extending to all secondary natures, an unenvying and exuberant
participation of good. Of its participants, however, some preserve the
participation with incorruptible purity, receiving their proper good
in undefiled bosoms, and thus through an abundance of power possess
inevitably an allotment of goods adapted to them. But those natures
which are arranged in the last of the whole of things, entirely indeed
enjoy according to their nature the goodness of the Gods; for it is not
possible that things perfectly destitute of good should either have a
being, or subsist at first; but receiving an efflux of this kind, they
neither preserve the gift which pervades to them, pure and unmingled,
nor do they retain their proper good stably, and with invariable
sameness, but becoming imbecil, partial and material, and filled with
the privation of vitality of their subject, they exhibit to order
indeed, the privation of order, to reason irrationality, and to virtue,
the contrary to it, vice. And with respect indeed to the natures which
rank as wholes,[119] each of these is exempt from a perversion of this
kind, things more perfect in them always having dominion according
to nature. But partial natures through a diminution of power always
diverging[120] into multitude, division and interval, obscure indeed
the participation of good, but substitute the contrary in the mixture
with good, and which is vanquished by the combination. For neither here
is it lawful for evil to subsist unmingled, and perfectly destitute of
good; but though some particular thing may be evil to a part, yet it
is entirely good to the whole and to the universe. For the universe is
always happy, and always consists of perfect parts, and which subsist
according to nature. But that which is preternatural is always evil to
partial natures, and deformity, privation of symmetry, perversion, and
a resemblance of subsistence are in these. For that which is corrupted,
is indeed corrupted to itself, and departs from its proper perfection,
but to the universe it is incorruptible and indestructible.
And every thing which is deprived of good, so far indeed as pertains to
itself, and its own subsistence, is deprived of it through imbecility
of nature; but it is good to the whole, and so far as it is a part of
the universe. For it is not possible that either a privation of life,
or deformity and immoderation, or in short privation can be inserted
in the universe; but its whole number is always perfect, being held
together by the goodness of wholes. And life is every where present,
together with existence, and the being perfect, so far as each thing
gives completion to the whole. Divinity therefore, as we have said,
is the cause[121] of good; but the shadowy subsistence of evil does
not subsist from power, but from the imbecility of the natures which
receive the illuminations of the Gods. Nor is evil in wholes, but
in partial natures, nor yet in all these. For the first of partial
natures and partial intellectual genera are eternally boniform. But the
media among these, and which energize according to time, connecting
the participation of the good with temporal mutation and motion, are
incapable of preserving the gift of the Gods immoveable, uniform and
simple; by their variety obscuring[122] the simplicity of this gift,
by their multiform its uniform nature, and by their commixture its
purity and incorruptibility. For they do not consist of incorruptible
first genera, nor have they a simple essence, nor uniform powers, but
such as are composed of the contraries to these, as Socrates somewhere
says in the Phædrus. And the last of partial natures and which are also
material, in a much greater degree pervert their proper good. For they
are mingled with a privation of life, and have a subsistence resembling
that of an image, since it is replete with much of non-entity, consists
of things hostile to each other, and of circumstances which are
mutable and dispersed through the whole of time, so that they never
cease to evince in every thing that they are given up to corruption,
privation of symmetry, deformity, and all-various mutations, being not
only extended in their energies, like the natures prior to them, but
being replete both in their powers and energies with that which is
preternatural, and with material imbecility. For things which become
situated in a foreign place, by co-introducing whole together with
form, rule over the subject nature; but again receding to that which is
partial, from their proper wholeness, and participating of partibility,
imbecility, war and the division which is the source of generation,
they are necessarily all-variously changed. Neither, therefore, is
every being perfectly good; for there would not be the corruption and
generation of bodies, nor the purification and punishment of souls.
Nor is there any evil in wholes: for the world would not be a blessed
god, if the most principal parts of which it consists were imperfect.
Nor are the Gods the causes of evils, in the same manner as they are
of goods; but evil originates from the imbecility of the recipients of
good, and a subsistence in the last of things. Nor is the evil which
has a shadowy subsistence in partial natures, unmingled with good. But
this participates of it in a certain respect, by its very existence
being detained by good. Nor in short, is it possible for evil which is
perfectly destitute of all good to have a subsistence. For evil itself
is even beyond that which in no respect whatever has an existence, just
as the good itself is beyond that which is perfectly being. Nor is the
evil which is in partial natures left in a disordered state, but even
this is made subservient to good purposes by the Gods, and on this
account justice purifies souls from depravity. But another order of
gods purifies from the depravity which is in bodies. All things however
are converted as much as possible to the goodness of the Gods. And
wholes indeed remain in their proper boundaries, and also the perfect
and beneficent genera of beings. But more partial and imperfect natures
are adorned and arranged in a becoming manner, become subservient to
the completion of wholes, are called upward to the beautiful, are
changed, and in every way enjoy the participation of the good, so far
as this can be accomplished by them.
For there cannot be a greater good to each of these, than what the
Gods impart according to measures to their progeny: but all things,
each separately, and all in common, receive such a portion of good, as
it is possible for them to participate. But if some things are filled
with greater, and others with less goods, the power of the recipients,
and the measures of the distribution must be assigned as the cause of
this. For different things are adapted to different beings according to
their nature. But the Gods always extend good, in the same manner as
the sun always emits light. For a different thing receives this light
differently according to its order, and receives the greatest portion
of light it is capable of receiving. For all things are led according
to justice, and good is not absent from any thing, but is present to
every thing, according to an appropriate boundary of participation.
And as the Athenian guest says, all things are in a good condition,
and are arranged by the Gods. Let no one therefore say, that there are
precedaneous productive principles of evil in nature, or intellectual
paradigms of evils, in the same manner as there are of goods, or that
there is a malific soul, or an evil-producing cause in the Gods, nor
let him introduce sedition and eternal war against the first good. For
all these are foreign from the science of Plato, and being more remote
from the truth wander into barbaric folly, and gigantic mythology. Nor
if certain persons speaking obscurely in arcane narrations, devise
things of this kind, shall we make any alteration in the apparent
apparatus of what they indicate. But the truth indeed of those things
is to be investigated, and in the mean time, the science of Plato must
be genuinely received in the pure bosoms of the soul, and must be
preserved undefiled and unmingled with contrary opinions.
CHAPTER XVIII.
In the next place, let us survey the immutability and simplicity of the
Gods, what the nature of each of them is, and how both these appear
to be adapted to the hyparxis of the Gods, according to the narration
of Plato. The Gods, therefore, are exempt from the whole of things.
But filling these, as we have said, with good, they are themselves
perfectly good; each of them according to his proper order possesses
that which is most excellent; and the whole genus of the Gods is at
once allotted predominance according to an exuberance of good. But here
again, we must oppose those who interpret in a divisible manner that
which is most excellent in the Gods, and who say, that if the first
cause is most excellent, that which is posterior to the first is not
so. For it is necessary, say they, that what is produced should be
inferior to that by which it is produced. And this indeed is rightly
asserted by them. For it is necessary in the Gods, to preserve the
order of causes unconfused, and to define separately their second and
third progressions. But together with a progression of this kind, and
with[123] the unfolding into light of things secondary from those that
are first, that which is most excellent must also be surveyed in each
of the Gods. For each of the Gods in his own characteristic peculiarity
is allotted a transcendency which is primary and perfectly good. One
of them indeed, that we may speak of something known, is allotted
this transcendency, and is most excellent as possessing a prophetic
power, another as demiurgic, but another as a perfector of works. And
Timæus indicating this to us, continually calls the first demiurgus
the best of causes. For the world, says he, is the most beautiful of
generated natures, and its artificer is the best of causes; though the
intelligible paradigm, and which is the most beautiful of intelligibles
is prior to the demiurgus. But this is most beautiful and at the same
time most excellent, as the demiurgic paradigm; and the maker and at
the same time father of the universe is most excellent, as a demiurgic
God. In the Republic also, Socrates speaking of the Gods, very properly
observes, that each of them being as much as possible most beautiful
and most excellent, remains always with a simplicity of subsistence
in his own form. For each of them being allotted that which is first
and the summit in his own series, does not depart from his own order,
but contains the blessedness and felicity of his own proper power.
And neither does he exchange his present for a worse order; for it
is not lawful for that which possesses all virtue to be changed into
a worse condition; nor does he pass into a better order. For where
can there be any thing better than that which is most excellent? But
this is present with each of the divinities according to his own
order, as we have said, and also with every genus of the Gods. It is
necessary therefore that every divine nature should be established
immutably, abiding in its own accustomed manner. Hence from these
things the self-sufficiency, undefiled purity, and invariable sameness
of subsistence of the Gods is apparent. For if they are not changed
to a more excellent condition of being, as possessing that which is
best in their own nature, they are sufficient to themselves, and are
not in want of any good. And if they are not at any time changed to
a worse condition, they remain undefiled, established in their own
transcendencies. If also they guard the perfection of themselves
immutably, they subsist always with invariable sameness. What the
self-sufficiency therefore of the Gods is, what their immutability, and
what their sameness of subsistence, we shall in the next place consider.
The world then is said to be self-sufficient, because its subsistence
is perfect from things perfect, and a whole from wholes; and because
it is filled with all appropriate goods from its generating father.
But a perfection and self-sufficiency of this kind is partible, and is
said to consist of many things coalescing in one, and is filled from
separate causes according to participation. The order of divine souls
also, is said to be self-sufficient, as being full of appropriate
virtues, and always preserving the measure of its own blessedness
without indigence. But here likewise the self-sufficiency is in want
of powers. For these souls have not their intellections directed
to the same intelligibles; but they energize according to time,
and obtain the complete perfection of their contemplation in whole
periods of time. The self-sufficiency therefore of divine souls, and
the whole perfection of their life is not at once present. Again,
the intellectual world is said to be self-sufficient, as having its
whole good established in eternity, comprehending at once its whole
blessedness, and being indigent of nothing, because all life and all
intelligence are present with it, and nothing is deficient, nor does it
desire any thing as absent. But this, indeed, is sufficient to itself
in its own order, yet it falls short of the self-sufficiency of the
Gods. For every intellect is boniform, yet is not goodness itself,
nor primarily good; but each of the Gods is a unity, hyparxis and
goodness. The peculiarity however of hyparxis changes the progression
of the goodness of each. For one divinity is a perfective goodness,
another is a goodness connective of the whole of things, and another
is a collective goodness. But each is simply a goodness sufficient
to itself. Or it may be said, that each is a goodness possessing
the self-sufficient and the all-perfect, neither according to
participation, nor illumination, but by being that very thing which it
is. For intellect is sufficient to itself by participation, and soul by
illumination, but this universe, according to a similitude to a divine
nature. The Gods themselves, however, are self-sufficient through
and by themselves, filling themselves, or rather subsisting as the
plenitudes of all good.
But with respect to the immutability of the Gods, of what kind shall we
say it is? Is it such as that of a [naturally] circulating body? For
neither is this adapted to receive any thing from inferior natures,
nor is it filled with the mutation arising from generation, and the
disorder which occurs in the sublunary regions. For the nature of the
celestial bodies is immaterial and immutable. But this indeed is great
and venerable, as in corporeal hypostases, yet it is inferior to the
nature of the Gods. For every body possesses both its being, and its
perpetual immutability from other precedaneous causes. But neither is
the impassive and the immutable in the Gods such as the immutability
of souls. For these communicate in a certain respect with bodies, and
are the media of an impartible essence, and of an essence divided
about bodies. Nor again is the immutability of intellectual essences
equivalent to that of the Gods. For intellect is immutable, impassive,
and unmingled with secondary natures, on account of its union with
the Gods. And so far indeed as it is uniform, it is a thing of this
kind; but so far as it is manifold, it has something which is more
excellent, and something which is subordinate, in itself. But the Gods
alone having established their unions according to this transcendency
of beings, are immutable dominations, are primary and impassive. For
there is nothing in them which is not one and hyparxis. But as fire
abolishes every thing which is foreign to it and of a contrary power,
as light expels all darkness, and as lightning proceeds through all
things without defilement, thus also the unities of the Gods unite
all multitude, and abolish every thing which tends to dispersion and
all-perfect division. But they deify every thing which participates
of them, receiving nothing from their participants, and do not[124]
diminish their own proper union by the participation.
Hence also the Gods being present every where, are similarly exempt
from all things, and containing all things are vanquished by no one of
the things they contain; but they are unmingled with all things and
undefiled. In the third place, this world indeed is said to subsist
with invariable sameness, so far as it is allotted an order in itself
which is always preserved indissoluble. At the same time however, since
it possesses a corporeal form, it is not destitute of mutation, as the
Elean guest observes. The psychical order likewise is said to obtain
an essence always established in sameness; and this is rightly said.
For it is entirely impassive according to essence; but it has energies
extended into time, and as Socrates says in the Phædrus, at different
times it understands different intelligibles, and in its progressions
about intellect comes into contact with different forms. Besides
these also, much-honored intellect is said both to subsist and to
understand with invariable and perpetual sameness, establishing at once
in eternity its essence, powers, and energies. Through the multitude
however of its intellections, and through the variety of intelligible
species and genera, there is not only an invariable sameness, but
also a difference of subsistence in intellect. For difference there
is consubsistent with sameness. And there is not only a wandering
of corporeal motions, and of the psychical periods, but likewise of
intellect itself, so far as it produces the intelligence of itself
into multitude; and evolves the intelligible. For soul indeed evolves
intellect, but intellect the intelligible, as Plotinus somewhere
rightly observes, when speaking of the intelligible subjections.
For such are the wanderings of intellect and which it is lawful for
it to make. If therefore we should say that a perpetual sameness of
subsistence is primarily in the Gods alone, and is especially inherent
in them, we shall not deviate from the truth, and we shall accord with
Plato, who says in the Politicus, that an eternally invariable sameness
of subsistence alone pertains to the most divine of all things. The
Gods, therefore, bind to themselves the causes of a sameness of
this kind, and guard with immutable sameness their proper hyparxis
established according to the unknown union of themselves. And such is
the immutability of the Gods, which is contained in self-sufficiency,
impassivity and sameness.
CHAPTER XIX.
In the next place, let us consider what power the simplicity of the
Gods possesses; for this Socrates adds in his discourse concerning a
divine nature, not admitting that which is various, and multiform, and
which appears different at different times, but referring to divinity
the uniform and the simple. Each of the divinities therefore, as he
says, remains simply in his own form. What then shall we conclude
respecting this simplicity? That it is not such as that which is
defined to be one in number. For a thing of this kind is composed of
many things, and abundantly mingled. But it appears to be simple so far
as it has distinctly a common form. Nor is it such as the simplicity
which is in many things according to an arranged species or genus. For
these are indeed more simple than the individuals in which they are
inherent, but are replete with variety, communicate with matter, and
receive the diversities of material natures. Nor is it such as the form
of nature. For nature is divided about bodies, verges to corporeal
masses, emits many powers about the composition subject to it, and
is indeed more simple than bodies, but has an essence mingled with
their variety. Nor is it such as the psychical simplicity. For soul
subsisting as a medium between an impartible essence, and an essence
which is divided about bodies, communicates with both the extremes. And
by that which is multiform indeed in its nature it is conjoined with
things subordinate, but its head is established on high, and according
to this it is especially divine, and allied to intellect.
Nor again is the simplicity of the Gods such as that of intellect.
For every intellect is impartible and uniform, but at the same time
it possesses multitude and progression; by which it is evident that
it has a habitude to secondary natures, to itself, and about itself.
It is also in itself, and is not only uniform, but also multiform,
and as it is said, is one many. It is therefore allotted an essence
subordinate to the first simplicity. But the Gods have their hyparxis
defined in one simplicity alone, being exempt indeed from all multitude
so far as they are gods, and transcending all division and interval,
or habitude to secondary natures, and all composition. And they indeed
are in inaccessible places, expanded above the whole of things, and
eternally ride on beings. But the illuminations proceeding from them to
secondary natures, being mingled in many places with their participants
which are composite and various, are filled with a peculiarity similar
to them. Let no one therefore wonder, if the Gods being essentialized
in one simplicity according to transcendency, various phantasms are
hurled forth before the presence of them; nor, if they being uniform
the appearances are multiform, as we have learnt in the most perfect
of the mysteries. For nature, and the demiurgic intellect extend
corporeal-formed images of things incorporeal, sensible images of
intelligible, and of things without interval, images endued with
interval. For Socrates also in the Phædrus indicating things of this
kind, and evincing that the mysteries into which souls without bodies
are initiated are most blessed, and truly perfect, says, that they
are initiated into entire, simple and immoveable visions, such souls
becoming situated there, and united with the Gods themselves, but not
meeting with the resemblances which are emitted from the Gods into
these sublunary realms. For these are more partial and composite, and
present themselves to the view attended with motion. But illuminated,
uniform, simple, and, as Socrates says, immoveable spectacles exhibit
themselves to the attendants of the Gods, and to souls that abandon
the abundant tumult of generation, and who ascend to divinity pure
and divested of the garments of mortality. And thus much is concluded
by us respecting the simplicity of the Gods. For it is necessary that
the nature which generates things multiform should be simple,[125] and
should precede what is generated, in the same manner as the uniform
precedes the multiplied. If, therefore, the Gods are the causes of
all composition, and produce from themselves the variety of beings,
it is certainly necessary that the one of their nature which
is generative of the whole of things, should have its subsistence in
simplicity. For as incorporeal causes precede bodies, immoveable causes
things that are moved, and impartible causes all partible natures,
after the same manner uniform intellectual powers precede multiform
natures, unmingled powers, things that are mingled together, and simple
powers, things of a variegated nature.
CHAPTER XX.
In the next place, let us speak concerning the truth which is in
the Gods; for this in addition to what has been said is concluded
by Socrates, because a divine nature is without falsehood, and is
neither the cause of deception or ignorance to us, or to any other
beings. We must understand therefore, that divine truth is exempt
from the truth which consists in words, so far as this truth is
composite, and in a certain respect is mingled with its contrary, and
because its subsistence consists of things that are not true. For the
first parts do not admit of a truth of this kind, unless some one
being persuaded by what Socrates asserts in the Cratylus, should say
that these also are after another manner true. Divine truth also is
exempt from psychical truth, whether it is surveyed in opinions or
in sciences, so far as it is in a certain respect divisible, and is
not beings themselves, but is assimilated to and co-harmonized with
beings, and as being perfected in motion and mutation falls short of
the truth which is always firm, stable and of a principal nature.
Divine truth is likewise again exempt from intellectual truth, because
though this subsists according to essence, and is said to be and is,
beings themselves, through the power of sameness, yet again, through
difference, it is separated from the essence of them, and preserves
its peculiar hypostasis unconfused with respect to them. The truth
therefore of the Gods alone, is the undivided union and all-perfect
communion of them. And through this the ineffable knowledge of the
Gods, surpasses all knowledge, and all secondary forms of knowledge
participate of an appropriate perfection. But this knowledge alone of
the Gods contractedly comprehends these secondary forms of knowledge,
and all beings according to an ineffable union. And through this the
Gods know all things at once, wholes and parts, beings and non-beings,
things eternal and things temporal, not in the same manner as intellect
by the universal knows a part, and by being, non-being, but they know
every thing immediately, such things as are common, and such as are
particulars, though you should speak of the most absurd of all things,
though you should speak of the infinity of contingencies, or even of
matter itself.
If, however, you investigate the mode of the knowledge and truth of
the Gods, concerning all things that have a subsistence in any respect
whatever, it is ineffable and incomprehensible by the projecting
energies of the human intellect; but is alone known to the Gods
themselves. And I indeed admire those Platonists that attribute to
intellect the knowledge of all things, of individuals, of things
preternatural, and in short, of evils, and on this account establish
intellectual paradigms of these. But I much more admire those who
separate the intellectual peculiarity from divine union. For intellect
is the first fabrication and progeny of the Gods. These therefore
assign to intellect whole and first causes, and such as are according
to nature, and to the Gods a power which is capable of adorning and
generating all things. For the one is every where, but whole
is not every where. And of the one indeed matter participates
and every being; but of intellect and intellectual species and genera,
all things do not participate. All things therefore are alone from
the Gods, and real truth is with them who know all things unically.
For on this account also, in oracles the Gods similarly teach all
things, wholes and parts, things eternal, and such as are generated
through the whole of time. For being exempt from eternal beings,
and from those that exist in time, they contract in themselves the
knowledge of each and of all things, according to one united truth. If
therefore any falsehood occurs in the oracles of the Gods, we must not
say that a thing of this kind originates from the Gods, but from the
recipients, or the instruments, or the places, or the times. For all
these contribute to the participation of divine knowledge, and when
they are appropriately co-adapted to the Gods, they receive a pure
illumination of the truth which is established in them. But when they
are separated from the Gods through inaptitude, and become discordant
with them, then they obscure the truth which proceeds from them. What
kind of falsehood therefore can be said to be derived from the Gods,
who produce all the species of knowledge? What deception can there be
with those who establish in themselves the whole of truth? In the same
manner, as it appears to me, the Gods extend good to all things, but
always that which is willing and able receives the extended good, as
Socrates says in the Phædrus. And a divine nature indeed is causeless
of evil, but that which departs from it, and gravitates downward, is
elongated through itself; thus also, the Gods indeed are always the
suppliers of truth, but those natures are illuminated by them, who are
lawfully their participants. For the Elean wise man says, that the eye
of the soul in the multitude, is not strong enough to look to the truth.
The Athenian guest also celebrates this truth which subsists primarily
in the Gods; for he says that truth is the leader to the Gods of
every good, and likewise of every good to men. For as the truth which
is in souls conjoins them with intellect, and as intellectual truth
conducts all the intellectual orders to the one, thus also the
truth of the Gods unites the divine unities to the fountain of all
good, with which being conjoined, they are filled with all boniform
power. For every where the hyparxis of truth has a cause which is
collective of multitude into one; since in the Republic also, the light
proceeding from the good, and which conjoins intellect with the
intelligible, is denominated by Plato’s truth. This characteristic
property therefore, which unites and binds together the natures that
fill and the natures that are filled, according to all the orders of
the Gods, must be arranged as originating supernally and proceeding as
far as to the last of things.
CHAPTER XXI.
To us however discussing what pertains to every divine nature, what we
assert will be known from those commonly received truths adduced in
the Phædrus, and which we have before mentioned. Socrates therefore
says that every thing divine is beautiful, wise, and good,[126] and he
indicates that this triad pervades to all the progressions of the Gods.
What therefore is the goodness, what the wisdom, and what the beauty of
the Gods? With respect to the goodness of the Gods therefore, we have
before observed, that it preserves and gives subsistence to the whole
of things, that it every where exists as the summit, as that which
fills subordinate natures, and as pre-existing in every order analogous
to the first principle of the divine orders. For according to this all
the Gods are conjoined with the one cause of all things, and on account
of this primarily derive their subsistence as Gods. For in all beings
there is not any thing more perfect than the good, and the Gods. To
the most excellent of beings therefore, and which are in every respect
perfect, the best and most perfect of things is adapted.
CHAPTER XXII.
But in the Philebus, Plato delivers to us the three most principal
elements of the good, viz. the desirable, the sufficient, and
the perfect. For it is necessary that it should convert all things
to itself, and fill all things, and that it should be in no respect
deficient, and should not diminish its exuberance. Let no one therefore
conceive the desirable to be such as that which is frequently extended
in sensibles as the object of appetite. For such is apparent beauty.
Nor let him suppose it to be such as is indeed able to energize upon
and excite to itself the natures which are able to participate it,
but which at the same time may be apprehended by intelligence, and
is educed by us according to a projecting energy, and an adhesion of
the dianoetic power. For it is ineffable, and prior to all knowledge
extends to all beings. For all things desire the good, and
are converted to it. But if it be requisite summarily to unfold the
characteristic peculiarity of the desirable, as the supplier of
light proceeds by his rays into secondary natures, converts the eye
to himself, causes it to be solar-form, and to resemble himself,
and through a different similitude conjoins it with his own fulgid
splendour, thus also I think the desirable of the Gods allures and
draws upward all things to the Gods in an ineffable manner by its own
proper illuminations, being every where present to all things, and
not deserting any order whatever of beings. Since even matter itself
is said to be extended to this desirable, and through this desire is
filled with as many goods as it is able to participate. It is therefore
the centre of all beings, and all beings, and all the Gods have their
essences, powers and energies about this. And the extension and desire
of things towards this is inextinguishable. For all beings aspire after
this desirable which is unknown and incomprehensible. Not being able
therefore either to know or receive that which they desire, they dance
round it, and are parturient and as it were prophetic with respect
to it. But they have an unceasing and never-ending desire of its
unknown and ineffable nature, at the same time that they are unable to
embrace and embosom it. For being at once exempt from all things, it
is similarly present to and moves all things about itself, and is at
the same time by all of them incomprehensible. By this motion also and
this desire it preserves all things. But by its unknown transcendency
through which it surpasses the whole of things, it preserves its proper
union unmingled with secondary natures. Such therefore is the desirable.
But the sufficient is full of boniform power, proceeds to all things,
and extends to all beings the gifts of the Gods. For we conceive such a
sufficiency as this to be a power pervading and protending to the last
of things, extending the unenvying and exuberant will of the Gods, and
not abiding in itself, but unically comprehending the super-plenitude,
the never-failing, the infinite, and that which is generative of good
in the divine hyparxis. For the desirable being firmly established,
and surpassing the whole of things, and arranging all beings about
itself, the sufficient begins the progression and multiplication of all
good, calls forth that which is primary in the uniform hyparxis of the
desirable, by its own prolific[127] exuberance, and by the beneficent
replenishings which pervade to all things, and copiously produces and
imparts it to every being. It is owing to the sufficient therefore,
that the stability of divine natures, and that which proceeds from
its proper causes is full of goodness, and that, in short, all beings
are benefited, abiding in, proceeding from, and being united to their
principles, and essentially separated from them. Through this power
therefore, the intellectual genera give subsistence to natures similar
to themselves, souls desire to generate, and imitate the beings prior
to souls, natures deliver their productive principles into another
place, and all things possess, in short, the love of generation. For
the sufficiency of the goodness of the Gods, proceeding from this
goodness, is disseminated in all beings, and moves all things to the
unenvying communication of good; intellect indeed to the communication
of intellectual, but soul of psychical, and nature of natural good.
All things therefore abide through the desirable of goodness, and
generate and proceed into second and third generations through the
sufficient. But the third thing, the perfect, is convertive of the
whole of things, and circularly collects them to their causes;
and this is accomplished by divine, intellectual, psychical and
physical perfection. For all things participate of conversion,
since the infinity of progression is through this again recalled to
its principles; and the perfect is mingled from the desirable and
sufficient. For every thing of this kind is the object of desire, and
is generative of things similar to itself. Or in the works of nature
also, are not perfect things every where lovely and prolific through
the acme of their beauty? The desirable therefore establishes all
things, and comprehends them in itself. The sufficient excites them
into progressions and generations. And the perfect consummately leads
progressions to conversions and convolutions. But through these three
causes, the goodness of the Gods fixing the unical power and authority
of its proper hypostasis in this triad, is the primary and most
principal fountain and vestal seat of things which have any kind of
subsistence whatever.
CHAPTER XXIII.
After this, wisdom is allotted the second order, being the intelligence
of the Gods, or rather the hyparxis of their intelligence. For
intelligence indeed, is intellectual knowledge; but the wisdom of the
Gods is ineffable knowledge, which is united to the object of knowledge
and the intelligible union of the Gods. But it appears to me that Plato
especially surveyed this in the triad [of the beautiful, the wise and
the good,] as may be inferred from the conceptions scattered about it
in many places. I say then that Diotima in the Banquet is of opinion
that wisdom is full of that which is known, and that it neither seeks,
nor investigates, but possesses the intelligible. Hence, she says,
that no one of the Gods philosophizes, nor desires to become wise;
for a God is wise. Hence that which is philosophic is imperfect, and
indigent of truth; but that which is wise is full and unindigent, and
has every thing present which it wishes and desires nothing. But the
desirable and the appetible are proposed to the philosopher. Socrates,
however, in the Republic considers that which is generative of truth
and intellect, as affording an indication of wisdom, to our souls
indeed the ascent to divine plenitude being accomplished through
knowledge,[128] but to the Gods intellect being present from the
fulness of knowledge.[129] For the progression in them is not from
an imperfect habit to the perfect; but from a self-perfect hyparxis
a power prolific of inferior natures proceeds. But in the Theætetus
he indicates that the perfective of things imperfect, and that which
calls forth concealed intelligence in souls, pertain to wisdom. For he
says, it compels me to obstetrication, but prevents me from generating.
It is evident therefore, from these things, that the genus of wisdom
is triadic. Hence it is full of being and truth, is generative of
intellectual truth, and is perfective of intellectual natures that
are in energy, and itself possesses a stable power. We must admit
therefore, that these things pertain to the wisdom of the Gods. For
this wisdom is full indeed of divine goodness, generates divine truth,
and perfects all things posterior to itself.
CHAPTER XXIV.
In the next place let us consider the beautiful, what it is, and how
it primarily subsists in the Gods. It is said therefore to be boniform
beauty, and intelligible beauty, to be more ancient than intellectual
beauty, and to be beauty itself, and the cause of beauty to all beings;
and all such like epithets. And it is rightly said. But it is separate
not only from the beauty which is apparent in corporeal masses,
from the symmetry which is in these from psychical elegance, and
intellectual splendour, but also from the second and third progressions
in the Gods; and subsisting in the intelligible place of survey, it
proceeds from this to all the genera of the Gods, and illuminates
their superessential unities, and all the essences suspended from
these unities, as far as to the apparent vehicles of the Gods. As
therefore through the first goodness all the Gods are boniform, and
through intelligible wisdom they have a knowledge ineffable, and
established above intellect, thus also, I think, through the summit of
beauty, every thing divine is lovely. For from thence all the Gods
derive beauty, and being filled with it, fill the natures posterior to
themselves, exciting all things, agitating them with Bacchic fury about
the love of themselves, and pouring supernally on all things the divine
effluxion of beauty.
Such therefore, in short, is divine beauty, the supplier of divine
hilarity, familiarity and friendship. For through this the Gods are
united to and rejoice in each other, admire, and are delighted in
communicating with each other, and in their mutual replenishings,
and do not desert the order which they are always allotted in the
distributions of themselves. Plato also delivers three indications of
this beauty, in the Banquet indeed, denominating it the delicate; for
the perfect and that which is most blessed, accedes to the beautiful
through the participation of goodness. But he this speaks of it in that
dialogue: “That which is truly beautiful, is delicate, perfect and most
blessed.” One of the indications therefore of the beautiful, is a thing
of this kind, viz. the delicate. But we may assume another indication
of it from the Phædrus, viz. the splendid. For Plato attributing this
to the beautiful says: “It was then that we were permitted to see
splendid beauty shining upon us &c.” And afterwards he adds: “And
arriving hither we apprehended it shining most manifestly through the
clearest of the senses.” And at last he says: “But now beauty alone
has this allotment to be most splendid and most lovely.” These two
things therefore are to be assumed as indications of beauty. Another
indication of beauty is this, that it is the object of love, which now
also Plato appears to me to have called most lovely. And in many other
places he shows that the amatory fury is conversant with the beautiful,
defining, and in short, suspending love from the monad of beauty. “For
love, says he, is conversant with the beautiful.”
Because, therefore, beauty converts and moves all things to itself,
causes them to energize enthusiastically, and recalls them through
love, it is the object of love, being the leader of the whole amatory
series, walking on the extremities of its feet, and exciting all
things to itself through desire and astonishment. But again because it
extends to secondary natures plenitudes from itself, in conjunction
with hilarity and divine facility, alluring, enflaming, and elevating
all things, and pouring on them illuminations from on high, it is
delicate, and is said to be so by Plato. And because it bounds this
triad, and covers as with a veil the ineffable union of the Gods,
swims as it were on the light of forms, causes intelligible light
to shine forth, and announces the occult nature of goodness, it is
denominated splendid, lucid and manifest. For the goodness of the
Gods is supreme and most united; their wisdom is in a certain respect
now parturient with intelligible light, and the first forms; but
their beauty is established in the highest forms, is the luminous
precursor of divine light, and is the first thing that is apparent
to ascending souls, being more splendid and more lovely to the view
and to embrace than every luciferous essence, and when it appears is
received with astonishment. This triad therefore filling all things,
and proceeding through all things, it is certainly necessary that the
natures which are filled should be converted to and conjoined with
each of the three through kindred, and not through the same media.
For of different things that are filled by this triad there is a
different medium; and different powers are converted to a different
perfection of the Gods. I think therefore, it is manifest to every
one, and it is frequently asserted by Plato, that the cause which
congregates all secondary natures to divine beauty, which familiarizes
them to it and is the source of their being filled with it, and of
their derivation from thence, is nothing else than love, which always
conjoins according to the beautiful, secondary to the first[130] Gods,
and the more excellent genera, and the best of souls. But again, truth
is certainly the leader to, and establishes beings in, divine wisdom,
with which intellect being filled, possesses a knowledge of beings,
and souls participating of this energize intellectually. For the full
participation of true wisdom is effected through truth, since this
every where illuminates intellective natures, and conjoins them with
the objects of intellection, just as truth also is the first thing
that congregates intellect and the intelligible. To those however who
hasten to be conjoined with the good, knowledge and co-operation are no
longer requisite, but collocation, a firm establishment and quiet are
necessary.
CHAPTER XXV.
What therefore is it which unites us to the good? What is it which
causes in us a cessation of energy and motion? What is it which
establishes all divine natures in the first and ineffable unity
of goodness? And how does it come to pass that every thing being
established in that which is prior to itself according to the good
which is in itself, again establishes things posterior to itself
according to cause? It is, in short, the faith of the Gods, which
ineffably unites all the genera of the Gods, of dæmons, and of happy
souls to the good. For it is necessary to investigate the
good neither gnostically, nor imperfectly, but giving ourselves
up to the divine light, and closing the eyes of the soul, after this
manner to become established in the unknown and occult unity of beings.
For such a kind of faith as this is more ancient than the gnostic
energy, not in us only, but with the Gods themselves, and according to
this all the Gods are united, and about one centre uniformly collect
the whole of their powers and progressions.
If however it be requisite to give a particular definition of this
faith, let no one suppose that it is such a kind of faith as that
which is conversant with the wandering about sensibles. For this
falls short of science, and much more of the truth of beings. But
the faith of the Gods surpasses all knowledge, and according to the
highest union conjoins secondary with first natures. Nor again, let
him conceive a faith of a similar species with the celebrated belief
in common conceptions; for we believe in common conceptions prior to
all reasoning. But the knowledge of these is divisible, and is by no
means equivalent to divine union; and the science of these is not only
posterior to faith, but also to intellectual simplicity. For intellect
is established beyond all science, both the first science, and that
which is posterior to it. Neither, therefore, must we say that the
energy according to intellect is similar to such a faith as this. For
intellectual energy is multiform, and is separated from the objects
of intellection through difference; and in short, it is intellectual
motion about the intelligible. But it is necessary that divine faith
should be uniform and quiet, being perfectly established in the port of
goodness. For neither is the beautiful, nor wisdom, nor any thing else
among beings, so credible and stable to all things, and so exempt from
all ambiguity, divisible apprehension and motion, as the good.
For through this intellect also embraces another union more ancient
than intellectual energy, and prior to energy. And soul considers
the variety of intellect and the splendour of forms as nothing with
respect to that transcendency of the good by which it surpasses
the whole of things. And it dismisses indeed intellectual perception,
running back to its own hyparxis; but it always pursues, investigates,
and aspires after the good, hastens as it were to embosom it,
and gives itself to this alone among all things without hesitation. But
why is it necessary to speak of the soul? For these mortal animals, as
Diotima somewhere says, despise all other things, and even life itself
and being, through a desire of the nature of the good; and
all things have this one immoveable and ineffable tendency to the
good; but they overlook, consider as secondary, and despise the
order of every thing else. This, therefore, is the one secure port of
all beings.
This also is especially the object of belief to all beings. And
through this the conjunction and union with it is denominated faith
by theologists, and not by them only, but by Plato likewise, (if I
may speak what appears to me to be the case) the alliance of this
faith with truth and love is proclaimed in the Laws. The multitude
therefore are ignorant, that he who has a conception of these things,
when discoursing about their contraries, infers the same thing with
respect to the deviations from this triad. Plato then clearly asserts
in the Laws that the lover of falsehood is not to be believed, and
that he who is not to be believed is void of friendship. Hence it is
necessary that the lover of truth should be worthy of belief, and that
he who is worthy of belief should be well adapted to friendship. From
these things therefore, we may survey divine truth, faith and love,
and comprehend by a reasoning process their stable communion with each
other. If, however, you are willing, prior to these things we will
recall to our memory that Plato denominates that virtue fidelity which
conciliates those that disagree, and subverts the greatest of wars, I
mean seditions in cities. For from these things faith appears to be the
cause of union, communion and quiet. And if there is such a power as
this in us, it is by a much greater priority in the Gods themselves.
For as Plato speaks of a certain divine temperance, justice and
science, how is it possible that faith which connectedly comprehends
the whole order of the virtues should not subsist with the Gods? In
short, there are these three things which replenish divine natures,
and which are the sources of plenitude to all the superior genera of
beings, viz. goodness, wisdom and beauty. And again, there are three
things which collect together the natures that are filled, being
secondary indeed to the former, but pervading to all the divine orders,
and these are faith, truth and love. But all things are saved through
these, and are conjoined to their primary causes; some things indeed,
through the amatory mania, others through divine philosophy, and
others through theurgic power, which is more excellent than all human
wisdom, and which comprehends prophetic good, the purifying powers of
perfective good, and in short, all such things as are the effects of
divine possession. Concerning these things therefore, we may perhaps
again speak more opportunely.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Again, let us, if you are willing, from other dialogues investigate
the common dogmas of Plato about divine natures. Whence therefore, and
what dogmas shall we assume, while we proceed in our search according
to nature? Are you willing that we should in the next place recall to
our memory what is written in the Phædo? Socrates therefore says in
the demonstrations of the immortality of the soul which are derived
from its similitude to divinity, that the essence which is superior
to the soul, (and to which the soul is naturally similar, and being
similar participates of an immortal allotment) is divine and immortal,
intelligible and uniform, indissoluble and possesses an invariable
sameness of subsistence; but that the essence which is inferior to
the soul, is entirely the contrary, to which also it pertains to be
corrupted and to be passive. For a thing of this kind is sensible
and multiform, and is dissoluble because it is a composite; and he
predicates among these all such things as pertain to a corporeal
subsistence. Let us therefore direct our attention to these common
dogmas, and examine after what manner each of them pertains to the Gods.
In the first place then what is that which we look to when we speak of
that which is said to be divine? From what has been said therefore,
it is evident that every God subsists according to the highest union
of beings. For to us ascending from bodies, the Gods have appeared to
be superessential unities, the generators, perfectors and measurers
of essences, and who bind all first essences to themselves. But that
which is divine, is not only hyparxis and the one in each order
of being, but at the same time is that which participates and that
which is participated; of which the latter is a God, but the former is
divine. Whether however, prior to the participated unities, there is
something which is separate and participated will be evident in what
follows. But at present we shall define that which is divine to be a
thing of this kind, viz. being which participates of the one,
or the one subsisting contractedly together with being. For we
assume all things in the Gods except the one, as suspended from
them and secondary, viz. essence, life and intellect. For the Gods do
not subsist in, but prior to these, and they produce and contain these
in themselves, but are not defined in them. But it is necessary not
to be ignorant that these are in reality thus distinguished from each
other. In many places, however, Plato magnificently celebrates the
participants of the Gods by the same names, and denominates them Gods.
For not only the Athenian guest in the Laws calls a divine soul a God,
but also Socrates in the Phædrus. For he says “that all the horses
and charioteers of the Gods are good and consist of things good;” and
afterwards still more clearly, “and this is the life of the Gods.”
But this is not yet wonderful. For is it not admirable that he should
denominate those beings Gods who are always conjoined with the Gods,
and who together with them give completion to one series? For in many
places he calls dæmons Gods, though they are essentially posterior
to, and subsist about the Gods. For in the Phædrus and Timæus, and in
other dialogues, you will find him extending the appellation of the
Gods even as far as to dæmons. But what is still more paradoxical than
these things, he does not refuse to call certain men Gods; for in the
Sophista he thus denominates the Elean guest.
From all that has been said therefore, this must be assumed, that
with respect to a God, one thing is simply a God, another according
to union, another according to participation, another according to
contact, and another according to similitude. For of superessential
natures indeed, each is primarily a God; of intellectual natures,
each is a God according to union; and of divine souls, each is a God
according to participation. But divine dæmons are Gods according
to contact with the Gods; and the souls of men are allotted this
appellation through similitude. Each of these however is, as we
have said, rather divine than a God. Since the Athenian guest calls
intellect itself divine; but that which is divine is posterior to the
first deity, in the same manner as that which is united is posterior
to the one, that which is intellectual, to intellect, and that
which is animated, to soul. And always those natures that are more
uniform and simple have the precedency; but the series of beings ends
in the one itself. Let this, therefore, be the definition and
distinction of that which is divine.
In the next place, let us survey the immortal. For with Plato there
are many orders of immortality, pervading from on high as far as to
the last of things; and the last echo, as it were, of immortality, is
in those visible natures that are perpetual; which the Elean guest,
in his discourse about the circulation of the universe, says, are
allotted from the father a renovated immortality. For every body is
allotted a being and a life dependent on another cause; but is not
itself naturally adapted to connect, or adorn, or preserve itself.
The immortality of partial souls is, I think, more manifest and
more perfect than this; which Plato evinces by many demonstrations
in the Phædo, and in the 10th book of the Republic. But I mean by
the immortality of partial souls, that which has a more principal
subsistence, as containing in itself the cause of eternal permanency.
We shall not, however, err if prior to both these we establish the
immortality of dæmons. For the genera of these through which they
subsist are incorruptible, and they neither verge to mortality, nor are
filled with the nature of things which are generated and corrupted. But
I infer that the immortality of divine souls is still more venerable
and essentially more transcendent than that of dæmons; which divine
souls we say are primarily self-motive, and are the fountains and
principles of the life divided about bodies, and through which bodies
obtain a renovated immortality. If, however, prior to these you
conceive the Gods themselves, and the immortality in them, and how in
the Banquet Diotima does not attribute an immortality of this kind
even to dæmons, but defines it to subsist in the Gods alone, such an
immortality as this will appear to you to be separate, and exempt from
the whole of things. For there eternity subsists, which is the fountain
of all immortality, and through it all things live and possess life,
some things indeed a perpetual life, but others a life dispersed into
non-being. In short, therefore, that which is divine is immortal so far
as it generates and comprehends in itself a perpetual life. For it is
immortal, not as participating of life, but as the supplier of a divine
life, and as deifying life itself, whether you are willing to call such
a life intelligible, or by any other name.
In the next place let us direct our attention to the intelligible. It
is denominated, therefore, in opposition to that which is sensible
and which is apprehended by opinion in conjunction with sense. For
the intelligible is first unfolded into light in the most principal
causes. For soul is indeed intelligible, is of this allotment, is
exempt from sensibles, and obtains an essence separated from them.
Prior to soul also intellect is intelligible, for we rather think it
fit to arrange soul in the middle, than to connumerate it with the
first essences. That likewise is denominated intelligible, which is
more ancient than intellect, which replenishes intelligence, and is
itself by itself perfective of it, and which Timæus arranges prior
to the demiurgic intellect and intellectual energy, in the order of
a paradigm. But beyond these is the divine intelligible, which is
defined according to union itself, and a divine hyparxis. For this is
intelligible as the object of desire to intellect, as perfecting and
comprehending intellect, and as the plenitude of being. In one way,
therefore, we must denominate the intelligible as the hyparxis of the
Gods; in another way as true being and the first essence; in another
way as intellect and all intellectual life; and in another way as soul
and the psychical order. It is likewise necessary not to fashion the
different natures of things conformably to names. Such, therefore, is
the order of this triad; so that what is divine indeed is unmingled
and ranks as the first; that which is immortal is the second; and that
which is intelligible the third. For the first of these is deified
being; the second is life subsisting according to the immortality of
the Gods; and the third is intellect, which is denominated intelligible
in consequence of being replete with union.
CHAPTER XXVII.
After this, it follows in the next place, that we should consider the
uniform, the indissoluble, and that which has an invariable sameness
of subsistence, from the same causes, and these as the precursors of,
and pervading through all the divine orders. For the uniform, indeed,
has the highest subsistence, is present with the divine monad, and
appears to be especially adapted to that which is primarily being,[131]
and in which also every participable genus of unities ends. For the
one is prior to these, as will be evident as we proceed. But the
indissoluble is the second. For it comprehends and binds the extremes
according to divine union; since the dissoluble is such as it is
through the want of connexion and of a power which collects multitude
into one. And that which has an invariable sameness of subsistence is
eternal, and is full of the perpetuity of the Gods; from which also
the participation of immortality and eternal sameness is derived to
other things. The uniform, therefore, pertains to the same thing as the
divine; but the indissoluble to the same thing as the immortal; and
that which has an invariable sameness of subsistence we must refer to
the intelligible.
And do you not see how these are severally after a manner co-adapted
to each other? For the first of these, through the first unity which
is participated by being is, as it is fit it should be, uniform. For
if a God subsists according to the one, that which is divine
will doubtless be uniform. But that which through one cause of life
is immortal, is also similarly indissoluble. For life is the bond
of dissoluble natures; which also Timæus indicating to us, opposes
the dissoluble to the immortal: “for you are not immortal, says the
demiurgus, yet you shall never be dissolved, nor be subject[132] to
the fatality of death.” Every thing mortal, therefore, is dissoluble;
but the immortal is indissoluble. That, however, which has a renovated
immortality is for the same reason neither indissoluble, nor mortal.
For being in the middle of both it is neither of the extremes,
according to each opposition. But the third of these being established
according to the plenitude of whole intelligibles subsists at once
and is invariably the same. For the intelligible is the cause of
sameness and of eternal permanency; and intellect through this is
entirely eternal. These triads, therefore, proceed from the first and
most principal causes, in the same manner as we demonstrated of the
before-mentioned triads. But these things, indeed, we shall consider
hereafter.
These things, therefore, being discussed, let us direct our attention
to the unbegotten in divine natures, and unfold what we assert it
to be. For we say that all [true] being is without generation, and
Socrates demonstrates in the Phædrus, that souls are unbegotten. Prior
to these, also, the Gods themselves are established above generations
and a subsistence according to time. How, therefore, shall we define
the unbegotten when applied to a divine nature, and according to
what reason? Is it because divinity is exempt from all generation,
not only from that which subsists in the parts of time, such as we
assert the generation of material natures to be, nor from that only
which is extended into the whole of time, such as Timæus demonstrates
the generation of the celestial bodies to be, but also from the
psychical generation? Since Timæus denominates this to be unbegotten
according to time, but to be the best of generated natures. And in
short, a divine nature is exempt from all division and essential
separation. For the progression of the Gods is always according to a
union of secondary natures, which are uniformly established in the
natures prior to them, the things producing containing in themselves
the things produced. The indivisible, therefore, the unseparated and
the united are in reality unbegotten. So that if certain generations
of the Gods are spoken of by Plato in fabulous figments, as in the
fable of Diotima, the generation of Venus is celebrated, and of Love
at the birth of Venus, it is necessary not to be ignorant after what
manner things of this kind are asserted, and that they are composed
for the sake of symbolical indication; and that fables for the sake of
concealment call the ineffable unfolding into light through causes,
generation. For in the Orphic writings, indeed, the first cause
is on this account denominated Time; since again, for another reason,
it is thus denominated, in order that a subsistence according to cause
may be the same as a subsistence according to time. And the progression
of the Gods from the best of causes is properly denominated generation
according to time. To Plato, therefore, mythologizing, it is adapted
to devise things of this kind conformably to theologists; but when he
is discoursing dialectically, and investigating and unfolding divine
natures intellectually and not mystically, it is then adapted to him to
celebrate the unbegotten essence of the Gods. For the Gods primarily
establish in themselves the paradigm of non-generation. But an
intellectual nature is in a secondary degree unbegotten, and after this
the psychical essence. And in bodies there is an ultimate resemblance
of unbegotten power; which some posterior to Plato perceiving, have
indefinitely shown that the whole heaven is unbegotten. The Gods,
therefore, are unbegotten. But there is an order in them of first,
middle, and last progressions, and a transcendency and subjection of
powers. There are also in them uniform comprehensions of causes; but
multiform progenies of things caused. And all things, indeed, are
consubsistent in each other; but the mode of subsistence is various.
For some things as replenishing subsist prior to secondary natures;
but others, as being filled aspire after more perfect natures, and
participating of their power become generative of things posterior to
themselves, and perfective of their hyparxis.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Looking to these things, therefore, we may unfold what is said of
paternal causes, and of the prolific powers of mothers in fables. For
every where, we may suppose that the cause of a more excellent and
more uniform nature is paternal;[133] but we may say that the cause
of a more subordinate and partial nature preexists in the order of a
mother. For with the Gods a father is analogous to the monad, and the
cause of bound; but a mother, to the duad, and to the infinite power
which is generative of beings. The paternal cause, however, is with
Plato uniform, and is established in a more elevated order than the
natures which proceed from it, and subsists prior to its progeny in
the allotment of the desirable. Again, the maternal cause has the form
of the duad; and at one time presents itself to the view in fables as
more excellent than its progeny, but at another time as essentially
subordinate to it; as in the Banquet, Plato calls Poverty the mother
of Love. And this is not only the case in fabulous figments, but also
in the philosophic theory of beings, as is evident in the Timæus. For
there Plato calls being the father, but matter the mother and nurse of
generation. The powers, therefore, which are prolific and perfective of
secondary natures, and the suppliers of life and causes of separation
are mothers, being established above the natures produced by them. But
the powers which receive the natures that proceed into light, which
multiply their energies, and extend even the subordinate allotment of
the progeny, are also themselves called mothers. Again, however, the
progeny of such like causes, at one time indeed, proceed according
to union from their proper principles, and are filled from both the
paternal and maternal cause; but at another time they contain the bond
of them, being arranged in the middle, conveying the gifts of the
fathers to the maternal bosoms, and converting the receptacles of them
to the completions of primary causes. But of the natures which subsist
from twofold preexisting principles, some are assimilated to the
paternal cause; and such like genera of Gods are productive, defensive,
and comprehensive. For to produce, to contain, and to defend, pertain
to the cause of bound. But others are assimilated to the maternal
cause, and are prolific, and vivific, and the suppliers of motion, of
the multiplication of powers, of variety and progressions. For all
these are the progeny of infinity and the first multitude.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Thus much therefore may suffice concerning the unbegotten hyparxis
of the Gods. It now remains, I think, to speak of divine names. For
Socrates in the Cratylus thinks fit to unfold in a remarkable degree
the rectitude of names in divine natures. And Parmenides indeed, in
the first hypothesis, as he denies of the one every thing else
that is known, and all knowledge, so likewise he denies of it name and
language. But in the second hypothesis, besides all other things he
shows that this one may be spoken of and[134] that it has a name. In
short therefore, it must be admitted that the first, most principal and
truly divine names are established in the Gods themselves. But it must
be said that the second names, which are the imitations of the first,
and which subsist intellectually, are of a dæmoniacal allotment.
And again, we may say that those names which are the third from the
truth, which are logically devised, and which receive the ultimate
resemblance of divine natures, are unfolded by scientific men, at one
time energizing divinely, and at another intellectually, and generating
moving images of their inward spectacles. For as the demiurgic
intellect establishes resemblances about matter of the first forms
contained in himself, and produces temporal images of things eternal,
divisible images of things indivisible, and adumbrated images as it
were of true beings,—after the same manner I think the science that is
with us representing intellectual production, fabricates resemblances
of other things, and also of the Gods themselves, representing that
which is void of composition in them, through composition; that
which is simple, through variety; and that which is united, through
multitude; and thus fashioning names, ultimately exhibits images of
divine natures. For it generates every name as if it were a statue of
the Gods. And as the theurgic art through certain symbols calls forth
the exuberant and unenvying goodness of the Gods into the illumination
of artificial statues, thus also the intellectual science of divine
concerns, by the compositions and divisions of sounds, unfolds the
occult essence of the Gods. Very properly therefore, does Socrates
in the Philebus say, that on account of his reverence of the Gods,
he is agitated with the greatest fear respecting their names. For it
is necessary to venerate even the ultimate echos of the Gods, and
venerating these to become established in the first paradigms of
them. And thus much concerning divine names, which at present may be
sufficient for the purpose of understanding the theology of Plato. For
we shall accurately discuss them when we speak of partial powers.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
The most proper beginning however of the theory proposed by us is that
from which we may be able to discover the first cause[135] of all
beings. For being impelled from this in a becoming manner, and having
our conceptions purified respecting it, we shall with greater facility
be able to distinguish other things. About these things therefore we
must speak from the beginning as follows: It is necessary that all
beings, and all the natures of beings should either be many only, there
being no one in them, neither in each, nor in all of them; or that they
should be one only, there being no multitude, but all things being
compelled into one and the same power of existence; or it is necessary
that they should be both one and many, and that being should be one in
order that neither multitude itself by itself may vanquish beings, nor
that we may be forced to bring together into the same thing all things
and their contraries at once. These things therefore being three, which
of them shall we chuse? And to which of the above mentioned assertions
shall we give our suffrage. It is necessary therefore severally to
discuss the absurdities which attend these positions, and thus to
survey after what manner the truth subsists.
If then beings are many, and in such a manner many, as we have
mentioned from the beginning, so that the one is not any where
to be found, many absurdities will happen to be the result, or rather
all the nature of beings will at once from the first be destroyed, as
there will immediately be nothing which is capable of participating
the one. For it must be admitted that every being is either one
certain thing, or nothing. And that indeed which is a certain being, is
also one; but that which is not even one being, has not any existence
whatever. Hence, if many things have a subsistence, each of the many
is something or a certain one. But if each of them is nothing, or not
even one thing, neither is it possible for the many to exist; for the
many are many so far as each individual of the multitude exists. If,
therefore, the many alone have a subsistence, and the one in no
respect is, neither will the many exist. For things which are in no
respect one have not any existence whatever. But if the one is
not, by a much greater priority neither have the many an existence.
For it necessarily follows that none of the things from which the many
consist will have a subsistence.
Farther still, if the many alone have a subsistence (as has been said)
all things will be infinitely infinite; and if you receive any one
of the infinites whatever, this also will be immediately infinite.
And with respect to the things from which this consists and which are
infinite, each of these likewise will be infinite. For let something
of the many be assumed, which we say is not one, this therefore will
be multitude according to its own nature, since it belongs to beings,
but is not nothing. If however it is multitude, this also will consist
of many things, and will be many. And if you assume something of these
manys, this will immediately appear to you not to be one, but many.
There will likewise be immediately the same reasoning in these, and
in a similar manner each, (because we falsely speak of each) will
be multitude in energy. And each, as I may say, will be infinite,
or rather will be infinitely infinite. For there is nothing which
will not be something of this kind; since a part is many, and in a
similar manner the part of a part; and this to infinity. For multitude
proceeding will never stop, nor infinity, in consequence of being
deprived of the nature of the one. To make beings however, to
be infinitely infinite, is impossible both with respect to truth, and
to the thing proposed by us. For if being is infinitely infinite,
being can neither be known, nor discovered; since the infinite is
entirely incomprehensible and unknown. If also being is infinitely
infinite, there will be something more infinite than the infinite. But
if that something is more infinite, this will be less infinite. That,
however, which is less infinite; since it is not perfectly infinite,
will evidently be finite, so far as it falls short of the nature of the
infinite. If, therefore, there is something which is itself according
to multitude more infinite than that which is infinite in multitude
there will be something more than the infinite, and the infinite will
be less, yet not according to multitude. This however is impossible.
Hence there is not the infinitely infinite.
Again therefore, according to this hypothesis, the same things will be
according to the same, similar and dissimilar. For if all the manys are
not one, and each thing according to all things is not one, that which
is not one will evidently suffer the same passion in consequence of
the privation of the one. All things therefore being deprived
of the one, after the same manner, they will on this account
subsist similarly with respect to each other. But things which subsist
similarly, so far as they thus subsist, are evidently similar to
each other. Hence the many will be similar to each other, so far as
they are deprived of the one. They will likewise according to
this privation of the one be perfectly dissimilar. For it is
necessary that things which are similar should suffer the same passion;
so that things which do not suffer any thing that is the same, will not
be similar. But things which suffer any thing that is the same, suffer
also one thing. Hence things which are deprived of every one, will not
suffer any thing that is the same. The many therefore will be similar
and dissimilar according to the same. But this is impossible. Hence it
is impossible for the many to exist which are in no respect one.
Moreover, the many will be the same with and different from each other
according to the same. For if all things are similarly deprived of
the one, so far indeed as all of them are similarly deprived
they will be the same according to this privation; since things which
subsist after the same manner according to habit are the same, and also
things which are after the same manner deprived according to privation.
But so far in short, as each of them is deprived of every one, so
far the many will be different from each other. For if the one
in the many is the same, that which is in no respect one, will in no
respect be the same. The many therefore will be the same and not the
same with each other. But if they are the same and not the same it is
evident that they are different from each other. For that which is
the same and not the same, so far as it is not the same, is not the
same, by nothing else than the different. Farther still therefore,
these many will be moveable and immoveable, if the one is not.
For if each of them is not one, they will be immoveable according to
the privation of the one. For if that which is not one should
be changed, each of them would have the one; since privations
being changed, entirely lead into habits the things that are changed.
It is necessary however that what is not one should remain immoveable
according to the privation of the one, though this very thing
is itself impossible, viz. that the many should stand still. For every
thing which stands still is in something which is the same, viz. it is
either in the same form, or in the same place. But every thing which is
in the same, is in one thing which is the same. For the same in which
it is, is one thing. Every thing therefore which stands still is in
one thing. The many, however, do not participate of the one.
But it is perfectly impossible that things which do not participate of
the one, should be in one certain thing. And things which are
not in one thing cannot stand still, since things which stand still
are entirely in one and the same thing. It is impossible therefore,
that the many should stand still, and remain immoveable. It has been
demonstrated however, that the many must necessarily stand immoveable.
The same things therefore, and the same passion, (I mean the privation
of the habit of the one,) are moveable and immoveable. For
things immoveable, and things which stand still, so far as they are
unstable, so far they must necessarily appear to be moveable.
Moreover, there is no number of beings if the one in no respect
is; but all things and each thing will be not one. For the particle
of number, the monad, is one, and every number itself is one. For if
there are five monads, there is also the pentad; and if three monads,
the triad. But the triad itself is a certain unity, and so is the
pentad. So that if there is no one, there will neither be any part, nor
the whole of numbers. For how can there be any number the one
not existing? For the one is the principle of numbers. But the
principle not existing, neither is it possible that the things which
proceed from this principle should exist. Hence the one not
existing, neither will there be any number.
Again, therefore, neither will there be any knowledge of beings if
the one is not. For it will not be possible either to speak or
think of any being. For each thing itself, and every thing of which
we can speak, and in which we impress the nature of the one,
will have no existence, because neither does the one exist.
Hence neither will there be any discourse nor any knowledge. For
discourse is one thing consisting of many things, if it is perfect.
And knowledge then exists, when that which knows becomes one with that
which is known. But union not existing, there will at the same time
be no knowledge of things, and it will be impossible to speak about
things which we know. To which we may add, that the inexplicable in
the several infinites, will necessarily always fly from the bound
of knowledge. For immediately each apparent infinite which he who
possesses knowledge desires to understand, will escape the gnostic
power hastening to come into contact with, and adhere to it, since it
is incapable either of contact or adhesion. If, therefore, the many
alone have an existence, the one having no subsistence whatever,
so many absurdities, and a still greater number must necessarily happen
to those who adopt such an hypothesis.
But if the one which is the one itself alone has a
subsistence, and there is nothing else (for if there were there would
not only be one but many things; since one and another thing are more
than one, and are not one thing only) if this be the case, there will
neither be among all things either whole, or that which has parts. For
every thing which has parts is many, and every whole has parts. But
the one is in no respect many. Neither therefore will there be a
whole, nor that which has parts. Farther still, neither is it possible
that there should be a beginning, or end of any thing. For that which
has a beginning, a middle, and an end, is divisible. But the one
is not divisible, because neither has it any parts. Hence, neither has
it a beginning, nor a middle, nor an end. Again, if the one
alone has a subsistence, no being will have figure. For every thing
which has figure is either rectilinear or circular, or mixt from these.
But if indeed it is rectilinear, it will have for its parts, the
middle, and the extremes. If it is circular, there will be one thing
in it as a middle, but other things as extremes, to which the middle
extends. And if it is mixed from the right and circular line, it will
consist of many things, and will not be one.
Moreover, neither will any being be in itself, nor in another thing.
For that which is in another thing is different from that in which
it is. But the one alone existing and nothing else (for it
will by no means be in another thing) there will be no being which is
in another thing. But that which is in itself will at the same time
comprehend and be comprehended; and in this, to comprehend will not be
the same thing as to be comprehended; nor will there be the same[136]
definition of both. There will therefore be two things, and no longer
the one alone. Again, neither will any being be moved. For being
moved indeed, it must necessarily be changed. But being changed it must
be in another thing. If the one however alone has an existence,
it is not possible for any thing to appear to be in something else.
Hence it is not possible for any being to be changed. But every thing
which stands still is necessarily in the same thing. And that which is
in the same is in a certain same thing. The one however is in no same
thing. For that which is in a certain thing, is either in itself, or
in something else. But it has been demonstrated, that it is neither in
itself, nor in another. Hence neither is it in a certain same thing.
Neither therefore does any being stand still.
Moreover, it is impossible for any thing to be the same with, or
different from any thing. For if there is nothing besides the one
itself, there is not any thing which will be either the same with,
or different from another thing. For there will not be any other being.
And the one itself will not be different from itself; for it
would be many and not one. Nor will it be the same with itself. For
this thing which is same is in another, and same is not the one
itself. For the one is simply one, because it is not many.
But that which is same is the same with another thing. Again, neither
is it possible for any thing to be similar or dissimilar to any thing.
For every thing similar suffers a certain same passion; but every
thing dissimilar a certain different passion. The one, however,
cannot suffer any thing, nor can this be the case with any thing else
besides the one; since nothing else has any existence whatever,
if the one alone has a subsistence.
Farther still, in addition to these things we say that neither is it
possible for any thing to be touched, nor to be separate, if there is
nothing else besides the one. For how can things which have no
existence be separate, or come into contact with any thing? But neither
can the one either be separate from itself, or touch itself. For
it would thus be passive to the being touched, and the being separate.
But the one suffers no other thing besides itself. It is
likewise requisite that no one thing should either be equal or unequal
to any thing. For that which is equal to another thing, is said to be
so with reference to another thing. And the like may be said of that
which is unequal. Another thing, however, has no existence, if the
one alone has a subsistence. But neither can the one be
equal or unequal to itself. For if unequal, there will be one thing in
it as greater, but another as less; so that it will be two things and
not one. And if the one is equal to itself, the one will
measure itself. This however is impossible. For the one will
measure and be measured by itself, so that it will not be the one
itself. Neither therefore will there be any equality or inequality
in beings. If however these things are impossible, neither can any
being come into contact with another, and be separate, nor be similar
or dissimilar, nor be same or different, nor again, stand still, or be
moved, or in short be in any thing, or have figure, or be a whole, or
have parts, if the one alone has a subsistence which is void
of multitude, and is without all these things. Neither however, is
it possible for the many alone to have a subsistence, as was before
demonstrated. And hence it is necessary that every being should be both
many and one.
If this however is the case, either the many must participate
of the one, or the one of the many, or both
must participate of each other, or neither of each other; but the
many indeed must be separate, and the one must also be
separate, in order that the many and the one may
subsist, as reason evinces. If, therefore, neither the one
participates of the many, nor the many of the
one, the same absurdities will ensue as we brought together in
the hypothesis of the many alone having a subsistence. For
again there will be the many separate from the one. For
if the one subsists by itself, and the many do not in
any respect participate of the one, the many will be
infinitely infinite, they will be similar and dissimilar, same and
different, moved and stable, and there will neither be any number nor
any knowledge of the many. For the absence of the one
compels all these consequences to be apparent in the many. It is
impossible therefore, that neither the many should participate
of the one, nor the one of the many.
If however, the one participates of the many, and the
many of the one, and both these are in each other, it is
necessary that there should be another nature besides these, which
is neither one nor many. For both these being mingled in each other,
it is necessary that there should be a cause of their mixture which
conjoins multitude to the one, and the one to
multitude. For it is necessary that every thing that is mingled,
should have a cause of the mixture. For in short, if the one
and multitude participate of each other, neither the one
is the cause of essence to multitude, nor multitude to
the one, but a certain third thing is the cause of essence to
both, and which is prior to these. For what will that be which makes
this to be multitude, and that to be one? And what is the cause of
this communication and association with each other, the one so
far as it is one never having any communication with the many?
For the many so far as many, and the one so far as one
are different from each other. And so far as neither is from neither,
they have no sympathy with each other. What therefore is it which
collects these into one, since they fly from and are unmingled with
each other? For being thus discordant with each other, they cannot
desire each other, or if they did their congress must be fortuitous.
For if this should happen to be the case, there was a time when these
were separate from each other, since now also they subsist together
causally. It is however impossible for the many to subsist
separate from the one. The mixture therefore is not causal.
But neither is the mixture from the many, if neither the
one is the cause of the many, nor the many of
the one. What therefore is this more excellent thing [which is
the cause of the mixture?] For it is either one, or not one. But if
indeed, it is the one itself, we must again inquire concerning
this, whether it participates of multitude or of nothing. For if
this participates, it is evident that some other thing prior to this,
will for the same reason present itself to the view, and this will be
the case to infinity. But if a thing of this kind is entirely void of
multitude, again that which was asserted at first will not be true,
viz. that the many do not participate of the one, nor
the one of the many. I mean however that which is the
most principal and primarily one. But there is indeed a certain one
in the many, and there is also the imparticipable one, and which is
simply one, and nothing else. If however that which is prior to both,
is not[137] one, it is necessary that this not one
should be more excellent than the one. All things however are,
and are generated what they are, through the one. And together
with the one indeed every being is preserved; but separate from
the one proceeds to the corruption of itself. The mixture also
of the one and multitude, which the non-one affords to
beings, is communion and union. The one[138] therefore, and
that which is not one,[139] are the cause of nothing else to
beings than of their being one. If however the one is the cause
of a thing of this kind, that which is not one will not be the
cause of that which is more excellent [than union.] But it is every
where necessary that what is more excellent should be the cause to
beings of another more excellent thing, according to its own power.
For thus it will be more excellent as being more good, and as the
cause from its own nature of a greater and more excellent good to
those things to which a less good is the cause of less goodness. From
these things therefore it is necessary, that the many should
participate of the one, that the one should be unmingled
with multitude, and that nothing should be better than the
one, but that this should also be the cause of being to the
many. For every thing which is deprived of the one, flies
immediately into nothing, and to its own corruption. But that which is
not many, is not at one and the same time not many and nothing. For
to the one that which is nothing, or not one, is opposed, and
to the many that which is not many is opposed. If, therefore,
the one and the many are not the same, the not being
many will not be the same with nothing. From thus considering the
affair therefore, it appears that the one is beyond multitude,
and is the cause of being to the many.
CHAPTER II.
It is necessary however, that discussing the same subject after another
manner, we should again see if we can in a certain respect follow what
has been said, and refer it to the same end. It is necessary therefore,
that there should either be one principle, or many principles; or
rather, we should begin from hence. And if there are many principles,
they must either possess sympathy with each other, or they must be
divulsed from each other, and they must be either finite or infinite.
But if there is one principle, this must either be not essence, or
essence. And if it is essence, this must either be corporeal or
incorporeal. And if incorporeal, it must either be separate from, or
inseparable from bodies. And if separate, it must either be moveable or
immoveable. But if it is not essence, it must either be inferior to all
essence, or participated by essence, or imparticipable. If therefore
there are many principles, and which have no sympathy with each other,
no being will originate from them [conjointly,] nor will they be common
to all things, but each will produce by itself. For what communication
can there be between things which are naturally foreign, or what
co-operation between things which are entirely of a different kind? In
addition also to these things, there will be the many which do
not participate of the one. For if there is a certain one common
in all of them, they will not be perfectly separated essentially from
each other. If therefore they are different, and there is nothing which
is the same about them, they are alone many and by no means one. But if
there are many principles, and which possess sympathy with each other,
they will have something common, which leads all of them to sympathy,
and similarly unfolds all of them to the view. For we call those things
sympathetic, which happen to be passive to the same thing. But similars
are entirely similar from participating one form and one nature. If
however this be the case, it is necessary that that all [or universal]
which is every where, and in all the principles, should be of a more
principal nature than the many. This therefore gives them the power to
generate sympathy with each other, and affords them communion according
to nature.
Again, if there are indeed infinite principles, either the things which
proceed from them are infinite, and there will thus be the infinite
twice, or they are finite, and thus all the principles will not be
principles. For things finite in number, will entirely proceed from
finite principles. The principles therefore are in vain infinite. To
which may be added, that infinity makes both the principles to be
unknown, and the things which proceed from them. For the principles
being unknown, it is necessary that the things which proceed from them
should be unknown; since we then think that we know any thing when we
know the causes and the first principles of it. But if the principles
are finite, it is evident that there will be a certain number of them:
for we say that number is a definite multitude. If however, there is a
number of the principles, it is necessary that there should be a cause
of the whole number of them. For every number is from one; and this,
viz. the one is the principle of numbers. This therefore will be
the principle of principles, and the cause of finite multitude, since
number itself is one, and the end in the many is one, and it bounds the
many by that which is one. But the principle being one, and this being
essence, it is necessary if this is admitted to be either corporeal or
incorporeal, that it must be acknowledged to be the principle of other
things.
If therefore, body is the cause of the generation of beings, it is
necessary indeed, that it should be divisible and have parts. For
every body is in its own nature divisible; since every magnitude is a
certain whole and that which is a whole consists of parts. These parts
therefore, (but I mean each of them) must either severally participate
a certain one, or not participate it. If therefore they do not
participate it, they will be many alone, and by no means one. Hence,
neither will that which consists from them be a whole. For there being
no one, that which consists of all of them will not be one. But if
each of the parts participates of something of this kind, and there is
something which is the same in all of them, a thing of this kind must
necessarily be incorporeal, and impartible according to its own nature.
For if this also is itself corporeal, it is either wholly in each of
the parts, or not wholly. If therefore, it is indeed wholly in each, it
will itself be separated from itself. For the parts in which it is are
separate from each other. But if it is not wholly in each of the parts,
this also will be divisible, and will have parts after the same manner
as the above mentioned parts; and there will again be the same inquiry
concerning these, viz. whether in these also there is something common,
or nothing; since if there is nothing common, we shall place the
many separate from the one.
Let us however consider the whole; for every body is a whole, and
has parts. What therefore will that be which is connective of the
parts, since they are many? For it is necessary to say either that
the whole is unific of the parts, or the parts of the whole, or
that some third thing prior to both, which is neither a whole, nor
has any part, connects and unites the whole with its parts, and
the parts with the whole. But if the whole indeed is connective of
the parts, the whole will be incorporeal and impartible. For if it
is a body, this also will be partible, and will be indigent of a
nature which is capable of connecting the parts; and this will be
the case to infinity. But if the parts are connective of the whole,
how can the many be connective of the one; and things
divided, of that which consists from them? For on the contrary, it is
necessary that the one should have the power of uniting the
many, and not the many of uniting the one. And if
that which connects both, is neither a whole nor has parts, it will
be perfectly impartible. But being impartible, it is also necessarily
without interval. For every thing which has interval has parts, and is
divisible. But being without interval it is incorporeal; for every body
possesses interval.
Farther still, it is necessary that the principle should be perpetual;
for every being is perpetual or corruptible. Hence it must be admitted
that the principle of beings is perpetual or corruptible. But if we
should grant that this may be corrupted, there will be no being
incorruptible. For the principle being destroyed, it will neither be
itself generated from any thing, nor will another thing be generated
from it. For it can neither be able to generate itself (since it is
not, if it is not perpetual) nor can another thing be able to generate
it, if it is the principle of all things. But if it is incorruptible,
it will have the power of not being corrupted, and this power will be
infinite, in order that it may exist to infinity through the whole
of time. For every finite power of existence pertains naturally
to that which is corruptible. But an infinite power pertains to
perpetual natures, the existence of which continues to infinity. This
infinite therefore, I mean the infinite according to power, is either
impartible or partible. But if it is partible indeed, there will be
the infinite in a finite body. For the principle is finite; since if
it were infinite, there will be nothing else besides itself. But if it
is impartible, the power of infinitely existing will be incorporeal.
And the principle of beings is incorporeal,[140] so far as it is this
power through which the subject of it always is. That it is impossible
therefore, the principle of beings can be corporeal is from these
things evident.
If however it is incorporeal, it must either be separate, or
inseparable from bodies. But if inseparable indeed, it will have
all its energies in bodies, and subsisting about them. For that is
inseparable from body which is not any where naturally adapted to
energize except in and with bodies. But if the principle is a thing
of this kind, it is evidently necessary that none of the things which
subsist according to it should be more powerful, or possess greater
authority than the principle of all beings. If however, nothing is more
excellent in bodies than the power which subsists in and energizes
about bodies, and a corporeal essence, there will not any where be
intellect and the power which energizes according to intellect. For
every such like motion [i.e. energy] proceeds from a power, which is
entirely in its energies independent of body. But it neither was, nor
is lawful for generated natures to surpass the power of their causes.
For every thing which is in the things begotten is from primary
natures, and the latter are the lords of the essence of the former.
If therefore, the principle of beings is able to generate intellect
and wisdom, how is it possible it should not generate it, on account
of and in itself? For one of two things is necessary, either that
intellectual perception pertains in no respect to beings, or that it is
inferior to them; and that if it exists it acts in bodies only. These
things however, it is impossible to assert. But if that which is the
first of beings, and which is the principle of all things is separate
from bodies, it is perfectly necessary to admit that it is either
immoveable or moved. And if indeed it is moved, there will be something
else prior to it, about which it is moved. For every thing which is
moved, is naturally adapted to be moved about something else which is
permanent. And farther still, besides this, it is moved through desire
of another thing. For it is necessary indeed that it should be moved
in consequence of desiring a certain thing; because motion itself by
itself is indefinite. But the end of it is that for the sake of which
it subsists. It desires however, either something else, or itself. But
every thing which desires itself is immoveable. For why should any
thing that is present with itself want to be in another thing? For
of things which are moved, the motion of that is less to which the
good is nearer, but the motion is greater of that to which the good
is more remote. But that which possesses good in itself, and for the
sake of which it subsists, will be immoveable and stable; since being
always in itself, it is in good. That however which is in itself is
in same; for each thing is the same with itself. But of that which is
in itself we say indeed that it stands still and is immoveable; while
that which is not immoveable, is not in itself but in another, is moved
towards another thing, and is perfectly indigent of good. If therefore
the principle of beings is moved, but every thing which is moved is
moved through the want of good, and towards another thing which is
the object of desire to it, there will be something else which is
desirable to the principle of beings besides itself, and about which
possessing a sameness of subsistence, we must say it is moved. This
however is impossible. For the principle is that for the sake of which
all things subsist, which all things desire, and which is indigent of
nothing. For if it were in want of something, it would be entirely
subordinate to that of which it is in want, and to which its energy is
directed as the object of desire. But if the principle is immoveable
(for this is what remains,) it is necessary that it should be one
incorporeal essence, possessing an eternal sameness of subsistence.
After what manner, however, does it possess the one? And how
is it one essence? For if essence and the one are the same,
it must be admitted that the principle of beings is essence. But if
essence is different from the one, it must be granted that to
be the one is not the same thing as to be essence. And if,
indeed, essence is better than the one, according to this it
must be said to be with the principle. But if the one is better
than essence and beyond it, the one is also the principle of
essence. And if they are coordinate to each other, the many will be
prior to the one.[141] This, however, is impossible as we have
before demonstrated. It is evident, indeed, that essence is not the
same as the one. For it is not one and the same thing to say
one, and that essence is one; but the former is not yet a sentence,
and the latter is. To which may be added, that if essence and the
one are the same, multitude will be the same as that which has no
existence, and which is not essence. This, however, is impossible. For
in essence the many are contained, and in that which is not essence is
the one. But if essence and the one are not the same,
they will not be coordinate to each other; for if they were coordinate
there will be some other thing prior to them, if it is necessary that
all things should subsist from one principle. And if one of these is
better than the other, either the one is prior to essence, or
essence is prior to the one. But if the one indeed is
prior to essence, this and not essence is the principle of all things.
For it is necessary that nothing should be better than the principle.
And if essence is prior to the one, the one will be
passive to essence, and not essence to the one. But if the
one is passive to essence, it is necessary that the one and
essence should be every thing, and that all such things as are one
should be essence, but not that all such things as are essence should
be one. There will, therefore, be a certain essence deprived of the
one. If, however, this be the case, it will be nothing. For that
which is deprived of the one is nothing. Hence the one is
prior to essence.
But if that which is first is something which is not essence, it is
absurd to assert that it is subordinate to essence. For the principle
is that which has the greatest power and the most absolute authority,
and is most sufficient to itself, and is not that which is most
ignoble, and indigent of the many. And, in short, it is necessary that
no secondary nature should be better than the principle; for it is
requisite that beings should not be governed badly. But if, indeed, the
principle has an order subordinate to the things which proceed from
it, and the things proceeding from it are better than it, all things
will be badly confounded, nor will the principle according to nature
be any thing else than something which is not the most excellent of
things, nor will things which proceed from the principle possess from
it a power of ruling over their principle. The principle of beings,
therefore, will indeed be fortuitous, and also the beings which are
its progeny. But this is impossible. For things which are fortuitous
(if to have a fortuitous subsistence is this, not to exist according
to intellect, nor with a view to a definite end) are disorderly,
infinite, and indefinite, and are all of them things which have a less
frequency of subsistence. But the principle is invariably principle,
and other things proceed from it. If however, that which is not essence
is better than all essence, it will either be participated by it, or
it will be entirely imparticipable. If, however, essence participates
of the principle, of what will it be the principle? And how will it be
the principle of all beings? For it is necessary that the principle of
beings should be no one of beings; since if it were any one of them,
it is necessarily not the principle of all beings. But every thing
which is participated by another thing is said to be that by which it
is participated, and in which it primarily is. The principle, however,
is separate, and belongs in a greater degree to itself than to other
things. Besides, every thing which is participated proceeds from
another more excellent cause; since that which is imparticipable is
better than that which is participable. It is not, however, possible
to conceive any thing better than that which is most excellent, and
which we call the principle. For it is not lawful to assert that things
secondary to the principle, and which proceed from it, are in any
respect better than their principle. The cause therefore of all beings
is above all essence, is separate from every essence, and is neither
essence, nor has essence as an addition to its nature. For such an
addition as this is a diminution of simplicity, and of that which is
one.
CHAPTER III.
See, therefore, the third argument after these, leading us to the same
conclusion with the former arguments. For it is necessary that the
cause of all beings should be that of which all beings participate, to
which they refer the subsistence of themselves, and which separates
itself from nothing that in any respect whatever is said to have
an existence. For this alone is the object of desire to beings,
which primarily, or in some other way, is itself the cause of their
subsistence. And it is necessary that every thing which is produced
with reference to, and on account of it, should have a certain habitude
with relation to it, and through this also, a similitude to it. For
every habitude of one thing towards another, is predicated in a twofold
respect, either from both participating of one thing, which affords
to the participants a communion with each other; or from one of them
participating of the other; of which, indeed, the one as being more
excellent, imparts something to that which is subordinate to itself;
but the other, as being inferior, is assimilated to the more excellent
nature, so far as it participates of it. Hence it is necessary, if all
sensible natures possess a habitude to that which is first, aspire
after, and subsist about it, either that there should be a certain
third thing the cause of the habitude, or that the principle should
impart to the natures posterior to itself, a tendency to itself, and
that desire, through which every thing is preserved, and exists.
Nothing else, however, is more excellent than that which is first.
Hence, the habitude of beings, their existence, and their tendency
to the first, are derived from thence. And all things participate of
the principle of themselves, if it is necessary that this which is
participated, should from thence become apparent in all beings, since
it is the principle of all things, and deserts no being whatever.
What, therefore, will this nature be, which is every where, and in all
beings? Is it life and motion? But there are indeed many things which
are deprived of these. Is, therefore, permanency every where, and in
all things? But neither is this true. For motion, so far as it is
motion, will not participate of permanency. Is much-honoured intellect,
therefore, so far as it is intellect, participated by all beings?
But this also is impossible. For all beings would have intellectual
perception, and no being would be deprived of intellect.
Shall we say, therefore, that being itself and essence are participated
by all things that in any respect whatever have a subsistence? But how
is this possible? For that which is in generation, or passing into
existence, is said to be, and is destitute of essence. Nor must we
wonder, if it also, since it ranks among beings, should now participate
of essence. For so far as it is in generation, it is not; but it ends
in existence and essence when it is now actually generated, and is no
longer rising into existence. All things, therefore, that have in any
respect whatever a subsistence, do not participate of essence. What
then will that be which is every where and by all things participated?
Let us consider every being, and see what that is to which all beings
are passive, and what it is which is common in all of them, as in
essence, sameness, difference, permanency, and motion. Can we say,
therefore, that each of these is any thing else than one thing, and
not only separately, but this is also the case with the things which
subsist from them; and in short, it is not possible in a certain
respect to speak otherwise of all things, than this, that all things,
and each thing is one. For if any thing should be deprived of the
one, though you should speak of parts, or of beings, immediately,
that which becomes destitute of the one, will be altogether
nothing. Or with what intention do we say that a thing which is not is
perfectly nothing, [or not even one thing] unless the one is
the last thing which deserts beings? This it is, therefore, to become
that which in no respect is, and to be perfectly deprived of the
one. For it is possible for that which is not moved to be, and for
that which has no being to have an hyparxis; but that which is not
even one thing, and which is destitute of the one itself, will
be entirely nothing. Hence the one is present with all beings;
and though you should speak of multitude itself, it is necessary
that this also should participate of the one; for if it does
not become one thing, it is not possible for it to subsist. And if
even you divide the whole to infinity, immediately nothing else than
one occurs. For either that which is divided does not subsist, or
becoming to be, or subsisting something else, it will be immediately
one.[142]The one, therefore, which is every where apparent,
and is in all beings, and which deserts no being whatever, is either
derived from the one which is simply one, or from that which
is more excellent than the one. For it is not possible for
the one to be otherwise passive, [i.e. to be consubsistent with
something else] than from the first one, to which the one is no
longer present, but which is the one itself, or nothing else
than one.
Again, therefore, from another principle we may arrive at the same
conclusion, by speaking as follows: It is necessary either that the
causes of beings and things caused should proceed to infinity, and that
there should be nothing first or last in beings; or that there should
be no first, but that there should be the last of things, infinity
existing in one part only. Or on the contrary, it is necessary that
beings should proceed to infinity from a definite principle, or that
there should be a certain first and last, and a boundary of beings each
way. And if there are boundaries of beings, things either proceed from
each other, and the generation of beings is in a circle; or if they
are not from each other, either one of them is from another, or the
first indeed is one, but the last not one, or the contrary, or both are
one, or each is not one. If, therefore, first things, and the causes
of beings are infinite, each thing will consist of infinites. For that
which proceeds from a certain principle, must necessarily participate
of that principle from which it proceeds. But that which derives its
subsistence from many causes, will be in its own nature multiform,
as participating of many powers. And that which is produced from
infinites prior to itself, will have infinite peculiarities derived
from the principles, and adapted to itself. Every being, therefore,
being infinite, and consisting of infinites, will render all things
infinitely infinite, and there will neither be a knowledge of any
being, nor any evolution of powers. For the power of the infinite is
perfectly unknown, and incomprehensible, by those natures to whom it is
infinite.
But if things are infinite in a descending progression, whether is
each of them infinite always proceeding most downward, in the same
manner as we say all things do, or is each whole indeed finite, but
the beings which are produced from these are infinite? For if every
being according to the beginning of itself is definite, but according
to its end is infinite, there will neither be in parts nor in wholes,
a conversion of beings to their proper principle, nor will that which
is second in order ever have a subsistence so as to be assimilated to
the extremity of a preexistent order; though as we frequently say, the
summits of inferiors are conjoined with the boundaries of superiors.
For where there is no last, by what contrivance can such a similitude
of progression as this, and such a mutual coherence of beings be left,
according to which secondary things are always conjoined to the natures
prior to them? But if all things alone have an infinity of this kind,
each being bounded by that which is posterior to itself, wholes will be
subordinate to parts, and the parts of beings will be naturally more
perfect [than wholes.] For wholes, indeed, will be without conversion
to the principle prior to themselves; but parts will be converted to
it after their progression. By how much the more, however, every being
hastens to conjunction with that which is more perfect than itself, by
so much the more must it necessarily excel, as it appears to me. And
if this whole proceeding to infinity is not convolved to the summit
of itself, and circularly converted and perfected according to such a
conversion [it will not desire its proper good.] If, however, we admit
that there is an infinity both ways these things must necessarily
happen.
In addition to these things, also, there will be no common object of
desire to all beings, nor any union nor sympathy of them. For things
which are perfectly infinite have not that which is first in them; but
not having a first, we shall not be able to say what is the common
end of beings, and why some things are more excellent, but others
are allotted a subordinate nature. For we call one thing better and
another less excellent, from proximity to that which is best, just as
we define the more and the less hot from communion with that which
is hot in the first degree. And in short, we form a judgment of the
more and the less from a reference to that which is a maximum. It is
necessary, therefore, that the boundary in beings should be that which
is first and that which is last.
But if, indeed, these are from each other, the same thing will be
older and younger, cause and at the same time the thing caused, and
each thing will be first and last. For it makes no difference, whether
these are from each other, or the things which subsist between these.
For the extremes being indifferent, how is it possible that a mutation
according to essence should intervene? But if the one is from the
other, whether is the first derived from the last, as some say, who
generate things more excellent from things subordinate, and things more
perfect from such as are more imperfect? In this case, however, must
not that which is allotted the power of generating and producing the
perfect, by a much greater priority perfect and adorn itself by its
present power? And how is it possible that leaving itself to be of an
inferior allotment it should definitely assign a more excellent order
to another thing? For every thing aspires after its proper perfection,
and simply desires good; though not every thing is able to participate
of a thing of this kind. If, therefore, it has the power of producing
this most perfect thing, that which is last will energize on account
of itself prior to other things, and the whole of good, and all
perfection, will be first established in itself.
But if that which is last is produced from that which is first, and
the most imperfect from that which is most perfect, whether, is each
of them one, or is this one, but that not one? If, however, that which
is first, or that which is last, is not one, neither of them will be
first or last. For, as there will be multitude in each, each of them
will have the better and the worse; and neither will that which is
best be unmingled with that which is inferior to it, nor that which
is the most obscure of all things according to being, have so great a
subjection entirely deprived of a more perfect nature; but there will
be something more extreme than that which is last, and something more
perfect than that which is first. For every where, that which is best
if it receives another addition through that which is inferior will be
more perfect than that which does not abide in the best, [through not
receiving this very addition.] If, therefore, we rightly assert these
things, the one is the principle of all things, and the last
of beings is one. For it is necessary, I think, that the end of the
progression of beings should be assimilated to the principle, and that
as far as to this, the power of the first should proceed.
Summarily, therefore, recapitulating what we have said, it is necessary
either that the first principle should be one, or that there should
be alone many[143] first principles, or one containing multitude in
itself, or many participating of one. But if there are many first
principles only, there will not be one thing from them. For what will
make one and a whole, if there are many principles, and there is
nothing which produces one? For it is certainly necessary that things
posterior to the principles should be assimilated to them. Either,
therefore, there will not be the one in any being, or it will
not be from these principles; so that each of the things which in any
respect whatever have a subsistence will be divided multitude alone.
And again each of the parts of any being will be a thing of this kind,
and we shall in no way whatever stop, dividing into minute parts
essence and existence. For all things will be many, and the one
will be no where in the universality of things, nor will either wholes
or parts be apparent.
But if it is necessary, indeed, that there should be many principles,
and that they should participate of the one, the one will
be coordinated in the many. Again, however, it is necessary, that the
uncoordinated should every where be more ancient than the coordinated,
and the exempt than the participated. For how is the one in each
of the many except from one principle which co-arranges the multitude,
and converts it to itself according to the communion of the one?
Again, if the first one were multiplied, the one will be
passive; for at the same time it will be one and not one, and will not
be that which is one [only.] It is necessary, however, in each genus of
things, that there should be that which is unmingled with an inferior
nature, in order that there may be that which is mingled, in the same
manner as we say respecting forms. For from the equal itself, things
which are equal in these sublunary realms, appear indeed as equal,
though they are filled with a contrary nature; and from that which is
primarily being, that which is mingled with non-being is derived, and
which presents itself to the view as being. And in short every where
the simple unmingled subsistence of each thing precedes those things
which through remission are mingled with the privations of themselves.
The one therefore is by itself exempt from all multitude; and
that which is one, and at the same time not one, is not the first one,
but is suspended[144] from that which is primarily one; through the
principle, indeed, participating of the one, but through the
diminution arising from multitude, now manifestly exhibiting in itself
the cause of separation.
CHAPTER IV.
That the one therefore is the principle of all things, and the
first cause, and that all other things are posterior to the one,
is I think evident from what has been said. I am astonished however at
all the other interpreters of Plato, who admit the existence of the
intellectual kingdom, but do not venerate the ineffable transcendency
of the one, and its hyparxis which surpasses the whole of
things. I particularly, however, wonder that this should have been
the case with Origen, who was a partaker of the same erudition with
Plotinus. For Origen ends in intellect and the first being, but omits
the one which is beyond every intellect and every being. And if
indeed he omits it, as something which is better than all knowledge,
language and intellectual perception, we must say that he is neither
discordant with Plato, nor with the nature of things, But if he omits
it because the one is perfectly unhyparctic, and without any
subsistence, and because intellect is the best of things, and that
which is primarily being is the same as that which is primarily one,
we cannot assent to him in asserting these things, nor will Plato
admit him, and connumerate him with his familiars. For I think that
a dogma of this kind is remote from the philosophy of Plato, and is
full of Peripatetic innovation. If you are willing, however, we will
adduce some arguments against this dogma, and against all others who
are the patrons of this opinion, and we will strenuously contend for
the doctrine of Plato, and show that according to him the first cause
is beyond intellect, and is exempt from all beings, as Plotinus and
Porphyry, and all those who have received the philosophy of these men,
conceive him to assert.
We shall begin, therefore, from the Republic; for here Socrates clearly
shows that the good is established above being, and the whole
intellectual order, following the analogy of the first goodness to the
sun. For if, as the sovereign sun is to generation, to every thing
visible, and to all visive natures according to the power generative
of light, so it is necessary the good should be with reference
to intellect and intelligibles, according to a cause productive of
truth,—if this be the case, we must say that the sun is exempt at one
and the same time from visive and visible natures, and must admit that
the good transcends the natures which are always intellective,
and also those which are eternally intelligible. It is better, however,
to hear the Platonic words themselves: “You may say that the sun not
only imparts the power of being seen to visible natures, but also that
he is the cause of their generation, increase, and nutriment, not being
himself generation. Certainly. We may say, therefore, that things which
are known, have not only this from the good that they are known,
but likewise that their being and essence are thence derived, whilst
the good itself is not essence, but beyond essence, transcending
it both in dignity and in power.” Through all these things, therefore,
it is evident how the good and the first principle are defined
by Plato to be expanded above not only the intellectual, but also the
intelligible extent, and essence itself, according to union, in the
same manner as it is inferred the sun surpasses all visible natures,
and perfects and generates all things by his light. How, therefore,
following Plato, can we admit that intellect is the best of things,
and the cause of all things? How can we assert that being itself[145]
and essence are the same with the principle which is the leader of
all the divine progressions? For essence and intellect are said to
subsist primarily from the good, to have their hyparxis about
the good, to be filled with the light of truth proceeding from
thence, and to obtain the participation which is adapted to them from
the union of this light, which is more divine than intellect itself
and essence, as being primarily suspended from the good, and
affording in beings a similitude to that which is first. For the
light which is emitted from the sun causes every thing visible to be
solar-form. And the participation of the light of truth renders that
which is intelligible boniform and divine. Intellect, therefore, is a
god through a light which is more ancient than intellectual light and
intellect itself, and that which is intelligible and at the same time
intellectual participates of a divine hyparxis through a plenitude
of this light being appropriately imparted to it.[146] And in short,
every divine nature is that which it is said to be, on account of
this light, and is through it united to the cause of all beings. By
no means, therefore, is the first good to be considered as the same
with intellect, nor must it be admitted that the intelligible is more
ancient than all the hyparxis of the whole of things, since it is even
subordinate to the light proceeding from the good, and being
perfected by this light, is conjoined according to its own order with
the good itself. For we must not say that the intelligible is
united to the first after the same manner as the light [of truth;] but
the latter through continuity with the good is established in it
without a medium; while the former, through this light, participates
of a vicinity to the good; since in sensibles also, the solar
light is primarily connascent with the circulation of the sun, ascends
as far as to the centre of the whole sphere, and subsists on all sides
about it. But all sensible natures through this obtain a similitude to
the sun, each of them according to its own nature being filled with
solar-form illumination. These things, therefore, will be sufficient to
recall into the memory of those who love the contemplation of truth,
the conceptions of Plato on this subject, and to evince that the order
of intellect is secondary to the exempt transcendency of the one.
If, however, it is requisite to evince the same thing through many
testimonies, let us survey what the Elean guest in the Sophista
determines concerning these things. He says, therefore, it is necessary
that the multitude of all beings, whether they are contraries or not,
should be suspended from the one being, [i.e. from being characterized
by the one;] but that the one being itself should be suspended from
the one. For when we call the hot or the cold, or permanency
or motion, being, we do not denominate each of these as the same with
being itself. For if permanency were being itself, motion would not
be being; or, if motion were such like being, permanency would not
participate of the appellation of being. But it is evident that being
accedes to permanency, to motion, and to every multitude of beings
from one thing which is primarily being. This very thing, therefore,
which is the cause of essence to all things, and which is participated
by all other things, is a participant of this one, and on this
account, as it is being alone, so also it is primarily being.[147] It
is, however, being itself indeed, and is not allotted to be,
from participation; but it is one according to participation, and on
this account it is passive to the one. But it is being[148]
primarily. If, therefore, Plato gives to the one a subsistence
beyond being, in the same manner as that which is first in wholes is
supposed by him to transcend beings, how is it possible that being
should not be posterior to the one, since it participates of it,
and on this account is denominated one?
Moreover, Socrates in the Philebus clearly demonstrates the same thing
to those who are able to know wholes from parts, viz. that intellect
has not the same order as the first cause of all. Investigating,
therefore, the good of the human soul and its end, of which
participating in every respect sufficiently it will reap the fruits
of a felicity adapted to its nature, he in the first place removes
pleasure from an end of this kind, and after this intellect, because
neither is this replete with all the elements of the good.
If, therefore, the intellect which is in us is an image of the first
intellect, and the good of the whole of our life is not to be defined
according to this alone, is it not necessary that in wholes also, the
cause of good must be established above intellectual perfection? For if
that which is primarily good subsisted according to total intellect,
in us also and all other [intellectual natures,] self-sufficiency
and appropriate good would be present through the participation of
intellect. Our intellect, indeed, is disjoined from the good,
and is indigent, and on this account requires pleasure in order to
the attainment of human perfection. But a divine intellect always
participates of the good, and on this account is divine. For it
is boniform through the participation of good; but divine, as being
suspended from the first deity. It is the same reasoning, therefore,
which infers that the good is exempt from the first intellect,
and which defines felicity to consist not in intelligence only, but in
the all-perfect presence of the good. For the intellectual form
of energy is itself by itself defective with respect to blessedness.
And why is it requisite to be prolix? For Parmenides teaches us most
clearly the difference of the one from essence and being, and
shows that the one is exempt from all other things and from
essence; for this he evinces of the one at the end of the first
hypothesis. But how is it possible that the cause of essence, and which
is exempt from it through supreme transcendency, should not also be
beyond the intellectual order? For intellect is essence. But if in
intellect there is permanency and motion, and Parmenides demonstrates
that the one transcends both these, does he not immediately
bring us to the ineffable cause of all things, which is prior to every
intellect? And if every intellect is converted to itself, and is in
itself, but the one is demonstrated to be neither in itself,
nor in another, how can we any longer consider intellect as the same
with the first cause of all? In what respect, also, will the one
which is prior to being differ from the one being, which is the subject
of the second hypothesis, if intellect is the best of things, and
the first principle of all? For the one being participates of the
one; but that which participates is secondary to that which is
participated. That the one, however, is according to Plato more
ancient than intellect and essence, is through what has been said
recalled to our memory.
CHAPTER V.
In the next place, if the one is neither intelligible nor
intellectual, nor in short participates of the power of being, let
us survey what will be the modes of leading us to it, and through
what intellectual conceptions Plato unfolds as far as he is able, to
his familiars, the ineffable and unknown transcendency of the first.
I say then, that at one time he unfolds it through analogy, and the
similitude of secondary natures; but at another time he demonstrates
its exempt transcendency, and its separation from the whole of things,
through negations. For in the Republic, indeed, he indicates the
ineffable peculiarity and hyparxis of the good, through analogy
to the sun; but in the Parmenides, he demonstrates the difference of
the one with respect to all things posterior to it through
negations. But he appears to me through one of these modes to unfold
the progression from the first cause of all other things, and prior
to other things, of the divine orders. For on this account the first
cause is exempt from all the natures produced by it, because every
where cause is established above its effects; and on this account the
first is nothing of all things, because all things proceed from him.
For he is the principle of all things, both of beings, and at the same
time of non-beings. But again, according to the other of these modes,
he adumbrates the conversion to the first of the things which have
proceeded from it. For in each order of beings, through similitude
to it there is a monad analogous to the good, which has the
same relation to the whole series conjoined with it, that the
good has to all the orders of the Gods. The cause, however, of this
similitude is entirely the conversion of the whole of things to the
good. These, therefore, proceed from thence and are converted
to it. And the progression indeed of all things demonstrates to us
the ascent to the first through negations; but the conversion of all
things demonstrates this to us through analogies. Let not, however,
any one considering these negations to be such things as privations
despise such a mode of discussion, nor defining the sameness in words
analogously, and words in habitudes, endeavour to calumniate this
anagogic progression to the first principle. For negations, as it
appears to me, extend a triple peculiarity in things. And at one time,
indeed, being more primogenial than affirmations, they are procreative
and perfective of the generation of them. But at another time, they are
allotted an order coordinate to affirmations, and negation is then in
no respect more venerable than affirmation. And again, at another time,
they are allotted an order subordinate to affirmations, and are nothing
else than the privations of them. For with respect to non-being itself,
with which there is also a negation of beings, at one time considering
it as beyond being, we say that it is the cause and the supplier of
beings; but at another time we evince that it is equivalent to being;
just as I think, the Elean guest demonstrates [in the Sophista] that
non-being is in no respect less, if it be lawful so to speak, than
being; and at another time we leave it as a privation of, and indigent
of being. For indeed, according to this mode, we call every generation,
and matter itself, non-being.
Analogies, however, are assumed for the purpose alone of indicating the
similitude of secondary natures to the first principle. And neither
any reason, nor habitude, nor communion of this principle with things
posterior to it, becomes apparent from these. For its exempt nature
is not of such a kind as is beheld in the second and third orders
of beings; but the good transcends the whole of things in a
much greater degree than intellect surpasses the natures posterior
to itself, whether it be the demiurgic intellect, or the intellect
of the whole world, or some other intellect from among the number of
those that are called divine. Every intellect however, and every god,
is allotted a transcendency with respect to subordinate natures, and
those things of which it is the cause, inferior to that which the first
principle has to every being; for this principle similarly transcends
all things, and not some in a greater, but others in a less degree;
since thus we should introduce a greater and less habitude of it to
secondary natures. It is necessary, however, to preserve it without
habitude to all things, and similarly exempt from the whole of things.
But of other natures, some are indeed nearer, and others are more
remote from it. For each thing proceeds from it, since it produces
all things according to one cause. And different things are indeed
converted to it in a different manner, this principle in the mean time,
receiving no habitude or communion with things posterior to itself.
CHAPTER VI.
The mode of demonstration, therefore, pertaining to the one
is, as we have said, twofold. For again, Plato delivers to us twofold
names of the ineffable cause. In the Republic indeed he calls it
the good, and demonstrates it to be the fountain of the truth
which unites intellect and intelligibles. But in the Parmenides, he
denominates such a principle as this the one, and shows that
it gives subsistence to the divine unities. Again therefore, of these
names, the one is the image of the progression of the whole of things,
but the other of their conversion. For because indeed all things
derive their subsistence and proceed from the first principle, on this
account referring the one to it, we demonstrate that it is the
cause of all multitude and every progression. For whence is multitude
unfolded into light except from the one? But because again
the progressions from it are naturally converted to it, and desire
its ineffable and incomprehensible hyparxis, we denominate it the
good. For what else is that which converts all things, and which is
extended to all beings as the object of desire, but the good?
For all other things subsist distributedly, and are to some beings
honourable, but to others not. And every thing which in any respect
whatever is said to have a subsistence aspires after some things, and
avoids others. But the good is the common object of desire to
all beings, and all things according to their nature verge and are
extended to this. The tendency however of desiring natures is every
where to the appropriate object of desire. The good therefore
converts, but the one gives subsistence to all secondary
natures. Let not, however, any one suppose that the ineffable can on
this account be named, or that the cause of all union is doubled. For
here indeed we transfer to it names, looking to that which is posterior
to it, and to the progressions from, or the circular conversions to
it. Because, indeed, multitude subsists from it, we ascribe to it the
appellation of the one; but because all things even as far as to
things that have the most obscure existence, are converted to it, we
denominate it the good.
We endeavour therefore to know the unknown nature of the first
principle, through the things which proceed from, and are converted
to it; and we also attempt through the same things to give a name to
that which is ineffable. This principle, however, is neither known by
beings, nor is effable by any one of all things; but being exempt from
all knowledge, and all language, and subsisting as incomprehensible, it
produces from itself according to one cause all knowledge, every thing
that is known, all words, and whatever can be comprehended by speech.
But its unical nature, and which transcends all division, shines forth
to the view dyadically in the natures posterior to it, or rather
triadically. For all things abide in, proceed from, and are converted
to the one. For at one and the same time, they are united to
it, are in subjection to its union which is exempt from the whole of
things, and desire the participation of it. And union indeed imparts a
stable transcendency to all secondary natures, and which subsists in
unproceeding conjunction with the cause of them. But subjection defines
the progression of beings, and their separation from the imparticipable
and first unity. And desire perfects the conversion of the subsisting
natures, and their circular tendency to the ineffable. First natures
therefore, being always entirely united, [to the ineffable] some more
remotely, but others more proximately, and receiving through this union
their hyparxis, and their portion of good, we endeavour to manifest
through names the progression and conversion of the whole of things.
But with respect to their stable comprehension, if it be lawful so to
speak, in the first, and their union with the ineffable, this as being
incomprehensible, and not to be apprehended by knowledge, those who
were wise in divine concerns were unable to indicate it by words. But
as the ineffable is primarily concealed in inaccessible places, and
is exempt from all beings, thus also the union of all things with it
is occult, ineffable, and unknown to all beings. For every being is
united to it, neither by intellectual injection, [or projection] nor
the energy of essence; since things which are destitute of knowledge
are united to the first, and things deprived of all energy, participate
according to their order of a conjunction with it. That which is
unknown therefore in beings according to their union with the first,
we neither endeavour to know, nor to manifest by names, but being more
able to look to their progression and conversion, we ascribe indeed to
the first two names, which we derive as resemblances from secondary
natures. We also define two modes of ascent to the first, conjoining
that mode which is through analogy with the appellation of the
good, but that which is through negations with the appellation
of the one; which Plato also indicating, in the Republic
indeed calls the first the good, and at the same time makes a
regression to it through analogy; but in the Parmenides establishing
it as the one itself, he unfolds the transcendency of it which
is exempt from beings, through negative conclusions. According to both
these modes therefore, the first principle transcends both gnostic
powers, and the parts of speech; but all other things afford us the
cause of knowledge and of appellation. And the first principle indeed
unically gives subsistence to all the unions and hyparxes of secondary
natures; but the things posterior to this cause participate of it
in a divided manner. These also, as we have before observed, become
multiplied by abiding, proceeding and returning; but the one is
at once perfectly exempt from all the prolific progressions, convertive
powers, and uniform hypostases in beings. What the modes therefore
are of the doctrine about the first, and through what names Plato
endeavours to indicate it, and whence the names and the modes of this
indication which is unknown to all things are derived, is, I think,
through what has been said sufficiently manifest.
CHAPTER VII.
If, however, it be requisite to survey each of the dogmas about it
which are scattered in the writings of Plato, and to reduce them to
one science of theology, let us consider, if you are willing, prior
to other things, what Socrates demonstrates in the 6th book of the
Republic, conformably to the before mentioned mode, and how through
analogy he teaches us the wonderful transcendency of the good
with respect to all beings, and the summits of the whole of things. In
the first place therefore, he distinguishes beings from each other, and
establishing some of them to be intelligibles, but others sensibles,
he defines science by the knowledge of beings. But he conjoins sense
with sensibles, and giving a twofold division to all things, he places
one exempt monad over intelligible multitude, and a second monad over
sensible multitude, according to a similitude to the former monad. Of
these monads also, he shows that the one is generative of intelligible
light, but the other of sensible light. And he evinces that by the
intelligible light indeed, all intelligibles are deiform, and boniform,
according to participation from the first God; but that by the sensible
light, according to the perfection derived from the sun, all sensible
natures are solarform, and similar to their one monad. In addition also
to what has been said, he suspends the second monad from that which
reigns in the intelligible. And thus he extends all things, both the
first and the last of beings, I mean intelligibles and sensibles, to
the good. Such a mode of reduction to the first as this, appears
to me to be most excellent, and especially adapted to theology; viz.
to congregate all the Gods in the world into one union, and suspend
them from their proximate monad; but to refer the supermundane Gods
to the intellectual kingdom; to suspend the intellectual Gods from
intelligible union; and to refer the intelligible Gods themselves, and
all beings through these, to that which is first. For as the monad of
mundane natures is supermundane, as the monad of supermundane natures
is intellectual, and of intellectual natures intelligible, thus also
it is necessary that first intelligibles should be suspended from
the monad which is above intelligibles and perfected by it, and
being filled with deity, should illuminate secondary natures with
intelligible light. But it is necessary that intellectual natures which
derive the enjoyment of their being from intelligibles, but of good and
a uniform hyparxis from the first cause, should connect supermundane
natures by intellectual light. And that the genera of the Gods prior
to the world, through receiving a pure intellect from the intellectual
Gods, but intelligible light from the intelligible Gods, and a unical
light from the father of the whole of things, should send into this
apparent world the illumination of the light which they possess.
On this account, the sun being the summit of mundane natures, and
proceeding from the etherial profundities, imparts to visible natures
supernatural perfection, and causes these as much as possible to be
similar to the supercelestial worlds. These things therefore we shall
afterwards more abundantly discuss.
The present discourse, however, suspends all things after the above
mentioned manner from the good, and the first unity. For if
indeed the sun connects every thing sensible, but the good
produces and perfects every thing intelligible, and of these, the
second monad [i.e. the sun] is denominated the offspring of the
good, and on this account causes that which is sensible to be
splendid, and adorns and fills it with good, because it imitates the
primogenial cause of itself,—if this be the case, all things will
thus participate of the good, and will be extended to this one
principle, intelligibles indeed, and the most divine of beings without
a medium, but sensibles through their monad [the sun.]
Again therefore, and after another manner, Plato narrates to us in this
extract from the Republic the analysis to the first principle. For he
suspends all the multitudes in the world from the intelligible monads,
as for instance, all beautiful things from the beautiful itself, all
good things from the good, and all equal things from the equal
itself. And again, he considers some things as intelligibles, but
others as sensibles; but the summits of them are uniformly established
in intelligibles. Again, from these intelligible forms he thinks fit to
ascend still higher, and venerating in a greater degree the goodness
which is beyond intelligibles, he apprehends that all intelligibles,
and the monads which they contain, subsist and are perfected through
it. For as we refer the sensible multitude to a monad uncoordinated
with sensibles, and we think that through this monad the multitude of
sensibles derives its subsistence, so it is necessary to refer the
intelligible multitude to another cause which is not connumerated with
intelligibles, and from which they are allotted their essence and their
divine hyparxis.
Let not, however, any one fancy that Plato admits there is the same
order of the good in intelligible forms, as there is prior to
intelligibles. But the good indeed, which is coordinated with the
beautiful, must be considered as essential, and as one of the forms
which are in intelligibles. For the first good, which by conjoining
the article with the noun we are accustomed to call τἀγαθον or the
good, is admitted to be something superessential, and more
excellent than all beings both in dignity and power; since Socrates
also, when discussing the beautiful and the good, calls the one the
beautiful itself and the other the good itself, and thus says he we
must denominate all the things which we then very properly considered
as many. Again, particularly considering each thing as being one, we
denominate each thing that which it is, and thus Socrates leading
us from sensible things that are beautiful and good, and in short
from things that are participated, subsist in other things, and are
multiplied, to the superessential unities of intelligibles and the
first essences, from these again, he transfers us to the exempt cause
of every thing beautiful and good. For in forms, the beautiful itself
is the leader of many beautiful things, and the good itself of many
goods, and each form alone gives subsistence to things similar to
itself. But the first good is not only the cause of what is good, but
similarly of things beautiful, as Plato elsewhere says; and “all things
are for its sake, and it is the cause of every thing beautiful.”
For again, in addition to what has been said, the good which is in
forms is intelligible and known, as Socrates himself teaches; but
the good prior to forms is beyond beings, and is established
above all knowledge. And the former is the source of essential
perfection; but the latter is the supplier of good to the Gods so
far as they are Gods, and is generative of goods which are prior to
essences. We must not therefore apprehend that when Socrates calls
the first principle the good, from the name of idea, that he
directly calls it the intelligible goodness; but though the first
principle is superior to all language and appellation, we permit
Socrates to call it the cause of every thing beautiful and good,
transferring through the things which are proximately filled by it,
appellations to it. For this I think Socrates indicating asserts in all
that he says about the good, that it is beyond knowledge and
things that are known, and likewise beyond essence and being, according
to its analogy to the sun. And after a certain admirable manner he
presents us with an epitome of the negations of the one in the
Parmenides. For the assertion that the good is neither truth,
nor essence, nor intellect, nor science, at one and the same time
separates it from the superessential unities, and every genus of the
Gods, and from the intellectual and intelligible orders, and from every
psychical subsistence. But these are the first things, and through
the first hypothesis of the Parmenides, these are taken away from the
principle of the whole of things.
Moreover, neither when he celebrates the good the leader of
the divine orders, as the most splendid of being, does he denominate
it most splendid as participating of light. For the first
light proceeds from it to intelligibles and intellect, but he gives
it this appellation as the cause of the light which is every where
diffused, and as the fountain of every intelligible, or intellectual,
or mundane deity. For this light is nothing else than the participation
of a divine hyparxis. For as all things become boniform through
participating of the good, and are filled with the illumination
proceeding from thence, thus also the natures which are primarily
beings are deiform; and as it is said, intelligible and intellectual
essences become divine through the participation of deity. Looking
therefore to all that has been said, we shall preserve the exempt
transcendency of the good with reference to all beings and the
divine orders. But again, in each order of beings, we must grant that
there is a monad analogous to it, not only in sensibles, as Plato
says the sun is, but likewise in supermundane natures, and in the
genera of Gods arranged from the good prior to these. For it is
evident that the natures which are nearer to the first cause and which
participate of it in a greater degree, possess a greater similitude to
it. And as that is the cause of all beings, so these establish monads
which are the leaders of more partial orders. And Plato indeed arranges
the multitudes under the monads; but extends all the monads to the
exempt principle of the whole of things, and establishes them uniformly
about it. It is necessary therefore that the theological science should
be unfolded conformably to the divine orders, and that our conceptions
about it should be transcendent, and unmingled and unconnected with
other things. And we should survey indeed all secondary natures,
subsisting according to and perfected about it; but we should establish
it as transcending all the monads in beings, according to one excess
of simplicity, and as unically arranged prior to the whole orders
[of Gods.] For as the Gods themselves enact the order which is in
them, thus also it is necessary that the truth concerning them, the
precedaneous causes of beings, and the second and third progeny of
these should be definitely distinguished.
This, therefore, is the one truth concerning the first principle, and
which possesses one reason remarkably conformable to the Platonic
hypothesis, viz. that this principle subsists prior to the whole
orders in the Gods, that it gives subsistence to the boniform essence
of the Gods, that it is the fountain of superessential goodness, and
that all things posterior to it being extended towards it, are filled
with good, after an ineffable manner are united to it, and subsist
uniformly about it. For its unical nature is not unprolific, but it is
by so much the more generative of other things, as it pre-establishes
a union exempt from the things which have a subsistence. Nor does its
fecundity tend to multitude and division; but it abides with undefiled
purity concealed in inaccessible places. For in the natures also which
are posterior to it, we every where see that what is perfect desires
to generate, and that what is full hastens to impart to other things
its plenitude. In a much greater degree therefore it is necessary
that the nature which contains in one all perfections, and which is
not a certain good, but good itself, and super-full, (if it be lawful
so to speak) should be generative of the whole of things, and give
subsistence to them; producing all things by being exempt from all
things, and by being imparticipable, similarly generating the first and
the last of beings.
You must not, however, suppose that this generation and progression
is emitted in consequence of the good either being moved, or
multiplied, or possessing a generative power, or energizing; since
all these are secondary to the singleness of the first. For whether
the good is moved, it will not be the good; since the
good itself, and which is nothing else, if it were moved would
depart from goodness. How, therefore, can that which is the source of
goodness to beings, produce other things when deprived of good? Or
whether the good is multiplied through imbecility, there will
be a progression of the whole of things through a diminution, but not
through an abundance of goodness. For that which in generating departs
from its proper transcendency, hastens to adorn inferior natures, not
through prolific perfection, but through a diminution and want of its
own power. But if the good produces all things by employing
power, there will be a diminution of goodness about it. For it will be
two things and not one, viz. it will be good and power. And if indeed
it is in want of power, that which is primarily good will be indigent.
But if to be the good itself is sufficient to the perfection
of the things produced, and to the plenitude of all things, why do we
assume power as an addition? For additions in the Gods are ablations
of transcendent unions. Let the good therefore alone be prior
to power, and prior to energy. For all energy is the progeny of power.
Neither, therefore, does the good energizing give subsistence
to all things through energy, nor being in want of power does it fill
all things with powers, nor being multiplied do all things participate
of good, nor being moved do all beings[149] enjoy the first principle.
For the good precedes all powers, and all energies, and every
multitude and motion; since each of these is referred to the
good as to its end. The good therefore is the most final
of all ends, and the centre of all desirable natures. All desirable
natures, indeed, impart an end to secondary beings; but that which
presubsists uncircumscribed by all things is the first good.
CHAPTER VIII.
After these things, however, let us direct our attention to the
conceptions about the first principle in the epistle [of Plato] to
Dionysius, and survey the manner in which he considers its ineffable
and immense transcendency. But perhaps some one may be indignant with
us for rashly drawing to our own hypotheses the assertions of Plato,
and may say that the three kings of which he speaks are all of them
intellectual Gods; but that Plato does not think fit to co-arrange
or connumerate the good with secondary natures. For such a
connumeration ought not to be considered as adapted to the exempt
transcendency of the good with respect to other things, nor in
short, must it be said that the good contributes as the first
with reference to another second or third cause to the completion of
a triad in conjunction with other natures; but that it in a greater
degree precedes every triad and every number, than the intelligible
precede the intellectual Gods. How, therefore, can we connumerate with
other kings the good which is at once exempt from all the divine
numbers, and co-arrange one as the first [king,] another as the second,
and another as the third? Some one may also adduce many other things,
indicating the transcendency of the first principle with respect to
every thing divine. Such a one, however, in thus interpreting the words
of Plato will remarkably accord with us who assert the good to
be imparticipable, to transcend all the intelligible and intellectual
genera, and to be established above all the divine monads.
That Plato, indeed, admits the first God to be the king of all things,
and says that all things are for his sake, and that he is the cause of
all beautiful things, does not I think require much proof to those who
consider his words by themselves apart from their own conjectures, by
introducing which they violently endeavour to accord with Plato. But
that we do not assert these things connumerating [the first God with
secondary natures,] Plato himself manifests, neither calling the first
king the first, but alone the king of all things, nor asserting that
some things are about him, as he says that second things are about
that which is second, and third things about that which is third,
but[150] he says, in short, that all things are about him. And to the
other kings, indeed, he introduces number and a divided kingdom; but
to the king of all things he neither attributes a part of number, nor
a distribution of dominion opposite to that of the others. Such a mode
of words, therefore, neither connumerates the king of all things with
the other kings, nor co-arranges him as the leader of a triad with the
second and third power. For of a triadic division the first monad,
indeed, is the leader of first orders, and which are coordinate with
itself; but the second of second; and the third of third orders. If,
however, some one should apprehend that the first monad is the leader
of all things, so as to comprehend at once both second and third
allotments; yet the cause which subsists according to comprehension is
different from that which similarly pervades to all things. And to the
king of all things, indeed, all things are subject according to one
reason and one order; but to the first of the triad, things first are
subjected according to the same order; and it is necessary that things
second and third should be subservient according to their communion
with the remaining kings. Does not, therefore, what is here said by
Plato remarkably celebrate the exempt nature of the first cause,
and his uncoordination with the other kingdoms of the Gods? Since
he says that this cause similarly reigns over all things, that all
things subsist about him, and that for his sake essence and energy are
inherent in all things.
If also Socrates in the Republic clearly[151] teaches that the sun
reigns over the world analogous to the good, let no one dare
to accuse this analogy as connumerating the good with the king
of mundane natures. For unless[152] together with the similitude of
secondary causes to the first principles, we think fit to preserve that
exempt dominion [of the first cause] it will be impossible for us to
evince that the supermundane kings have their allotment analogous to
the first cause, who subsists prior to the whole of things according
to one transcendency. But what occasion is there to be prolix? For
Plato indeed calls the first God king; but he does not think fit to
give the others the same appellation, not only in the beginning of
what he says about the first, but shortly after, he adds: “About the
king himself and the natures of which I have spoken there is nothing
of this kind.” The first God, therefore, alone is called king. But he
is called not only the king of things first, in the same manner as the
second of things second, and the third of things third, but as the
cause at once of all being and all beauty. Hence the first God precedes
the other causes in an exempt and uniform manner, and according to a
transcendency of the whole of things, and is neither celebrated by
Plato as co-ordinated with them, nor as the leader of a triad.
That these things, however, are asserted by Plato about the first God
we shall learn by recurring a little to the preceding words, which
are as follow: “You say, that I have not sufficiently demonstrated to
you the particulars respecting the first nature. I must speak to you,
therefore, in enigmas, that in case the letter should be intercepted,
either by land or sea, he who reads it may not understand this part of
its contents. All things are situated about the king of all; and all
things are for his sake; and he is the cause of every thing beautiful.”
In these words, therefore, Plato proposing to purify our conceptions
about the first principle through enigmas, celebrates the king of all
things, and refers to him the cause of the whole of things beautiful
and good. Who, therefore, is the king of all things, except the unical
God who is exempt from all things, who produces all things from
himself, and is the leader of all orders according to one cause? Who
is he that converts all ends to himself, and establishes them about
himself? For if you call him, for whose sake all things subsist, the
end of all ends, and the primogenial cause, you will not deviate from
the truth concerning him. Who is he that is the cause of all beautiful
things, shining upon them with divine light, and who encloses that
which is deformed and without measure, and the most obscure of all
things in the extremity of the universe?
If you are willing also from the words of Plato that follow the
preceding, we will show that to be the recipient neither of language
nor of knowledge is adapted to the first principle. For the words:
“This your inquiry concerning the cause of all beautiful things is
as of a nature endued with a certain quality,” are to be referred to
this principle. For it is not possible to apprehend it intellectually,
because it is unknown, nor to unfold it, because it is uncircumscribed;
but whatever you may say of it, you will speak as of a certain
thing; and you will speak indeed about it, but you will not
speak it. For speaking of the things of which it is the cause,
we are unable to say, or to apprehend through intelligence what it is.
Here therefore, the addition of quality, and the busy energy of the
soul, remove it from the goodness which is exempt from all things,
by the redundancy of its conceptions about it. This likewise draws
the soul down to kindred, connate, and multiform intelligibles, and
prevents her from receiving that which is characterized by unity, and
is occult in the participation of the good. And it is not only
proper that the human soul should be purified from things coordinate
with itself in the union and communion with that which is first, and
that for this purpose it should leave all the multitude of itself
behind, and exciting its own hyparxis, approach with closed eyes, as
it is said, to the king of all things, and participate of his light,
as much as this is lawful for it to accomplish; but intellect also,
which is prior to us, and all divine natures, by their highest unions,
superessential torches, and first hyparxes are united to that which is
first, and always participate of its exuberant fulness; and this not
so far as they are that which they are, but so far as they are exempt
from things allied to themselves, and converge to the one principle
of all. For the cause of all disseminated in all things impressions
of his own all-perfect transcendency, and through these establishes
all things about himself, and being exempt from the whole of things,
is ineffably present to all things. Every thing therefore, entering
into the ineffable of its own nature, finds there the symbol of the
father of all. All things too naturally venerate him, and are united
to him, through an appropriate mystic impression, divesting themselves
of their own nature, and hastening to become his impression alone, and
to participate him alone, through the desire of his unknown nature,
and of the fountain of good. Hence, when they have run upwards as far
as to this cause, they become tranquil, and are liberated from the
parturitions and the desire which all things naturally possess of
goodness unknown, ineffable, imparticipable, and transcendently full.
But that what is here said is concerning the first God, and that Plato
in these conceptions leaves him uncoordinated with and exempt from the
other causes, has been, I think, sufficiently evinced.
CHAPTER IX.
Let us in the next place consider each of the dogmas, and adapt them
to our conceptions concerning cause, that from these we may comprehend
by a reasoning process, the scope of the whole of Plato’s theology.
Let then one truth concerning the first principle be especially that
which celebrates his ineffable, simple, and all-transcending nature;
which establishes all things about him, but does not assert that he
generates or produces any thing, or that he presubsists as the end of
things posterior to himself. For such a form of words neither adds any
thing to the unknown, who is exempt from all things, nor multiplies
him who is established above all union, nor refers the habitude and
communion of things secondary to him who is perfectly imparticipable.
Nor in short, does it announce that it teaches any thing about him, or
concerning his nature, but about the second and third natures which
subsist after him.
Such then being this indication of the first God, and such the manner
in which it venerates the ineffable, the second to this is that which
converts all the desires of things to him, and celebrates him as the
object of desire to and common end of all things, according to one
cause which precedes all other causes. For the last of things subsists
only for the sake of something else, but the first is that only for
the sake of which all other things subsist: and all the intermediate
natures participate of these two peculiarities. Hence they genuinely
adhere to the natures which surpass them, as objects of desire, but
impart the perfection of desires to subordinate beings.
The third speculation of the principle of things is far inferior to
the preceding, considering him as giving subsistence to all beautiful
things. For to celebrate him as the supplier of good, and as end
preceding the two orders of things, is not very remote from the
narration which says, that all causes are posterior to him, and derive
their subsistence from him, as well those which are paternal, and the
sources of good, as those that are the suppliers of prolific powers.
But to ascribe to him a producing and generative cause, is still more
remote from the all-perfect union of the first. For as it cannot be
known or discussed by language, by secondary natures, it must not
be said that it is the cause, or that it is generative of beings,
but we should celebrate in silence this ineffable nature, and this
perfectly causeless cause which is prior to all causes. If, however,
as we endeavour to ascribe to him the good and the one,
we in like manner attribute to him cause, and that which is
final or paternal, we must pardon the parturition of the
soul about this ineffable principle, aspiring to perceive him with
the eye of intellect, and to speak about him; but, at the same time,
the exempt transcendency of the one which is immense, must
be considered as surpassing an indication of this kind. From these
things therefore, we may receive the sacred conceptions of Plato, and
an order[153] adapted to things themselves. And we may say that the
first part of this sentence sufficiently indicates the simplicity,[154]
transcendency, and in short the uncoordination with all things of the
king of all. For the assertion that all things subsist about him,
unfolds the hyparxis of things second, but leaves that which is beyond
all things without any connexion with things posterior to it. But the
second part celebrates the cause of all the Gods[155] as prearranged in
the order of end. For that which is the highest of all causes,
is immediately conjoined with that which is prior to cause; but of this
kind is the final cause, and that for the sake of which all things
subsist. This part therefore is posterior to the other, and is woven
together with the order of things, and the progression of the Platonic
doctrine.
Again, the third part asserts him to be productive of all beautiful
things, and thus adds to him a species of cause[156] inferior to the
final. Whence also Plotinus, I think, does not hesitate to call the
first God the fountain of the beautiful. It is necessary therefore to
attribute that which is best to the best of all things, that he may be
the cause of all, and in reality prior to cause. But this is the
good. This too, which is an admirable circumstance, may be seen
in the words of Plato, that the first of these three divine dogmas,
neither presumes to say any thing about the good, and this
ineffable nature, nor does it permit us to refer any species of cause
to it. But the second dogma leaves indeed the good ineffable, as
it is fit it should, but from the habitude of things posterior to it,
enables us to collect the final cause: for it does not refuse to call
it that for the sake of which all things subsist. But when it asserts
that all things are for the sake of the good, it excites in us
the conception of the communion and co-ordination of that which is
the object of desire with the desiring natures. And the third dogma
evinces that the good is the cause of all beautiful things. But
this is to say something concerning it, and to add to the simplicity
of the first cause, and not to abide in the conceptions of the end,
but to conjoin with it the producing principle of things second. And
it appears to me that Plato here indicates the natures which are
proximately unfolded into light after the first. For it is not possible
to say any thing concerning it except at one time being impelled to
this from all things, and at another from the best of things: for it
is the cause of hyparxis to all things, and unfolds its own separate
union through the peculiarities of these. We ascribe to it therefore
the one and the good, from the donation which pervades
to all things from it. For of those things of which all participate,
we say there is no other cause than that which is established prior to
all these. But the about which (το περι ο,) the on account
of which (το δι’ ο[157]), and the from which (το αφ’ ου,)
particularly subsist in the intelligible Gods: and from these they
are ascribed to the first God. For whence can we suppose the unical
Gods derive their peculiarities, except from that which is prior to
them? To this summit of intelligibles therefore the term about
is adapted, because all the divine orders occultly proceed about this
summit which is arranged prior to them. But the term on account
of which pertains to the middle order of intelligibles: for all
things subsist for the sake of eternity and an hyparxis perfectly
entire. And the term from which is adapted to the extremity of
intelligibles: for this first produces all things, and adorns them
uniformly. These things, therefore, we shall indeed make more known in
the doctrine which will shortly follow concerning the intelligible Gods.
CHAPTER X.
In the next place, let us finish the discussion concerning the first
God, with the theory of Parmenides, and unfold the mystic conceptions
of the first hypothesis as far as pertains to the present purpose. For
we shall refer the reader for the most perfect interpretation of them
to our commentaries on that dialogue. In the first place therefore,
it is requisite to determine this concerning the first hypothesis,
that it comprehends as many conclusions negatively, as the hypothesis
which follows it does affirmatively. For this latter demonstrates all
the orders proceeding from the one; but the former evinces that
the one is exempt from all the divine genera. From both these
hypotheses however, it is obvious to every one how it is necessary that
the cause of the whole of things should transcend his productions. For
because the one is the cause of all the Gods, he transcends all
things. And because he is exempt from them through transcendency, on
this account he gives to all things their hypostases. For through being
expanded above all things he causes all things to subsist. Since in
the second and third orders also of beings, causes which are entirely
exempt from their effects, more perfectly generate and connect their
progeny than those causes do which are coordinate with their effects.
And the one by ineffably producing all the divine orders,
appears to be unically established above all. For in the productions
posterior to it, cause is every where different from the things caused.
And on this account nature indeed being incorporeal, is a cause which
transcends bodies; but soul being perfectly perpetual, is the cause of
things generated; and intellect being immoveable is the cause of every
thing that is moved. If, therefore, according to each progression of
beings effects are denied of their causes, it is certainly necessary to
take away all things similarly from the cause of all.
In the second place, I think it is necessary that the order of the
negations should be defined by those who receive theology according to
the intention of Parmenides; and that it should be admitted that they
proceed indeed from the monads which subsist primarily in the divine
genera, and that Parmenides takes away from the one all second
and third natures, according to an order adapted to each. For that
which transcends more principal causes must in a much greater degree
subsist prior to those that are subordinate. Parmenides, however, does
not begin his negations from the Gods that are united to the first:
for this genus is with difficulty distinguished from the one:
because being arranged naturally [immediately] after it, it is most
unical and occult, and transcendently similar to its producing cause.
Parmenides therefore beginning where prior to all other things division
and multitude are apparent, and proceeding regularly through all the
second orders as far as to the last of things, again returns to the
beginning, and shows how the one differs from the Gods that are
most similar to it, and which primarily participate of it, according to
one ineffable cause.
In the third place, in addition to what has been said, I determine
concerning the mode of negations, that they are not privative of
their subjects, but generative of things which are as it were their
opposites. For because the first principle is not many, the many
proceed from it, and because it is not a whole, wholeness proceeds from
it, and in a similar manner in other things. And in thus determining,
I speak conformably to Plato, who thinks it proper to abide in
negations, and to add nothing to the one. For whatever you add,
you diminish the one, and afterwards evince that it is not
the one, but that which is passive to [or participates] the
one. For it is thus not one only, but in addition to this possesses
something else also by participation. This mode therefore of negations
is exempt, unical, primary, and is a departure from the whole of
things, in an unknown and ineffable transcendency of simplicity. It is
likewise necessary, having attributed such a mode as this to the first
God, again to exempt him from the negations also. For neither does any
discourse, nor any name belong to the one, says Parmenides. But
if no discourse belongs to it, it is evident that neither does negation
pertain to it. For all things are secondary to the one, things
knowable and knowledge, and the instruments of knowledge, and after
a manner that which is impossible presents itself at the end of the
hypothesis. For if nothing whatever can be said of the one,
neither is this discussion itself adapted to the one. Nor is
it at all wonderful that the discourse of those who wish to know the
ineffable by words should terminate in that which is impossible; since
all knowledge when conjoined with an object of knowledge which does
not at all pertain to it loses its power. For sense, if we should
say that it pertained to that which is the object of science would
subvert itself; and this would be the case with science and every
kind of knowledge if we should say that they belonged to that which
is intelligible; so that language when conversant with that which is
ineffable, being subverted about itself, has no cessation, and opposes
itself.
CHAPTER XI.
Let us now therefore, if ever, abandon multiform knowledge, exterminate
from ourselves all the variety of life, and in perfect quiet approach
near to the cause of all things. For this purpose, let not only
opinion and phantasy be at rest, nor the passions alone which impede
our anagogic impulse to the first, be at peace; but let the air be
still, and the universe itself be still. And let all things extend us
with a tranquil power to communion with the ineffable. Let us also,
standing there, having transcended the intelligible (if we contain
any thing of this kind,) and with nearly closed eyes adoring as it
were the rising sun, since it is not lawful for any being whatever
intently to behold him—let us survey the sun whence the light of the
intelligible Gods proceeds, emerging, as the poets say, from the bosom
of the ocean; and again from this divine tranquillity descending into
intellect, and from intellect, employing the reasonings of the soul,
let us relate to ourselves what the natures are from which, in this
progression, we shall consider the first God as exempt. And let us as
it were celebrate him, not as establishing the earth and the heavens,
nor as giving subsistence to souls, and the generations of all animals;
for he produced these indeed, but among the last of things; but, prior
to these, let us celebrate him as unfolding into light the whole
intelligible and intellectual genus of Gods, together with all the
supermundane and mundane divinities—as the God of all Gods, the unity
of all unities, and beyond the first adyta,[158]—as more ineffable
than all silence, and more unknown than all essence,—as holy among
the holies, and concealed in the intelligible Gods. And again after
these things descending into a reasoning process from an intellectual
hymn, and employing the irreprehensible science of dialectic, let us,
following the contemplation of first causes, survey the manner in which
the first God is exempt from the whole of things. And let our descent
be as far as to this. But opinion and phantasy and sense, prevent us
indeed from partaking of the presence of the Gods, and draw us down
from Olympian goods to earth-born motions, Titannically divide the
intellect that is in us, and divulse us from an establishment in wholes
to the images of beings.
CHAPTER XII.
What therefore will be the first conception of the science proceeding
from intellect, and unfolding itself into light? What other can we
assert it to be than that which is the most simple and the most known
of all the conceptions contained in this science? What therefore is
this? “The one, says Parmenides, if it is the one will
not be many.” For it is necessary that the many should participate
of the one; but the one does not participate of the
one, but is the one itself. Neither is that which is
primarily one participable. For it would not be purely one if mingled
with the many, nor that which is one, if it received the addition of
that which is subordinate. The one therefore is exempt from the
many. The many however subsist primarily in the summit of the first
intellectual Gods, and in the intelligible place of survey, as
we are taught in the second hypothesis. The one, therefore,
entirely transcends an order of this kind, and is the cause of it. For
the not many, is not privation, as we have said, but the cause
of the many. This, therefore, Parmenides does not think it requisite
to demonstrate, but as a thing most manifest to every one, he first
evinces this, through the opposition as it were of the many to the
one. But employing this he takes away that which follows; and he
takes away that which is posterior to this by employing the conclusions
prior to it, and this he always does, after the same manner. And at
one time indeed, he assumes the elements of the demonstrations from
proximate conclusions, but at another time from those that are more
remote. For after this intelligible order of Gods, as we have said, he
gives subsistence to that order which connectedly contains and bounds
the extent of them, from their exempt cause. But this order is called
by him in the second hypothesis parts and a whole. These therefore
he denies of the one employing the many for the purpose of
distinguishing the subjects and the one. For, as he says, that
which is a whole and has parts is many; but the one is beyond
the many. If, therefore, the one transcends the intelligible
simplicity, but whole and that which has parts proceed from it in
order to become the bond of the whole of this distribution, is it
not necessary that the one should neither be a whole, nor be
indigent of parts? And I think it is through this transcendency that
the one presubsists as the cause of this order of Gods, and that
it produces this order, but in an exempt manner.
In the third place after these, we may survey the order which is
allotted the boundary of the intellectual and at the same time
intelligible Gods, proceeding from the one, and may behold
the one perfectly expanded above it. For this order indeed
subsists from the second genera, and from the intellectual wholeness
of the genera. But the one, as has been demonstrated, is exempt
according to cause from this wholeness. The one therefore has
neither beginning, or middle, or end, nor has it extremes, nor does
it participate of any figure. For through these Gods, the before
mentioned order of Gods becomes apparent. Whether therefore, there be
a perfective summit, or what is celebrated as the middle centre in
these Gods, or a termination converting the end of these divinities
to their beginning, the one is similarly beyond every triple
distribution. For the one would have parts, and would be many,
if it participated of things of this kind. But it has been demonstrated
that the one unically subsists prior to the many, and to
wholeness together with its parts, as the cause of them. And you see
how Parmenides indeed exhibits to us one negation of the highest order,
but two negations of the middle, and three of the last order. Besides
this also, he shows that the one has no extremity. But the
infinite is a thing of this kind. And separately from this he likewise
shows that the one is unreceptive of all figures.
Again therefore, after these triple orders we must direct our attention
to the intellectual Gods subsisting from these, and receiving a
tripartite division, and must demonstrate that the one
transcends these also. For such is the one, says Parmenides,
since it is neither in itself, nor in another. For if it were in
another, it would be on all sides comprehended by that in which it is,
and would every where touch that which comprehends it. But in this
case, it would have a figure, would consist of parts, and on this
account would be many and not one. And if it were in itself it would
entirely comprehend itself in itself. But comprehending and at the
same time being comprehended, it will be two, and will be no longer
primarily one. The discourse therefore proceeds to the same conclusion,
and evinces that the one will not be one, by the summit of the
intellectual order, if any one endeavours to mingle it with other
things. Hence the one being perfectly exempt from this summit
also, gives subsistence to it, this summit at one and the same time
participating of the third of the Gods placed above it, but being
produced from the second of these Gods, and being perfected from the
first, and entirely established in it.
Moreover, the one likewise generates the second intellectual
order, being unmingled with it. For the one neither stands
still, nor is moved. It participates therefore of neither of these;
but being similarly exempt from both, it at the same time transcends
the middle orders of the intellectual progression of the Gods. For if
it were moved, it would be moved in a twofold respect, viz. either
according to a change in quality, or local motion. But it is not
possible that the one can be changed in quality; for being
thus changed it will be not one, and will fall off from a unical
hyparxis. Nor can it be locally moved. For it is impossible that it
should be moved in a circle, because it would have parts, viz. middle
and extremes. And if it changed one place for another it would be
partible. For it would be necessary that it should neither be wholly
in that place to which it is moved, nor in that whence it begins to be
moved. For if it were wholly in either of them, it would be immoveable,
in consequence of partly not yet being moved, and partly having now
ceased its motion. But if the one stands still, it is certainly
necessary that it should abide in the same thing. But it has been
demonstrated that the one is no where. Hence it is neither
in itself, nor in another thing. In no respect therefore is the
one moved, or does it stand still, which things [viz. motion and
permanency] particularly belong to the middle order of intellectuals,
as will be evident from the second hypothesis. For the first God
produces this order also, being exempt from it.
In the third place, we may survey through what next follows, the last
order of intellectuals, proceeding from the one, and subordinate
to it. For in this order sameness and difference subsist unitedly.
But at the same time the one subsists prior to both these. For
different is said to be different both from itself and from other
things. And in a similar manner same is the same with itself, and with
other things. But the one is not indeed different from itself,
because that which is different from the one will be not one.
And it is not the same with other things, lest becoming the same with
them, it should latently pass into their nature. Moreover, neither is
the one different from other things. For it would be at the
same time one, and would have as an addition the power of difference.
For so far as it is different it will not be one; since difference is
not the one. Hence being one and different, it will be many and
not the one. Nor is the one the same with itself. For if
the one and the same differ only in name, the many will not be
in consequence of participating of sameness with each other. For it
is impossible that the many should become one by participating of the
many. But if the one and sameness are essentially different,
that which is primarily one does not participate of sameness, lest by
receiving sameness in addition to the one, it should become
a passive one, and not that which is primarily one. If however the
extremity of intellectuals is characterized by this tetrad, it is
evident that the one existing beyond this also supernally
unfolds it into light, and places over the wholes of the universe a
tetradic monad, the source of ornament to all secondary natures. For
from hence other things primarily receive a communication with the
one which are also indeed produced and connectedly contained by
the one.
But after the intellectual Gods, the ineffable transcendency of
the one arranges the extent of the supermundane divinities,
the one in the mean time, being occultly exempt from its
supermundane progeny. And this extent indeed proximately subsists from
the intellectual Gods, but uniformly receives its hyparxis from the
first God. This, therefore, Parmenides produces through similitude
and dissimilitude, from the deity which encloses the boundary of the
intellectual monads. For the similar is that which is passive to
sameness, in the same manner as dissimilitude is that which is passive
to difference. Parmenides therefore demonstrates that the one
transcends according to one simplicity such a peculiarity of the Gods
also as this. For that which is established above the power of same and
different, in a much greater degree transcends the genera which are
allotted a subsistence according to similitude and dissimilitude.
What therefore remains after this? Is it not evident that it is the
multitude of the mundane Gods? But this also is twofold, the one being
celestial, but the other sublunary. Of these, therefore, the genus
which revolves in the heavens, proceeds together with the equal, the
greater and the less. But in the sublunary genus the equal is allotted
a difference in multitude from the celestial equality, but the unequal
is again divided by the power of the more and the less. According to
another genus therefore of the divine orders, there will be a monad
and a duad, but above indeed, they are allied to the one and
to sameness, and beneath to multitude, and the intellectual cause of
difference. Hence the one transcends all these. For the equal
indeed every where consists of the same parts. By what contrivance
therefore is it possible that the nature which at one and the same time
is exempt from sameness, and the difference which is associated with
it, should participate of equality and inequality?
Besides all these divine orders therefore we must intellectually survey
the genera of deified souls, and which are distributed about the
Gods. For in each of the divine progressions and in the progressions
also of souls, the first genus presents itself to the view connascent
with the Gods; since both in the heavens, and in the sublunary region
divine souls receive the division of the Gods into the world, as the
Athenian Guest in a certain place demonstrates. The psychical extent
therefore, is characterized by time, and by a life according to time.
But the peculiarity of divine souls is shown by Parmenides to consist
in their being younger and at the same time older both than themselves
and other things. For revolving always according to the same time, and
conjoining the beginning with the end, as at one and the same time
proceeding to the end of the whole period they become younger, but as
at the same time circulating to the beginning of it, they become older.
All their ages however, perpetually preserve the same measures of time.
Again, there is sameness in them and difference, the former indeed
preserving equality, but the latter inequality, according to time.
The one therefore subsists prior to divine souls, and generates
these also together with the Gods. We now therefore come to the end of
the whole distribution of more excellent natures; and the cause of all
intelligibles at once unfolds into light the genera that follow the
Gods, and that are triply divided by the three parts of time. But this
cause is demonstrated by the intellectual projections of Parmenides
to be also exempt from these. For that which is beyond all time and
the life which is according to time, can by no contrivance become
subservient to the more partial periods of time.
That which is the first of all things therefore, unfolds into light
all the Gods, divine souls, and the more excellent genera, and is
neither complicated with its progeny, nor multiplied about them;
but being perfectly exempt from them in an admirable simplicity,
and transcendency of union, it imparts to all things indifferently
progression and at the same time order in the progression. Parmenides
therefore beginning from the intelligible place of survey of the first
intellectual Gods, proceeds thus far, according to the measures of
generation, giving subsistence to the genera of the Gods, and to the
natures that are united to and follow the Gods,[159] and perpetually
evinces that the one is ineffably exempt from all things. But
again, from hence he returns to the beginning, and imitating the
conversion of the whole of things, separates the one from the
highest, viz. from the intelligible Gods. For thus especially we may
survey the transcendency of the one, and the immense difference
of its union from all other things, if we not only demonstrate that it
is established above the second or third progressions in the divine
orders, but also that it subsists prior to the intelligible unities
themselves, and this in a manner conformable to the simplicity of
their occult nature, and not through a variety of words, but through
intellectual projection alone. For intelligibles are naturally adapted
to be known by intellect. This therefore, Parmenides also evinces in
reality, relinquishing logical methods, but energizing according to
intellect, and asserting that the one is above essence, and
being characterized by the one. For this assertion was
not collected from the preceding conclusions. For the discourse about
the first Gods themselves would be without demonstration, if it derived
its credibility from things subordinate. At the same time therefore,
Parmenides contends that all knowledge, and all the instruments of
knowledge, fall short of the transcendency of the one, and
beautifully end in the ineffable of that God who is beyond all things.
For after scientific energies, and intellectual projections, a union
with the unknown follows, to which also Parmenides referring the whole
of his discussion, concludes the first hypothesis, suspending indeed
all the divine genera from the one, but evincing that the
one is unically exempt from all things, subsisting without the
participation of intelligibles and sensibles, and in an ineffable
manner giving subsistence to the participated monads. Hence also,
the one is said to be beyond that one which is conjoined with
essence, and at the same time to be beyond every participated multitude
of unities.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
Such therefore is the theology with Plato concerning the first God,
as it appears to me, and so great is the transcendency which it is
allotted with respect to all other discussions of divine concerns; at
one and the same time venerably preserving the ineffable union of this
God exempt from the whole of things, uncircumscribed by all gnostic
comprehensions, and apart from all beings; and unfolding the anagogic
paths to him, perfecting that parturient desire which souls always
possess of the father, and progenitor of all things, and enkindling
that torch in them, by which they are especially conjoined with the
unknown transcendency of the one. But after this imparticipable,
ineffable, and truly superessential cause, which is separated from
all essence, power and energy, the discussion of the Gods immediately
follows. For to what other thing prior to the unities is it lawful
to be conjoined with the one, or what else can be more united
to the unical God than the multitude of Gods? Concerning these
therefore, we shall in the next place unfold the inartificial theory
of Plato, invoking the Gods themselves to enkindle in us the light of
truth. I wish however prior to entering on the particulars of this
theory, to convince the reader, and to make it evident to him through
demonstration, that there are necessarily as many orders of the Gods,
as the Parmenides of Plato unfolds to us in the second hypothesis.
This therefore is I think prior to all other things apparent to those
whose conceptions are not perverted, that every where, but especially
in the divine orders, second progressions, are completed through
the similitude of these to their proper principles. For nature and
intellect, and every generative cause, are naturally adapted to produce
and conjoin to themselves things similar, prior to such as are
dissimilar to themselves. For if it is necessary that the progression
of beings should be continued, and that no vacuum should intervene
either in incorporeal natures, or in bodies, it is necessary that every
thing which proceeds naturally should proceed through similitude. For
it is by no means lawful that the thing caused should be the same
with its cause; since a remission and deficiency of the union of
the producing cause generates secondary natures. For again, if that
which is second were the same as that which is first, each would be
similarly the same, and one would not be cause, but the other the thing
caused. If however, the one by its very being, or essentially, has an
exuberance of productive power, but the other falls short of the power
that produced it, these are naturally separated from each other, and
the generative cause precedes in excellence the thing generated, and
there is not a sameness of things which so greatly differ. But if that
which is second is not the same with that which is first, if indeed it
is different only, they will not be conjoined to each other, nor will
the one participate of the other. For contact and participation, are
indeed a communion of things conjoined, and a sympathy of participants
with the natures they participate. But if it is at the same time
the same with and different from that which is first, if indeed the
sameness is indigent, and vanquished by the power which is contrary to
it, the one will no longer be the leader of the progression of
beings, nor will every generative cause subsist prior to things of a
secondary nature, in the order of the good. For the one is not
the cause of division, but of friendship. And the good converts
generated natures to their causes. But the conversion and friendship
of things secondary to such as are primary is through similitude, but
not through a dissimilar nature. If therefore the one is the
cause of the whole of things, and if the good is in an exempt
manner desirable to all things, it will every where give subsistence to
the progeny of precedaneous causes, through similitude, in order that
progression may be according to the one, and that the conversion
of things which have proceeded may be to the good. For without
similitude there will neither be the conversion of things to their
proper principles, nor the generation of effects. Let this therefore be
considered as a thing admitted in this place.
But the second thing besides this, and which is demonstrated
through this, is, that it is necessary every monad should produce
a number coordinate to itself, nature indeed a natural, but soul a
psychical, and intellect an intellectual number. For if every thing
generative generates similars prior to dissimilars, as has been before
demonstrated, every cause will certainly deliver its own form and
peculiarity to its own progeny, and before it gives subsistence to
far distant progressions, and things which are separated from its
nature, it will produce things essentially near to it, and conjoined
with it through similitude. Every monad therefore, gives subsistence
to a multitude indeed, as generating that which is second to itself,
and which divides the powers that presubsist occultly in itself. For
those things which are uniformly and contractedly in the monad, present
themselves to the view separately in the progeny of the monad. And
this indeed the wholeness of nature manifests, since it contains in
one the reasons, [i.e. productive principles] of all things both in
the heavens and in the sublunary region; but distributes the powers
of itself to the natures which are divided from it about bodies. For
the nature of earth, of fire, and of the moon, possesses from the
wholeness of nature its peculiarity and form, and energizes together
with this wholeness, and contains its own allottment. This also the
monad of the mathematical sciences and of numbers manifests. For this
being all things primarily, and spermatically producing in itself the
forms of numbers, distributes different powers to different externally
proceeding numbers. For it is not possible that what is generated,
should at once receive all the abundance of its generator. And it is
necessary that the prolific power of every thing that preexists in
the cause[160] itself should become apparent. The monad therefore
gives subsistence to a multitude about itself, and to number which
distributes the peculiarities that abide collectively in itself. Since
however, as was before observed, the similar is always more allied to
cause than the dissimilar, there will be one multitude of similars to
the monad, proceeding from the monad; and another of dissimilars. But
again, the multitude which is similar to the monad is that in a divided
manner which the monad is indivisibly. For if the monad possesses a
peculiar power and hyparxis, there will be the same form of hyparxis in
the multitude together with a remission with reference to the whole.
After this however, it is necessary to consider in the third place,
that of progressions, such as are nearer to their cause are indicative
of a greater multitude of things, and are at the same time in a
certain respect equal to their containing causes; but that such as are
more remote possess a less extended power of signification; and on
account of the diminution of their power, change and diminish at the
same time the amplitude of production. For if, of progressions, that
which subsists the first in order is more similar to its principle,
and that which gives subsistence to the greatest number is both with
respect to essence and power more similar to the generating principle
of all things, it is necessary that of secondary natures, such as
are nearer to the monad, and which receive dominion after it, should
give a greater extent to their productions; but that such things as
are more separated from their primary monad should neither pervade
in a similar manner through all things, nor extend their efficacious
energies to far distant progressions. And again, as similar to this, it
is necessary that the nature which gives subsistence to the greatest
number of effects, should be arranged next to the monad its principle;
and that the nature generative of a more numerous progeny, because it
is more similar to the supplying cause of all things than that which is
generative of a few, must be arranged nearer to the monad, according to
hyparxis. For if it is more remote, it will be more dissimilar to the
first principle; but if it is more dissimilar, it will neither possess
a power comprehending the power of similar natures, nor an energy
abundantly prolific. For an abundant cause is allied to the cause of
all. And universally, that which is generative of a more abundant, is
more naturally allied to its principle than that which is productive
of a less numerous progeny. For the production of fewer effects is a
defect of power; but a defect of power is a diminution of essence; and
a diminution of essence becomes redundant on account of dissimilitude
to its cause, and a departure from the first principle.
Again therefore, in addition to what has been said, we shall assert
this which possesses the most indubitable truth, that prior to the
causes which are participated, it is every where necessary that
imparticipable causes should have a prior subsistence in the whole
of things. For if it is necessary that a cause should have the same
relation to its progeny as the one to all the nature of beings,
and that it should naturally possess this order towards things
secondary; but the one is imparticipable, being similarly
exempt from all beings, as unically producing all things;—if this be
the case, it is requisite that every other cause which imitates the
transcendency of the one with respect to all things, should
be exempt from the natures which are in secondary ranks, and which
are participated by them. And again, as equivalent to this, it is
requisite that every imparticipable and primary cause should establish
monads of secondary natures similar to itself, prior to such as
are dissimilar. I say, for instance, it is requisite that one soul
should distribute many souls to different natures; and one intellect
participated intellects to many souls. For thus the first exempt
genus will every where have an order analogous to the one. And
secondary natures which participate kindred causes will be analogous
to these causes, and through the similitude of these will be conjoined
with their imparticipable principle. Hence prior to the forms which are
in other things, those are established which subsist in themselves;
exempt causes prior to such as are coordinate; and imparticipable
monads prior to such as are participable. And consequently (as that
which is demonstrated at the same time with this) the exempt causes
are generative of the coordinate, and imparticipable natures extend
participable monads to their progeny. And natures which subsist from
themselves produce the powers which are resident in other things. These
things therefore being discussed, let us consider how each of the
divine genera subsists through analogy,[161] and survey following Plato
himself, what are the first and most total orders of the Gods. For
having discovered and demonstrated this, we shall perhaps be able to
perceive the truth concerning these several orders.
It is necessary therefore, from the before-mentioned axioms, since
there is one unity the principle of the whole of things, and from which
every hyparxis derives its subsistence, that this unity should produce
from itself, prior to all other things, a multitude characterized
by unity, and a number most allied to its cause. For if every other
cause constitutes a progeny similar to itself prior to that which is
dissimilar, much more must the one unfold into light after this
manner things posterior to itself, since it is beyond similitude,
and the one itself must produce according to union
things which primarily proceed from it. For how can the one
give subsistence to its progeny except unically? For nature generates
things secondary to itself physically, soul psychically, and intellect
intellectually. The one therefore is the cause of the whole of
things according to union, and the progression from the one is
uniform. But if that which primarily produces all things is the
one, and the progression from it is unical, it is certainly
necessary that the multitude thence produced should be self-perfect
unities, most allied to their producing cause. Farther still, if
every monad constitutes a number adapted to itself, as was before
demonstrated, by a much greater priority must the one generate
a number of this kind. For in the progression of things, that which
is produced is frequently dissimilar to its producing cause, through
the dominion of difference: for such are the last of things, and which
are far distant from their proper principles. But the first number,
and which is connascent with the one, is uniform, ineffable,
superessential, and perfectly similar to its cause. For in the first
causes, neither does difference intervening separate from the generator
the things begotten, and transfer them into another order, nor does
the motion of the cause effecting a remission of power, produce into
dissimilitude and indefiniteness the generation of the whole of things;
but the cause of all things being unically raised above all motion and
division, has established about itself a divine number, and has united
it to its own simplicity. The one therefore prior to beings has
given subsistence to the unities of beings.
For again, according to another mode [of considering the subject] it
is necessary that primary beings should participate of the first
cause through their proximate unities. For secondary things are
severally conjoined to the natures prior to them through similars;
bodies indeed to the soul which ranks as a whole, through the several
souls [which they participate]; but souls to universal intellect
through intellectual monads; and first beings, through unical
hyparxes to the one. For being is in its own nature dissimilar
to the one. For essence and that which is in want of union
externally derived, are unadapted to be conjoined with that which is
superessential, and with the first union, and are far distant from it.
But the unities of beings, since they derive their subsistence from the
imparticipable unity, and which is exempt from the whole of things,
are able to conjoin beings to the one, and to convert them to
themselves.
It appears therefore to me, that Parmenides demonstrating these
things through the second hypothesis, connects the one with
being, surveys all things about the one, and evinces that this
proceeding nature, and which extends its progressions as far as to
the last of things is the one. For prior to true beings it
was necessary to constitute the unities; since it neither was nor is
lawful, says Timæus, for that which is the best of things to effect
any thing else than that which is most beautiful. But this is in a
remarkable degree most similar to that which is best. To the one
however, a unical multitude is most similar; since the demiurgus of the
universe also being good, constituted all things similar to himself
through goodness itself. Much more therefore, does the fountain of
all good produce goodnesses naturally united to itself, and establish
them in beings. Hence there is one God, and many Gods, one unity and
many unities prior to beings, and one goodness, and many after the one
goodness, through which the demiurgic intellect is good, and every
intellect is divine, whether it be an intellectual or intelligible
intellect. And that which is primarily superessential is the
one; and there are many superessentials after the one.
Whether therefore, is this multitude of unities imparticipable in
the same manner as the one itself, or is it participated by
beings, and is each unity of beings the flower as it were of a certain
being, and the summit and center of it, about which each being[162]
subsists? But if these unities also are imparticipable, in what do
they differ from the one? For each of them is one, and primarily
subsists from the one. Or in what being more redundant than
the first cause were they constituted by it? For it is every where
necessary that what is second being subordinate to that which is prior
to itself, should fall short of the union of its producing[163] cause,
and by the addition of a certain thing should have a diminution of
the monadic simplicity of the first. What addition therefore, can we
adduce, or what redundancy besides the one, if each of these
also is by itself one? For if each of them is one and many, we shall
appear to transfer to them the peculiarity of being. But if each is
one only, in the same manner as the one itself, why does this
rank as the cause which is exempt from all things, but each of these is
allotted a secondary dignity? Neither therefore shall we preserve the
transcendency of the first with reference to the things posterior to
it, nor can we admit that the unities proceeding from it are unconfused
either with respect to themselves, or to the one principle of them.
But neither shall we be persuaded by Parmenides who produces the
one together with being, and demonstrates that there are as many
parts of the one as there are of being; that each being[164]
also participates of the one, but that the one is every
where consubsistent with being; and in short, who asserts that the one
of the second hypothesis participates of being, and is participated by
being, the participation in each not being the same. For the one
indeed participates of being, as not being primarily one, nor exempt
from being, but as illuminating truly-existing essence. But being
participates of the one, as that which is connected by it, and
filled with divine union, and converted to the one itself which
is imparticipable. For the participated monads conjoin beings to the
one which is exempt from the whole of things, in the same manner
as participated intellects conjoin souls to the intellect which ranks
as a whole, and as participated souls conjoin bodies to the soul which
ranks as a whole. For it is not possible that the dissimilar genera of
secondary natures should be united without media to the cause which
is exempt from multitude; but it is necessary that the contact should
be effected through similars. For a similar multitude, so far indeed
as it is multitude, communicates with the dissimilar; but so far as
it is similar to the monad prior to itself, it is conjoined with it.
Being established therefore, in the middle of both, it is united to
the whole, and to the one which is prior to multitude. But it
contains in itself remote progressions, and which are of themselves
dissimilar to the one. Through itself also, it converts all
things to that one, and thus all things are extended to the first cause
of the whole of things, dissimilars indeed through similars,[165] but
similars through themselves. For similitude itself by itself conducts
and binds the many to the one, and converts secondary natures
to the monads prior to them. For the very being of similars so far as
they are similars is derived from the one. Hence, it conjoins
multitude to that from which it is allotted its progression. And on
this account similitude is that which it is, causing many things to be
allied, to possess sympathy with themselves, and friendship with each
other and the one.
CHAPTER II.
If however it be requisite, not only by employing the intellectual
projections of Parmenides to unfold the multitude of Gods participated
by beings, but also concisely to demonstrate the theory of Socrates
about these particulars, we must recollect what is written in the
Republic, where he says that the light proceeding from the good
is unific of intellect and of beings. For through these things the
good is demonstrated to be exempt from being and essence, in the
same manner as the sun is exempt from visible natures. But this light
being in intelligibles illuminates them, in the same manner as the
solar-form light which is in visible natures. For visible natures
no otherwise become apparent, and known to the sight, than through
the light which is ingenerated in them. All intelligibles therefore
become boniform through the participation of light, and through this
light, every true[166] being is most similar to the good. If,
therefore, it makes no difference to speak of this light, or of the
one (for this light conjoins intelligibles, and causes them to be
one, as deriving its subsistence from the one) if this be the
case, the deity proceeding from the first is participable, and all the
multitude of unities is participable. And that indeed which is truly
superessential is the one. But each of the other Gods, according
to his proper hyparxis, by which he is a superessential God, is similar
to the first; but they are participated by essence and being. According
to this reasoning therefore, the Gods appear to us to be unities,
and participable unities, binding indeed all beings to themselves,
but conjoining through themselves to the one which similarly
transcends all things, the natures posterior to themselves.
Since therefore each of the Gods is indeed a unity, but is participated
by some being, whether shall we say that the same being participates of
each of the unities or that the participants of some of the unities are
more, but of others less numerous? And if this be the case either the
participants of the superior unities must be more, but of the inferior
must be fewer in number, or vice versa. For it is necessary that there
should be an order of the unities, in the same manner as we see that
of numbers some are nearer to their principle, but others more remote
from it. And that some are more simple, but others more composite,
and exceed indeed in quantity, but suffer a diminution in power. But
it is well that we have mentioned numbers. For if it is necessary to
survey the order of the first monads with respect to each other, and
their progression about beings, from these as images, in these also
the monads which are nearer to the one will be participated
by things which are more simple in essence, but those which are more
remote from it, will be participated by more composite essences. For
thus the participation will be according to the analogous; first monads
being always participated by the first beings, but second monads by
secondary beings. For again, if the first is exempt from all things,
and is imparticipable, but that which is connascent with the most
simple nature and the one is more similar to the imparticipable
than that which is connascent with a more various and multiform nature,
and which has more powers suspended from it,—if this be the case,
it is perfectly obvious, that the unities which are nearer to the
one are necessarily participated by the first and most simple
essences; but that those which are more remote are participated by
more composite essences, which are less in power, but are greater in
number and multitude. For in short, additions in these unities are
ablations of powers; and that which is nearer to the one, which
surpasses the whole of things by an admirable simplicity, is more
uniform, and is consubsistent with more total orders. And it happens
according to the ratio of power, that the simplicity of the first
unities is transcendent. For those things which are the causes of a
greater number of effects, imitate as much as possible the cause of
all things, but those which are the causes of fewer effects, have an
essence more various than the natures that are prior to them.[167] For
this variety distributes into minute parts and diminishes the power
which abides in one. Moreover, in participated souls also, such as are
first and most divine subsist in simple and perpetual bodies. Others
again are connected with bodies that are simple, but in conjunction
with these with material bodies also. And others are connected at one
and the same time with simple, material and composite bodies. For the
celestial souls indeed rule over simple bodies, and such as have an
immaterial and immutable subsistence. But the souls that govern the
wholes of the elements, are at the same time invested with ethereal
garments, and at the same time through these are carried in the wholes
of the elements, which as wholes indeed are perpetual and simple, but
as material receive generation and corruption, and composition from
dissimilar natures. And the souls that rank in the third order, are
those which proximately inspire with life their luciform[168] vehicles,
but also attract from the simple element material vestments, pour into
these a secondary life, and through these communicate with composite
and multiform bodies, and sustain through this participation another
third life.
If, however, you are willing to survey the intellectual orders, some
of these are arranged in the souls which rank as wholes, and in the
most divine of mundane souls, which also they govern in a becoming
manner. But others being arranged in the souls of the more excellent
genera, are proximately participated by the rulers that are in them;
and are participated secondarily by more partial essences. But again
they arrange third intellectual orders in partial souls. And according
as the power which they are allotted is diminished, in such proportion
is participation in them more various, and far more composite than the
participation of the natures that are prior to them. If, therefore,
this is the mode of participation in all beings, it is certainly
necessary that of the Gods also those that are nearer to the
one, should be carried in the more simple parts of being, but that
those which have proceeded to a greater distance should be carried in
the more composite parts of being. For the participations of second
genera are divided after this manner according to a similitude to them.
Again therefore, we may summarily say, that after the one principle
of the whole of things, the Gods present themselves to our view as
self-perfect monads, participated by beings.[169] How many orders
therefore there are of beings we shall afterwards unfold, and show
what beings are allotted a more simple, and what a more various
hyparxis. Of all beings then, the last is that which is corporeal.
For this derives its being, and all its perfection from another more
ancient cause, and is neither allotted simplicity nor composition,
nor perpetuity, nor incorruptibility from its own power. For no body
is either self-subsistent, or self-begotten; but every thing which
is so contracting in one, cause, and that which proceeds from cause,
is incorporeal and impartible. And in short, that which is the cause
of hyparxis to itself, imparts also to itself an infinite power of
existence. For never deserting itself, it will never cease to be, or
depart from its own subsistence. For every thing that is corrupted, is
corrupted through being separated from the power that supplied it with
being. But that which imparts being to itself, as it is not separated
from itself, is allotted through itself a perpetual essence. No body
however, since it is not the cause of perpetuity to itself, will be
perpetual. For every thing which is perpetual possesses an infinite
power. But body being finite is not the cause of infinite power. For
infinite power is incorporeal, because all power is incorporeal.
But this is evident, because greater powers are every where. But no
body is capable of being wholly every where. If therefore, no body
imparts to itself power, whether the power be infinite or finite, but
that which is self-subsistent imparts to itself the power of being,
and of existing perpetually, no body will be self-subsistent. Whence
therefore is being imparted to bodies, and what is it which is adapted
proximately to supply them with being? Must we not say that the cause
of being to bodies primarily is that which by being present renders
the nature of body more perfect than its kindred bodies [when they are
deprived of it?] This indeed is obvious to every one. For it is the
province of that which imparts perfection to connect also the essence
of secondary natures, since perfection itself is the perfection of
essence. What therefore is that of which bodies participating, are
said to be better than the bodies which do not participate of it? Is
it not evident that it is soul? For we say that animated bodies are
more perfect than such as are inanimate. Soul therefore is primarily
beyond bodies; and it must be admitted that all heaven and every thing
corporeal is the vehicle of soul. Hence, these two orders of beings
present themselves to our view; the one indeed being corporeal, but the
other which is above this, psychical.
With respect to soul itself however, whether is it the same with or
different from intellect? For as the body which participates of soul is
perfect, thus also the soul is perfect which participates of intellect.
And of the soul indeed, which is able to live according to reason,
all things do not participate: but of intellect and intellectual
illumination rational souls participate, and also such things as
partake of any kind of knowledge. And soul indeed energizes according
to time; but intellect comprehends in eternity both its essence,
and at the same time its stable energy. And not every soul indeed is
adapted to preserve immutably and without diminution the perfection
of itself; but every intellect is always perfect, and possesses a
never-failing power of its own blessedness. The intellectual genus
therefore is essentially beyond the psychical; since the former,
neither in whole nor in partial intellects, admits the entrance of the
nature of evil; but the latter being undefiled in whole souls, departs
in partial souls from its own proper blessedness. What therefore is
the first of beings? Shall we say intellect, or prior to this the
extent of life? For soul indeed is self-vital, supplying itself with
life; and intellect is the best and most perfect, and as we have said,
an eternal life. But the life of intellect is indeed in a certain
respect intellectual, and is mingled from the intellectual and vital
peculiarity. It is necessary however, that there should be life itself.
Whether therefore is life or intellect the more excellent thing? But
if gnostic beings only participate of intellect, but such beings as
are destitute of knowledge participate of life, (for we say that
plants live) it is certainly necessary that life should be arranged
above intellect, being the cause of a greater number of effects, and
imparting by illumination more gifts from itself than intellect. What
then? Is life the first of beings? And is to live the same
thing as to be? But this is impossible. For if life is that
which is primarily being, and to be vital is the same thing as to have
being, and there is the same definition of both life and being, every
thing which participates of life would also participate of being, and
every thing which participates of existence would likewise participate
of life. For if each is the same thing all things would similarly
participate of being and life. All vital natures indeed have essence
and being; but there are many beings that are destitute of life. Being
therefore subsists prior to the first life. For that which is more
universal, and the cause of a greater number of effects, is nearer to
the one, as has been before demonstrated. Soul therefore is
that which is primarily established above bodies; but intellect is
beyond soul;[170] life is more ancient than intellect; and being which
is primarily being is established above all these. Every thing also
which participates of soul, by a much greater priority participates of
intellect; but not every thing which enjoys intellectual efficiency,
is also adapted to participate of soul. For of soul rational animals
only participate; since we say that the rational soul is truly soul.
For Plato in the Republic says, that the work of soul is to reason and
survey beings. And every soul [i.e. every rational soul] is immortal,
as it is written in the Phædrus; the irrational soul being mortal,
according to the demiurgus in the Timæus. And in short, it is in many
places evident that Plato considers the rational soul to be truly
soul, but others to be the images of souls, so far as these also are
intellectual and vital, and together with whole souls produce the lives
that are distributed about bodies. Of intellect however, we not only
admit that rational animals participate, but also such other animals as
possess a gnostic power; I mean such as possess the phantasy, memory
and sense; since Socrates also in the Philebus refers all such animals
to the intellectual series. For taking away intellect from the life
which is according to pleasure, he likewise takes away not only the
rational life, but every gnostic power of the irrational life. For all
knowledge is the progeny of intellect, in the same manner as all reason
is an image of soul.
Moreover, all things which participate of intellect, by a much greater
priority participate of life, some things indeed more obscurely, but
others more manifestly. But all living beings do not participate of
intellectual power, since plants indeed are animals, as Timæus says,
but they neither participate of sense, or phantasy; unless some one
should say that they have a co-sensation of what is pleasing and
painful. And in short, the orectic powers every where are lives, and
the images of the whole of life, and the last productions of life;
but they are of themselves destitute of intellect and without any
participation of the gnostic power. Hence also, they are of themselves
indefinite, and deprived of all knowledge.
Again therefore, all animals indeed receive a portion of being, and
different animals a different portion, according to their respective
natures; but all beings are not similarly able to participate of
life; since we say that qualities and all passions, and the last of
bodies, receive the ultimate effective energy of being, but we do
not also say that they participate of life. Being therefore is more
ancient than life; life than intellect; and intellect than soul. For
it is necessary that the causes of a greater number of effects being
more ancient and according to order more principal, should preside
over causes which are able to produce and adorn fewer effects. Very
properly therefore, does Plato in the Timæus give subsistence to
soul from intellect, as being secondary to it according to its own
nature. But in the Laws he says that intellect is moved similarly to
a sphere fashioned by a wheel.[171] For that which is moved, is moved
by participating of life, and is nothing else than real life about
motion. And in the Sophista he exempts being from all the total genera
of things, and from motion. For being, says he, according to its own
nature, neither stands still, nor is moved. But that which neither
stands still nor is moved, is beyond eternal life.
These four causes therefore being prior to a corporeal subsistence,
viz. essence, life, intellect and soul, soul indeed participates of
all the causes prior to itself, being allotted reason from its own
peculiarity, but intellect, life and being, from more ancient causes.
Hence it gives subsistence to things posterior to itself in a fourfold
manner. For according to its being indeed, it produces all things as
far as to bodies; according to its life, all things which are said to
live, even as far as to plants; according to its intellect, all things
which possess a gnostic power, even as far as to the most irrational
natures; and according to its reason, the first of the natures that
are able to participate of it.[172] But intellect being established
beyond soul, and existing as the plenitude of life and being, adorns
all things in a threefold manner, imparting indeed by illumination
the power of the intellectual peculiarity to all gnostic beings, but
supplying the participation of life to a still greater number, and of
being to all those to whom primary being imparts itself. But life being
arranged above intellect, presubsists as the cause of the same things
in a twofold respect, vivifying secondary natures indeed, together with
intellect, and filling from itself with the rivers of life, such things
as are naturally adapted to live, but together with being supernally
producing essence in all things. But being itself which is primarily
being generates all things by its very existence, all lives, and
intellects and souls, and is uniformly present to all things, and is
exempt from the whole of things according to one cause which gives
subsistence to all things. Hence it is the most similar of all things
to the one, and unites the comprehension of beings in itself to
the first principle of the whole of things, through which all beings,
and non-being, wholes and parts, forms and the privations of forms
subsist, which privations do not necessarily participate of being, but
it is entirely necessary that they should participate of the one.
These things as it appears to me persuaded the Elean guest in the
Sophista, when discussing that which is perfectly being, to admit that
not only being is there, but also life, intellect and soul. For if true
and real being is venerable and honorable, intellect is there in the
first place, says he. For it is not lawful for that which is of itself
venerable and immaterial to be without intellect. But if intellect is
in that which is perfectly being, intellect will entirely be moved.
For it is not possible for intellect ever to subsist, either without
motion or permanency. But if intellect is moved and stands still, there
are in being both life and motion. Hence, from what has been said,
three things become apparent, viz. being, life and intellect. Moreover,
soul also in the next place is discovered through these things. For
it is necessary, says he, that life and intellect which before were
by themselves, should also be in soul. For every soul is a plenitude
of life and intellect, participating of both, which the Elean guest
indicating adds, “Shall we say that both these are inherent in it, but
yet it does not possess these in soul?” For to possess, as some
one says in a certain place, is secondary to existing. And soul
indeed participates of each of these according to the peculiarity of
itself; but it mingles the rational form of its own hyparxis, with the
intellectual vivific power. But both intellect and life subsist prior
to soul, the former as being moved and standing still at one and the
same time, and the latter as being motion and permanency. These four
monads also, soul, intellect, life and being are not only mentioned by
Plato here, but in many other places. And as in soul all things subsist
according to participation, so in intellect the things which are prior
to it subsist, and in life that which is prior to life. For we say that
life exists, or has a being. Or how could it be said to be arranged in
being unless it participated of being? We likewise say that intellect
is and lives. For it is moved, and is a portion of being. Hence it is
the third of the more comprehensive monads. Prior however to beings
which are participated, it is every where necessary that imparticipable
causes should subsist, as was before demonstrated, conformably to
the similitude of beings to the one. Being therefore which
is primarily being, is imparticipable; but life first participates
of being, yet is imparticipable, being exempt from intellect. And
intellect is filled indeed from being and life; but is imparticipable
in souls, and in the natures posterior to itself. Intellect also
presides over soul, imparting to it by illumination the participation
of life and being; but being imparticipable subsists prior to bodies.
The last order of beings therefore is that to which bodies are annexed;
celestial bodies indeed primarily, but sublunary bodies with the
addition of material [vestments.] This therefore is the progression of
beings, through life, intellect and soul, ending in a corporeal nature.
If, however, it is necessary that the superessential unities of the
Gods which derive their subsistence from the imparticipable cause[173]
of all things should be participated, some of them indeed, by the
first orders in beings, others by the middle, and others by the
last orders, as was before demonstrated, it is evident that some
of them deify the imparticipable portion of being, but that others
illuminate life, others intellect, others soul, and others bodies.
And of the last unities indeed, not only bodies participate, but
likewise soul, intellect, life and essence. For intellect in itself is
a plenitude of life and being. But from the unities which are above
this world intellect is suspended, and the psychical power, which
preexists in intellect. From the unities above these, imparticipable
and intellectual intellect is suspended. From those that are beyond
these, the first and imparticipable life is suspended. And from the
highest unities, the first being itself, and which is the most divine
of beings, is suspended. Hence Parmenides beginning from the one
being, produces from thence the whole orders of the Gods. These things
therefore being previously determined by us, let us speak concerning
the divine dialogues, beginning from on high, and producing from the
one the whole orders of the Gods. Let us also, following Plato, in
the first place demonstrate the several orders from other dialogues, by
arguments which cannot be confuted. Afterwards, let us thus conjoin and
assimilate the conclusions of Parmenides to the divine progressions,
adapting the first conclusions to the first, but the last to the last
progressions.
CHAPTER III.
Again therefore, the mystic doctrine concerning the one must be
resumed by us, in order that proceeding from the first principle, we
may celebrate the second and third principles of the whole of things.
Of all beings therefore, and of the Gods that produce beings, one
exempt and imparticipable cause preexists,—a cause ineffable indeed
by all language, and unknown by all knowledge and incomprehensible,
unfolding all things into light from itself, subsisting ineffably
prior to, and converting all things to itself, but existing as the
best end of all things. This cause therefore, which is truly exempt
from all causes, and which gives subsistence unically to all the
unities of divine natures, and to all the genera of beings, and
their progressions, Socrates in the Republic calls the good,
and through its analogy to the sun reveals its admirable and
unknown transcendency with respect to all intelligibles. But again,
Parmenides denominates it the one. And through negations
demonstrates the exempt and ineffable hyparxis of this one which is
the cause of the whole of things. But the discourse in the epistle
to Dionysius proceeding through enigmas, celebrates it as that about
which all things subsist, and as the cause of all beautiful things.
In the Philebus however, Socrates celebrates it as that which gives
subsistence to the whole of things, because it is the cause of all
deity. For all the Gods derive their existence as Gods from the first
God. Whether therefore, it be lawful to denominate it the fountain
of deity, or the kingdom of beings, or the unity of all unities, or
the goodness which is generative of truth, or an hyparxis exempt from
all these things, and beyond all causes, both the paternal and the
generative, let it be honored by us in silence, and prior to silence by
union, and of the mystic end may it impart by illumination a portion
adapted to our souls.
But let us survey with intellect the biformed principles proceeding
from and posterior to it. For what else is it necessary to arrange
after the union of the whole theory, than the duad of principles?
What[174] the two principles therefore are of the divine orders
after the first principle, we shall in the next place survey. For
conformably to the theology of our ancestors, Plato also establishes
two principles after the one. In the Philebus therefore,
Socrates says, that God gives subsistence to bound and infinity, and
through these mingling all beings, has produced them, the nature of
beings, according to Philolaus subsisting from the connexion of things
bounded, and things infinite. If, therefore, all beings subsist from
these, it is evident that they themselves have a subsistence prior
to beings. And if secondary natures participate of these mingled
together, these will subsist unmingled prior to the whole of things.
For the progression of the divine orders originates, not from things
coordinated and which exist in others, but from things exempt, and
which are established in themselves. As therefore the one is
prior to things united, and as that which is passive to the one, has
a second order after the imparticipable union, thus also the two
principles of beings, prior to the participation of and commixture with
beings, are themselves by themselves the causes of the whole of things.
For it is necessary that bound should be prior to things bounded, and
infinity prior to infinites, according to the similitude to the
one of things which proceed from it. For again, if we should
produce beings immediately after the one, we shall no where
find the peculiarity of the one subsisting purely. For neither
is being the same with the one, but it participates of the
one, nor in reality is that which is the first the one; for,
as has been frequently said, it is better than the one. Where
therefore is that which is most properly and entirely one? Hence there
is a certain one prior to being, which gives subsistence to being, and
is primarily the cause of it; since that which is prior to it is beyond
union, and is a cause without habitude with respect to all things, and
imparticipable, being exempt from all things. If however this one is
the cause of being, and constitutes it, there will be a power in it
generative of being. For every thing which produces, produces according
to its own power, which is allotted a subsistence between that which
produces and the things produced, and is of the one the progression and
as it were extension, but of the other is the pre-arranged generative
cause. For being which is produced from these, and which is not the
one itself, but uniform, possesses its progression indeed from
the one, through the power which produces and unfolds it into
light from the one; but its occult union from the hyparxis of
the one. This one therefore which subsists prior to power,
and first presubsists from the imparticipable and unknown cause of
the whole of things, Socrates in the Philebus calls bound,
but he denominates the power of it which is generative of being,
infinity. But he thus speaks in that dialogue, “God we said has
exhibited the bound, and also the infinite of beings.”
The first therefore and unical God, is without any addition denominated
by him God; because each of the second Gods is participated by being,
and has being suspended from its nature. But the first indeed, as
being exempt[175] from the whole of beings, is God, defined according
to the ineffable itself, the unical alone, and superessential. But
the bound and the infinite of beings, unfold into light that unknown
and imparticipable cause; bound indeed, being the cause of stable,
uniform, and connective deity; but the infinite being the cause of
power proceeding to all things and capable of being multiplied, and in
short, being the leader of every generative distribution. For all union
and wholeness, and communion of beings, and all the divine measures,
are suspended[176] from the first bound. But all division, prolific
production, and progression into multitude, derive their subsistence
from this most principal infinity. Hence, when we say that each of
the divine orders abides[177] and at the same time proceeds, we must
confess that it stably abides indeed, according to bound, but proceeds
according to infinity, and that at one and the same time it has unity
and multitude, and we must suspend the former from the principle of
bound, but the latter from that of infinity. And in short, of all
the opposition in the divine genera, we must refer that which is the
more excellent to bound, but that which is subordinate to infinity.
For from these two principles all things have their progression into
being, even as far as to the last of things. For eternity itself
participates at once of bound and infinity; so far indeed, as it is
the intelligible measure, it participates of bound; but so far as it
is the cause of a never-failing power of existing, it participates of
infinity. And intellect, so far indeed as it is uniform, and whole,
and so far as it is connective of paradigmatical measures, so far it
is the progeny of bound. But again, so far as it produces all things
eternally, and subsists conformably to the whole of eternity, supplying
all things with existence at once, and always possessing its own power
undiminished, so far it is the progeny of infinity. And soul indeed, in
consequence of measuring its own life, by restitutions and periods, and
introducing a boundary to its own motions, is referred to the cause of
bound; but in consequence of having no cessation of motions, but making
the end of one period the beginning of the whole of a second vital
circulation, it is referred to the order of infinity. The whole of this
heaven also, according to the wholeness of itself, its connexion, the
order of its periods, and the measures of its restitutions, is bounded.
But according to its prolific powers, its various evolutions, and the
never-failing revolutions of its orbs, it participates of infinity.
Moreover, the whole of generation, in consequence of all its forms
being bounded, and always permanent after the same manner, and in
consequence of its own circle which imitates the celestial circulation,
is similar to bound. But again, in consequence of the variety of the
particulars of which it consists, their unceasing mutation, and the
intervention of the more and the less in the participations of forms,
it is the image of infinity. And in addition to these things, every
natural production, according to its form indeed, is similar to
bound, but according to its matter, resembles infinity. For these are
suspended in the last place[178] from the two principles posterior
to the one, and as far as to these the progression of their
productive power extends. Each of these also is one, but form is
the measure and boundary of matter, and is in a greater degree one.
Matter however is all things in capacity, so far as it derives its
subsistence from the first power. There, however, power is generative
of all things. But the power of matter is imperfect, and is indigent
of the hypostasis which is generative[179] of all things according to
energy. Very properly therefore is it said by Socrates that all beings
are from bound and infinity, and that these two intelligible principles
primarily derive their subsistence from God. For that which congregates
both of them, and perfects them, and unfolds itself into light through
all beings is the one prior to the duad. And union indeed is
derived to all things through that which is first; but the division of
the two orders of things is generated from these primary causes, and
through these is extended to the unknown and ineffable principle. Let
it therefore be manifest through these things, what the two principles
of beings are, which become proximately apparent from the one,
according to the theology of Plato.
CHAPTER IX.
In the next place let us show what the third[180] thing is which
presents itself to the view from these principles. It is every where
therefore called that which is mixed, as deriving its subsistence
from bound and infinity. But if bound is the bound of beings, and the
infinite is the infinite of beings, and beings are the things which
have a subsistence from both these, as Socrates himself clearly
teaches us, it is evident that the first of things mingled, is the
first of beings. This, however, is nothing else than that which is
highest in beings, which is being itself, and nothing else than being.
My meaning is, that this is evident through those things by which we
demonstrate that what is primarily being, is comprehensive of all
things intelligibly, and of life and intellect. For we say that life
is triadic vitally, and intellect intellectually; and also that these
three things being life and intellect are every where. But all things
presubsist primarily and essentially in being. For there essence, life
and intellect subsist, and the summit of beings. Life however is the
middle centre of being, which is denominated and is intelligible life.
But intellect is the boundary of being, and is intelligible intellect.
For in the intelligible there is intellect, and in intellect the
intelligible. There however intellect subsists intelligibly, but in
intellect, the intelligible subsists intellectually.
And essence indeed is that which is stable in being, and which is woven
together with the first principles, and does not depart from the
one. But life is that which proceeds from the principles, and is
connascent with infinite power. And intellect is that which converts
itself to the principles, conjoins the end with the beginning, and
produces one intelligible circle. The first of beings therefore is that
which is mingled from the first principles, and is triple, one thing
which it contains subsisting in it essentially, another vitally, and
another intellectually, but all things presubsisting in it essentially.
I mean however by the first of beings essence. For essence itself is
the summit of all beings, and is as it were the monad of the whole
of things. In all things therefore, essence is the first. And in
each thing that which is essential is the most ancient, as deriving
its subsistence from the Vesta of beings. For the intelligible is
especially this. Since intellect indeed is that which is gnostic, life
is intelligence, and being is intelligible. If however every being is
mingled, but essence is being itself, prior to all other things essence
is that which subsists as mingled from the two principles proceeding
from the one. Hence Socrates indicating how the mode of
generation in the two principles differs from that of the mixture says,
“that God has exhibited bound and infinity.” For they are unities
deriving their subsistence from the one, and as it were luminous
patefactions from the imparticipable and first union. But with respect
to producing a mixture, and mingling through the first principles,
by how much to make is subordinate to the unfolding into
light, and generation to patefaction, by so much
is that which is mixed allotted a progression from the one,
inferior to that of the two principles.
That which is mixed therefore, is intelligible essence, and subsists
primarily from [the first] God, from whom infinity also and bound are
derived. But it subsists secondarily from the principles posterior to
the unical God, I mean from bound and infinity. For the fourth cause
which is effective of the mixture is again God himself; since if any
other cause should be admitted besides this, there will no longer be a
fourth cause, but a fifth will be introduced. For the first cause was
God, who unfolds into light the two principles. But after him are the
two principles bound and infinity. And the mixture is the fourth thing.
If therefore the cause of the mixture is different from the first
divine cause, this cause will be the fifth and not the fourth thing,
as Socrates says it is. Farther still, in addition to these things,
if we say that God is especially the supplier of union to beings, and
the mixture itself of the principles is a union into the hypostasis of
being, God is also certainly the cause of this primarily. Moreover,
Socrates in the Republic clearly evinces that the good is the
cause of being and essence to intelligibles, in the same manner as
the sun is to visible natures. Is it not therefore necessary, if that
which is mixed is primarily being, to refer it to the first God, and to
say that it receives its progression from him? If also the demiurgus
in the Timæus, constitutes the essence of the soul itself by itself
from an impartible and a partible essence, which is the same thing as
to constitute it from bound and infinity; for the soul according to
bound is similar to the impartible, but according to infinity, to the
partible essence;—if therefore the demiurgus mingles the essence of
the soul from these, and again separately, from same and different,
and if from these being now preexistent, he constitutes the whole
soul, must we not much more say that the first God is the cause of the
first essence? That which is mixed therefore, proceeds, as we have
said, from the first God, and does not subsist from the principles
alone posterior to the one, but proceeds also from these, and
is triadic. And in the first place indeed, it participates from God
of ineffable union, and the whole of its subsistence. But from bound,
it receives hyparxis, and the uniform, and a stable peculiarity. And
from infinity, it receives power, and the occult power which is in
itself, of all things. For in short, since it is one and not one, the
one is inherent in it according to bound, but the non-one according to
infinity. The mixture however of both these, and its wholeness, are
derived from the first God. That which is mixed therefore, is a monad,
because it participates of the one; and it is biformed, so far
as it proceeds from the two principles; but it is a triad, so far as in
every mixture, these three things are necessary according to Socrates,
viz. beauty, truth, and symmetry. Concerning these things however, we
shall speak again.
In what manner, however, essence is that which is first mixed, we shall
now explain. For this is of all things the most difficult to discover,
viz. what that is which is primarily being, as the Elean guest also
somewhere says; for it is most dubious how being is not less than
non-being. In what manner therefore essence subsists from bound and
infinity must be shown. For if bound and infinity are superessential,
essence may appear to have its subsistence from non-essences. How
therefore can non-essences produce essence? Or is not this the
case in all other things which subsist through the mixture of each
other? For that which is produced from things mingled together, is
not the same with things that are not mingled. For neither is soul
the same with the genera, from which, being mingled together, the
father generated it, nor is a happy life the same with the life which
is according to intellect, or with the life which is according to
pleasure, nor is the one in bodies the same with its elements.
Hence it is not wonderful, if that which is primarily being, though
it is neither bound nor infinity, subsists from both these, and is
mixed, superessential natures themselves not being assumed in the
mixture of it, but secondary progressions from them coalescing into
the subsistence of essence. Thus therefore being consists of these,
as participating of both, possessing indeed the uniform from bound,
but the generative, and in short, occult multitude from infinity.
For it is all things occultly, and on this account, is the cause of
all beings; which also the Elean guest indicating to us, calls being
the first power, as subsisting according to the participation of the
first power, and participating of hyparxis from bound, and of power
from infinity. Afterwards however, the Elean guest defines being to
be power, as prolific and generative of all things, and as being all
things uniformly. For power is every where the cause of prolific
progressions, and of all multitude; occult power indeed being the cause
of occult multitude; but the power which exists in energy, and which
unfolds itself into light, being the cause of all-perfect multitude.
Through this cause therefore, I think, that every being, and every
essence has connascent powers. For it participates of infinity, and
derives its hyparxis indeed from bound, but its power from infinity.
And being is nothing else than a monad of many powers, and a multiplied
hyparxis, and on this account being is one many. The many however
subsist occultly and without separation in the first natures; but with
separation in secondary natures. For by how much being is nearer to
the one, by so much the more does it conceal multitude, and is
defined according to union alone. It appears to me also that Plotinus
and his followers, frequently indicating these things, produce being
from form and intelligible matter, arranging form[181] as analogous
to the one, and to hyparxis, but power as analogous to matter.
And if indeed they say this, they speak rightly. But if they ascribe a
certain formless and indefinite nature to an intelligible essence, they
appear to me to wander from the conceptions of Plato on this subject.
For the infinite is not the matter of bound, but the power of it, nor
is bound the form of the infinite, but the hyparxis of it. But being
consists of both these, as not only standing in the one, but
receiving a multitude of unities and powers which are mingled into one
essence.
CHAPTER X.
That therefore which is primarily being is through these things
denominated by Plato that which is mixed. And through the similitude
of it, generation also is mingled from bound and infinity. And the
infinite indeed in this is imperfect power; but the bound in it is form
and the morphe of this power. On this account we establish this
power to be matter, not possessing existence in energy, and requiring
to be bounded by something else. We no longer however say that it is
lawful to call the power of being matter, since it is generative of
energies, produces all beings from itself, and is prolific of the
perfect powers in beings. For the power of matter being imperfect
dissimilarly imitates the power of being; and becoming multitude in
capacity, it expresses the parturition of multitude in the power of
being.[182] Moreover, the form of matter imitates ultimately bound,
since it gives limits to matter, and terminates its infinity. But it is
multiplied and divided about it. It is also mingled with the privation
of matter, and represents the supreme union of the hyparxis of being,
by its essence always advancing to existence, and always tending to
decay. For those things which subsist in the first natures according
to transcendency, are in such as are last according to deficiency. For
that also which is primarily being is mixed, is exempt from the bound
of infinite life, and is the cause of it. But that which consists of
the last[183] of forms and the first matter, is in its own nature
void of life; since it possesses life in capacity. For there indeed
generative causes subsist prior to their progeny, and things perfect
prior to such as are imperfect. But here things in capacity are prior
to such as are in energy, and concauses are subject to the things
which are produced from them. This however, I think, happens naturally,
because the gifts of the first principles pervade as far as to the
last of things, and not only generate more perfect natures, but also
such as have a more imperfect subsistence. And on this account that
which is mixed is the cause of generation, and of the nature which is
mingled here. The bound and infinity however, which are prior to being,
are not only the causes of this nature, but also of the elements of
it, of which that which is mixed is not the cause, so far as it is
mixed. For bound and infinity are twofold. And one kind of these is
exempt from the things mingled, but another kind is assumed to the
completion of the mixture. For I think it is every where necessary
that prior to things that are mingled, there should be such as are
unmingled, prior to things imperfect, such as are perfect, prior to
parts, wholes, and prior to things that are in others, such as are in
themselves; and this Socrates persuades us to admit not in one thing
only, but also in beauty and symmetry, and in all forms. If therefore
the second and third genera of being and forms subsist prior to their
participants, how can we assert that bound and infinity which pervade
through all beings have their first subsistence as things mingled? It
must be admitted therefore, that they are unmingled and separate from
being, and that being is derived from them, and at the same time
consists of them. It is derived from them indeed, because
they have a prior subsistence; but it consists of them, because
they subsist in being according to a second progression.
The genera of being also are twofold; some of them indeed being
fabricative of beings, but others existing as the elements of the
nature of each being. For some of them indeed presubsist themselves
by themselves, as possessing a productive power; but others being
generated from these, constitute each particular being. Let no one
therefore any longer wonder, how Socrates indeed in the Philebus
establishes that which is mingled, prior to bound and infinity, but we
on the contrary evince that bound and infinity are exempt from that
which is mixed. For each is twofold, and the one indeed is prior to
being, but the other is in being; and the one is generative, but the
other is the element of the mixture. Of this kind also, are the bound
and infinity of the mixed life, each being the element of the whole of
felicity. Hence also each is indigent of each. And neither is intellect
by itself desirable, nor perfect pleasure. It is necessary however,
that the good should consist of all these, viz. of the desirable, the
sufficient, and the perfect. Bound itself therefore and infinity, which
are separate, subsist according to cause prior to that which is mixed.
But the bound and infinity which are mixed are more imperfect than the
mixture. Hence, from what has been said, it is evident what the things
are of which the mixture consists.
CHAPTER XI.
In the next place, we must speak of the triad, which is consubsistent
with this mixture. For every mixture, if it is rightly made, as
Socrates says, requires these three things, beauty, truth, and
symmetry. For neither will any thing base, if it is introduced into
the mixture, impart rectitude, since it will be the cause of error,
and of inordinate prerogative, nor if truth is at any time separated,
will it suffer the mixture to consist of things that are pure, and
which are in reality subdued, but it will fill the whole with an image
and with non-being. Nor without symmetry will there be a communion
of the elements, and an elegant association. Symmetry, therefore,
is necessary to the union of the things that are mingled, and to an
appropriate communion. But truth is necessary to purity. And beauty to
order; which also renders the whole lovely. For when each thing in the
mixture has a place adapted to itself, it renders both the elements,
and the arrangement resulting from them, beautiful. Here therefore, in
the first mixture, these three things are apparent, symmetry, truth,
and beauty. And symmetry indeed is the cause to the mixture, that being
is one; truth is the cause of the reality of its existence; and beauty
is the cause of its being intelligible. Hence it is intelligible and
truly being. That also which is primarily being is more uniform, and
intellect is conjoined to it, according to its familiarity with the
beautiful. But each participates of existence, because it is being
derived from being. That which is mixed however, is supreme among
beings, because it is united to the good. And it appears to me,
that the divine Iamblichus perceiving these three causes of being,
defines the intelligible in these three, viz. in symmetry, truth, and
beauty, and unfolds the intelligible Gods through these in the Platonic
theology. In what manner indeed, the intelligible breadth consists
of these, will be most evident as we proceed. Now however, from what
has been said, it is perfectly manifest why Socrates says that this
triad is found to be in the vestibules of the good. For that which
is primarily being participates of this triad through its union with
the good. For because indeed the good is the measure of
all beings, the first being becomes itself commensurate. Because the
former is prior to being, the latter subsists truly and really. And
because the former is good and desirable, the latter presents itself
to the view as the beautiful itself. Here therefore, the first beauty
also subsists; and on this account the one is not only the cause
of good, but likewise of beauty, as Plato says in his Epistles. Beauty
however subsists here occultly, since this order comprehends all things
uniformly, in consequence of subsisting primarily from the principles
[bound and infinity]. But where and how beauty is unfolded into light,
we shall shortly explain.
CHAPTER XII.
Such therefore, is the first triad of intelligibles, according to
Socrates in the Philebus, viz. bound, infinite, and that which is
mixed from these. And of these, bound indeed is a God proceeding
to the intelligible summit, from the imparticipable and first God,
measuring and defining all things, and giving subsistence to every
paternal, connective, and undefiled genus of Gods. But infinite is
the never-failing power of this God, unfolding into light all the
generative orders, and all infinity, both that which is prior to
essence, and that which is essential, and also that which proceeds as
far as to the last matter. And that which is mixed, is the first and
highest order of the Gods, comprehending all things occultly, deriving
its completion indeed through the intelligible connective triad, but
unically comprehending the cause of every being, and establishing its
summit in the first intelligibles, exempt from the whole of things.
CHAPTER XIII.
After this first triad subsisting from, and conjoined with the
one, we shall celebrate the second, proceeding from this, and
deriving its completion through things analogous[184] to the triad
prior to it. For in this also it is necessary that being should
participate, and that the one should be participated, and
likewise that this one which is secondarily one, should be generative
of that which is secondarily being. For every where participated deity
constitutes about itself that which participates it. Thus whole souls
render bodies consubsistent with their causes: and partial souls
generate, in conjunction with the Gods, irrational souls. Much more
therefore, do the Gods produce in conjunction with the one all
things. Hence, as the first of the unities generates the summit of
being, so likewise the middle unity constitutes the middle being. But
every thing which generates, and every thing which makes or produces,
possesses a power prolific of the things produced, according to which
it produces, corroborates and connects its progeny. Again therefore,
there will be a second triad unfolded into light analogously to the
first. And one thing indeed, is the summit of it, which we call one,
deity, and hyparxis. But another thing is the middle of it, which we
call power. And another thing is the extremity of it, which we say is
that which is secondarily being. This however is intelligible life. For
all things are in the intelligible, as was before demonstrated, viz.
to be, to live, and to energize intellectually. And the summit indeed,
of the intelligible order, is all things according to cause, and as we
have frequently said, occultly. But the middle of it, causes multitude
to shine forth, and proceeds from the union of being into manifest
light. And the extremity of it, is now all intelligible multitude, and
the order of intelligible forms. For forms have their subsistence at
the extremity of the intelligible order. For it is necessary that forms
should subsist first and become apparent in intellect. If therefore,
being abides exemptly in the first mixture, but now proceeds, and is
generated dyadically from the monad, there will be motion about it;
and if there is motion, it is also necessary that there should be
intelligible life. For every where motion is a certain life, since
some one calls even the motion of material bodies life. That which is
first therefore, in this second triad, may be called bound; that which
is second in it, infinity; and that which is the third, life. For the
second triad also is a God, possessing prolific power, and unfolding
into light from, and about itself, that which is secondarily being.
Here however also, the triad is analogous to the first triad.
But again, it is necessary to comprehend by reasoning the peculiarity
of this triad. For the first triad being all things, but intelligibly
and unically, and as I may say, speaking Platonically, according
to the form of bound, the second triad is indeed all things, but
vitally, and as I may say, following the philosopher, according to
the form of infinity, just as the third triad proceeds according to
the peculiarity of that which is mixed. For as in the progression
according to breadth, that which is mixed presents itself to the view
as the third, so likewise in the progression according to depth of
intelligibles, the third has the order of that which is mixed with
reference to the superior triads. The middle triad therefore, is
indeed all things, but is characterized by intelligible infinity. For
the three principles after the first, orderly distribute for us the
intelligible genus of the Gods. For bound indeed, unfolds into light
the first triad; but infinity the second; and that which is mixed, the
third. It is infinite power therefore, according to which the second
triad is characterized. For being the middle, it subsists according
to the middle of the first triad, being all things from all. For in
each triad, there is bound, infinity, and that which is mixed. But
the peculiarity of the monads being respectively different, evolves
the intelligible order of the Gods. The middle triad however, thus
subsisting, but I say thus, because it consists of all the things of
which the triad prior to it consists, yet it contains and connects the
middle of intelligibles according to infinite power, and is filled
indeed from a more elevated union, but fills the union posterior to
itself with the powers of being. And it is measured indeed, from
thence uniformly, but measures the third triad by the power of itself.
And it abides indeed, in the first triad stably, but it establishes
in itself the triad which is next in order. And in short, it binds
to itself the intelligible centre, and establishes one intelligible
coherence; causing indeed that which is occult and possesses the form
of the one in the first triad, to shine forth; but collecting
the intelligible multitude of the third triad, and comprehending it on
all sides. The being however, which gives completion to this triad is
mixed, in the same manner as the being of the triad prior to it, and
receives the peculiarity of life. For the infinity in this generates
life.
It is likewise necessary that this triad should participate of the
three things, symmetry, truth, and beauty. That which is primarily
being however, principally subsists according to symmetry, which
unites it, and conjoins it to the good. But the second triad,
principally subsists according to truth. For because it participates
of that which is primarily being, it is being, and truly
being. And the third triad principally subsists according to the
beautiful. For there intelligible multitude, order and beauty, first
shine forth to the view. Hence this being is the most beautiful of
all intelligibles. This however will be discussed hereafter. As there
is a triad therefore, in each of the mixtures, the first indeed,
symmetry especially comprehends and connects; the second truth, and
the third beauty. And this induced the divine Iamblichus to say, that
Plato in these three defines the whole of the intelligible [order].
For all are in each, but one of these predominates more in one of
the intelligible monads than in another. Moreover, the third triad
presents itself to the view after this. For it is necessary that the
extremity of being should also be deified, and should participate of
an intelligible unity. For beings are not more in number than the
unities, as Parmenides says, nor are the unities more numerous than
beings; but each progression of being participates of the one;
since this universe also, according to each part of itself, is governed
by soul and intellect. By a much greater priority therefore, must the
intelligible in its first, middle, and last hypostases, participate of
the intelligible Gods.
CHAPTER XIV.
As the first unity therefore, after the exempt cause of all things,
unfolds into light intelligible being, and the second unity,
intelligible life, thus also the third constitutes about itself,
intelligible intellect, and fills it with divine union, constituting
power as the medium between itself and being, through which it gives
completion to this being, and converts it to itself. In this therefore,
every intelligible multitude shines forth to the view. For the whole
of this being is intelligible intellect, life, and essence. And it is
neither all things according to cause, in the same manner as that which
is primarily being, nor does it cause all things to shine forth, as the
second being does, but it is as it were all things according to energy,
and openly. Hence also, it is the boundary of all intelligibles.
For since the progression of beings is accomplished according to
similitude, the first being is most similar to the one; the
second, is parturient with multitude, and is the origin of separation;
but the third, is now all-perfect, and unfolds into light in itself,
intelligible multitude and form.
Farther still, as the first triad abides occultly in bound, and fixes
in itself every thing that is stable in intelligibles; but the second
abides and at the same time proceeds; so the third, after progression
converts the intelligible end to the beginning, and convolves the
order to itself. For it is every where the province of intellect to
convert and converge to the intelligible. All these likewise are
uniform [i.e. have the form of one] and intelligible, viz. the abiding,
the proceeding, and the returning. For each of these is not asserted
after the same manner in intelligibles. And the intelligible genus of
Gods[185] is unical, simple, and occult, conjoining itself to the
one itself which is prior to beings; and unfolds[186] into light
nothing else than the transcendency of the one. For these
three triads, mystically announce that unknown cause the first and
perfectly imparticipable God. The first of them indeed, announcing his
ineffable union; the second his transcendency, by which he surpasses
all powers; and the third, his all-perfect generation of beings. For
as they are able to comprehend the principle which surpasses both
the union and the powers of all beings, so they exhibit to secondary
natures, his[187] admirable transcendency; receiving indeed separately
the unical power and dominion of the first God; but unfolding into
light intelligibly the cause which is prior to intelligibles. For these
Gods though they are allotted a simplicity which is equally exempt
from all the divine orders, yet they fall short of the union of the
father. Of this triad therefore, which converts all intelligibles to
the first principle, and convolves the multitude apparent in itself
to the stable union of the whole of things, one thing is bound, and
unity and hyparxis; another, is infinity and power; and another is
that which is mixed, essence, life, and intelligible intellect. But
the whole triad subsists according to being, and is the intellect of
the first triad. For the first triad is an intelligible God primarily.
But the triad posterior to it is an intelligible and intellectual God.
And the third triad is an intellectual God. These three deities also,
and triadic monads, give completion to the intelligible genera. For
they are monads according to their deities; since all other things are
suspended from the Gods, and also powers and beings. But they are
triads according to a separate division. For bound, infinity, and that
which is mixed, have a threefold subsistence; but in one place indeed,
all things are according to bound; in another, all things are according
to infinity; and in another, all things are according to that which is
mixed. And in one place, that which is mixed is essence; in another,
it is intelligible life; and in another, intelligible intellect. In
this last therefore, forms subsist primarily. For the separation of
intelligibles, unfolds the order of forms; because form is being, but
is not simply being. Hence that which is primarily being, is being
itself, and is that which is being. But that which is the second being,
is power, proceeding indeed from the first being, and existing as it
were a duad generative of the multitude of beings, but not yet being
multitude. And that which is the third being, is itself the multitude
of beings; being there existing with separation. For being is the
exempt cause of those things which forms constitute divisibly. And of
the things of which being is productive collectively, of these, forms
are the cause in a way attended with separation. Because forms indeed,
are causes productive of separation in their effects, and also because
forms are called the paradigms of beings. Being however, is the cause
of all things posterior to itself, but is not the paradigm of them. For
paradigms are the causes of things which are separated according to
existence, and which have different characters of essence. After the
one therefore which is prior to beings, that which is one-many
occultly, and the united subsists. On this account, it is that which
is divided into multitude, and which tends from the uniform to the
splendid. But the last of intelligibles, is that from which a certain
distribution into parts originates, and which is comprehensive of
intelligible multitude.
CHAPTER XV.
Socrates therefore, in the Philebus, affords us such like auxiliaries
to the theory of the intelligible triads. It is requisite however,
not only to abide in these conceptions, but also to demonstrate the
theology of Plato about these triads from other dialogues, and from
them to point out one truth adapted to the things themselves. We shall
assume therefore, what is written in the Timæus, and shall follow our
leader [Syrianus] who has unfolded to us the arcane mysteries of these
triads, and conjoin with the end of what has been said the beginning of
the following discussion. In the Timæus therefore, Plato investigating
what the paradigm of the whole world is, discovers that it is
comprehensive of all intelligible animals, that it is all-perfect, that
it is the most beautiful of intelligibles, that it is only-begotten,
and that it is the intelligible of the demiurgus. He likewise
denominates it animal itself, as being the intelligible paradigm of
every animal, and of that which is the object of sense. Hence it is
necessary that this animal itself, because it is all-perfect, and
the most beautiful of intelligibles, should be established in the
intelligible orders. For though there is intelligible animal in the
demiurgus, yet it is rather intellectual than intelligible, and is
not the most beautiful of all intelligibles, but is second to them
in beauty and power. For primary beauty is in the intelligible Gods.
In the demiurgus also, there are not only four forms of the things
contained in the world, but there is all the multitude of forms. For in
him the paradigms of individual forms presubsist. But animal itself is
totally constitutive of all animals by the intelligible tetrad.
The demiurgus likewise is not like animal itself only-begotten among
beings, but subsists in conjunction with the vivific cause, together
with which he constitutes the second genera of being, mingling them in
the crater or bowl, in order to the generation of souls. For of the
things of which intelligible animal is effective and at the same time
generative, of these the demiurgus is allotted the cause in a divided
manner, in conjunction with the crater. Hence, as I have said, animal
itself is exempt from the demiurgus, and is, as Timæus every where
denominates it, intelligible.
Nevertheless, because forms are first separated in it, and because
it is all-perfect, it subsists in the third order of intelligibles.
For neither that which is primarily, nor that which is secondarily
being,[188] is all-perfect. For the former is beyond all separation;
but the latter generates indeed, and is parturient with intelligibles,
but is not yet the multitude of beings. If therefore neither of these
is multitude, how can either of them be all-perfect multitude? If
however all-perfect multitude shines forth in the third triad of
intelligibles, as was a little before demonstrated, but animal itself
is the first paradigm (for it is comprehensive of all intelligible
animals, is an only-begotten paradigm, and is not conjoined with
any other principle) it is necessary that animal itself should be
established according to this order. For either there will not be an
intelligible paradigm, (and in this case, how will sensibles be images
of intelligibles? or how will the intelligible Gods be the fathers of
the whole of things?) or if there is, it is the third in intelligibles.
For the natures which are prior to the triad in intelligibles, are not
all-perfect; since they are exempt from the division into multitude.
But the natures posterior to it are not only-begotten. For they proceed
together with others; the male indeed, with the female, and those
that are of a demiurgic together with those that are of a generative
characteristic. Nor are they the most beautiful of intelligibles; for
beauty is in the intelligible. But animal itself is all-perfect, and at
the same time only begotten. The first paradigm of beings therefore,
is arranged in the third triad of intelligibles. Moreover, animal
itself is eternal, as Timæus himself says. For says he, “the nature of
animal is eternal.” And again, in another place he asserts, “that the
paradigm is through all eternity being.” If therefore it is eternal, it
participates of eternity. And if that which participates is every where
secondary to that which is participated, animal itself is secondary to
eternity. And if it is through all eternity being, it is filled with
the whole power of eternity. If this however be the case, it subsists
proximately after eternity. For that which enjoys the whole of causes,
is arranged proximately after them.
CHAPTER XVI.
Moreover, if eternity has the same ratio to intelligible animal, which
time has to that which is sensible, but the universe proximately
participates of time (for time was generated together with the
universe) it is certainly necessary that animal itself should
primarily participate of eternity. Eternity therefore is beyond the
first paradigm. For eternity indeed measures the existence of animal
itself: but animal itself is measured and filled with perpetuity
from it. To which may be added, that we assert eternity to be the
cause of immortality to all things. Hence eternity is that which is
primarily immortal. For as that which is primarily being is the cause
of existence to all things, but that which is effective of form is
itself prior to other forms, so that which is the cause of perpetuity
and immortality, is itself primarily immortal. The dæmoniacal Aristotle
also rightly calls eternity immortal and divine, and that from whence
the existence and life of all things are suspended. If however it is
that which is primarily immortal, and not according to participation,
but is as it were immortality and perpetuity, it will be life,
possessing from itself the ever, and exuberantly scattering the power
of perpetuity, and extending it to other things, so far as each is
naturally adapted to receive it. For the immortal is in life, and
subsists together with life. Hence Socrates in the Phædo,[189] after
many and beautiful demonstrations of the psychical immortality, says,
“God therefore, my dear Cebes, and the form itself of life, are much
more immortal.” Hence, intelligible life, and the God who is connective
of this life, primarily possess the immortal, and are the fountain of
the whole of perpetuity. But this is eternity. Eternity therefore has
its subsistence in life, and will be established in the middle of the
intelligible order.
Farther still, it is necessary to assert that intelligible eternity is
one of these three things, viz. that it subsists either according to
being, or according to life, or according to intelligible intellect.
But being, as the Elean guest says, according to its own nature,
neither stands still, nor is moved. For if being is being to all
things, and essence is a thing of this kind, much more must this be
the case with intelligible essence and that which is primarily being.
For they are nothing else than essence only. But being unfolds motion
and permanency, and the other genera of beings, in the second and
third progressions of itself. The first being therefore, as we have
said, is at one and the same time exempt from motion and permanency.
But eternity according to Timæus abides in one. Hence also
time imitates in its motion the intelligible permanency of eternity.
Eternity therefore does not subsist according to that which is
primarily being, nor yet according to intelligible intellect.[190] For
neither is soul time, which is moved through the whole of time. And
in short, in divine beings, that which is participated is every where
established above that which participates. But the eternal participates
of eternity, just as that which is temporal participates of time.
Eternity therefore is prior to intelligible intellect, and posterior
to being; so that it is established in the middle of the intelligible
breadth. And as animal itself is eternal, so likewise eternity is that
which is always being. For as animal itself participates of eternity,
so eternity participates of being, and is the cause of existence, of
perpetual life, and intellection, and measures the essences, powers and
energies of all things.
CHAPTER XVII.
Since, however, eternity subsists according to the middle centre of
intelligibles, and animal itself according to the extremity of them,
and the most splendid of that which is intelligible, what is that which
is the first of intelligibles, and how is it denominated by Timæus? He
says therefore of eternity, that while it abides in one, time proceeds
according to number; and that by motion it adumbrates the permanency of
eternity, but by number, its stable union. What therefore is that one,
in which Timæus says eternity abides? For it is necessary either to say
that it is the one of eternity, or the one which transcends all
intelligibles, or the one of the first triad. But if indeed, we say
that it is the imparticipable one, how is it possible that any thing
can abide in that which is exempt from all things; and which neither
admits the habitude nor communion of secondary natures with itself? For
every thing which abides in any thing, is in a certain respect on all
sides comprehended by that in which we say it abides. It is however
perfectly impossible that the first one should either comprehend any
being, or be coarranged with beings. But if any one should suppose
that it is the one of eternity, in which Timæus says eternity abides,
in this case, eternity will be in itself. It is necessary however,
that it should abide in itself, by having its subsistence in abiding
in that which is prior to itself. For to abide in that which is prior
to, is better than the establishment of things in themselves, in the
same manner as it is more perfect than the collocation of better in
less excellent natures. If therefore eternity abides in itself, to what
shall we primarily assign permanency in that which is prior to itself?
For it is necessary that this being more divine, should have its
generation prior to that which is inferior to it. If therefore eternity
can neither abide in itself, nor in the one which is prior to
beings, it is evident that abiding in one according to Timæus, it is
established in the one of the first triad, or rather in the whole
of that triad. For, as we have before observed, the first triad is the
cause of stability to all beings, in the same manner as the middle
triad is the cause of their progression, and the third triad of their
conversion to their principle.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Again therefore, three orders of intelligibles present themselves to
our view, according to the doctrine of Timæus, viz. animal itself,
eternity, and the one. And through this one, and the firm establishment
in it, eternity has fixed the intelligible kingdom. But through
eternity, animal itself defines the boundary of the intelligible Gods,
according to a perpetual and invariable sameness. And animal itself
indeed, having proceeded tetradically, is suspended from the duad in
eternity. For eternity is the ever in conjunction with being.
But the duad in eternity participates of the intelligible monad,
which Timæus on this account denominates one, as being the monad and
principle of all the intelligible breadth. Since otherwise indeed, he
very properly calls the first triad one, in consequence of its being
especially characterized according to bound, denominating it from
bound. But he calls the middle triad dyadically, eternity, connecting
the names; because this triad is defined according to intelligible
power. And he denominates the third triad animal itself, transferring
the appellation to the whole of it, from the extremity of the triad.
The first triad therefore is the union of all the intelligibles, being
in a certain respect coordinated with them. For the union is different
from this which is exempt from intelligibles and imparticipable. It
is also the supplier of stable power. For all things are established
on account of it. But eternity is primary being, and is that which is
primarily established. Hence, with respect to the permanency of the
whole of things, we say that the first triad is that on account
of which this permanency is effected; but that the second triad
is that by which it is produced. For the firm establishment
of beings is indeed according to this second triad, but is
on account of the first. But the second triad is the proximate
measure of all beings, and is coordinated with the things that are
measured. There are also at one and the same time in it, bound and
infinity; bound indeed, so far as it measures intelligibles; but
infinity, so far as it is the cause of perpetuity, and the ever. For
according to the oracle, eternity is the cause of never-failing life,
of unwearied power, and unsluggish energy. Nevertheless, eternity is
more characterised by infinity [than by bound.] For it comprehends
in itself infinite time. And time indeed has bound and infinity in
a divided manner. For according to its continuity, it is infinite;
but according to the now it is bounded. For the now is a bound. But
eternity establishes bound and infinity in the same. For it is a unity
and power. And according to the one indeed, it is bound; but according
to power infinite; which time[191] also demonstrates as from images;
because the middle triad [of intelligibles] has bound, infinity, and
that which is mixed. For whence is the bound of time derived except
from eternal bound? For the temporal bound also is impartible, in the
same manner as the bound of eternity is one. For the impartible is
the image of the one. Whence likewise is the infinity of the
continuity of time derived except from the power of the infinite? For
the latter is a stable infinity, but the former an infinity which is
moved. And as the latter stands still according to the one,
so the former is moved according to number. Since whence is the
alliance of time with lives, except from the first principle [of life,
eternity?]. But time proceeds through all temporal life.
Again, therefore, from these things it is evident, that eternity
subsists according to the middle of the intelligible Gods. For here
there is infinite life, and the cause of all life, intellectual,
psychical, and that which subsists partibly in bodies. But eternity is
the father and supplier of infinite life; since eternity is also the
cause of all immortality and perpetuity. And Plotinus, exhibiting, in
a most divinely inspired manner, the peculiarity[192] of eternity,
according to the theology of Plato, defines it to be infinite life,
at once unfolding into light the whole of itself, and its own being.
For establishing its life in the intelligible centre, and through the
one indeed measuring its being, and fixing it in that which is prior
to itself, but through power causing it to be infinite, it unfolds
indeed the uniform transcendency of the first triad, but defines
the termination of the Gods, and extends from the middle on all
sides, and to all the intelligible breadth. Moreover the third triad
is filled indeed with intelligible life,[193] and on this account
is an intelligible animal, and the first animal. For it primarily
participates of the whole nature of this life; but unfolds into light
in itself the first of forms, to which also the demiurgic intellect
extending itself, constitutes the whole world, and is itself the
intelligible universe, and the apparent world the sensible universe.
Hence also, Plato denominates animal itself all-perfect. Or rather,
if you are willing we will speak thus: that in this third triad,
there are bound, infinity, and that which is mixed, which we have
called intelligible intellect. Hence the whole triad is denominated
only-begotten from the father which is in it. For the cause of bound
imparts that which is uncoordinated with other things, and an exempt
transcendency. For that which comprehends, says Timæus, all such
animals as are intelligible, will not be the second with any other;
since again, it would be requisite that there should be another
animal about it. Hence that which comprehends in one all intelligible
animals is a whole. But every where whole is referred[194] to bound,
and parts to infinity. So that if on this account animal itself is
only-begotten, it will possess this peculiarity according to bound.
But again, it is denominated eternal according to the power of it. For
this power especially pertains to that which is eternal. For eternity
is infinite power abiding in one, and proceeding stably. Animal itself,
however, is all-perfect according to intellect. For that which unfolds
in itself all the intelligible separation of being, is intelligible
intellect. And that intellect, according to the decision of Plato,
will be all-perfect, which comprehends all intelligibles, and defines
the boundary of the intelligible order. The only-begotten, therefore,
the eternal, the all-perfect, bound, infinity, and that which is mixed,
manifest the nature of intelligible animal. On this account, Timæus
also, in these three conclusions, reminds us of the paradigm, viz. in
the conclusion which shews that the universe is only-begotten, and
again, in the generation of time, and in the all-perfect comprehension
of all animals.
If likewise Timæus says, that animal itself is the most beautiful of
all intelligibles, and that this has the third order in intelligibles,
it will not be wonderful. For it has been before asserted by us, that
every where the cause of the best mixture is the triad symmetry,
truth, and beauty. But beauty principally shines forth in the third
progression of being, and exhibits its luminous nature together with
intelligible forms, just as truth shines forth in the second, and
symmetry in the first progression of being. If, however, truth is
indeed the first, beauty the second, and symmetry the third, it is by
no means wonderful, that according to order, truth and beauty should
be prior to symmetry; but that symmetry being more apparent in the
first triad than the other two, should shine forth as the third in
the secondary progressions. For these three subsist occultly in the
first triad. And truth indeed, so far as it is intelligible knowledge,
is in the second triad; but beauty so far as it is the form of forms
is in the third triad. For that this triad subsists there first, is
evident from this, that truth is primarily in that which is especially
being, prior to knowledge. But beauty, which pervades as far as to
the last of beings, is necessarily in the first being, from which the
last of beings are derived. And the first symmetry is in that which is
primarily mixed. For every mixture requires symmetry, in order that
what is produced from it may be one certain thing. Though these three
things, therefore, presubsist there, for we assume, as acknowledged
universally, that symmetry is there, and the most beautiful of
intelligible animals, as Timæus says, yet at present we shall dismiss
the further consideration of them, as we have elsewhere precedaneously
discussed them, and have especially endeavoured to enforce what we
conceive to be the opinion of Plato concerning their order. For we
have spoken of these things in a treatise consisting of one book, in
which we demonstrate that truth is coordinate to the philosopher,
beauty to the lover, and symmetry to the musician; and that such as is
the order of these lives, such also is the relation of truth, beauty,
and symmetry to each other.
Animal itself, therefore, may with the greatest justice, be called most
beautiful, so far as it is eminently contained in intelligible beauty.
For beauty is wont to be carried in forms, and is as it were the form
of forms, unfolding that which is occult in the good, causing
its loveliness to shine forth, and attracting to its own splendor the
desire which is concealed about it. And to the good indeed,
all things possess a silent and arcane tendency; but we are excited
to the beautiful with astonishment and motion. For the illumination
from it, and its efficacy, acutely pervade through every soul, and as
being the most similar of all things to the good, it converts
every soul that surveys it. The soul also, beholding that which is
arcane shining forth as it were to the view, rejoices in, and admires
that which it sees, and is astonished about it. And as in the most
holy of the mysteries, prior to the mystic spectacles, those that
are initiated, are seized with astonishment, so in intelligibles
prior to the participation of the good, beauty shining forth,
astonishes those that behold it, converts the soul to itself, and
being established in the vestibules [of the good] shows what
that is which is in the adyta, and what the transcendency is of occult
good. Through these things therefore, let it be apparent whence beauty
originates, and how it first shines forth; and also that animal itself
is the most beautiful of all intelligibles.
CHAPTER XIX.
Since, however, Timæus says that the primary and intelligible paradigms
have their subsistence in intelligible animal, and that all these
are four, unfolding themselves first into light, according to the
all-perfect tetrad,—this being the case, in the first place it
deserves to be considered, that as species or forms present
themselves to the view in the intelligible, it is necessary by a much
greater priority, that the genera of beings should pre-subsist
in intelligibles. For it is not possible to admit that forms are
intelligible, but that genera are intellectual only. But as forms exist
intelligibly indeed, according to their first subsistence, but the
pleroma, or plenitude of them shines forth in the intellectual[195]
gods, and divides that which is total into more partial decrements,
produces the uniform into multitude, and expands that which is exempt
into coordinate causes, thus also the genera of being are occultly and
indivisibly in intelligibles, but are accompanied with separation in
intellectuals. And on this account the first triad indeed has essence
for that which is mixed; but the second has life, where there was
motion and permanency, life both abiding and proceeding; and in the
third there are sameness and difference. For the all-perfect multitude
indeed, is through intelligible difference, but the united and that
which is comprehensive in common of parts according to genera, and
according to one, is through intelligible sameness. And all these
subsist intelligibly, essentially, and uniformly in these triads.
In the first place therefore, this deserves to be inferred by those
who love to survey the nature of things, and it is also fit that
they should attribute coordinate genera to intelligible forms.
For it neither was nor will be lawful for genera to shine forth
secondarily[196] after forms. Hence much more must it be admitted that
genera subsist in the intelligible after the above-mentioned manner,
by those who admit that there are intelligible forms. In the next
place, in addition to these things we must survey how this tetrad of
forms subsists, and how it shines forth in intelligible intellect
analogous to the principles. For it is divided into a monad and triad.
For so far as the idea of the celestial gods is arranged prior to the
others, it is defined according to a divine cause. It appears however
to me that intelligible intellect returning to the principles of the
whole of things, according to the conversion of itself, it becomes the
plenitude of forms, and is all things intellectually and at the same
time intelligibly, comprehending in itself the causes of beings, and
being full of the ineffable and exempt cause of all things, constitutes
the monad of the gods; whence also, Plato I think calls it the idea of
the gods. But receiving the intellectual causes of the three principles
posterior to the one, it exhibits three ideas after this, one of
them indeed, being the cause of air-wandering and volant animals, this
cause proceeding analogous to bound. Hence also it constitutes gods
that are uniform, elevating, undefiled, united to the celestial gods,
and which receive measures second in dignity to theirs, and have the
same relation to those gods that govern generation co-ordinately, as
the celestial gods have to these, according to exempt transcendency.
But it exhibits the cause of the aquatic gods, coordinate with
generative and infinite power, and which produces gods that are the
suppliers of motion and prolific abundance, and that are the inspective
guardians of life; since also this water itself which is the object
of sense is under the dominion of effusion, infinite lation and
indefiniteness. Hence likewise it is attributed to vivific powers. And
intelligible intellect exhibits the precedaneous cause of terrestrial
and pedestrious gods, in a manner adapted to the nature of that which
is mixed. It also generates gods who contain the end of the whole of
things, who are stable, who subdue the formless nature of matter by
the last forms, and fix the seat of mundane natures in the one centre
of the universe. For deriving their subsistence from the first Vesta
as it were, or seat of beings, they stably define this mundane seat.
Thus therefore forms first unfold themselves into light in intelligible
intellect, possessing their progression and order according to the
first principles. It is necessary however, in addition to these things,
to infer this in the third place, following Timæus, that according
to this triad, the multitude of intelligible parts shines forth, and
the whole is divided into an all-perfect order of parts. For that,
says he, of which other intelligible animals both according to one,
and according to genera are parts, is the first and most beautiful
paradigm of the universe. But if other intelligible animals are parts
of this, it is evident that it is a whole, comprehending in itself
the multitude of intelligible parts, and that it is connective of all
intelligible parts. It must be inferred therefore that this triad is
the first cause of production and fabrication. For if it contains
the primary paradigms of things, it is evident that the orderly
distribution of secondary natures, originates from it. And if it is an
animal constitutive of all animals, every psychical extent, and all the
extent of bodies, have their progression from thence; and it will also
comprehend the intelligible causes of all the vivific and demiurgic
orders.
CHAPTER XX.
Such conceptions therefore, as these, may be assumed from what is
written in the Timæus concerning the three intelligible triads,
conformably to what is said of them in the Philebus, surveying in each
bound, infinity, and that which is mixed. If you are willing also, we
will show from what is scattered in the Sophista, that Plato had the
same conception as we have concerning the first principles. The Elean
guest therefore, in that dialogue, doubting against the assertion of
Parmenides that the universe is one, unfolding intelligible multitude,
and showing how it is suspended from the one, at first indeed,
he argues from the one being [or being characterized by the one] and
reminds us that this is passive to the one, and participates
of the one, but is not the one itself, nor that which
is primarily one. But afterwards, he produces the conception of the
distinction between the imparticipable one and being, from whole. For
if the one being is a whole, as Parmenides testifies, but that which
is a whole has parts, and that which has parts, is not the one
itself, the one being will not be the same as the one. In
the third place therefore, he argues from the all-perfect. For that
which is perfectly divided, and is connective of many parts, can never
have the same subsistence as that which is entirety one. And having
proceeded thus far he shows that what is void of multitude, is in its
own nature exempt from the one being, proceeding in the demonstration
of this through three arguments. And at one time indeed, he begins
from the one being, at another time from whole, and at another from
all. It is better however to hear the words themselves of Plato. That
the one therefore, is not the same with the one being, he proves
through the following words. “But what with respect to those who assert
that the universe is one? Must we not enquire to the utmost of our
power what they say being is? Certainly. To this question therefore
they may answer: Do you say there is one thing alone? We do say so. Or
will they not speak in this manner? They will. What then, do you call
being any thing? Yes. Do you call it the one, employing two
names respecting the same thing? Or how do you say? What will be their
answer after this O guest?” Through this therefore, Plato separating
the one and being from each other, and showing that the
conception of the one is different from that of being, and that
these are not the same with each other, evinces that the most proper
and primary one is exempt from the one being. For the one being does
not abide purely in an hyparxis void of multitude and possessing the
form of one. But the one itself is exempt from every addition.
For by whatever you may add to it, you will diminish its supreme and
ineffable union. Hence it is necessary to arrange the one prior
to the one being, and to suspend the one being from that which is one
alone. For if the one and the one being were the same, and it
made no difference to say one and being (since if they differed, the
one would again be changed from the one being,) if therefore the
one differs in no respect from the one being, all things will be
one, and there will not be multitude in beings, nor will it be possible
to denominate things, lest there should be two things, the thing and
the name. For being exempt from all multitude, and all division, there
will neither be a name of any thing, nor any discourse about it, but
the name will appear to be the same with the thing. And neither will a
name be the name of a thing, but a name will be the name of a name,
if a thing is the same with a name, and a name is the same with a
thing,[197] and a thing will be the thing of a thing. For all things
will exist about a thing the same as about a name, through the union
of the thing and the name. If therefore, these things are absurd, and
the one is, and also being, and being participates of the
one, the one and the one being are not the same.
But that whole also is not the same with the one, Plato
afterwards demonstrates [in the same dialogue,] beginning as follows:
“What then? Will they say that whole is different from the one being,
or that it is the same with it? Undoubtedly they will and do say so.
If therefore whole is, as Parmenides says, “that which is every where
similar to the bulk of a perfect sphere, entirely possessing equal
powers from the middle; for nothing is greater or more stable than
this:”—if this be the case, it is necessary that being should have
a middle and extremities. And having these, there is every necessity
that it should have parts. Or how shall we say? Just so. Nothing
however hinders but that when it is divided, it may have the passion
of the one in all its parts, and that thus the all and whole
may be one. Undoubtedly. But is it not impossible that that which
suffers these things should be the one? Why? Because according
to right reason, that which is truly one should be said to be entirely
without parts. It must indeed necessarily be so. But such a thing
as we have just now mentioned, in consequence of consisting of many
parts would not accord with the one.” Through these things
therefore, the Elean guest arguing from wholeness after the one being,
and also from the division of the parts of wholeness, demonstrates
that the all is not one. For if whole is in beings, as Parmenides in
his verses testifies it is, all things will not be the one.
For the one is impartible; but whole possesses parts. Whole
therefore is not the one itself. For that transcends all things
and wholeness; but whole is passive to the one. Hence also it
is denominated whole; for it is not the one itself. Hence all
things are not one void of separation and multiplication.
Moreover, the all is comprehensive of many parts. For whole indeed,
consists at first of two parts; but the all possesses a multitude of
parts, and participating of wholeness at the same time is all, as being
perfectly distributed into parts. This therefore is not the one
itself, but is passive to the one. For the one itself
is impartible. But it is impartible in such a manner as to be exempt
from all parts. Hence the all is not the same with the one. We
therefore, have divided whole and the all, but Plato conjoins them,
when he says: “Nothing however hinders but that when it is divided, it
may have the passion of the one in all its parts, and that thus the all
and whole may be one.” At the same time however, they are divided after
the above mentioned manner. From these three arguments therefore, the
Elean guest separates the one from the participants of the
one, and doubts against those who assert all things to be one, viz.
the one being, whole and the all; of which the all indeed participates
of whole, and is a self-perfect multitude, consisting of many parts;
but whole participates of being. For being is not whole, as Parmenides
testifies. These therefore, having such an order as this, is it not
necessary that the arguments of Plato should be made conformably to the
three intelligible[198] triads? For it was requisite, since Parmenides
defined the one being in intelligibles, that Plato should from thence
derive his demonstrations of the distinction between the one
prior to intelligibles, and the one which is in intelligibles. For the
doubts against Parmenides, evince in many places that the one which is
participated derives its subsistence from the imparticipable union.
The one[199] therefore is not in these triads, but the one being
and whole. But with respect to the all, it is evident that it is in the
extremity of the intelligible order. For that which is in every respect
perfect, and all intelligible multitude, have their subsistence in that
extremity. But whole is in the middle centre, and in the bond of the
intelligible breadth. For whole is adapted to have a subsistence prior
to the all; since the all is a whole, but whole is not necessarily all.
For the all is divided multitude; but that which contains multitude in
itself, and which is not yet separated is whole. And this especially
pertains to eternity. For eternity is the measure of all intelligible
multitude, just as whole is the coherence and union of the all. But
the one being is in the first triad. For the one is especially
the peculiarity of this triad, as Timæus also has demonstrated. And
being which is occultly and intelligibly being, and which is the cause
of essence to all other things, primarily shines forth there. Again
therefore, following the Elean guest, three triads present themselves
to our view; the first indeed according to the one being; the second
according to whole; and the third according to the all. To which also
the demiurgus of the universe looking, adorns the sensible universe,
defining the visible nature with reference to that intelligible all;
but time with reference to the intelligible wholeness. On which account
also time is continued. And as the intelligible whole comprehends two
parts, but contains the parts in one boundary, after the same manner,
time also is bounded by the now, but by its twofold parts is
infinite. These things therefore, we shall shortly after more fully
discuss when we speak concerning the Parmenides. For the conceptions
of the Elean guest are the proteleia of the mysteries of the
Parmenides. Before however we turn to the Parmenides, let us discuss,
if it is agreeable to you, the three triads from the beginning,
collecting the conception of Plato from his assertions that are
scattered in many places.
CHAPTER XXI.
There are three triads therefore, as we have frequently observed, and
they are divided after this manner into bound, infinity, and that
which is mixed. Hence there are triple intelligible bounds, triple
infinities, and triple mixtures. But of every intelligible triad, the
bound in each is denominated father; the infinite, power; and that
which is mixed, intellect. And let not any one apprehend that these
names are foreign from the philosophy of Plato. For it will appear
that he uses these appellations in the before mentioned triads more
than any one. For he denominates the first God father and lord in his
Epistles. It is evident however, that as the first God surpasses even
the paternal order, the first paternal is in the intelligible Gods. For
these are they that are most eminently allied to the one, and
that intelligibly unfold his ineffable and unknown union. If therefore
the first God is denominated one and father from the natures that
proximately proceed from him,—if this be the case, as the intelligible
Gods are primarily unities, so likewise they are primarily fathers.
For Plato gives names to the ineffable in a twofold respect, either
from the summits of beings, or from all beings. For through these the
transcendency of the one is known. Moreover, the Elean guest calls
being that which is powerful and power. The first power therefore
exists prior to being, and is united to the father; but it particularly
accords with being, which also it fills. Hence being as participating
of power is denominated powerful; but as united to it, and producing
all beings according to it, it is called power. If however both
Plato himself, and his most genuine disciples, frequently call all
[true] beings intellect (on which account, in many places they make
three principles, the good, intellect and soul, denominating
every [true] being intellect) you will also have the third in these
intellect. But it is necessary not to be ignorant of the difference.
For with respect to intellect, one kind is intellect as with
reference to hyparxis. For when we denominate the unity in each triad
intelligible, as the object of desire to being, and as filling being,
then we call that which ranks as the third in the triad intellect. For
it is intelligible as essence and intellect, but not as the intellect
of essence, but of father and deity. For every participated deity is
intelligible, as being the plenitude of its participant. But another
kind is intellect which is the intellect of essence; according to
which we say that the being of the third triad, is the intellect
of that which is primarily being. For this is essential intellect,
being allotted its own essence by energizing.[200] For all things are
essentially in it, and both the more simple genera, and the primary
paradigms; for it is intelligible intellect. But the third kind is
intellectual intellect, which subsists analogous to intelligible
intellect, is conjoined with it, and is filled from it, possessing
intellectually those things which are in the other intelligibly. And
in short, it is necessary every where that such things as are first
according to each series, should have the form of the things that are
prior to them. Hence also they are called things first, and possess
a certain transcendency of essence towards coordinate natures. Since
therefore, that which is prior to intelligibles is God, the first
intelligibles are Gods and unities. And since the intelligible is
essential, the first intellects are essences. Since also intellect
is every where according to its own nature intellectual, the first
souls are intellectual. Because likewise, souls are the plenitudes
of life, the first of bodies are most vital. And because the bodies
that are perpetual are moved in a circle, the summits of material
bodies are moved in conjunction with those bodies that are perpetual.
This therefore is the cause why the unities are frequently called
intelligibles, and beings intelligible intellects.
That Plato however knew this triad, I mean father, power and intellect,
we shall learn by looking to the demiurgic order. For in this the triad
is most remarkably apparent. Hence, on account of its union with the
intelligible, it is filled with this triad, and possesses these things
in a more divided manner than animal itself, or intelligible eternity.
Immediately therefore, in the beginning of the fabrication in the
Timæus, the demiurgus calls himself father, “Of which works I am the
demiurgus and father.” But shortly after he unfolds his power,
“Imitating my power in your generation.” This therefore is also
wonderful, that he has delivered to us the most theological conception
concerning power. For in the first place indeed, he calls it the
power of the father, when he says, “Of which works I am the demiurgus
and father,” and that the power is his, [is evident from the words,]
“Imitating my power:” so that according to Plato power is of the
father. And in the next place, he ascribes to this power a peculiarity
generative of the whole of things; for this is evident from the words
“In your generation.” Power therefore is the cause of generation and
of the progression of beings. And in the last place, he delivers the
intellectual peculiarity of the demiurgus. “Having thus spoke, again
into the former crater in which he had tempered the soul of the
universe, he poured mingling the remainder of the former mixture.” For
to pour, to mingle, mixture, and to be productive of soul, pertain to
intellect. Though what necessity is there for asserting these things,
since prior to this he calls the demiurgus intellect. “Whatever
ideas therefore intellect perceived by the dianoëtic energy
in animal itself, such and so many he conceived it necessary for
this universe to contain.” Hence the demiurgus is father, and power
and intellect. And he possesses these things as much as possible on
account of intelligibles. For he is a God as father, on account of
them. He is also power, and the generator of wholes, and knows beings
intellectually, on account of them. For in them intelligible knowledge
first subsists. Much more therefore are father, power and intellect in
intelligibles; from which also the demiurgus being filled, participates
of this triad. For Plato assumes each of these analogously. For as
the paternal triad in intelligibles gives subsistence to intelligible
eternity, so the demiurgus makes those works to be indissoluble of
which he is the father. And as in intelligibles, eternity proceeding
according to all power generates intelligible animal itself, so the
demiurgic power gives subsistence to mundane animals that are perpetual
and divine, and imparts to the junior Gods another power which is
generative of mortal animals. That any one therefore may assume these
names from Plato is evident from what has been said.
Since however, being has an hypostasis triply in intelligibles, one is
primarily being and prior to the eternal; but another is secondarily
being, and the first eternity; and another is being ultimately, and is
intelligible and eternal intellect. And here indeed there is being, but
there eternity, and there intellect. And eternity is more comprehensive
than intellect; but being than eternity. For every intellect is
eternal, but not every thing eternal is intellect. For soul according
to its essence is eternal, and every thing which participates of
eternity, participates also by a much greater priority of being. For
with perpetuity of existence, existence is entirely consubsistent.
But that which participates of existence is not universally eternally
being. For bodies also participate in a certain respect of the nature
of existence, but they are not eternal. Intellect therefore constitutes
an intellectual essence only, so far as it is intellect; since so
far as it is also life and being it constitutes all things. But
eternity constitutes both the intellectual and psychical essence. For
the mixture [in the second triad] was intelligible life. But being
constitutes the intellectual, the psychical, and the corporeal life.
For matter also is being [most obscurely,] and is capacity indeed,
but formless being, and non-being, falling off from the participation
of being. If, however, some one should say that it is being in power
or capacity, yet it has this power from being. For capacity is the
forerunning participation of energy. And thus much concerning these
things.
But what sufficient argument of division does Socrates afford us in
the Phædrus, concerning these intelligible triads? And how from what
is delivered by him may we recur to the conception of the hypostasis
of the most principal Gods? Socrates therefore in that dialogue, being
inspired by the Nymphs, celebrates every thing divine as beautiful,
wise and good, and says that by these the soul is nourished. But if
every thing divine is a thing of this kind, this is the case with the
intelligible by a much greater priority. And all these indeed are
every where, but in the first triad, the good principally subsists;
in the second the wise; and in the third the beautiful. For in this
there is the most beautiful of intelligibles. But in the second triad
truth and the first intelligence subsist. And in the first there is the
commensurate, which we say is the same as the good. But Socrates in
the Philebus says that the element of the good is the desirable, the
sufficient, and the perfect. The desirable therefore pertains indeed
to bound; for it is the union and goodness of all the triad, and the
triad converges about it. But the sufficient pertains to infinity. For
sufficiency is a power capable of pervading to all things, and of being
present to all things without impediment. And the perfect pertains
to that which is mixed. For this is that which is primarily triadic;
since every mixture has its coalition from the triad. The elements
therefore of the good unfold to us the first triad; and the elements of
intelligible wisdom, the second triad. But every thing wise is full of
being, is generative of truth, and is convertive of imperfect natures
to their perfection. The full therefore pertains to the second bound;
for this is uniformly filled with the participation of the natures
prior to itself. For the full is every where adapted to bound, just
as that which cannot be filled is adapted to the infinite. But the
prolific pertains to the second power, and to infinity. For that which
does not abide in the fulness of itself, but is prolific and generative
of other things, is especially indicative of divine infinity. And the
convertive pertains to that which is mixed. For this as being allotted
the end of the triad, converts every thing imperfect to the full, and
unites itself prior to other things to the bound of the whole triad.
CHAPTER XXII.
Moreover, the elements of beauty are the peculiarities of the third
triad of intelligibles. But these are, as we have before observed,
the lovely, the delicate, and the splendid. The lovely therefore,
being arranged analogous to the desirable, pertains to bound. But the
delicate being coordinate to the sufficient, pertains to the infinite
power which is in the beautiful. And the splendid is of an intellectual
peculiarity. For this is the beautiful of beauty; is that which
illuminates all things, and astonishes those that are able to behold
it. And as apparent beauty shining most manifestly, is seen through
the clearest of the senses (for the objects of this sense have many
differences according to Aristotle, and this sense pervades farther
than the rest) so likewise intelligible beauty appears to the intellect
of the soul shining intelligibly. Far it is an intelligible form.
And on this account the splendor of beauty is apparent to intellect.
Splendid beauty therefore, as Socrates calls it, shines forth at the
extremity of the intelligible order. For this is the most splendid of
intelligibles, is intelligible intellect, and is that which emits the
intelligible light, that when it appeared astonished the intellectual
Gods, and made them admire their father, as Orpheus says. Such
therefore is the preparation to the science of the intelligible Gods
which may from these things be assumed. And now it will appear how
beauty is indeed occultly in the end of the first intelligible triad,
but subsists in the third triad so as to have manifestly proceeded
into light. For in the former it subsists according to one form only;
but in the latter it subsists triadically. It is also evident how
each of the triads is at one and the same time a monad and a triad.
For the first triad being characterized according to the good,
derives its completion from the three elements of the good. But
the second being characterized by the wise is contained in the triad
of wisdom. And the third subsisting according to the beautiful, is
all-perfect through the triad of beauty. If however the beautiful is
occultly in the first triad, and shines forth triadically in the third,
it is evident that intelligible intellect loves the first triad, and
has love conjoined with its beauty. And this is the intelligible love
of the first beauty. From these therefore, intellectual love proceeds,
together with faith and truth, as we have before observed. For the
three intelligible monads, the good, the wise and the beautiful,
constitute three powers which lead upwards all other things, and prior
to other things the intellectual Gods. Concerning these things however,
we shall speak hereafter.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Let us now then direct our attention to the theory of the Parmenides.
But I wish again to remind the reader of what we have before
demonstrated. It has been shown therefore, that it is necessary to
divide the second hypothesis into the whole progressions of the one
being; and that this hypothesis is nothing else than the generation and
progression of the Gods, proceeding supernally from the supreme union
of intelligibles as far as to a deified essence. For the discussion is
not, as some say it is, in the first hypothesis, concerning God and
the Gods. For it was not lawful to Parmenides to conjoin multitude
with the one, and the one with multitude. For the first
God is perfectly exempt from the whole of things. But in the first
hypothesis essence, and even the one itself, are taken away
from the first God. That such an ablation, however, as this is not
adapted to the other Gods is evident to every one. Moreover, neither
does Parmenides in the first hypothesis speak about the intelligible
Gods, as they say he does; for they assert that the negations are of
these Gods, because they are conjoined with the one, and in
simplicity and union precede[201] all the divine genera. For how can
the similar or the dissimilar, or contact and the privation of contact,
and all the other particulars which are denied of the one, be
inherent in the intelligible Gods? They appear indeed to me to be right
in asserting that the things which are taken away are similitudes of
the Gods; but they do not speak rightly when they say that all of them
are similitudes of the intelligible Gods. To which it may be added, in
opposition to this assertion, that the discussion is again concerning
the intelligible Gods in the second hypothesis. For the things which
are denied in the first, are affirmed in the second hypothesis. This
therefore, as I have said, is demonstrated that the conclusions with
reference to each other have the order of prior and posterior, of
causes and effects. It is necessary therefore, that proceeding from the
beginning, we should adapt the first conclusions to the first orders,
the middle conclusions to the middle orders, and the last conclusions
to the last orders, and should demonstrate that as many questions are
asked, as there are progressions of the divine orders. And in the
first place, we must deliver the doctrine of Parmenides concerning
the intelligible Gods, of whom we have proposed to speak; since Plato
speaks about these in many places, partly indicating, and partly
clearly unfolding his meaning.
It is necessary however, that we should collect into one the elaborate
and synoptical theory about each order, since it would not be proper
now to repeat the exposition which we have given in our commentaries on
that dialogue. But assuming each of the conclusions itself by itself,
I will endeavour to refer it to an appropriate order of the Gods,
following in so doing the divine inspirations of our leader [Syrianus].
For we also through his assistance have with a divine head pursued
these sacred paths about the theory of the Parmenides, being agitated
with a divine fury, and wakened as from a profound sleep to this arcane
mystic discipline. And thus much concerning the mode of the whole of
the conclusions. But from hence I shall pass to the narration of the
things proposed.
The first and imparticipable one therefore, which preexists beyond the
whole of things, and not only beyond the unities that participate,
but also those that are participated, is celebrated through the first
hypothesis, being demonstrated to be the cause of all things ineffably,
but not being defined itself in any one of all things, nor having any
power or peculiarity of a kindred nature with the other Gods. But after
this [imparticipable one,] that which is alone superessential and
surpassing, and unmingled with all hyparxis, is a unity participated
by being, and constituting about itself the first essence, and by the
addition of this participation becoming more redundant than that which
is primarily one. This however is a superessential hyparxis, and the
hyparxis of the first intelligible triad. As there are therefore these
two things in the first triad, viz. the one and being, and the
former generates, but the latter is generated, and the former perfects,
but the latter is perfected, it is necessary that the middle of both
should be power, through which and together with which the one
constitutes and is perfective of being. For the progression of being
from the one, and its conversion to the one, is through
power. For what else conjoins being to the one, or causes
the one to be participated by being except power? For it is
the progression of the one, and its extension to being. Hence,
in all the divine genera powers precede progressions and generations.
This triad therefore, the one, power and being, is the summit
of intelligibles. The first of these indeed producing; the third being
produced; and the second being suspended from the one, but
coalescing with being.
CHAPTER XXIV.
This triad therefore, Parmenides delivers immediately in the beginning
of the second hypothesis, adjoining to the one the most simple
participation of essence. But he calls it the one being, and says that
being participates of the one, and the one of being. The
participation however of these is different. For the one[202]
indeed so participates of being, as illuminating and filling, and
deifying being; but being so participates of the one, as
suspended from the one, and deified by it. But the habitude
which is the middle of both, is not with them void of essence. For
neither is the habitude which is among sensibles in no respect being,
and much more is this the case with the habitude which is there.
But this habitude is biformed. For it is of the one, and is
connascent with being. For it is the motion of the one, and
its progression into being. Parmenides delivers this triad, beginning
what he says about it as follows: “See therefore from the beginning
if the one is. Is it possible then for it to be, and yet not
to participate of essence? It is not possible.” But he ends speaking
about it in the following words: “Will therefore that which is said be
any thing else than this, that the one participates of essence,
when it is summarily asserted by any one that the one is? It
will not.” This therefore is the first intelligible triad, the one,
being, and the habitude of both, through which being is of the
one and the one of being, in a manner perfectly admirable;
Plato indicating through these things, that the father is the father
of intellect, and that intellect is the intellect of the father, and
that power is concealed between the extremes. For deity is the father
of the triad, and being is the intellect of this deity. Yet it is not
intellect in the same way as we are accustomed to call the intellect
of essence. For every such intellect stands still and is moved, as the
Elean guest says. But that which is primarily being, neither stands
still, nor is moved, as he also teaches. The first triad therefore is
called one being; since power is here occultly. For the triad does not
proceed from itself; but subsists without separation and uniformly,
being primarily defined according to divine union. Hence, this is the
first participation of essence, which participates of the one
through power as the middle, which collects together and separates
both the one and being. And it is superessential indeed, but is
conjoined with essence. We must never think therefore that all power is
the progeny of essence. For the powers of the Gods are superessential,
and are consubsistent with the unities themselves of the Gods.
And through this power the Gods are generative of beings. Rightly
therefore, does poetry every where assert that the Gods are able to do
all things. For essential powers indeed are not capable of effecting
all things; since they are not constitutive of superessential natures.
The first triad therefore, is through these things unfolded to us by
Parmenides.
CHAPTER XXV.
But immediately after this, the second triad is allotted a progression,
which Parmenides characterizes by intelligible wholeness, as we
have shown in the Sophista. For the first triad being uniform, and
possessing all things intelligibly and occultly, viz. hyparxis, power
and being, so that power which is the cause of division, subsisting
between the one and being, is concealed, and becomes apparent
through the communion of the extremes with each other,—the second
triad proceeds, being characterized by the first intelligible power,
and having the monads in itself distinguished from each other. For
all things being united and without distinction in the first triad,
distinction and separation shine forth in this triad. Being also and
power are more divided from each other. And that which consists
of these is no longer one being [or being characterized by the
one,] but is a whole, so that it has the one and being in
itself as parts. For above indeed [i.e. in the first triad] all things
are prior to parts and wholeness. But in this triad there are both
parts and a whole, power unfolding itself into light. For as there is
separation here, there are parts and the whole consisting of these.
The second triad therefore is called intelligible wholeness. But the
parts of it, the one and being, I call the extremes. And power
being here the middle, connects the one and being, and does
not cause them to be one, in the same manner as in the first triad.
Since also it is the middle of both, through its communion indeed with
being, it renders the one one being; but through its communion
with the one, it perfectly causes being to be one. And thus the
one being consists of two parts, viz. of being which is characterised
by the one, and of the one which is characterized by
being, as Parmenides himself says. He begins therefore to speak about
this triad as follows: “Again therefore, let us say if the one
is what will happen. Consider then if it is not necessary that this
hypothesis should signify the one to be a thing of such a kind
as to have parts?” But he ends in the following words: “That which is
one therefore is a whole, and has a part.”
Through these things therefore Parmenides defines the second order
of intelligibles to be a wholeness. For as existence is derived to
all things from the first triad, so whole from the second, and an
all-perfect division from the third. This however will be considered
by us hereafter. Wholeness therefore is triple, being either prior to
parts, or consisting of parts, or subsisting in a part, according to
the doctrine of Plato. For in the Politicus indeed, he calls genus
a whole, but species a part, not that genus derives its completion
from species, but exists prior to it. And in the Timæus he says that
the world is a whole of wholes. And all the world indeed derives its
completion from parts that are wholes; but each of the parts is a
whole, not as the universe is, but partially. Wholeness therefore,
being triple as we have said, according to Plato, the unity, and the
intelligible and occult cause of these is now delivered, unically
comprehending and constituting three wholenesses; according to the
hyparxis indeed of itself, the wholeness prior to parts; but according
to its power, the wholeness which is from parts; and according to its
being the wholeness which is in a part. For the one is prior to
all multitude; but power communicates in a certain respect with both
the extremes, and comprehends in itself the peculiarities of them; and
being in a certain respect participates of the one. Hence the
first of the wholenesses, or that which is prior to parts is derived
from a unical hyparxis. For it is a monad, and is itself constitutive
of parts, and of the multitude which is in them. But the second
wholeness is from power. For it derives its completion from parts, just
as in the power which is collective of the one and being, the extremes
in a certain respect shine forth to the view. And the third wholeness
is from being. For being is a part, and is the progeny both of power
and the one,[203] and possesses each of these partially. After
the intelligible therefore, three wholenesses are divided according
to the different orders of beings. But the intelligible wholeness
comprehends the three unically, and is the intelligibly connective
monad of this triad, every way extending the powers of itself from the
middle of the intelligible and occult order.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Immediately after this triad we may see another proceeding, in which
all intelligible multitude shines forth, and which Parmenides indeed
constitutes a wholeness, but a wholeness consisting of many parts. For
after the occult union of the first triad, and the dyadic separation of
the second, the progression of the third is generated, which has indeed
its subsistence from parts, but the parts are many, with the multitude
of which the triad prior to it is parturient. For in this triad there
is a unity, and power, and being. But the one is multiplied, and
also being and power. And thus all the triad indeed is a wholeness;
but each of its extremes, viz. the one and being, as it is
multitude conjoined through collective power, is again divided and
multiplied. For this power conjoining unical multitude to the multitude
of beings, of some of these it causes each through progression to be
being characterized by the one, but of others each according
to participation to be the one characterized by being. For
here indeed there are two parts of the wholeness, the one and
being; but the one participates of being, for it is conjoined
with it; and being participates of the one. The one of
being therefore, is again divided, so that the one and being
generate a second unity conjoined with the part of being. But being
participating of the one, is again separated into being and
the one. For it generates a more partial being suspended from a
more partial unity. And being consists of more partial deified beings,
and is a more specific monad. The cause however of this progression
is power. For power is effective of two things, and is the operator
of multitude. For the one indeed calls forth into multitude,
but being converts to the participation of the divine unities. Whence
therefore does Parmenides begin to teach us concerning this triad?
And where does he conclude his discourse about it? The beginning,
therefore, of what he says on this subject is as follows: “What then?
Can each of these parts of the one being, viz. the one and
being, desert each other, so that the one shall not be a part
of being, or being shall not be a part of the one? It cannot
be.[204]” But he ends thus: “Will not, therefore, the one being after
this manner be an infinite multitude? It seems so.”
In the first place, therefore, it is proper to understand the manner
of the progression of the divine genera; and that conformably to the
intelligible monad, which we arrange according to the one being,
the duad posterior to it which we call a wholeness [proceeds.] But we
say that it consists of two parts which are separated by power, and
that intelligible multitude presents itself to the view from the monad
and the duad. For when all things are said to be parts of the one
being, viz. secondary things, and such as become apparent through the
separating cause of power, then Parmenides delivers the union which
pervades from the monad to the third triad. But when power separating
and conjoining the unities and beings, gives completion to multitude,
then the participation of the duad becomes perfectly apparent, as I
think Parmenides demonstrates when he says, “so that it is necessary
two things should always be generated, and that there should never be
one thing (only.)” This triad, therefore, proceeds according to both
the preexistent triads, flowing according to the Oracle, and proceeding
to all intelligible multitude. For infinite multitude is indicative of
this flux, and of the incomprehensible nature of power. Hence, in the
first place, I have said that the hypostasis of this triad is through
these things demonstrated to be suspended from the triads prior to it.
And in the next place, I say, that this triad, according to Parmenides,
is primogenial. For this first imparts the power of being generated;
and Parmenides calls the multitude which is in it in generation,
[i.e. becoming to be, or rising into existence.] For he
says: “And the part will be generated from two parts at least.”
And again: “Whatever part is generated, will always have these
parts.” And in what follows: “So that it is necessary it should always
be generated two things, and should never be one.” Does not
he, therefore, who frequently uses the word generation in teaching
concerning the progression of the intelligible multitude, proclaim
that the natures prior to this order are more united to each other?
But this order proceeds to a greater extent, unfolds the occult nature
of the triads prior to itself, and is primogenial, unfolding in itself
prolific power.
In addition to these things also, it is necessary to consider the
infinity of multitude, not as those think fit to speak, who assume
the infinite in quantity, but since in the principles of the whole of
things, there are bound and infinity, the former being the cause of the
union, but the latter of the separation of multitude, Parmenides calls
the first and intelligible multitude infinite, because all multitude
indeed, according to its own nature, is infinite, as being the progeny
of the first infinity. All intelligible multitude, however, is a thing
of this king. For it is the first multitude, and multitude itself.
But multitude itself is the first progeny of intelligible infinity.
Intelligible multitude, therefore, is on this account infinite, as
unfolding into light the first infinity, and this infinity is the same
with the all-perfect. For that which has proceeded to the all, and as
far as it is requisite an intelligible nature should proceed, through
the power which is generative of the whole of things, is infinite.
For it cannot be comprehended by any other thing. But intelligible
multitude is comprehensive of all intelligible multitude. For if indeed
that which is primarily infinite, was infinite according to quantity,
it would be requisite to admit that the intelligible is infinite
multitude of this kind. Since, however, the intelligible is infinite
power, it is necessary that the participant of the primarily infinite,
should cause infinity to shine forth according to the power which is
comprehensive of all prior natures. And if it be requisite to relate my
own opinion, as that which is primarily one is primarily bound, so that
which is primarily multitude is infinite multitude. For it receives the
whole power of infinity, and producing all unities, and all beings,
as far as to the most individual natures, it possesses never-failing
power. It is, therefore, more total than all multitude, and is an
incomprehensible infinite. Hence unfolding into light all multitude,
it bounds and measures it by infinite power, and through wholeness
introduces bound to all things. These things, therefore, may be assumed
from Parmenides concerning the third intelligible triad.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Let us in the next place speak in common about all the intelligible
triads. With respect to the first triad, therefore, which is occult,
and is allotted the intelligible summit in intelligibles, Plato at
one time proceeding from the union which is in it, and its exempt
transcendency with respect to the other triads, denominates it one, as
in the Timæus. For eternity, says he, abides in one. But reason evinces
that this one is the first triad of intelligibles. But at another time
proceeding from the extremities which are in it, viz. that which is
participated, and that which participates, he calls it the one being,
considering the power which is comprehended in these as ineffable, in
consequence of its subsisting uniformly and occultly. And at another
time, he unfolds the whole of it, according to the monads which are in
it, bound, infinity, and that which is mixed; bound indeed indicating
its divine hyparxis, infinity its generative power, and that which is
mixed, the essence proceeding from this power. Plato, therefore, as I
have said, teaches us through these names the first intelligible triad;
at one time indeed through one name, but at another through two names,
and at another again through three names, unfolding it to our view. For
there is a triad in it, according to which the whole is characterized;
and a duad according to which the extremes communicate with each other;
and a monad which exhibits the ineffable, occult, and unical nature of
the first, through its own monads.
But the second triad after this, Plato denominates in the Timæus
indeed, eternity; but in the Parmenides the first wholeness. How these,
however, are allotted the same peculiarity we may learn by considering
that every thing eternal is indeed a whole; viz. if it is perfectly
eternal, and has the whole of its essence and energy at once present.
For every intellect is a thing of this kind, perfectly establishing at
once in itself, the whole of intellectual perception. It likewise does
not possess one part of being, but is deprived of another part, nor
does it partially participate of energy, but it summarily comprehends
the whole of being, and the whole of intelligence. If, however, in its
energies it proceeded according to time, but had an eternal essence, it
would be allotted the whole of the latter, and this always stably the
same, but would possess the former variably, so as to exert different
energies at different times. Eternity, therefore, is every where the
cause of wholeness to the natures to which it is primarily present. But
whole also is every where comprehensive of perpetuity. For no whole
abandons either its essence or its proper perfection; but that which
is primarily corrupted and vitiated is a partial nature. For on this
account also the whole world is perpetual, viz. because it is a whole,
and this is likewise the case with all that the heavens contain, and
with each of the elements. For every where wholeness is connective of
subjects. Hence eternity is consubsistent with wholeness, and whole
and eternity are the same. Each also is a measure, the one of things
eternal, and of all perpetual natures, but the other of parts and of
all multitude. Since, however, there are three wholenesses, one indeed
being prior to parts, another subsisting from parts, and another in
a part,—through the wholeness which is prior to parts, eternity
measures those unities of divine natures which are exempt from beings;
but through the wholeness which derives its subsistence from parts,
it measures the unities that are coordinate with beings; and through
the wholeness which is in a part, it measures all beings and whole
essences. For these wholenesses being parts of the divine unities, they
possess partibly what preexists unically in the unities. And, moreover,
eternity is nothing else than the ever shining forth from the unity
which is connected with being. But whole consists of two parts, viz. of
the one and being, power existing as the collector of the parts.
According to both these conceptions, therefore, the duad pertaining to
the middle intelligible triad, unfolds the uniform an occult hypostasis
of the first triad.
Moreover, in the Timæus, Plato calls the third triad of intelligibles,
animal itself, intelligible, all-perfect, and only-begotten. But in
the Parmenides he denominates it infinite multitude, and a wholeness
comprehensive of many parts. And in the Sophista he perpetually calls
it the intelligible distributed into many beings. All these assertions,
therefore, are the progeny of one science, and tend to one intelligible
truth. For when Timæus calls this triad intelligible animal, he also
asserts it to be all-perfect, and comprehensive of intelligible
animals as its parts, both according to one and according to parts.
Hence animal itself is according to this a whole, comprehensive of
intelligible animals as its parts. And Parmenides, when he shows
that the one being is all-perfect multitude, demonstrates that it is
consubsistent with this order. For the infinite will be all-powerful
and all-perfect, as we have before observed, comprehending in itself
an intelligible multitude of parts, which also it generates; some of
these being more total, but others more partial, and as Timæus says,
both according to one, and according to genera. Farther still, as he
calls animal itself eternal and only-begotten, so Parmenides first
attributes the ever and to be generated, to infinite multitude, when
he says, “And thus, according to the same reasoning, whatever part is
generated will always possess these two parts: for the one will
always contain being, and being the one; so that two things will
necessarily always be generated, and no part will ever be one.”
Who, therefore, so clearly reminds us of eternal animal, and the
primogenial triad, as Parmenides, first assuming in this order
generation and the ever, and so continually using each of these? The
same thing, therefore, is both an all-perfect animal, and all-powerful
intelligible multitude. For the first infinity being power, and every
intelligible subsisting according to it, and receiving from it a
division into parts, I think it proper to call it all-powerful; thus
avoiding the appellation of the infinite, which disturbs the multitude.
That, however, which in these things is both difficult to understand,
and for which Plato especially deserves to be admired, we must not
omit, but demonstrate to the genuine lovers of truth. For intelligible
animal comprehends four intelligible ideas, according to which it not
only constitutes the genera of Gods, but also the more excellent kind
of beings after the Gods, and also mortal animals themselves; for
generating it extends the idea of air-wandering, the idea of aquatic,
and the idea of terrestrial animals, from the Gods as far as to mortal
animals. Since animal itself, therefore, comprehends four ideas,
and through the same paradigms produces totally divine, dæmoniacal
and mortal animals, this deservedly produces a doubt in those who
love the contemplation of truth, how, the causes being the same, and
the same primary paradigms preexisting, some of the natures which
are constituted are Gods, others dæmons, and others mortal animals.
For all these being generated with reference to one form, how is it
possible they should not have the same form and nature; since it is
requisite that one idea should every where be generative of things
that have a similar form? For on this account we admit the hypothesis
of ideas, in order that the intelligible genus of Gods may possess
and contain prior to multitude monads productive of similar natures.
This doubt,[205] therefore, being so difficult, some one may solve it
logically by saying, that all things which subsist according to one
form are not synonimous, and that they do not similarly participate of
their common cause, but some things primarily, and others ultimately.
For each form is the leader of a certain series, beginning supernally,
and subsiding as far as to the last of things. For according to
the oracle, all things begin supernally to extend their admirable
rays to the downward place. Hence it will not be wonderful that the
same idea should pre-exist as the cause of Gods, dæmons, and mortal
animals, producing all things totally, and delivering the more partial
separation of things to the demiurgic order, in the same manner as
this order delivers the production of individuals to the junior Gods.
For intelligibles are the causes of whole series; but intellectuals
of divisions according to common genera. Supermundane forms are the
causes of specific differences; but mundane of things which are now
individuals. For they are causes which are moved, and are the leaders
of mutation to their progeny.
If however it be requisite to survey the thing itself by itself, and
how one intelligible form is the cause[206] of Gods, and dæmons and
mortals, Parmenides alone is able to satisfy us about the parts which
are contained in the intelligible multitude. For he characterizes some
things according to being, but others according to the one.
For the one being, indeed, is absorbed by the one, but being
which is one is rather absorbed by being, and the one being, and being
which is one, contain in themselves each of the intelligible animals.
According to the one being, therefore, Parmenides constitutes the
divine genera, together with an appropriate peculiarity. But according
to being which is one, he constitutes the genera posterior to the
Gods. And according to the one being indeed of being which is one, he
constitutes the genera of dæmons, but according to being which is one,
the mortal genera. And again, according to the one being of the one
being, he constitutes the first and highest genera of the Gods; but
according to the being which is one of it, the second genera, and which
have an angelic order. And thus all things are full of Gods, angels,
dæmons, animals, and mortal natures. And you see how the medium is
preserved of the more excellent genera. For being which is one is the
angelic boundary of the one being which produces the Gods. But the one
being is the dæmoniacal summit of being which is one, and which adorns
secondary natures. As to the unions, however, of secondary natures,
it is not immanifest that they approximate to multitude, and to the
progression of the natures placed above them. Nor must you wonder if
being which is one is the cause of angels, but the one being of dæmons.
For in one place, being which is one is a part of the one being, but
in another the one being is a part of being which is one. And here,
indeed, the union is essential, but there essence has the form of
the one. For the summit of being which is one is a thing of this
kind. Deservedly, therefore, is intelligible multitude all-powerful,
and intelligible animal all-perfect, as being at once the cause of
all things, and this as far as to the last of things, Plato all but
exclaiming, [in the words of the Chaldæan Oracle,] “Thence a fiery
whirlwind sweeping along, obscures the flower of fire, leaping at the
same time into the cavities of the worlds.” For the divine unities
proceeding gradually, generate the multitude of all mundane natures.
This triad, therefore, is the fountain and cause of all things: and
from it all the life, and all the progression of the Gods, and the
genera superior to us, and of mortal animals subsist. For it produces
totally and uniformly all things, and binds to itself the whole
principles of the divisible rivers of vivification, and the production
of forms.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Again, therefore, let us recur from the divided theory of intelligibles
to the all-perfect and one science of them, and let us say to
ourselves, that this intelligible genus of the Gods is unically exempt
from all the other divine orders, and is neither called intelligible
as known by a partial intellect, nor as comprehended by intelligence
in conjunction with reason, nor yet as preexisting in all-perfect
intellect. For it transcends both total and partial intelligibles,
and exists prior to all intellectual objects, being an imparticipable
and divine intelligible. Hence, also, it is allotted the same
transcendency with respect to all the intelligible orders, as the
one with respect to every genus of the Gods. For this intelligible
is imparticipable, and supernally fills the divine and intellectual
orders. For if every intellect is intelligible to itself, it possesses
this property through the intelligible Gods. For plenitude is derived
to all things from thence. And thus the intelligible is at the same
time exempt from intellect, existing itself by itself; and at the same
time the intelligible is not external to intellect. For there is an
intelligible which is conjoined with intellect; the coordinate being
derived from that which is exempt, the participated from that which is
imparticipable, that which is inherent from that which is preexistent,
and that which is multiplied from that which is uniform. Intelligible
simplicity, therefore, must not be defined to be such as that which we
are accustomed to assert of intelligibles. For in these the one
becomes equal to multitude, and separation to the uniform sameness of
essence. But intelligible simplicity is uniform, without separation
and occult, excelling every divisible form of life, and intellectual
multitude. Hence I do not place intelligible simplicity in the order
of idea. For this form is partial, and is subordinate to intelligible
union. But I consider it as the hyparxis of divine natures, and as
generative of the whole of the good which is distributed to all divine
natures, and in which the Gods themselves subsist. For the goodness
of the Gods, is neither form nor habit, but the plenitude of divine
self-sufficiency and divine power, according to which the Gods fill
all things with good. In a much greater degree, therefore, are the
intelligible Gods, because they are united to the good, wholly
full of superessential goodness, and being established in this, they
contain in it the supreme hyparxis of themselves. Very properly,
therefore, do we say that the intelligible Gods unfold the ineffable
principle of all things, and his admirable transcendency and union;
subsisting themselves indeed occultly, but comprehending multitude
uniformly and unically; reigning over the whole of things exemptly, and
being uncoordinated with all the other Gods. For as the good
illuminates all things with superessential light, and exhibits the Gods
who are the fathers of all things, so likewise the intelligible genus
of Gods, according to a similitude to the good, imparts from itself to
all the secondary Gods, intelligible plenitude. Hence, according to
each distribution of the Gods, there is an appropriate intelligible
multitude, just as a monad analogous to the good exists prior
to each of the divine orders. And this monad indeed is the preexistent
leader of union to secondary natures. But intelligible multitude is
the preexistent source of beauty, self-sufficiency, power, essence,
and all intelligible goods. For the Gods antecedently and intelligibly
comprehend all intellectual natures, and contain in themselves all[207]
things according to supreme union.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
Let the discussion, therefore, of the intelligible Gods, unfolding the
mystic doctrine of Plato concerning them be here terminated by us.
But it entirely follows in the next place, that we should consider
after the same manner the narration concerning the intellectual
Gods. Since, however, of intellectuals some are both intelligible
and intellectual, viz. such as according to the Oracle perceiving
intellectually are at the same time intellectually perceived; but
others are intellectual only;—this being the case, beginning from
those that are intellectual and at the same time intelligible, we will
in the first place determine what pertains to them in common, from
which we shall render the doctrine concerning each order of them more
perspicuous. Again, therefore, let us recal to our memory those things
which we a little before demonstrated, viz. that there are three total
monads which are entirely beyond the Gods that are divided according
to parts, viz. essence, life and intellect. And these prior to the
partial participate of the superessential unities. Essence, however, is
exempt from the rest. Life is allotted the middle order. But intellect
converts the end of this triad to the beginning. And all these are
indeed intelligibly in essence; but intelligibly and intellectually
in life; and intellectually in intellect. And as secondary natures
always participate of the natures placed above them, but these prior
to participation presubsist themselves by themselves; and as in
each order there are these three things, the cause of abiding, the
cause of proceeding, and the cause of conversion, though intellect
is more formalized according to conversion, but life according to
progression, and essence according to permanency;—this being the
case, it is certainly necessary that the first intellectual Gods
being essentialized according to life should conjoin imparticipable
intellect, and the intelligible genus of Gods, and that they should
uniformly connect the various progressions of secondary, but
unfold and expand the stable hyparxis of precedaneous causes. For
imparticipable life is a thing of this kind, circumscribing that which
is primarily being and intellect, and participating indeed of being,
but participated by intellect. But this is the same thing as to assert
that intelligence is filled indeed from the intelligible, but fills
intellect from itself. For being is the intelligible, but life is
intelligence. And being indeed is characterized according to a divine
hyparxis; but life according to power; and intellect according to
intelligible intellect. For as being is to hyparxis, so is intellect
to being. And as intelligible power is to each of the extremes, so is
life to the intelligible and to intellect. And as power is generated
from the one and hyparxis, but constitutes in conjunction with the
one the nature of being, so life proceeds indeed from being, and
gives subsistence to a power different from that which is in being.
As also the one itself which exists prior to being, imparts to
being from itself a second unity, so likewise life being allotted an
hypostasis prior to intellect, generates intellectual life. For true
being and the intelligible which precede the rest, supply both life
and intellect with union. Imparticipable life, therefore, but which
participates of the intelligible monads is the second after being, is
generative of imparticipable intellect, and giving completion to this
medium, and containing the bond of intelligibles and intellectuals,
is illuminated by Gods who are allotted a union secondary to the
occult subsistence of intelligibles, but preceding according to cause
the separation of intellectual natures. For the unical, indivisible,
simple, and primary nature of intelligibles, subsides, through
the medium of these Gods into multitude and separation, and the
inexplicable evolution of the divine orders. Whence also, I think, the
Gods who connectedly contain life which is infinite, being the middle
of the intelligible and intellectual Gods, and carried in the divisions
of themselves as in a vehicle, are called intelligible and at the same
time intellectual; being filled indeed, from the first intelligibles,
but filling the intellectual Gods. For we call the intelligible Gods
intelligible, not as coordinate with intellect. For the intelligible
which is in intellect is one thing, and that which produces the
intellectual Gods another: and we denominate the Gods that subsist
according to life intelligible and at the same time intellectual, not
as giving completion to intellect, nor as being established according
to intellectual intelligence, and imparting to intellect the power
of intellectual perception, but to the intelligible the power of
being intellectually perceived, but we give them this appellation, as
deriving their subsistence from the intelligible monads, but generating
all the intellectual hebdomads. And because they are illuminated indeed
with intelligible life, but subsist prior to intellectuals, according
to a generative cause, we think fit to denominate them in common,
connecting their names from the extremes, in the same manner as they
also are allotted a peculiarity collective of wholes in the divine
orders.
It is evident, therefore, that they subsist according to this medium,
and that they are proximate to the intelligible Gods, who are both
monadic and triadic. For the intelligible triads, with reference indeed
to the highest union and which is exempt from all things, are triads;
but with reference to the divided essence of triads, they are monads,
unfolding into light from themselves total triads. Since intelligibles,
therefore, in their triadic progression, do not depart from a unical
hyparxis, the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods
subsist triadically, exhibiting in themselves the separation of the
monads, and through divine difference, proceeding into multitude, and
a variety of powers and essences. For the natures which subsist more
remote from the one principle [of all things,] are more multiplied
than the natures which are prior to them;[208] and are diminished
indeed in powers, and the comprehensions of secondary natures, but
are divided into more numbers, and such as are more distant from
the monad. They likewise relinquish the union which is the cause of
primarily efficient natures, and variety is assumed by them in exchange
for the occult hyparxis of those primary essences. According to this
reasoning, therefore, the intelligible and intellectual separation is
greater than the separation which is only intelligible. And of these
again, the partial orders are allotted a much greater division, so as
to unfold to us a multitude of Gods which cannot be comprehended in the
numbers within the decad. Their peculiarities also are indescribable,
and inexplicable by our conceptions, and are manifest only to the
Gods themselves, and to the causes of them. Such, therefore, are the
intelligible and intellectual Gods, and such is the peculiarity which
they are allotted, a peculiarity connective of extremes, and which
unfolds into light precedaneous, but converts secondary natures.
For they intellectually perceive the Gods prior to them, but are
objects of intellection to the Gods posterior to them. Hence also
Timæus establishes all-perfect animal to be the most beautiful of
intelligibles, because there are intelligibles posterior to it, which
it surpasses in beauty, as being superior to them, and because it is
the boundary of the first intelligibles, the natures posterior to it
subsisting intellectually. According to this reasoning, therefore, the
first intellectual Gods are also intelligible; and we do not, deriving
these things from a foreign source, ascribe them to Plato, but they are
asserted by us in consequence of receiving auxiliaries from him. This,
however, will be more manifest through what follows.
CHAPTER II.
In the next place, therefore, we shall discuss the manner in which the
Gods who illuminate the breadth of imparticipable life proceed from
the intelligible Gods. Since then the intelligible Gods establish in
themselves uniformly things multiplied, occultly such as are divided,
and according to a certain admirable transcendency of simplicity, the
various genera of beings,—hence the first intellectual Gods,[209]
unfolding their indistinct union, and the unknown nature of their
hypostasis, and being filled through intelligible power and essential
life with the prolific abundance of wholes, are allotted a kingdom
which ranks as the second after them. And they always indeed produce,
perfect, and connect themselves, but receive from the intelligible
Gods an occult generation; from intelligible power indeed, receiving
a peculiarity generative of all things; but from intelligible life
which preexists according to cause in the intelligible, receiving the
nature which is spread under them. For life is primarily indeed in
intelligibles; but secondarily in intelligibles and intellectuals; and
in a third degree in intellectuals; existing indeed according to cause
in the first, but according to essence in the second, and according
to participation in the last of these. The first intellectual,
therefore, proceed from the intelligible Gods, multiplying indeed
their union, and their unical powers, unfolding their occult hyparxis,
and through prolific, connective, and perfective causes assimilating
themselves to the essential, entire, and all-perfect transcendencies
of intelligibles. For in intelligibles there were three primarily
effective powers; one indeed constituting the essence of wholes;
another measuring things which are multiplied; and another being
productive of the forms of all generated natures.
And conformably to these, the intelligible and intellectual powers
subsist; one indeed, by its very essence producing the life of
secondary natures, according to a certain intelligible comprehension;
but another being connective of every thing which is divided, and
imparting by illumination the intelligible measure to those natures
that relinquish the one union [of all things;] and another supplying
all things with figure, and form and perfection. The intelligible
and intellectual orders of the Gods, therefore, are generated
according to all the intelligible causes. From power indeed, being
allotted the peculiarity of progression; but from life receiving the
portion of being which is suspended from them. For life is conjoined
with power; since life is of itself infinite, all motion having
infinity consubsistent with its nature, and the power of infinity, is
generative of the whole of things. But from the triadic hypostasis of
intelligibles, they receive a distribution into first, middle and last.
For it is necessary that all things should be detained by a triadic
progression, and that this should be the case prior to all [other]
things with the intelligible and at the same time intellectual genera
of Gods. For because they subsist as the middle of wholes, and give
completion to the bond of the first orders, according to their summit
indeed, they are assimilated to intelligibles, but according to their
extremity, to intellectuals. And they are partly indeed intelligible,
and partly intellectual. For every where the progressions of the divine
genera are effected through continued similitude. And the first of
subordinate are united to the ends of preexistent causes. As however,
the first and the last in the middle of wholes are both intelligible
and intellectual, it is necessary there should be a connective medium
of these, according to which medium the peculiarity of these Gods
is principally apparent. For that which is intelligible and at the
same time intellectual, in one part indeed is more abundant than, but
in another equally communicates with both these. From these things,
therefore, the continuity of the progression of the divine orders
appears to be admirable. For the extremity of intelligibles indeed was
intellectual, yet as in intelligibles. But the summit of intelligibles
and at the same time intellectuals, is intelligible indeed, yet it
possesses this peculiarity vitally. And again, the end of intelligibles
and at the same time intellectuals, is intellectual, but it is vitally
so. But the beginning of intellectuals, is intelligible, and presides
over the intellectual Gods, yet it has the intelligible intellectually.
And thus all the divine genera are allotted an indissoluble connexion
and communion, an admirable friendship, and well-ordered diminution,
and a transcendency, partly coordinate and partly exempt. That which
proceeds too, is always in continuity with its producing cause; and
secondary natures together with a firm establishment in their causes,
make a progression from them. There is likewise one series and
alliance of all things; secondary natures always subsisting from those
prior to them, through similitude. After what manner, therefore, the
intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods, unfold themselves
into light from the intelligible Gods, may through these things be
recollected.
CHAPTER III.
In the next place, let us show how they are divided in their
progressions, and what difference the triads of these Gods are allotted
with respect to the intelligible triads. These Gods, therefore,
are also divided triply, after the above mentioned manner; being
conjoined indeed to the intelligible, through their summit; but to the
intellectual through their end; and through the middle bond of the
extremes, being allotted the peculiarity of each equally, and extending
to both the intelligible and intellectual genera of Gods, as the centre
of these twofold orders, uniformly containing the communion of wholes.
They are likewise divided triply, because in these all things, viz.
essence, life, and intellect, are vitally, in the same manner as they
are intelligibly in the Gods prior to them, and intellectually in the
Gods that derive their subsistence from these. And essence indeed is
the intelligible of life; but life is the middle and at the same time
the peculiarity of this order; and intellect is the extremity, and that
which is proximately carried in intellectuals as in a vehicle. All
things therefore subsisting in these Gods, there will be a division of
them into first, middle, and last genera. And in the third place, they
are divided triply, because it is necessary that life should abide,
proceed, and be converted to its principles; since of beings, the first
triad was said to establish all things, and prior to other things
the second triad. Eternity, therefore, abides stably in the first
triad. But the triad posterior to this, is the supplier to wholes [and
therefore to all things,] of progression, motion, and life according
to energy. And the third triad is the supplier of conversion to the
one, and of perfection which convolves all secondary natures to their
principles. Hence it is necessary that the intelligible and at the
same time intellectual Gods, should primarily participate of these
three powers, and should abide indeed in the summit of themselves; but
proceeding from thence, and extending themselves to all things, should
again be converted to the intelligible place of survey, and conjoin to
the beginning of their generation the end of their whole progression.
The intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods therefore
are, as I have said, triply divided. And essence indeed is that which
ranks as first in them, but life is the middle, and intellect the
extremity of them. Since however, each of these three is perfect, and
participates of the intelligible monads, I mean of the essence which is
there, of intelligible life, and of intelligible intellect, they are
tripled according to the participation of primarily efficient causes.
And the intelligible of life indeed possesses essence, intellect,
and life intelligibly; but the intelligible and intellectual of it,
possesses essence, life and intellect, intelligibly and at the same
time intellectually; and the intellectual of it possesses these
intellectually and intelligibly.[210] And every where indeed, there is
a triad in each of the sections, but in conjunction with an appropriate
peculiarity. Hence three intelligible and at the same time intellectual
triads present themselves to our view, which are indeed illuminated by
the divine unities, but each of them contains an all-various multitude.
For since in intelligibles, there was an all-powerful and all-perfect
multitude, how is it possible that this multitude should not in a much
greater degree, be evolved and multiplied, in the Gods secondary to the
intelligible order, according to the prolific cause of them? Each triad
therefore comprehends in itself a multitude of powers, and a variety
of forms, producing intelligible multitude into energy, and unfolding
into light the generative infinity of intelligibles. And we indeed,
being impelled from the participants, discover the peculiarity of the
participated superessential Gods. But according to the order of things,
the intelligible and intellectual monads generate about themselves
essences, and all lives, and the intellectual genera. And through
these, they unfold the unknown transcendency of themselves, preserving
by itself the preexistent cause of the whole of things. There are
however, as we have said, three intelligible triads. And there are also
three triads posterior to these, which appear to be tripled from them,
according to their prolific perfection.
But it is necessary that the peculiarity of the intelligible, and
also of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual triad,
should be defined according to another mode. For in the intelligible
order indeed, each triad had only the third part of being; for it
consisted of bound, and infinity, and from both these. But this was
essence indeed in the first triad, intelligible life in the second,
and intelligible intellect in the third. The natures however prior to
these were unities and superessential powers, which give completion
to the whole triads. But in the intelligible and at the same time
intellectual order, each triad has essence, life and intellect;
one indeed intelligibly and at the same time intellectually, but
more intelligibly, so far as it is in continuity with the first
intelligibles; but another intellectually and intelligibly, but more
intellectually, because it is proximately carried in intellectuals;
and another according to an equal part, as it comprehends in itself
both the peculiarities. Hence the first triad, that we may speak of
each, was in intelligibles, bound, infinity, and essence; for essence
was that which was primarily mixed. But here the first triad is
essence, life and intellect, with appropriate unities. For essence is
suspended from the first deity [of this triad,] life from the second,
and intellect from the third. And these three superessential monads,
unfold the monads of the first triad. But again, the second triad after
this, was in the intelligible order, a superessential unity, power, and
intelligible and occult life. Here however, essence, life and intellect
are all vital, and are suspended from the Gods who contain the one bond
of the whole of this order. For as the first unities were allotted a
power unific of the middle genera, so the second unities after them,
exhibit the connective peculiarity of primarily efficient causes. After
these therefore, succeeds the third triad, which in the intelligible
order indeed was unity, power, and intelligible intellect; but here it
consists of three superessential Gods, who close the termination of
the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods, and begird
all things intellectually, I mean essence, life and intellect. They
are likewise the suppliers of divine perfection,[211] imitating the
all-perfect intelligible triad, just as the connectedly containing Gods
imitate the intelligible measure, and the Gods prior to these, the
generative cause of intelligibles. The three intelligible therefore,
and at the same time intellectual triads, are thus generated, and are
allotted such a difference as this, with respect to the intelligible
triads.
CHAPTER IV.
Again however, returning to Plato, let us accord with him, and exhibit
the science which preexists with him concerning each of these triads.
And in the first place, let us assume what is written in the Phædrus,
and survey from the words themselves of Socrates, how he unfolds to
us the whole of the orderly distinction of these triads, and the
differences which it contains. In the Phædrus therefore, there are said
to be twelve leaders who preside over the whole [of mundane concerns,]
and who conduct all the mundane Gods, and all the herds of dæmons,
and convert them to the intelligible nature. It is also said that
Jupiter is the leader of all these twelve Gods, that he drives a winged
chariot, adorns and takes care of all things, and brings all the army
of Gods that follow him, first indeed to the place of survey within the
heaven, and to the blessed spectacles, and discursive energies of the
intelligibles which are there. But in the next place Jupiter brings
them to the subcelestial arch which proximately begirds the heaven,
and is contained in it, and after this to the heaven itself, and the
back of heaven; where also divine souls stand, and being borne along
together with the heaven, survey all the essence that is beyond it.
Socrates further adds, that prior to the heaven there is what is called
the supercelestial place, in which true and real essence, the plain
of truth, the kingdom of Adrastia, and the divine choir of virtues
subsist, and that souls being nourished through the intellection of
these monads, are happily affected, following [in their contemplation]
the circulation of the heaven.
These things therefore, are asserted in the Phædrus, Socrates being
clearly inspired by divinity, and discussing mystic concerns. It
is necessary however, prior to other things, to consider what the
heaven is of which Socrates speaks, and in what order of beings it
is established. For having discovered this, we may also survey the
subcelestial arch, and the supercelestial place.[212] For each of these
is assumed according to habitude towards the heaven; the one indeed
being primarily placed above it, but the other being primarily arranged
under it.
CHAPTER V.
What therefore is the heaven to which Jupiter leads the Gods? For
if we should say that it is the sensible heaven, as certain other
persons say it is, it will be necessary that the more excellent genera
should be converted to things naturally subordinate to themselves.
For if Jupiter the mighty leader in the heaven proceeds to this
sensible heaven, and leads to it all the Gods that follow him, he will
have a conversion to things subordinate, and posterior to himself.
And together with Jupiter, this will also be the case with all the
leaders, and the Gods and dæmons suspended from these; though the same
Socrates in the Phædrus says, that even a partial soul when perfected
is conversant with sublime concerns, and governs the whole world.
How is it possible therefore, that the leaders of whole souls should
be converted to the sensible heaven, and exchange the intelligible
place of survey for an inferior allotment, when through these souls
they preside over the universe, in order that they may illuminate
mundane natures with a liberated and unrestrained power? In addition
to these things also, what are the blessed intellections of the Gods
within this sensible heaven, and what are the evolutions of all the
knowledge of sensibles?[213] For in short the Gods know sensibles,
not by a conversion to them, but by containing in themselves the
causes of them. Hence intellectually perceiving themselves, they know
sensibles causally, and rule over them, not by looking to them, and
verging to the subjects of their government, but by converting through
love inferior natures to themselves. Neither therefore, is it lawful
for the Gods who adorn the whole of heaven, and think it worthy their
providential care, to be ever situated under the circulation of this
heaven; nor is there any blessedness in the contemplation of the things
which exist under it; nor are the souls that are converted to this
contemplation among the number of those that are happy, and that fellow
the Gods, but they rank among those that exchange intelligible for
doxastic nutriment, such as Socrates says, the souls are that are lame,
that have broken their wings, and are in a merged condition. Since
therefore passions of this kind belong to partial souls, and these not
such as are happy, how can we refer a conversion to the sensible heaven
to the ruling and leading Gods?
Farther still, Socrates says that souls standing on the back of the
heaven, are carried round by the circumvolution itself of the heaven;
but Timæus, and the Athenian guest say, that souls lead every thing in
the heavens by their own motions, externally cover bodies with their
motions, and living their own life through the whole of time, impart
to bodies secondarily efficient powers of motion. How therefore do
these things accord with those who make this heaven to be sensible?
For souls do not contemplate and dance round intelligibles, through
the circulation of the heavens; but through the unapparent convolution
of souls, bodies revolve in a circle, and about these perform their
circulations. If therefore any one should say that the sensible heaven
circumvolves souls, and that it is divided according to the back,
the profundity, and the subcelestial arch, many absurdities must
necessarily be admitted.
But if some one should say that the heaven is intelligible, to which
Jupiter is the leader, but all the Gods, and together with these,
dæmons follow him, he will unfold the divinely-inspired narrations of
Plato consentaneously to the nature of things, and will follow the
most celebrated of his interpreters. For Plotinus and Jamblichus are
of opinion that this heaven is a certain intelligible. And prior to
these, Plato himself in the Cratylus following the Orphic theogonies
calls the father indeed of Jupiter, Saturn, but of Saturn, Heaven. And
he evinces that Jupiter is the demiurgus of the whole of things through
the names [by which he is called,] investigating for this purpose the
truth concerning them. But he shows that Saturn is connective of a
divine intellect; and that Heaven is the intelligence, or intellectual
perception of the first intelligibles. For sight, says he, looking
to the things above, is Heaven. Hence Heaven subsists prior to every
divine intellect, with which the mighty Saturn is replete; but it
intellectually perceives the things above, and such as are beyond the
celestial order. The mighty Heaven therefore, is allotted a kingdom
which is between the intelligible and intellectual orders. For the
circulation mentioned in the Phædrus is intelligence, through which
all the Gods and souls obtain the contemplation of intelligibles.
But intelligence is a medium between intellect and the intelligible.
It must be said therefore, that the whole of heaven is established
according to this medium, and that it contains the one bond of the
divine orders, being the father indeed of the intellectual genus, but
being generated from the kings prior to it, which also it is said to
see. But on one side of it the supercelestial place, and on the other
the subcelestial arch must be arranged.
CHAPTER VI.
Again therefore, if indeed the supercelestial place is the
imparticipable and occult genus of the intelligible Gods, how can we
establish so great a divine multitude there, and this accompanied with
separation, viz. truth, science, justice, temperance, the meadow,
and Adrastia? For neither do the fountains of the virtues, nor the
separation and variety of forms, pertain to the intelligible Gods.
For the first and most unical of forms extend the demiurgic intellect
of wholes to the intelligible paradigm, and the comprehension of
forms which is there. But Socrates in the Phædrus says that a partial
intellect contemplates the supercelestial place. For this intellect
is the governor of the soul, as it is well said by the philosophers
prior to us. If therefore, it be necessary from this analogy to
investigate the difference of intelligibles, as the demiurgic intellect
indeed, is imparticipable, but a partial intellect is participable,
so with respect to the intelligible, one indeed which is the first
paradigm of the demiurgus, pertains to the first intelligibles, but
another which is the first paradigm of a partial intellect pertains
to the second intelligibles, which are indeed intelligibles, but are
allotted an intelligible transcendency, as subsisting at the summit of
intellectuals. But if the supercelestial place is beyond the celestial
circulation, but is inferior to those intelligible triads, because it
is more expanded; for it is the plain of truth, and is not unknown, is
divided according to a multitude of forms, and possesses a variety of
powers, and the meadow which is there nourishes souls, and is visible
to them, the first intelligibles illuminating souls with ineffable
union, but not being known by them through intelligence;—if this be
the case, it is certainly necessary that the supercelestial place
should subsist between the intelligible nature, and the celestial
circulation. If Plato himself also admits that essence which truly is,
exists in this place, how is it possible that he should not also admit
it to be intelligible, and to participate of the first intelligibles?
For because indeed it is essence it is intelligible; but because it
truly is, it participates of being.
Moreover, possessing in itself a multitude of intelligibles, it will
not be arranged according to the first triad; for the one being is
there, and not the multitude of beings. But possessing a various life
which the meadow indicates, it is subordinate to the second triad; for
intelligible life is one, and without separation. And again, since
it shines forth to the view with divided forms, all-various orders,
and prolific powers, it falls short of the all-perfect triad [in
intelligibles]. If therefore it is the second to these in dignity and
power, but is established above the celestial order, it is intelligible
indeed, but is the summit of the intellectual Gods. On this account
also, nutriment is derived to souls from thence. For the intelligible
is nutriment, since the first intelligibles also, viz. the beautiful,
the wise and the good, are said to nourish souls. For by these, says
Socrates, the wing of the soul is nourished; but by the contraries
to these it is corrupted and destroyed. These things however, are
indeed effected by the first intelligibles exemptly, and through union
and silence. But the supercelestial place is said to nourish through
intelligence and energy, and to fill the happy choir of souls with
intelligible light, and the prolific rivers of life.
CHAPTER VII.
After the supercelestial place however and the heaven itself, is
the subcelestial arch, which it is obvious to every one ought to
be arranged under the heaven, and not in the heaven. For it is not
called by Plato the celestial, but the subcelestial arch. That it
is also proximately situated under the celestial circulation, is
evident from what is written concerning it. But if it be necessary
to make the subcelestial arch being such, the same with the summit
of intellectuals, and not with the end of the intelligible and
intellectual Gods, it will be now necessary to contemplate what
remains. For the summit of intellectuals separates itself from the
kingdom of the heaven, but the subcelestial arch is on all sides
comprehended by it. And the former indeed constitutes the whole of
intellect, intellectual multitude, and as Socrates says, the blessed
discursive energies of the Gods; but the latter only bounds the
celestial series, and supplies the Gods with the means of ascending
to the heaven. For when the Gods are elevated to the banquet, and
the delicious food, and are filled with intelligible goods, then
they proceed ascending, to the subcelestial arch, and through it
are raised to the celestial circulation. Hence, if you say that the
subcelestial arch is perfective of the Gods, and converts them to
the whole of the heaven, and the supercelestial place, you will not
wander from the meaning of Plato. For the Gods are indeed nourished
by the intelligible, by the meadow, and by the divine forms, which
the place above the heaven comprehends; but they are filled with this
nutriment through the subcelestial arch. For through this they also
participate of the celestial circulation. Hence they are converted
indeed, through the subcelestial arch; but they receive a vigorous
intellectual perception from the celestial order; and they are filled
with intelligible goods from the supercelestial place. It is evident
therefore, that the supercelestial place is allotted an intelligible
summit; but the circulation of the heaven, the middle breadth; and
the arch, the intelligible extremity. For all things are in it. And
intellect indeed is convertive, but the intelligible is the object
of desire. But divine intelligence gives completion to the middle,
perfecting indeed the conversions of divine natures, and binding them
to such as are first, but unfolding the tendencies to intelligibles,
and filling secondary natures with precedaneous goods. I think however,
that through these things we have sufficiently reminded the reader of
the order of these three.
CHAPTER VIII.
Perhaps however, some one may ask us, why we here characterize the
whole progression of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual
Gods, according to the middle, and why we call one of the extremes
supercelestial, but the other subcelestial, from their habitude to
the middle, indicating the exempt transcendency of the one, but the
proximate and connected diminution of the other. Perhaps therefore,
we may concisely answer such a one, that this whole genus of the
intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods, binds together
both the extremes, being to the one the cause of conversion, but to
the other of becoming unfolded into light, and being present with
secondary natures. As therefore, we denominate all the intelligible
Gods paternal and unical, characterizing them from the summit, and as
we say that they are the boundaries of the whole of things, viz. those
that are effective of essence, those that are the causes of perpetuity,
and those that are the sources of the production of forms, after the
same manner we unfold these middle Gods as the leaders of all bonds,
from the middle which is in them. For the whole of this middle order
is vivific, connective and perfective. But the summit of it indeed,
unfolds the impressions of intelligibles, and their ineffable union.
The termination of it converts intellectuals, and conjoins them to
intelligibles. And the middle collects into, and fixes in itself as in
a centre the whole genera of the Gods. For to the extremes also through
reference to the middle we attribute the habitude of transcendency and
diminution, calling the one above, but the other under the middle.
CHAPTER IX.
Through these things therefore, we may concisely answer him, as I have
said, who doubts concerning these names. Here however, it is fit that
we should admire the divine science of Plato, because he has narrated
the mode of the ascent of the whole of things to the intelligible
conformably to the highest of initiators. For in the first place, he
elevates souls and the Gods themselves to the fountains, through
the liberated leaders. For the blessed and most abundant spectacles
and discursive energies are particularly in these fountains, in which
also theurgists place all their hope of salvation. They are therefore
blessed through the unpolluted monads; but they are most abundant
through the cause of divine difference; and they are spectacles and
discursive energies, through the intellectual and paternal powers. But
in the second place, Plato elevates souls and Gods from the fountains,
and through the fountains to the leaders of perfection. For after
many and divided intellections the good of the perfective Gods shines
forth, being supernally expanded from the intellectual Gods themselves,
and illuminating us, and prior to our souls, whole souls, and prior
to these, the Gods themselves. But from the perfective Gods Plato
elevates souls and Gods to the divinities, who are connective of all
the intellectual orders. For the perfective Gods are suspended from
these divinities, subsist together with them, and are comprehended by
them. Such also is the communion and union of these Gods, that some of
the most celebrated [interpreters of Plato] have supposed that there is
an all-perfect and indivisible sameness among them, in consequence of
not being able to apprehend by a reasoning process the separation which
is in them. For here also, it may appear to some one that Plato calls
the extremity of the celestial circulation, the arch. This however
is not the case. For he does not denominate the arch celestial, but
subcelestial. As therefore, the supercelestial is essentially exempt
from the heaven, thus also the subcelestial is inferior to the kingdom
of the heaven. For the former indeed is indicative of transcendency,
but the latter of a proximately-arranged diminution.
After this circulation however, which is connective of the whole of
things, Plato elevates souls and the Gods to the supercelestial place,
and the intelligible union of intellectuals, where also the Gods
abiding, are nourished, are in a happy condition, and are filled with
ineffable and unical goods. For with theurgists also, the ascent to
the ineffable and intelligible powers which are the summits of all
intellectuals, is through the connective Gods. In what manner however,
the Gods are here conjoined to the first intelligibles, Plato no
longer unfolds through words; for the contact with them is ineffable,
and through ineffables, as he also teaches in what he says about them
in the Phædrus. And through this order, the mystic union with the
intelligible and first-producing causes is effected. With us therefore,
there is also the same mode of conjunction. And through this, the
mode of theurgic ascent is more credible. For as wholes ascend to
exempt principles, through the natures proximately placed above them,
thus also parts imitating the ascent of wholes, one conjoined through
middle steps of ascent, with the most simple and ineffable causes.
For what Plato has delivered in this dialogue concerning whole souls,
he afterwards unfolds concerning ours. And in the first place indeed,
he conjoins them with the liberated Gods. Afterwards, through these
he elevates them to the perfective Gods. Afterwards, through these,
to the connective Gods, and in a similar manner, as far as to the
intelligible Gods. Socrates therefore, narrating the mode of ascent
to intelligible beauty, and how following the Gods, prior to bodies
and generation, we were partakers of that blessed spectacle, says:
“For it was then lawful to see splendid beauty, when we obtained
together with that happy choir, this blessed vision and spectacle, we
indeed following Jupiter, but others in conjunction with some other
God, perceiving, and being initiated in those mysteries, which it
is lawful to call the most blessed of mysteries.” How then were we
once conjoined with intelligible beauty? Through being initiated,
says he, in the most blessed of mysteries. What else therefore, does
this assert, than that we were conjoined with the perfective leaders,
and were initiated by them, in order to our being replenished with
beauty? Of what goods therefore, is the initiation the procurer?
“Which orgies,” says he, “were celebrated by us, when we were entire
and impassive, and were initiated in, and became spectators of entire,
simple, and quietly stable visions.” The entire therefore, is
derived to souls from the celestial circulation. For this contains,
and is connective of all the divine genera, and also of our souls.
Every thing however, which in the whole contains parts, comprehends
also that which is divided, and collects that which is various into
union and simplicity. But the entire, quietly stable, and simple
visions, are unfolded to souls supernally from the supercelestial
place, through the connectedly-containing Gods. For the mystic
impressions of intelligibles, shine forth in that place, and also the
unknown and ineffable beauty of characters. For muesis and
epopteia[214] are symbols of ineffable silence, and of union
with mystic natures through intelligible visions. And that which is
the most admirable of all is this, that as theurgists order the whole
body to be buried, except the head, in the most mystic of initiations,
Plato also has anticipated this, being moved by the Gods themselves.
“For being pure,” says he, “and liberated from this surrounding
vestment, which we now denominate body, we obtained this most blessed
muesis and epopteia, being full of intelligible light.”
For the pure splendor [which he mentions] symbolically unfolds to us
intelligible light. Hence, when we are situated in the intelligible,
we shall have a life perfectly liberated from the body. But elevating
the head of the charioteer to the place beyond the heaven, we shall
be filled with the mysteries which are there, and with intelligible
silence. It also appears to me that Plato sufficiently unfolds the
three elevating causes, love, truth, and faith, to those who do not
negligently read what he has written. For what besides love conjoins
with beauty? Where is the plain of truth, except in this place? And
what else than faith is the cause of this ineffable muesis? For
muesis in short, is neither through intelligence nor judgment,
but through the unical silence imparted by faith, which is better than
every gnostic energy, and which establishes both whole souls and ours,
in the ineffable and unknown nature[215] of the Gods. These things
however, have proceeded to this length from my sympathy about such like
concerns.
CHAPTER X.
But again returning to the proposed theology, let us unfold the
conceptions which Plato indicates to us concerning each order of the
intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods. The supercelestial
place therefore is intelligible. Hence also Plato says that it is
essence which truly is, and that it is visible to the intellect of
the soul. It is likewise the one comprehension and union of the
intellectual Gods. For it is not intelligible after such a manner as
animal itself, nor as the first eternity, nor as that which is itself
primarily the one being. For as these are primarily intelligibles, they
are exempt from all other intelligibles, and presubsist by themselves.
But the supercelestial place, is proximately established above the
celestial circulation, and of this is the intelligible; yet it is not
simply intelligible. And that we assert these things rightly, Socrates
also testifies, imparting the intellection of this intelligible to
souls likewise, through the heaven. For in this period, according to
which they are carried round together with the circulation of the
heaven, they behold indeed justice, they behold temperance, and they
also behold science, and each of the beings which have a true and real
existence; so that if the supercelestial place is intelligible, and
real being, yet it is intelligible, as being above the heaven. The
first intelligibles however, are intelligible according to their own
essence, and according to the exempt and first efficient cause of all
intellectual natures. For the mighty Saturn likewise, though he is an
intellectual God, and the fulness of intellect, is intelligible as with
reference to the demiurgus; for he is the summit of the intellectual
triad. Thus therefore, the place also which is above the heaven, is
allotted an intelligible transcendency with respect to the celestial
circulation, and is intelligible as in the first intellectuals.[216]
Hence also it subsists analogous to the first triad of intelligibles.
That triad however, was simply intelligible. For the intelligible which
is in intelligibles, at once exists prior to all second and third
intelligibles. But the supercelestial place is not simply intelligible;
for it is the summit of intellectuals, and not of intelligibles. Hence
Plato calls the first triad of intelligibles the one being; but he
denominates the supercelestial place, truly-existing essence. For the
former indeed, antecedes all beings in an admirable simplicity, and in
the occult unity of being. For that being is the intelligible itself,
and is not in one respect intelligible, but in another intellectual,
nor is it that which is passive to [viz. participates of] being;
but it is the seat, and the most ancient monad of being. This order
however, [viz. the supercelestial place] falls short of the union of
that triad; and participates of being, but is not simply being. Hence
also Plato calls it essence, and essence which truly is, as receiving
this intelligible and essential according to the essence of that which
is primarily being. And the first triad indeed of intelligibles was
paternal; for it subsists according to divine union and bound, and
is the occult, and highest boundary of all intelligibles. But the
supercelestial place is maternal, subsisting according to infinity,
and the power of infinity. For this order is feminine and prolific,
and produces all things by intelligible powers. Hence also, Plato
calls it a place, as being the receptacle of the paternal causes, and
bringing forth, and producing the generative powers of the Gods into
the hypostasis of secondary natures. For having denominated matter
also a place, he calls it the mother and nurse of the reasons [i.e. of
the productive principles], which proceed into it from being, and the
paternal cause.
According to this analogy, therefore, Plato thus denominates the
supercelestial place, as feminine, and as being the cause of those
things maternally, of which the intelligible father is the cause
paternally. Matter however receives forms alone; but the mother
and nurse of the Gods, not only receives, but also constitutes and
generates secondary natures, together with the father. Nor does this
generative deity produce from herself into an external place, her
progeny, and separate them from her own comprehension, in the same
manner as the natures which generate here, deliver their offspring
into light external to themselves; but she generates, comprehends and
establishes all things in herself. Hence also she is the place of
them, as being a seat which on all sides contains them, and as by her
prolific, and primarily efficient powers, preoccupying and containing
in herself, all the progressions, multitude and variety of secondary
natures. For all beings subsist in the Gods, and are comprehended and
saved by them. For where can they recede from the Gods, and from the
comprehension which is in them? And how, if they depart from them, can
they remain even for the smallest portion of time? In a particular
manner however the powers which are generative of divine natures, are
said to comprehend their progeny, so far as they are the proximate
causes of them, and constitute their essence with a more abundant
division, and a more particular providence. For paternal causes produce
secondary natures uniformly, exemptly, and without coordination, and
comprehend, but unically their own progeny. And in simplicity indeed,
they preoccupy the variety of them; but in union their multitude. It
is evident therefore, from what has been said, that the supercelestial
place is intelligible, and after what manner it is intelligible. In
addition to these things also it is evident, how it is feminine; for
place is adapted to the generative Gods through the above-mentioned
causes. And the meadow is the fountain of a vivific nature, as will be
shortly demonstrated. Socrates likewise assumes all the divine natures
that are in this place, to be of this kind, [viz. to be of the feminine
genus] I mean science herself, justice herself, temperance herself,
truth herself, and Adrastia; which may especially be considered as a
certain indication, that Plato particularly attributes the feminine to
this order, and not only other theologists.
CHAPTER XI.
What therefore is the cause through which Plato in the first place
celebrates this deity negatively, analogous to the one? And
what are the negations? For he denominates it, without colour, without
figure, and without contact. And he takes away from it these three
hyparxes, colour, figure, and contact. I say therefore, that this order
being the summit of the intellectual Gods, is unknown and ineffable,
according to its peculiarity, and is [only] to be known through
intelligible impressions. For being the summit of intellectuals, it
conjoins itself with intelligibles. For how could intellectuals be
conjoined with intelligibles, unless they antecedently constituted
an intelligible transcendency of themselves? But what connexion and
communion could be surveyed of the whole orders of things, unless the
extremities of such as are first possessed a certain similitude to the
beginnings of such as are second? For on account of this similitude,
these are connascent with each other, and all things subsist according
to one series. As therefore, the end of intelligibles was intellectual,
so likewise the beginning of intellectuals is allotted an intelligible
hyparxis. And each of these indeed is intelligible; but the one is
intelligible simply; and the other is not intelligible without the
addition of the intellectual. These therefore, are consubsistent with
each other. And the one indeed, is the paternal cause of the whole of
things, so far as it is intelligible, and the intellectual which is in
it is extended intelligibly. But the other is generatively constitutive
of the same things, because it is intellectual, and intelligible good
presides in the intellectual genus. All things therefore, are from
both, exemptly indeed, from the intellectual of intelligibles, but
coordinately, from the intelligible of intellectuals. And both indeed,
rejoice in unknown hyparxes; and are alone, as Plato says, known by
intelligible, mystic, and ineffable impressions. Hence also he calls
the attempt boldness which endeavours to unfold the arcana concerning
them, and to explain by words their unknown union.
From the end of the intelligible order however, the summit of
intellectuals possesses its unknown peculiarity. For so far as it
conjoins itself to the first intelligibles, and is filled with their
unical, ineffable, and paternal hyparxis, so far also it exists in an
unknown manner prior to intellectuals. Hence it is incomprehensible
by the natures posterior to it; but it is known by those prior to
it, being super-expanded into a continued union with them.[217] It
likewise knows the natures prior to itself intelligibly; but this
does not at all differ from uniform and ineffable knowledge. For
intelligible knowledge is the union, cause, summit, and unknown and
occult hyparxis of all knowledge. Since therefore, the one and united
triad is, if it be lawful so to speak, the intellectual image of the
unknown union of intelligibles, and presides over the same uniform and
unknown power in intellectuals, as its own cause does, hence Plato
mystically unfolds it through negations. For every where that which is
highest, and that which is unknown, are analogous to the unical God.
As therefore, we are taught to celebrate this God through negations,
after the same manner we endeavour to unfold negatively the uniform
and unknown summits of secondary orders. And in short, since Socrates
in the Phædrus makes the ascent as far as to the supercelestial place,
arranging it analogous to the first, as in this order, and in the
ascent of souls, he celebrates it by negations. For in the Timæus,
Plato contends that the one demiurgus through whom every demiurgic
genus of Gods subsists, is ineffable and unknown; and every where that
which is highest has this transcendency with respect to secondary
natures. For it imitates the cause which is at once unically exempt
from all beings. We celebrate this cause however, through negations
alone, as existing prior to all things; but we unfold the summits
which proceed analogous to it, affirmatively and at the same time
negatively. As participating indeed, the natures prior to themselves,
we celebrate them affirmatively. For Plato calls the supercelestial
place essence which truly is, the plain of truth, the meadow, and the
intelligible place of survey of the Gods, and he does not only call it
without colour, without figure, and without contact, thus mingling
affirmations with negations. For this order is a medium between the
intelligible Gods and the first intellectual divine orders, containing
the bond of both. And it guards indeed intellectually, according to
a uniform and unknown transcendency, but transmits the plenitudes of
intelligibles as far as to the last of things. It likewise elevates
all things at once, according to one common union, as far as to
the intelligible father, and generates and produces them as far us
to matter. Being therefore established between the unical and the
multiplied Gods, it is unfolded, negatively indeed, through the unknown
manner in which it transcends secondary natures, but affirmatively
through its participation of the first natures. For the first demiurgus
is called in the Timæus fabricator and father, and good, and all such
names, so far as he participates of preexistent causes; but so far
as he is the monad of all fabrication, Plato leaves him unknown and
ineffable, exempt from all the fabricators of things. For he says, “it
is difficult to discover him, and when found, it is impossible to speak
of him to all men.” Thus therefore Plato unfolds the supercelestial
place, affirmatively indeed, as being filled from the first causes, at
one time indeed calling it essence which truly is, at another the plain
of truth, and at another, something else of this kind; but[218] so far
as it transcends the intellectual Gods, and so far as it is supreme
and unical, he celebrates it negatively, in the same manner as the
principle which is exempt from all things.
CHAPTER XII.
It follows therefore, in the next place, that we should consider what
the negations are, and from what orders they are generated. In the
Parmenides then, the negations of the one are produced from
all the divine orders, because the one is the cause of all
of them. And every thing divine according to the hyparxis of itself
participates of the first principle; and the one in consequence
of transcending these is in a much greater degree exempt from the
natures posterior to these. For from these all things proceed; since
they receive partibly the peculiarities of these. This however is
evident from the other hypotheses, in which the same conclusions are
again circulated, at one time being connected together negatively, and
at another affirmatively. For what is there which could be able to
subsist, unless it was antecedently comprehended according to cause
in wholes? But in the Phædrus, the things which are denied of the
intelligible summit of all intellectuals are the natures which are
proximately established after this summit, viz. the sacred genera,
the connective, the perfective, and the paternal of what are properly
called intellectuals. For this summit being exempt from these, it also
transcends all the intellectual Gods. For what every genus of the Gods
is to the one, that the three orders posterior to this summit,
are to it. Plato therefore denominates the celestial order which
connectedly contains wholes, and illuminates them with intelligible
light, colour; because likewise the apparent beauty of this sensible
heaven is resplendent with all various colours, and with light. Hence
he calls that heaven intellectual colour, and light. For the light
proceeding from the good is [in the orders] above [the heaven]
unknown and occult, abiding in the adyta of the Gods; but it shines
forth in this. order, and from being unapparent becomes manifest. Hence
it is assimilated to: colour the offspring of light.
Farther still, if the heaven is sight beholding the things above,
the intelligible of it may very properly be called colour which is
conjoined with the sight. The cause therefore of the intelligibles in
the heaven is without colour, but is exempt from them; for sensible
colour is the offspring of the solar light. But Plato denominates the
order which proximately subsists after the celestial order, and which
we have called the subcelestial arch, figure. For the arch itself is
the name of a figure. And in short, in this order, Parmenides also
places intellectual figure. But Plato first attributes contact to
the summit of intellectuals, as is evident from the conclusions of
the Parmenides. For in the first hypothesis taking away figure from
the one, he uses this as a medium, viz. that the one
does not touch itself. “But the one,” says he, “does not
touch itself.” And the conclusion is evident. Here therefore contact
first subsists, and subsists according to cause. For of those things
of which the demiurgus is proximately the cause, the father who is
prior to him is paradigmatically the cause. In this order therefore,
contact is the paradigm of the liberated Gods. Hence these three orders
are successive, viz. colour, figure, and contact. And from these
the supercelestial place is essentially exempt. Hence it is without
colour, without figure, and without contact. Nor does it transcend
these three privatively, but according to causal excellence. For it
imparts to colour from intelligibles the participation of light; on
figure it confers by illumination intellectual bound; and in contact
it supernally inserts union and continuity, and perfects all things
by its power, things which are touched indeed, through union, those
that are figured, through the participation of bound, and those that
are coloured, through the illumination of light. But it draws upward,
and allures to itself every thing ineffably, and through intelligible
impressions, and fills every thing with unical goods.
If therefore, we assert these things rightly, we must not admit the
interpretation of those who are busily occupied in sensible colours,
and contacts, and figures, and who assert that the supercelestial place
is exempt from these. For these are trifling, and by no means adapted
to that place. For even nature, not only that which exists as a whole,
but that also which is partial, is exempt from sensible colours, from
apparent figures, and from corporeal contact. What therefore is there
venerable in this, if it is also present to natures themselves? But it
is necessary to extend colours, and figures, and contacts, from on high
as far as to the last of things, and to evince that the supercelestial
place, is similarly exempt from all these. For soul also and intellect
participate of figure; and contact is frequently in incorporeal
natures, according to the communion of first with secondary beings, and
it is usual to call these communications contacts, and to denominate
the touchings of intellectual perceptions adhesions. We should not
therefore be carried from things first to things last, nor compare the
highest order of intellectuals with the last of beings, above which
both soul and nature are established. For in so doing we shall err, and
shall not attend to Plato, who exclaims that it is boldness to assert
these things concerning it. For where is the boldness, and what the
unknown power transcending our conceptions, in contemplating the truth
of sensible colours, figures, and contacts. For an hypostasis of this
kind is known by physiologists, and not by the sons of theologists.
Such therefore is the power possessed by the negations through which
Plato celebrates the supercelestial place.
CHAPTER XIII.
Again then, let us in the next place survey the affirmations, how
they exist according to the participation of the first intelligibles
themselves. The supercelestial place therefore, is said to be essence
which truly is, because it participates of that which is primarily
being. For to be, and truly to be are present to all things, as the
progeny of the intelligible essence. For as the one is from
the first principle which is prior to intelligibles, so the nature
of being is from intelligibles. For there the one being subsists, as
Parmenides a little before taught us. But the supercelestial place
is beheld by the governor of the soul, because it is allotted an
intelligible transcendency with respect to the other intellectual Gods.
Hence the intelligible good of it is rendered manifest from its being
known by intellect. This intelligible therefore, in the same manner
as that which is truly being, arrives to it from the unical Gods. For
they are primarily and imparticipably intelligibles, and the first
efficient causes of all intelligibles. These things also concur with
each other, viz. that which is truly being, and the intelligible. For
every intelligible is truly being, and every thing which is truly
being is intelligible. For intellect is intelligible according to
the being which is in it; but according to its gnostic power it is
intellect. Hence also every intellect is the supplier of knowledge; but
every intelligible is the supplier of essence. For that which each is
primarily, it imparts by illumination to the secondary orders.
CHAPTER XIV.
In the third place therefore, the genus of true science is said to be
established about the supercelestial place. For these two things ascend
to the contemplation of that essence, viz. intellect the governor of
the soul (but this is a partial intellect established indeed above
souls, and elevating them to their paternal port) and true science
which is the perfection of the soul. This therefore energizes about
that place, as transitively revolving in harmonic measures about being.
But intellect contemplates it, as employing simple intellection.
Farther still, the science which is in us is one thing, but that
which is in the supercelestial place another. And the former indeed
is true, but the latter is truth itself. What therefore is it, and
whence does it subsist? It is indeed a deity which is the fountain of
all intellectual knowledge, and the first efficient cause of undefiled
and stable intelligence.[219] But it shines forth in the first triad
of intellectuals, because this is perfective of all other things
and likewise of divine souls. For these ascending to this uniform
power of all knowledge, perfect their own knowledge. For each of the
undefiled souls, says Socrates, revolving together with Jupiter and the
heaven, surveys justice, temperance and science. Hence, these three
fountains are there, being intelligible deities, and the fountains
of the intellectual virtues, and not being, as some think they are,
intellectual forms. For Plato is accustomed to characterize these by
the term itself, as for instance science itself and justice itself;
and this Socrates says somewhere in the Phædo. But here when he says
justice herself, temperance herself, and science herself, he appears
to unfold to us certain self-perfect and intelligible deities, which
have a triadic subsistence. And of these science indeed is the monad;
but temperance has the second order; and justice the third. And science
indeed is the supplier of undefiled, firm and immutable intelligence;
but temperance imparts to all the Gods the cause of conversion to
themselves; and justice imparts to them the cause of the distribution
of the whole of good according to desert. And through science indeed,
each of the Gods intellectually perceives the natures prior to himself,
and is filled with intelligible intelligence;[220] but through
temperance he is converted to himself, and enjoys a second union, and
a good coordinate to the conversion to himself; and through justice
he rules over the natures posterior to himself, in a silent path, as
they say, measures their desert, and supplies a distribution adapted
to each. These three fountains therefore contain all the energies of
the Gods. And science indeed proceeds analogous to the first triad of
intelligibles. And as that triad imparts essence to all things, so this
illuminates the Gods with knowledge. But temperance proceeds analogous
to the second triad of intelligibles. For temperance imitates the
connective and measuring power of that triad; since it measures the
energies of the Gods, and converts each of them to itself. And justice
proceeds analogous to the third triad of intelligibles. For it also
separates secondary natures according to appropriate desert,[221] in
the same manner as that triad separates them intelligibly by the first
paradigms.
CHAPTER XV.
After these things therefore, we may survey another triad preexisting
in this place, which also Socrates celebrates, viz. the plain of
truth, the meadow, and the nutriment of the Gods. The plain of truth
therefore, is intellectually expanded to intelligible light, and is
splendid with the illuminations that proceed from thence. For as the
one emits by illumination intelligible light, so the intelligible
imparts to secondary natures a participation productive of essence. But
the meadow is the prolific power of life, and of all-various reasons,
is the comprehension of the first efficient causes of life, and is the
cause of the variety, and generation of forms. For the meadows also
which are here are productive of all-various forms and reasons, and
bear water which is the symbol of vivification. And the nourishing
cause of the Gods, is a certain intelligible union, comprehending in
itself the whole perfection of the Gods, and filling the Gods with acme
and power, in order that they may bestow a providential attention to
secondary natures, and may possess an immutable intellectual perception
of such natures as are first. Above however, the Gods participate of
these uniformly; but in a divided manner in their progressions.
With respect to the nutriment likewise, one kind is called by Plato
ambrosia, but the other nectar. “For the charioteer,” says he,
“stopping the horses at the manger, places before them ambrosia, and
afterwards gives them nectar to drink.” The charioteer therefore, being
nourished with intelligibles, unically participates of the perfection
which is imparted through illumination by the Gods. But the horses
participate of this divisibly; first indeed of ambrosia, and afterwards
of nectar. For it is necessary that from ambrosia, they should stably
and undeviatingly abide in more excellent natures; but that through
nectar they should immutably provide for secondary natures. For they
say that ambrosia is solid, but nectar liquid nutriment; which Plato
also indicates when he says that the charioteer places before the
horses ambrosia and afterwards gives them nectar to drink. Hence the
nutriment of nectar manifests the unrestrained and indissoluble nature
of providence, and its proceeding to all things in an unpolluted
manner. But the nutriment of ambrosia manifests stability, and a
firm settlement in more excellent natures. From both these however,
it is evident that the Gods both abide and proceed to all things,
and that neither their undeviating nature, and which is without
conversion to subordinate beings, is unprolific, nor their prolific
power and progression is unstable; but abiding they proceed, and being
established in the divinities prior to themselves, they provide for
secondary natures without being contaminated. Nectar and ambrosia
therefore, are the perfections of the Gods, so far as they are Gods;
but other things are the perfections of intellect, nature, and bodies.
Hence Plato having assumed these in souls, calls the souls [which are
nourished with these,] Gods. For so far as they also participate of the
Gods, so far they are filled with nectar and ambrosia. These however
in their progressions have a bipartite division; the one indeed,
being the supplier to the Gods of stable and firm perfection; but the
other, of undeviating providence, of liberated administration, and of
an unenvying and abundant communication of good, according to the two
principles of the whole of things, which preside over a distribution of
this kind. For it must be admitted that ambrosia is indeed analogous to
bound, but nectar to infinity. Hence the one is as it were humid, and
not bounded from itself; but the other is as it were solid, and has a
boundary from itself. Nectar therefore is prolific, and is perfective
of the secondary presence of the Gods, and is the cause of power, of
a vigour which provides for the whole of things, and of infinite and
never-failing supply. But ambrosia is stable perfection, is similar
to bound, is the cause to the Gods of an establishment in themselves,
and is the supplier of firm and undeviating intellection. Prior to
both these however, is the one fountain of perfection, and seat to all
the Gods, which Plato calls nutriment, and the banquet, and delicious
food, as unically perfecting indeed the divided multitude of the Gods,
but converting all things to itself through divine intelligence.
For δαις [the banquet] indeed manifests the divided distribution of
divine nutriment; but θοινη [delicious food] the united conversion of
the whole of things to it. For it is the intellectual perception of
the Gods, so far as they are Gods. But nutriment connectedly contains
both these powers, being the plenitude of intelligible goods, and the
uniform perfection of divine self-sufficiency.
CHAPTER XVI.
Concerning these things therefore, thus much may suffice as to the
present theory. But it follows that we should discuss the division
of the supercelestial place into three parts. For the intelligible
summit of intellectuals is, as we have before observed, a triad.
Immediately therefore, according to the first conception of this place,
Plato unfolds its triadic nature, assuming indeed, three negatives,
the uncoloured, the unfigured, and the untangible. Having likewise
established three divinities in it, viz. science, temperance, and
justice, our preceptor and leader [Syrianus] thinks fit to divide this
triad into three monads, and also demonstrates this conformably to
the Orphic theologies. If, however, it be requisite to discover the
definite peculiarities of these three Goddesses, from what has been
already laid down, we must understand, that the plain of truth, the
meadow, and the nourishing cause of the Gods are posited there. To
nourish therefore is the province of intelligible perfection. Hence
the elevating impulse is given to the wing of the soul, and also
intellectual perfection, according to the nourishment which flows from
thence into the soul. But the peculiarity of the meadow, is to possess
a power generative of reasons and forms; and of the causes[222] of the
production of animals. Hence also souls are fed about the meadow; and
the pabulum (νομη) is indeed nutriment, but in a divided manner.
The plain however of truth is the expansion and manifestation of
intelligible light, the evolution of inward reasons, and perfection
proceeding every where. This therefore[223] is the peculiarity of
the third monad. But fecundity is the peculiarity of the second; and
intelligible plenitude of the first. For all the supercelestial place
is indeed illuminated with the light of truth. Hence all the natures
that are contained in it are called true. And Socrates says, “that
whatever soul attending on divinity has beheld any thing of reality
shall be free from damage, till another period takes place.” For every
thing in that place is truly being and intelligible, and is full of
divine union. In the first monads however [i.e. in the plain of truth
and the meadow,] this intelligible light subsists contractedly, and
is occultly established as it were in the adyta; but in the third
monad [viz. in the nourishing cause of the Gods] it shines forth,
and is co-expanded, and is co-divided with the multitude of powers.
We may therefore from these things survey the differences of the
three monads, in a manner conformable to the Platonic hypotheses.
But if indeed science pertains to the first monad, temperance to the
second, and justice to the third, from these things also the triad
will be perfectly apparent. And does not science which is stable, and
the uniform intelligence of wholes, and which at the same time is
consubsistent with intelligibles, pertain to the power which is united
to the intelligible father, and which does not proceed, nor separate
its union from the deity of that father? but does not the genus of
justice pertain to the power which is divided, which separates the
intellectual genera, leads the intelligible multitude into order, and
imparts by illumination distribution according to desert? And does not
the genus of temperance pertain to the power which is the medium of
both these, which is converted to itself, and possesses the common bond
of this triad? For the harmonic, and a communication with the extremes
according to reason, are the illustrious good of this middle power.
That we may not therefore be prolix, what has been said being
sufficient to remind us of the meaning of Plato, those three deities
are celebrated by us, which dividing the supercelestial place, are
indeed all of them intelligible as in intellectuals, and are likewise
summits, and collective of all things into one intelligible union.
One of these however is so stably; another generatively; and another
convertively, possessing a primary effective power in intellectuals.
For one of them indeed, unites the monads of all the Gods and collects
them about the intelligible; but another effects this about the
progressions of the Gods; and another about their conversions. All of
them however at the same time collect into one the whole of an hyparxis
which always abides, proceeds, and returns. Hence also Plato elevates
the Gods that are distributed in the world, to this one place, and
converts them energizing about this as collective of the whole orders
of the Gods to the participation of intelligibles. These monads,
therefore, educe intelligible forms, fill them with the participation
of divine union, and again recall the natures that have proceeded, and
conjoin them to intelligibles. Concerning this whole triad however,
what has been said may suffice.
CHAPTER XVII.
It remains therefore, that we should pass to the discussion of
Adrastia, Socrates indicating that she possesses her kingdom in this
place. For that which defines the measures of a blameless life to
souls from the vision of these intelligible goods, is certainly there
allotted its first evolution into light. For the elevating cause,
being secondary to the objects of desire, may be able to raise
both itself and other things to the supercelestial place, through
conversion. But that which defines and measures the fruits of the
vision of the intelligible to souls, since it has its hyparxis in the
intelligible, imparts by illumination beatitude to them from thence. It
is established therefore, as I have said, in that place. But it rules
over all the divine laws uniformly, from on high, as far as to the last
of things. It likewise binds to the one sacred law of itself, all the
sacred laws, viz. the intellectual, the supermundane, and the mundane.
Whether therefore, there are certain Saturnian laws, as Socrates in the
Gorgies indicates there are, when he says, “The law therefore which was
in the time of Saturn is now also among the Gods;” or whether there are
Jovian laws, as the Athenian guest asserts there are, when he says,
“But justice follows Jupiter, which is the avenger of those that desert
the divine law;” or whether there are fatal laws, as Timæus teaches
there are, when he says, “That the demiurgus announced to souls the
laws of fate;”—of all these the sacred law of Adrastia is connective
according to one intelligible simplicity, and at the same time imparts
existence to all of them, and the measures of power. And if it be
requisite to relate my own opinion, the inevitable guardian power of
this triad, and the immutable comprehension of order pervading every
where, presubsist in this goddess. For these three deities not only
unfold and collect all things, but they are also guardians according
to the Oracle of the works of the father, and of one intelligible
intellect.
This guardian power therefore, the sacred law of Adrastia indicates,
which nothing is able to escape. For with respect to the laws of Fate,
not only the Gods are superior to them, but also partial souls, when
they live according to intellect, and give themselves up to the light
of providence. And the Saturnian Gods are essentially exempt from the
Jovian laws, and the connective and perfective Gods from the Saturnian
laws; but all things are obedient to the sacred law of Adrastia, and
all the distributions of the Gods, and all measures and guardianships
subsist on account of this. By Orpheus also, she is said to guard the
demiurgus of the universe, and receiving brazen drumsticks, and a drum
made from the skin of a goat, to produce so loud a sound as to convert
all the Gods to herself. And Socrates imitating this fabulous sound
which extends a certain proclamation[224] to all things, in a similar
manner produces the sacred law of Adrastia to all souls. For he says,
“This is the sacred law of Adrastia, that whatever soul has perceived
any thing of truth, shall be free from harm till another period,” all
but expressing the Orphic sound through this proclamation, and uttering
this as a certain hymn of Adrastia. For in the first place indeed, he
calls it θεσμος, a sacred law, and not νομος, a law, as
he does the Saturnian and Jovian laws. For θεσμος is connected with
deity, and pertains more to intelligibles [than to the intellectuals];
but νομος indicating intellectual distribution, is adapted to the
intellectual fathers. And in the second place, he speaks of it in the
singular and not in the plural number, as Timæus does of the fatal
laws. In the third place therefore, he extends it to all the genera of
souls, and evinces that it is the common measure of their happy and
blessed life, and the true guard of those souls that are able to abide
on high free from all passivity. For such is the meaning of the words,
“And the soul that is able to do this always, shall always be free from
harm.” This sacred law therefore, comprehends all the undefiled life
of divine souls, and the temporal blessedness of partial souls. And it
guards the former indeed intelligibly, but measures the latter by the
vision of intelligible goods. And thus much concerning Adrastia.
CHAPTER XVIII.
With respect to what remains therefore, we shall summarily say, that
the supercelestial place is the first triad of the intelligible and
at the same time intellectual Gods, possessing three peculiarities,
the unfolding into light, the collective, and the defensive. It
likewise comprehends all these intelligibly, and in an unknown manner,
conjoining indeed intellectuals to intelligibles, but calling forth the
prolific powers of intelligibles, receiving in itself the plenitude of
forms from the intelligible paradigms, and producing its own meadow
from the fontal summit which is there. But from the one intellect
it gives subsistence to the three virtues, perfects all itself by
intelligible impressions, and in its ineffable bosoms receives the
whole of intelligible light. At one and the same time also it abides in
the occult nature of the intelligible Gods, and proceeds intelligibly
from thence, shines forth to the view of intellectuals, and converts
and draws upward by ineffable powers all the images of its proper union
which it has disseminated in every thing. To this place likewise it is
necessary that we should mystically approach, leaving in the earth all
the generation-producing life, and the corporeal nature, with which on
coming hither we were surrounded as with a wall, but exciting alone
the summit of the soul to the participation of total truth, and the
plenitude of intelligible nutriment.
CHAPTER XIX.
After this intelligible and unknown triad however, which presides
over all the intellectual[225] genera, let us survey the triad which
connectedly contains the bond of them, intelligibly and at the same
time intellectually. For it is necessary that prior to intellect and
the intellectual Gods, the cause of connectedly containing should be
in these Gods; and that this being established in the middle of the
intelligible and intellectual order, should extend to all the divine
multitudes, all the genera of beings, and all the divisions of the
world. For what is it which primarily connects things? If, as some say,
the nature of spirit and local motion, body itself which is connective
of other things will require connexion. For every body according to
its own composition is dissipable and divisible; which also the Elean
guest indicating to those who make corporeal principles, says that the
essence which is so much celebrated by them, is broken and dissipated.
Body therefore, is not naturally adapted to be connective of other
things, nor even if a power of this kind pertained to bodies, would
spirit be able to afford us this power, because it is always defluous
and dissipated, and diffusing itself beyond that which bounds it.
But if we suppose that habits and connective forms which are divided
about bodies illuminate their subjects with connexion, it is perfectly
necessary that they should effect this by being present with them; but
how will these habits and forms connect themselves? For it is difficult
to devise how this can be effected. For these being distributed about
material bulks, and divided together with their subjects, require
a boundary and connexion. But they are not naturally adapted to be
bounded or connected from themselves; because they have not an essence
self-begotten and self-subsistent. That however, which neither produces
nor perfects itself, cannot connect itself. And moreover, every habit,
and every material form is alter-motive, and depends on another more
ancient cause, and on this account is inseparable from subjects, not
being able to verge to itself.
But if abandoning these, we should assert that souls which are
incorporeal and self-begotten, are the first efficient causes of
connexion, where shall we place the partible and at the same time
impartible nature of souls, that which is mixed from the partible
and impartible, that which participates of the genera of being,
and that which is divided into harmonic reasons? For souls indeed,
connect bodies and natures, because they participate of an impartible
peculiarity; but they are in want of another connective nature which
may impart the first principle of mixture to the genera, and of
connexion to divided reasons. For the self-motive nature of souls
being transitive, and extended to time, requires that which may
connect its one life, and may render it total and indivisible. For
the whole which is connective of parts, exists prior to parts; since
the whole which consists of parts receives connexion introduced from
something different from itself. But if proceeding with the reasoning
power beyond souls, we survey intellect, whether the intellect which
is participated, or if you are willing, that which is imparticipable
and divine, and in short, if we survey at once the intellectual genus
of the Gods, if this is primarily connective of beings, we shall
find also in this all-various multitude, divisions of genera, and as
Socrates says, many and blessed visions, and discussive energies. For
the separation of divine natures, and the variety of forms, present
themselves to the view in intellectuals, and also fabulous sections and
generative powers. How therefore, can that which connects be primarily
here, where the divisive genus shines forth? And how is it possible
that intellectual multitude should not refer to another more ancient
cause the participation of its proper connexion? For intellectual
multitude is that which is primarily connected (since it is that which
is primarily divided, and that which requires connexion is divisible,
but the indivisible itself is beyond the connective hyparxis), but
it is not that which primarily connects. For every thing which is
connected, is connected by another thing which primarily possesses
the power of connexion. It is evident therefore, from what has been
said, that the connective order of beings is established prior to the
intellectual Gods.
The intelligible indeed, and occult hyparxis, is the supplier of
union to all things, as proximately subsisting after the one,
and being indivisible and uniform. But connexion is the contraction
of multitude into impartible communion; on which account it subsists
as secondary to intelligibles. For the medium which was there was
intelligible, and the united primarily-efficient cause of connexion.
The connective however, of intelligibles and intellectuals, imitates
the unific power of intelligibles. For there the three triadic
monads were the unions of wholes; one of them indeed according to
transcendency; another according to the middle centre; and another
according to conversion. But in the intelligible and at the same time
intellectual orders, these three triads are the second after those
unions, and are connascent with multitude. Hence one of these triads
is collective; another is connective of multitude; and another is
of a perfective nature. For that which is collected, that which is
connected,[226] and that which is perfected, is multitude. Whether
therefore it is intellectual, or supermundane, or mundane, or any other
multitude, it is collected, connected, and perfected through these
three triads. And when collected indeed, it is elevated to the union of
intelligibles, and is firmly established in them. When it is connected,
it abides impartible and undissipated in its progeny. And when it is
perfected, it receives completion from its proper parts or powers.
Since however, it is necessary that beings abiding, proceeding and
returning should enjoy this triple providence, there are indeed three
preexistent collective monads, three connective, and three perfective
monads. And we do not say this, that on account of the good of
secondary natures, first natures are thus divided, and preside over so
many orders and powers; but they indeed are always the primary causes
of good to things subordinate, while we from inferior natures recur
to the causes of wholes. The intelligible therefore, and intellectual
triads, perfect things triadically, and always connect and collect them
into union. But the intelligible monads generate without separation
and unically, their permanencies, progressions and conversions. With
respect to other things however, we have partly spoken, and shall again
partly speak concerning them.
CHAPTER XX.
Let us therefore speak at present concerning the connective triad.
This then, Socrates, in the Phædrus, calls the celestial circulation.
Because indeed, it possesses the middle centre of imparticipable
life, and is that which is most vital itself of life, he calls it
circulation, as comprehending circularly, and on all sides all other
lives, and divine intellections. For on account of this, souls also
which are elevated to it, are perfected according to intellection, and
are conjoined with intelligible spectacles. The circulation of the
heaven, however, is always established after the same manner. For it is
an eternal, whole, one, and united intelligence. But the circulation
of souls is effected through time, subsists in a more partial manner,
and is not an at-once-collected comprehension of intelligibles.
Souls, therefore, are carried round in a circle, and are restored
to their pristine state, the celestial circulation always remaining
the same. Because, however, it gives completion to the bond of the
intelligible and intellectual Gods, and connects all the orders in
their abiding, proceeding, and returning, Socrates calls it celestial.
For Timæus says, that this [sensible] heaven also, compresses on
all sides the elements that are under it, and that on this account,
no place is left for a vacuum. As, therefore, the apparent heaven
is connective of all things that are under it, and is the cause
of continuity, coherence and sympathy, (for the intervention of a
vacuum would interrupt the continuity of things, and the subversion
of this continuity would destroy the sympathy of bodies) thus also
that intellectual heaven, binds all the multitudes of beings into an
impartible communion, illuminating each with an appropriate portion of
connexion. For intellect participates of the connective cause in one
way, the nature of soul in another, and a corporeal state of being in
another. For through the highest participation of connexion, intellect
is impartible; but through second measures of participation, soul
is partible and impartible, according to one mixture; and through
an ultimate diminution, bodies possessing a partible hypostasis, at
the same time remain connected, and do not in consequence of being
dissipated perish, but enjoy their own division and imbecility.
The whole of the connective triad therefore, is denominated heaven
according to the hyparxes of itself; but the breadth of life which is
spread under it is called circulation. For in things apparent to sense,
the period of the heavens is motion, and is as it were the life of
body.
CHAPTER XXI.
If however it be requisite to discover the triadic nature of it from
what has been laid down, we must employ the mode of analogy. Since
therefore Plato himself calls the back of the heaven one thing,
and its profundity another, it is evident that the celestial arch
is the third thing; for the arch which is under this, he directly
calls subcelestial. But as we say that the supercelestial place is
established above the back of the heaven, so likewise we must grant
that the subcelestial is different from the celestial arch. For the
heaven is bounded, supernally indeed by the back, but beneath by the
arch. And it is comprehended indeed by the supercelestial place, but
it comprehends the subcelestial arch. It is evident therefore from
these things, that the heaven presents itself to our view as triadic,
according to its back indeed, connectedly containing all things in
one simplicity; but according to its arch bounding the whole triad;
and according to its profundity, itself proceeding into itself, and
constituting the middle breadth of connexion and coherence. The back
however, of the whole celestial order, is an intelligible deity, being
perhaps allotted from hence this appellation. But it is intelligible
as in the connective triad, externally compressing, and connectedly
comprehending all the kingdom of the heaven. It likewise imparts
to all the Gods by illumination a uniform and simple comprehension
of secondary natures, and is supernally filled with intelligible
union. Hence also, divine souls being led through all the celestial
profundity, stand indeed on the back of the heaven, but the circulation
carries them round as they stand; and thus they survey what is called
the supercelestial place. The station therefore, is the establishment
of souls in the intelligible watch tower of the heaven, extending to
souls sameness, undefiled power, and undeviating intellection. But the
circumduction is the participation of a life full of vigour, and the
most acute energy. And the common presence of both these, comprehends
the prolific energy, the quiet motion, and the stable intellection of
intelligibles. But the celestial profundity, is the one continuity of
the whole triad, and the middle deity which conjoins the whole[227]
celestial order, proceeding indeed from the intelligible comprehension,
but ending in the celestial arch, which defines the boundary of the
whole of the heaven. There is therefore, one union and connexion of all
this triad, and an indissoluble progression from the back as far as
to the arch, through this middle deity which is connascent with both
the extremes, and which unfolds indeed the connective multitude, but
on each side is bounded by the extremes; one of which comprehends it
supernally, but the other from beneath bounds its progression.
The celestial arch therefore remains, which is the boundary beneath
of the triad, and this is also the case with the intellect which is
in it, being filled indeed by life, but united by the intelligible,
and converting all the triad to its principle. For the arch also is
similar to the back of the heaven, though according to interval it
is less. Through subjection therefore it is diminished; but through
similitude it is converted to the celestial summit. And this is the
celestial intellect which is the proximate sunocheus[228] of
the subcelestial arch. Hence each[229] arch is called the intellectual
boundary of the intelligible and intellectual Gods. The whole
connective triad therefore, is allotted such a division as this; the
back (το νωτον) according to the intelligible (κατα το νοητον); the
profundity according to life; and the arch according to intellect. But
the whole of it is one and continued, because that which connects all
other things, ought much more to be connective of itself. For each
peculiarity of the Gods begins its energy from itself; the peculiarity
indeed, which is collective, fixing itself collectively in the highest
union; that which is convertive of wholes, converting itself to the
principle; and that which is undefiled preserving itself prior to other
things pure from matter. Hence the connective peculiarity also, prior
to its participants, connects itself intelligibly and intellectually,
and through this connexion the nature of the heaven is asserted to be
one and continued. For all the triad converges to itself, and preserves
its proper wholeness united, and most similar to itself according to
nature. And the arch indeed, proximately connects all intellectuals,
and compresses them on all sides. But prior to this, the celestial
profundity itself, which also comprehends the arch, binds together
the whole orders. And prior to these, the celestial back uniformly
comprehends according to one ambit of simplicity, all the celestial
kingdom itself, and all things that are contained under it, and binds
them to themselves, by connective power and hyparxis. For in the
things also that are apparent to sense, the concave circumference of
the heavens, proximately compresses the elements, and does not suffer
them in their indefinite motions on all sides, to be dissipated and
blown away. And still prior to these, the celestial bulk strongly
compresses and impels all things to the middle, and leaves no void
place. But there is one comprehension of all these, viz. the back of
the heavens, which is the cause to the heavens of similitude, and to
the elements of contact with the heavens. For the smooth and equable
nature of the back of the heavens as Timæus says, makes the whole of
heaven similar to itself; and always the natures which comprehend
are connective of the natures that are comprehended. It is necessary
therefore from things that are apparent, to transfer the similitude to
the father of the intellectual Gods, Heaven, and to survey how he is
both one and triple, supernally indeed, and beneath, possessing the
intelligible and intellect; but according to the middle possessing
life, which being the cause of progressions and intervals, and
generative powers, we have properly arranged according to interval
under the celestial profundity;[230] since Plato himself also calls the
summit the back. “For those,” says he, “that are called immortals, when
proceeding beyond the heaven they arrive at the summit, stand on the
back of the heaven.” He calls therefore, the summit of the celestial
order, and beyond, the back of the heaven; which things are in a
remarkable manner the prerogatives of the first of the Synoches. For
connectedly containing all things in the one summit of his hyparxis,
according to the Oracle, he wholly exists beyond, and is united to the
supercelestial place, and to the ineffable power of it, being enclosed
on all sides by it, and shutting himself in the uniform comprehension
of intelligibles. For what difference is there between saying that the
first of the Synoches is shut in the intelligible place of survey, and
evincing that it is proximately comprehended by the supercelestial
place, which was intelligible, but expanded in intellectuals? If
however, that which is beyond is the first, the summit is evidently
coarranged with the rest, and is exempt from them. But if the first is
a thing of this kind, being established according to the intelligible
summit, and imparting by illumination to the other Gods, contact with
the intelligible, and with the paternal port, it is indeed necessary
that there should be a middle and an extremity, the one according to
the celestial profundity, but the other according to the termination
of the whole circulation. If however the circulation of the whole of
the heaven is one and continued, the peculiarity of this order must
be assigned as the cause of this. For being connective of the whole
orders of the Gods, and prior to other things of itself, and being
as it were the centre and bond of the divine genera, it in the first
place binds and connects itself, and extends itself to one life. The
heaven therefore is one and at the same time triple, and proceeds into
three monads, being both unapparent and apparent, and that which is
between these, and imitating the intelligible Gods who subside into
intelligible triads.
CHAPTER XXII.
If you are willing however from what is written in the Cratylus, to
see the peculiarity of this order, in the first place, let this be
considered by you as an argument of the Synoche established
in the middle, that a twofold habitude of it is delivered, one,
towards intelligibles, but the other towards intellectuals. For it
is said to see the things above, and to generate a pure intellect.
Hence, of intelligibles it is the intelligence, but of intellectuals
the intelligible. For the cause of intellect subsists prior to
an intellectual cause, and that which is at once both these,
especially gives completion to the middle order of intelligibles and
intellectuals. For the collective deity, perceiving intelligibles, or
rather being united to them, does not primarily give subsistence to a
divine intellect. And the perfective deity, producing together with the
middle divinity intellectuals, proximately perceives intellectually the
celestial order, and not the intelligibles prior to the heaven. But
the middle divinity alone, occupying the intelligible and intellectual
centre, equally indeed extends to both, but perceiving intelligibles
intellectually, it is the cause of intellectuals intelligibly.
Since however, habitude to its causes precedes the power[231] in it
which is generative of intellectuals, Socrates beginning from this
habitude, delivers also a second power as suspended from it. But sight
directed to things above is very properly assigned the appellation
of celestial, as seeing the things above. This
therefore, perfectly defines for us a habitude more ancient than the
connectedly-containing order, jointly assuming it to be intellectual
as with reference to intelligibles, and sight as with reference to the
objects of sight, though it intellectually perceives itself, and is
intelligible in itself. But the intelligible of it, as with reference
to that which is primarily intelligible, is allotted an intellectual
order. What follows however, unfolds the habitude of this middle to
intellectuals. (For Socrates adds,) “Whence also, O Hermogenes, those
who are conversant with things on high say that Heaven generates
a pure intellect, and that this name is properly assigned to it.”
The order therefore, of the Heaven is expanded as a middle in the
middle intellectual and intelligible Gods, comprehending at once the
intelligible and intellectual in one impartible connexion, subsisting
similarly with respect to each of these, and being equally distant
from the first intellectuals, and the unical intelligibles. Hence it is
said to perceive intellectually the things above, and thus to produce
(a pure) intellect.
Assuming this therefore, in the first place from what has been laid
down, in the next place we should attend to this, that the celestial
order being triple, and the whole of it intellectually perceiving
intelligibles, and producing intellectuals, the first monad indeed
in an eminent manner intellectually perceives intelligibles. For it
mingles itself with intelligibles, knows intelligible intellect,
is united to the natures prior to itself, and is impartible as in
impartibles, super-expanding itself towards intelligible simplicity.
But the third monad is especially generative of intellectuals; since
it is the intellect of the whole connective triad. And with the Orphic
theologists also, Heaven the father of Saturn is the third. But the
middle monad produces together with the third the intellectual order of
the Gods; but is conjoined together with the first to intelligibles,
and is filled indeed with intelligible union from the first, but fills
the third[232] with prolific powers. Do you not see therefore, how
Plato through the peculiarity of the extremes, unfolds to us the whole
celestial order? Conjoining indeed, the intelligible hyparxis of it
to intelligibles; but its intellectual hyparxis to intellectuals; and
affording us the means of collecting its hyparxis which is the middle
of both these, and which proceeds according to a common peculiarity.
For if you likewise wish to assume this from what has been said,
the celestial light is conjoined to the light of intelligibles. For
sight is nothing else than light. The middle order therefore, by its
own light, and by the divine summit of itself is conjoined to the
first natures; but by an intellectual nature, and the boundary of the
whole triad, it generates intellect, and all the unpolluted deity of
intellectuals. For it does not produce intellect by itself, but in
conjunction with purity. For this Socrates himself asserts: “Whence
also, they say, that a pure intellect is generated by it.” Hence the
celestial order is the first-efficient cause of the intellectual
hyparxis, and of undefiled power. If however it is necessary that
purity should not be inherent in intellect from accident, it is the
deity of those beings that are exempt from secondary natures, and is
the supplier of immutable power, which the mighty Heaven producing in
conjunction with intellect, is at the same time the efficient cause
of the Gods who are the sources of purity, and of the intellectual
fathers. These indications therefore of the truth concerning the
connective Gods, may also be assumed from the Cratylus.
CHAPTER XXIII.
It remains therefore that in conformity to what is written in the
Phædrus, we should survey the subcelestial arch, and the peculiarity
of the Gods that are there. Before however we begin the doctrine
concerning it, I wish to premise thus much, that some of the most
celebrated of the interpreters prior to us, conceiving that this
subcelestial arch is a divine order arranged under the heaven, have
thought fit to rank it immediately after the first God, calling the
first God Heaven. But others have arranged both the heaven, and the
subcelestial arch in the breadth of intelligibles. For the Asinæan
philosopher indeed [Theodorus] being persuaded by Plotinus, calls
that which proximately proceeds from the ineffable, the subcelestial
arch, as in his treatise concerning names he philosophizes about
these things. But the great Iamblichus conceiving the mighty heaven
to be a certain order of the intelligible Gods, (and in one place he
considers it to be the same with the demiurgus,) asserts that the order
proximately established under the heaven, and as it were begirding
it, is the subcelestial arch. And these things he has written in his
Commentaries on the Phædrus. Let no one therefore think that we make
any innovation concerning the theology of this order, and that we
are the first who divide the subcelestial arch from the heaven; but
that we are principally persuaded by Plato, who distinguishes these
three orders, the supercelestial place, the celestial circulation,
and the subcelestial arch; and that after Plato, we are persuaded by
those who investigate his theory in a divinely-inspired manner, viz.
by Iamblichus and Theodorus. For why is it necessary to speak of our
leader [Syrianus,] who was truly a Bacchus, [i.e. one agitated with
divine fury,] and who in a remarkable manner was full of deity about
Plato, and caused as far as to us the admirable nature of the Platonic
theory, and the astonishment with which it is attended, to shine forth?
He therefore in his treatise on the concord [of Orpheus, Pythagoras,
and Plato, has most perfectly unfolded the peculiarity of this order,
the subcelestial arch.] The two above-mentioned wise men, however,
differ very much from each other in their theory. For Theodorus, in
calling the first cause Heaven, does not any longer permit Heaven to
be sight perceiving the things above, as Socrates in the Cratylus
etymologizes it to be. For the first God neither sees, nor is sight,
nor is inferior to any thing. Neither therefore does Theodorus admit
this explanation of the name, nor does he celebrate the supercelestial
place, as Socrates does under the influence of divine inspiration. For
there is neither any place, nor intelligible of the one, nor
any multitude of forms, nor does the genus of souls ascend beyond the
first God; since there is not any thing beyond him. But the divine
Iamblichus, as he supposes that Heaven subsists indefinitely after
the first cause, and as he has not delivered the peculiarity of its
hyparxis, he is indeed pure from the above-mentioned doubts, but he
should teach us what the celestial order is, how it subsists, and what
genus of Gods prior to the demiurgus gives completion to it. He however
who has perfected every thing [on this subject,] and has confirmed all
that he has said by invincible arguments, is our preceptor [Syrianus,]
who has surveyed all the orders between the first God, and the kingdom
of the heaven, and who has intellectually beheld the peculiarity of
this order, and has delivered to us his mystics the accurate truth
concerning it. In this way therefore, our fathers and grandfathers
differ from each other; but all of them in common distinguish the
subcelestial arch from the celestial circulation.
CHAPTER XXIV.
This therefore must also be supposed by us, and likewise in addition to
this, that this order of Gods (the subcelestial arch,) is proximately
arranged under the heaven. Hence, since the heaven being one and
triple, is allotted the connective order, but the supercelestial place
is allotted the highest order of the intelligible and at the same time
intellectual Gods, it is undoubtedly necessary that the subcelestial
arch should terminate the middle progression of the Gods, should
close this whole order, and convert it to its principle, and that it
should receive an order which is secondary indeed to the heaven, but
which it convolves to the highest union, and should be connascently
conjoined with the middle genera, but exist prior to intellectuals.
For these indeed separate their kingdom from the celestial power; but
the subcelestial arch is united to the heaven, and is comprehended
by the celestial order. Whence also it is denominated subcelestial.
As it is conjoined therefore, to the celestial circulation, and
subsists proximately from it, it converts all secondary natures to
intelligibles, and perfects them according to the intellectual place
of survey. For since the intellectual Gods are generated according to
conversion, and are convolved to themselves according to one spherical
union, it is necessary that the perfective empire should be proximately
established above them.
Hence, I am led to wonder at those who are ignorant of this divine
order, and do not maintain the whole fountain of perfection; but some
of them betake themselves to entelechias, of whom we admit
thus much alone, that they also conjoin the perfect with the form of
connexion. They are ignorant therefore, of the perfection which is
separate from subjects, willingly embrace the resemblances of true
perfections, and are conversant with these. Others again assign soul as
the cause of perfection, who are ignorant that they do not vindicate to
themselves a perfection preexisting in eternity, and who begin from the
life which energizes according to time, and possesses its perfection
in periods. It is necessary, however, that a perfection the whole of
which subsists at once, should be prior to that which is divided, and
that stable perfection should be prior to that which is moved. For
the motion itself which is according to time, is indigent of end, and
of the desirable, and is evolved about it according to parts. In the
third place, after these, others recur to intellect, and suppose the
first perfection to be intellectual. For intellect indeed, is energy
and intellectual perfection; but it aspires after divine perfection,
subsists about it, and is converted to itself through it. It is
necessary therefore, that the cause of conversion should exist prior
to the intellectual genera which are converted to divine perfection,
and that the leader of the perfection which is one, should be expanded
above the natures which are perfected.
Deservedly therefore, does the subcelestial arch prior to all
intellectual natures, preestablish an order of Gods convertive and
perfective of all the secondary divine genera. And on this account,
Plato elevates the Gods and dæmons that follow Jupiter, to this arch,
and through this to the heaven, and the supercelestial place. For when
they proceed to the banquet, and delicious food, they ascend to the
subcelestial arch. Hence through this they are perfected, participate
of the circulation of the heaven, and are extended to the intelligible.
For the intelligible is that which nourishes and fills all things. The
perfective therefore is established under the connective order. And
it perfects indeed all the natures that ascend to the intelligible,
dilates souls to the reception of divine goods, and illuminates
intellectual light. But comprehending in the bosoms of itself, the
second genera of the Gods, it establishes all things in the connective
circulation of wholes.
Through these things therefore, Socrates also shortly after says,
that the souls that are elevated together with the twelve Gods, to
intelligible beauty, are initiated [viz. rendered perfect] in the most
blessed of the mysteries, and through this initiation, receive the
mysteries with a pure soul, and become established in, and spectators
of things ineffable. Hence the initiation of the Gods is there; the
first mysteries are there. Nor is it at all wonderful, if Plato also
tolerates us in calling the Gods [of this order] Teletarchs,
since he says, that the souls that are there are initiated,
the Gods themselves indeed initiating them. But how is it possible
otherwise to denominate those who are the primary sources of
telete or initiation, than Teletarchs? For I
indeed, perceiving so great an energy even as far as to the names
themselves, do not see how they can be called differently. Initiation
however, being one and triple, (for the perfective are co-divided with
the connective Gods,) Plato calls the one union of it the subcelestial
arch, in the same manner as he calls the connective order Heaven. But
the depth which is in it is indicated by his admitting that there is
in it an extreme subjection, and a steep path to the summit of the
arch. As therefore, in the order prior to this, we thought it proper to
arrange the intelligible according to the summit, the vital according
to the profundity, and the intellectual according to the extremity,
which defines the whole celestial circulation, so likewise in this
perfective order, we must consider the intelligible of the arch as
its summit, denominating it after the same manner as the back of
the heaven, because these are coordinate to each other; but we must
consider the profundity as coordinate to life, through which souls
proceed to the summit; and the extremity which closes the whole arch,
as coordinate to intellect.
CHAPTER XXV.
This whole order however, which is united to the order prior to it,
we must analogously divide. For the perfective Gods are spread under
all the connective triad. And one of these indeed, is the supplier
to the Gods of stable[233] perfection, establishing all the Gods in,
and uniting them to themselves. But another is the primary source
of a perfection generative of wholes, exciting things which precede
according to essence, to the providence of secondary natures. And a
third is the leader of conversion to causes, convolving every thing
which has proceeded, to its proper principle. For through this triad
every thing which is perfect is self-sufficient, and subsists in
itself; every thing which generates, is perfect, and generates full
of vigour; and every thing which aspires after its proper principle,
is conjoined to it, through its own perfection. Whether therefore,
you assume the power of nature which is perfective of things that are
generated, or the perfect number of the restitutions of the soul to its
pristine state, or the perfection of intellect which is established
according to energy in one, all these are suspended from the one
perfection of the Gods, and being referred to it, some are allotted a
greater, but others a less portion of a perfect hyparxis; and every
perfection proceeds from thence. But in short, perfection is triple;
one indeed being prior to parts, such as is the perfection of the Gods.
For this has its subsistence in unity, preexisting self-perfectly,
prior to all multitude. For such indeed is the one of the Gods,
not being such as the one of souls, or of bodies; since these
indeed are in a kindred manner conjoined with multitude, and are
co-mingled with essences. But the unities of the Gods are self-perfect,
and subsist prior to essences, generating multitudes, and not being
generated together with them. But another perfection is that which
consists of parts, and which derives its completion through parts, such
as is the perfection of the world; for it possesses the all-perfect
from its plenitudes. And a third other perfection, is that which is in
parts. But thus also each part of the world is perfect. For as this
universe is a whole consisting of wholes, so likewise it is perfect
from the perfect parts that are in it, according to Timæus. And in
short, perfection is divided after the same manner as wholeness; for,
as Timæus says, they are conjoined with each other.
Hence also the perfective genus is connascent with the connective,
and the perfective monad is arranged under all the connective genera.
And as the wholeness of the heaven which connectedly contains parts
is triple, so likewise perfection is triple. And if it be requisite
to deliver my own opinion, all the perfections are derived from all
the leaders; but the perfection which is prior to parts, pertains in a
greater degree to the first leader; that which consists of parts, to
the middle; and that which is in a part, to the third leader. But prior
to this triad, is the intelligible triad, which is uniform perfection,
and an all-perfect hyparxis, and which Timæus also denominates perfect
according to all things. There, however, the three perfections
pre-existed unitedly, or rather, there was one fountain of every
perfection. As therefore the connective[234] triad, is the evolution of
the intelligible connexion, and the collective triad of the unific, and
that which is the first in intelligibles, so likewise the perfective
triad is the image of the all-perfect triad. For the intelligible and
intellectual proceed analogous to the intelligible triads. Perfection
therefore is triple, prior to parts, from parts, in a part. According
to another mode also, perfection is stable, generative, convertive.
And according to another conception, there is one perfection of
intellectual and impartible essences, another of psychical essences,
and another of the natures which are divisible about bodies. Very
properly therefore, there are three leaders of perfection prior to
the intellectual Gods, who constitute one order under the celestial
circulation, who elevate through themselves all secondary natures
to the intelligible, perfect them by intelligible light, convert and
conjoin them to the kingdom of the heaven, impart an unsluggish energy
to the natures that are perfected, and are the guardians of their
undefiled perfection.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Such are the conceptions which may be assumed from Plato concerning
the third triad of the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual
orders, which at one time he denominates the subcelestial arch,
possessing a summit, middle, and extremity, but at another a blessed
mystery, and of all mysteries the most ancient and august, through
which he elevates souls and conjoins them to the mystic plenitude
of intelligibles. For this triad opens the celestial paths, being
established under the celestial circulation, and exhibits the
self-splendid appearances of the Gods, which are both entire and firm,
and expand to the mystic inspection of intelligible spectacles, as
Socrates says in the Phædrus. For telete precedes muesis,
and muesis, epopteia. Hence we are initiated
[teleioumetha] in ascending, by the perfective Gods. But we view
with closed eyes [i.e. with the pure soul itself, muoumetha]
entire and stable appearances, through the connective Gods, with whom
there is the intellectual wholeness, and the firm establishment of
souls. And we become fixed in, and spectators of [epopteuomen]
the intelligible watch tower, through the Gods who are the collectors
of wholes. We speak indeed of all these things as with reference to the
intelligible, but we obtain a different thing according to a different
order. For the perfective Gods initiate us in the intelligible through
themselves. And the collective monads are through themselves the
leaders of the inspection of intelligibles. And there are indeed
many steps of ascent, but all of them extend to the paternal port,
and the paternal initiation, in which may the teletarchs, who are the
leaders of all good, likewise establish us, illuminating us not by
words, but by deeds. May they also think us worthy of being filled
with intelligible beauty under the mighty Jupiter, and perfectly free
us from those evils about generation with which we are now surrounded
as with a wall. May they likewise impart to us by illumination this
most beautiful fruit of the present theory, which, following the
divine Plato, we have sufficiently delivered to those who love the
contemplation of truth.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Let us now therefore again follow Parmenides in another way, who
after the intelligible triads generates the intelligible, and at
the same time, intellectual orders, and unfolds the continued
progression of divine natures, through successive conclusions. For
the connexion of the words, and their dependence on each other,
imitates the indissoluble order of things, which always conjoins
middles to extremes, and proceeds through middle genera to the last
progressions of beings. This therefore we must survey prior to the
several intellectual conceptions, how the intelligible, and at the
same time, intellectual triads, proceed analogous to the intelligible
triads, that we may comprehend by a reasoning process the well-arranged
order of things. There were three intelligible triads therefore, viz.
the one being, whole, and infinite multitude. And three intelligible,
and at the same time, intellectual triads, have also presented
themselves to our view, viz. number, whole, and the perfect. Hence
from the one being, number is derived; from the intelligible whole,
the whole that is in these; and from infinite multitude, the perfect.
For the infinite which is there was all-powerful, and all-perfect,
comprehending indeed all things, but being itself incomprehensible. To
the all-powerful therefore and all-perfect, the perfect is analogous,
possessing a perfection which is intellectual, and secondary to the
first effective and intelligible perfection. The whole also which
is both intelligible and intellectual is allied to the intelligible
whole, but it differs from it, so far as the latter possesses wholeness
according to the one union of the one being; but the one of the
former appears to be itself by itself a whole, consisting of unical
parts; and being appears to consist of many beings. These wholenesses
therefore, being divided, differ from the wholeness which precedes
according to union and is intelligible. For the wholenesses of this
whole are parts of the intelligible wholeness.
In the third place therefore, we must consider number as analogous
to the one being. For the one being is there indeed occultly,
intelligibly, and paternally; but here in conjunction with difference
it generates number, which constitutes the separation of forms and
reasons.[235] For difference itself first shines forth in this order,
being power indeed, and the duad in intelligibles; but here it is
maternal, and a prolific fountain. For there power was collective
of the one, and the one being; on which account also it was
ineffable, as existing occultly in the one and in hyparxis. But
here difference separates indeed being and the one. After this
likewise, it multiplies the one proceeding generatively, and
calls forth being into second and third progressions; breaking indeed
being into many beings, and dividing the one into more partial
unities. But according to each of these completing the decrements,
the wholes remaining. Very properly therefore does Plato make the
negations of the one from this. For here the many subsist,
through difference which divides being and the one; since the
whole also which is denied of the one, is intellectual and
not intelligible. The negation therefore says that the one is
not a whole, so that the affirmation is, the one is a whole.
This whole however is intellectual and not intelligible. Parmenides
also denies the many as follows: “The one is not many;” but
the opposite to this is, the one is many. The multitude of
intelligibles, however, does not make the one to be many, but
causes the one being to be many. And in short, every intelligible is
characterized by the one being. For in the intelligible being and
the one are complicated, and are connascent with each other; and
being is most unical. But when each of these proceeds into multitude,
they are separated from each other, and evince a greater difference
with respect to each other. Each of these also is divided into
multitude through the prolific nature of difference. From these things
therefore, it is evident that the intelligible and intellectual orders,
being analogous to the intelligible orders, proceed in conjunction with
diminution.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
After this however, let us discuss each of them, beginning according
to nature. First, therefore, the intelligible, and at the same
time, intellectual number presents itself to our view; and which is
connected with multitude. For every number is multitude. But with
respect to multitude, one kind subsists unitedly, and another kind
with separation. Number, however, is separate multitude; for there
is difference in it. For in the intelligible there was power, and
not difference, and this power generated multitude, and conjoined it
to the monads. Number therefore is in continuity with intelligible
multitude; and this is necessary. For the monad was there, and also
the duad; since whole also was there, and was always monadic; and
becoming to be two, has no cessation. Hence the monad and the duad
were there, which are the first and exempt principles of numbers.
And in these multitude was unitedly; since the monad which is the
fountain of numbers, and the duad possess all multitude according to
cause; the former paternally, but the latter maternally. And on this
account intelligible multitude is not yet number, but is intelligibly
established in the uniform principles, I mean the monad and the duad;
generatively indeed, in the duad, but paternally in the monad. For
the third God was father and mother; since if animal itself is in it,
it is also necessary that the cause of the male and the female should
there primarily preexist. For these are in animals. Hence according
to Timæus, and according to Parmenides, the maternal and the paternal
cause are there. And in these, intelligible animals, and intelligible
multitudes are comprehended. From these first principles also number
together with difference proceed, and they generate the monads and the
duads which are in number, and all numbers. For both the generative and
the paternal subsist in these in a feminine manner.
All the monads likewise of this triad are paternal. Hence prior to
other things they participate of the monadic cause, but according to
the power of difference. For there indeed, I mean in the intelligible,
the maternal was paternally; but here the paternal subsists maternally;
just as there, the intellectual subsists intelligibly, but here the
intelligible, intellectually. From that order therefore, the first
number subsists proximately, but being generated analogous to the
first triad of intelligibles, it also evidently proceeds from it.
Hence also, Parmenides beginning his discourse about number, reminds
us of the first hypothesis through which he generates the one being,
asserting that the one participates of essence, and essence of
the one, in consequence of this subsisting according to
that triad. And this very properly. For being intelligible and
intellectual, so far indeed, as it is allotted an intelligible order
in intellectuals, it proceeds from the summit of intelligibles, but
so far as it precedes the intellectual orders, it proceeds from the
intellectual of intelligibles. In that intelligible triad, however,
the one was of being, and being of the one, through the
ineffable and occult union of these two, and their subsistence in each
other. But in the intelligible and at the same time intellectual triad,
difference presenting itself to the view, which is the image of the
concealed and ineffable power in the first triad of intelligibles,
and luminously exerting its own energy, separates the one
from being, and being from the one, leads each into divided
multitude, and thus generates total number. For number, as we have
frequently said, is divided and not united multitude, and subsists from
the principles according to a second progression, but is not occultly
established in the principles. Hence also, it is simply different from
multitude. And in intelligibles indeed, there is multitude; but in
intellectuals number. For there indeed, number is according to cause;
but here multitude is according to participation. For there indeed,
division subsists intelligibly; but here union has an intellectual
subsistence. If therefore number proceeds from these, and is allotted
such an order, Parmenides very properly especially mentions these
triads, asserting that the one participates of essence, and
essence of the one,[236] and that through these the many become
apparent. For one of these indeed, is the illustrious property of
the first triad, but the other, of the third triad. And in the first
triad indeed, participation[237] was the presubsistence of the union
of the one and being; but in the third triad many intelligibles
present themselves to the view, Plato all but proclaiming that the most
splendid of intelligibles subsists according to intelligible multitude,
though multitude is there occult, and uniformly. For according to each
order of divine natures, multitude is appropriately generated in the
extremities.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The intelligible number therefore of the intellectual genera, proceeds
from these, and through these. And it possesses indeed properties
incomprehensible by human reasonings, but which are divided into two
first effective powers, viz. the power generative of wholes, and the
power which collects into union all progressions. For according to
the monad indeed, it collects intellectual multitude, and conjoins it
to intelligibles; but according to the duad it produces multitude,
and separates it according to difference. And according to the odd
number indeed, it collects the many orders into indivisible union; but
according to the even number, it prolifically produces into light all
the genera of the Gods. For being established as the middle of the
intelligible and intellectual Gods, and giving completion to the one
bond of them, it is carried in its summit indeed, in intellectuals
as in a vehicle, but being united to intelligibles, it evolves
intelligible multitude, and calls forth its occult and unical nature
into separation, and prolific generation. It also collects that which
is intellectual into union and impartible communion. And not this
only, but generating all things as far as to the last of things,
according to the incomprehensible cause of the duad and the nature of
the even number, it again unites the proceeding natures and convolves
them according to the monad, and the sameness of the odd number.
Through unity indeed, and the duad, it produces,[238] collects and
binds all things intelligibly, occultly, and in an unknown manner to
the intelligible, and effects this even in the last matter and the
vestigies of forms which it contains. But through the even and odd
number it constitutes the two coordinations, viz. the vivific and the
immutable, the prolific and the effective, all the impartible genera
of fabricating and animal-producing powers, those powers that preside
over a partible life, or partible production, the more intellectual and
singular mundane natures, and which belong to the better coordination,
and those natures that are more irrational and multiplied, and which
give completion to the subordinate series. And again, through this
divided generation we may see that each of the proceeding natures, is
united and at the same time multiplied, is indivisible and divided
in its causes, and through diminution is separated from them. And we
attribute indeed things that are more excellent and more simple to
the nature of the odd number, but things that are less excellent
and more various, to the nature of the even number. For every where
indeed, the odd number is the leader of impartible, simple, and unical
goods; but the even number is the cause of divided, various, and
generative progressions. And thus we may see all the orders of beings
woven together according to divine number which is most ancient,
intellectual, and exempt from all the dinumerated genera. For it
is necessary that number should exist prior to the things that are
numbered, and that prior to things which are separated there should be
the cause of all separation, according to which the genera of the Gods
are divided, and are distinguished in an orderly manner by appropriate
numbers.
If therefore in intellectuals there are divisions, contacts, and
separations of the proceeding natures, and likewise communications of
coordinate natures, it is necessary that number should be prior to
intellectuals, which divides and collects all things intelligibly by
the powers of itself. And if all things subsist occultly, intelligibly,
in an unknown manner and exemptly in this summit,[239] there is a
number of them, and a peculiarity unical and without separation. Number
therefore subsists according to the middle bond of intelligibles and
intellectuals, being indeed expanded above intellectuals through
intelligible goods, but subordinate to intelligibles through
intellectual separations. And it is assimilated indeed to intelligibles
according to the power which is collective of many things into union,
but to intellectuals according to the power which is generative of the
many from the one. But from this highest place of survey of
the intellectual Gods, it constitutes the first intellectual numbers
themselves which have the nature of forms, are universal, and preside
over the whole of generation and production. It likewise constitutes
the second numbers, which are supermundane, and vivific, and measure
the Gods that are in the world. But it constitutes as the third
numbers, these celestial governors of the perpetual circulations, and
who convolve all the orbs according to the intellectual causes of
them. And it constitutes as the last numbers those powers that in the
sublunary region connect and bound the infinity and unstable nature of
matter by forms, and numbers and reasons, through which both the wholes
and parts of all mortal natures are variegated with proper numbers. But
it every where connects the precedaneous and more perfect genera of
the Gods by the odd number, but the subordinate and secondary genera,
by the even number. Thus for instance, in the intellectual orders, it
produces the female and the prolific according to the even number,
but the male and the paternal according to the odd number. But in the
supermundane orders, it characterizes similitude and the immutable
according to the odd number, but dissimilitude and a progression
into secondary natures, according to the even number. For thus the
Athenian guest also, orders that in sacred worship odd things should be
distributed to the celestial, but even to the terrestrial powers. And
according to each of these genera that which is of a more ruling nature
must be referred to the odd number, but that which is subordinate, to
the even number.
The nature of number, therefore, pervades from on high, as far as
to the last of things, adorning all things, and connecting them by
appropriate forms. For how could a perfect number comprehend the period
of the whole world, as the Muses in Plato assert that it does? Or how
could numbers, some of which are productive of fertility, and others
of sterility, comprehend the descents of souls? Or how could some
of them define the ascents of souls in less, but others in greater
periods, as Socrates says in the Phædrus, where he delivers to us
restitutions consisting of three thousand and ten thousand years? Or
how could time itself which is unically comprehensive of the psychical
measures, proceed according to number, as Timæus says it does, unless
divine number exists prior to all these, which imparts to all things
a principal cause of order according to numbers? Since all things
therefore subsist through numbers and forms, numbers are allotted
a progression from the intellectual summit. But forms have their
generation from intelligible[240] forms. For forms subsist primarily
in the third triad of intelligibles. But numbers are primarily in the
first triad of intellectuals; since also in the effects of these, every
number indeed is form, but not every form is number.
If, however, it be requisite clearly to unfold the truth, numbers are
also prior to forms. For there are indeed superessential numbers, but
there are not superessential forms. And according to this reasoning
every form is number, as also the Pythagoreans said. For Timæus being
a Pythagorean, not only asserts that there are intelligible forms, but
also intelligible numbers; for he says that the intelligible forms are
four. There however, number is intelligibly, and monadically according
to cause. For intelligible animal is a monad, occultly containing the
whole of number. But in the summit of intellectuals, number subsists
separately, evolving the number which preexists in the monad according
to cause and uniformly. For there is a difference, I think, between
saying multitude in its cause, and multitude from its cause, and
between saying united, and saying separated multitude. And the one
indeed is prior to number, but the other is number. So that according
to Timæus there are intelligible numbers together with forms, and prior
to forms. And according to Parmenides, number is after multitude. For
Timæus calls uniform and occult multitude the number of forms. But
since number is primarily in the Gods, but forms participate of the
divine unities, he denominates the first ideas four. For monad and
triad, were primarily indeed in the Gods themselves, but secondarily in
intellectuals; and superessentially indeed in the former, but formally
in the latter. In intelligibles therefore, multitude was unically; but
in intellectuals it subsists separately. But where there is separation
there also there is number, as we have frequently observed. Hence
likewise all the genera of the Gods are from hence generated. And they
are divided, the paternal indeed and generative, among intelligibles
and intellectuals; but the demiurgic and vivific, among intellectuals.
And the genera indeed, that bind through similitude, are divided among
supermundane natures; but those that are both exempt and distributed,
are divided among the liberated Gods. And the celestial[241] and
sublunary genera, are divided among the mundane Gods. And in short, all
the coordinations of beings receive their distinction and separation
from this order. From these things therefore, it is evident what the
peculiarities are which intelligible and at the same time intellectual
number possesses, and of what it is the cause to the Gods.
CHAPTER XXX.
In the next place, we must likewise assert that the first number[242]
is of a feminine nature. For in this, difference first shines forth,
separating the one from being, and dividing the one
into many unities, and being into many beings. What therefore is the
difference which is the cause of these things to the Gods? For if we
should call it a genus of being, in the first place indeed, how is
it prior to being? For separating being and the one, it is
arranged between both of them. But existing as a middle, it calls
forth indeed the one into generations, but it fills being with
generative cause. If therefore, it is prior to being, how will it be
one certain genus of being? And in the second place, after this, the
different which is a genus of being, is every where essential,
and is by no means inherent in superessential natures. But difference
itself is primarily present with the unities themselves, and separates
and produces many unities from one. How therefore, can superessential
difference ever come to be the same with the difference which gives
completion to essences?
In the third place, that different [which is a genus of being,]
presents itself to the view in intellectuals, according to the
demiurgic order. But difference itself is the intelligible summit of
intellectuals. And the former indeed, subsists together with sameness;
but the latter has by itself a subsistence in the intelligibles of
intellectuals. To which also may be added, that in what follows,
Plato as he proceeds makes mention of difference, and generates it
in conjunction with sameness. How therefore, does he effect the same
conclusion twice? For he does not employ such a repetition as this in
any one of the other conclusions. For whole, which he seems to assume
twice, is not the same whole, viz. the intellectual is not the same
with the intelligible; but these, as we have said, differ from each
other. For how could he unfold to us the different progressions of
divine natures, if he collected the same conclusions? According to all
these conceptions, therefore, we must separate the difference which is
generative of numbers from the genus of beings.
But if difference itself is not the nature of the different, but a
power generative of beings, it will be collective of being and the
one. For every where power is allotted an hyparxis of this kind.
For through power the one participates of being, and being of
the one. Power therefore was the cause, not of division, but
of communion, of contact without separation, and of the habitude of
the one to being, and of being to the one. Hence it is
necessary that it should neither be arranged according to intelligible
power, nor according to the intellectual difference of beings; but that
being the middle of both, it should subsist analogous to intelligible
power, but should generate in the extremities of intellectuals the
portion of the different. What else therefore is it than the
feminine nature of the Gods? Hence also it imitates intelligible power,
and is prolific of many unities, and of many beings. And how could
it otherwise separate number from itself, and the forms and powers
of number, unless it was the cause of the divine progressions in a
feminine manner. Multitude therefore is paternally in intelligibles,
but maternally in intellectuals. Hence, in the former indeed, it
subsists monadically, but in the latter according to number. Very
properly therefore, in the second genera of the Gods also, union is
derived from the male, but separation from the female divinities. And
bound indeed proceeds from the males, but infinity from the females.
For the male is analogous to bound, but the female to infinity. The
female, however, differs from infinite power, so far as power indeed,
is united to the father, and is in him; but the female is divided from
the paternal cause. For power is not only in the female divinities,
but is also prior to them, since the intelligible powers are in the
male divinities, according to Timæus, who says that the power of the
demiurgus is the cause of the generation of perpetual natures. For
[the demiurgus says to the junior Gods] “imitating my power, produce
and generate animals.” Power therefore, is prior to the male and the
female, and is in both, and posterior to both. For it pervades through
all beings, and every being participates of power, as the Elean guest
says. For power is every where. But the female participates in a
greater degree of its peculiarity, and the male of union according to
bound. That the first number therefore, which presents itself to the
view from intelligibles, is of a feminine nature, is through these
things evident.
CHAPTER XXXI.
It remains then, that we should speak concerning the triadic division
of it, following Parmenides. These three things therefore, have
appeared to us from the beginning, according to the separation of
the one from being, viz. the one, difference, and being;
difference not being the same either with the one or being. For
though the one and being were in intelligibles, yet difference
first subsists here. Since however power above [i.e. in intelligibles]
was collective, but here is the separator of the extremes, there are
not only three monads, but also three duads, viz. the one in
conjunction with difference, difference in conjunction with being, and
the one in conjunction with being. For difference also is the
cause of a separation of this kind, not preserving the union of the
one being with genuine purity. There are therefore three monads, and
three duads. But these likewise may become three triads, when we begin,
at one time from the one, at another time from being, and at
another from difference. Hence this triad subsists monadically, and
triadically. But this is the same thing as to assert that difference
and the first feminine nature generates in itself, monads, duads,
and triads. For the divided assumption, generates for us different
monads; but the conjoined assumption, duads, and triads, some indeed
being vanquished by the one, others by difference, and others by
being. And thus far the first deity presents itself to the view, being
prolific of the first numbers; according to the one indeed,
of unical numbers, but according to difference of generative, and
according to being, of essential numbers.
Since however, from this deity which is intelligible, that which is
posterior to it proceeds, it is evidently necessary that the monad,
duad, and triad, should severally have prolific power. These powers
therefore, Parmenides calls once, twice, thrice. For each of these
is a power which is the cause of the above-mentioned essences that
produce either separately, or connectedly. For there with respect
to the generations of them, some of them are entirely peculiar, but
others are common to secondary natures. The progeny therefore of
these are, the oddly-odd, the evenly-even and the evenly-odd.[243]
And of these, the oddly-odd indeed, as we have before observed, is
collective into union of the divine progressions. But the evenly-even
is generative of wholes, and proceeds as far as to the last of things.
The evenly-odd however, is mixed, having its subsistence from both the
even and the odd. Hence we must establish the first as analogous to
bound, but the second as analogous to power, and the third as analogous
to being. And you may see, how indeed in the first order all things
had a primary subsistence, viz. monad, duad, triad; but how in this
order, all things are secondarily and subordinately. And the mixture
which is the triad, subsisted there indeed in one way, but here the
evenly-odd subsists in another way. For there the extremes were odd,
because they were intelligible; but here the even is more abundant,
and the intelligible summit only is odd. For the middle of the triad
is analogous to power. And there indeed, is the monad, which has all
the forms of odd numbers according to cause, and the duad is there,
which is occultly all the forms of even numbers, and also the triad,
which is number primarily. But here both the odd and the even number
now subsist in a twofold respect, in one place in an unmingled,
and in another in a mingled manner. All things therefore, are here
prolifically, but there, paternally and intelligibly. But that
monad does not proceed from intelligibles, but subsists in them in
unproceeding union. Hence, after these, and from these, we may survey
the whole of number subsisting according to a third progression.
“For these things,” says Parmenides, “preexisting, no number will be
absent.” Every number therefore, is generated through these in the
third monad, and both the one and being become many, difference
separating each of them. And every part indeed of being participates of
the one; but every unity is carried as in a vehicle in a certain
portion of being. Each of these however, is multiplied, intellectually
separated, divided into minute parts, and proceeds to infinity. For as
in intelligibles, we attribute infinite multitude to the third triad,
so here, in this triad we assign infinite number to the third part of
the triad. For in short every where, the infinite is the extremity,
as proceeding in an all-perfect manner, and comprehending indeed all
secondary natures, but being itself participated by none of them. In
the first monad therefore, there were powers, but intelligibly. In the
second, there were progressions and generations, but both intelligibly
and intellectually. And in the third, there was all-powerful number,
unfolding the whole of itself into light; and which also Parmenides
denominates infinite. It is likewise especially manifest that it is not
proper to transfer this infinity to quantity. For how can there be an
infinite number, since infinity is hostile to the nature of number? And
how are the parts of the one equal to the minute parts of being?
For in infinites there is not the equal. But this indeed has been
thought worthy of attention by those who were prior to us.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The division therefore into three, having been demonstrated by us,
we shall briefly observe, that the one appears to be many
according to this order, the one itself proceeding into a
multitude of unities, and being in a similar manner becoming generated
in conjunction with the one. For those three monads are the
intelligible comprehensions of all orders, and they at once preside
over all the progressions from intelligibles, produce all of them in
an exempt manner, and collect them to the intelligible causes. Since
however, Plotinus admits that number is prior to animal itself, and
says that the first being produces from itself number, and that this
is established as a medium between the one being, and animal itself,
but is the basis and place of beings, it is worth while to speak
likewise concisely about this. For if he says that animal itself has
intelligible and occult number, as comprehended in the monad, he
speaks rightly, and accords with Plato. But if he says that animal
itself comprehends number, now separated, or which has a multiform
subsistence, and is the progeny of difference, intelligible multitude
is not a thing of this kind. For there indeed, the one is being,
and being is the one. Hence animal itself is according to all
things perfect. But in number, the one is separated from being,
and being from the one, and each of the parts is no longer
an intelligible whole, as an animal itself. For that is a whole of
wholes; and every where the one was with being in the parts of
it, and animal itself was only-begotten. But number proceeded after
the twofold coordinations, I mean the monad and duad, the odd and the
even number. How therefore, can we place in animal itself the first
number? If however, some one should say that number exists there, it is
according to cause and intelligibly. But it is intellectually separated
by difference. And farther still, in addition to these things, if
animal itself is surveyed by some one in the demiurgic order, and he
denominates it the plenitude of forms, and the intelligible of the
demiurgic intellect, it will thus have intellectual number, as being
arranged near the intellectual end. But if he should call intelligible
animal number, in this case there will be separation and difference
in the Gods, whom we have asserted to be established above the whole
of things, according to supreme union. For all section and division
originate from the intellectual Gods; since here difference proceeds,
adorning things in conjunction with the one and being. How
therefore, does the division of the unities into minute parts, or the
multiform nature of beings pertain to intelligibles? And how can the
multitude of all forms accord with the first animal itself? For the
tetrad was there, divided by the monad and triad, a division of this
kind being adapted to the third order of intelligible forms. For as
the one being is a monad, but eternity is a monad and duad, (for to
be is conjoined with the ever) so animal itself is a monad and triad.
Since however, it comprehends in itself the cause of all number,
Timæus denominates it the tetrad which is comprehensive of the four
first-effective causes. For the tetrad itself preexists as the fountain
of all the production of forms. But in intelligibles the monad, duad
and triad subsist unically; but in intellectuals in a divided manner.
Difference therefore necessarily generates all these for us with
separation. For every where, the first of subordinate natures have the
peculiar form of the natures that exist prior to them.[244] Hence,
the first multitudes proceed indeed from the one, but they
are unical, without separation, and without number, imitating the
one principle of the whole of things. Very properly therefore, does
Parmenides constitute multitude in intelligibles, according to the end
[of the intelligible order]; but number in intellectuals according to
the beginning [of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual
order.] And these are conjoined with each other. Parmenides also
pre-establishes unical and intelligible multitude, as the cause
of intellectual numbers. And Timæus shows that animal itself is
only-begotten, because it was monadically the cause of the whole of
things, and not dyadically, nor according to divine difference. That
number however, is the first thing in intellectuals, we have abundantly
shown.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
But Parmenides begins to speak about it as follows: “Proceed therefore,
and still farther consider this. What? We have said that the one
participates of essence, so far as it is being. We have said so. And
on this account the one being appears to be many.” But he completes
his discourse about the first monad thus: “Are not three things odd,
and two even? How should they not?” And about the second monad, as
follows: “Hence there will be the evenly-even, and the oddly-odd, and
the oddly-even, and the evenly-odd.” But he completes his discourse
about the third and all the succeeding triad, as follows: “The one
being therefore, is not only many, but it is likewise necessary that
the one which is distributed by being should be many. Entirely
so.” The first triad, therefore, of the intelligible, and at the same
time, intellectual Gods, is through these things unfolded to us by
Plato, and which possesses indeed, according to the first monad the
first powers of numbers, I mean the odd and the even, and is completed
through these principles which were in intelligibles occultly, viz.
monad, duad, triad. But according to the second monad it possesses
the second powers of numbers which subsist from these [i.e. from the
first powers]. For the section of the forms of the even number, is
allotted a second order. And the oddly-odd is subordinate to the first
odd numbers. But according to the third monad, it possesses the more
partial causes of divine numbers. Hence also, a separation into minute
parts, infinity, all-perfect division, and unical and essential number
are here; receiving indeed, the unical and the essential from unity
and being, but the separation of number from difference. For every
where difference is in the three monads, but it particularly unfolds
the multitudes of numbers, according to the third monad, generates
more partial Gods, and divides being in conjunction with the Gods. For
neither is deity in these imparticipable, because unity is not separate
from being, nor is essence destitute of deity, because neither is being
deprived of the one.
Since however, all things are in each of the monads, but unically
and intelligibly in the first, generatively, and according to the
peculiarity of difference in the second, and intellectually, and
according to being in the third;—this being the case, Plato when
unfolding to us the first monad, very properly begins from the monad,
and proceeds as far as to the triad; but when teaching about the
second, he begins from evenly-even numbers, and proceeds as far as
to those that are evenly-odd, both which belong to the nature of the
even number. And when he adds the third monad, he begins from being,
and recurs through difference to the one. For having shown that
being participates of number, he from hence leads us round to unical
number, employing the mode of conversion in the conception of this
monad.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
If, however, it be requisite to survey the unknown peculiarity
of divine numbers, and how the first order of intelligibles and
intellectuals, and number which subsists according to this order, is
the most ancient of all numbers, in the first place, we should consider
the infinity mentioned by Parmenides, and see whether he does not say
that intelligible multitude is infinite on account of this number,
in consequence of its being unknown and incomprehensible by partial
conceptions. For the all-perfect, and all-powerful peculiarity of
divine numbers is exempt from the comprehension of partible natures,
[such as ours]. They are therefore unknown, and on this account are
said to be inexplicable, and not to be investigated. For number also
in the last of things, and multitude, together with the known have
likewise the unknown. And we are not able to comprehend the progression
of every number in consequence of being vanquished by infinity.
The incomprehensibility therefore, of this power which is unknown
according to a discursive energy, is comprehended according to cause,
in intelligible numbers and multitudes. For there would not be a thing
of this kind in the last of numbers, unless the unknown pre-existed in
intelligible numbers, and unless the former were ultimate imitations of
the exempt incomprehensibility of the latter.
In the second place, after this, we may also add, that unical numbers
are likewise of themselves unknown. For they are more ancient than
beings, more single than forms, and being generative of, exist prior to
the forms which we call intelligible. But the most venerable of divine
operations manifest this, since they employ numbers, as possessing an
ineffable efficacy, and through these effect the greatest, and most
arcane of works. And prior to these nature ineffably, according to
sympathy, imparts different powers to different[245] things, to some
solar, but to others lunar powers, and renders the productions of these
concordant with numbers. For in these monadic numbers also, the forms
of numbers, such as the triad, the pentad, and the heptad, are one
thing, but the unions of the forms another thing. For each of these
forms is both one, and multitude. Hence form is unknown according to
the highest union.
If therefore, monadic number participates of a certain unknown power,
much more must the first number possess this peculiarity unically
exempt from the whole of things. And besides this, we may also assume
the anagogic power of numbers, not only because they define the periods
of the physical restitutions, circumscribing our indefinite lation by
appropriate measures, perfecting us according to these measures, and
conjoining us to our first causes, but because likewise, number in a
remarkable manner possesses a certain power of attracting to truth,
as Socrates says in the Republic, leading us to intelligibles from a
sensible nature.[246] As therefore, the last number is allotted this
peculiarity, what ought we to say about the first number? Is it not
this, that it unfolds intelligible light, especially persuades to an
establishment in intelligibles, and through its own order announces to
us the uniform power of principles? If therefore, we rightly assert
these things, we shall in a greater degree admire Timæus, who having
placed time over the perfections of souls, and the whole world, through
which it would become more similar to animal itself says, that time
proceeds according to number, and by number measures the existence of
total souls. And as in intellectuals, number is established above the
celestial circulation, collecting and causing it to be one, thus also
in sensibles Timæus says, that time being number measures the celestial
periods, and comprehends in itself the first causes of the perfection
of the periods. If also, Socrates in the Republic, in the speech of
the Muses, speaks about the one and entire period of the universe,
which he says a perfect number comprehends, does it not through these
things appear that divine number is perfective of wholes, and restores
them to their pristine state, and that it measures all periods? The
power likewise of collecting things imperfect to the perfect, accedes
to all things from number, which elevates souls from things apparent
to those that are unapparent, illuminates the whole world with the
perfection of motion, and defines to all things measures, and the order
of periods. But if not only a perfect number contains the period of a
divine generated[247] nature, but another second number after this is
the lord of better and worse generations, as the same Socrates says,
number will not only restore things to their pristine state, but will
also be of a generative nature. And it is evident that these things
subsist in a divided manner, according to the second and third periods
of numbers; but at once, and contractedly in the first of numbers. The
first number therefore, is generative, mensurative, and perfective of
generated natures.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The first order therefore of intelligibles and intellectuals is thus
surveyed by Parmenides. But after this the order which possesses the
middle place of intelligibles and intellectuals, and which a little
before we called connective, presents itself to the view. It is however
denominated in a threefold respect, viz. one, many, whole, parts,
finite, infinite. For since the separation of unities and beings
from number, extends to it, the one and being, which we have
said difference divides, become wholes. But the things proceeding
from these, are the parts of these. And wholeness indeed connectedly
contains parts, but these are contained by their wholeness, in one
way indeed, by the one, but in another by being. For there
indeed, I mean in the summit of the intellectual Gods, unity was the
cause of multitude, at the same time being exempt from multitude, and
generative of the many. But here unity is coarranged with multitude.
Hence also it is a whole which has reference to many unities as to
parts. Since however, the connective order is triple, one division
of it being intelligible, another intelligible and intellectual, and
another intellectual, the first monad indeed subsists according to
the one and the many; but the second, according to whole and
parts; and the third, according to the finite and the infinite. For
where the first triad ends, there the second has its beginning. Hence,
in the triad prior to this, Parmenides infers that the one is
many. And in this triad, he concludes the same thing together with what
remains. There however, the one was generative of infinites;
but here the one is comprehensive of many, the whole of parts,
and the finite of infinites. Hence, there indeed, unity is exempt
from the many; but here it is coarranged with multitude. Hence also,
the first coarrangement generates whole together with parts; but the
subsistence of whole and parts produces the finite and at the same time
infinite. For these are successive to each other, viz. the one,
the whole, the finite, and the things which are as it were in an
opposite arrangement to these, the many, parts, infinites. And the
one itself is indeed the principle of the rest. But whole has now a
habitude with respect to parts, and a representation of the duad, and
proceeds into a coarrangement with reference to the parts. The finite
however, is now multitude, participating of bound and the one,
and is as it were a triad. For it is neither bound alone, as the monad,
nor infinite alone, as the duad, but it participates of bound, which
is primarily a triad. Every thing finite therefore, is a whole, but
not every whole is finite. For the infinite is a whole, whether it is
multitude, or magnitude. And every whole indeed, is one, but not every
one is a whole. For that which is without habitude to multitude is not
a whole. The one therefore, is beyond whole; but whole is beyond
the finite.
After the same manner also, infinite parts are said to be the parts of
that which is finite. For the infinite of itself has no subsistence;
by which also it is evident that the infinite is not in quantity in
energy,[248] but in capacity. All parts however are not infinite.
For according to bound they are characterized by one of the parts.
And again, parts indeed are many, but the many are not entirely
parts. The many therefore, are prior to parts: and parts are prior
to infinites. Hence, as the many are to the one, so are
parts to whole, and so are infinites to the finite. And these three
connectedly-containing monads, give completion to the middle order of
intelligibles and intellectuals. For unity indeed, is the supplier of
stable and intelligible connection to all the secondary orders. But
wholeness connects the progressions of divine natures, and produces
one habitude of the orderly distribution of wholes. And the finite
monad imparts by illumination to the conversions of second natures,
connection with the natures prior to them. And one of these indeed is
analogous to the one being, on which account also it is intelligible.
But another is analogous to the third order, in which there was the
one, and the duad which generates infinite multitude. Such is the
connective triad, which Parmenides exhibits to us through these things.
The one therefore, is one and many, whole and parts, finite
and infinite multitude. Let no one however, be disturbed that Plato
calls the one or being infinite multitude. For he calls the
one and being when they have proceeded and are divided, infinite in
multitude. For all multitude indeed, is referred to the intelligible
infinity. But divided multitude, and which has proceeded perfectly, is
most signally infinite.
Since therefore, all the primary causes of intellectuals are in this
triad, and all things are disseminated in its bosoms, the first
Synocheus indeed, comprehends these causes as multitude, being himself
an intelligible unity, and the flower as it were of the triad. But the
second comprehends indeed secondarily these causes, but co-arranged
and co-multiplied with them. And the third, together with all-perfect
division, connects the multitude comprehended in himself. Each of them
also is connective, but one as bounding, another as giving completion
to a whole, and another as uniting. Plato therefore made, and makes
as he proceeds his demonstrations of the one. For the whole
theory is concerning the one. But it is evident that being is
co-divided with the one. For universally, it has been before
observed, that every deity proceeding thence is participable, and
that every portion of being participates of deity. It is necessary
however, not to stop in the one alone, but to consider the same
peculiarity[249] as imparted to being in a secondary degree, since
Plato also produces the one itself by itself according to the
differences of the divine orders; which occasions me to wonder at
those who think that all the conclusions of the second hypothesis are
concerning intellect, and do not perceive that Plato omitting being
surveys the one itself by itself, as proceeding and generated,
and receiving different peculiarities. For how in discoursing
concerning intellect could he omit being, according to which intellect
has its subsistence, power, and energy. For the one is beyond
the nature of intellect; but being gives hyparxis to intellect, and
intellect is nothing else than being. This opinion however of these men
may be confuted by many other arguments. But if the three connective
Gods are divided after the above-mentioned manner, and the intelligible
connective deity is one many, but the intelligible and at the same time
intellectual deity is whole and parts, and the intellectual is finite
and infinite, each of them is very properly called much. For
each of the Synoches according to his own peculiarity is a multitude.
For the first about the many, receives many Synoches of a more partial
nature. The second receives these according to parts. And the third,
according to infinites. If therefore, there are certain partial Gods
who are allotted this peculiarity, they are comprehended in this first
triad.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Moreover, it is easy for every one to see how these things accord with
what is written in the Phædrus. For the connective one accords with the
back of the heaven that comprehends these. For the one and the
back are the same, comprehending according to one simplicity the whole
circulation. But whole is the same with the profundity of the heaven,
and with as it were the bulk of it. For the celestial profundity is a
whole extended from the back as far as to the arch. And end is the same
with the arch. This therefore, is evident beyond every thing, and each
of the other conclusions, is to be referred to the same conceptions.
Hence from what has been said, it may be collected, that these three
things pertain in a remarkable degree to the Synoches, viz. the
one, whole, and the end [or the finite]. For what is so able to
connect multitude as the one which is co-arranged with it?
What is so connectedly-comprehensive of parts as whole? And how is it
possible that the end [or bound,] should not be the cause of binding
together things which are borne along to infinity. It terminates
therefore, their progression, and brings back their dispersed section
to the one essence of connection. And thus much concerning the
connective triad.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
But the third, as they say, to the saviour, and let us also following
Plato in what remains celebrate the perfective order of the Gods.
Because, therefore, the end of the connective order was the finite, [or
the bounded] the perfective order has extremes. For the end [or bound]
is the extremity. There however indeed the one was said to be
the finite, but here it is said to have an extremity, as receiving
according to participation that which has the power of terminating
many things. And there indeed, the one was end or bound, which
also connectedly contains the infinite; but here having an extremity,
it will also have a middle and beginning, and will be perfect. For
that which receives its completion from all these, is perfect. Here,
therefore, the perfection which consists of parts is apparent. For the
consummation of the parts, produces the perfect. Moreover, because
such a one as this has a middle and extremes, it will have the figure
of a circumference, or it will be rectilinear, or it will be mixed
[from the right and circular line]. For all these require a middle
and extremes; some indeed with simplicity, but others with connexion.
Three peculiarities, therefore, again present themselves to our view;
the first, indeed, being that which we said was to have extremes; the
second, being according to the perfect; and the third, according to
figure. And there are also three perfective leaders of wholes; one
indeed being intelligible; another, intelligible and intellectual; and
the third, intellectual.
The intelligible leader, therefore, is said to have extremes, as being
directly arranged under the end of the connective Gods, and in the
boundaries of himself intelligibly comprehending all the intellectual
orders. But the intelligible and intellectual leader, is defined
according to the perfect, comprehending in himself the beginnings,
middles, and ends of beings, and giving completion to the middle bond
of the whole perfective triad. And the intellectual leader proceeds
according to triadic figure, being the cause of bound and divine
perfection; and imparting termination to things indefinite, but
intellectual perfection to things imperfect. And this triad indeed is
produced according to the connective triad. For the end in them
is the cause of the possession of the extremity. But it is also
produced from itself. For that which has extremes, having become a
whole, constitutes the perfect through end [or bound]. But the perfect
comprehending beginnings, middles and ends, unfolds figure. And thus
the perfective triad proceeds supernally, as far as to the last of
things, pervading to all things, and perfecting both whole and partial
causes.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
And do you not see how each of the triads conjoins the summit of
itself with the ends placed above it? For the one many was the end of
the collective and unknown triad; and the same is the beginning of
the connective triad. The end of the connective triad was the finite;
and this again is the beginning of the perfective triad. For to have
extremes manifests that which consists of ends or bounds. And thus
the whole middle order is connected with and united to itself, and
is truly the bond of total orders, itself establishing an admirable
communion with itself, but conjoining intellectuals to intelligibles,
and convolving them to one impartible union; above indeed, having the
intelligible and unknown triad, but in the middle producing the triad
which is connective of progressions, and at the end, the convertive
empire, through which it proximately converts the intellectual to the
intelligible Gods.
For on what account does intellect look to itself, and is in itself?
Is it not because it is on all sides finite or bounded, converges to
itself, and convolves its appropriate energies about itself? But why
is it perfect, and full of intellectual goods? Is it not because it
first participates of the perfection [of the above mentioned] leaders,
and subsists according to them, possessing a self-perfect essence and
intellectual perception? After what manner likewise, is it said to
be a sphere, both by Plato, and other theologists? Is it not because
it is the first participant of figure, and is intellectually figured
according to it? All conversion, therefore, all perfection, and
every intellectual figure, accede to the intellectual Gods, from the
perfective triad. For the intelligible leader of perfection, gives
perfection to the ends and summits and hyparxes of wholes. But the
intelligible and intellectual leader terminates their progressions
which extend from on high as far as to the last of things. And the
intellectual leader comprehends in his own perfection, the conversions
of all the Gods, and bounds and perfects through figures their
progressions to infinity.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Looking therefore to this division, we may be able to survey causally
many things which are to be found among other theologists. For why
is one of the deities of the unknown triad carried in the first of
the worlds, but another in the middle breadth, and another in the
extremity? It is because the first of these was uniform, but the second
proceeded according to difference, and the third, according to the
infinite number of beings. But why of the three connective Gods, is
the first empyrean, the second etherial, and the third material? It
is because the first indeed subsists according to the one, and
connectedly contains the one world. But the second subsists according
to whole, and divides the etherial world. And the third according to
the finite, and rules over material infinity. But why again, are the
Teletarchs co-divided with the Synoches? Because the first having
extremes governs like a charioteer the wing of fire. But the middle
comprehending beginnings, ends and middles, perfects ether, which is
also itself triple. And the third, which comprehends according to one
union, the orbicular, the rectilinear, and the mixed[250] figure,
perfects unfigured and formless matter; giving form indeed (μορφωσας)
to the inerratic sphere, and the first matter, by the orbicular; but
to the planetary sphere, and the second matter, by the mixed figure.
For the spiral is there. And it gives form to the sublunary region,
and the last matter by the rectilinear. For the motions according to a
right line are in this region. Hence, the first triad is uniformly the
cause of the division of the worlds. But the second has a more abundant
representation of section, and of progression into parts; yet does not
exhibit to us the multitude of the worlds. And the third unfolds the
seven worlds, and the monad together with two triads. So great is the
divine conception of Plato, that from these things we may survey the
causes of what after his time became apparent.
For this, indeed, from what has been said appears to be very admirable,
that according to each of the triads, the middle is characteristic of
the whole triad. Thus for instance, in the unknown triad, difference
is established as the middle between the one and being. But in
the connective triad whole is the characteristic, which is the middle
of the one, and the finite. And in the perfective triad, the
perfect is the characteristic, which is itself established as the
middle of that which has extremes, and of figure. For difference is
the feminine itself, and the prolific nature of the Gods. And whole
is itself the form of connected comprehension, binding together many
parts. And the perfect is itself the good of perfection, possessing a
beginning, middle, and end, and conjoining the end to the beginning,
according to the peculiarity of conversion. Being also nothing else
than a perfect governor it is the cause of the peculiarity of these
Gods subsisting every where according to the middle centres. Hence the
whole order of the intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual
Gods, may be surveyed as having its subsistence in the middle. For the
intelligible Gods, indeed, are especially defined according to hyparxes
and summits; on which account also, they are called fathers, and unical
Gods. For the one and father are in them the same. But the
intellectual Gods are defined according to ends or extremities; and on
this account, all of them are denominated intellects and intellectual.
The intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual Gods, however,
being middles, especially present themselves to the view according to
the middles of the triads.
Farther still, this also may be considered in common about all these
triads, that each according to the end proceeds to infinity. For the
end of the first triad is number; of the second, the infinite in
multitude; and of the third, the rectilinear, which itself participates
of the nature of the infinite. And of this the cause is, that each of
the triads according to its extremity is carried as in a vehicle in the
material worlds, and comprehends according to one cause the infinity
of the natures that are generated in them. In addition, likewise,
to what has been said, we may survey the order of the triads, from
the ends that are in them. For the end of the first triad is number:
but of the second, the finite and the infinite; and of the third,
the orbicular, the mixed figure, and the rectilinear. It is evident,
therefore, that the first triad is monadic; but the second dyadic; and
the third triadic. And the first of these indeed is analogous to the
one being; but the second to the intelligible whole; and the third,
to the all-perfect whole. But that these have this order with respect
to each other, has been before observed. In short, therefore, every
intelligible, and at the same time intellectual triad, is according to
its summit indeed conjoined to the intelligible; but according to its
middle, unfolds its proper power; and according to its termination,
comprehends the infinity of secondary natures. And here we shall end
the doctrine concerning the intelligible and intellectual Gods.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
In the next place, let us survey another order of Gods, which is called
intellectual, being indeed conjoined to the orders prior to it, but
terminating the total progressions of the Gods, converting them to
their principle, and producing one circle of the primarily-efficient
and all-perfect orders. Let us also extend the intellect that is in us
to the imparticipable and divine intellect, and distinguish the orders
and diminutions of essence that are in it, according to the narration
of Plato.
This intellectual hypostasis therefore of the Gods, is suspended indeed
from more ancient causes, and is filled from them with total goodness
and self-sufficiency. But after these causes, it establishes an
illustrious empire over all secondary natures, binding to its dominion
all the partial progressions of the Gods. And it is denominated
indeed intellectual, because it generates an impartible and divine
intellect. But it is filled from intelligibles, not as from those
intelligibles which are co-arranged with intellect, nor as with
those which are alone divided from intellect by the conception of
the mind, but as establishing in itself unically all multitudes, and
occultly containing the evolutions of the Gods into light, and the
hyparxes of intelligibles. It is likewise allotted the total intellect
of intellectuals, the variety of beings, and the multiform orders of
divine natures; and it convolves the end of the whole progression[251]
[of the Gods] to the one intelligible principle. For intellectuals are
converted to intelligibles. And some intellectuals indeed are united
and[252] firmly established prior to the divided Gods; but others are
multiplied and through conversion are conjoined to primarily-efficient
causes. The intellectual Gods however proceed from all the Gods prior
to them, receiving indeed unions from the one that is prior to
intelligibles; but essences from intelligibles; and being allotted
lives all-perfect, connective and generative of divine natures,
from the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods; but
the intellectual peculiarity from themselves. They likewise convert
to themselves all the divided orders, but establish themselves in
intelligibles, existing wholly through the whole, pure and unknown
knowledges, and fervid lives. Besides these things also, they are
all-perfect essences, producing all secondary natures through
subsisting from themselves, and being neither diminished by their
progression, nor receiving an addition by their progeny; but through
their own never-failing and infinite powers, being the fathers, causes,
and leaders of all things. Nor are they co-divided with their progeny,
nor do they depart from themselves in their progressions; but at once,
and according to union they govern total multitudes, and all orders,
and convolve them to the intelligible, and to occult good.
Whether therefore I may speak of life, it is not proper to think
that it is such a life as we surveyed a little before. For that
was imparticipable, but this is participated. And that indeed, was
generative, but this is vivific. But it is not immanifest that these
differ from each other. For the vivific cause indeed, is also evidently
generative; but the generative cause is not entirely vivific. For
it imparts figure to things unfigured, bound to things indefinite,
and perfection to things imperfect. Or whether I may denominate the
cause in intellectuals intelligible, it must not immediately be
conceived to be such an intelligible, as that of which we have before
spoken. For that was imparticipable, and prior to intellectuals,
itself pre-existing by itself, and exempt from wholes; not being
denominated intelligible, as the plenitude of intellect, but as the
prior-cause of it, and the object of desire and love to it, subsisting
uniformly uncoordinated with it. The intelligible however which is
now the subject of consideration, is participated, and co-arranged
with intellect, is multiform, and contains in itself the divided
causes of all things. Or whether we may call the Gods in this order
fathers and fabricators, it must be admitted that this paternal and
fabricative characteristic, is different from the hyparxis of the
intelligible[253] fathers. For they indeed were generative of whole
essences; but these pre-exist as the causes of divisible emanations,
and of definite productions of form. And they indeed contained in
themselves powers fabricative of the divine progressions; but these
separate from themselves prolific causes, and are not conjoined to them
according to union, but according to a communion subordinate to union.
For the marriages which are celebrated by fables, and the concordant
conjunction of divine natures, are in the intellectual Gods. But the
demiurgic being mingled with the vivific effluxions, every genus of the
Gods is unfolded into light, both the supermundane, and the mundane.
This, however, will be hereafter discussed.
CHAPTER II.
Since however, we have, in short, surveyed the peculiarity of the
intellectual Gods, it remains that we should deliver an appropriate
theory concerning the division of them. For the intellectual order is
not one and indivisible, but is allotted progressions more various than
those of the more elevated genera. There will therefore be here also
three fathers, who divide the whole intellectual essence; one indeed,
being arranged according to the intelligible, but another according
to life, and another according to intellect. They also imitate the
intelligible fathers, who divide the intelligible breadth in a
threefold manner, and who are allotted a difference of this kind with
respect to each other. For one of these intellectual fathers proceeds
analogous to the first [intelligible] father, and is intelligible. But
another proceeds analogous to the second [intelligible] father, and
binds to himself the whole of intellectual life. And another proceeds
analogous to the third father, and closes the whole intellectual, in
the same manner as he closes the intelligible order.
But these fathers being three, and the first indeed, abiding in
himself, but the second proceeding and vivifying all things, and
the third glittering with fabricative productions, it is evidently
necessary, that other triple Gods should be conjoined with them; of
which, one indeed will be the source to the first intellectual God, of
stable purity; but another, of undefiled progression, to the second
God; and another of exempt fabrication, to the third. For in the Gods
prior to these, the undefiled deities were according to cause, through
union without separation, and a sameness collective of powers which
are not in want of the communion of these. But in the intellectual
Gods, where there is an all-perfect separation, as in total orders,
and a greater habitude to secondary natures, unpolluted deity or
power is necessary, which has the ratio of sameness, and undeviating
subsistence, to the paternal cause, and which is co-divided with
the fathers, so that each of the undefiled Gods is conjoined with a
peculiar father.
These two triads therefore have presented themselves to our view, one
indeed, of the intellectual fathers, but the other of the undefiled
Gods. There is however, besides these two, a third other triadic
monad, which is the cause of separation to intellectuals, and which
subsists together with the above mentioned triads. For the fathers
indeed are the suppliers of all essence; but the inflexible Gods, of
sameness. But it is evidently fit that there should be also the cause
of separation, and that this should be one and at the same time triple,
separating the intellectual Gods from the above mentioned orders, from
themselves, and from inferior natures. For why are they the leaders
of another order, if they are not divided from the first orders? Why
are they multiplied, and why do they differ from each other in their
kingdoms, unless they are separated? Why also do they transcend the
partial [Gods] unless they are also separated from these? The cause of
separation therefore, will be for us one and a triple monad. But the
paternal and undefiled causes will be each of them a uniform triad. And
what is most paradoxical of all, the separative cause is more monadic;
but the paternal and also the undefiled cause, are each of them more
triadic. For the separative monad indeed, is the cause of separation to
the other monads; but the others are the sources of communion and union
to it. Hence each of these, being separated, becomes triadic; but the
separative monad is monadic, in consequence of being united by these.
For all intellectuals pervade through each other, and are in each
other, according to a certain admirable communion, imitating the union
of intelligibles, through being present and mingled with each other.
The sphere also which is there, is the intellectual order, energizing
in and about itself, and proceeding into itself hebdomatically, being
a monad and a hebdomad, the image, if it be lawful so to speak, of
the all-perfect intelligible monad, and unfolding its occult union,
through progression and separation. This first progression therefore of
the intellectual Gods, which is separated by us into a heptad, we have
perfectly celebrated.
Other secondary seven hebdomads, however, are to be considered under
this, which produce as far as to the last of things, the monads of
this heptad. For each monad is the leader of an intellectual hebdomad
conjoined with it, and extends this hebdomad from on high, from the
summit of Olympus, as far as to the last, and terrestrial orders. I
say, for instance, the first paternal monad, indeed, constitutes seven
such monads. But the second again constitutes seven vivific monads.
And the third, seven demiurgic monads. Each likewise of the undefiled
monads constitutes a number equal to that produced by the fathers. And
the monad of separation constitutes seven [separative monads]. For all
these causes proceed in conjunction with each other. And as the first
triad of the fathers subsists together with the undefiled triad, and
the divisive monad, after the same manner also, the second triads are
allotted seven coordinate undefiled triads, and separative monads.
Whence, therefore, does so great a number of intellectual Gods present
itself to our view? It is evident, indeed, from what has been said.
For the first hebdomad, indeed, the cause of the second hebdomads,
and which has the relation of a monad to them, and which a little
before we denominated an intellectual sphere, subsists according to
the intelligible breadth, imitating the paternal nature of it through
the paternal triad; but the eternity of its power, through undefiled
sameness; and the multitude shining forth in its extremities, through
the monad which is divisive of wholes. The remaining hebdomads,
however, which are derived from this, proceed according to the
intelligible and intellectual genera. For each monad, conformably to
the summits of those genera, constitutes a monad co-arranged with the
multitude proceeding from it; since every summit is uniform [i.e. has
the form of the one,] as we have before demonstrated. But according to
the middle and third progressions of those genera, each monad generates
two triads. For the separation of them was apparent in the middle and
ultimate progressions, as we have before observed. As, therefore, the
intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual genera, produced
the intelligible breadth, which is of a unical nature, into a triadic
multitude, after the same manner also the intellectual monads call
forth the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual triads,
into intellectual hebdomads. And they constitute indeed the monads
which are coarranged with the hebdomads, according to the summits of
the triads; but the two triads, according to the second and third
decrements of those triads. Hence every hebdomad has the first monad
indeed intelligible; but the second after this, and which is triadic,
intelligible and intellectual; and the third triad, which is the next
in order, intellectual. All these likewise subsist as in intellectuals.
For they are characterized according to the peculiarity of the
constitutive monad.
In short, the intellectual powers proceed according to the intelligible
orders; but they constitute these seven hebdomads according to
the first intellectual orders. For it is indeed necessary that
exempt causes should be assimilated to the intelligible Gods; but
that co-arranged causes, and which proceed every where, should be
assimilated to the intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual
Gods; since these also are the first that divide the worlds
triadically, and pervade as far as to the last of things, connectedly
containing and perfecting all things. But the intelligible Gods contain
the causes of wholes uniformly, and occultly. You may also say, that
the intelligible Gods produce all things uniformly; for numbers subsist
in them monadically. But the intelligible and intellectual Gods produce
all things triadically. For the monads in these are divided according
to number. And what the monad was in the former, that number is in the
latter. And the intellectual Gods produce all things hebdomadically.
For they evolve the intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual
triads, into intellectual hebdomads, and expand their contracted
powers into intellectual variety; since they define multitude itself
and variety by numbers which are nearest to the monad. For the numbers
of the partial are different from the numbers of the total orders in
the Gods. And the whole of this intellectual number is indeed more
expanded than the natures prior to it, and is divided into more various
progressions, yet it does not desert its alliance with the monad.
For hebdomadic multitude has an abundant affinity with the nature
of the monad; since it is measured according to it, and primarily
subsists from it. And the Pythagoreans, when they denominate the heptad
light according to intellect, evidently admit its hyparxis to
be intellectual, and on this account suspended from the monad. For
the unical, which light manifests, is inherent from this in all
the divine numbers. And thus much concerning the division of these
intellectual Gods.
CHAPTER III.
It follows in the next place, that we should adapt the theory of
Plato to this order, and show that he does not dissent from any of
the theological dogmas concerning it. Since, therefore, we have
demonstrated, that the celestial order, which we find in the Cratylus
perfectly celebrated, possesses the middle bond of the intellectual,
and at the same time, intelligible Gods, but that under this another
order of Gods is immediately arranged, as Socrates shows in the
Phædrus, called the subcelestial arch, and which we have considered as
not divided from the heaven,—this being the case, what order is it
which divides itself from the kingdom of the heaven, but is the leader
of the intellectual order of the Gods, and is primarily the supplier of
intellect, according to the doctrine of Plato, as Socrates says in the
Cratylus, except that which the mighty Saturn comprehends? For he calls
this God the first and most pure intellect. This God, therefore, is the
summit of a divine intellect, and, as he says, the purest part of it;
separating himself indeed from the celestial order, but reigning over
all the intellectual Gods; because he is full of intellect, but of a
pure intellect, and is a God extended to the summit of the intellectual
hypostasis. Hence also, he is the father of the mighty Jupiter, and is
simply father. For he who is the father of the father of all things,
is evidently allotted in a much greater degree the paternal dignity.
Saturn, therefore, is the first intellect; but the mighty Jupiter is
also an intellect, containing, as Socrates says in the Philebus, a
royal soul, and a royal intellect.
And these Gods are two intellects, and intellectual fathers; the
one, indeed, being intellectual; but the other intelligible, in
intellectuals. For the Saturnian bonds which Socrates mentions in
the Cratylus, are unific of the intelligence of Jupiter about the
intelligible of his father, and fill the Jovian intellect with the
all-perfect intelligence of the Saturnian intellect. And this I think
is likewise evident from the analogy of souls to Pluto. For as he binds
souls about himself, filling them with wisdom and intelligence, thus
also Saturn being the object of desire and love to Jupiter, contains
him in himself by indissoluble bonds. And these things Socrates
indicates in the Cratylus, jesting, and at the same time being serious
in what he says. The object of desire therefore, and the intelligible
to Jupiter, is Saturn. But the mighty Jupiter himself is a divine
and demiurgic intellect. Hence, it is necessary that there should be
a third other intellectual cause, generative of life. For Jupiter
indeed is the cause of life, as Socrates says, but intellectually and
secondarily. But we say that life is every where arranged prior to
intellect. Hence, we must say that the queen Rhea, being the mother of
Jupiter, but subordinate to the father Saturn, gives completion to this
middle, existing as a vivific world, and establishing in herself the
causes of the whole of life. These three paternal orders, therefore,
have appeared to us in intellectuals: one of them indeed subsisting
according to the intelligible power of intellectuals;[254] but another
according to divine and intellectual life; and another according to
intellectual intellect. For we celebrate the middle deity, herself by
herself, as the mother of the demiurgus, and of wholes. When, however,
we survey her together with the extremes, we denominate her a paternal
cause, as being comprehended in the fathers; and as generating some
things together with Saturn, but others in conjunction with Jupiter.
Moreover, Plato following Orpheus, calls the inflexible and undefiled
triad of the intellectual Gods Curetic, as is evident from what the
Athenian guest says in the Laws, celebrating the armed sports of the
Curetes, and their rhythmical dance. For Orpheus represents the Curetes
who are three, as the guards of Jupiter. And the sacred laws of the
Cretans, and all the Grecian theology, refer a pure and undefiled life
and energy to this order. For το κορον to koron, indicates
nothing else than the pure and incorruptible. Hence, we have before
said, that the mighty Saturn, as being essentially united to the cause
of undefiled purity, is a pure intellect. The paternal Gods therefore
are three, and the undefiled Gods also are three. Hence it remains that
we should survey the seventh monad.
If, therefore, we consider the fabulous exections, both the Saturnian
and the Celestial, of which Plato makes mention, and thinks that such
like narrations should always be concealed in silence, that the arcane
truth of them should be surveyed, and that they are indicative of
mystic conceptions, because these things are not fit for young men
to hear,—[if we consider these] we may obtain from them what the
separative deity is, who accomplishes the divisions, and segregates
the Saturnian genera indeed from the Celestial, and the Jovian from
the Saturnian, and who separates the whole intellectual order from the
natures prior and posterior to it, disjoins the different causes in it
from each other, and always imparts to secondary natures, secondary
measures of dominion. And let not any one be disturbed, or oppose me on
hearing these things. How therefore does Plato reject exections, bonds,
and the tragical apparatus of fables? For he thinks that all such
particulars will be condemned by the multitude and the stupid, through
ignorance of the arcana they contain; but that they will exhibit to
the wise certain admirable opinions. Hence, he indeed does not admit
such a mode of fiction, but thinks it proper to be persuaded by the
ancients who were the offspring of the Gods, and to investigate their
arcane conceptions. As therefore he rejects the Saturnian fables, when
they are narrated to Euthypron, and the auditors of the Republic, yet
at the same time admits them in the Cratylus, placing about the mighty
Saturn and Pluto, other secondary bonds,—thus also, I think he forbids
exections to be introduced to those who know only the apparent meaning
of what is said, and does not admit that there is illegal conduct in
the Gods, and nefarious aggressions of children against their parents,
but he opposes, and confutes as much as possible such like opinions.
He assents however to their being narrated to those who are able
to penetrate into the mystic truth, and investigate the concealed
meaning of fables, and admits the separation of wholes, whether
[mythologists] are willing to denominate them exections for the purpose
of concealment, or in whatever other way they may think fit to call
them. For bonds and exections are symbols of communion and separation,
and each is the progeny of the same divine mythology. Nor is there any
occasion to wonder, if from these things we endeavour to confirm the
opinion of Plato; but it is requisite to know how the philosophy of
Plato admits all such particulars, and how it rejects them, and in what
manner he apprehends they may be the causes of the greatest evils, and
of an impious life to those that hear them. The seven intellectual Gods
therefore, will through these conceptions appear to have been thought
worthy of being mentioned by Plato.
CHAPTER IV.
It is, however, I think, necessary syllogistically to collect the
progression of them according to hebdomads, from images. The demiurgus
therefore, [in the Timæus] fabricates the soul of the universe an image
of all the divine orders, in the same manner as he fabricates this
sensible world an image of intelligibles. And in the first[255] place
indeed, he constitutes the whole essence of the soul, and afterwards
divides it into numbers, binds it by harmonies, and adorns it with
figures, I mean the rectilinear and the circular. After this also, he
divides it into one circle and seven circles. Whence therefore, are
this monad and hebdomad derived, except from the intellectual Gods?
For figure, number, and true being, are prior to them. And as in
the fabrication of the soul, after the subsistence of the psychical
figure, the division of the circles according to the monad and hebdomad
follows, thus also in the Gods, after intellectual and intelligible
figure, the intellectual breadth, and that sphere of the Gods succeed.
The multitude therefore of the seven hebdomads subsist from the divine
intellectual hebdomad entering into itself. And on this account, the
demiurgus thus divides the circles in the soul, because he, and every
intellectual order, produce an intellectual hebdomad from each monad.
I do not however assert, and now contend, that the seven circles are
allotted an hyparxis similar to the seven Gods that proceed from
the demiurgus, but that the demiurgus dividing the soul according
to circles, introduces number to the sections from the intellectual
Gods, I mean the monadic and the hebdomadic number. For the monad
indeed subsists according to the circle of sameness, but the division,
according to the circle of difference. Shortly after however, it will
appear that same and different belong to the demiurgic order.
Farther still, after the division of the circles, the demiurgus assumes
some things which are symbols of the assimilative, and others which
are symbols of the liberated Gods, and through these, he refers the
soul to these orders of the Gods. If therefore figure is prior to
the intellectual Gods, but the similar and dissimilar are posterior
to them, it is evidently necessary that the monadic and at the same
time hebdomadic, should be referred to this order, and that the
progression from the monad to the hebdomad should pertain to this
order. Each therefore of the seven intellectual Gods, is the leader of
an intellectual hebdomad, as we may learn from images. There however
indeed, the hebdomad is one, and allied to itself. But in souls, the
circles differ from each other, according to the divine peculiarities.
For they receive number in such a manner as to preserve the proper
nature which they are allotted, connectedly containing mundane
natures, and convolving the apparent by their own circles. And thus
much concerning these particulars, which afford arguments that are not
obscure of the arrangement of them by Plato.
CHAPTER V.
Again however, making another beginning, let us speak about each
[of the intellectual Gods,] as much as is sufficient to the present
theology. Let Saturn therefore, the first king of the intellectual
Gods, be now celebrated by us, who according to Socrates in the
Cratylus illuminates the pure and incorruptible nature of intellect,
and establishing his own all-perfect power in his own summit of
intellectuals, abides in, and at the same time proceeds from his
father [Heaven]. He likewise divides the intellectual government
from the connective, and establishes the transcendency of the other
intellectual Gods in connexion with his own; but comprehends in himself
the intelligible of the demiurgic intellect, and the plenitude of
beings. Hence the Saturnian bonds, mystically, and obscurely signify
the comprehension of this intelligible, and a union with it. For the
intelligible is comprehended in intellect.
As therefore, the intelligible is indeed exempt from intellect, but
intellect is said to comprehend it, thus also Jupiter is said to bind
his father. And in placing bonds about his father, he at the same
time binds himself [to him]. For a bond is the comprehension of the
things that are bound. But the truth is as follows: Saturn is indeed
an all-perfect intellect; and the mighty Jupiter is likewise an
intellect. Each therefore being an intellect, each is also evidently
an intelligible. For every intellect is converted to itself; but
being converted to it energizes towards itself. Energizing however
towards itself, and not towards externals, it is intelligible and
at the same time intellectual; being indeed intellectual, so far
as it intellectually perceives, but intelligible, so far as it is
intellectually perceived. Hence also the Jovian intellect is to itself
intellect, and to itself intelligible. And in a similar manner the
Saturnian intellect is to itself intelligible, and to itself intellect.
But Jupiter indeed is more intellect, and Saturn is more intelligible.
For the latter is established according to the intellectual summit, but
the former according to the intellectual end. And the one indeed is the
object of desire, but the other desires. And the one fills, but the
other is filled.
Saturn therefore being intellect and intelligible, Jupiter also is
in the second place intellect and intelligible. The intellectual
however of Saturn is intelligible; but the intelligible of Jupiter is
intellectual. Jupiter therefore, being at the same time intellectual
and intelligible, intellectually perceives and comprehends himself,
and binds the intelligible in himself. But binding this in himself, he
is said to bind the intelligible prior to himself, and to comprehend
it on all sides. For entering into himself, he proceeds into the
intelligible prior to himself, and by the intelligible which is in
himself, intellectually perceives that which is prior to himself. And
thus the intelligible is not external to intellect. For every intellect
possesses that which is in itself without any difference with respect
to itself. But again, it intellectually perceives in itself that which
is prior to itself. For every thing which is external to intellect, is
foreign and adventitious, and pertains to an inferior nature. But that
which is pre-established in the order of cause, and which preexists
as the object of desire, is in the desiring natures themselves. For
being converted to, and verging to themselves, they discover the causes
of themselves, and all more ancient natures. And by how much more
perfect and uniform the conversion of the desiring natures is about the
objects of desire, by so much the more are they present with their own
desirables. Hence every intellect, by intellectually perceiving itself,
intellectually perceives likewise, all the natures prior to itself.
And by how much the more it is united to itself, in a so much greater
degree it is established in the intelligibles prior to itself. For the
cause of any being, and which is the source of essence or of perfection
to it, is not external to that being; but that which is subordinate
to any being, is external to it, and is not the intelligible. On this
account also, each of the divine natures is unconverted to that which
is inferior to itself, but is converted to itself, and through itself
reverts to that which is more excellent. And the intelligible indeed
is not inferior to any intellect; but every intellect energizing
towards itself, and comprehending the intelligibles prior to itself,
intellectually perceives them.
Some intelligibles likewise are such as are conjoined with intellect.
But others are such as are proximately participated by it. And others
are such as it sees more remotely, and which are more exempt from
its nature. On this account, the demiurgic intellect is indeed at
the same time intelligible and intellect, but has the intelligible
of his father, which he binds as the fable says. He sees however
animal itself, which is, according to Timæus, the most beautiful
of all intelligibles. And if the illustrious Amelius, forming such
conceptions as these, said that intellect is threefold, one being that
which is, another that which has, and another that which
sees, he rightly apprehends the conception of Plato, according
to my opinion. For it is necessary that the second intellect should not
only have the intelligible, but that it should be and
have the intelligible; that it should be indeed the intelligible
coordinate with itself, but have the intelligible prior to
itself, so far as it participates of it. And it is necessary that the
third intellect should see the intelligible, and should also
be and have it; that it should see indeed the
first intelligible; but have that which is proximately beyond
itself; and that it should be the intelligible which is in
itself, and which is conjoined with its own intelligence, and should be
inseparable from it.
If therefore, as we said from the beginning, Jupiter intellectually
perceives his father Saturn, Saturn is indeed intelligible, but Jupiter
is intellect; being one intelligible himself, but participating of
another. Hence also Plato does not simply call Saturn intellect, but
a pure and incorruptible intellect. For he[256] in the intellectual
is intelligible. Since however, he is not simply intelligible, but as
in intellectuals, he is intellect, and is himself paternally so, being
both father and intellect, and having the paternal intellectually.
In intelligibles therefore, intellect is also father; but in
intellectuals father is intellect. Hence Saturn is a pure, immaterial
and perfect intellect, established above fabrication in the order of
the desirable. But possessing such a peculiarity as this, he is full
of all intelligibles intellectually, is as it were exuberant with
intellections, and establishes twofold genera of Gods, some indeed in
himself, but others posterior to himself. And he leads forth, indeed,
the prolific powers of his father Heaven as far as to the last of
things; but fills the demiurgic order with generative goods.
CHAPTER VI.
Saturn however is the only one of the Gods who is said both to
receive and give the royal dignity with a certain necessity, and as
it were violence, cutting off the genitals of his father, and being
himself castrated by the mighty Jupiter. For he bounds the kingdom
of his father, and is bounded by the God posterior to himself. He is
also filled from the natures placed above him, but fills the whole
fabrication [of the universe] with prolific perfection. But separating
himself from his father, he is exempt from his progeny. Being however
one all-perfect intellect, he contains in himself the multitude of
total intelligibles. And as he deifies the intellectual summit, he
illuminates all things with intelligible light.
CHAPTER VII.
Very properly therefore, has this universe twofold lives, periods,
and convolutions; the one being Saturnian, but the other Jovian, as
the fable in the Politicus says. And according to one of the periods
indeed, it produces all goods spontaneously, and possesses an innoxious
and unwearied life. But according to the other it participates of
material error, and a very mutable nature. For the life in the world
being twofold, the one unapparent, and more intellectual, but the other
more physical and apparent, and the one being defined according to
providence, but the other proceeding in a disorderly manner according
to fate;—this being the case, the second life indeed, which is
multiform, and perfected through nature, is suspended from the Jovian
order; but the more simple, intellectual, and unapparent life, is
suspended from the Saturnian order. And these things the Elean guest
clearly teaches, calling one of the circulations Jovian, but the
other, Saturnian; though Jupiter also is the cause of the unapparent
life of the universe, is the supplier of intellect, and the leader of
intellectual perfection; but he elevates all things to the kingdom of
Saturn, and being a leader in conjunction with his father, constitutes
the whole mundane intellect. And if it be requisite to speak the truth
clearly, each of the periods indeed, I mean the apparent, and the
unapparent, participates of both these Gods; but the one indeed is more
Saturnian, and the other is perfected under the kingdom of Jupiter.
That the mighty Saturn therefore is allotted a kingdom different from
that of the Gods prior to him, the Elean guest clearly manifests
in what he asserts prior to the fable. For he says, “We have heard
from many respecting the kingdom of which Saturn was the founder.”
According to this wise man therefore, Saturn is one of the royal Gods.
Hence also he presides over a kingdom different from that of his
father. And while his father connectedly contains the middle centres
of the intelligible and intellectual Gods, he is the leader of the
intellectual orders and supplies all intellectual life, first indeed,
to the Gods, but secondarily to the natures more excellent than ours,
and in the last place to partial souls, when they are able to be
extended to the Saturnian place of survey. For this universe, and all
the mundane Gods, always possess this twofold life, and imitate the
Saturnian intelligence indeed through unapparent and intellectual
energy, but the demiurgic intellect of Jupiter, through a providential
attention to secondary natures, and in short, through the visible
fabrication. But partial souls at one time energize intellectually, and
consecrate themselves to Saturn, but at another time after a Jovian
manner, and pay a providential attention to secondary natures, without
restraint. When however they revolve analogous to those[257] deities
[Saturn and Jupiter] they intellectually perceive intelligibles, and
dispose sensibles in an orderly manner, and live both these lives,
in the same manner as the Gods and the more excellent genera. For
their periods are twofold; one being intellectual, but the other
providential. Their paradigms also are twofold; the Saturnian intellect
being the paradigm of the one, but the Jovian intellect of the other.
For the mighty Jupiter himself has a twofold energy, containing indeed
intelligibles in intellect, but adorning sensibles by demiurgic
production.
Since however the circulations are twofold, not only in wholes, but
also in partial souls, the Elean guest says that in the Saturnian
period, the generation of these souls is not from each other, as in
men which are the objects of sensible inspection, nor as the first
man with us is alone earth-begotten, so in partial souls one first
soul is the offspring of man, but all of them are earth-begotten. For
they are elevated from ultimate and terrestrial bodies, and embrace
an unapparent,[258] relinquishing a sensible life. He also says that
neither do they verge to old age, and change from being younger to
becoming older; but on the contrary, they are rendered more vigorous,
proceed intellectually in a way contrary to generation, and as it were,
divest themselves of the variety of life with which in descending they
became invested. Hence likewise all the symbols which are adapted to
youth are present with these souls, when they pass into this condition,
such as a privation of hair, and a smoothness of the cheek instead of
hoariness and beards. For they lay aside every thing which adheres
to them from generation. But being situated there with Saturn, and
living the life which is there, he says that there are abundance
of fruits from trees, and many other [vegetable] substances, which
the earth spontaneously produces. Being likewise naked, and without
coverlets, they are for the most part fed in the open air; for they
have a temperament of the seasons which is always the same. But they
make use of soft beds, grass in abundance being produced for them from
the earth. Souls therefore derive these and such like goods from this
mighty God, in the Saturnian period. For they are thence filled indeed
with vivific goods, and gather intellectual fruits from wholes; but do
not procure for themselves perfection and blessedness, from partial
energies. For doxastic nutriment indeed has divisible and material
conceptions; but intellectual nutriment has pure, impartible, and
native conceptions, which the spontaneous obscurely signifies.
The production from the earth also signifies the prolific intellect
of the Gods, which imparts to souls by illumination perfection and
self-sufficiency. For on account of the exuberant abundance of good,
they are able to impart an influx of it, according to the measure
of felicity adapted to them. Hence, they are neither covered with
garments, as when they proceeded into generation, nor have they
superabundant additions of life, but they are purified themselves
by themselves from all composition and variety, and extending their
intellect to total good, they participate of it from the intellectual
father, being guarded by the intellectual Gods, and receiving from them
the measures of a happy life. They likewise pass through the whole of
their existence with facility, lead a sleepless and pure life, being
established in the generative powers of intelligibles; and being filled
with intellectual goods, and nourished with immaterial and divine
forms, they are said to live a life under Saturn.
CHAPTER VIII.
Because, therefore, this God is the leader of all intellectual life,
and every intellect as well that which is imparticipable, as that
which is participable proceeds from this cause, hence it belongs to
this mighty God to feed in a distributed manner, and to nourish souls.
For because indeed he is intelligible in intellectuals, he nourishes
souls, and souls are called the nurselings of Saturn. But because he
does not fill them with first, and unical intelligibles, but with those
that are multiplied by his own cause of separation, he is said to feed
them distributedly, and as it were in a divided manner. And do you not
see how through these things, this God appears to be coordinate to the
first triad of the intelligible and intellectual Gods? For as Socrates,
in the Phædrus, says, that souls are nourished in the supercelestial
place, and in the intelligible meadow, so the Elean guest asserts that
the souls that are fed under Saturn, are filled with intelligible
goods. And it is not at all wonderful if souls are perfected by
both these; intellectually indeed, under the kingdom of Saturn; but
intelligibly under the order of the first intellectual Gods. For
this God himself is nourished by that order. And on this account he
is allotted a leading and primary transcendency in intellectuals,
because they are filled from that order [through him] with occult and
unapparent powers. And he is that among the intellectual fathers, which
the order of the first intellectual Gods is in the intelligible and at
the same time intellectual orders. Hence the intelligible every where
becomes nutriment to ascending souls, but the connexion with it is
effected through the second and third Gods.
As therefore, the demiurgic order elevates souls to the Saturnian
place of survey, thus also the Saturnian order elevates them to the
subcelestial[259] arch. For having made many and blessed discursive
energies in the kingdom of Saturn, they are again extended from hence
to the perfective, and from thence to the celestial triad, from
which contemplating the supercelestial place, they are now ineffably
conjoined with the supreme goods of intelligibles. And after this
manner the second orders always connect souls with the orders prior to
them. Hence also, the theurgic art imitating the unapparent periods
of souls, arranges initiations in the mysteries of the second Gods,
prior to the more sublime mysteries. And through these, it causes us
to pass to the intelligible place of survey. These things, therefore,
Plato indicates concerning the Saturnian life, and the polity of souls
under Saturn, not in the Politicus only, but also in the discourses of
the Athenian guest. For in the fourth book of the Laws he celebrates
the life under Saturn, obscurely signifying the undefiled nature, the
facility, plenitude, and self-sufficiency of that energy, through
fabulous fictions.
CHAPTER IX.
If, however, it be requisite from these things, and from all the mystic
discipline concerning this God, to consider and discuss the orders
which he constitutes in wholes, in the first place, we must direct our
attention to the three kings mentioned in the Gorgias, who distributing
the kingdom of Saturn were produced by him, as being allotted in a
divided manner a uniform and impartible dominion, and over whom he
places the divine law, which is the cause of distribution according
to intellect, both to the Gods themselves, and to all the natures
posterior to the Gods. In the second place, we must consider the rulers
and kings mentioned in the Laws, who are said to preside over the
different allotments of souls, and who are not men, but dæmons of a
more divine and excellent genus, who distribute to souls the measures
of good, cut off their generation-producing lives, restrain their
disorderly lation, retain them in the intelligible, and comprehend
them in the kingdom of Saturn. In the third place, therefore, we must
direct our attention to the dæmon Gods, who preside over the parts of
the world, and the herds [of souls] that are in it, as the Elean guest
says in the Politicus, and who at one time come into contact with the
objects of their government, and distribute to them intellectual, and
all unapparent goods, but at another time withdraw themselves from the
physical life of the world, recur to their own place of survey, and
imitate the exempt transcendency of the demiurgus and father of the
universe.
But after these things, we must survey the twofold circulations of
the mundane Gods, viz. the Saturnian and the Jovian; for these Gods
always have each of these, as the fable says in the Politicus. For it
is evident that the mutation of the stars and the sun takes place in
each of the revolutions. This period, therefore, being twofold, it is
obvious to every one that the periods are full of Saturnian goods,
and participate of the Saturnian series. And not only the mundane
Gods, but likewise all the more excellent genera that follow the Gods,
energize according to both these energies, and revolve according to the
twofold circulations, through which souls also sometimes participate
of an intellectual life, and proceed in this path, exchanging for
sense intellect as the leader of their motion and circulation. Saturn,
therefore, extends his kingdom supernally from the first Gods, as
far as to partial souls, perfects all things, and fills them with
intellectual goods, distributing to different natures different
measures of good. For on account of this, law also subsists with him,
as Socrates says in the Gorgias: “This law therefore was in the time
of Saturn, and always was, and now is, among the Gods.” For law is the
distribution of intellect; but this God is the first, most pure, and
incorruptible intellect.
If, however, this God is the primary leader of all division, and is the
origin of intellectual separation, it is necessary on this account,
that law should be with him, which distinguishes the orders of beings,
divides the intellectual genera, and separates all forms according to a
well-ordered progression; but imparts to all things by illumination the
measure of hyparxis, connecting the order which is in them, preserving
the boundaries of divine distribution immutable, and possessing the
same dignity in the kingdom of Saturn, and in intellectuals, as
Adrastia in the supercelestial place, and in the intelligible, and at
the same time, intellectual orders. For from each of them an immutable
guard, and the progression of order to all things are generated.
But they differ from each other, because law indeed divides the one
into multitude, defines the measures of intellectual subsistence,
and distributes to every thing an appropriate good, producing the
different measures of beings from the one [Saturnian] intellect. But
Adrastia abiding in the intelligible, guards all things uniformly, and
preserves total order in a firm undeviating manner, exempt from all
division. Law, therefore, is a certain God which divides divine forms,
and definitely imparts to every thing that which is adapted to it
according to the plenitude proceeding from one uniform cause; and it is
also co-existent with the Saturnian order, in which the separations of
beings, and the all-perfect progression of forms first subsist. Hence
the demiurgus likewise looking to this conducts all things according to
law, and constitutes mundane providence an image of the union of the
father; but fate and the fatal laws, an image of the division according
to law. Souls, therefore, live according to law; in the Jovian period
indeed being governed conformably to the laws of Fate; but in the
Saturnian period living according to divine law they are subservient
to the multitude [of divine forms] and are extended to the one cause
of all; and ascending to the intelligible place of survey, they are
subjected to the sacred law of Adrastia. For this law extends from on
high as far as to the last of things, and defines to souls the measures
of whole periods, as Socrates says in the Phædrus. Who therefore this
greatest God is, and what the goods are of which he is the cause to
souls, and prior to these, to Gods and dæmons, the leaders of souls,
let it, from these things be manifest.
CHAPTER X.
Since however, theologists assert that an exemption from old age
pertains to this order, as the Barbarians say, and Orpheus the
theologist of the Greeks, (for he mystically says that the hairs of
the face of Saturn are always black, and never become hoary) I admire
the divinely-inspired intellect of Plato which unfolds the same things
concerning this God to those who proceed in his steps. For he says that
souls in the Saturnian period abandon old age, but return to youth, and
remove from themselves hoariness, but have black hair. For he says that
the white hairs of the more elderly become black; but the cheeks of
those that have beards being rendered smooth, they are restored to the
past season [of youth.] These things indeed are asserted by the Elean
guest; similar to which are the assertions of Orpheus concerning this
God.
———————— under Saturnian Jove
Men liv’d immortal; moist and fragrant hair
From the pure chin then sprouted, nor was mix’d
With the white flower that marks infirm old age;
But in its stead, a florid down appear’d.
In these verses he delivers the similitude of Saturnian souls to this
God. For he says that they remove from the view the old age which they
had acquired from generation and abandon material imbecility; and that
they exert the juvenile and vigorous life of intellect. For it is no
otherwise lawful for them to be assimilated to the God who is exempt
from old age, than through intellectual puberty, and undefiled power.
But the cause of this is, that king Saturn himself is the source of
the unallured Gods, and the inflexible triad. Hence he is, as Socrates
says, a pure intellect. For he is at the same time the intellect of the
undefiled order, ranking as a summit, and riding as in a vehicle in
the flourishing and vigorous[260] Gods that govern wholes. The souls
also which are sent to him, wonderfully advance, in conjunction with
intellectual energy, in vigour, and in a power undeviating, and free
from any tendency to matter. Partial souls therefore, when they change
their periods, at one time proceed to a more juvenile, and at another,
to a more aged condition. But whole souls always live according to
both these periods, and are conversant with Saturn according to
the unapparent period, but govern the universe in conjunction with
Jupiter, according to visible providence, at once receiving an increase
according to both these periods, and becoming at one and the same time
both older and younger. And this is what Parmenides indicates when
he says, that the one proceeding according to time becomes at
once younger and older. These things however, will hereafter be more
manifest.
CHAPTER XI.
Having therefore brought to an end the information concerning the king
of the intellectual Gods, it evidently follows that we should in the
next place celebrate the queen Rhea. For both Plato and Orpheus assert
that she is the mother of the demiurgus of wholes, but a divinity
posterior to Saturn. Thus therefore, we must speak concerning her.
The stable and united cause of all intellectuals, and the principal
and original monad, abiding in herself, unfolding into light all
intellectual multitude, and again convolving it into herself, and
embosoming her progeny, and the causes of wholes that emerge from her,
analysing as it were after division the natures that are divided, and
being paternally allotted the highest kingdom in intellectuals,—this
being the case, the vivific Rhea proceeds as the second from her proper
principle, being allotted a maternal order in the whole paternal
orders, and producing the demiurgus of wholes, prior to other Gods,
and the immutable guard of the Gods. For this Goddess is the middle
centre of the paternal intellectual triad, and the receiving bosom of
the generative power which is in Saturn, calling forth indeed, to the
generation of wholes, the causes which abide in him, but unfolding
definitely all the genera of the Gods. And being filled indeed from the
father prior to her with intelligible and prolific power, but filling
the demiurgus and father subsisting from her, with vivific abundance.
Whence also the demiurgus is the cause of life to all things, as
containing in himself the plenitude of intellectual life, and extending
to all things the prolific cause of his mother. For as the middle
Goddess multiplies the uniform powers of Saturn, and produces and
causes them to preside over secondary natures, so the third father, at
one and the same time unfolds, divides, and produces as far as to the
last of things, the all-perfect abundance of the Saturnian monad, and
the dyadic generation of the mother Rhea, so as not to leave the most
material and disorderly part of the universe destitute of the power of
Saturn.
This Goddess therefore, being the middle of the two fathers, one of
which collects, but the other divides intellectual multitude, and the
one through transcendency desiring to abide and to be established in
himself, but the other hastening to produce, generate and fabricate all
things, she educes indeed into herself, the demiurgic causes of wholes,
but imparts her own proper power to secondary natures, in unenvying
abundance. Hence also Plato assimilates her prolific exuberance to
streams, as Socrates says in the Cratylus, evinces that this Goddess is
a certain flux, and in what he asserts of her obscurely shows nothing
else than her fontal nature, and a power unically comprehensive of the
divisible rivers of life. For the first-effective flux is fontal; which
also Socrates indicating in this Goddess, shortly after clearly says
that the name of Tethys is the name of a fountain. Why therefore, is
it any longer necessary to doubt about these things, and to say where
does Plato make mention of fontal Gods? For he himself denominates the
causes of the subsistence of all the Gods, fontal fluxions. And besides
this, if he admits that the mundane soul is the fountain and principle
of life, because it proceeds both from an impartible and partible
vivification, how is it possible that he should not in a much greater
degree and more truly call the Goddess who comprehends in herself all
life, fontal?
Concerning names however, it is not, I think, at all proper to contend,
but we should survey the orders themselves of the first effective Gods,
and see how Plato following theologists copiously unfolds them to us,
celebrating after the Saturnian monad the kingdom of Rhea, constituting
from these the demiurgus of wholes, and all the multitude of Gods
which is woven together with him. For this Goddess binding together
the breadth of intellectuals, and embosoming total life, emits all the
intellectual powers in herself of the rivers of life; and by the summit
of herself indeed, is conjoined to the first father, and together with
him generates wholes, and the genera of Gods that abide in him; but
by her extremity is connascent with fabrication, and according to a
kindred conjunction with fabrication, constitutes all the orders of
Gods that are prior to the world, and that are in the world. Hence
there also the causes of the demiurgi of wholes primarily subsist, and
the more partial genera of life: and the union and total deity of all
these, is at once exempt from the plenitudes of herself, and is at once
co-arranged with them.
Thus therefore, she is both uniform and multiform, one and simple,
though being self-perfect, she is a vivific world, proceeding from on
high as far as to the last of things, and as far as to the extremities
of the universe, giving subsistence to the vivific powers of the
breadth of life. Hence also Plato refers the vivific cause of wholes to
this Goddess, and through the last gifts of this divinity, indicates
her total energy; which primarily indeed fills the whole demiurgus
with intellectual and prolific power, but secondarily perfects all the
genera of the Gods with the intellectual fruits of herself. According
to a third order also, her total energy nourishes the souls that are
the attendants of the Gods, with the rivers of divine perfection. And
in the last orders, it imparts to mortal animals the gift of nature.
This therefore is, I think, more known than every thing to those who
admit that things divine are beyond the works of nature.
That however, which it is more fit the lovers of the contemplation
of truth should consider, I say, is this, that Plato divides Ceres
from[261] the whole vivific deity, and co-arranges her, at one time
with Proserpine, at another with Juno, and at another with the progeny
of Jupiter, as we may learn in the Cratylus. In which dialogue indeed,
he co-arranges Rhea with Saturn, but connects a certain common
investigation and theory about Ceres, Jupiter, and Juno. In the Laws
likewise celebrating the legislative Goddesses, he refers the whole
of a legitimate life to the union of Ceres and Proserpine; since
according to Orpheus this middle Goddess being conjoined with Saturn
by her summit, is called Rhea; but producing Jupiter, and together
with Jupiter unfolding the whole and partial orders of the Gods, she
is called Ceres. And all the order of middle life is comprehensive of
the other Titanidæ, and likewise of Ceres. For it pre-established this
monad as a middle collective of all the orders in it, both those that
are occult, and those that are divided about the generative powers of
the Goddess. Each of these powers, however, are triple. And this monad
indeed conjoins the superior triad to Saturn, but weaves the inferior,
together with the demiurgic order. It also evinces that the Cerealian
monad being the middle, is co-arranged with, and is at the same time
exempt from the demiurgus of wholes. For in conjunction with the whole
order it constitutes, and together with Jupiter generates Proserpine.
And thus we have celebrated the primogenial Goddess who is the middle
of the fathers.
CHAPTER XII.
Now however, after this Goddess, the demiurgus of wholes is in the
third place to be celebrated, according to the order which he is
allotted in the intellectual Gods, peculiarly unfolding for this
purpose all the truth concerning him. And in the first place, we must
remember that it is necessary the peculiarity of this third father
should be demiurgic; and thus in the next place, following Plato, we
must direct our attention to other particulars [respecting this God].
The first of the intellectual Gods therefore, who is parturient with
multitude, who is the leader and source of all separation, and who
separates himself from the uniform and first Gods, but generates the
divided principles of wholes,—this God again converts his progeny to
himself, and weaves together these parts with his own sameness, and
exhibits himself as one intelligible world in intellectuals, bringing
forth in himself, and retaining with himself his own offspring. But
the second of the intellectual deities, is the vivific Goddess, who
brings forth indeed in conjunction with the first intellectual God,
occult multitude, (for she is conjoined to him according to supreme
transcendency) but cannot endure to remain in this mode of generating,
and in collecting the separation of wholes into unseparated union.
Hence she separates the third intellect from the [first] father; but
produces the multitude of the Gods, and of intellectual reasons,
and fills the demiurgus with generative power. If, therefore, the
first intellectual God is parturient with the generation of wholes;
but the prolific vivification of the intellectual orders causes
this generation to shine forth;—it is evident that the intellect
of the intellectual fathers, according to his own order, produces
and adorns all things, and calls forth indeed, the occult nature
of his father, into separation and progression, but prepares total
vivification to send forth the rivers of itself, as far as to the
last of things. For it is every where the peculiarity of intellect to
divide and unfold multitude, the plenitudes of life, and the unions
of intelligibles. Intelligible intellect however contains multitude
uniformly, or according to the form of one; for multitude preexists
in the intelligible according to cause. But the intelligible, and at
the same time, intellectual intellect, has indeed secondary measures
of union, but is exempt from all perfect separation, abiding in the
first principles of wholes. And intellectual intellect is the source
of all division, and of the subsistence of partial natures; since it
preestablishes in itself all the multitude of forms, and this not
tetradically only, as intelligible intellect, but it possesses one
all-perfect intellectual cause of all forms. It is necessary therefore
that the whole demiurgic principles should pertain to this intellect,
that all the demiurgic Gods should proceed from this one third father,
and that this should be the demiurgus of wholes. For as the first of
paradigms co-subsists in intelligible intellect, and in the third
triad and the first father, so likewise we must place the first
demiurgic monad in intellectual intellect, and the third father of the
intellectual Gods. For on this account also the demiurgic is conjoined
with the paradigmatic cause, according to the analogy which each is
allotted among the fathers; one indeed in intelligibles, but the other
in intellectuals. For one is the boundary of the intelligible, but the
other of the intellectual order. But this is evident from what has been
before said.
Farther still, fabrication being fourfold, and one indeed adorning
wholes totally, another adorning wholes but partially, another adorning
parts, but totally, and another weaving parts together with wholes,
partially,—this being the case, it is evident that the cause of wholes
which is the cause of them uniformly and indivisibly, is the most
ancient of all the causes. It is necessary however, that this cause
should either be prior to, or in, or posterior to the intellectual
Gods. Where therefore shall we place it? For all the parts which are
constituted by intellectuals are more partial than the one and total
fabrication. For the division of wholes into three, and the leaders of
divisible production, present themselves to the view in these orders.
The natures therefore, that are prior to intellectuals, are defined
according to other peculiarities of the Gods, as was before shown, and
in short, they subsist according to union, and are expanded above the
separation of intellectual forms.
CHAPTER XIII.
It remains therefore that the one demiurgus of wholes must be arranged
in intellectuals. But if indeed, he is the first father, he will be
intelligible, will contain his progeny in himself, and will be the
collector of separation. How therefore, does he divide the worlds?
How does he generate the multitudes of mundane natures? How does he
speak to all the junior demiurgi at once? For the first father is
uncoordinated with the whole number of mundane natures, and also
converts his first progeny to himself, flying as it were from multitude
to union, and hastily withdrawing himself from all-various separation
into intelligible transcendency. But if the one demiurgus of wholes is
the vivific order, all things indeed, will be full of life, on account
of the whole demiurgus. And the cause of souls, according to a probable
reason will here become apparent subsisting prior to multitude. But
how will he convert all things to himself? How is he called demiurgus
and father? For the vivific deity, herself by herself, has a maternal
dignity among the Gods, and is the supplier of progression to all
things. But to produce forms, and to convert, are the illustrious
and peculiar good of intellect. Neither therefore, is the demiurgus
of wholes in the supermundane order. For all the natures there are
partial, and either partially preside over wholes, or comprehend the
productions of parts totally. Nor is he in intelligibles. For all the
Gods there are fathers; and no one there is called[262] demiurgus and
father. But the divine orders antecedently comprehend all things in
a manner perfectly occult and unical. Nor is he in the intelligible
and at the same time intellectual order. For to collect, connect, and
perfect multitudes, is not the province of the demiurgic peculiarity.
For this is the source of separation, and the production of forms,
glittering with intellectual sections. But the intelligible and at
the same time intellectual Gods, extend intellectual multitudes to
the union of intelligibles. Nor again, is it possible to admit that
the demiurgic cause is in the first or second order of intellectuals.
For the summit of intellectuals is imparticipable by mundane natures,
and is rather proposed to them in the order of the desirable; but is
not productive of them. Hence, all the Gods in the world are elevated
to the Saturnian place of survey; but proceed from another secondary
principle, and through it are converted and conjoined to the exempt
kingdom. And the middle centre being vivific, is not defined according
to the paternal characteristic. For the generative very much differs
from the paternal, and the vivific from the demiurgic genus; so far,
I think, as the principles of the whole orders, I mean bound and
infinity, differ from each other. For the demiurgic and paternal order
is referred to bound; but all vivific and generative power, to infinity.
CHAPTER XIV.
I wonder therefore, at those interpreters of Plato, who do not make
one fabrication but many, who assert that there are three demiurgi of
wholes, and pass at one time to the second, and at another to the third
demiurgus; and who divide what is said in the Timæus, and think fit
to refer some of the assertions to one, but others to another cause.
For that there is a demiurgic triad, and another multitude of Gods
characterized according to the producing cause, I also admit, and think
it will be granted by Plato. It is necessary however in each order
prior to the triad, and prior to every multitude, that there should
be a preexistent monad. For all the orders of the Gods originate from
a monad; because each of the whole orders is assimilated to the whole
progression of the Gods. As therefore the subsistence of the Gods has
the cause of its generation from the imparticipable one, thus also
it is necessary that the perfect orders in the Gods, should have a
preexistent monad, and a first-effective principle. According to the
same reasoning, all the vivific progressions are suspended from one
vivification, and the demiurgic orders are extended to one fabrication.
And it is not proper that there should be multitude without the monad.
For there will neither be co-arrangement, nor a division of multitude
according to intellect, unless the one and whole preexist. For on this
account prior to all the divine progressions, the order of wholeness
subsists, in order that it may comprehend parts, and may define them
in, and about itself.
How therefore neglecting whole in fabrication, can we survey demiurgi
divided according to parts? Though Plato himself thinks with respect to
the paradigm of the universe, that the world should not be assimilated
to any thing which naturally subsists in the form of a part, but to
all perfect animal; and on this account he demonstrates that the world
is only-begotten, because its paradigm is one. For if it were not one,
but many paradigms, again it would be necessary that there should be
another animal about it, of which it would be a part, and it would be
more right to assert that the world is no longer similar to the many
paradigms, but to that which comprehends them. For it is necessary
that the one paradigm should precede the many, in the same manner as
the one good subsists prior to participated goods, and that the whole
world should be the image of one paradigm prior to many. For whether
it is alone the image of many paradigms, whence will the world be one
and a whole? And how is it possible it should not be more dishonourable
than its parts? For these indeed, are assimilated to intelligibles,
but the whole world is similar to no one of real beings. Or whether
all the world subsists from a certain intelligible paradigm, if indeed
there are many paradigms of one world, these also will be similar to
each other, if they are the causes of the same image. It is necessary
therefore, that sameness should be communicated to these from one form;
or again, the world will be more venerable than its paradigms according
to union. But if the paradigm is one, after the same manner also the
demiurgic cause is one. For as there is one image from one paradigm,
thus also the progeny being one, derives its subsistence from one
demiurgus and father. For it is necessary that the paradigmatic cause
should either be the same with the demiurgus, and should be established
in him, or that it should be prior to the demiurgus, as we say it is,
or that it should be posterior to the demiurgus, as some think proper
to assert.
If however, the paradigm and the demiurgus are the same, the demiurgus
will be one according to Plato. For the paradigm is only-begotten, as
he demonstrates. But if the demiurgus exists prior to the paradigm,
which it is not lawful to assert, but the paradigm is one, much more
will the demiurgus be one. For the causes which are more elevated are
allotted a more uniform hypostasis; since also the first cause of
wholes is one. And if the paradigmatic cause has indeed the first order
in beings, but the demiurgic cause the second order, and this universe
the last order, being the resemblance of the former, and the progeny
of the latter, how is it possible since the extremes are monadic, the
middle multitude should be without the monad? For it is necessary
that the paradigm being intelligible, should impart by illumination a
greater degree of union to the universe than the demiurgic cause. And
as the paradigm being only-begotten, comprehends in itself the first
paradigms, after the same manner it is necessary that the demiurgic
monad should be comprehensive of many demiurgi. For if the world
derives its only-begotten subsistence from the paradigm, but through
the demiurgus, the demiurgus also is indeed entirely one.
Farther still, I think that those who are the patrons of this opinion
should direct their attention to that assertion of Socrates, that it
is every where fit the many should be comprehended in the one. For on
account of this we admit the hypothesis of forms [or ideas], and prior
to other things we preestablish intellectual monads. How therefore
are intellectual forms extended to one principle, and how do each of
them proceed from one demiurgic cause, but the whole demiurgic form
is multiplied, and divided prior to the indivisible monad? For it
is necessary that as all equals, whether they are intellectual, or
psychical, or sensible, should be suspended from one first equality,
all beautiful things, from beauty itself, and the many every where,
from primary beings, thus also it is necessary that the multitude of
demiurgi should be suspended from one fabrication, and should subsist
about one demiurgic monad. For how can it be lawful to leave the one in
forms rather than in the Gods? For forms indeed, have their hypostasis
mingled with multitude; but the Gods are defined according to union
itself. If therefore all the multitudes of forms are the progeny of
monads, much more are the orders of the Gods allotted peculiarities
which originate from monads, and which through monads are inherent in
multitudes. But if this be the case, it is necessary that the whole
demiurgus should subsist prior to the multitude of demiurgi, and that
the three demiurgi should distribute the one cause of the generation of
the universe.
Again therefore we assert from the beginning that it is necessary
the demiurgic principle should either be one, or many, or one, and
many. But if indeed, it is one alone, and the multitude in the world,
and the different order which it contains subsist similarly from one
demiurgic principle, how are mortal and immortal natures the progeny
of the same cause without a medium? For all the natures that proceed
from the one fabrication are immortal. But if the demiurgic principle
is many only, whence is the common form of hyparxis communicated to the
multitude, if it does not originate from one? For as the final cause
is one, viz. the good, as the paradigmatic cause is one, viz.
animal itself, and as the world is a generated one, thus also after
the same manner, the demiurgic cause is one. But if there are one and
many demiurgic principles, whether does the one principle belong to
partial or to total genera? If however, it belongs indeed to partial
genera, how is it extended to the first and intelligible paradigm?
For the supermundane genera subsist about the intellectual Gods, and
according to intellectual paradigms. For being partial, they entirely
assimilate the natures posterior to themselves to intellectuals,
co-ordinately to themselves. Or how will it any longer preserve the
union of total fabrication which produces wholes totally? For a thing
of this kind pertains to no partial nature; but it belongs to a
partial principle, to produce parts either totally[263] or partially,
as we before observed. But if the demiurgic principle belongs to the
total orders, it is necessary that it should either be intelligible
or intellectual, or intelligible and intellectual. If however, it
is of an intelligible nature, how is it divisive of wholes? How is
it co-arranged with mundane natures? How is it said to fashion the
universe? How from the genera of being does it produce soul, and the
natures posterior to soul? For [on this hypothesis] we must admit that
all these are in intelligibles, viz. figure, the genera of being,
and these divided, the similar and the dissimilar, and other things
through which the demiurgic principle constitutes the whole world. But
if the demiurgic principle is of an intelligible and at the same time
intellectual nature, how does he produce participated intellect? How
does he separate the multiform orders of souls? How does he divide the
parts, or the circles that are in them? For that which is generative
of participated intellect, is imparticipable intellect. And that which
has the power of dividing multitude will not [on this hypothesis]
differ from that which connects the total genera of the Gods. And in
short, the demiurgus of wholes, is called by Timæus intellect, and is
frequently said to see, to discover, and to reason, but he is no where
denominated by him intelligible and at the same time intellectual. For
the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods, divide all
things triadically. But the demiurgus, at one time indeed, divides the
world into five parts, and at another divides the circles of the soul
into hebdomads, that he may generate either the celestial spheres, or
the seven parts of the soul. We must say therefore, that he is entirely
secondary to the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods,
and he is the cause of secondary goods to the world. But we must refer
to those Gods the cause of united forms and reasons. That the demiurgic
intellect however, is an intellectual God, is I think through these
things sufficiently apparent at present.
CHAPTER XV.
But Plato appears to me to have indicated the peculiarity of this
God in a remarkable manner, by calling him intellect, and asserting
that he sees intelligibles, but admitting that they are visible to
him according to nature. For that which is truly intellect, and
which establishes itself according to this hyparxis, is intellectual
intellect. For intelligible intellect also, is indeed simply
intelligible, and is of that allotment; but is said to be intellect,
as being the cause of every intellectual nature. And the intellect of
the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods, has not its
own nature unmingled with the intelligible. But intellectual intellect
alone, is peculiarly intellect, being allotted the intellectual itself
in intellectuals; just as the most principal of intelligibles, is
primarily, the first, and the highest intelligible, which we denominate
the one being, and that which is occultly being. This therefore is
that which is simply intelligible. But that which is simply intellect
is intellectual intellect. For the intelligible indeed possesses
the summit, but intellect the end of wholes. And the intermediate
natures partly pertain to the intelligible, and partly to intellect,
and the intellectual nature. And the intelligibles indeed, that are
primarily so, possess intellect according to cause; but the first of
intellectuals have the intelligible according to participation; and
the natures that are collective of these, conjoin the intelligible
and intellectual peculiarity together. Since, therefore, Timæus also
calls the demiurgus intellect indefinitely, and neither denominates him
life, nor intelligible, in consequence of his peculiarity being alone
intellectual, it is certainly necessary that he should be established
at the end of the intellectual Gods.
For there intellect is intellect itself, and is not such an intellect
as the Saturnian is. For Saturn also is intellect, but he is a pure
and incorruptible intellect, which manifests his supreme empire in
intellectuals, transcending the whole intellectual Gods. But the
demiurgus is simply intellect. As therefore, the simply intelligible
is the first of intelligibles, so that which is simply intellect, is
the last of intellectuals. For all things are in each of the orders.
For in intelligibles life and intellect preexist; and in the breadth
of life, there are similarly life and intellect. And in intellectuals
there is each of the rest. But in intelligibles indeed, being is
according to essence, but life and intellect are according to cause.
In intellectuals, intellect indeed is according to essence, but being
and life are according to participation. And in the intermediate
natures, intellect is according to cause, but being is according to
participation, and life according to essence. As therefore, that
which is most vital in life is the middle, and as that which is
especially intelligible is the summit in being, so in intellectuals,
the extremity is that which is most intellectual. Hence if there
is a certain intellect which is simply intellect, and a perceiving
intellect, this is intellectual intellect, which Plato denominating the
demiurgus unfolds to us the most manifest order, which it is allotted
in intellectuals. On this account also, prior to all other things,
the demiurgus constitutes participated intellect, as Timæus says. For
placing intellect in soul, and soul in body, he fashioned the universe.
Energizing therefore, according to his own essence, and producing by
his very being, he constituted the intellect of the universe prior to
all other things. For every participated proceeds from imparticipable
intellect. Hence, as if Plato had said, that the generative cause
which gives subsistence to participated intelligible, is that which
is primarily being, so since the demiurgus first produces intellect
from himself, he will be imparticipable and intellectual intellect.
From these things therefore, it is evident what the hyparxis of the
demiurgus and father is, and what order it is allotted in intellectuals
according to Timæus.
CHAPTER XVI.
Let us however after another manner syllogistically collect the
peculiarity of the demiurgus, receiving from the Timæus the principles
of the arguments on this subject. This therefore is known to every one,
that Timæus calls the whole demiurgus fabricator and father, in the
beginning of what he says concerning him. For he says, “It is difficult
to discover the fabricator and father of this universe, and when found,
it is impossible to speak of him to all men.” Hence, he does not think
fit to call him either father alone, or fabricator alone, nor again
connecting the two, father and fabricator, but on the contrary, he
places the fabricative prior to the paternal. Now therefore, we must
show in the first place, in what respect fabricator and father differ
from each other; and in the next place, in addition to this, who the
fabricator alone is, and who father and fabricator is, and how the
fabricative and at the same time paternal peculiarity, is considered by
Plato as adapted to the demiurgus.
If therefore, we divide all things into the Gods, and the progeny
of the Gods, and this is the same thing as to divide them into
superessential monads, and the progressions of beings, father indeed
will be generative of the Gods and superessential unities; but
fabricator will give subsistence to essences and beings. For again,
according to this reason Timæus says, that the natures which are
generated by the demiurgus are equal to the Gods; for the demiurgus
is not only fabricator, but also father; but that those which are
produced by the junior Gods, are allotted a mortal nature. For these
Gods are alone producers and fabricators of things which participate
of existence alone, and not of the superessential peculiarity.
Hence through that by which they suffer a diminution with respect
to the demiurgic monad, through this they are not allotted a power
generative of things equal to the Gods. And through that by which the
intellectual demiurgus is expanded above the junior Gods, through this
he binds to himself the generations of all mundane natures.
But if again, we divide beings into the total and partial, father
indeed, will appear to us to be the hypostatic cause of wholes, but
fabricator of partial natures. For the former is the cause exemptly
of things that are generated; but the latter proximately. And the
former, produces indeed by his very being, energy giving perfection to
his hyparxis; but the latter produces by energizing, his hypostasis
being fixed according to energy. If also we again separately divide
the generations of perpetual and mortal natures, we must refer the
generation of perpetual natures to the paternal cause, but the
generation of mortal natures to the fabricative cause. For the
fabricator indeed produces that which is generated from non-being to
being. For the Elean guest defines the effective art to be this. But
the father constitutes things posterior to himself consubsistent with
himself. For he is father by his very being, and has the power of
generating united with himself. Each therefore, I mean the paternal
and the effective or fabricative, is assimilated to the principle of
bound. And the former indeed is the cause of union, but the latter of
the production of forms. And the former is the cause of wholes, but
the latter of an extension as far as to parts. And the one indeed,
is the primary leader of simple, but the other of composite natures.
Again however, in these the generative cause, and the cause which is
productive of life, are opposed to each other; because the paternal
cause indeed is connascent with generative powers, but the effective
with vivific powers. And as the paternal and the effective causes
pertain to the coordination of bound, so every thing prolific and
vivific, pertains to vivification, and the first infinity.
These things, however, being thus divided by us, it is evident that
the paternal indeed, is itself by itself primarily in the intelligible
Gods. For they are the fathers of wholes, being fixed according to
supreme intelligible union. And on this account, Plato also calls the
first God father, from the natures which are proximately established
after him, transferring to him the appellation of father. For every
where indeed, it is usual with Plato to introduce names to the
ineffable from secondary causes, and the causes which are posterior to
it. But at one time indeed, he introduces the names from all beings,
and at another from the first beings. For it neither was nor is lawful
to refer names to him who is exempt from all beings, from subordinate
natures, and which are placed in an order very remote from him. If
therefore, all beings participate of the paternal peculiarity, we must
say that Plato gives this name to the one from all beings; for
there is not among all beings such a cause as this. Hence it is evident
that Plato introduces to the one an appellation of this kind,
from that which is the first and highest in the Gods. The intelligible
Gods, however, are more ancient than all the divine orders, and subsist
immediately after the one. The paternal cause therefore of
beings is in the intelligible Gods, and the intelligible Gods are the
fathers of all the divine genera, being established in the highest
essences, and occultly producing wholes. And the first God indeed, is
beyond the appellation of father, as he is likewise beyond all other
names; and he is neither properly called the good, or the
one, through his ineffable and unknown transcendency. But the
intelligible Gods are primarily superessential unities and goodnesses,
and are the exempt fathers of beings.
The paternal peculiarity, therefore, originates supernally from the
first intelligible triad; but the fabricative first presents itself
to the view in the third triad. For that which generates all forms,
and adorns all things with forms is the third triad of intelligibles.
For there, as we have said, all-perfect animal subsists, which is
comprehensive of the first and intelligible paradigms. Here therefore,
the effective also or fabricative at the same time subsists. For
animal itself constitutes the Gods, and produces the forms of all
beings. Hence it is allotted the paternal peculiarity, according to the
divine cause, but according to the formal cause, it unfolds into light
the effective principle of wholes. But again, on the contrary, the
effective and at the same time paternal peculiarity, is allotted its
hypostasis in the demiurgic monad. Hence also the demiurgus of wholes
is the hypostatic cause of Gods. In a particular manner however, he
fabricates the world, energizing with forms and demiurgic reasons. For
he constitutes intellect, souls and bodies, adorning all things with
forms, some indeed with first, others with middle, and others with last
forms.
Do you not see, therefore, how the end of intelligibles indeed, was
paternal and at the same time effective; but the end of intellectuals
is effective and at the same time paternal. There however, the paternal
peculiarity is more predominant; but here the effective. For in both
indeed, both causes preexist; nevertheless in the paradigm [i.e. in
animal itself] the paternal is more prevalent, but in the demiurgus the
effective. For the former produces by his very being; but the latter
by energizing. And in the former indeed, fabrication [or effective
energy] is essential; but in the latter essence is effective. Forms
also are with both; but in the former intelligibly, and in the latter
intellectually. From these things therefore, it is evident, that the
demiurgic cause subsists analogous to the paradigmatic cause; and that
it has the same order with respect to intellectuals, as that has with
respect to intelligibles. And on this account Timæus also says that
the demiurgus of wholes was extended to that paradigm. For he says,
“Whatever ideas intellect perceived by the dianoëtic energy in animal
itself, such and so many he conceived it necessary for the universe
to contain.” And together with this analogy, there is a diminution of
the intellectual with reference to the intelligible. For the latter is
more united; but the former is more separated. And the one indeed is
pre-established in the order of the desirable; but the other is moved
about the desirable. And the one fills with paternal power; but the
other absorbs as it were and embosoms the whole prolific abundance of
the desirable. And after this manner, the demiurgus of the universe
is all-perfect, receiving whole intelligible powers, from all-perfect
animal. For the universe is threefold; one indeed being intelligibly
[all]; another intellectually; and another sensibly. For the world
is perfect, from perfect natures, as Timæus says. And animal itself
is perfect according to all things, as the same Timæus asserts. The
demiurgus likewise, being the best of causes is all-perfect.
Again therefore, resuming what we have said, we repeat, that the
paternal cause commences from the supreme union of intelligibles; but
the paternal and at the same time effective cause is consubsistent
in the intelligible paradigm; and the effective and at the same time
paternal cause is defined according to the whole demiurgus. But the
cause which is alone effective and fabricative, pertains to the junior
Gods who give subsistence to partial and mortal things. The peculiarity
therefore of the demiurgic cause is effective and paternal. And this
Timæus asserts, not only in the beginning of the discourse about it,
in which he says, “[To discover] therefore, the artificer and father
of this universe, &c.;” but also in the speech to the junior Gods, he
does the same thing; for the demiurgus in a similar manner says to
them: “Gods of Gods of whom I am the demiurgus and father, [Whatever
is generated by me is indissoluble, I being willing that it should be
so.]” For he does not call himself father and demiurgus, but demiurgus
and father, just as there [Timæus calls him] fabricator and father.
And not in the Timæus only is this mode of the arrangement of the
names defined, but in the Politicus also, the Elean guest speaking
about the world says that it imitates the instruction of its demiurgus
and father; and in the beginning indeed, he uses these names more
accurately, but in the end more negligently. Since Plato therefore,
every where preserves this order of names unchanged, it is evident to
those who are not entirely unskilled in things of this kind, that he
defines the demiurgic monad according to this peculiarity, and that
he considers it to be effective and at the same time paternal. For
because indeed, it is the end of the intellectual triad, it is allotted
a paternal transcendency with respect to all the second genera of
Gods; but because it produces from itself all the partial genera and
species of beings, it possesses an effective cause of the natures to
which it gives subsistence. And because indeed, it is father, power
is in it, and at the same time intellect. For the demiurgus himself
says, “Imitating the power which I employed in your generation.” And
again, Timæus says concerning the demiurgus; “Whatever ideas intellect
perceived in animal itself, such and so many he conceived by the
dianoëtic energy is necessary for this universe to contain.” Hence
he is father, and the power of the father is in him, and intellect.
All these however, are in him intellectually, and not intelligibly.
Hence, I think he is called father indeed, not simply, but together
with effector and demiurgus; and power, not by itself, but the power
of the demiurgus and father. For he who calls himself demiurgus and
father, says that it is the power of himself. But he is immediately
called intellect, without the addition of power, and the other
appellations. “Whatever ideas therefore intellect perceived,” &c. For
all things are in him intellectually, and both power and father, by
which he imitates the intelligible paradigm. For in him all things
were intelligibly,[264] viz. bound, infinity, and that which is mixed
from both these. These, however, are father, power, and intellect.
But the intellectual of the paradigm indeed was intelligible in the
intelligible Gods, subsisting prior to an intellectual cause. The
intellectual however of the demiurgus, is of itself intellectual, being
intellectual in intellectuals, as was before observed. Because indeed,
as we have said, he is father, power is in him, and also intellect. But
because these are defined according to the effective and demiurgic, he
is coarranged with the vivific order, and together with it constitutes
the genera of life, and vivifies the whole world. What this order is
however, and where it is arranged, we shall shortly survey. But thus
much is evident from what has been said, that so far as he is the
demiurgus, he requires contact with the vivific order, together with
it generates total lives, and conjoins it to himself. Disseminating,
however, all the measures of life in it, and together with it adorning
and producing them, he again converts them to himself. For it belongs
to him to generate all things, and to recall all things to himself, no
less than to generate them, because he is established at the end of the
intellectual order, and is the demiurgic intellect. As he is therefore
demiurgic, he gives subsistence to all things; but as intellect, he
convolves multitude to union, and converts it to himself. He also
accomplishes both these, by the words which he delivers to the junior
Gods. For he fills them with demiurgic and prolific power, collects
them to himself, constitutes himself the object of desire as it were to
the multitude of Gods, and extends about himself all the demiurgi in
the world.
CHAPTER XVII.
In the third place therefore, let us purify our conceptions about the
demiurgic cause according to other projecting energies of intellect,
following for this purpose Timæus. In the first place then, Timæus in
the beginning of the theory concerning the demiurgus, sufficiently
exhibits his goodness, and his unenvying and abundant communication of
demiurgic reasons, being impelled to this from the seat of goodness
which is inherent in him, and from his exuberant deity. For his
goodness and his unenvying abundance, are not as it were a certain
habit of good, and a power, or a form itself by itself existing prior
to many goods, but it is one ineffable participation of good, and
the one of the demiurgic order; according to which the demiurgus
also is a God, and fills all things with their proper good. For because
there is deity in him which desires to adorn and arrange all things,
and an hyparxis which is extended to the providence of the whole of
things, on this account he establishes the principle of fabrication.
His goodness therefore is nothing else than demiurgic deity. But his
will is the progeny of the energy of his goodness, bounding the end
of his power. For since in the demiurgus of wholes there are, as we
have said, father, power, and intellect, and these subsist in him
intellectually, according to each of these he is filled with the
participation of the one. And through goodness indeed, that
which is paternal in him, and which is as it were the intelligible of
intellect, is illuminated. But through will, his power is governed,
and is extended to one intelligible good. And through providence, his
intellect is perfect, and gives subsistence to all things. All these
likewise are the progeny of the one deity in the demiurgus.
In the first place, therefore, as I have said, Timæus unfolds through
these things the divine peculiarity of the demiurgus. But in the
second place, he presents to our view the intelligible cause which
is in him, and also the united paradigmatic cause of wholes which he
contains. For to make all things similar to himself, evinces that he
is the intelligible paradigm of every thing beautiful and good in the
world. For because he gives subsistence to all things by his very
being, that to which he gives subsistence is the image of himself. And
according to this reasoning the demiurgus is not only a God, but he
contains in himself the intelligible, and true being, and antecedently
comprehends not only the final cause of mundane natures, but also the
paradigmatic cause. But again, in the third place, Timæus celebrates
the demiurgic power, and the principle which abolishes every thing
disorderly and indefinite, and prepares the beautiful alone and the
good to have dominion in wholes. For the assertion that the demiurgus
to the utmost of his power suffered nothing evil and vile to exist,
indicates his unconquerable power, which adorns things material in an
unpolluted manner, and imparts by illumination bound to indefinite, and
order to disorderly natures.
In which part of the Timæus, likewise, this dogma of Plato will appear
to you to be admirable, that matter is generated from some one of the
Gods situated above the demiurgus. For the demiurgus receiving matter
occupied by the vestiges of forms, thus himself introduces into it all
the perfection of ornament and arrangement. Matter, therefore, and the
whole of that which is the subject of bodies, proceed supernally from
the first principles, which on account of their exuberance of power,
are able to generate even the last of beings. But the demiurgus of the
universe, imparts by illumination, order, bound, and ornament, and
the whole world is fabricated an image of intelligibles, through the
communication of forms.
In the fourth place therefore, let us survey how Timæus unfolds to
us the demiurgic intellect. “By a reasoning process,” says he, “the
demiurgus discovered from the things which are visible according to
nature, that no work which is destitute of intelligence can ever become
more beautiful than that which possesses intellect.” What therefore is
this reasoning? What is the discovery, and whence does it originate?
Reasoning, therefore, is indeed distributed intellection, looking to
itself, and in itself investigating good. For every one who reasons,
passes from one thing to another, and being converted to himself,
searches after good. The demiurgic intellect, therefore, in adorning
and arranging the universe subsists analogously to him who reasons; for
he emits the divided causes of mundane natures, which preexist unitedly
in intelligibles. For those things which intelligible intellect
constitutes uniformly and exemptly, these intellectual intellect
separating, distributing into parts, and as it were fabricating by
itself, generates. Reasoning therefore is the being filled with the
intelligible, and an all-perfect union with it. By which also it is
evident that it is not fit to think this reasoning [of the demiurgus]
is either investigation or doubt, or a wandering of divine intellect,
but that it is stable intelligence intellectually perceiving the
multiform causes of beings. For intellect is always united to the
intelligible, and is filled with its own intelligibles. And in a
similar manner it is intellect in energy, and intelligible. For at
one and the same time, it intellectually perceives and is perceived,
discovers itself, entering into itself, and the reasoning also finds
what this intelligence is, but not according to transition. For the
intelligence of the Gods is eternal. And invention with them is not the
discovery of that which is absent; for all things are always present
to the intellect of the Gods. The intelligible likewise there is not
separated from intellect. The conversion, therefore, of intellect to
itself may be called reasoning; but the being filled from intelligibles
invention. And intelligibles themselves may be denominated things
visible according to nature. For because Timæus had denominated the
unadorned subject of bodies when it was vanquished by the obscure
vestiges of forms, visible, hence, I think, he calls intelligibles
visible according to nature. For it is according to nature, to
intellect to look to these, and not to things subordinate to these. As,
therefore, he says, that intellect itself sees intelligibles, after
the same manner also he calls intelligibles things naturally visible,
and converts intellect to the intelligible, as that which sees to
that which is seen. If, therefore, intellect sees animal itself, and
assimilates to it the whole world, it may be said that animal itself
is visible to the demiurgus of the universe. For there the most
splendid of intelligibles subsists; and this is that which we before
demonstrated, when we said that there the fountain of beauty shines
forth, which Socrates, in the Phædrus, denominates splendid and fulgid.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Such therefore are the conceptions which are to be assumed of the
demiurgic cause, and from these things they are to be derived. We shall
however obtain one perfection of the summit of the dogmas concerning
it, if we are able to survey the words which this cause extends to the
junior demiurgi, and to unfold the concealed meaning of them. This,
therefore, we shall also do, establishing the following principle
of the explanation of them: The energies and powers of the Gods are
twofold. And some indeed abide in, and energize about them, and have
for their end one hypostasis, and which is united to essence. But
others proceed from them, exhibit an efficacious power about secondary
natures, and coexist with the multitude of their recipients, and
with the peculiarity of essence. These, however, being twofold, the
secondary are suspended from those that are prior to them, are defined
about them, and receive their proper hyparxis according to them. For
it is every where necessary that externally proceeding should be the
images of internal energies, evolving the at-once-collected nature of
their indivisibility; multiplying that in them which is united, and
dividing their impartibility.
According to this reasoning, therefore, the energy of nature is
also twofold, one being that which abides in it, according to which
it connects itself, and the reasons it contains, but the other
proceeding from it, through which also bodies are filled with these
physical powers, which being moved by nature, act on each other,
and physically suffer by each other. Again, the motion of the soul
likewise is twofold. And the one indeed is self-motive, is converted
to itself, is of itself, concurs with the life of the soul, and is
without any difference with respect to it. But the other is incumbent
on alter-motive natures, moves these, and about these extends the
power of itself. The energy of intellect, therefore, is likewise
twofold. And one indeed is intellectual, is united to true beings,
and is impartible, being co-existent with the intelligible itself of
intellect, or rather being the intelligible itself, and intellect.
For intellect is not of itself in capacity, and afterwards receiving
energy, intellectually perceives the intelligible; but it is one simple
energy. For the multitude of it is unical, and its energy is directed
to itself. But the other energy of intellect is directed to externals,
and to things which are able to participate of intellect. For these
intellect causes to be intellectual through itself, splendidly as it
were emitting the light of its own intelligence, and imparting it to
others. It is necessary, therefore, that the divine and demiurgic
intellect itself, should always indeed be united to the intelligible,
and that it should have the plenitude and self-sufficiency of demiurgic
intelligence eternally established according to a union exempt from
wholes; to which, as it appears to me, Timæus also looking says,
that the father of the universe abides in his accustomed manner,
and withdraws himself to his own place of survey, delivering the
fabrication of mortal natures to the mundane Gods. For so far as he is
exempt from the beings posterior to himself and is uncoordinated with
the more partial multitude of Gods, so far he is converted to himself,
and surveys and intellectually perceives the natures prior to himself,
according to one uniform union. But in consequence of the more ruling
and leading Gods being extended towards him, he emits from himself
secondary energies, to all the partial orders.
Timæus, therefore, fashions through words, these powers and efficacious
energies which proceed from the whole and one fabrication to the
demiurgic multitude of Gods. For words are the images of intellections;
because indeed they evolve that which is contracted in intelligibles,
but lead forth that which is impartible into a partible hypostasis.
They likewise transfer that which abides in itself into habitude to
another thing. And it is evident that the reasons which are impelled
from nature, are certain natural [powers], and render that which
receives them physical. But the reasons which are generated from soul,
are indeed vivific, but render the inanimate nature which participates
of them [animated] and moved from itself, through the power of soul,
as Socrates says in the Phædrus, and communicate to it the resemblance
of self-motion. And the reasons which are generated from intellect,
illuminating the natures posterior to it, distribute all intellectual
goods to their recipients, being the suppliers of true knowledge,
of purity and a more simple life. After the same manner also the
demiurgic words produce in the junior Gods, whole, impartible, and
united measures of exempt fabrication, and fill their essences with
demiurgic providence. They likewise render them second demiurgi, and
emulous of their father. For he indeed gives subsistence to the whole
plenitudes of the world. But they, imitating him, fabricate all partial
natures in conjunction with wholes. And he produces the essence of
perpetual natures. But they fashioning mortal natures according to one
generation-producing circle, likewise transmute these. And as the one
demiurgus governs the whole periods of the universe, thus also the many
demiurgi convolve the divisible circles of the natures that are borne
along[265] in generation. If, therefore, we assert these things rightly
concerning the words proceeding from the demiurgus to the multitude of
mundane Gods, and they are efficacious, fabricative, and convertive of
their recipients to a union with him, and are also perfective of the
beneficent reasons which they contain, we shall no longer seem to speak
paradoxically, if we say that these words extend to the Gods in the
world the participation of all the powers that are firmly established
in the father, and of the causes prior to, and subsisting after him.
And as he convolving the end of the intellectual Gods, is the plenitude
of all things, so likewise the demiurgic words proceeding from him,
produce in the junior Gods the peculiarities, as I may say, of all
the divine genera that are above the world, through which they are
suspended from all the orders prior to them; just I think as the whole
of this world [is suspended from the mundane Gods who[266]] fabricate
all mortal natures, and impart to different things a different power,
and an efflux of divine powers.
What, therefore, in short, is it which Plato indicates the Gods derive
through these words from the first demiurgus, and the all-perfect
fabrication? In the first place, indeed, they derive this, that they
are Gods of Gods. For the vocal address proceeding to them from the
father, is the supplier of divine power, and is allotted an efficacious
presence in its participant, as we before observed. But in the next
place, these words impart to them an indissoluble power. The demiurgus
of wholes, however, comprehends in himself the cause of dissolution, in
order that they may indeed be essentially indissoluble, but according
to the cause of binding, not indissoluble. In the third place,
therefore, the demiurgus produces in them from on high, through these
words, a renovated immortality. For the assertion that they are neither
immortal, nor shall be subject to the fatality of death, establishes
them in this form of immortality, which the fable in the Politicus
denominates renovated. In addition to this also, the words testify
that they derive from the father a power perfective of wholes. For
if the world is imperfect without the subsistence of mortal animals,
it is doubtless necessary that those who preside over the generation
of them should be the causes of perfection to the universe. And in
the last place, these words impart to the junior Gods a paternal and
generative empire derived from the exempt and intellectual cause of
wholes; and insert in them the proximate powers of regeneration. For
through these words, the junior Gods again receive in themselves the
natures that are corrupted, fabricate parts from wholes, and again
effect the dissolution of parts into their wholes. And universally the
words of the demiurgus subject the perpetually-generated course of
nature, to the fabrication of the junior Gods. In short, therefore,
the demiurgus fills the junior Gods with divine union, fills them with
a firm establishment, and fills them with a perpetuity adapted to their
nature. But he pours into them the all-various causes of perfective
powers, of vivific rivers, and demiurgic measures. Hence also, the many
demiurgi refer the fabrication of particulars to the one and whole
providence of the father, and the principles of demiurgic works which
they received from him, to his efficacious production. And all of them
indeed are filled with all powers, because all of them participate of
the demiurgic words which proceed into them from the father. But some
of them are more characterized by one peculiarity than another.
And some of them indeed are the suppliers of union to their progeny;
others, of indissoluble permanency; others, of perfection; and others,
of life. But others preside over regeneration, and being allotted in a
distributed manner in the universe, the powers which subsist unitedly
in the one demiurgus, they are subservient to the providence of the
father. And every thing which is generated by the many demiurgi, is in
a much greater degree produced by the one fabrication; which governs
mortal natures indeed, eternally, things that are moved, immoveably,
and partible natures impartibly. It is not however necessary that the
progeny of that one demiurgus should be suspended from the motion
of the junior Gods. For every where the one fabrication is more
comprehensive than that which is multiplied. And the more causal of
divine natures energize prior to their own offspring, and together
with them constitute the progeny that proceed from them. The first
[demiurgic] God, therefore, produces from and through himself the
divine genera[267] of the universe, according to his beneficent will.
But he governs mortal natures through the junior Gods, generating
indeed these also from himself, but other Gods producing them as
it were with their own hands. For he says, “these being generated
through me will become equal to the Gods.” The cause, therefore,
through which, is to be attributed to the junior Gods; but the
cause from which, even in the production of mortal natures is
to be referred to the whole demiurgus. For always the first of those
things that are constituted, produce in conjunction with their monad
the generation of secondary natures. And all things indeed proceed
from that monad, but some things immediately; and through
it, but some things through other media receive the providence that
emanates from it. For these middle genera of causes are allotted the
providential inspection of secondary natures from the first effective
monad.
CHAPTER XIX.
Concerning the words, therefore, in the Timæus, which the demiurgus
delivers to the Gods in the world, thus much may suffice at present.
But after these, it is fit to survey the second measures of total
demiurgic providence, which the demiurgus extends from himself to
the many and divisible souls. For having constituted these, divided
them equal in number to divine animals, and disseminated them about
the world, he inserts in them fabricative boundaries, defines the
whole periods of them, inscribes in them the laws of Fate, proposes
the apparent measures of their generation-producing life, legally
institutes, and adorns in a becoming manner all the rewards of virtue,
and the works of vice, intellectually comprehends in one the end of
every period, and co-arranges with a view to this the whole polity of
partial souls. All[268] souls, therefore, of an immortal condition,
being allotted a progression from the demiurgus, are filled from him
with an united and intellectual providence. Because, however, progeny
which are suspended from their causes participate of the perfective
efficacy which proceeds from them, divine souls, indeed, primarily
subsisting from thence, become auditors of the words of their father
immediately; but partial souls participate of the uniform providence
of the demiurgus secondarily, and with greater partibility. Hence also
the demiurgus, as a legislator, defining to these all the measures of
their life, he thus extends demiurgic words, unitedly comprehending
the divided nature of the whole of their life, convolving in sameness
without time their temporal mutability, and collecting uniformly,
according to one simplicity, the multiform and diversified nature of
the energy which exists about them. But to divine souls he immediately
unfolds the providence of himself, and exhorts them to join with him in
a providential inspection of the whole world, to fabricate, adorn and
dispose in conjunction with him, mortal natures, to govern generated
beings according to the measures of justice, and to lead and convolve
all things, following demiurgic providence. Very far therefore, are
those interpreters of Plato from according with the fabrication of the
universe, who admit that partial are the same with whole souls, and
who attribute the same essence to all souls; because all of them are
allotted their generation from one demiurgus.
For in the first place, the father in the course of his fabrication
adorning, and disposing in an orderly manner partial souls, poured
mingling, the remainder of the former mixture, says Timæus, and
produced the second and third genera. But in a progression of this
kind, the words effective of conversion which he extends to divine
souls, are intellectual, and demiurgic, and impart to them generative
powers, and perfective goods; but those which he extends to partial
souls, are the definite sources of generation, of the laws of Fate,
of justice, and all-various periods. If, therefore, every thing which
proceeds from the demiurgus is essentially imparted to souls, it is
indeed necessary that different measures of words should be the causes
of different powers; and that to some among the number of divisible
souls, the demiurgus should distribute a polity exempt from mundane
affairs, but to others a polity arranged under these souls, and
supernally governed by them. These things, however, may elsewhere be
more copiously demonstrated.
CHAPTER XX.
After the demiurgic words therefore, again returning to the demiurgic
intellect, let us survey following Plato, who the demiurgus is, who
convolves the end itself of the intellectual triad to the beginning,
and after what manner it is fit to denominate him according to the
Grecian theology. Or rather, prior to this let us summarily show what
we may assume concerning him according to the narration of Timæus. For
we shall more easily learn those particulars, if we assent to these.
For directly, in the beginning of the theology concerning him, he is
celebrated as the fabricator and father of the world. And he is neither
called fabricator alone, nor father and fabricator, but at one and
the same time manifestly possessing both peculiarities, he is rather
characterized by the fabricative, than by the paternal cause. But he
is denominated the demiurgus of wholes, according to his goodness,
unenvying and exuberant will, and his power which is able to adorn
and arrange all things, and even such as are of a disorderly nature.
He is however particularly unfolded to us as the supplier of beauty,
symmetry and order, and as the best of causes; and this because he is
allotted the uniform, and first effective power of the whole demiurgic
series. But he gives subsistence to intellect and soul, and at the
same time to all the life in the world; since he fabricated the whole
world an animal animated, and endued with intellect. Being likewise
full of every intelligible, and extending himself to intelligible and
all-perfect animal and conjoining this to himself through similitude,
he fabricates the sensible universe only-begotten, in the same manner
as the separate paradigm [animal itself] transcending wholes, unitedly
constitutes the intelligible universe.
Moreover, he is likewise the fabricator of bodies, and the perfector
of works, binding all things by the most excellent analogies, and
co-adapting their powers, bulks, and numbers by the most beautiful
bonds. Farther still, he constituted the universe a whole from wholes,
and perfect from perfect parts, that it might be free from old age and
disease, and might contain in itself all the genera of the elements.
He likewise adorned it with the first figure, and with the most simple
and most comprehensive of all figures. Besides these things, he is also
the cause of self-sufficiency to the universe, and of a circulation
into itself, in order that suffering all things from, and effecting
all things in itself, it might not be in want of any thing externally
situated. And he is indeed the supplier of intellectual motion, and
of a life which is evolved according to time, and which effects[269]
a mutation always according to the same, and similarly, and about the
same things. Farther still, he is the father of soul, and of all the
genera in soul, of the division in it, and all the harmonic reasons it
contains, constituting it in the world, as a self-moved and immortal
lyre; and he is also the divider of the one, and the seven circles in
it, and in short, is the maker and fabricator of figure and morphe.[270]
In addition to these things likewise, he generates from himself the
whole of time, according to the imitation of eternity, together with
all the measures of time, and the Gods that unfold these measures into
light. But he especially constitutes the whole sun, enkindling its
light from his own intellectual essence, in order that possessing a
transcendency exempt from the other Gods it might be the king of the
universe. Moreover, he fabricates[271] all the multitudes of mundane
Gods and dæmons, and all celestial and sublunary natures, in order
that he may evince this only-begotten and self-sufficient God [the
world] to be the image of the intelligible and all-perfect God; fixing
the earth indeed, as a firm seat or Vesta, in it, but distributing
by lot the other elements to divine souls and dæmons. Besides all
this likewise, he converts to himself the genera of Gods that have
proceeded from him, and fills all things with undefiled generation,
with perpetual life, demiurgic perfection, and generative abundance. He
also constitutes divisible souls together with their vehicles, divides
them about their leading Gods, arranges different souls under different
Gods, unfolds to them the laws of Fate, measures their descents into
generation, establishes rewards to their contests in their periodic
revolutions, and institutes, as I may say, the whole of their polity in
the world.
But after all these things, he introduces a boundary to the providence
of wholes, and returning to his own place of survey, delivering to the
junior Gods the superintendence of mortal natures, and abiding in his
own accustomed manner, is the paradigm to the demiurgi in the world
of providential attention to beings of a second order. And as in the
fabrication of wholes the paradigm is intelligible animal, so in the
arrangement of partial natures, the paradigm is intellectual animal,
in which all forms shine forth in a divided manner, according to their
own nature. For Timæus says, “the children understanding the order of
their father, were obedient to it,” and he abiding, and paternally,
and eternally producing all things, they adorn and arrange the mortal
genera demiurgically, and according to time. Hence the providence of
the demiurgus presents itself to the view, extending from on high as
far as to the production of these, and what is here said by Plato,
is as it were a hymn to the demiurgus and father of this universe,
celebrating his productions, and the benefits which he confers on the
world.
And it is requisite that being persuaded by what is here clearly
written, we should investigate all the other enquiries about the
demiurgus. My meaning is, that we should investigate what we
mentioned a little before, who the demiurgus is, and how we ought
to denominate him according to the sentiments of the Greeks; and on
what account, Timæus neither delivers the name of him, nor unfolds
to us who he is, but says, “that it is difficult to discover him,
and that when discovered, it is impossible to speak of him to all
men.” Now therefore, I think, from what has been already said, it is
evident even to those who are but in a small degree intelligent, that
according to the decision of Plato, it is the great Jupiter, who is
now celebrated by us as the demiurgus. For if, as we have observed,
the kingdom of Saturn is the summit of the whole intellectual triad,
and the intelligible transcendency of intellectuals, but the maternal
and vivific fountain of Rhea, is the middle centre, and the receiving
bosom of the generative power in Saturn, it is manifest to every one,
that the mighty Jupiter is allotted the end of this triad. For from
the before-mentioned causes, one of which indeed is paternal, but the
other generative, he is the God having a paternal subsistence, who
is said to reign, receiving the intellectual dominion of his father.
If, therefore, it is necessary that the demiurgus should convolve the
end of this intellectual triad, as was before demonstrated, and to
effect this, is the province of the royal power of Jupiter, we must
evidently acknowledge that the Jovian empire is the same as that of the
demiurgus, and that Jupiter is the demiurgus celebrated in the Timæus.
CHAPTER XXI.
If, however, it be necessary to consider this as worthy of further
discussion, and to demonstrate that the theology in the Timæus
about the demiurgus, accords with what is elsewhere written by
Plato concerning this God, let us in the first place assume what is
delivered in the Critias, because this dialogue proximately follows
the Timæus, and is composed according to an analogy to it, delivering
the hypostasis of the same things in images, the primary paradigms of
which Timæus celebrates through the fabrication of the world. Here,
therefore, Plato, (that I may derive what I say from the beginning)
relating the warlike preparations of the Athenians, in former times,
and the insolence and usurpation of the Atlantics, who were the progeny
of Neptune, but destroyed the divine seed, through the mixture of human
and mortal pursuits, and conducted themselves insolently to all men,
collects indeed the Gods to a consultation concerning them, in the same
manner as poets inspired by Phœbus, and forms a common assembly of
the Gods. But Jupiter is the author of the whole polity of them, and
converts the multitude of them to himself. And as in the Timæus the
demiurgus convolves all the mundane Gods to himself, so Jupiter in the
Critias providentially attending to the whole of things, collects the
Gods to himself.
In the next place, therefore, let us consider what Plato says
concerning this God, and how it accords with what was before said by
Timæus. “But Jupiter the God of Gods who reigns legitimately, and
who is able to perceive every thing of this kind, when he saw that
an equitable race was in a miserable condition, and was desirous of
punishing them, in order that by being chastized they might possess
more elegant manners, collected all the Gods into their most honourable
habitation, whence being seated as in the middle of the whole world, he
beholds all such things as participate of generation.” Here, directly
in the beginning, king Jupiter being celebrated as the God of Gods,
does it not accord with what is written in the Timæus, where he is said
to be the father and cause of all the mundane Gods? For what other
God is it who reigns over all the Gods, except the cause of their
subsistence and essence? Who is it also that calls the mundane deities,
Gods of Gods? Is it not him who binds to himself the principle of all
fabrication? If, therefore, he imparts to his progeny to be Gods of
Gods, in a much greater degree it pertains to him to be celebrated as
the God of all [the mundane] Gods. To which, therefore, of the Gods
prior to the world, does it particularly belong to punish offenders
except to him who defines to souls all their measures, unfolds to them
the laws of the universe, and legally institutes such things as are
fit concerning justice and injustice, in order that afterwards he may
not be accused of the vices of each of them? Moreover, to congregate
all the Gods into their most honourable habitation, from which the
whole of generation may be seen, and which possesses the middle of the
universe, is to attribute to him a providence exempt from multitude,
but extending equally to the whole world; which things indeed are
the illustrious goods of the demiurgic monad. For to convert all the
Gods to himself, and to survey the whole world pertains exemptly to
the demiurgus of the universe. For what else is multitude able to
participate proximately, except the monad from which it derives its
subsistence? And who can convert all the Gods in the world to himself,
but the fabricator of their essence, and of their allotment in the
universe?
CHAPTER XXII.
We must establish this, therefore, as one and the first argument in
proof of the thing investigated. But if you are willing, we will derive
a second argument from what is said by Socrates in the Cratylus,
in which he discusses the meaning of the names, from which he may
represent to us the essence of Jupiter. For he is not led to the nature
of this God from one name, as he is in the names of other Gods, such
as Saturn, Rhea, Neptune, and Pluto, but from two names which tend to
one thing, and which divisibly indicate the one and united essence of
Jupiter, he unfolds the power of this God, and the peculiarity of his
hyparxis. For the common rumour concerning him, denominates him in
a twofold respect. And at one time calling him (δια) dia, we
worship him in our prayers and hymns; but at another time we celebrate
him as (ζηνα) zena, a word derived from life. Being
therefore at the same time called (ζευς) zeus, and delighting in
the appellation of dia, he is similarly denominated from both
names by the Greeks. And these names manifest the essence and order
which he is allotted among divine natures. And neither of these names
indeed, is by itself sufficiently able to make known the peculiarity
of the God; but when conjoined with each other and forming a sentence,
they have the power of unfolding the truth concerning him.[272] How,
therefore, from both the names the power of this king is signified,
and the precedaneous order of his hypostasis in the Gods, we may
hear Socrates himself saying, “That the name of his father[273] who
is called Jupiter is beautifully posited; but that it is not easy to
apprehend the meaning of it, because in reality the name of Jupiter is
as it were a sentence. Dividing it however into two parts, some of us
use one part, and some another. For some indeed call him zena,
but others dia. And these parts collected into one evince the
nature of the God, which we say a name ought to effect. For there is
not any other who is more the author of life to us, and to all other
things than he who is the ruler and king of all things. It happens,
therefore, that this God is rightly denominated, on account of
whom life is present to all living beings. But it is divided
into two parts, as if I should say that there is one name from
dia and zena.” The mode, therefore, of collecting the
names into one, and of rendering the hyparxis of this God apparent
through both, is manifest to every one.
If, however, he is the supplier of life to all things, as he is said
to be, and is the ruler and king of all such things as are said to
live, to whom can we assert this peculiarity pertains, if we omit the
demiurgus? And is it not necessary, that according with what is said
in the Timæus, we should refer to him the principle of vivification.
For the demiurgus renders the whole world animated, endued with
intellect, and an animal, and constitutes the triple life which is in
it, one indeed being impartible and intellectual, another partible
and corporeal, and another between these, impartible and at the same
time partible. It is he likewise who conjoins each of the celestial
spheres to the circulations of the soul, inserts in each of the stars
a psychical and intellectual life, and produces in the sublunary
elements leading Gods and souls, and in addition to all these things,
constitutes the divisible genera of life, and imparts to the junior
Gods the principle of mortal animals. All things therefore in the world
are full of life, through the power of the demiurgus and father. And
this world is one animal, deriving its completion from containing all
animals, through the never-failing cause of the power by which it was
generated. And there is no other who is the supplier of life to all
things, and through whom all things live, some indeed more clearly,
but others more obscurely, than the demiurgus of wholes. For he also
is intellectual animal, in the same manner as the all-perfect paradigm
is intelligible animal. Hence likewise, these are conjoined to each
other. And the one indeed is paternally the cause of wholes; but the
other demiurgically. And as animal itself constitutes intelligibly, all
intelligible and sensible animals, according to one cause, thus also
the demiurgus fabricates intellectually according to a second order,
the animals in the world.
As animal itself likewise proximately subsists from intelligible life,
so the demiurgus is generated from intellectual life, and is the first
that is filled with the rivers of vivification. Hence he illuminates
all things with life, unfolding the depths of the animal-producing
deity, and calling forth the prolific power of the intellectual Gods.
If therefore, all things live through the demiurgic cause, they
also participate of soul and intellect, and, as I may say, of all
vivification, through the providence of this God. But he who pours the
rivers of life on all things in the world from himself, and is the
ruler and king of wholes, is the mighty Jupiter, as Socrates says in
the Cratylus, and evidently appears to be the same with the demiurgus.
And the divinely-inspired intellectual conception of Timæus concerning
the demiurgus, accords with the theology of Socrates about Jupiter. If
likewise each of them denominates the knowledge of this God difficult
to be apprehended, and one of them says that it is difficult to
discover him, and when discovered, that it is impossible to speak of
him to all men, but the other asserts that it is not easy to understand
the name of Jupiter, do they not in this respect accord with each
other in what they say concerning this God? Besides this also, the
composition of the names, and the coalition of the two names into one
hyparxis, appear in a remarkable degree to be adapted to the demiurgus.
For a biformed[274] essence, and generative power, are attributed
to him according to other theologists. For the duad sits with him,
according to which he generates all things; concerning which Timæus
also introduces him speaking to the demiurgi in the world, and saying,
“Imitating my power.” And through this he produces and vivifies all
things. Hence it is necessary through names also to consecrate the duad
to him according to ancient rumour. For he glitters with intellectual
sections, divides and collects wholes, and constitutes one indissoluble
order from many things. And this the power of the names indicates,
extending us from divided intellection, to one self-perfect and uniform
theory.
All these particulars therefore, clearly demonstrate to us that Plato
considers the demiurgus of wholes to be the same with Jupiter. For
he who alone is the cause of life to all things, and who is the king
of all things, is the demiurgus of the universe. And he who in a
remarkable manner rejoices in a duad of names, is he who arranges and
adorns the whole world. And it appears to me, as I have frequently
said, that in consequence of being allotted the end of the intellectual
triad, converting this to the beginning, and being full of the middle
fountains of life, but uniting himself to the watch-tower of his
father, and producing into himself the simplicity of an intelligible
subsistence, according to the peculiarity of first-effective causes,
he is also allotted a duad of names. And as he received his essence
from both [i.e. from Saturn and Rhea] and possesses indeed bound
from his father, but infinite power from the generative deity of his
mother, thus also he possesses one of the names from his father,
and from the uniform perfection which is in him; but the other from
total vivification. And through both, as he is allotted an essence,
so likewise an appellation. For it is obvious to every one, that the
term (δια) dia[275] on account of which, is a sign of a total
essence. “Let us declare, says Timæus, on account of what cause [the
composing artificer constituted generation and the universe]. He was
good.” But the name of life pertains of itself to the middle order
of beings. The demiurgus therefore obtains one of these names, viz.
dia, from the intellectual summit, and the paternal union.
For according to the participation of it, he is one,[276] bound, and
intelligible. But he obtains the other name from the middle order of
intellectuals. For there life, and the vivific bosoms are allotted
their hypostasis. The demiurgic intellect however, shining forth from
both, participates also of the names through composition. For we call
him dia and zena, because life proceeds to all things
on account of him, and to live is inherent in all [vital natures] on
account of him. And thus after a manner the position of the names
indicates the progression of the demiurgus from both the precedaneous
causes.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Again therefore, let us direct our attention to what is written in the
Philebus, and survey how, in what is there said, Socrates refers the
fabrication of the universe to Jupiter. For admitting that intellect
adorns and arranges all things, in the same manner as the wise men
prior to him, and that it governs the sun and moon, and all the
circulation [of the heavens] he demonstrates that the whole world
participates of soul, and intellectual inspection, and that we also
derive the participation of these from wholes; but that the universe is
not and was not from chance, and likewise the most divine of visible
natures, as many physiologists assert, while the natures which the
universe contains participate of soul and intellect. Having therefore,
as we have said, demonstrated these things, and shown that what the
whole world contains is greater and more perfect than what we contain,
and that wholes have a greater authority, and a more ruling essence
than partial natures, and having placed intellect over wholes, as that
which adorns and arranges the universe, and likewise assigned this
province to soul, through the inspection of intellect, (for intellect
is not present to the world without soul) he afterwards recurs to
imparticipable intellect, to the author of participated intellect and
soul, and the fabricator of the whole world, and he denominates and
celebrates this fabricator, who contains the causes of the plenitudes
in the world, as no other than Jupiter the great king and ruler of
wholes, conformably to the rumour of the Greeks. He likewise extends
about him all the providence of the world, and places in him the whole
cause of the arrangement and ornament of the universe.
It is better however, in the next place, to hear the words
themselves of Plato. He gives therefore to the world an intellectual
superintendance, and adds this to the before mentioned demonstrations,
that there is, as we have frequently observed, an abundance of infinity
in the world, and a sufficiency of bound, and that there is a certain
cause in them by no means vile and contemptible, which adorns and
co-arranges the years, the seasons, and the months, and which may
most justly be called wisdom and intellect. But again, because it is
necessary that participated intellect should govern the world through
soul as a medium, (for it is impossible that intellect should be
present to any thing without soul, as Timæus also asserts) hence it is
requisite that soul also should preside over the universe, and that
proximately having dominion over the natures it contains, it should
govern the world according to intellect. This therefore Socrates
having in the next place added, he subjoins as follows: “Moreover,
wisdom and intellect could never be without soul.” For how could the
impartible and eternal essence of intellect be immediately conjoined
with a corporeal nature? It is necessary therefore that intellect
should preside over wholes, that it may connect the order in the
world, well-being, and all things. For order and well-being are the
progeny of an intellectual essence. But it is necessary that soul
primarily participating of intellect, should illuminate body with the
light proceeding from thence, and fill all things with intellectual
arrangement. It must be admitted therefore, that the world is animated
and endued with intellect. Hence from this Socrates ascends to the
cause itself of the whole world, which produced intellect and soul, and
generated the total order [of the universe.]
“Hence, (Socrates adds) you may say that in the nature of Jupiter
there are a royal soul and a royal intellect through the power of
cause; and that in the other Gods there are other beautiful things,
whatever they are, by which their deities love to be distinguished,
and from which they delight in taking their respective denominations.”
One of these two things therefore is necessary, either that what is
here said is said concerning the world, or concerning the demiurgus
of wholes. For if the world is Jupiter, the participated intellect
in the world is royal, and the soul also is royal which governs the
universe, and arranges and adorns it according to intellect. And these
things are evidently present to the world through the power of the
cause by which it was constituted, and which rendered it a partaker
of intellect and animated. And thus Jupiter will be that which is
adorned and fabricated, and not the adorner and fabricator of all
things. If, however, it is necessary that the power of cause should
be comprehensive in an exempt manner of a royal intellect and a royal
soul, we must admit that the nature of Jupiter is in the demiurgic
order and power; and intellect and soul will be in him according
to cause, since he imparts both these to his progeny. Of these two
opinions therefore, every one may adopt that which he pleases, but
to me, when I consider what is here said, and every other assertion
of Plato concerning this God, it by no means appears to be necessary
to refer the nature of Jupiter to the whole world. For neither does
the only-begotten subsistence of the world accord with the kingdom of
Jupiter, since the Saturnian triad, and which distributes the dominion
of the father, is manifestly celebrated by Plato himself; nor can
that which is cause to all things, as it is said in the Cratylus,
refer[277] to the world. For the world is among the number of things
which participate of life from another. As I have said therefore, we
must leave this opinion, as by no means adapted to Plato, though it is
adopted by some of his interpreters. But considering cause to be the
same as Jupiter, we must say that soul and intellect are established
in him exemptly; and that Jupiter participates of both these, from
the Gods that are prior to him; of intellect indeed, from his father,
but of soul from the queen [Rhea] who is the deity of vivification.
For there the fountain of soul subsists, just as in Saturn, there
is intellect according to essence. For every where the intelligible
unically comprehends the intellect which is coordinate with it. And
thus much concerning these particulars.
CHAPTER XXIV.
In the next place, we may conjoin with this the mythological
conceptions in the Protagoras, and arrive at the same conclusion,
considering in common with the Timæus, how the opinions delivered to us
concerning the mighty Jupiter, through the Protagorean fable, accord
with the assertions about the demiurgus. The fable says, therefore,
that Prometheus adorning the human race, and providentially attending
to our rational life, that it may not perish by being merged in the
furies of earth, and the necessities of nature, as some one of the Gods
says, bound nature to the arts, extended these which are imitations
of intellect, as it were to sportive souls, and through these excited
our gnostic and dianoëtic power to the contemplation of forms. For
every artificial production is effective of form, and adorns the matter
which is the subject of it. The fable also adds, that Prometheus
providentially attending to the arts gave them to souls, and that he
received them from Vulcan and Minerva. For in these Gods the cause
of all arts is primarily comprehended; Vulcan primarily imparting the
fabricative power of them; but Minerva supernally illuminating their
gnostic and intellectual power. Not only however, is the invention
of arts necessary to souls in generation, but also a certain other
science, the political, which is more perfect than the arts, and which
is able to arrange and adorn them, and to lead souls through virtue to
a life according to intellect. But as Prometheus was unable to impart
this life to us, because the political science is primarily with the
mighty Jupiter, but it was not possible (says the fable) for Prometheus
to enter latently into the tower of Jupiter, (for the guards of Jupiter
are terrible, defending him exempt from all partial causes,)—hence
Jupiter sent the messenger Hermes to men, who brought with him prudence
and shame, and in short the political science. Jupiter also ordered
Hermes to impart similarly to all men these virtues, and to distribute
to all souls the knowledge of things just, beautiful, and good, but not
in a divided manner, as different arts are distributed to different
persons. And some men indeed are judges of these things; but others are
ignorant either of all, or of some of the arts.
In what is here said, therefore, Plato primarily refers to Jupiter
the paradigm of the political science, as is evident from the words
themselves. But he produces the progression of this science, and the
communication and participation of the Hermaical series, and extends
its essential presence, which we participate in common, to all souls.
For to distribute to all of them, is to insert in souls essentially a
science of this kind. These things, therefore, being laid down, let us
consider to whom we must say the political science especially pertains,
and who it is that primarily established a polity in the universe, that
formed divine to govern mortal natures, divided wholes from parts,
and produced self-motive and intellectual natures more ancient than
those that are deprived of the presence of intellect. Is it not the
demiurgus, who is the cause to us of all these goods, who governs the
whole world according to rectitude, binds it by the best analogies,
establishes every polity in it, possesses and comprehends the laws of
Fate, and extends the sacred laws of Adrastia, as far as to the last of
things, and arranges and adorns by justice all celestial and sublunary
natures? For he who introduces partial souls into the universe as into
their habitation, and imparts to them a total polity which is the best
of all polities, and is governed by the most excellent laws, is he who
denominates these laws the laws of Fate, who defines the measures of
Justice, and legally institutes all things, as Timæus says. Is it not
therefore superfluous to endeavour to prove that he who possesses the
first paradigm of the political science, is according to Plato the
demiurgus?
If, however, these things are true, and according to the fable in
the Protagoras it must be admitted that the political science first
subsists in Jupiter, it is evident from what has been said, that the
demiurgus of the universe is Jupiter. For to what other cause can we
grant the primary form of the political science to belong, than to
that which arranges and adorns the universe? If the polity in the
heavens is the first and most perfect of all polities, as Socrates in
the Republic says it is. Who likewise is he that produces all things,
and co-arranges them when produced to each other, in order to the
elegant disposition of the universe? If, therefore, the first and most
perfect demiurgus of the universe is political, but the political
science first subsists with Jupiter, being established with him on
a sacred foundation, proceeds from thence to all secondary natures,
and adorns and arranges both wholes and parts according to intellect,
it is evidently necessary that the demiurgus of wholes should be the
same with Jupiter, and that there should be one hyparxis of both,
which administers every thing in the world according to rectitude,
and circularly leads every thing confused and disorderly into order.
For, says Timæus, it is not lawful for that which is best to effect
any thing else than that which is most beautiful. How therefore is it
possible that he who adorns and arranges wholes through Themis, and
together with her produces all things, should not essentially possess
in himself the whole of the political science?
How is it possible likewise that he should not be the first Jupiter,
who definitely imparts to all things that which is divine, and weaves
one polity from all things, but is exempt from all partial causes and
the Titanic genera, and is guarded by his own undefiled powers, beyond
the whole world? For the guards which surround him, obscurely signify
his immutable order, and the undeviating defence of fabrication,
through which being firmly established in himself, he pervades through
all things without impediment, and being present to all his progeny,
is according to supreme transcendency expanded above wholes. Moreover,
the citadel of Jupiter, according to the rumours of theologists,
is a symbol of intellectual circulation, and of the highest summit
of Olympus, which all the wise suspend from the intellectual watch
tower of Jupiter, to which he extends all the mundane Gods, imparting
to them from thence intellectual powers, divine light, and vivific
illuminations, and compressing all the profundities of the worlds by
one most simple circulation, through which the summit also of the
apparent worlds is denominated the period of sameness, and the most
prudent and uniform circulation, as Timæus says, expressing the unical
intellectual power of demiurgic conversion, and being allotted the same
transcendency with respect to all the sensible world that the supreme
summit of Jupiter possesses with respect to all the arrangement of
the firmaments. These things may also be assumed by us as subservient
to the proposed investigation, from the fabulous fictions in the
Protagoras.
CHAPTER XXV.
We may, however, approach still nearer to the truth, and assume in
the present discussion, the fable in the Politicus. For in this it
will appear that Plato in a remarkable manner considers the demiurgus
of the universe to be the same with Jupiter, and even as far as to
the very names asserts the same things as Timæus. The Elean guest,
therefore, as we have before observed, assigns [in this dialogue]
twofold circulations to the whole of this world, the one intellectual,
and which elevates souls but the other proceeding into nature, and
imparting things contrary to the former. And the one indeed, being
unapparent, and governed by divine providence, but the other apparent,
and convolved according to the order of Fate. He also places twofold
motive causes over these circulations. For every mutation and period
require a certain moving cause. And prior to the causes that move the
circulations, he asserts that there are as it were twofold ends of the
periods, and assigns first-effective causes of the motions, coordinate
to the moving causes, and to the circulations themselves which differ
from each other. Jupiter therefore moves, and circularly leads one
of the periods, whether you are willing to call it intellectual, or
providential, or in whatever other way you may denominate it, and
he also supplies the world with life, and imparts to it a renovated
immortality. But he preestablishes his father Saturn as the object of
desire to, and the end of the whole of this circulation. For he leads
back wholes, and converts them to himself.
Moreover, he extends happy souls to the watch-tower of his father,
viz. those souls whose corporeal nature is obliterated, and
whose circulation is to the incorporeal and the impartible. All
the generation-producing[278] symbols likewise of these souls
are amputated, and the form of their life is transferred to the
intellectual summit. For these souls are also said to be the nurselings
of Saturn, but to commit the government of themselves to Jupiter, and
through him to be extended to the intelligible, and the Saturnian
dominion. For the intelligible is nutriment, as it is said by the Gods
themselves. And as Socrates in the Phædrus elevates souls through
the circulation of the heaven to the supercelestial place, where
souls are nourished, survey true beings, and the unknown order of the
Gods, with the highest powers of themselves, and as he there says,
intellectually perceive with the heads of the charioteers;—thus also
the Elean guest circularly leads souls under Jupiter, to the Saturnian
watch-tower, and asserts that such as have ascended are nourished by
Saturn, and calls them the nurselings of the God. For every where
indeed, the intelligible is perfective of, and has the power of
filling an intellectual life, and the summit of intellectuals extends
perfection. These souls likewise participate of the natures that are
beyond, establish themselves in more elevated intellectuals, and ascend
as far as to the unknown order, but remote from the good, and
the one principle of all things. But the souls [that ascend through
the circulation of the heaven] are extended to the first intellect,
which is imparticipable, and the intelligible itself, and when they
are there, and have established their life in the occult order as in a
port, they ineffably participate of the union proceeding from the
good, and of the light of truth.
With respect however to what remains respecting the twofold periods,
as we have said, the world itself indeed moves itself, being moved
according to its own nature, and giving completion to the order of
Fate. But the first-effective cause of this motion of the world, and
of its life, is the God who illuminates it with the power of being
moved and of living, and is the mighty Jupiter. Hence also this
period is said to be Jovian, so far as Jupiter is the cause of this
apparent arrangement, just as Saturn is the cause of the intellectual
and unapparent arrangement. It is better, however, to hear Plato
himself discussing these things. That there are, therefore, twofold
circulations of the universe, and that the God who moves it is the
leader of the one, but of the other the world itself convolving itself,
Plato here teaches us. But as was just now said, and which is the
only thing that remains, the universe is at one time co-governed by
another divine cause, again acquiring life, and receiving a renovated
immortality from the demiurgus; but at another time, when he lays aside
as it were the handle of his rudder, the world being left by itself,
moves for a time by itself, so as frequently to proceed in an inverted
order.
Again, however, that one of the periods, viz. the apparent, is Jovian,
but that the other is referred to the kingdom of Saturn, Plato
himself determines in what follows, subjoining these words, after the
celebration of that life, and of the undefiled polity of the souls
that are there, which is liberated from all corporeal pains, and the
servitude about matter: “You have heard, Socrates, what was the life
of men under Saturn; but you yourself have seen what the condition of
the present life is, which is said to be under Jupiter.” And moreover,
that of these two circulations, (since the apparent is under Jupiter)
Jupiter is the cause and maker of it, is obvious to every one, and
that again Jupiter is the power that moves the unapparent circulation,
which is Saturnian, may be demonstrated from what is written. For it
is necessary that these two Gods should either rule over each of these
circulations, or that one of them should rule over the unapparent, but
the other over the present circulation. If, however, Jupiter moves the
universe according to this period, the world can no longer be said to
convolve itself, and to govern every thing it contains. Nor will it be
true neither that the whole is convolved by divinity with twofold and
contrary circulations, nor again, that two certain Gods convolve it
whose decisions are contrary to each other. For if Saturn indeed moves
it according to one circulation, but Jupiter moves it according to a
period contrary to that of Saturn, two Gods will move it according to
contrary circumvolutions. If, however, these things are impossible, it
is indeed manifest to every one that both the divine causes preside
over the circulation according to the Saturnian convolution; Saturn
indeed as the supplier of an intellectual life; but Jupiter, as
elevating all things to the Saturnian empire, and establishing them in
his own intelligible. And thus that period may be called Saturnian,
in consequence of Saturn imparting the first effective cause of the
whole [of an intellectual] life. But according to this more physical
circulation, and which is known to every one, Fate and connate desire
move the universe.
Jupiter, however, is the cause of this motion exemptly, who gives Fate
and an adscititious life to the world. These things, therefore, being
demonstrated by us, let us consider what the particulars are which
are asserted of the God who moves the world according to the other
period. And they are these; “that the world indeed at another time is
conjointly governed by another divine cause, again acquiring life, and
receiving a renovated immortality from the demiurgus.” It is obvious,
therefore, to every one, that the Elean guest says, that the God who
moves the universe according to the Saturnian period, supplies it with
life, and imparts to it a renovated immortality, and that he clearly
calls him the demiurgus. Hence, if it is Jupiter who conjointly governs
that period, as has been demonstrated, he will be the demiurgus of the
world, and the supplier of immortality. And what occasion is there to
say much on the subject? For if the same God is the cause of life, and
is denominated the demiurgus, again the Cratylus will present itself to
us, and Jupiter according to this will be the same with the demiurgus.
For life accedes to all things from Jupiter, as it is asserted in that
dialogue. Moreover, in what follows, as Timæus calls the cause of
the circulation of Fate, demiurgus and father, after the same manner
the Elean guest denominates this cause, and also calls it the maker.
“For the world,” says he, “revolves, remembering the doctrine of the
demiurgus and father.” Properly, therefore, do we denominate the whole
of this period Jovian, because the world moves and convolves itself,
according to the doctrine of Jupiter, and the order imparted to it
from him. Again, therefore, Jupiter is demiurgus and father. And here
also the Elean guest preserves the same order of the divine names as
Timæus. For he does not[279] call him father and demiurgus, but on the
contrary, in the same manner as Timæus, demiurgus and father; because
the demiurgic peculiarity in him is more manifest than the paternal
deity. These things, however, have been copiously investigated before;
and it has been shown in what respect the demiurgic is different from
the paternal genus, how they are complicated with each other,[280]
where the paternal subsists essentially, but the demiurgic according
to cause, and where again, the demiurgic subsists essentially, but the
paternal, according to participation.
CHAPTER ΧΧVῚ.
It will remain, therefore, that we should make mention of what is
written in the Laws concerning Jupiter. For perhaps in them also it
will appear that Plato assigns the same order to the demiurgus and to
Jupiter. As the equalities, therefore, according to which polities are
adorned, are twofold, and the one polity indeed proposes the equal
according to number, and proceeds through things which differ from
each other according to an equal law; but the other embraces in all
things, the equality which is according to desert; and also, since
equality subsists according to ratio,—this being the case, each of
these equalities exists in the providence of the world. For the essence
of the soul, indeed, is primarily divided by its fabricator by the
equality according to ratio; but it is also consummately filled with
the remaining middles, and bound with them through the whole of itself.
The several bodies [of the world] likewise, participate of a certain
common essence, in the fabrication of things; and on this account
they are allotted the equality which is according to number. But all
things are arranged and adorned through the best of analogies, and
the demiurgus according to this inserts both in wholes and parts, an
indissoluble order in the universe, and an adaptation of them to each
other.
This equality, therefore, the Athenian guest exhorts his citizens
particularly to honour, in consequence of assimilating his city to
the universe. He also says that it is a thing of this kind, but that
it is not likewise easy for every one to perceive the most true and
excellent equality; for it is the judgment of Jupiter. What therefore
is the cause on account of which the Athenian guest asserts this
analogy to be the judgment of Jupiter? What other cause can we assign
than its contributing to the perfection of the world, and its power
and dominion in the fabrication of wholes? For that which gives
an orderly distinction to the genera of causes, contrives the most
beautiful bond of them, and weaves together one order from wholes, is
according to Timæus the power of this analogy. For it established soul
in the middle (of the universe) analogous to intellect and a corporeal
nature. For soul is the middle of an impartible and partible essence.
And by how much it surpasses a partible, by so much it falls short of
an impartible hypostasis. The power of this analogy, however, binds
the soul from double and triple ratios, and connects the whole of it
proceeding from and at the same time returning to (its principles,)
by the primary and self-motive boundaries of equality. It likewise
constitutes the corporeal series from the four first genera. And it
adapts indeed the extremes to each other through the middles, but
mingles the middles according to the peculiarity of the extremes. It
reduces, however, all things to one world, and one indissoluble order
connectedly comprehended in the universe. If, therefore, we acknowledge
that this equality has dominion in the whole fabrication of things,
the best of analogies is the judgment of the demiurgus, and according
to the decision of him who generated wholes it is allotted that great
dominion in the fabrication of the universe, which we have before shown
it to possess. Hence if the same analogy is the judgment of Jupiter,
as the Athenian guest says it is, it is obvious to every one that the
nature of Jupiter is demiurgic. For it is not any thing else which
judges of the dignity of this analogy than that which employs it in the
arrangement of wholes. And to this the legislator establishing himself
analogous, binds and in a particular manner adorns the city which is
assimilated to the universe, by this analogy.
CHAPTER XXVII.
From these things, therefore, and from all that has been previously
said, we confidently assert, following Plato and paternal rumours,
that Jupiter is the demiurgus of the universe; and we may collect
into one, the scattered opinions of the ancients on this subject;
of whom, some, indeed, refer the paradigm of the world, and the
demiurgic cause to the same order; but others divide these from each
other. And some place all-perfect animal prior to the demiurgus; but
others afford an hypostasis to it after the demiurgus. For if the
demiurgus is, as has been said, the great Jupiter, and the paradigm
proposed to the demiurgus in order to the generation of the world, is
all-perfect animal, these are at the same time united to each other,
and are allotted an essential separation. And animal itself, indeed,
intelligibly comprehends in itself the whole Jovian series; but Jupiter
the demiurgus of the universe intellectually pre-establishes in himself
the nature of animal itself. For animal itself is the supplier of
life to all things, and all things primarily live on account of it,
and Jupiter being the cause of life, possesses the paradigm and the
generative principle of the essence of all animals. Justly, therefore,
does Timæus, in Plato, having called the intelligible paradigm animal,
conjoin the demiurgic intellect to the first intelligible animal; and
through the all-perfect union of the demiurgus and father with it, he
also arranges and adorns this universe. For Jupiter binding to himself
the fabrication of the universe, and being an intellectual animal,
is united to intelligible animal, and being allotted a progression
analogous to it, constitutes all things intellectually, which proceed
from animal itself intelligibly.
For, as we have said, the intelligible hypostases being triple, and
one indeed, being allotted its hyparxis according to existence and
the one being; but another according to intelligible life, and the
middle centre of the intelligible breadth, where eternity, all life,
and intelligible life subsist, as Plotinus somewhere says; and another
according to intelligible multitude, the first plenitude of life, and
the all-perfect paradigm of wholes,—this being the case, the three
kingdoms of the intellectual Gods are divided analogous to the three
intelligible hypostases. And one indeed, the mighty Saturn, being
allotted an hyparxis according to the summit of intellectuals, and
having a paternal transcendency, possesses a dominion analogous to
the summit of the intelligible Gods, and the occult order. And as in
that order, all things are uniformly, and are ineffably, and without
separation united, thus also this God again converts to himself, and
conceals in himself the natures that have proceeded from him, imitating
the occult of the first summit. But again, the order which comprehends
the middle genera of wholes, and is filled indeed, from the generative
power of Saturn, but fills from itself the whole fabrication with
vivific rivers, has the same order in intellectuals which eternity has
in intelligibles, and the uniform cause of the life which is there. And
as eternity proximately generates intelligible animal, which is also
denominated eternal, through the participation of eternity, thus also
the middle bosom of the intellectual Gods, unfolds the demiurgus of
the universe, and the vivific fountain of wholes. But the third king,
viz. the fabricator and at the same time father, is indeed coordinate
to the remainder of the intelligible triad, viz. to all-perfect animal.
And as that is an animal, so likewise is Jupiter. And Jupiter indeed
is intelligibly in all-perfect animal; but all-perfect animal is
intellectually in Jupiter. The extremities likewise of the intelligible
and intellectual Gods are united to each other; and in them, separation
is co-existent with union. And one of them, indeed, is exempt from
fabrication; but the other is converted to the intelligible, is filled
from thence with total goods, and is allotted a paternal transcendency
through the participation of it. The maker, therefore, and father
of the universe, who has firmly established in himself the uniform
strength and power of all fabrication, who possesses and comprehends
the primary cause of the generation of wholes, and who stably fixes
in himself all things, and again produces them from himself in an
undefiled manner, being allotted such an order as this among the
intellectual fathers, is celebrated, as I may say, through the whole
of the Timæus, in which dialogue, his prolific and paternal power is
unfolded, and his providence which pervades from on high as far as
to the extremities of the universe. He is also frequently celebrated
by Plato in other dialogues, so far as it is possible to celebrate
his uniform and united power,[281] and which through transcendency is
exempt from wholes.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
If however some one recollecting what is said in the beginning of the
Timæus about him, viz. that it is difficult to discover him, and when
found, impossible to speak of him to all men, should enquire in the
first place, why since the Grecian theology ascribes such a name to
the demiurgus, as we have before mentioned, Timæus says that he is
ineffable, and established above all the indication which subsists
in words. In the next place, if he should inquire why intelligible
animal which is arranged above the demiurgus is both denominated, and
is made known by many signs, but the demiurgus who has established
his kingdom in an order secondary to that of all-perfect animal, and
is an intellectual God, (all-perfect animal receiving an intelligible
transcendency) is left by Timæus ineffable, as we have said, and
unknown, perhaps we also, following Plato, may be able to dissolve
all such doubts. For every order of the Gods originates from a monad,
and presides over its proper series according to the first-effective
cause. And such things indeed as are nearer to this principle are more
total than those that are more remote from it. But more total natures
are manifestly seen to be less[282] distant from the monad, and conjoin
things which are diminished according to essence to the natures that
are prior to them. Every order of the Gods likewise is a whole united
to itself through the whole, is allotted one indissoluble connexion,
both in wholes and parts, and through the monad which collects every
order into one, it is converted about itself, is suspended from this,
and is wholly convolved according to it.
If, therefore, we assert these things truly, in each order a monad
is allotted a transcendency with respect to multitude, analogous to
the good. And as the unical cause of whole goods, and which is
incomprehensible by all things, is exempt from all things, constitutes
all things about itself, generates them from itself, and hastily
withdraws the unions of all things to its own ineffable superunion,
thus also the uniform and generative principle of every coordinate
multitude, connects, guards and perfects the whole series of itself,
imparts good to it from itself, and fills it with order and harmony. It
is likewise that to its own progeny, which the good is to all
beings, and is the object of desire to all the natures that originate
from itself. Thus, therefore, the union of the intelligible father
subsists prior to the whole paternal order; the one wholeness of the
Synoches is prior to the connective order; and the first effective
cause of life, to the vivific order.
Hence also, of every demiurgic series, which is suspended from the
triad of the sons of Saturn, the monad which proximately fabricates
wholes, and is established above this triad, comprehends in itself
all the demiurgic Gods, converts them to itself, and is of a boniform
nature. The one fountain likewise of all the demiurgic numbers,
subsists, as I may say, with respect to all this order analogous
to the one, and to the one principle of all things. Timæus
therefore, indicating these things to us, asserts directly in the
beginning of the generation of the world, that this monad which
proximately fabricates wholes, is difficult to be known, and is
indescribable, as having the same ratio as the ineffable and unknown
cause of all beings. Whence likewise, I think, he calls the demiurgus
the best of causes, and the father of this universe, as being allotted
the highest order among the demiurgi, and convolving to himself, and
producing from himself all the effective principles. That
one however, Parmenides demonstrates to be perfectly unknown and
ineffable; but Timæus says that it is difficult to discover the maker
and father of the world, and impossible to speak of him to all men;
which assertion falls short of the cause that flies from all knowledge,
and all language, and appears to verge to the nature of things known
and effable. For when he says that it is impossible to speak of him
to all men, he does not leave him entirely ineffable and unknown. And
the assertion that it is difficult to discover him, is not the sign
of a peculiarity perfectly unknown. For because the demiurgus has
established a kingdom analogous to the good, but in secondary
and manifold orders of it, he participates indeed of the signs of
the good, but is allotted the participation in conjunction with
an appropriate peculiarity, and a communion with beings adapted to
him. And as he is good, but not the good itself, so likewise he
is difficult to be known by the natures posterior to him, but is not
unknown. He is also celebrated in mystic language, but is not perfectly
ineffable. You may see however, the order of things, and the remission
in them proceeding in a downward progression. For the good
indeed, is exempt from all silence, and all language. But the genus
of the intelligible Gods rejoices in silence, and is delighted with
ineffable[283] symbols. Hence also, Socrates in the Phædrus, calls the
vision of the intelligible monads the most holy of initiations, as
being involved in silence, and perceived intellectually in an arcane
manner. But the vision of intellectuals is indeed effable, yet is not
effable and known to all men, but is known with difficulty. For through
diminution with respect to the intelligible, it proceeds from silence
and a transcendency which is to be apprehended by intelligence alone,
into the order of things which are now effable.
If however, this be the case, all-perfect animal is much more ineffable
and unknown than the demiurgic monad. For it is at once the monad of
every paradigmatic order, and is intelligible, but not intellectual.
How therefore, do we endeavour to denominate, and as it were unfold
it, but thus magnificently celebrate the demiurgic cause? And how do
we class this cause in the same rank with things ineffable? For this
will not be acting conformably to Plato, who arranges animal itself
beyond the demiurgus; but this will be giving an hypostasis to it in a
secondary order of Gods, where it will be ranked, and will be effable
and known more than the demiurgic monad. To which may be added, that to
denominate that all-perfect animal most beautiful, but the demiurgus
the best of causes, gives indeed the same analogy to these causes with
respect to each other, as there is of the good with respect
to the beautiful. And as the good is prior to the beautiful,
(for the first beauty, as Socrates says in the Philebus, is in the
vestibules of the good) so likewise the best[284] is prior to
the most beautiful, and the demiurgus is prior to all-perfect animal.
For the best indeed, remarkably participates of the good, but
the most beautiful, of beauty.
CHAPTER XXIX.
In addition to these things therefore, it must also be asserted by us,
that the most beautiful and the best, are simply indeed related to
each other according to order, as the good is to the beautiful.
For the series of the whole of goodness is expanded above all the
progression and arrangement of the beautiful. Every where, therefore,
the best is prior to the most beautiful. And the one, indeed, with
reference to an inferior order, will be the best, but the other with
reference to a more excellent order, will be the most beautiful. I say
for instance, that the most beautiful, as in intelligibles, will have
this peculiarity; but the best as in intellectuals. And if the most
beautiful, in supermundane natures, is a thing of this kind, the best
will be said to be best as with reference to the Gods in the world.
Hence, if the best of causes is the leader of the demiurgic series, and
according to it is allotted a transcendency of this kind, but the most
beautiful of intelligible animals preestablishes the illustrious power
of beauty in a higher order, by what contrivance can it on this account
be shown that intelligible and all-perfect animal is subordinate to the
intellectual cause? And that the demiurgus is converted to that which
is posterior to himself? Or how can it be said that animal itself is
visible to him, and all-perfect animal, and that which is comprehensive
of all intelligibles, if it is made to be comprehended by another?
For thus the demiurgus will be more comprehensive than animal itself,
if the former indeed being characterized according to the best, is
expanded above the paradigm, but the latter being denominated as most
beautiful is secondary to the demiurgic cause.
Moreover, as that all-perfect and intelligible animal is particularly
considered by Timæus according to a formal nature, and not according
to the union which is in it, and an hypostasis which is above all
forms,[285] he very properly grants that animal itself may be known
and manifested by words, but considers the demiurgus as in a certain
respect ineffable, and superior to knowledge. For both indeed, I mean
the demiurgus and animal itself, participate of union, and prior to a
formal essence, are contained in the one. And if you assume the
unities which are in them, you must admit the unity of the paradigm to
be intelligible, but the demiurgic unity to be intellectual, and that
an intelligible hyparxis is nearer to the first one, which is unknown
and incomprehensible by all things, than an intellectual hyparxis. But
if you are willing to survey the forms of the paradigm by themselves,
according to which it is said to be the paradigm of every thing in
the world, and the goodness and union of the demiurgus, the former
will appear to you to be known and effable; but the demiurgic cause
will be seen to participate of the unknown and ineffable peculiarity
of the Gods. For again, Timæus was in a remarkable degree in want of
the demiurgus and father, as the producing cause of wholes, and the
generator of the world. But to generate, to produce and provide are
the peculiarities of Gods, so far as they are Gods. Hence also Timæus
denominates the peculiarity of the demiurgus according to which he
is a God, the cause of the generation of the universe, and the most
proper principle of the arrangement of wholes. But he denominates the
peculiarity of the paradigm to be that which comprehends the first
forms, according to which the world also is invested with forms. For
it is the image of the paradigm, but the effect of the demiurgus. It
belongs, therefore, to the paradigm to be the first of forms, but to
the demiurgus to be the best of causes, according to his goodness, and
the hyparxis of essence. For, as we have said, to generate, to give
subsistence to, and to provide for other things, especially pertain to
the Gods, and not to the natures which are primarily suspended[286]
from them; but the latter are allotted through the former an abundance
prolific of secondary natures. It appears to me that Socrates in the
Republic indicating these things, does not say that the sun is the
cause of generation, till he had declared him to be the progeny of the
superessential principle of all things; just as Timæus does not begin
the fabrication of the universe, till he had celebrated the goodness of
the demiurgus of wholes. For each [i.e. the demiurgus and the sun] is a
producing cause according to the good, the former indeed of the
universe, but the latter of a generated nature; but not according to
the intellect which is in them, or life, or any other form of essence.
For these through the participation of the good constitute the
natures posterior to themselves. And thus through these things we have
answered the before-mentioned doubts.
CHAPTER XXX.
Of the problems pertaining to total fabrication, it now remains
for me to relate what my opinion is respecting the Crater, and the
genera that are mingled in it. For these also Timæus co-arranges with
the demiurgic monad, in the generation of the soul. The demiurgus,
therefore, mingles the elements of the hypostasis of souls; but the
middle genera of being are mingled. The much-celebrated Crater,
however, receives this mixture, and generates souls in conjunction with
the demiurgus. Hence, in the first place, the genera of being must be
admitted to be twofold. And it must be granted indeed, that some of
them give completion to total hypostases, but others, to such as are
partial; and that the hyparxes of first effective and united causes,
are established in the intelligible Gods. For there essence subsists
primarily in the summit of intelligibles, and motion and permanency
are in the middle centre. For intelligible eternity abides in one,
and at once both abides and is the occult cause of all life. Hence,
Plotinus also calls eternity life which is one and total: and again,
in another part of his works he calls it intelligible life. But the
third from him, Theodorus, denominates it permanency. And both these
opinions harmonize with each other; because permanency also is in
eternity, (for according to Timæus, eternity abides in one) and motion.
For eternity is intelligible life, and that which participates of it
is intelligible animal. Moreover, sameness and difference, are in the
extremity of intelligibles. For whence does multitude originate, but
from difference? And whence is the communion of parts with wholes, and
the hyparxis of things which are divided in each other derived but
from sameness? For that one participates of being, and being of the
one. All the parts likewise of the one being pervade through each
other in an unconfused manner; for at one and the same time sameness
and difference are there occultly. And the whole intelligible breadth
is allotted its hypostasis according to the first and most uniform
genera. As essence likewise presents itself to the view in conjunction
with the one, according to the first triad, so motion and
permanency shine forth in the second, and sameness and difference in
the third triad. And all things are essentially in the intelligible;
just as life and intellect are there intelligibly. For since all beings
proceed from intelligibles, all things preexist there according to
cause. And motion and permanency are there essentially, and sameness
and difference uniformly.
Again, in the middle genera of the intelligible and intellectual
hypostases, the same things subsist secondarily and vitally. In the
summit of them indeed, essence subsists. For Socrates in the Phædrus
speaking about this order, characterizes the whole of it from essence.
For the truly-existing essence which is without colour, without figure,
and without contact, subsists after this manner. But in the middle
centre there are motion and permanency. For there the circulation of
the heaven subsists, as the same Socrates says; being established
indeed undeviatingly, in one form of intelligence; but being moved
in, and about itself; or rather being motion and eternal life. But
in the extremity of this order, sameness and difference are vitally
established. Hence it is converted to the beginning according to the
nature of sameness, is divided uniformly, proceeds into more numbers,
and generates from itself more partial monads.
Again, in the third orders, the highest of the intellectual Gods
possesses all things according to essence, and is the intelligible
itself and true being in intellectuals, again recalling the separation
which is in himself into undivided union. But the middle order
subsists according to motion and at the same time permanency. For
it is a vivific deity, abiding and at the same time proceeding,
being established with purity, and vivifying all things by prolific
powers. And the third progression subsists according to sameness,
together with difference. For this separates itself from the fathers,
and is conjoined to them through intellectual conversion. And it
binds, indeed, at once the natures posterior to itself, to each
other, according to the common powers of forms, and at the same time
separates them by intellectual sections. But in this order, all genera
and species first shine forth to the view; because it is especially
characterized according to difference, being allotted the end of all
the total hypostases. From this likewise it proceeds to all things,
viz. to participated intellect, the multiform orders of souls, and
the whole of a corporeal nature. For, in short, it constitutes
triple genera of the natures posterior to itself; some indeed, being
impartible and the first; others being media between partible and
impartible natures; and others being divided about bodies. And through
these things it generates all the more partial genera of beings. That
we may therefore again return to what has been before said, the genera
must be admitted to subsist every where, yet not every where after
the same manner; but in the highest orders of divine natures indeed,
they subsist uniformly, without separation, and unitedly, where also
permanency participates of motion, and motion of permanency, and there
is one united progression of both. In the more partial orders, however,
it must be admitted that the same things subsist in a divided manner,
and together with an appropriate remission. For since the first and
most total of forms are in the extremity of intelligibles, it is indeed
necessary that genera should have the beginning of their hypostasis
in intelligibles. And if the demiurgic cause is generative of all the
partial orders, it comprehends the first genera of the hypostasis of
them. As likewise the fountain of all forms subsists in this cause,
though there are intelligible forms, so the genera of being preexist
in it, though there are other whole genera prior to it. And the divine
Jamblichus somewhere rightly observes that the genera of being present
themselves to the view in the extremity of the intelligible Gods.
The present theology likewise, following things themselves, gives a
progression to these as well as forms supernally, from the intelligible
Gods. For such things as subsist according to cause, occultly, and
without separation in the first essences [i.e. in intelligibles] these
subsist in a divided and partible manner, and according to the nature
of each, in intellectuals. For from hence, all the divisible orders of
beings are filled both with these genera, and with formal hyparxes. And
on this account, the demiurgus also is said to comprehend all genera,
and to have the fountain of forms, because he generates all the partial
rivers [of life] and imparts to them from himself by illumination all
the measures of subsistence. Hence triple genera of all beings proceed
from the demiurgus, some indeed being impartible, others partible,[287]
and others subsisting between these, being more united indeed than the
partible, but more separated than the impartible genera; but subsisting
according to the middle of both, and connectedly containing the one
bond of beings. And the demiurgus indeed produces the intellectual
essence, through the first and impartible genera; but the corporeal
essence through the third and partible genera; and the psychical
hypostasis which is in the middle of these, through the middle genera
in beings. Moreover, he generates every intellectual and impartible
nature from himself, and fills them with total generative power. But he
constitutes the psychical essence, in conjunction with the Crater; and
the corporeal essence, in conjunction with total Nature.
CHAPTER XXXI.
That in this arrangement likewise we follow Timæus, any one may
learn from the following considerations: The demiurgus producing the
intellect of the universe, himself produces it from his own essence
alone, unfolding it at once according to one union, in consequence of
constituting it eternally, and no mention whatever is here made of
the Crater. But the demiurgus in arranging and adorning soul prior
to body, mingles the genera, and energizes in conjunction with the
Crater. And in fashioning the body of the universe, and describing the
heaven, he fabricates it in conjunction with Necessity. For the nature
of the universe, says Timæus, was generated mingled from intellect
and necessity. And neither does he here assume the Crater in order to
the arrangement of bodies. But it has been abundantly shown by us
elsewhere, that Plato calls physical production, a production through
necessity, and does not, as some suppose, consider necessity to be
the same with matter. It is evident, therefore, that the demiurgus
produces the generation of bodies together with total Nature, mingles
the partible genera in the first Nature, and thus produces bodies from
intellect and necessity. For bodies receive[288] from intellect indeed,
good and union; but from necessity a progression which terminates in
interval and division. He arranges and adorns, however, the self-motive
essence of souls, in conjunction with the Crater. And neither
intellect, nor bodies, require a cause of this kind. The demiurgus
indeed is the common source of the triple genera. But the Crater is
the peculiar cause of souls, and is co-arranged with the demiurgus and
filled from him, but fills souls. And receiving from thence indeed the
powers of prolific abundance, it pours them on souls according to the
measures of their respective essences. To some of them likewise it
orderly distributes the summits of the genera [of being], to others
the middle progressions of the genera, and to others, the terminations
of them. Hence the Crater is indeed essentially vivific, since souls
also are certain lives, but it is the first-effective cause of souls,
according to the peculiarity of hyparxis, and is the uniform and
all-perfect monad, not of every life, but of that which is psychical.
For from this Crater the soul of the universe subsists, and likewise
the second and third genera of partible souls, and of those souls that
are allotted a progression between these.
The whole number, therefore, of the psychical order proceeds from
the Crater, and is divided according to the prolific powers which
it contains. Hence the Crater is said to be the cause of souls, the
receptacle of their fabrication, and the generative monad of them, and
the like. For it is said to be so rightly, and conformably to the mind
of Plato. If, however, the Crater is co-arranged with the demiurgus,
and equally constitutes with him the genera of souls, it is indeed
necessary that this Crater should be fontal, in the same manner as the
whole demiurgus. Hence the Crater is the fountain of souls, but is
united to the demiurgic monad. And on this account, Socrates also in
the Philebus says, that in Jupiter there is a royal soul, and a royal
intellect. For that which we at present denominate fontal, he calls
royal; though the name of fountain when applied to souls is well known
to Plato. For Socrates, in the Phædrus, says, that the self-motive
nature is the fountain and principle of motion to such other things as
are moved.
And you see that as a twofold divine monad prior to souls is delivered
by theologists, the one being indeed fontal, but the other of a
primary ruling nature, Plato likewise gives to the progeny of these
twofold appellations, assuming one name from the more total, but the
other from the more partial monad. For the self-motive nature, is a
fountain indeed, as being the offspring of the fontal soul, but it is a
principle, as participating of the primary ruling soul. If therefore,
the name of fountain, and also of principle is assigned by Plato to
souls, what occasion is there to wonder if we denominate the exempt
monads of them, fountains and principles? Or rather from these things
that is demonstrated. For whence is a ruling power imparted to all
souls except from the ruling monad? For that which similarly extends to
all souls, is necessarily imparted to them from one and the same cause.
If therefore, some one should say it is imparted by the demiurgus, so
far as he is the demiurgus, it is necessary that in a similar manner it
should be inherent in all other things which proceed from the demiurgic
monad. But if it proceeds from the definite and separate cause of
souls, that cause must be denominated the first fountain and principle
of them.
Moreover, that of these two names, the ruling is more allied to
souls than the fontal, as being nearer to them according to order,
Plato manifests in the same dialogue. For calling the self-motive
nature the fountain and at the same time principle of the motion of
the whole of things, he nevertheless frames his demonstration of its
unbegotten subsistence from principle alone. For, says he, principle
is unbegotten. For it is necessary that every thing which is generated
should be generated from a principle. If therefore, demonstrations are
from things proximate to the things demonstrated, it is necessary that
principle should be more proximate to souls than fountain. Farther
still, if every thing which is generated is generated from a principle,
as Plato says, but souls are in a certain respect generated, as Timæus
says, there is also a precedaneous principle of souls. And as they
are the principles of things which are generated according to time,
so after another manner principle subsists prior to souls, which are
generated. And as they are unbegotten according to the generation of
bodies, thus also the principle of souls is exempt from all generation.
Through these things therefore, it is demonstrated by us, that the
Crater is the fountain of souls, that after the fountain there is a
primary ruling monad of them, and that this monad is more proximate to
souls than the fountain, but is established above them, as being their
prolific cause. And all these particulars we have demonstrated from the
words of Plato.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Again therefore, let us return to the things proposed, and teach in a
greater degree the lovers of the contemplation of truth, concerning
this Crater. For the whole vivific deity having established in the
middle of the intellectual kings the prolific cause of divine natures,
and according to her highest, most intellectual and all-perfect
powers, being occultly united to the first father, but according to
more partial and secondary causes from them, being conjoined to the
demiurgus, and establishing one conspiration together with him of the
generation of the partial orders, Timæus mystically mentions those more
ancient powers of the Goddess, and which abide in the first father. But
with respect to those powers that are co-arranged with the demiurgus,
and adorn together with him the natures in the universe, some of these
he delivers more clearly but the whole of others through indication.
For the secondary monads themselves of the Goddess are triple, as the
wise assert, one of them being the fountain of souls, the second,
being the fountain of the virtues, but the third being the fountain of
Nature which is suspended from the back of the Goddess. The demiurgus
therefore, also assumes these three hypostases to his own prolific
production. And the Crater indeed, as we have said, is the fountain of
souls, unically containing the whole and perfect number of them.[289]
And as the demiurgus is allotted a paternal cause with respect to
the psychical generation, so the Crater is prolific, and is allotted
the ratio and order of a mother. For such things as Jupiter produces
paternally in souls, the fountain of souls produces maternally and
generatively.
Virtue however, energizes by itself, and adorns and perfects wholes.
And on this account, the universe having participated of soul,
immediately also participates of virtue. “For the demiurgus, says
Timæus, having placed soul in the middle, extended it through the
universe, and besides this surrounded the body of it externally
with soul as with a veil, and causing circle to revolve in circle,
constituted heaven one, alone and solitary, but through virtue
able to converse with itself, and being in want of no other thing, but
sufficiently known and friendly itself to itself.” At one and the same
time therefore the world is animated, lives through the whole of its
life according to virtue, and possesses from the virtues as its highest
end, friendship with itself, and an all-perfect knowledge of itself.
For it is itself sufficiently known and friendly to itself through
virtue.
Moreover, nature also is consubsistent with the generation of body.
For the demiurgus generates body through necessity, and fashions it
together with its proper life. And on this account, shortly after,
having constituted partial souls, he shows to them the nature of the
universe, and the laws of Fate. For in consequence of possessing the
cause of total Nature and Fate, he also exhibits these to souls. For
the demiurgus is not converted to things posterior to himself, but
primarily contains in himself the things which are exhibited, and
unfolds to souls the powers of himself. Hence, the paradigm of all
Nature, and the one cause of the laws of Fate pre-subsist in him.
For the fountain of Nature, is called the first Fate by the Gods
themselves. “You should not look upon Nature, for the name of it is
fatal.” Hence also, Timæus says, that souls at one and the same time
see the laws of Fate, and the nature of the universe, viz. they see
as it were mundane Fate, and the powers of it. And the Elean guest
in the Politicus, denominates the motive cause of the more physical
circulation of the universe, Fate. For he says that “Fate and connate
desire convolve the world.” And the same person likewise clearly
acknowledges that the world possesses this power from the demiurgus and
father. For he says that all the apparent arrangement and circulation
are derived from Jupiter. It is demonstrated therefore, that according
to these three causes of the vivific Goddess which are co-arranged with
the demiurgus, the world is perfected by him, viz. according to the
fontal Crater, the fountain of the virtues, and the first-effective
cause of nature.
It is likewise manifest that again in these things Plato does not
refuse to employ the name of fountain. For in the Laws he calls the
power of prudence which is essentially inherent in souls, and which is
productive of the virtues in us, the fountain of intelligence. And he
also says, that two other fountains are imparted to us by nature, viz.
pleasure and pain. As, therefore, we before demonstrated that souls
are called the fountains of motions, on account of the one fountain of
them, of which they participate, thus also when Plato calls the first
progeny of Nature fountains, it is obvious to every one, that he will
permit the exempt cause itself of them to be denominated a fountain.
After the same manner, likewise, since he magnificently celebrates the
essential power of virtue in us, as the fountain of intelligence, he
will not be compelled to hear a name which does not at all pertain to
his philosophy, if some one should be willing to denominate, the first
monad of the virtues, a fountain. But where shall we have the name of
fountain posited by him in the intellectual Gods? In the Cratylus,
therefore, he says that Tethys is the occult name of a fountain, and he
calls Saturn himself and the queen Rhea fluxions. For these divinities
are rivers of the intelligible fountains, and proceeding from fountains
placed above them, they fill all the natures posterior to themselves
with the prolific rivers of life. And the Crater itself likewise is
fontal. The Gods, therefore, also denominate the first-effective
causes of partial natures, fontal Craters. These things, however, we
shall more fully investigate elsewhere. Let it be considered also,
that we have here sufficiently examined the particulars concerning the
demiurgic monad, according to the narration of Plato.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
In the next place, let us survey those causes and leaders of
uncontaminated purity, and see if Plato any where appears to remind
us of this order of Gods, and of the inflexible power proceeding from
them to all the divine genera. For the first-effective triad of the
immutable order, is united to the triad of the intellectual kings and
the progressions of the former are co-divided with the monads of the
latter. And the summit of the triad, and as it were, the flower of the
inflexible guard of wholes is united to the first intellectual king.
But the middle centre of the triad, is in a kindred manner conjoined to
the second intellectual king, proceeds together with him, and subsists
about him. And the extremity[290] of the whole triad is connected with
the third intellectual king, is converted with him to the principle
[of the intellectual order,] and together with him is convolved to the
one union of the father of all the intellectual Gods. And after this
manner, indeed, the three unpolluted guardians of the intellectual
fathers, are monadically divided. But together with this division they
have also an hypostasis united to each other. All of them, likewise,
are in a certain respect in each of the fathers, and all of them
energize about all. And after a certain manner indeed according to
their proper hypostasis, they are divided from the fathers; but after
another manner they are impartibly assumed with them, and at one and
the same time they are allotted an equally-dignified order with the
fathers, and appear to possess an essence subordinate to them.
Such, therefore, being their nature, they preserve, indeed, the
whole progressions of the fathers undefiled, but supply them with
inflexibility in their powers, and immutability in their energies. They
are suspended, however, from total purity. And if some of the ancients
have in any of their writings surveyed in intellect that which always
subsists with invariable sameness, which receives nothing into itself
from subordinate natures, and is not mingled with things inferior,
they celebrate all such goods as these, as pervading to intellect,
and other natures, from these Gods. For the oration in the Banquet
of Plato, celebrates in a remarkable manner the immiscibility of the
divine essence with secondary natures; and that which transcends the
whole of things in purity and immutable power, arrives to the Gods
through the guardian cause. And as the intellectual fathers, are the
suppliers of prolific production, both to all other things, and to the
inflexible Gods, thus also, the undefiled Gods, impart the power of
purity, both to the fathers, and to the other divine orders. At one and
the same time, therefore, the three unpolluted Gods subsist with the
three intellectual kings, are the guardians of the fathers themselves,
establish about them an immutable guard, and firmly fix themselves in
them. Hence also, the Athenian guest, as he arranges and adorns his
polity through the best analogy, through which the demiurgus binds and
constitutes the whole number [of the elements,] so likewise he appoints
a guard to all the inhabitants of the region, that nothing, as much as
possible, may be without defence; imitating in this the intellectual
Gods themselves who guard all things by the undefiled leaders. And it
appears to me that on this account he calls the rulers [of his polity]
guardians of the laws, or [simply] guardians, because the inflexible
guardians are consubsistent with the intellectual leaders of the whole
worlds.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
These arguments, however, will be more remote from that divine triad,
and are referred to it from ultimate images. But perhaps omitting
these, we may abound with greater conceptions, and more conducive to
the investigation of the thing proposed, and speculating together
with Plato the divine genera, we may discover how he also celebrates
this order of Gods, and constitutes them together with the three
kings that are now discussed, just as by other theologists also, we
are mystically instructed in the truth concerning them. In the fable
therefore of Protagoras, Plato indicating to us the exempt watch-tower
of Jupiter, and the transcendency of his essence which is unmingled
with all secondary natures, through which he is inaccessible and
unrevealed to the partible genera of Gods, refers the cause of this to
his[291] immutable guard, and the defensive order by which he[292] is
surrounded. For on account of this, all the demiurgic powers indeed are
firmly established in themselves. But all the forms [that are in him]
are according to supreme transcendency exempt from secondary natures.
And in short, the demiurgic intellect [through this order] abides after
its accustomed manner. For the fable says that the guards of Jupiter
are terrible to all things. And on this account such [partible] genera
of Gods (one of which also Prometheus is) cannot be immediately
conjoined with the undefiled and Olympian powers of the demiurgus. If,
therefore, Socrates himself in the form of a fable clearly delivers
to us the guard about the demiurgus, is it not through these things
evident that the guardian genus is consubsistent with the intellectual
Gods? For as the Oracles say, that the demiurgic order is surrounded
with a burning guard, thus also Plato says that guards stand round
it, and defend inflexibly the summit of it exempt from all secondary
natures.
But in the Cratylus, Socrates unfolding through the truth which is
expressed in names, who Saturn is, demonstrates indeed his[293]
peculiar hyparxis, according to which he subsists as the leader of the
total intellectual orders. He likewise unfolds to us the monad of the
unpolluted order, which is united with Saturn. For Saturn, as he says
in that dialogue, is a pure intellect. For, he adds, the koron
(το κορον) of him, does not signify his being a boy, but the purity,
and incorruptible nature of intellect. After an admirable manner
therefore, the fabricator of these divine names, has at one and the
same time conjoined the Saturnian peculiarity, and the first monad of
the unpolluted triad. For the union of the first father with the first
of the unpolluted Gods, is transcendent, and hence this inflexible God
is called silent by the Gods, is said to accord with intellect,
and to be known by souls according to intellect alone; because he
subsists in the first intellect according to one union with it. Saturn
therefore, as being the first intellect, is defined according to its
proper order, but as a pure and incorruptible intellect, he has the
undefiled conjoined in himself. And on this account, he is the king of
all the intellectual Gods. For as intellect he gives subsistence to all
the intellectual Gods, and as a pure intellect, he guards the total
orders of them. The two fathers therefore, [Saturn and Jupiter] are
shown by the words of Plato to be co-arranged with the immutable Gods,
according to union indeed, the first, but according to separation the
third.
If you are willing however, to survey the one inflexible guard of them
with respect to each other, according to which the third father is
stably in the first, as being the intellect of him, and energizing
about him, again direct your attention to the bonds in the Cratylus, of
which indeed, partible lives, and the lives deprived of intellect, and
which are stupidly astonished about matter, are unable to participate.
But a divine intellect itself, and the souls which are conjoined to it,
participate of these bonds according to an order adapted to them. For
the Saturnian bonds, appear indeed to bind the mighty Saturn himself,
but in reality, they connect about him in an undefiled manner the
natures that throw the bonds around him. For a bond is the symbol of
the connective order of the Gods, since every thing which is bound is
connected by a bond. Again therefore from these things, the guardian
good which extends from the connective Gods to the intellectual kings
is apparent, since it unites, and collects them into one. For a bond
guards that which is connected by it. But the immutable Gods inflexibly
preserve their own appropriate orders. For the guardianship of these
Gods is twofold; the one indeed, being primary and uniform, and
suspended from the triad of the connective Gods; but the other being
co-existent with the intellectual kings, and defending them from a
tendency to all secondary natures. For all the intellectual fathers
ride on the unpolluted Gods, and are established above wholes, through
their inflexible, undeviating, and immutable power.
If however, it be not only necessary that these two fathers should
participate of this guardian order, but that the middle vivific deity
of them should be allotted a monad of the immutable Gods coordinate
to herself, it is indeed necessary that the first [guardianship] of
the unpolluted leaders in the intellectual fathers, should be triadic,
and should have the same perfect number with the three intellectual
Gods. It is likewise necessary that the first of these leaders should
be stably united to the first [of the intellectual kings]; but that
the second should in a certain respect be separated from the second of
these kings, together with a union with him. And that the third should
now be entirely separated from the third king. And thus the unpolluted
proceeds conformably to the paternal order, and is after the same
manner with it triadically divided. The first of the unpolluted Gods
likewise guards the occult nature of Saturn, and the first-effective
monad which transcends wholes, and establishes perfectly in him the
causes that proceed from, and again return to him. But the second,
preserves the generative power of the queen Rhea, pure from matter,
and undefiled, and sustains from the incursions of secondary natures
her progression to all things, on which she pours the rivers of life.
And the third preserves the whole fabrication of things established
above the fabrications, and firmly abiding in itself. It likewise
guards it so as to be inflexible, one, and all-perfect with respect to
the subjects of its providential case, and expanded above all partial
production.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Let us now then from this indefinite and common doctrine about these
Gods, adduce the Grecian rumour concerning it, as delivered to us by
Plato, and demonstrate that he as far as to the very names follows the
theologists of the Greeks, just as in the mystic theory of the three
kings, and the narration of the unpolluted Gods, he does not depart
from their interpretation. For who that is in the smallest degree
acquainted with the divine wisdom of the Greeks, does not know that in
their arcane mysteries, and other concerns respecting the Gods, the
order of the Curetes, is in a remarkable manner celebrated by them, as
presiding over the undefiled peculiarity, as the leader of the goddess
[Rhea,] and as binding in itself the guardianship of wholes? These
Gods therefore, are said to guard the queen Rhea, and the demiurgus of
wholes, and proceeding as far as to the causes of partible vivification
and fabrication, to preserve the Proserpine and Bacchus which are
among these causes, exempt from secondary natures, just as here [i.e.
in the intellectual order], they defend the vivifications of total
life, and the first-effective monads of all-perfect fabrication. Not
only Orpheus therefore, and the theologists prior to Plato knew this
Curetic order, and knowing, venerated it, but the Athenian guest also
in the Laws celebrates it. For he says, that the armed sports of the
Curetes in Crete, are the principal paradigms of all elegant motion.
And now, neither is he satisfied with having mentioned this Curetic
order, but he also adds the one unity of the Curetes, viz. our mistress
Minerva, from which the mystic doctrine also of theologists prior
to him, suspends the whole progression of the Curetes. He likewise,
surrounds them above with the symbols of Minerva, as presiding over
an ever-flourishing life, and vigorous intellection; but beneath, he
manifestly arranges them under the providence of Minerva. For the
first Curetes indeed, as being the attendants of the intelligible and
occult Goddess, are satisfied with the signs that proceed from thence;
but those in the second and third orders, are suspended from the
intellectual Minerval monad.
What then is it, that the Athenian guest says concerning this
monad, which converts to itself in an undefiled manner the Curetic
progressions? “The core (κορη) i.e. virgin, and mistress
that is with us, being delighted with the discipline of dancing,
did not think it proper to play with empty hands; but being adorned
with an all-perfect panoply, she thus gave perfection to dancing.”
Through these things therefore, the Athenian guest clearly shows the
alliance of the Curetic triad to the Minerval monad. For as that
triad is said to sport in armour, so he says that the Goddess who is
the leader of them [i.e. of their progression] being adorned with an
all-perfect panoply, is the source to them of elegant motion. And as
he denominates that triad Curetic, from purity, so likewise he calls
this goddess Core, as being the cause of undefiled power itself.
For koron (το κορον) as Socrates[294] says in the Cratylus,
signifies the pure and incorruptible. Whence also the Curetes are
allotted their appellation, as presiding over the undefiled purity
of the Gods. And the monad of them is particularly celebrated as a
mistress and as Core [a virgin] she being the supplier of an inflexible
and flourishing dominion to the Gods. The word koron therefore,
as we have said, is a symbol of purity, of which these Gods are the
primary leaders, and according to which[295] they are participated
by others. But their being armed, is a symbol of the guardian power
according to which they connect wholes, guard them exempt from
secondary natures, and preserve them established in themselves. For
what other benefit do men derive from arms except that of defence?
For these are in a particular manner the safeguard of cities. Hence
fables also ascribing to the unpolluted Gods an unconquerable strength,
give to them an armed apparatus. Hence adorning the one unity of them
with an all-perfect panoply, they establish it at the summit of the
progression of these Gods. For the all-perfect precedes things which
are divided according to parts, and the panoply exists prior to the
partible distribution of guardian powers. And it appears to me that
through these particulars Plato again asserts the same things as were
afterwards revealed by the Gods. For what they denominate every kind
of armour, this Plato celebrates as adorned with an all-perfect
panoply. [For the Gods say,] “Armed with every kind of armour, he
resembles the Goddess.” For the all-perfect in the habit of Pyrrhich
arms, and the undefiled in power, pertain, according to Plato, to the
Minerval monad; but according to the narration of the Oracles they
pertain to that which is furnished with every kind of arms.
Farther still, rythm and dancing are a mystic sign of this deity,
because the Curetes contain the undefiled power of a divine life;
because they preserve the whole progressions of it always arranged
according to one divine boundary; and because they sustain these
progressions from the incursions of matter. For the formless, the
indefinite, and the privation of rythm, are the peculiarities of
matter. Hence, the immaterial, the definite, and the undefiled, are
endued with rythm, are orderly, and intellectual. For on this account,
the heavens also are said to form a perpetual dance, and all the
celestial orbs participate of rythmical and harmonious motion, being
filled with this power supernally from the unpolluted Gods. For because
they are moved in a circle they express intellect, and the intellectual
circulation. But because they are moved harmonically, and according
to the first and best rhythms, they participate of the peculiarity
of the guardian Gods. Moreover, the triad of the unpolluted leaders
is suspended from the summit of the intellectual Gods. And that it
proceeds from this summit, Plato himself teaches us, by placing the
first cause of purity in Saturn the king of all the intellectual
hebdomad. For purity (το κορον) is there primarily, as he
informs us in the Cratylus, and the first-effective cause of purity,
preexists unically in Saturn. For on this account also, the Minerval
monad, is called Core (a virgin) and the Curetic triad is
after this manner celebrated, being suspended from the purity in the
intellectual father.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Concerning the undefiled leaders, thus much we have had to say,
according to the narration of Plato. The monad therefore, now remains,
which closes the number of all the intellectual hebdomad, and is the
first and uniform cause of all division, which must in the next place
be discussed by us. The sections therefore, of the intellectual Gods
which are celebrated by all the wise in divine concerns among the
Greeks, and which obscurely signify the separations in those Gods,
are effected in them through the seventh monad, which is the cause of
division, and according to which they separate themselves from the
Gods that are placed above them, proceeding into another order, are
allotted a union exempt from subordinate natures, and by themselves
have a definite order, and a progression bounded according to number.
Plato however, allows indeed poets that ate inspired by Phœbus, to
signify things of this kind obscurely and mystically; but he excludes
the multitude from hearing these things, because they believe without
examination in the fabulous veils of truth. And this is what Socrates
reprobates in Euthyphron, who was thus affected in consequence of
being ignorant of divine concerns. According to the divinely-inspired
intellect of Plato therefore, transferring all such particulars to
the truth concerning wholes, and unfolding the concealed theory which
they contain, we shall procure for ourselves the genuine worship of a
divine nature. For Socrates himself in the Cratylus, unfolds to us the
Saturnian bonds, and their mystic meaning, and in a remarkable manner
demonstrates that the visions of those ancient and illustrious men do
not fall off from the truth.
After the same manner therefore, he will permit his friends to assume
intellectual sections, and the power which is productive of these,
according to divinely-inspired conceptions, and will suffer them to
survey these together with bonds in the intellectual Gods. Farther
still, the fable in the Gorgias, in a clearer manner separates the
empire of Jupiter from the Saturnian kingdom, and calls the former
the second from, and more recent than the latter. What is the cause,
therefore, which separates these paternal monads? What intellectual
power produced the intellectual empire from that which is exempt from
it? For it is necessary that there should be with the Gods themselves
the first-effective fountain of division, through which Jupiter also
separates himself from the monad his father, Saturn from the kingdom of
the Heaven, and the natures posterior to Jupiter, proceeding into an
inferior order, are separated from his all-perfect monad.
Moreover, the demiurgus himself in the production of the genera
posterior to himself, at one and the same time is the cause to them of
union, and the source of their all-various divisions. For fabricating
the soul one whole, he separates it into parts, and all-various
powers. And in the Timæus where the demiurgus is said to do this,
Plato himself does not refuse to call these separations, and essential
divisions, sections. He likewise cuts off parts from thence,
places them in that which is between these, and again separates parts
from the whole, and thus the mixture from which he had cut off these
parts, was now wholly consumed. Is it therefore any longer wonderful
that the framers of fables should denominate the divisions of the
intellectual leaders, sections, since even Timæus himself who does
not devise fables, but indicates the essential progression of souls
into multitude, uses as a sign the word section? And does not also
Plato in the greatest degree accord with the highest of theologists,
when he delivers to us the demiurgus glittering with intellectual
sections? As therefore the demiurgus, when producing the essence of
souls, constitutes it according to true being, when generating life,
he generates it according to the life which is in real beings, and
produces the intellect which is in souls according to the intellect
which is in himself,—thus also when cutting the essence of the soul
from itself, and separating it, he energizes according to the sections
and separations which are in the intellectual order, and according to
the one and intellectual cause of them. According to Plato, therefore,
there is a first monad of the total divisions in intellectuals,
and together with the twofold triads, I mean the paternal and the
undefiled, it gives completion to the whole intellectual hebdomad. And
we, following Plato, and other theologists, concede the same things.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Let us now, however, return to the beginning, and demonstrate that
Parmenides delivers the same things concerning this intellectual
hebdomad, and that he produces this hebdomadic aiōn
(eternity) and the peculiarity of the Gods which is intellectual
alone, in continuity with the triple orders of the intelligible,
and at the same time intellectual Gods. And, in the first place, let
us survey what he says concerning the father of the intellectual
Gods, and the undefiled power which is co-arranged with him. For
after the threefold figure, and the order of the Gods which perfects
all things, that which is in itself[296] and in another, becomes
apparent. These things, however, are demonstrated to be signs of the
intellectual summit of the intellectual monads. For the first father
of the Gods in this order, at one and the same time is allotted a
paternal transcendency with respect to those posterior to him, and is
the intellect of the first intelligibles. For every imparticipable
intellect is said to be the intellect of the natures prior to itself,
and towards them, from whom it is produced, it has an intellectual
conversion, and in them as first-effective causes it establishes
itself. Whence also the demiurgic intellect is the intellect of the
natures above itself, and proximately indeed of its own father, from
which likewise it proceeds, but eminently of the intelligible unities
beyond [Saturn].
The first king, therefore, in intellectuals, is both an intellectual
father, and a paternal intellect. He is, however, the intellectual
father indeed of the Gods that proceed from himself; but he is
the paternal intellect of the intelligibles prior to himself. For
he is indeed intellectual essentially; but he has an intelligible
transcendency in intellectuals; because he is also established
analogous to the unknown order of the intelligible, and at the same
time, intellectual Gods, and to the occult order of the intelligible
triads. And as they are expanded above the triadic hypostases of the
Gods posterior to themselves, thus also the father of intellectuals, is
a father expanded above the whole intellectual hebdomad, in consequence
of being a paternal intellect. And analogously to the above-mentioned
orders of Gods, he establishes himself in them, and is filled from
them with paternal and intelligible union. On this account also, he is
occult, shuts in himself the prolific powers of himself, and producing
from himself total causes, he again establishes them in, and converts
them to himself.
These things, therefore, Parmenides also indicating, magnificently
celebrates this order by these twofold signs, and characterizes the
first king and father of the intellectual[297] Gods through these
peculiarities. For he is in himself, and in another. For so far indeed
as he is a total intellect, his energy is directed to himself, but so
far as he is in the intelligibles prior to himself, he establishes
in another the all-perfect intelligence of himself. For, indeed,
this subsistence in another, is more excellent than the subsistence
of a thing in itself; since, as Parmenides himself concludes, the
subsistence of Saturn in another, pertains to him according to whole,
but the subsistence of him in himself, according to parts. Where,
therefore, does the another pre-exist? And to what order of
the Gods prior to Saturn does it belong? Or is not this also divinely
unfolded by our preceptor? For he says that this another,
remarkably pertains to that order, according to which the power of
difference first shines forth, being the progeny of intelligible
and paternal power. Hence in the first triad the another was
occultly, so far as power also had there an occult subsistence; but it
particularly shines forth in the first order of the intelligible, and
at the same time, intellectual Gods. For there the first difference,
the feminine nature of the Gods, and the paternal and unvocal power
subsist.
[Saturn therefore] who is the first of the intellectual fathers being
intelligible, so far as he is a whole, establishes himself in the
intelligible triads prior to himself, from which also he is filled
with united and occult goods. And on this account he is said to be in
another. With respect to those triads indeed, the another is
occultly and according to cause in the intelligible [i.e. in the first
triad] of intelligibles; but according to essence in the intelligible
of the intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual Gods. All
intelligibles therefore are united; the intelligible indeed of the
intelligible and intellectual Gods being united to the intelligible of
the intelligibles prior[298] to intellectuals; but the intelligible of
intellectuals, to both. And the subsistence indeed in another, adheres
to the difference which is according to unical number. But unical
number is suspended from the occult union of the one being; on which
account also it is unical.
Farther still, we also say, that there is a twofold conversion in those
orders, the one indeed being towards themselves, but the other towards
the causes of them, (for it neither was nor will be lawful for divine
natures, to convert themselves in any respect to natures posterior to
themselves). And the intelligible Gods generate all things stably; but
the intelligible and intellectual Gods who illuminate imparticipable
life, impart the original cause of progression to all things; and the
intellectual Gods arrange and adorn wholes according to conversion.
Hence, it is indeed necessary that the summit of intellectuals which
pours forth from itself the whole and all-perfect form of conversion,
should be characterized by both the convertive symbols, and should
be at one and the same time converted to itself, and to the natures
prior to itself. Hence, because indeed, it is converted to itself, it
is in itself; but because it is converted to the intelligible
orders beyond itself, it is in another. For the another
is more excellent than the whole intellectual order. As, therefore,
the summit of intelligibles primarily subsists according to the
intelligible peculiarity itself, and is firmly established above
wholes; and as the summit of intelligibles and intellectuals primarily
unfolds the peculiarity of this order, subsisting according to
divine diversity, and being to all things the cause of all-various
progressions;—thus also the intelligible deity of intellectuals,
exhibits from himself according to union the twofold forms of
conversion, being indeed in another according to the more
excellent form of conversion, but in himself according to the
less excellent form. For to be converted to himself is inferior to the
conversion to more excellent natures.
Again, therefore, the subsistence in another, is the illustrious
prerogative of the intelligible and paternal peculiarity, For the
another is intelligible, and difference was the power proceeding
from the intelligible fathers, and from the natures firmly established
in them. Hence, that which is comprehended in this power, and is filled
from it, is paternal and intelligible. But the subsistence of a thing
in itself is the proper sign of the unpolluted monad. For as
we have before observed, the summits of the two intellectual triads
are conjoined. And the monad of the guardian triad has eternally
established itself in the paternal monad, and again establishes in, and
converts to itself the natures which have proceeded from itself. And
the first intellectual father is indeed father on account of himself,
but on account of the unpolluted [monad,] he comprehends in himself the
genera of himself, stably recalls them [when they have proceeded from
him] to himself, and in his own allness[299] contains the intelligible
multitudes of intellectuals in unproceeding[300] union with their monad.
The first leader, therefore, of the guardian order subsists in
conjunction with the father. And the father indeed comprehends the
unpolluted cause, but is comprehended by the first intelligibles.
And as he is intelligibly established in them, so likewise he has
established in himself, and constituted about himself, the one summit
of the inflexible Gods. In the Parmenides, therefore, also the same God
appears to us to be a pure intellect. Because, indeed, he is intellect,
being extended to the intelligible place of survey, and on this account
being in another, so far as he is wholly established in it. But
again, because he is pure and immaterial, being converted to himself,
and shutting in himself all his own powers. For the parts of
this wholeness, are more partial powers, which hasten indeed to a
progression from the father, but are on all sides established and
comprehended by the wholeness. And the wholeness itself is a deity,
connectedly containing in itself intelligible parts, being parturient
indeed with intellectual multitude, generating all things stably, and
again embosoming and collecting to itself its progeny, and as the more
tragical fables say, absorbing and depositing them in itself. For the
progeny of it are twofold; some indeed, being, as it were, analyzed
into it; but others being divided from it. And some abiding in it
through the first unpolluted monad; but others proceeding according
to the prolific cause of the intellectual Gods, surmounting the union
of the father, and being the primary leaders of another order, and
of the arrangement and ornament of secondary natures. The first
order therefore of the intellectual Gods, is thus delivered to us by
Parmenides.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The second order however, after this, is that which comprehends the
middle genera of wholes, is the cause to all things of progression
and prolific power, and is in continuity with the first order of the
intellectual Gods. What else therefore than life is every where in
continuity with the intelligible and true being? For it is the medium
between intellect and the intelligible, conjoining intellect to the
intelligible, and expressing the intelligible power which collects
together the one and being. As the intelligible therefore is
to the one and hyparxis, so is life to power, and intellect to
being. And as in intelligibles, the one is the object of desire,
but being aspires after the participation of the one, and power
collects being to the participation of the one, and the
one to a communion with being, (for the one here is not
imparticipable, and exempt from all power) so likewise the intelligible
is the object of desire to intellect, but intellect is filled with it.
And life binds indeed intellect to the intelligible, but unfolds the
intelligible to intellect. Whence also, I think, those who are wise in
all divine concerns, call the one and hyparxis intelligible.
But that which is primarily being, they call[301] the first intellect,
conformably to this analogy. Life therefore, is the medium between
being and intellect, in the same manner as power subsists between
the one and being. And all these, viz. the intelligible, life,
and intellect are primarily in intelligibles; but secondarily in
intelligibles and intellectuals; and according to a third diminution,
in intellectuals. In intelligibles however, being is according to
essence; for there intellect is primarily according to cause. But in
intellectuals, intellect indeed, is according to essence; but the
natures prior to intellect, are according to participation. Since
therefore, life is surveyed in a threefold respect, in intelligibles
indeed according to cause; but in intelligibles and intellectuals,
according to hyparxis; and an intellectuals,[302] according to
participation, it is indeed necessary that the life which is in the
intellectual order, should both be life, and participate of the causes
generative of life prior of itself. The one therefore of the
intellectual Gods which is arranged in the middle, is not motion,
but that which is moved. For prior to this, it has been demonstrated
by Plato, that all life is motion. For soul is self-motive because
it is self-vital. And intellect is on this account moved, because it
has the most excellent life. The first vivific cause, therefore, of
the intellectual Gods, is primarily allotted motion. If, however, it
was the first-effective and highest life, it would be requisite to
denominate it motion, and not that which is moved. But since it is
life as in intellectuals, but is filled from exempt life, it is at the
same time motion, and that which is moved. Very properly, therefore,
does Parmenides demonstrate that the one in this order is
moved, because it proceeds from the causes of all life that are placed
above it, and is analogous to the middle centre of intelligibles, and
to the middle triad of intelligibles and intellectuals. Hence also,
Socrates in the Phædrus calls this middle triad Heaven; for the whole
of it is life and motion. But that which is moved, is the middle in
intellectuals, as being filled from it, [i.e. from the life in the
middle triad of intelligibles and intellectuals;] since eternity
also, which is arranged according to the intelligible wholeness, is
all-perfect life, and all life, according to Plotinus. There, however,
the middle is life according to cause; but in intellectuals, it is life
according to participation; and in the order between these, it is life
according to essence, proceeding indeed from intelligible life, (as
Parmenides also manifests, characterizing both according to wholeness,
though the wholeness in intelligibles is different from that which
is in intelligibles and intellectuals, as we have before observed,)
but producing after this, intellectual life. For that which is moved,
is indeed entirely allied to the circulation of the Heaven, and to
intellectual and intelligible life.
Moreover, the permanency which is coordinate with this motion, is not
one certain genus of being, as neither is motion. For beings indeed
are naturally adapted to participate of the genera of being; but the
superessential goods of the Gods, are expanded above the order of
beings. If, therefore, Parmenides here, assuming the one itself
by itself, surveys in this motion and permanency, he evidently does
net attribute the elements of being to the Gods, but assigns to them
peculiarities appropriate, all-perfect, and transcending wholes. And
thus asserting that the one is moved and stands still, according
to motion, indeed, he delivers the vivific hyparxis of the Gods, the
generative fountain of wholes, and the leading cause of all things. But
according to permanency, he delivers the unpolluted monad coordinated
with motion, and which connectedly-contains the middle centres of the
guardian triad. For as the summit of the guardian triad, is united to
the first father, according to the first hypostasis, thus also the
deity who contains the middle bond of the unpolluted leaders, is by
a congeniality of nature consubsistent with the motive cause of all
the Gods, which moves wholes, and is primarily moved from itself.
And through this deity, the prolific power of this Goddess [Rhea] is
firmly established in herself. Producing likewise, and multiplying
all things, she is [through this deity] exempt from wholes, and
inflexibly exists prior to her progeny. With respect, therefore, to
motion here and permanency, the former indeed is the fountain of
the life and generative power that proceeds to all things; but the
latter,[303] establishes the whole vivific fountain in itself, but
is from thence filled with the prolific rivers of life. Parmenides,
therefore, delivering to us these things, and the progression of them,
demonstrates that that which is moved is generated from that which
is in another, but that which stands still, from that which is in
itself. For the first monad of the paternal triad constitutes the
natures posterior to it. And after the same manner, the highest of the
unpolluted triad, and which is intelligible as in this triad, imparts
at one and the same time the middle and last monad of the triad. On
this account, also, motion here is better than permanency. For as a
subsistence in another is according to cause more ancient than the
subsistence of a thing in itself, so likewise that which is moved, is
causally more ancient than that which is permanent. For the unpolluted
Gods, are in power subordinate to the fathers, and are comprehended in
them.
CHAPTER XXXIX. — FOOTNOTES:
The third, therefore, to the Saviour, as they say, and let us direct
our attention to the demiurgic monad, unfolding itself into light
together with the coordinate Gods it contains. In the first place,
then, here also the communion of the one with other things
is apparent, and we must no longer consider the one alone by
itself, but according to its habitude towards other things. Because,
therefore, the demiurgic order produces wholes from itself, and
arranges and adorns a corporeal nature, it also generates all the
second and ministrant causes of the Gods. For what occasion is there
to say that the term other things, is a sign of a corporeal
condition of being, since formerly the Pythagoreans thought fit to
characterize an incorporeal nature by the one, but indicated
to us the nature which is divisible about body, through the term
others? In the second place, the number of the conclusions
[in this part of the Parmenides] is doubled. For the one is
no longer demonstrated to be alone same, or different, as it is to
be in itself, and in another, or to be moved, and stand still, but
it is demonstrated to be the same with itself, and different from
itself,[304] and to be different from other things, and the same with
other things. But this twice appeared to us before to be entirely
adapted to the demiurgic monad, both according to other theologists,
and to Socrates in the Cratylus, who says that the demiurgic name is
composed from two words. In the third place, therefore, the multitude
of causes is here separated, and all the monads of the Gods present
themselves to the view, according to the demiurgic progression. For the
demiurgic order is apparent, the prolific power coordinate with it, the
undefiled monad the cause of exempt providence, and the distributive
fountain of wholes; and together with these, as I may say, all the
orders about the demiurgus are apparent, according to which he produces
and preserves all things, and being exempt from the things produced, is
firmly established in himself, and separates his own kingdom, from the
united empire of his father.
How, therefore, and through what particulars do these things become
apparent? We reply, that the same with itself (for this
Parmenides first demonstrates) represents to us about the nature of
the one, the monadic and paternal peculiarity, according to
which the demiurgus also subsists. Hence, likewise, the one
is said to be the same with itself. For the another is in the
demiurgus according to the transcendency of different causes; but
the same, appears to be a sign of his proper, viz. of his
paternal, hyparxis. For being one, and the exempt father and demiurgus
of wholes, he establishes his proper union in himself. And in this one,
Parmenides in a remarkable manner shows the uniform, and that which is
allied to bound. But the same with other things, is the singular
good of prolific power, and of a cause proceeding to, and pervading
through all things without impediment. For the demiurgus is present to
all things which he produces, and is in all things the same, which he
arranges and adorns, pre-establishing in himself the generative essence
of wholes. If, therefore, we rightly assert these things, bound and
infinity subsist in him demiurgically. And the one indeed is in the
sameness which is separate from other things, but the other is in the
power which generates other things. For every where power is prolific
of secondary natures. But the principle which subsists according to
bound, is the supplier of an united and stable hypostasis.
Moreover, the different from other things, manifests his
undefiled purity, and his transcendency which is exempt from all
secondary natures. For the first intellect was on this account pure
and incorruptible, as Socrates says in the Cratylus, because it is
established above coordination or communion[305] with all sensible
natures. For as some one of the Gods says, he does not incline his
power to matter, but is at once exempt from all fabrication. But the
demiurgic intellect receiving from thence total power, and a royal
dominion, adorns indeed sensibles, and constitutes the whole of a
corporeal nature. Together however, with prolific abundance, and the
providential attention to secondary natures, he transcends his progeny,
and abides in his own accustomed manner, as Timæus says, through the
inflexible guard which subsists with him, and the power imparted to
him from it, which is uncontaminated with other participants. Hence,
through the never-failing supply of good, and providential energies,
and the generation of subordinate natures, he is the same with
them. For he is participated by them, and fills his progeny with
his own providential care. But through his purity, undefiled power,
and inflexible energies, he is separate from wholes, is disjoined from
them, and is imparticipable by other things. And as the first king
of intellectuals is allotted his non-inclination to matter, through
the guard which is united to him, and through the undefiled monad;
and as the vivific goddess possesses her stable and inflexible power
from the second cause of the guardian Gods; thus also the demiurgic
intellect preserves a transcendency exempt from other things, and a
union separated from multitude, through the third monad of the leaders
of purity. For the cause of separate providence is a guard coordinate
with the demiurgus, who hastens to produce[306] all things, and to
pervade through all things. But the guard which is the supplier of
stable power, is coordinate with the vivific deity, who is moved to
the generation of wholes. And with the intellect that is multiplied
according to intellectual conceptions [i.e. with Saturn,] the guard
is coordinate, that imparts an undefiled union of the conversion of
all his energies to himself. The monad, therefore, remains, which
is arranged as the seventh of these intellectual monads, which is
present with, and energizes with all of them, but particularly unfolds
itself into light in the demiurgic order, and which Parmenides also
producing for us together with the whole demiurgus, defines it in
difference, in the same manner as he does the undefiled cause
in the demiurgus. He says however, that this difference separates the
demiurgic monad itself from itself. For we have before observed that
this order is the supplier of separation to all the Gods. As therefore,
the demiurgus is the same with himself, through the paternal union,
after the same manner he is separated from himself and his father
through this difference. Whence therefore, does he derive this power?
From being in himself, says Parmenides, and in another. For these were
indeed unitedly in the first father, but separately in the third.
Separation therefore, pre-existed there according to cause; but in the
demiurgus it shines forth, and unfolds the power of itself.
That the cause however of division, is in a certain respect in
the first father, Parmenides manifests in the first hypothesis,
when he says, “that every thing which is in itself is in a certain
respect a duad, and is separated from itself.” There however, the
duad is occultly; but here it subsists more clearly, where also all
intellectual multitude shines forth to the view. For difference is
the progeny of the firmly-abiding duad which is there. This therefore
separates the demiurgic intellect from the Gods prior to it, and
divides the monads in it from each other. For if so far as it is
in another, it is united to the intelligible of itself, but so far
as it is in itself it is separated from it, because it proceeds
according to each order of its own intelligible,—if this be the
case, it is necessary that this difference should be the cause
to it of separation from its father. All the intellectual monads
therefore, have appeared to us to subsist coordinately with each
other. And the subsistence indeed, in another is the sign of
the father. But the subsistence in itself, is the sign of the
first unpolluted monad. Again, motion is the sign of vivific
goodness; but permanency of the inflexible power conjoined
with motion. And sameness with itself, and with another, is
the sign of the demiurgic peculiarity; but the being different
from other things, is the sign of the guard about the demiurgus.
And in the last place, the being different from itself, is
the sign of the seventh intellectual monad, which is according to
cause indeed, and occultly in the first father, but is allotted its
hypostasis more clearly in the demiurgus. Parmenides likewise appears
to me, when dividing the signs of fabrication, to have unfolded in
the middles themselves, the peculiarities of the undefiled monad, and
of the dividing monad, so far as they also are in a certain respect
comprehended in the fabrication. For he shows in the first of the
conclusions that the one is the same with itself; in
the second, that it is different from itself; in the third,
that it is different from other things; and in the fourth that
it is the same with other things. For he co-arranges indeed,
the dividing power with the paternal union; but connects with a
transcendency separate from secondary natures, the providential cause
of them. For in the Gods, it is necessary that union should exist prior
to separation, and a purity unmingled with secondary natures, prior
to a providential inspection of them; through which likewise, being
every where, they are no where, being present with all things, they are
exempt from all things, and being all things, they are not any of their
progeny.
[3] Viz. the present and other works of Proclus, together with
those of Plotinus, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Syrianus, Ammonius, Damascius,
Olympiodorus, and Simplicius.
[4] Ενα ιδοις αν εν πασα γῃ ομοφωνον νομον και λογον, οτι
θεος εις παντων βασιλευς και πατηρ, και θεοι πολλοι, θεου παιδες,
συναρχοντες θεῳ. Ταυτα και ο ελλην λεγει, και ο βαρβαρος λεγει, και
ο ηπειρωτης και ο θαλαττιος, και ο σοφος και ο ασοφος. Κᾳν επι του
ωκεανου ελθῃς τ εις ηϊονας, κᾳκει θεοι, τοις μεν ανισχοντες αγχου μαλα,
τοις δε καταδυομενοι. Dissert. I. Edit. Princ.
[5] In his commentary on the second book of Aristotle’s
treatise On the Heavens.
[6] See Gaffarel’s Unheard-of Curiosities, p. 391.
[8] What these are will be shortly explained, when we come to
speak of the Apostle Paul.
[9] Synesius does not here speak conformably to the Chaldean
theologists, from whom he has derived these appellations. For the
ζωναιοι and the αζωνοι, are according to them Gods, the former being
the divinities of the stars, and the latter forming that order of Gods
which is called by Proclus in the sixth book of this work απολυτος,
liberated. Both these orders therefore, are superior to the
angelic series. This unscientific manner however of calling both the
highest and lowest divine powers by the common name of angels, is
not peculiar to Synesius and the Jews, but to all the fathers of the
church, and all the Christian divines that succeeded them.
[10] Dr. Gregory, in the 70th proposition of, the first book
of his Elements of Astronomy, says of Kepler, “That his archetypal
ratios, geometrical concinnities, and harmonic proportions, show such a
force of genius as is not to be found in any of the writers of physical
astronomy before him. So that Jeremiah Horrox, a very competent judge
of these matters, though a little averse to Kepler, in the beginning of
his astronomical studies, after having in vain tried others, entirely
falling in with Kepler’s doctrine and physical reasons, thus addresses
his reader: Kepler is a person whom I may justly admire above all
mortals beside: I may call him great, divine, or even something more;
since Kepler is to be valued above the whole tribe of philosophers.
Him alone let the bards sing of.—Him alone let the philosophers read;
being satisfied of this, that he who has Kepler has all things.”
I quote this passage, not from the justness of the encomium it
contains; for it is extravagant, and by no means true; but that the
reader may see what an exalted opinion some of the greatest of the
moderns have had of the genius of Kepler.
[11] “Et primum quidem de anima totius universi etsi non
repugno, nihil tamen hoc libro IV. dicam. Videtur (si est talis aliqua)
in centro mundi, quod mihi sol est, residere, indeque in omnem ejus
amplitudinem commercio radiorum lucis, qui sint loco spirituum in
corpore animali propagari.”
[12] “Denique terræ globus tale corpus erit, quale est
alicujus animalis: quodque animali est sua anima, hoc erit telluri hæc,
quam quærimus, natura sublunaris.”
[13] “Videbam pleraque omnia, quæ ex corpore animantis
provenientia, testantur animam in illo inesse, provenire etiam ex
telluris corpore. Ut enim corpus in cutis superficie pilos, sic terra
plantas arboresque profert; inque iis ibi pediculi, hic crucæ, cicadæ,
variaque insecta et monstra marina nascuntur: et ut corpus lachrymas,
blennam, auriumque recrementa, est ubi et gummi ex faciei pustulis,
sic tellus electrum, bitumen: utque vesica urinam, sic montes flumina
fundunt; et ut corpus excrementum sulphurei odoris, crepitusque, qui
etiam inflammari possunt, sic terra sulphur, ignes subterraneos,
tonitrua, fulgura: utque in venis animantis generatur sanguis, et
eum eo sudor, extra corpus ejectus; sic in venis terræ, metalla et
fossilia, vaporque pluvius.”
[14] “Relucet igitur in anima telluris imago quædam circuli
sodiaci sensibilis, totinsque adeo firmamenti, vinculum sympathiæ rerum
cœlestium et terrestrium.”
[15] Proclus begins the sixth book of the following work with
observing that he has celebrated in the preceding book the hebdomadic
æon of the intellectual Gods. The æones therefore, though
the cause of them exists in the intelligible, properly belong to the
intellectual order; and the Demiurgus or artificer of the universe
subsists at the extremity of that order. But the demiurgus according
to Orpheus, prior to the fabrication of the world absorbed in himself
Phanes the exemplar of the universe. Hence he became full of ideas of
which the forms in the sensible universe are the images. And as all
intellectual natures are in each, it is evident that things which
are seen were generated from the invisible æones, conformably to
the assertion of Paul.
[16] I refer the reader who is desirous of being fully
convinced of this to the notes accompanying my translation of that
dialogue, in vol. 3 of my Plato.
[21] See my Collection of these Oracles in the old Monthly
Magazine.
[22] The Synoches form the second triad of the intelligible,
and at the same time intellectual order of Gods.
[23] Παλιν τῃ εξ αυτου θεωσει, τῳ κατα δυναμιν εκαστου
θεοειδει θεων πολλων γιγνομενων, δοκει μεν ειναι και λεγεται του ενος
θεου διακρισις και πολλαπλασιασμοσ· εστι δε ουδεν ηττον ο αρχιθεος και
υπερθεος υπερουσιως, εις θεος, αμεριστος εν τοις μεριστοις, ηνωμενος
εαυτῳ, και τοις πολλοις αμιγης και απληθυντος. Και τουτο υπερφυως
εννοησας ο κοινος ημων και του καθηγεμονος επι την θειαν φωτοδοσιαν
χειραγωγος, ο πολυς τα θεια, το φως του κοσμου, τα δε φησιν ενθεαστικως
εν τοις ιεροις αυτου γραμμασι. Και γαρ ειπερ εισι λεγομενοι θεοι, ειτε
εν ουρανῳ, ειτε επι γης, κ.λ.——Και γαρ επι των θειων αι ενωσεις
των διακρισεων επικρατουσι και προκαταρχουσι, και ουδεν ηττον εστιν
ηνωμενα, και μετα την του ενος ανεκφοιτητον και ενιαιαν διακρισιν.
[24] Ταις πρωταις ουσιαις, αι μετα την ουσιοποιον αυτων
θεαρχιαν ιδρυμεναι, και οιον εν προθυροις αυτης τεταγμεναι, πασης εισιν
αορετου και ορατης υπερβεβηκυιαι γεγονυιας δυναμεως, ως οικειον οιητεον
ειναι, και κατα παν ομοειδη την ιεραρχιαν. De Cœlest. Hierarch. cap. 7.
[25] “Diogenes Laertius says of Pythagoras, That he
charged his disciples not to give equal degrees of honour to the Gods
and heroes. Herodotus (in Euterpe) says of the Greeks, That
they worshipped Hercules two ways, one as an immortal deity and so
they sacrificed to him: and another as a Hero, and so they celebrated
his memory. Isocrates (Encom. Helen.) distinguishes between the
honours of heroes and Gods, when he speaks of Menelaus and Helena. But
the distinction is no where more fully expressed than in the Greek
inscription upon the statue of Regilla, wife to Herodes Atticus, as
Salmasius thinks, which was set up in his temple at Triopium, and taken
from the statue itself by Sirmondus; where it is said, That she
had neither the honour of a mortal, nor yet that which was proper to
the Gods: ουδε ιερα θνητοῖς, αταρ ουδε θεοισιν ομοια. It seems by
the inscription of Herodes, and by the testament of Epicteta extant
in Greek in the Collection of Inscriptions, that it was
in the power of particular families to keep festival days in honour
of some of their own family, and to give heroical honours to
them. In that noble inscription at Venice, we find three days appointed
every year to be kept, and a confraternity established for that
purpose with the laws of it. The first day to be observed in honour of
the Muses, and sacrifices to be offered to them as deities. The
second and third days in honour of the heroes of the family;
between which honour and that of deities, they shewed the difference
by the distance of time between them, and the preference given to the
other. But wherein soever the difference lay, that there was
a distinction acknowledged among them appears by this passage
of Valerius in his excellent oration extant in Dionysius Halicarnass.
Antiq. Rom. lib. 11. p. 696. I call, says he, the Gods to
witness, whose temples and altars our family has worshipped with common
sacrifices; and next after them, I call the Genii of our ancestors,
to whom we give δευτερας τιμας, the second honours next to
the Gods, as Celsus calls those τας προσηκουσας τιμας the
due honours that belong to the lower dæmons. From which we take
notice, that the Heathens did not confound all degrees of divine
worship, giving to the lowest object the same which they supposed
to be due to the celestial deities, or the supreme God.
So that if the distinction of divine worship will excuse from idolatry,
the Heathens were not to blame for it.” See Stillingfleet’s answer to a
book entitled Catholics no Idolaters, p. 510, 513, &c.
[26] Both Arnobius therefore and Minucius Felix were very
unfortunate in quoting this impostor to prove that the Gods of the
ancients had formerly been men. Vid. Arnob. lib. 4. Adversus Gentes, et
Minucii Felicis Octavo. p. 350. 8vo. Parisiis, 1605.
[27] Answer to Catholics no Idolaters Lond. 1676. p. 211.
[28] Arrian. de Exped. Alex. l. 4, et Curt. lib. 8.
[29] Vit. Artaxerx. Ælian. Var. hist. lib. 1. c. 21.
[34] Καὶ κολασεως δε ειδος ειναι αθειαν ουκ απεικος. Τους
γαρ γνοντας θεους, και καταφρονησαντας, ευλογον εν ετερῳ βιῳ και της
γνωσεως στερεσθαι, και τους ταυτων βασιλιας ως θεους τιμησαντας, εδει
την δικην αυτων ποιησαι των θεων εκπεσειν. Cap. 18.
[35] Και χρη τον επι τας αρχας αναβαινοντα ζητειν, ει
δυνατον ειναι τι κρειττον της υποτεθεισης αρχης κᾳν ευρεθῃ, παλιν επ’
εκεινου ζητειν, εως αν εις τας ακροτατας εννοιας ελθωμεν, ων ουκετι
σεμνοτερας εχομεν· και μη στησαι την ανωβασιν. Ουδε γαρ ευλαβητεον
μη κενεμβατωμεν, μειζονα τινα και υπερβαινοντα τας πρωτας αρχας
περι αυτων εννοουντες. Ου γαρ δυνατον τηλικουτον πηδημα πηδησαι τας
ημετερας εννοιας, ως παρισωθηναι τῃ αξιᾳ των πρωτων αρχων, ου λεγω και
υπερπτηναι· μια γαρ αυτη προς θεον ανατασις αριστη, και ως δυνατον
απταιστος. Και ων εννοουμεν αγαθων τα σεμνοτατα, και αγιωτατα, και
πρωτουργα, και ονοματα, και πραγματα αυτῳ ανατιθεντας ειδεναι βεβαιως,
οτι μηδεν ανατεθεικαμεν αξιον· αρκει δε ημιν εις συγγνωμην, το μηδεν
εχειν εκεινων υπερτερον. Simplic. in Epict. Enchir. p. 207. Lond. 1670.
8vo.
[36] Of the first principle, says Damascius (in M. S. περι
αρχων) the Egyptians said nothing, but celebrated it as a darkness
beyond all intellectual conception, a thrice unknown darkness, πρωτην
αρχην ανυμνηκασαν, σκοτος υπερ πασαν νοησιν, σκοτος αγνωστον, τρις
τουτο επιφημιζοντες.
[37] See chap. 15 and 16, of my translation of this excellent
work.
[38] See Vol. 2 of my translation of his Dissertations,
Dissertat. 38, the title of which is, “Whether statues should be
dedicated to the Gods.”
[39] The philosopher Isidorus was a man of this description,
as we are informed by Damascius in the extracts from his life preserved
by Photius. For he says of him: ουτε τα αγαλματα προσκυνειν εθελων,
αλλ’ ηδη επ’ αυτους τους θεους ιεμενος, εισω κρυπτομενους ουκ εν
αδυτοις, αλλ’ εν αυτῳ τῳ απορρητῳ, ο, τι ποτε εστι της παντελους
αγνωσιας· πως ουν επ’ αυτους ιετο τοιουτους οντας; ερωτι δεινῳ
απορρητῳ και τουτῳ· και τις δε αλλος η αγνωστος και ο ερως; και τινα
τουτο φαμεν, ισασιν οι πειραθεντες· ειπειν δε αδυνατον, καὶ νοησαι γε
ουδεν μαλλον ραδιον. i.e. “He was not willing to adore statues, but
approached to the Gods themselves, who are inwardly concealed not in
adyta, but in the occult itself, whatever it may be of all-perfect
ignorance. How therefore to them being such did he approach? Through
vehement love, this also being occult. And what else indeed, could
conduct him to them than a love which is also unknown? What my meaning
is those who have experienced this love know; but it is impossible to
reveal it by words, and it is no less difficult to understand what it
is.”
[42] Instead of διπλοτατοις μοναδος as in the original, which
is nonsense, it is necessary to read, as in the above translation
απλοτητι της μοναδος.
[43] For 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = 20; and 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16; and 20 +
16 = 36.
[44] For τελος εχειν φιλοσοφιαν, it is necessary to read as in
the translation, τελος εχειν φιλοσοφιας.
[45] Meaning those divine bodies the celestial orbs, which in
consequence of participating a divine life from the incorporeal powers
from which they are suspended, may be very properly called secondary
Gods.
[46] Dr. Stillingfleet quotes this part of the extract, in his
answer to a book entitled Catholics no Idolaters, and calls Julian the
devout emperor.
[47] “Dio Chrysostome (says Dr. Stillingfleet in the
before-cited work, p. 414) at large debates the case about images,
in his Olympic Oration; wherein he first shows, that all men have a
natural apprehension of one supreme God the father of all things; and
that this God was represented by the statue made by Phidias of Jupiter
Olympius, for so he said παρ’ ῳ νυν εσμεν, before whom we now
are; and then describes him to be the king, ruler, and father of
all, both Gods and men. This image he calls the most blessed, the most
excellent, the most beautiful, the most beloved image of God. He says
there are four ways of coming to the knowledge of God, by nature, by
the instructions of the poets, by the laws, and by images; but neither
poets, nor lawgivers, nor artificers were the best interpreters of the
deity, but only the philosophers who both understood and explained the
divine nature most truly and perfectly. After this, he supposes Phidias
to be called to account for making such an image of God, as unworthy
of him; when Iphitus, Lycurgus, and the old Eleans, made none at all
of him, as being out of the power of man to express his nature. To
this Phidias replies, that no man can express mind and understanding
by figures, or colours, and therefore they are forced to fly to that
in which the soul inhabits, and from thence they attribute the seat
of wisdom and reason to God, having nothing better to represent him
by. And by that means joining power and art together, they endeavour
by something which may be seen and painted, to represent that which
is invisible and inexpressible. But it may be said, we had better
then have no image or representation of him at all. No, says he; for
mankind doth not love to worship God at a distance, but to come near
and feel him, and with assurance to sacrifice to him and crown him.
Like children newly weaned from their parents, who put out their hands
towards them in their dreams as if they were still present; so do men
out of the sense of God’s goodness and their relation to him, love to
have him represented as present with them, and so to converse with him.
Thence have come all the representations of God among the barbarous
nations, in mountains, and trees, and stones.”
The same conceptions also about statues are entertained by the
Brachmans in Benares on the Ganges. For Monsieur Bernier when he was
at their university, and was discoursing with one of the most learned
men among them, proposed to him the question about the adoration of
their idols, and reproaching him with it as a thing very unreasonable,
received from him this remarkable answer: “We have indeed in our
temples many different statues, as those of Brahma, Mahaden, Genick,
and Gavani, who are some of the chief and most perfect Deutas (or
Deities); and we have also many others of less perfection, to whom we
pay great honour, prostrating ourselves before them, and presenting
them flowers, rice, oyles, saffron, and the like, with much ceremony.
But we do not believe these statues to be Brahma or Bechen, &c.
themselves, but only their images and representations, and we only give
them that honour on account of the beings they represent. They are in
our temples, because it is necessary in order to pray well, to have
something before our eyes that may fix the mind. And when we pray, it
is not the statue we pray to, but he that is represented by it.” The
Brahmans have also another way of defending their worship of statues,
of which the same author gives the following account: “That God, or
that sovereign being whom they call Achar (immutable) has produced or
drawn out of his own substance, not only souls, but also whatever is
material and corporeal in the universe, so that all things in the world
are but one and the same thing with God himself, as all numbers are but
one and the same unity repeated.” Bernier Memoires, tome 3. p. 171. 178.
From this latter extract it appears that the Brachmans as well as the
ancient Egyptians, believe that the supreme principle is all things.
According to the best of the Platonists likewise, this principle is
all things prior to all. For by being the one, it is
all things after the most simple manner, i.e. so as to
transcend all multitude.
[51] The ineffable principle of things, as is demonstrated
in the Elements of Theology in this work, is beyond self-subsistence.
Hence the first ineffable evolution from him consists of
self-subsistent natures. As we therefore are only the dregs of the
rational nature, many media are necessary to conjoin us with a
principle so immensely exalted above us. And these media are the golden
chain of powers that have deified summits, or that have the ineffable
united with the effable.
[52] Σχεδον γαρ ως εμοι δοκει, ουκ εστι τουτων προς τους
πολλους καταγελαστοτερα ακουσματα, ου δ’ αυ προς τους ευφυεις
θαυμαστοτερα τε καὶ ενθουσιαστικωτερα. Epist. 2.
[53] Plato means by this, that he has never written
perspicuously about intelligibles or true beings, the
proper objects of intellect.
[54] This light is a thing of a very different kind from that
which is produced by the evidence arising from truths perceptible by
the multitude, as those who have experienced it well know.
[55] Τοσονδε γε μην περι παντων εχω φραζειυ των γεγραφοτων
και γραψαντων, οσοι φασιν ειδεναι περι ων εγω σπουδαζω, ειτ’ εμου
ακηκοοτες, ειτ’ αλλων, ειθ’ ως ευροντες αυτοι, τουτους ουκ εστι κατα
γε την εμην δοξαν περι του πραγματος επαϊειν ουδεν. ουκ ουν εμον γε
περι αυτων εστι συγγραμμα, ουδε μη ποτε γεγηται· ρητον γαρ ουδαμως
εστιν, ως αλλα μαθηματα, αλλ’ εκ πολλης συνουσιας γιγνομενης περι το
πραγμα αυτο, και του συζην, εξαιφνης οιον απο πυρος πηδησαντος (lege
πηδησαν) εξαφθεν φως, εν τῃ ψυχῃ γενομενον αυτο εαυτο ηδη τρεφει.——Ει
δε μοι εφαινετο γραπτεα θ’ ικανως ειναι προς τους πολλους και ρητα,
τι τουτου καλλιον επεπρακτ’ αν ημιν εν τῳ βιῳ, η τοις τε ανθρωποισι
μεγα οφελος γραψαι, και την φυσιν εις φως τοις πασι προσαγαγειν; αλλ’
ουτε ανθρωποις ηγουμαι την επιχειρησιν περι αυτων λεγομενην αγαθον, ει
μη τισιν ολιγοις, οποσοι δυνατοι ανευρειν αυτοι δια μικρας ενδειξεως·
των τε δη αλλων, τους μεν καταφρονησεως ουκ ορθως εμπλησειεν αν ουδαμῃ
εμμελους, τους δε υψηλης και χαυνης ελπιδος, ως σεμν’ αττα μεμαθηκοτας.
[57] This Olympiodorus is not the same with the philosopher of
that name whose learned commentaries on certain dialogues of Plato are
extant in manuscript; as in these, not only Proclus, but Damascius who
flourished after Proclus is celebrated.
[58] This truly great man appears to have been the first who
thoroughly penetrated the profundity contained in the writings of the
more ancient philosophers, contemporary with and prior to Plato, and to
have demonstrated the admirable agreement of their doctrines with each
other. Unfortunately but few of his works are extant.
[59] Socrates in the Phædo of Plato, Orphically calls the
multitude thyrsus-bearers as living Titannically. For the thyrsus,
says Olympiodorus, (in MS. comment in Phæd.) is a symbol of material
and partible fabrication, on account of its divulsed continuity,
whence also it is a Titannic plant. “For it is extended, says he,
before Bacchus, instead of his paternal sceptre, and through this
they call him into a partial nature. He adds, “Besides the Titans are
thyrsus-bearers; and Prometheus concealed fire in a reed, whether
by this we are to understand that he draws down celestial light
into generation, or impels soul into body, or calls forth divine
illumination, the whole of which is ungenerated, into generation.”
[60] Alluding to the beautiful description given of Ulysses in
the third book of the Iliad, v. 22. which is thus elegantly paraphrased
by Pope.
But when he speaks what elocution flows!
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows
The copious accents fall with easy art;
Melting they fall and sink into the heart.
[61] Nicephorus in his commentary on Synesius de Insomniis,
p. 362. informs us that the Hecatic orb is a golden sphere, which has
a sapphire stone inclosed in its middle part, and through its whole
extremity characters, and various figures. He adds, that turning this
sphere round, the Chaldeans perform invocations which they call Iyngæ.
Thus too, according to Suidas, the magician Julian of Chaldæa, and
Arnuphis the Egyptian brought down showers of rain, by a magical power.
And by an artifice of this kind, Empedocles was accustomed to restrain
the fury of the winds; on which account he was called αλεξανεμος, an
expeller of wind.
[62] This signifies that the divine splendor which is the
cause of the prophetic energy, would leave the earth, in consequence of
the then existing inaptitude of persons, places, and instruments, to
receive it.
[63] No opinion is more celebrated, than that of the
metempsychosis of Pythagoras; but perhaps no doctrine is more generally
mistaken. By most of the present day it is exploded as ridiculous;
and the few who retain some veneration for its founder, endeavour to
destroy the literal, and to confine it to an allegorical meaning. By
some of the ancients this mutation was limited to similar bodies; so
that they conceived the human soul might transmigrate into various
human bodies, but not into those of brutes. And this was the opinion of
Hierocles, as may be seen in his Commentary on the Golden Verses. But
why may not the human soul become connected with subordinate, as well
as with superior lives, by a tendency of inclination? Do not similars
love to be united; and is there not in all kinds of life something
similar and common? Hence when the affections of the soul verge to a
baser nature, while connected with a human body, these affections,
on the dissolution of such a body, become enveloped as it were, in
a brutal nature, and the rational eye, in this case, clouded with
perturbations, is oppressed by the irrational energies of the brute,
and surveys nothing but the dark phantasms of a degraded imagination.
But this doctrine is vindicated by Proclus with his usual acuteness,
in his admirable Commentaries on the Timæus, lib. 5. p. 329, as
follows: “It is usual, says he, to enquire how human souls can descend
into brute animals. And some indeed, think that there are certain
similitudes of men to brutes, which they call savage lives: for they
by no means think it possible that the rational essence can become the
soul of a savage animal. On the contrary, others allow it may be sent
into brutes, because all souls are of one and the same kind; so that
they may become wolves and panthers, and ichneumons. But true reason
indeed, asserts that the human soul may be lodged in brutes, yet in
such a manner, as that it may obtain its own proper life, and that the
degraded soul may, as it were, be carried above it, and be bound to
the baser nature by a propensity and similitude of affection. And that
this is the only mode of insinuation, we have proved by a multitude
of arguments, in our Commentaries on the Phædrus. If however, it be
requisite to take notice, that this is the opinion of Plato, we add
that in his Republic he says, that the soul of Thersites assumed an
ape, but not the body of an ape: and in the Phædrus, that the soul
descends into a savage life, but not into a savage body. For life is
conjoined with its proper soul. And in this place he says it is changed
into a brutal nature. For a brutal nature is not a brutal body, but a
brutal life.”
[64] Proclus at the end of the first book of this work says,
“that divine names will be accurately discussed by him, when he comes
to speak of partial powers.” This, however, is not done by him in any
one of the six books that are extant; which shows that another book is
wanting.
[66] The 12th chapter is not marked in the original; but it
begins conformably to my translation.
[67] The 15th chapter also is not marked in the original;
and is comprehended in my translation in the 14th chapter. Perhaps it
should begin at the words, “If therefore the Gods produce all things,”
in p. 49.
[68] Such is the title of this chapter in the Greek, which
is obviously erroneous. For the proper title is, “What that is which
unites us to the good; and that it is divine faith.” What is
said indeed in the Greek to be the contents of this, belong to the
preceding chapter.
[69] For εν φαιδρῳ it is necessary to read εν φαιδωνι.
[70] In the Greek το μονοειδες the uniform, but it
should evidently be το νοητον, the intelligible.
[72] These four chapters are comprehended in one in my
translation, as they are not marked in the Greek; and I had not divided
them, when this work was sent to the press, as I have done the chapters
of the other books, in which there is a similar defect in the original.
[73] The fifth and sixth chapters are comprehended in the
second chapter in my translation.
[79] It appears from this account of the contents of the
twelfth chapter, that a considerable part of it is wanting in the
original; because nothing is said in it about the manner in which the
second triad proceeds analogous to the first.
[80] For πλατωνος, it is necessary to read παντος.
[81] The contents of chapter thirty-seven in the original
erroneously form the conclusion of the contents of chapter thirty-six.
And instead of ως την ακροτητα, it is therefore necessary to read πως
την ακροτητα. Hence what are marked as κεφ. λζ, κεφ. λη, and κεφ. λθ,
should be marked κεφ. λη, κεφ. λθ, and κεφ. μ’. It will be found also
that chapter forty is wanting.
[111] The sense requires that θειου should be here supplied.
[112] Instead of ομοιου μη κατα δυναμιν, it is necessary to
read και κατα δυναμιν τῳ παντι ομοιον, as both the sense of the whole
sentence and the version of Portus require.
[113] It seems requisite to supply here the word υπερκοσμιων
as in the translation.
[157] For δι’ ου, it is necessary to read δι’ ο; since the
former denotes the instrumental, but the latter the final
cause.
[158] For αδυνατων, it is necessary to read αδυτων. For the
occult and invisible order of Night and Phanes is called by Orpheus the
adytum. So that by the first adyta, Proclus means the
highest order of intelligibles.
[159] For των θεων, it is necessary to read τοις θεοις.
[167] Instead of τα μεν γαρ πλειονων αιτια, και των παντων
αιτιων κατα την δυναμιν των προ αυτων ποικιλωτερων κατα την ουσιαν
εστιν, it is necessary to read τα μεν γαρ πλειονων αιτια, και των
παντων αιτιον κατα δυναμιν μιμουνται, τα δε των ελασσονων των προ αυτων
ποικιλωτερα κατα την ουσιαν εστιν.
[168] For αυτοειδεσιν it is requisite to read αυγοειδεσιν.
[169] In the original here, about a line and a half is so
defective, that not being able to supply the deficiency, I have not
attempted to translate it.
[170] Instead of ζωης here it is necessary to read ψυχης.
[171] For εντονοις it is necessary to read εν τορνοις.
[181] For πληθος in the original it is necessary to read
ειδος.
[182] The punctuation in the latter part of this sentence in
the original is erroneous: for instead of και την εν εκεινῃ του πληθους
ωδινα δυναμει γενομενη, το πληθος απεικασατο, it should be και την εν
εκεινῃ του πληθους ωδινα δυναμει γενομενη το πληθος, απεικασατο.
[183] For πρωτου here, it is necessary to read εσχατου. For in
this place, Proclus is speaking of body.
[184] For αλογων it is necessary to read αναλογων.
[185] The words των μετα in the original immediately before το
νοητον θεων γενος, are to be rejected as superfluous.
[200] For αυτο το ενεργειν it is necessary to read αυτῳ τῳ
ενεργειν.
[201] For προσχοντες it is necessary to read προεχοντες.
[202] In the original εν ον, but the true reading is evidently
εν alone.
[203] Instead of οντος it is necessary to read ενος.
[204] It is necessary to correct the text here, and to read as
follows: τι ουν; των μοριων εκατερον τουτων του ενος οντος το, τε εν
και το ον αρα απολειπεσθον, ἢ το εν. κ. τ. λ.
[205] Instead of απειριας, it is necessary to read αποριας.
[206] It seems requisite to supply the word αιτιον after the
words το εν νοητον ειδος.
[207] Instead of τα καθ’ ενωσιν, it is requisite to read παντα
καθ’ ενωσιν, and then the end of this book will be complete, and not
defective as the Latin translator Portus imagined it was.
[209] It is necessary to supply in this place in the original,
νοεροι θεοι.
[210] In the original, after και νουν in this sentence, it is
necessary to supply νοητως και νοερως, το δε νοερον. And after νοερως,
it is also requisite to supply και νοητως, as in the above translation.
[211] For τελειοτατοι it is necessary to read τελειοτητος.
[212] After την υπουρανιαν αψιδα, it is obviously necessary to
add και τον υπερουρανιον τοπον.
[213] The sentence that immediately follows this in the
original, is so defective, as to be perfectly unintelligible. I have
not therefore, attempted to translate it.
[214] “The word τελετη or initiation,” says Hermeas, in
his MS. Commentary on the Phædrus, “was so denominated from rendering
the soul perfect. The soul therefore was once perfect. But here it
is divided, and is not able to energize wholly by itself.” He adds:
“But it is necessary to know that telete, muesis, and
epopteia, τελετη, μυησις, and εποπτεια, differ from each other.
Telete, therefore, is analogous to that which is preparatory
to purifications. But muesis, which is so called from closing
the eyes, is more divine. For to close the eyes in initiation is no
longer to receive by sense those divine mysteries, but with the pure
soul itself. And εποπτεια epopteia is to be established in, and
become a spectator of the mysteries.”
[243] το αρτιοπερισσον is omitted in the original.
[244] Instead of πανταχου γαρ τα πρωτιστα των υφισταμενων, την
ιδιαν εχει μορφην, it is necessary to read πανταχου γαρ τα πρωτιστα των
υφειμενων, των προϋφισταμενων, την ιδιαν εχει μορφην.
[254] It appears from the version of Portus, that the words
ο μεν κατα την νοητην δυναμιν των νοερων are omitted in the original.
Indeed, the sense requires that they should be inserted.
[255] For πρωτην, it is necessary to read πρωτως. It was also
requisite to alter the punctuation in the preceding sentence.
[256] For το γαρ it is necessary to read εκεινος γαρ.
[257] For εκειναις, it is necessary to read εκεινοις.
[258] For εμφανους it is necessary to read αφανους.
[259] For υπερουρανιαν in this place, it is necessary to read
υπουρανιαν.
[260] For [Greek: ακμαιος], it is necessary to read [Greek:
ακμαιοις].
[266] There is evidently something wanting in the original in
this part; and as it appears to me after καθαπερ (οιμαι) και ο συμπας
ουτοσι κοσμος, it is requisite to supply the words εις τους εγκοσμιους
θεους ανηρτηται, οι.
[267] It appears from the version of Portus that the words
θεια γενη are omitted in the original.
[282] For πλεον it is evidently necessary to read ηττον.
[283] For αριστοις, it is necessary to read αρρητοις.
[284] For αρρητον, it is necessary to read αριστον.
[285] Instead of του παντος, it is doubtless necessary to read
τα παντα. For the demiurgus also has an hypostasis which is above the
forms of the universe.
[286] For εξηρημενοις, it is necessary to read εξηρτημενοις.
[287] The words τα δε μεριστα are omitted in the original, but
evidently ought to be inserted.
[288] For δεχομεθα, it is necessary to read δεχομενα.
