Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes I–II) — Thomas Taylor
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Translation/edition: Thomas Taylor (1804)
Language: English
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## Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes I–II)


## Introduction to the First Alcibiades

The most peculiar and firm principle, says Proclus, of all the dialogues of Plato, and of the whole theory of that philosopher, is the knowledge of our own nature; for, this being properly established as an hypothesis, we shall be able accurately to learn the good which is adapted to us, and the evil which opposes this good. For, as the essences of things are different, so also are their proper perfections; and this according to a subjection of essence. For, whether being and the good proceed, as Aristotle says, from the same Vesta and first fountain, it is certainly necessary that perfection should be imparted to every thing according to the measures of essence; or whether good proceeds from a cause more antient and more characterized by unity, but essence and being are imparted to things from another cause; still, as every thing participates of being more obscurely and more clearly, in the same degree must it participate of good; first beings, in a greater and more perfect manner; but those that rank in the middle orders, secondarily; and the last of things according to an ultimate subsistence. For, how otherwise can things participate of deity and providence, and a distribution according to their desert? For it must not be admitted that intellect can lead things into order, and impart to each a convenient measure, but that the good, or the ineffable principle of things, which is more antient than intellect, should make its communications in a disordered manner; viz. that it should impart to causes and things caused the same portion of goodness, and distribute to the same things according to being the perfections of more primary and subordinate natures. For it neither was lawful, says Timæus, nor is, for the best of natures to effect any thing but that which is most beautiful and most commensurate. But the same good is not most commensurate to first and secondary natures; but, as the Athenian guest says, a distribution of inequality to things unequal, and of equality to things equal, of the greater to such as are greater, and of the lesser to such as are lesser, is of all things the most musical and the best.
According to this reasoning, therefore, good is different in different beings, and a certain good is naturally co-ordinated to the essence of every thing. Hence the perfection of intellect is in eternity², but of the rational soul in time: and the good of the rational soul consists in an energy according to intellect, but the good of body is in a subsistence according to nature; so that he who thinks that though the nature in these is different, yet the perfection is the same, has an erroneous conception of the truth of things.
According to every order of beings, therefore, essence ought to be known prior to perfection; for perfection is not of itself, but of essence, by which it is participated. Hence, with respect to the essence of a thing, we must first consider whether it belongs to impartible essences, such as intellectual natures, or to such as are divisible about bodies, viz. corporeal forms and qualities, or to such as subsist between these. Likewise, whether it ranks among eternal entities, or such as subsist according to the whole of time, or such as are generated in a certain part of time. Again, whether it is simple, and subsists prior to composition, or is indeed a composite, but is always in the act of being bound with indissoluble bonds³, or may again be resolved into those things from which it is composed. For, by thus considering every thing, we shall be able to understand in what its good consists. For, again, it is evident that the good of those natures which are allotted an impartible essence is eternal, but that the good of partible natures is conversant with time and motion; and that the good of things subsisting between these is to be considered according to the measures of subsistence and perfection; viz. that such a nature is indeed indigent of time, but of first time, which is able to measure incorporeal periods. So that the pure and genuine knowledge of ourselves, circumscribed in scientifi c boundaries, must, as we have said, be considered as the most proper principle of all philosophy, and of the doctrine of Plato. For, where is it proper to begin, except from the purification and perfection of ourselves, and whence the Delphic god exhorts us to begin? For, as those who enter the Eleusinian grove are ordered by an inscription not to enter into the adyta of the temple, if they are uninitiated in the highest of the mysteries, so the inscription KNOW THYSELF, on the Delphic temple, manifests, as it appears to me, the mode of returning to a divine nature, and the most useful path to purification, all but perspicuously asserting to the intelligent, that he who knows himself beginning from the Vestal hearth may be able to be conjoined with that divinity who unfolds into light the whole of truth, and is the leader of a cathartic life; but that he who is ignorant of himself, as being uninitiated both in the lesser and greater mysteries, is unadapted to participate the providence of Apollo. Hence then let us also begin conformably to the mandate of the god, and let us investigate in which of his dialogues Plato especially makes the speculation of our essence his principal design, that from hence we may also make the commencement of the Platonic writings. Can we then adduce any other writing of Plato except the First Alcibiades, and the conference of Socrates which is delivered in this dialogue? Where else shall we say our essence is so unfolded? Where besides are man and the nature of man investigated? To which we may add, that it is Socrates who engages in this first conversation with Alcibiades, and that it is he who says that the beginning of perfection is suspended from the contemplation of ourselves. For we are ignorant of ourselves in consequence of being involved in oblivion produced by the realms of generation, and agitated by the tumult of the irrational forms of life. In the mean time, we think that we know many things of which we are ignorant, because we essentially possess innate reasons of things.
This dialogue therefore is the beginning of all philosophy, in the same manner as the knowledge of ourselves. Hence many logical and ethical theorems are scattered in it, together with such as contribute to the entire speculation of felicity. It likewise contains information with respect to many things which contribute to physiology, and to those dogmas which lead us to the truth concerning divine natures themselves. Hence too the divine Iamblichus assigned this dialogue the first rank, in the ten dialogues, in which he was of opinion the whole philosophy of Plato was contained.
Of the particulars exhibited in this dialogue, some precede and others follow the principal design, which is the knowledge of ourselves. For the hypothesis of twofold ignorance⁴, exhortation, and the like precede; but the demonstration of virtue and felicity, and the rejection of the multitude of arts, as being ignorant of themselves, of things pertaining to themselves, and in short of all things,—and every thing else of this kind, have a consequent order. But the most perfect and leading design of the whole conversation is the speculation of our own essence. So that he will not err who establishes the care and knowledge of ourselves, as the end of the dialogue.
Again, the amatory form of life is particularly indicated by Socrates in this dialogue. For the beginning is made from hence; and he proceeds perfecting the young man till he renders him a lover of his providential care, which is the leading good of the amatory art. And in short, through all the divisions of the dialogue, he always preserves that which is adapted to an amatory life. As there are three sciences, then, which Socrates appears to have testified that he possessed, viz. the dialectic, the maieutic, (i. e. obstetric,) and the amatory, we shall find the form of the dialectic and the peculiarity of the maieutic science in this dialogue, but the effects of the amatory science predominate in it. For, when Socrates is calling forth the conceptions of Alcibiades, he still acts conformably to the amatory character; and when he employs the dialectic science, he does not depart from the peculiarity of amatory arguments. Just as in the Theætetus he is maieutic, is principally characterized according to this, and proceeds as far as to a purification of the false opinions of Theætetus: but, having effected this, he dismisses him, as being now able of himself to know the truth, which is the business of the maieutic science, as he himself asserts in that dialogue. Thus also he first indicates the amatory science in this dialogue, with which both the dialectic and maieutic are mingled. For every where Socrates introduces discourses adapted to the subject persons. And as every kind of good pre-subsists in a divine nature, which is variously possessed by different beings according to the natural aptitude of each, in like manner Socrates, who comprehends all sciences in himself, employs a different science at different times, according to the aptitude of the recipients; elevating one through the amatory science; exciting another to the reminiscence of the eternal reasons of the soul through the maieutic science; and conducting another according to the dialectic method to the speculation of beings. Some too he conjoins to the beautiful itself, others to the first wisdom, and others to the good itself. For through the amatory science we are led to the beautiful; through the maieutic, by calling forth our latent reasons, we become wise in things of which we were ignorant; and through the dialectic science we ascend as far as to the good.
Lastly, it will be found by those who are deeply skilled in the philosophy of Plato, that each of his dialogues contains that which the universe contains. Hence, in every dialogue, one thing is analogous to the good, another to intellect, another to soul, another to form, and another to matter. In this dialogue therefore it must be said, that an assimilation to a divine nature is analogous to the good; the knowledge of ourselves to intellect; the multitude of the demonstrations leading us to the conclusion, and in short every thing syllogistic in the dialogue, to soul; the character of the diction, and whatever else pertains to the power of speech, to form; and the persons, the occasion, and that which is called by rhetoricians the hypothesis, to matter.

## General Introduction to the Republic

The design of Plato, says Proclus, in this dialogue, is both concerning a polity and true justice, not as two distinct things, but as the same with each other. For what justice is in one soul, that such a polity as is delineated by Plato is in a well inhabited city. Indeed, the three genera from which a polity consists are analogous to the three parts of the soul: the guardian, as that which consults, to reason; the auxiliary, as engaging in war, to anger; and the mercenary, as supplying the wants of nature, to the desiderative part of the soul. For, according to Plato, it is one and the same habit, which adorns a city, a house, and an individual. But if what the people are in a city, that the desiderative part is in an individual, and that which consults in the former is analogous to reason in the latter, as Plato asserts in his Laws, justice according to him will be the polity of the soul, and the best polity of a city will be justice. If these things then are true, he who teaches concerning justice, if he does not teach it imperfectly, will, from perceiving justice every where, teach concerning a polity: and he who speaks concerning an upright polity, if he surveys every, and not some particular, polity, will also speak concerning justice, which both subsists in one polity, and arranges the people in the soul, through our auxiliary part, according to the decision of our guardian reason.
That this was the opinion of Plato respecting these particulars will be evident from considering that, in passing from the investigation concerning justice to the discourse concerning a polity, he says the transition is to be made, not as from one thing to another naturally different, but as from small letters to such as are large and clear, and which manifest the same things. The matter therefore of justice and a polity is different, in the same manner as that of small and large letters, but the form is the same. Hence the transition is from polity to polity;—from that which is beheld in one individual, to that which is beheld in many: and from justice to justice;— from that which is contracted to that which is more apparent. Nor ought we to wonder that Plato does not express the thing discussed in this dialogue by the name of justice, but by that of a polity, in the same manner as he signifies another subject of discussion by the appellation of laws. For it is requisite that inscriptions should be made from things more known; but the name of a polity or republic is more known, as Plato also says, than that of justice.
With respect to the form of the dialogue, it will be requisite to recollect that Plato himself in this treatise says that there are only three forms of diction, viz. the dramatic and imitative, such as that of comedy and tragedy; the narrative and unimitative, such as is employed by those who write dithyrambics, and the histories of past transactions, without prosopopœia; and a third species which is mixed from both the preceding, such as the poetry of Homer; diversifying some parts of the poem by the narration of things, and others by the imitations of persons. Such being the division of the forms of diction according to Plato, it is necessary to refer the present treatise to the mixed form of diction, which relates some things as transactions, and others as discourses, and alone preserves an accurate narration of persons and things; such as are—descending to the Piræum, praying to the goddess, beholding the festival, and the like. But in the several discourses it makes the most accurate imitation; some things being spoken in the character of old men, others fabulously, and others sophistically; and attributes a knowledge and life adapted to the different speakers. For to preserve the becoming in these particulars is the province of the highest imitation.
With respect to justice, the subject of this dialogue, such according to Plato is its universality and importance, that, if it had no subsistence, injustice itself would be sluggish and in vain. Thus, for instance, if a city were full of injustice, it would neither be able to effect any thing with respect to another city, nor with respect to itself, through the dissension arising from those that injure and are injured. In a similar manner too in an army, if it abounded with every kind of injustice, it would be in sedition with itself; and being in sedition with itself, it must be subverted, and become inefficacious as to the purposes of war. Thus too, a house in which there is no vestige of justice, as it must necessarily be full of dissension, will be incapable of effecting any thing, through the want of concord in its inhabitants. But that which is the most wonderful of all is this, that injustice, when inherent in one person only, must necessarily fill him with sedition towards himself, and through this sedition must render him more imbecil with respect to various endurance, and incapable of pleasing himself. Of necessity, therefore, every one who acts unjustly, if he is able to effect any thing whatever, must possess some vestige of justice; so inseparable is the union between power and justice.
From what has been said, the following syllogism arises. All injustice separate from justice is imbecil. Every thing separate from justice, being imbecil, requires justice to its possession of power. All injustice therefore requires justice in order to its possession of power.—Again, we have the following syllogism. All injustice requires justice, to be able to effect any thing. Every thing which requires justice to be able to effect any thing, is more imbecil than justice. All injustice, therefore, is more imbecil than justice. And this was the thing proposed to be shown. Hence it follows that, even in the worst habit of the soul, in which reason is blinded and appetite perverted, such habit is indeed inefficacious, in consequence of justice being most obscure in such a soul, so as to appear to have no subsistence whatever; yet such a habit has a being in a certain respect, so far as it is impossible that common conceptions can entirely desert the soul, and especially in its desire of good. So far therefore as it is impelled towards good, it participates of justice. And if it were possible that the soul could be perfectly, that is in every respect, unjust, it would perhaps perish: for this is the case with the body when perfectly diseased. But that in such a habit there is a vestige of justice is evident. For it is unwilling to injure itself, and to destroy things pertaining to itself. As it therefore preserves that which is just towards itself, it is not alone unjust; but not knowing how it should preserve itself, it is unjust, attempting to preserve itself through such things as are not proper.
From hence we may also collect the following porism, or corollary, which was first perceived by Amelius the fellow disciple with Porphyry of Plotinus, that from a greater injustice lesser evils are frequently produced, but from a lesser injustice greater evils. For, when injustice perfectly subdues the soul, life is inefficacious; but, when justice is associated with injustice, a certain action is the result. Nor let any one think that this assertion is false because greater evils are produced from intemperance than incontinence: for intemperance is a vice, but incontinence is not yet a complete vice; because, in the incontinent man, reason in a certain respect opposes passion; so that on this account a lesser evil arises from incontinence, because it is mingled from vice and that which is not vice.
I shall only add further at present, that the republic of Plato pre-subsists, or is contained causally, in an intelligible nature,—subsists openly in the heavens,—and is, in the last place, to be found in human lives. As it therefore harmonizes in every respect with each of these, it is a polity perfect in all its parts; and may be considered as one of the greatest and most beneficial efforts of human intellect that has appeared, or ever will appear, in any of the infinite periods of time.

## Introduction to the Second and Third Books, containing an Apology for the Fables of Homer

SECOND AND THIRD BOOKS OF THE REPUBLIC, CONTAINING AN APOLOGY FOR THE FABLES OF HOMER.
As a very considerable part both of the second and third books of The Republic consists in examining and reprobating the assertions of the poets and particularly the fables of Homer, concerning divine natures, it appeared to me that I could not more essentially benefit the reader than by presenting him with the following defence of Homer and divine fables in general, from the exposition of the more difficult questions in this dialogue, by that coryphæus of all true philosophers Proclus. For in this apology Homer and Plato are so admirably reconciled, that the poetry of the one and the philosophy of the other are in the highest degree honoured by the expulsion of the former from the polity of the latter. In short, it will be found, however paradoxical it may appear, that the most divine of poets ought beyond all others to be banished from a republic planned by the prince of philosophers. Such readers, too, as may fortunately possess a genius adapted for these speculations, will find that the fables of Homer are replete with a theory no less grand than scientific, no less accurate than sublime; that they are truly the progeny of divine fury; are worthy to be ascribed to the Muses as their origin; are capable of exciting in those that understand them the most exalted conceptions, and of raising the imagination in conjunction with intellect, and thus purifying and illuminating its figured eye.
Though I availed myself in this translation of the epitome made by Gesner of this apology, who seems to have consulted a more perfect manuscript than that from which the Basil edition was printed, yet I frequently found it necessary to correct the Greek text from my own conjecture, as the learned reader will readily perceive. Some of these emendations I have noted in the course of the translation; but as they are numerous many are omitted.

### I. Concerning the mode of the apparatus of divine fables with theologists.—The causes of such fables assigned; and a solution of the objections against them

Since Socrates accuses the mode of fables according to which Homer and Hesiod have delivered doctrines concerning the Gods, and prior to these Orpheus, and any other poets, who with a divine mouth, ενθεῳ στοματι, have interpreted things which have a perpetual sameness of subsistence, it is necessary that we should in the first place show that the disposition of the Homeric fables is adapted to the things which it indicates. For it may be said, How can things which are remote from the good and the beautiful, and which deviate from order,—how can base and illegal names, ever be adapted to those natures whose essence is characterized by the good, and is consubsistent with the beautiful, in whom there is the first order, and from whom all things are unfolded into light, in conjunction with beauty and undefiled power? How then can things which are full of tragical portents and phantasms which subsist with material natures, and are deprived of the whole of justice and the whole of divinity, be adapted to such natures as these? For is it not unlawful to ascribe to the nature of the Gods, who are exempt from all things through transcendent excellence, adulteries, and thefts, precipitations from heaven, injurious conduct towards parents, bonds, and castrations, and such other particulars as are celebrated by Homer and other antient poets? But, as the Gods are separated from other things, are united with the good, or the ineffable principle of things, and have nothing of the imperfection of inferior natures belonging to them, but are unmingled and undefiled with respect to all things, presubsisting uniformly according to one bound and order,—in like manner it is requisite to employ the most excellent language in speaking of them, and such appellations as are full of intellect, and which are able to assimilate us, according to their proper order, to their ineffable transcendency. It is also necessary to purify the notions of the soul from material phantasms, in the mystic intellectual conceptions of a divine nature; and, rejecting every thing foreign and all false opinions, to conceive every thing as small with respect to the undefiled transcendency of the Gods, and believe in right opinion alone, and the more excellent spectacles of intellect in the truth concerning the first of essences.
Let no one therefore say to us that such things harmonize with the Gods as are adapted to men, nor endeavour to introduce the passions of material irrationality to natures expanded above intellect, and an intellectual essence and life: for these symbols do not appear similar to the hyparxes⁵ of the Gods. It is therefore requisite that fables, if they do not entirely wander from the truth inherent in things, should be in a certain respect assimilated to the particulars, the occult theory of which they endeavour to conceal by apparent veils. Indeed, as Plato himself often mystically teaches us divine concerns through certain images, and neither any thing base, nor any representation of disorder, nor material and turbulent phantasm, is inserted in his fables,—but the intellectual conceptions concerning the Gods are concealed with purity, before which the fables are placed like conspicuous statues, and most similar representations of the inward arcane theory,— in like manner it is requisite that poets, and Homer himself, if they devise fables adapted to the Gods, should reject these multiform compositions, and which are at the same time replete with names most contrary to things, but employing such as regard the beautiful and the good, should, through these, exclude the multitude from a knowledge concerning the Gods, which does not pertain to them, and at the same time employ in a pious manner fabulous devices respecting divine natures.
These are the things which, as it appears to me, Socrates objects to the fables of Homer, and for which perhaps some one besides may accuse other poets, in consequence of not admitting the apparently monstrous signification of names. In answer then to these objections, we reply that fables fabricate all that apparatus pertaining to them, which first presents itself to our view, instead of the truth which is established in the arcana, and employ apparent veils of conceptions invisible and unknown to the multitude. This indeed is their distinguishing excellence, that they narrate nothing belonging to natures truly good to the profane, but only extend certain vestiges of the whole mystic discipline to such as are naturally adapted to be led from these to a theory inaccessible to the vulgar. For these, instead of investigating the truth which they contain, use only the pretext of fabulous devices; and, instead of the purification of intellect, follow phantastic and figured conceptions. Is it not therefore absurd in these men to accuse fables of their own illegitimate conduct, and not themselves for the erroneous manner in which they consider them?
In the next place, do we not see that the multitude are injured by such things as are remarkably venerable and honourable, from among all other things, and which are established in and produced by the Gods themselves? For who will not acknowledge that the mysteries and perfective rites lead souls upwards from a material and mortal life, and conjoin them with the Gods, and that they suppress all that tumult which insinuates itself from the irrational part into intellectual illuminations, and expel whatever is indefinite and dark from those that are initiated, through the light proceeding from the Gods? Yet at the same time nothing can restrain the multitude from sustaining from these all-various distortions, and, in consequence of using the good, and the powers proceeding from these, according to their perverted habit, departing from the Gods, and truly sacred ceremonies, and falling into a passive and irrational life. Those indeed that accuse the mysteries for producing these effects in the multitude, may also accuse the fabrication of the universe, the order of wholes, and the providence of all things, because those that receive the gifts of these, use them badly; but neither is such an accusation holy, nor is it fit that fables should be calumniated on account of the perverted conceptions of the multitude. For the virtue and vice of things are not to be determined from those that use them perversely; but it is fit that every thing should be estimated from its own proper nature, and the rectitude which it contains. Hence the Athenian guest, in the Laws of Plato, is of opinion that even intoxication ought not to be expelled from a well-instituted city, on account of the views of the multitude and its corrupt use; for he says it greatly contributes to education, if it is properly and prudently employed. And yet it may be said that intoxication corrupts both the bodies and souls of those that are subject to it; but the legislator does not on this account detract from its proper worth, and the aid it affords to virtue.
But if any one accuses fables on account of their apparent depravity, and the base names which they employ,—since things of this kind are by no means similar to the divine exemplars of which fables are the images,— we reply in the first place, that there are two kinds of fables, those adapted to the education of youth, and those full of a divine fury, and which rather regard the universe itself than the habit of those that hear them. In the next place we must distinguish the lives of those that use fables; and we must consider that some are juvenile, and conversant with simple habits; but that others are able to be excited to intellect, to the whole genera of the Gods, to their progressions through all things, their series, and their terminations, which hasten to be extended as far as to the last of things. This being premised, we must say that the fables of Homer and Hesiod are not adapted to the education of youth, but that they follow the nature of wholes, and the order of things, and conjoin with true beings such as are capable of being led to the elevated survey of divine concerns. For the fathers of fables—perceiving that nature, fabricating images of immaterial and intelligible forms, and diversifying the sensible world with the imitations of these, adumbrated things impartible partibly, but expressed things eternal through such as proceed according to time, things intelligible through sensibles, that which is immaterial materially, that which is without interval with interval, and through mutation that which is firmly established, conformably to the nature and the progression of the phænomena,—they also, devising the resemblances and images of things divine in their verses, imitated the transcendent power of exemplars by contrary and most remote adumbrations. Hence they indicated that which is supernatural in things divine by things contrary to nature, that which is more divine than all reason, by that which is contrary to reason, and that which is expanded above all partial beauty, by things apparently base. And thus by an assimilative method they recalled to our memory the exempt supremacy of divine natures.
Besides this, according to every order of the Gods, which beginning from on high gradually proceeds as far as to the last of things, and penetrates through all the genera of beings, we may perceive the terminations of their series exhibiting such idioms as fables attribute to the Gods themselves, and that they give subsistence to, and are connective of, such things as those through which fables conceal the arcane theory of first essences. For the last of the dæmoniacal genera, and which revolve about matter, preside over the perversion of natural powers, the baseness of material natures, the lapse into vice, and a disorderly and confused motion. For it is necessary that these things should take place in the universe, and should contribute to fill the variety of the whole order of things, and that the cause of their shadowy subsistence, and of their duration, should be comprehended in perpetual genera. The leaders of sacred rites, perceiving these things, ordered that laughter and lamentations should be consecrated to such-like genera in certain definite periods of time, and that they should be allotted a convenient portion of the whole of the sacred ceremonies pertaining to a divine nature. As therefore the art of sacred rites, distributing in a becoming manner the whole of piety to the Gods and the attendants of the Gods, that no part of worship might be omitted adapted to such attendants, conciliated the divinities by the most holy mysteries and mystic symbols, but called down the gifts of dæmons by apparent passions, through a certain arcane sympathy,—in like manner the fathers of these fables, looking, as I may say, to all the progressions of divine natures, and hastening to refer fables to the whole series proceeding from each, established the imagery in their fables, and which first presents itself to the view, analogous to the last genera, and to those that preside over ultimate and material passions; but to the contemplators of true being they delivered the concealed meaning, and which is unknown to the multitude, as declarative of the exempt and inaccessible essence of the Gods. Thus, every fable is dæmoniacal according to that which is apparent in it, but is divine according to its recondite theory. If these things then are rightly asserted, neither is it proper to deprive the fables of Homer of an alliance to things which have a true subsistence, because they are not serviceable to the education of youth; for the end of such fables is not juvenile tuition, nor did the authors of fables devise them looking to this, nor are those written by Plato to be referred to the same idea with those of a more divinely inspired nature, but each is to be considered separately; and the latter are to be established as more philosophic, but the former as adapted to sacred ceremonies and institutions. The latter likewise are fit to be heard by youth, but the former by those who have been properly conducted through all the other parts of learning.
Socrates, indeed, sufficiently indicates this to those who are able to perceive his meaning, and also that he only blames the fables of Homer so far as they are neither adapted to education, nor accord with the restless and simple manners of youth. He likewise signifies that the recondite and occult good of fables requires a certain mystic and entheastic (i. e. divinely inspired) intelligence. But the multitude, not perceiving the meaning of the Socratic assertions, and widely deviating from the conceptions of the philosopher, accuse every such-like kind of fables. But it is worth while to hear the words of Socrates, and through what cause he rejects such a mythology: “The young person (says he) is not able to judge what is allegory, and what is not; but whatever opinions he receives at such an age are with difficulty washed away, and are generally immoveable. On these accounts, care should be taken, above all things, that what they are first to hear be composed in the most handsome manner for exciting them to virtue.” With great propriety, therefore, do we say that the Homeric fables do not well imitate a divine nature; for they are not useful to legislators for the purposes of virtue and education, nor for the proper tuition of youth, but in this respect indeed they do not appear at all similar to things themselves, nor adapted to those that preside over the politic science; but, after another manner, they harmonize with the Gods, and lead those who possess a naturally good disposition to the contemplation of divine natures; and the good which they contain is not disciplinative, but mystic, nor does it regard a juvenile, but an aged habit of soul. This also Socrates himself testifies, when he says, “That such fables should be heard in secrecy, by as few as possible, after they had sacrificed not a hog, but some great and wonderful sacrifice.” Socrates therefore is very far from despising this kind of fables, according to the opinion of the multitude; for he evinces that the hearing of them is coordinated with the most holy initiations, and the most subtle mysteries⁶. For to assert that such fables ought to be used in secret with a sacrifice the greatest and most perfect, manifests that the contemplation of them is mystic, and that they elevate the souls of the hearers to sublime speculations. Whoever therefore has divested himself of every puerile and juvenile habit of the soul, and of the indefinite impulses of the phantasy, and who has established intellect as the leader of his life, such a one will most opportunely participate of the spectacles concealed in such-like fables; but he who still requires instruction, and symmetry of manners, cannot with safety engage in their speculation.
It follows therefore, according to Socrates himself, that there is a twofold species of fables, one of which is adapted to the instruction of youth, but the other is mystic; one is preparatory to moral virtue, but the other imparts a conjunction with a divine nature; one is capable of benefiting the many, the other is adapted to the few; the one is common and known to most men, but the other is recondite and unadapted to those who do not hasten to become perfectly established in a divine nature; and the one is co-ordinate with juvenile habits, but the other scarcely unfolds itself with sacrifices and mystic tradition. If therefore Socrates teaches us these things, must we not say that he harmonizes with Homer respecting fables? But he only rejects and reprobates them so far as they appear unadapted to the hypothesis of his discourse, and the narration of the education of youth.
But if it be requisite that legislators should in one way be conversant with mythical fictions, and those who endeavour to cultivate more imperfect habits, but in another way those who indicate by the divinely-inspired intuitive perceptions of intellect the ineffable essence of the Gods to those who are able to follow the most elevated contemplations, we shall not hesitate to refer the precipitations of Vulcan to the irreprehensible science concerning the Gods, nor the Saturnian bonds, nor the castrations of Heaven, which Socrates says are unadapted to the ears of youth, and by no means harmonize with those habits which require juvenile tuition. For, in short, the mystic knowledge of divine natures can never subsist in foreign receptacles. To those therefore that are capable of such sublime speculations we must say, that the precipitation of Vulcan indicates the progression of a divine nature from on high, as far as to the last fabrication in sensibles, and this so as to be moved and perfected and directed by the demiurgus and father of all things. But the Saturnian bonds manifest the union of the whole fabrication of the universe⁷, with the intellectual and paternal supremacy of Saturn. The castrations of Heaven obscurely signify the separation of the Titanic⁸ series from the connective⁹ order. By thus speaking we shall perhaps assert things that are known, and refer that which is tragical and fictitious in fables to the intellectual theory of the divine genera. For whatever among us appears to be of a worse condition, and to belong to the inferior coordination of things, fables assume according to a better nature and power. Thus, for instance, a bond with us impedes and restrains energy, but there it is a contact and ineffable union with causes. A precipitation here is a violent motion from another; but with the Gods it indicates prolific progression, and an unrestrained and free presence to all things, without departing from its proper principle, but in an orderly manner proceeding from it through all things. And castrations in things partial and material cause a diminution of power, but in primary causes they obscurely signify the progression of secondary natures into a subject order, from their proper causes; things first at the same time remaining established in themselves undiminished, neither moved from themselves through the progression of these, nor mutilated by their separation, nor divided by their distribution in things subordinate. These things, which Socrates justly says are not fit to be heard by youth, are not on that account to be entirely rejected. For the same thing takes place with respect to these fables, which Plato somewhere says happens to divine and all-holy dogmas: For these are ridiculous to the multitude, but to the few who are excited to intellectual energy they unfold their sympathy with things, and through sacred operations themselves procure credibility of their possessing a power connate with all that is divine. For the Gods, hearing these symbols, rejoice, and readily obey those that invoke them, and proclaim the characteristic of their natures through these, as signs domestic and especially known to them. The mysteries likewise and the greatest and most perfect of sacrifices (τελεται) possess their efficacy in these, and enable the mystics to perceive through these, entire, stable, and simple visions, which a youth by his age, and much more his manners, is incapable of receiving. We must not therefore say that such-like fables do not instruct in virtue, but those that object to them should show that they do not in the highest degree accord with the laws pertaining to sacred rites. Nor must it be said that they dissimilarly imitate divine natures, through obscure symbols, but it must be shown that they do not prepare for us an ineffable sympathy towards the participation of the Gods. For fables which are composed with a view to juvenile discipline should possess much of the probable, and much of that which is decorous in the fabulous, in their apparent forms, but should be entirely pure from contrary appellations, and be conjoined with divine natures through a similitude of symbols. But those fables which regard a more divinely inspired habit, which co-harmonize things last with such as are first through analogy alone, and which are composed with a view to the sympathy in the universe between effects and their generative causes,—such fables, despising the multitude, employ names in an all-various manner, for the purpose of indicating divine concerns. Since also, with respect to harmony, we say that one kind is poetic, and which through melodies exciting to virtue cultivates the souls of youth; but another divine, which moves the hearers, and produces a divine mania, and which we denominate better than temperance: and we admit the former as completing the whole of education, but we reject the latter as not adapted to political administration. Or does not Socrates expel the Phrygian harmony from his Republic as producing ecstasy in the soul, and on this account separate it from other harmonies which are subservient to education?
As, therefore, harmony is twofold, and one kind is adapted to erudition, but the other is foreign from it; in a similar manner, likewise, is mythology divided; into that which contributes to the proper tuition of youth, and into that which is subservient to the sacred and symbolic invocation of a divine nature. And the one, viz. the method through images, is adapted to those that philosophize in a genuine manner; but the other, which indicates a divine essence through recondite signs, to the leaders of a more mystically-perfective operation; from which Plato himself also renders many of his peculiar dogmas more credible and clear. Thus, in the Phædo, he venerates with a becoming silence that recondite assertion, that we are confined in body as in a prison secured by a guard, and testifies, according to the mysteries, the different allotments of the soul, when in a pure or impure condition, on its departure to Hades; and again, its habitudes, and the triple paths arising from its essence, and this according to paternal sacred institutions; all which are full of a symbolic theory, and of the ascent and descent of souls celebrated by poets, of Dionysiacal signs, and what are called Titanic errors, the triviæ, and wandering in Hades, and every thing else of this kind. So that Plato does not entirely despise this mode of mythologizing, but considers it as foreign from juvenile tuition, and, on this account, delivers types of theology commensurate with the manners of those that are instructed.
It likewise appears to me, that whatever is tragical, monstrous, and unnatural, in poetical fictions, excites the hearers, in an all-various manner, to the investigation of the truth, attracts us to recondite knowledge, and does not suffer us through apparent probability to rest satisfied with superficial conceptions, but compels us to penetrate into the interior parts of fables, to explore the obscure intention of their authors, and survey what natures and powers they intended to signify to posterity by such mystical symbols¹⁰.
Since therefore fables of this kind excite those of a naturally more excellent disposition to a desire of the concealed theory which they contain, and to an investigation of the truth established in the adyta¹¹ through their ap- parent absurdity, but prevent the profane from busying themselves about things which it is not lawful for them to touch, are they not eminently adapted to the Gods themselves, of whose nature they are the interpreters? For many genera are hurled forth before the Gods¹², some of a dæmoniacal, and others of an angelic order, who terrify those that are excited to a participation of divinity, who are exercised for the reception of divine light, and are sublimely elevated to the union of the Gods. But we may especially perceive the alliance of these fables with the tribe of dæmons, whose energies manifest many things symbolically, as those know who have met with dæmons when awake¹³, or have enjoyed their inspiration in dreams, unfolding many past or future events. For, in all such phantasies, after the manner of the authors of fables, some things are indicated by others. Nor, of the things which take place through this, are some images, but others paradigms; but some are symbols, and others sympathize with these from analogy. If, therefore, this mode of composing fables is dæmoniacal, must we not say that it is exempt from every other variety of fables, as well that which regards nature, and interprets natural powers, as that which presides over the instruction of the forms of the soul?

### II. What the different modes of theomachy, or, the battles of the Gods, are, among theologists, and an interpretation of the occult truth which they contain

And thus much concerning those forms of fables according to which other poets and Homer have delivered mystic conceptions respecting the Gods, and which are unapparent to the vulgar. After this, it follows I think that we should distinctly consider the several fables in the order in which they are mentioned by Socrates, and contemplate according to what conceptions of the soul Homer represents the Gods fighting, or doing or suffering any thing else, in his poems. And in the first place let us consider this theomachy as it is called, or battles of the Gods, which Homer devises, but Socrates thinks worthy of animadversion, as by no means adapted to the education of youth. For, that there is neither sedition, nor dissension and division, as with mortals, among the Gods, but peace and an inoffensive life, the poet himself testifies when he somewhere says concerning Olympus, that it is a substratum to the Gods, who possess every possible joy, and spectacles of immense beauty:
The blessed Gods in joy unceasing live.
What discord and war then can find any entrance among those who are allotted eternal delight, who are perpetually propitious, and rejoicing in the goods which they possess? But if it be proper that discourses concerning the Gods should regard as well their providence as the nature of the beings for whom they provide, I think we may interpret as follows their opposition to each other:
In the first place, the divided progressions of all things, and their separations according to essence, supernally originate from that division of first operating causes¹⁴ which is unknown to all things; and subsisting according to those principles which are expanded above wholes, they dissent from each other; some being suspended from the unifying monad bound, and about this determining their subsistence, but others receiving in themselves a never-failing power from that infinity which is generative of wholes, and is a cause productive of multitude and progression, and about this establishing their proper hyparxis. After the same manner, therefore, in which the first principles of things are separated from each other, all the divine genera and true beings have a progression orderly divided from each other; and some of them are the leaders of union to secondary natures, but others impart the power of separation; some are the causes of conversion, convolving the multitude of progressions to their proper principles; but others bound the progressions, and the subordinate generation from the principles. Again, some supply a generative abundance to inferior natures, but others impart an immutable and undefiled purity; some bind to themselves the cause of separate goods, but others, of those goods that are consubsistent with the beings by whom they are received. And thus in all the orders of being is such a contrariety of genera diversified. Hence per- manency, which establishes things in themselves, is opposed to efficacious powers, and which are full of life and motion. Hence the kindred communion of sameness receives a division according to species, opposite to the separations of difference; but the genus of similitude is allotted an order contrary to dissimilitude, and that of equality to inequality, according to the same analogy. And the divisions of all these are supernally defined from that duad which subsists as a principle, according to which all beings are distinguished by their proper boundaries, proceed with an opposite division to each other from their generative causes, and from their connection with each other generate all the variety of secondary natures. Is it therefore any longer wonderful, if the authors of fables, perceiving such contrariety in the Gods themselves and the first of beings, obscurely signified this to their pupils, through battles? the divine genera indeed being perpetually united to each other, but at the same time containing in themselves the causes of the union and separation of all things.
We may also, I think, adduce another mode of solution: that the Gods themselves are impartibly connascent with each other, and subsist uniformly in each other, but that their progressions into the universe and their communications are separated in their participants, become divisible, and are thu filled with contrariety; the objects of their providential exertions not being able to receive in an unmingled manner the powers proceeding from thence, and without confusion their multiform illuminations. We may likewise say, that the last orders which are suspended from divine natures, as being generated remote from first causes, and as being proximate to the subjects of their government, which are involved in matter, participate themselves of all-various contrariety and separation, and partibly preside over material natures, minutely dividing those powers which presubsist uniformly and impartibly in their first operating causes. Such then and so many being the modes according to which the mystic rumours of theologists are wont to refer war to the Gods themselves, other poets, and those who in explaining divine concerns have been agitated with divine fury, have ascribed wars and battles to the Gods, according to the first of those modes we related, in which the divine genera are divided conformably to the first principles of wholes. For those powers which elevate to causes are after a manner opposed to those that are the sources of generation, and the connective to the separating; those that unite, to those that multiply the progression of things; total genera, to such as fabricate partibly; and those which are expanded above, to those that preside over partial natures: and hence fables concealing the truth assert that such powers fight and war with each other. On this account, as it appears to me, they assert that the Titans were the antagonists of Bacchus, and the Giants of Jupiter; for union, indivisible operation, and a wholeness prior¹⁵ to parts, are adapted to those artificers that have a subsistence prior to the world; but the Titans and Giants produce the demiurgic powers into multitude, divisibly administer the affairs of the universe, and are the proximate fathers of material concerns.
We may also conceive that the Homeric fables after another manner have devised the battles of the Gods. For, in the first place, Homer exempts the demiurgic monad from all the multitude of the Gods, and neither represents him proceeding to the contrariety of generation, nor in any respect opposing it; but, while this is firmly established in itself, the number of the Gods proceeds from it, which number both abides and proceeds into the universe, and on this account is said to be divided about the providence of the natures which it governs. In the next place, of these Gods which are distributed from their father, some abide in him, and have an unproceeding subsistence in their proper monad, which the poetry of Homer says are established in the abode of Jupiter, and together with their father providentially preside in an exempt manner over wholes. That these war against, or oppose each other, the fable does not even according to the apparent description admit. But it represents those Gods as warring against each other, who proceeding from the demiurgic monad, subside into multiform orders, become more partial, and more proximate to the objects of their government, and give completion to the angelic or dæmoniacal armies, through their abundant sympathy with subordinate natures and partial allotment of providential energy. For to these I think the passions of the subjects of their providential care are more allied, such as wounds, blows, and repercussions; and, in short, the contrariety of generation is not very remote from the administration of these Gods. That which is partial likewise in the fabrication of things secondary, and a minute distribution of providence, are adapted to such like powers, but not to those which rank as principles, and are exempt from all the objects of their providential energy, and subsist as separate causes.
Moreover, since the angelic orders are suspended from the government of the more excellent genera of Gods, and preserve the characteristics of their leaders though in a partial and multiplied manner, they are called by their names; and as they subsist analogously to the first Gods, they appear in their progressions to be the same with their more total causes. And this not only the fables of the Greeks have occultly devised,—I mean that leading Gods and their attendants should be called by the same names,— but this is also delivered in the initiatory rites of the Barbarians. For they say that angels suspended from the Gods, when invoked, particularly rejoice to be called by the appellations, and to be invested with the vehicles, of the leaders of their series, and exhibit themselves to theurgists in the place of these leading deities. If therefore we refer Minerva, Juno, and Vulcan when engaged in war below about generation, and likewise Latona, Diana, and the river Xanthus, to other secondary orders, and which are proximate to divisible and material things, we ought not to wonder on account of the communion of names. For each series bears the appellation of its monad, and partial spirits love to receive the same denomination with wholes. Hence there are many and all-various Apollos, Neptunes, and Vulcans; and some of them are separate from the universe, others have an allotment about the heavens, others preside over the whole elements, and to others the government of individuals belongs. It is not therefore wonderful if a more partial Vulcan, and who is allotted a dæmoniacal order, possesses a providential dominion over material fire, and which subsists about the earth, or that he should be the inspective guardian of a certain art which operates in brass. For, if the providence of the Gods has a subjection according to an ultimate division, being allotted a well-ordered progression supernally from total and united causes, this Vulcanian dæmon also will rejoice in the safety of that which he is allotted, and will be hostile to those causes which are corruptive of its constitution. War therefore in such like genera, a division of all-various powers, mutual familiarity and discord, a divisible sympathy with the objects of their government, verbal contentions, revenge through mockery, and other things of this kind, are very properly conceived to take place about the terminations of the divine orders. Hence fables, in representing such like powers discordant with and opposing each other on account of the subjects over which they providentially preside, do not appear to be very remote from the truth. For the passions of the things governed are proximately referred to these.
In short, since we may perceive two conceptions of battles celebrated by poets inspired by Phœbus, one of these considers the well-ordered division of the divine genera about those two principles of wholes which the one, the exempt cause of all things, produced, and according to the opposition of these principles represents the Gods also as acting contrary to each other. For, whether it be proper to call those first natures bound and infinity, or monad and indefinite duad, they will entirely appear to be oppositely divided with respect to each other, according to which the orders of the Gods are also separated from each other. But the other conception arises from considering the contrariety and variety about the last of things, and referring a discord of this kind to the powers that proximately preside over it, and thus feigning that the Gods, proceeding into a material nature, and distributed about this, war with each other. Homer, to those who consider his poems with attention, will appear to speak about the former mode of divine contention when he says,
When Saturn was by Jove all-seeing thrust
Beneath the earth:
and in another place¹⁶ respecting Typhon,
Earth groan’d beneath them; as when angry Jove
Hurls down the forky lightning from above,
On Arimè when he the thunder throws,
And fires Typhæus with redoubled blows,
Where Typhon, prest beneath the burning load,
Still feels the fury of th’ avenging God.
For in these verses he obscurely signifies a Titanic war against Jupiter, and what the Orphic writers call precipitations into Tartarus (καταταρταρωσεις). But he particularly introduces the Gods warring with each other, and dissenting about human affairs, according to the second conception of divine battles, in which the divine and intellectual disposition of the figments adopted by the poet is worthy of the greatest admiration. For, in describing their battles (who though they are allotted a subsistence at the extremities of the divine progressions, yet are suspended from the Gods, and are proximate to the subjects of their government, and are allied to their leaders), he indicates their sympathy with inferior natures, referring a divided life, battle, and opposition from things in subjection to the powers by which they are governed; just as Orpheus conjoins with Bacchic images compositions, divisions and lamentations, referring all these to them from presiding causes. But Homer represents the alliance of these divisible spirits with the series from which they proceed, by the same names through which he celebrates the powers exempt from material natures, and employs numbers and figures adapted to their whole orders. For those who engage in battle are eleven in number, imitating the army of the Gods and dæmons following Jupiter, and distributed into eleven¹⁷ parts. Of these, those that preside over the better coordination are contained in the pentad; for the odd number, the spheric¹⁸, and the power of leading all secondary natures according to justice, and of extending from the middle to every number, are adapted to those who desire to govern more intellectual and perfect natures, and such as are more allied to the one. But those of an inferior destiny, and who are the guardians of material natures, proceed according to the hexad, possessing indeed a perfective power over the subjects of their providential care through a proper¹⁹ number; but in consequence of this number being even, and coordinate with a worse nature, they are subordinate to the other powers. Nor is it wonderful if some one should call these genera Gods, through their alliance to their leaders, and should represent them as warring through their proximate care of material natures. The opposition therefore of Neptune and Apollo signifies that these powers preside over the apparent contrariety of all sublunary wholes: and hence these Gods do not fight with each other. For parts are preserved by their containing wholes, as long as they subsist. But the opposition of Juno and Diana represents the opposite division of souls in the universe, whether rational or irrational, separate or inseparable, supernatural or natural; the former of these powers presiding over the more excellent order of souls, but the latter bringing forth and producing into light those of an inferior condition. Again, the discord of Minerva and Mars represents the division of the whole of the war in generation into providence subsisting according to intellect, and that which is perfected through necessity; the former power intellectually presiding over contraries, and the latter corroborating their natural powers, and exciting their mutual opposition. But the battle between Hermes and Latona insinuates the all-various differences of souls according to their gnostic and vital motions; Hermes giving perfection to their knowledge, and Latona to their lives; which two often differ from and are contrary to each other. Lastly, the battle between Vulcan and the river Xanthus adorns in a becoming manner the contrary principles of the whole corporeal system; the former assisting the powers of heat and dryness, and the latter of cold and moisture, from which the whole of generation receives its completion. But since it is requisite that all contrarieties should end in mutual concord, Venus is present, producing friendship²⁰ in the adverse parties, but at the same time assisting those powers that belong to the worse coordination; because these are especially adorned, when they possess symmetry and familiarity with the better order of contrary natures. And thus much concerning the divine battles of Homer.

### III. In what manner an apology is to be made for those divine fables which appear to make the Gods the causes of evil

In the next place let us consider how, since the Gods in the summit of their essence are particularly characterized by goodness, poetry makes them to be the authors of both evil and good, though it is proper to refer to them the principal cause of what is good alone. For this, Socrates, demonstrating that divinity gives subsistence to good alone, but to nothing evil, thinks worthy of animadversion in the poems of Homer. And it seems that he reprobates the battles of the Gods, as subverting divine union, but condemns what we now propose to investigate, as diminishing the goodness of the Gods. For,
Two vessels on Jove’s threshold ever stand,
The source of evil one, and one of good²¹.
To this objection, we answer that there are two coordinations of things in the world, which, as we have before observed, supernally proceed from the Gods themselves. For all things are divided by the biformed principles²² of things, viz. the orders of the Gods, the natures of beings, the genera of souls, physical powers, the circulations of the heavens, and the diversities of material things; and lastly human affairs, and allotments according to justice, thence receive a twofold generation. For, of these, some are of a better, and others of an inferior condition. I mean, for instance, that the natural habits of bodies, viz. beauty, strength, health, and also such things as, independent of the corporeal constitution, pertain to souls, viz. power, and honour, and riches, belong to allotments of a better condition; but those habits and circumstances which are opposite to these, belong to those of an inferior condition. These things then being necessarily divided after the above-mentioned manner, those which belong to the better portion it was usual with the antients immediately to denominate good, but those of the contrary portion they denominated evil; yet not in the same signification as when we call an unjust and intemperate habit of the soul evil; but as impediments of energies, as darkening our natural dispositions, and disturbing the providence of the soul in its tranquil management of human affairs, they admitted them to be evil, and to be so denominated, but after a different manner from what are called the evils of the soul. Thus also they were accustomed to call disease, imbecility, and a privation of the necessaries of life, evils. And why is it necessary to adduce all poetry as a witness of the use of this name? For the Pythagoræans also, in stablishing twofold coordinations²³ of things in all orders, did not refuse to call one of these good, and the other evil. Though, how can any one admit that the even, the oblong, and motion, are to be enumerated among those evils which we define as privations of good? How can we say that the feminine, the genus of difference and of dissimilitude, are contrary to nature? But I think this entirely evident, that, according to every progression of things, they called the subordinate series of things opposite, evil, as deserting the other series, and being neither primarily beneficent, nor distant by the same interval from the one cause of every thing beautiful and good. It is requisite therefore to suspend these twofold coordinations of good and evil in the universe from the demiurgic monad. For the divisions of the Gods, and of the genera posterior to the Gods, depend on that first principle. The cause likewise of the good and evil which happen from fate, and which are allotted to souls about generation, according to justice, must be referred to the dispensator of the universe, who also sends souls into the region of mortality. For the effects of fate are suspended from demiurgic providence, about which the series of justice also subsists, and the boundaries of which it follows, being, as the Athenian guest in Plato observes, the avenger of the divine law. Lastly, the gifts of fortune, and the distribution of all things according to justice, are determined according to the will of the father. The demiurgus and father therefore of the universe has pre-established in himself the cause of every thing good and evil, of more excellent and subordinate gifts, of prosperous events, and of such as are impediments to the energies of the soul in externals; and he governs all things according to intellect, distributing to every being such things as are fit, and referring all things to his own paternal administration. For he distributes to souls, with a view to good, both things of the better and of the inferior coordination; looking in his distribution to the perfection of the recipients.
If these things then are rightly asserted, we must admit the Homeric arrangement, which places in the demiurgic intellect of Jupiter twofold primary causes of the goods and the ills which he imparts to souls. For, of all the intellectual kings, the duad especially belongs to the demiurgus of the universe: since, according to the Oracle, “the duad is seated with him; and, by his governing all things, and disposing every thing in its proper place, he shows virtue to be victorious, and vice to be vanquished in the universe.” For what difference is there between asserting these things, and comparing the demiurgus to one playing at chess, and sending souls into lives adapted to their respective natures? These two fountains therefore of a better and worse condition of things, by which the demiurgus conducts souls according to justice, the poet mythologizing denominates tubs²⁴; whether indicating that divinity assigns to every thing its proper boundary through intellectual persuasion (for intellect, says Timæus, is the principle of necessity, persuading it to lead all things to that which is best), or the capaciousness of these principles, and their comprehending all-various effects. For the demiurgus and father of the universe contains unitedly in himself the dispersed multitude of all that he distributes to souls. So that, according to this reasoning, Plato and the Homeric poetry accord with each other. For the former says that it is not proper to make God the cause of any evil; but the other perpetually produces every thing good from thence: yet, since goods are twofold, and each kind benefits those by whom it is received, hence the Homeric poetry distributes them into twofold coordinations, and, indicating their difference with respect to each other, denominates the one as absolutely good, but places the other separate, as contrary to good. But that what is called evil by Homer is not such as that which Plato denies to be given by the Gods, the poet himself declares in the following verses²⁵,
The Gods on Peleus from his birth bestow’d
Illustrious gifts..............
With these God also evil join’d.........
What this evil is he immediately tells us:
No race succeeding to imperial sway;
An only son, and he (alas!) ordain’d
To fall untimely in a foreign land.
See him in Troy the pious care decline
Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine!
In these verses, it appears that Homer does not make divinity the cause of real evils, since he calls the loss of a son, and the being deprived of his attendance in old age, evils. But in what manner these are evils, we have above explained, viz. so far as they cause difficulty in the present life, and sorrow in the soul. For, though it is not lawful for those who philosophize in a genuine manner to call these evils, yet they appear to be impediments of a life according to virtue, to those who make choice of a practical life. Hence the Athenian guest also contends that all such things are, in a certain respect, evil to good men, but good to such as are depraved; though he makes God to be the cause, both of these, and of every thing imparted from the universe. So that not only Homer, and Achilles in Homer assert these things, but Plato himself, and the legislator according to Plato.

### IV. How the poetry of Homer seems to refer a violation of oaths to the Gods:—The truth respecting this unfolded

In the next place let us consider how leagues and oaths, according to the poetry of Homer, are violated with the will of the mighty Jupiter, and of Minerva acting in subserviency to the will of her father: for this also Socrates reprobates, as referring the principle of evils to the first of the Gods.
And here indeed it is worth while especially to doubt, how he who makes divinity to be the cause of these things, does not make him to be the cause of the greatest and real evils. For Homer cannot here be defended by saying, that he represents poverty, disease, and things of this kind, as proceeding from the Gods, but he ascribes to divinity the cause of those things which are acknowledged by all men to be evils. Timæus, indeed, in Plato, represents the demiurgus as entirely prescribing laws to souls prior to their descent into generation, that he may not be accused as the cause of their consequent evils; but these verses of Homer admit that the principle of the greatest evils is imparted to them from divinity, when they have descended, and are conversant with generation. How then shall we reply to these animadversions, so as to harmonize the doctrine of Homer with the nature of things, and the narration of Plato? We may reply as follows: That fables of this kind are not adapted to the habit of youth, as has been asserted by us before, and we shall now, and in all that follows, repeat the assertion. For it is not possible for youth to distinguish the nature of things, nor to refer the apparent signs of truth to an unapparent theory, nor to see how every thing in the universe is accomplished according to the will of divinity, through other intervening causes. But we shall show that these things are agreeable to the philosophy of Plato.
The Athenian guest then, in the Laws, says, “that God is the begin- ning, the middle, and end of all things, and that justice follows him, taking vengeance on those that desert the divine law: but these, as he informs us, are such as through youth and folly have their soul inflamed with insolence, and for a certain time appear to themselves to govern, but afterwards suffer the proper punishment of their conduct from justice, and entirely subvert themselves, their city, and their family.” These things are asserted by the Athenian guest politically; but Homer²⁶, relating them in a divinely inspired manner (ενθεαστικως), says that those who have often sinned, and committed the greatest crimes, are punished for their offences according to the single will of Jupiter, and are deprived of life together with their wives and children. He further informs us, that Jupiter first of all accomplishes this punishment, and in a manner exempt and unapparent to all; but Minerva in the second place, being subservient to and cooperating with the paternal providence of Jupiter: for, as Orpheus says, “she is the powerful queen of the intellect of Saturnian Jove²⁷.” The same poet likewise adds, “that his brain who violates leagues and oaths flows on the ground like wine.” In consequence, therefore, of this violation, such men subject themselves to justice, and render themselves adapted to punishment. Hence the violation of leagues and oaths is especially perpetrated by those who, prior to this, have deserved the vengeance of the Gods, who justly govern mortal affairs, and thus punish former crimes. But such are said to be moved, and led forth into energy by the Gods themselves: not that the Gods render men who are to be punished impious and unjust, but as calling into energy those that are adapted to the perpetration of such-like actions, that by once energizing according to their inward habit, and producing into light the progeny of depraved actions with which they are pregnant, they may become worthy of punishment. For we should rather say, according to Plato, that vengeance, the attendant of justice, is perfected in such, than divine justice itself; since the just and justice are beautiful things. But both he on whom vengeance is inflicted, and he on whom it is not, are miserable. Men therefore, who have committed many and the greatest crimes, and who have a depraved habit which is parturient with greater and more weighty evils, in the first place sustain vengeance, which appears indeed to crush those that suffer it, leading them to the violation of oaths, but in reality brings them to suffer the punishment of their crimes, effecting that which is similar to the opening of ulcers by the surgeon’s instrument, which produces an increase of pain at the time, but, by discharging the putridity and the latent humour, becomes the cause of future health. But the poetry of Homer says that this punishment, beginning supernally from Jupiter (for justice, as we have before observed, follows him, taking vengeance on those that desert the divine law), is perfected through Minerva as the medium. For the Trojans, seeing into what an evil they had brought themselves, and that their life was obnoxious to deserved punishment, rendered this inevitable to themselves, by the violation of oaths and leagues.
Again then, it must be in the first place said that the Gods were not the causes of this confused and disorderly conduct to the Trojans, but that they through their own depravity rendered themselves worthy of an energy of this kind, and among these Pandarus in an eminent degree, as being a man ambitious, avaricious, and leading an atheistical life. Hence Minerva, proceeding according to the intellect of her father, does not excite any one casually to this action, but is said to seek Pandarus²⁸, as particularly adapted to an avenging energy.
She ev’ry where the godlike Pandarus explor’d²⁹.
For a man who is capable of doing and suffering any thing, and who also opposes himself to divinity, through a certain gigantic and audacious habit of soul, is rare, and truly difficult to be found. As therefore physicians are not the causes of cuttings and burnings, but the diseases of those that are cured, so neither are the Gods the causes of the impiety respecting oaths and leagues, but the habits of those by whom it is committed.
In the second place, this also must be considered, that Minerva is not said to prepare Pandarus for the deed, but only to try if he gave himself up to this energy. For divinity does not destroy the freedom of the will, not even in such as are consummately wicked:
Lycaon’s warlike son, what I suggest,
Wilt thou obey?
But Pandarus, incited by an immoderate desire of riches and power, leaps to unjust energies, the poet all but exclaiming in the very words of Socrates in the Republic³⁰, “that many things are extended to souls from the universe, which astonish the stupid, and cause them to err respecting the elections of lives.” As therefore the prophet extends a tyrannic life, and he who first chooses this is said to be stupid, although he by whom it was extended was entirely a divine nature; so here, when Minerva offers to the choice of Pandarus a more powerful and rich condition with impiety, or one entirely contrary to this, he makes choice of the worse. And in this case Minerva is not the cause of the election, but the improbity of him by whom the election is made. For neither is the prophet in Plato the cause of a tyrannic life, but the intemperance of him that chose it. Hence Pandarus, in obeying Minerva, is said to suffer this through his stupidity. For indeed (to speak accurately) he did not obey Minerva, but the avaricious and stupid habit of his soul. Though, is it not wonderful that Minerva, in this instance, is not the cause of wisdom, but of folly? But, says, Plotinus, “Craft is produced from a defluxion of intellect; an illumination of temperance becomes intemperance; and audacity is the gift of fortitude.” For such as are the forms of life, such also from necessity must be the participations from more excellent natures. Hence some participate of intelligibles intellectually, others according to opinion, and others phantastically. Others again participate of passions impassively, others with mediocrity of passion, and others with perfect passivity. But all things are moved by the Gods, according to their respective aptitudes. So that the violation of oaths did not proceed from Jupiter and Minerva, but from Pandarus and the Trojans. This action however is suspended from the Gods, as being the forerunner of justice, and as preparing those by whom it was perpetrated for the perfect punishment of their guilt.
Nor is a divine nature the cause of true evils to souls, but the depraved habits of these are the sources to them of their depraved energies. But every energy, though it proceeds with depravity into the universe, is under the direction of presiding Gods, and of a more total or partial providence. For it becomes, says Plotinus, an unjust action to him who does it, so far as pertains to the doing it, but just to him who suffers for it, so far as he suffers. And so far as an action of this kind is atheistical, it originates from a partial cause, which gives perfection to an action full of passion; but so far as it is good, it obtains from presiding powers its proper end. For it is necessary that the authors of the greatest crimes should some time or other be called to punishment; but this would never take place, unless their depravity received its completion. Many habits therefore, remaining unenergetic, render those by whom they are possessed incapable of obtaining their proper cure. Hence, on the Gods consulting concerning bringing the war to an end, and saving the Trojans, the Goddess who presides over justice prevents any energy of this kind, that the Trojans may more swiftly suffer the punishment of their crimes; and Minerva, who cooperates with this divinity, excites to the violation of the oath, that, energizing according to the whole of their depravity, they may receive the punishment of the whole of it. For neither was it good for them to remain without a cure, nor that their latent depravity should be healed prior to their second offences. All their unjust life therefore being unfolded, punishment follows, correcting the whole of their impïous conduct.

### V. The whole theory of the fable unfolded, in which Jupiter, through Themis, excites the Gods to contention

In the next place, since Socrates mentions the judgment of the Gods in Homer, and the strife to which Jupiter excites the multitude of the Gods, through Themis elevating all of them to himself, let us also speak concerning these things. That Jupiter then is a monad separated from the universe, and the multitude of mundane Gods, and that he is able to produce all things from, and again convert them to himself, has often been said. But since his energy proceeding to the multitude of Gods is twofold, one of which converts and the other moves the Gods to the providence of inferior natures, poetry also describes twofold speeches³¹ of Jupiter to the Gods. According to the first of these, the one and whole demiurgus of the universe is represented as communicating an unmingled purity to the multitude of the Gods, and imparting to them powers separate from all division about the world. Hence he orders all the Gods to desist from the war and the contrariety of mundane affairs. But, according to the second of these speeches, he excites them to the providence of subordinate natures, and permits their divided progressions into the universe, that they may not only be contained in one demiurgic intellect, which, as the poet says,
None can escape, or soaring run beyond—
but may energize in the subjects of their providential care, according to their own characteristics. Hence Jupiter says to them,
Each, as your minds incline, to either host
Your succour lend³².
But as the progressions of the Gods are not divulsed from the demiurgic monad, Themis first converts them to this monad.
But Jove to Themis gives command, to call
The Gods to council—
that, acting providentially according to the will of their father, they may also energize according to the judgment of Themis. And the poet indeed delivers to us separate speeches of the one demiurgus of the universe to the junior Gods; but Timæus represents him in one speech converting the multitude of these Gods to himself, and exciting them to the providence of mortal affairs, that they may govern all secondary natures according to justice. But these things in no respect differ from exciting them to war, and through Themis converting them to himself. For those who preside over generation govern the war in matter; and those who energize according to justice are suspended from the whole of Themis, of whom Justice is the daughter, and imitate the one demiurgic intellect, to whom it is not lawful to do any thing but what is most beautiful, as Timæus himself asserts.

### VI. What the judgment of the Gods is in the fables of the poet, and what differences of lives it obscurely signifies

Again, it is not proper to think that the celebrated judgment of the Gods, which fables say was accomplished by Paris, was in reality a strife of the Gods with each other, under the judgment of a barbarian; but we ought to consider the elections of lives, which Plato delivers in many places, as subsisting under the Gods who are the inspective guardians of souls. And this indeed Plato clearly teaches us in the Phædrus, when he says that a royal life is the gift of Juno, a philosophic life of Jupiter, and an amatory life of Venus. Since therefore souls, from among a multitude of lives proposed to them from the universe, embrace some according to their own judgment and reject others, hence fables, transferring to the Gods themselves the peculiarities of lives, assert that not the diversities of living, but the Gods that preside over these diversities, are judged by those that choose them. According to this reasoning, Paris also is said to have been appointed a judge of Minerva, Juno and Venus; and that of three lives which were proposed to him, he chose the amatory life: and this not with prudence, but recurring to apparent beauty, and pursuing the image of that beauty which is intelligible. For he who is truly amatory, taking intellect and prudence for his guides, and with these contemplating both true and apparent beauty, is no less the votary of Minerva than of Venus. But he who alone pursues the amatory form of life by itself, and this accompanied with passion, deserts true beauty, but through folly and luxury leaps to the image of beauty, lies about it in a fallen condition, and does not attain to a perfection adapted to an amatory character. For he who is truly amatory and studious of Venus, is led to divine beauty, and despises all that is beautiful in the regions of sense. Since however there are certain dæmons with the characteristics of Venus, who preside over apparent beauty, and which subsists in matter, hence he who embraces the image of beauty, is said to have Venus cooperating with him in all his undertakings.

### VII. What the mutations of the Gods are, which are introduced in fables, and in how many ways, and through what causes, they are devised

Since a divine nature is not only beneficent, but likewise immutable, without form, simple, and always subsisting according to the same, and after the same manner, Socrates very properly considers the following verses of Homer worthy of animadversion,
The Gods at times, resembling foreign guests,
Wander o’er cities in all-various forms³³.
And again those respecting Proteus and Thetis, in which they are represented as changing their forms, and variously appearing. Indeed, that fables of this kind ought not to be heard by those who genuinely receive a political education, is perfectly evident; since it is requisite that the paradigm of a polity which is to be stable, should be immutable, and not obnoxious to all-various mutations. But here also it is requisite to collect by reasoning the divine dianoëtic conceptions of Homer, though I am not ignorant that the above verses are ascribed to one of the suitors, and that on this account the poet is free from blame. For neither should we think it right to take the opinion of Plato from what is said by Callicles or Thrasymachus, or any other sophists that are introduced in his writings; but when Parmenides or Socrates, or Timæus, or any other of such divine men speaks, then we think that we hear the dogmas of Plato. In like manner we should form a judgment of the conceptions of Homer, not from what is said by the suitors, or any other depraved character in his poems, but from what the poet himself, or Nestor, or Ulysses, appears to say.
If any one however is willing to ascribe this dogma concerning the mutation of the Gods to Homer himself, he will not be destitute of arguments which accord with all sacred concerns, with the greatest sacrifices and mysteries, and with those appearances of the Gods which both in dreams and true visions, the rumour of mankind has supernally received. For in all these the Gods extend many forms of themselves, and appear passing into many figures. And sometimes an unfigured light of them presents itself to the view; at other times this light is fashioned in a human form, and at others again assumes a different shape. These things also the discipline of divine origin pertaining to sacred concerns delivers. For thus the Oracles³⁴ speak: “A similar fire extending itself by leaps through the waves of the air; or an unfigured fire whence a voice runs before; or a light beheld near, every way splendid, resounding and convolved. But also to behold a horse full of refulgent light; or a boy carried on the swift back of a horse,—a boy fiery, or clothed with gold, or, on the contrary, naked; or shooting an arrow, and standing on the back of the horse.” And such things as the oracles add after these, not at any time attributing either internal change, or variety, or any mutation to a divine nature, but indicating its various participations. For that which is simple in the Gods appears various to those by whom it is seen, they neither being changed, nor wishing to deceive; but nature herself giving a determination to the characteristics of the Gods, according to the measures of the participants. For that which is participated, being one, is variously participated by intellect, the rational soul, the phantasy, and sense. For the first of these participates it impartibly, the second in an expanded manner, the third accompanied with figure, and the fourth with passivity. Hence that which is participated is uniform according to the summit of its subsistence, but multiform according to participation. It is also essentially immutable and firmly established, but at different times appearing various to its participants through the imbecility of their nature. And not only these things follow, but that which is without weight appears heavy to those that are filled with it: “The miserable heart by whom I am received cannot bear³⁵ me,” says some one of the Gods. Whence Homer also perceiving the truth of these things through divine inspiration says concerning Minerva:
Loud crash’d the beechen axle with the weight,
For strong and dreadful was the power it bore³⁶.
Though here it may be said, how can that which is without weight be the cause of weight? But such as is the participant, such necessarily must that which is participated appear³⁷. Whether, therefore, some of the Gods have appeared similar to guests, or have been seen in some other form, it is not proper to attribute the apparent mutation to them, but we should say that the phantasy is varied in the different recipients. And this is one way in which the poetry of Homer delivers multiform mutations of immutable natures.
But there is another way, when a divine nature itself, which is all-powerful and full of all-various forms, extends various spectacles to those that behold it. For then, according to the variety of powers which it possesses, it is said to be changed into many forms, at different times extending different powers; always indeed energizing according to all its powers, but perpetually appearing various to the transitive intellections of souls, through the multitude which it comprehends. According to this mode, Proteus also is said to change his proper form to those that behold it, perpetually exhibiting a different appearance. For though he is subordinate to the first Gods, and immortal indeed, but not a God; the minister of Neptune, but not allotted a leading dignity; yet he is a certain angelic intellect belonging to the series of Neptune, possessing and comprehending in himself all the forms of generated natures. Idothea has the first arrangement under him; she being a certain dæmoniacal soul conjoined to Proteus as to her proper divine intellect, and connecting her intellections with his intelligible forms. Another number of rational and perpetual souls follows, which the fable denominates Phocæ. Hence Proteus is represented as numbering these, poetry indicating by this the perpetuity of their nature. For the multitude of things which are generated and perish is indefinite. Partial souls therefore beholding Proteus, who is an intellect possessing many powers and full of forms, whilst at different times they convert themselves to the different forms which he contains, fancy that the transition of their own intellections is a mutation of the intelligible objects. Hence to those that retain him he appears to become all things—
Water, and fire divine, and all that creeps
On earth.
For such forms as he possesses and comprehends, or rather such as he perpetually is, such does he appear to become when these forms are considered separately, through the divisible conception of those that behold them.
In the third place, therefore, we say that the Gods appear to be changed, when the same divinity proceeds according to different orders, and subsides as far as to the last of things, multiplying himself according to number, and descending into subject distinctions; for then again fables say, that the divinity, which supernally proceeds into this form, is changed to that into which it makes its progression. Thus they say that Minerva was assimilated to Mentor, Mercury to the bird called the sea-gull, and Apollo to a hawk; indicating by this their more dæmoniacal orders, into which they proceed from those of a superior rank. Hence, when they describe the di- vine advents of the Gods, they endeavour to preserve them formless and unfigured. Thus, when Minerva appears to Achilles³⁸, and becomes visible to him alone, the whole camp being present, there Homer does not even fabulously ascribe any form and figure to the goddess, but only says that she was present, without expressing the manner in which she was present. But when they intend to signify angelic appearances, they introduce the Gods under various forms, but these such as are total; as for instance, a human form, or one common to man or woman indefinitely. For thus, again, Neptune and Minerva were present with Achilles:
Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,
And thus in human form address the chief³⁹.
Lastly, when they relate dæmoniacal advents, then they do not think it improper to describe their mutations into individuals and partial natures; whether into particular men, or other animals. For the last of those genera that are the perpetual attendants of the Gods are manifested by these figures. And here you may see how particulars of this kind are devised according to the order of things. For that which is simple is adapted to a divine nature, that which is universal to an angelic, and the rational nature to both these; and that which is partial and irrational accords with a dæmoniacal nature: for a life of this kind is connected with the dæmoniacal order. And thus much concerning the modes according to which the Homeric fables devise mutations of things immutable, and introduce various forms to uniform natures.

### VIII. Concerning the dream sent to Agamemnon, which appears to accuse the Gods of falsehood, and how it may be shown that a divine nature is void of falsehood

It now remains that we speak concerning the dream sent by Jupiter to Agamemnon; for Socrates, at the end of his theological types, reprobates this, because the whole of a divine and dæmoniacal nature is without falsehood, as he collects by demonstrative arguments. But Homer says that Agamemnon was deceived through this dream. Though, is it not absurd, if this dream is from Jupiter, according to the assertion of the poet, that this alone nearly, of all the particulars which are mentioned as deriving their origin from Jupiter, should be attended with fraud?
In answer to this objection, we may say what is usually asserted by most of the interpreters, that the fallacy had its subsistence in the phantasy of Agamemnon. For Jupiter in his speech to the dream, and the dream again in its address to Agamemnon, evidently indicate that it would be requisite to call together all the army, and to attack the enemy with all his forces; for this is the meaning of the word πανσυδιη, which is used in both the speeches. But Agamemnon, not understanding the mandate, neglected the greatest part of his army, and, engaging in battle without the aid of Achilles, was frustrated in his expectations through his unskilfulness in judging of divine visions. So that Jupiter is not the cause of the deception, but he who did not properly understand the mandates of Jupiter.
We shall also add the solution given by our preceptor Syrianus, which both accedes to the meaning of Homer and the truth of things. For, if Jupiter is represented as providing for the honour of the hero Achilles, and consulting how he may destroy the greatest number of the Greeks, is it not necessary that he must previously comprehend in himself the cause of the deception? For, if Achilles had been associated with the army, the Greeks would not have been destroyed, nor would they have been punished for their unjust conduct towards him. It is better therefore to say that the deception was from divinity for the good of the deceived. For good is better than truth. And among the Gods, indeed, they are conjoined with each other: for neither is intellect without divinity, nor divinity without an intellectual essence. But in their participants they are often separated; and good is produced through falsehood, and truth is frustrated of good. Whence also Socrates himself, when he is framing laws for the guardians of his republic, orders falsehood to be employed, through the opinion of the stupid, who are not otherwise able to obtain the good which is adapted to their condition. If therefore it be said that divinity benefits some through truth, and others through falsehood, and at the same time leads all of them to good, it is by no means wonderful. For, of generated natures, some subsist without matter, but others with matter, in which fallacy is inherent; or, rather, matter is true fallacy itself. So that, in the providence of souls, if they are, as we have said, variously benefited by divinity, some immaterially through truth, but others materially through falsehood, such providential energy will be adapted to the nature of the Gods.
But, if it be requisite, this also may be asserted, that deception and falsehood are generated in the participant, and that this takes place according to the will of divinity, that he who has acted erroneously may through the deception become more worthy: just as that which is material is generated in these lower regions, but subsists according to demiurgic providence, that there may be generation and corruption in order to the completion of the universe. Divinity therefore does not deceive, but he who is deceived is deceived by himself; and this takes place, according to the will of divinity, for the good of him who sustains the deception. For, God making immaterially, that which is generated is generated materially; and he energizing impartibly, that which proceeds from this energy, receives its completion partibly; and he signifying intellectually, falsehood obtains a shadowy subsistence in the being that receives what is signified. But the divine poet himself manifests, that, truth dwelling with the Gods, deception is generated from the opinion of the recipients, when he makes Jupiter commanding the dream say—
All that I order tell with perfect truth.
How then is there falsehood in divinity, according to Homer? And how is divinity the cause of deception? Unless it should be said he is the cause in such a manner, as that neither is the shadowy subsistence of deception in these lower regions contrary to his will. But the habit of youth is incapable of distinguishing and contemplating, how, wholes remaining void of evil, in the natures which receive them divisibly evil appears; how, natures more excellent than ours not deceiving, we are often deceived; and how, when deceived, we suffer this according to the will of providence. Hence Socrates is not willing that young men should hear things of this kind, as being incapable of forming properly distinct opinions of things.

### IX. A common apology both for the Homeric and Platonic fables, in which they speak of the judgments in Hades, of souls, and the different allotments which they receive on departing from their bodies, according to the idioms of the life in the body

Having then discussed these things, let us examine what is written in the third book of the Republic, and, prior to other things, what the poet either himself asserts, or introduces another asserting, mythologically concerning Hades; and let us consider whether they contain any thing of truth, and accord with the narrations of Plato. What then are we to understand, when the poet represents Achilles as preferring servitude in the present life to the possession of every thing in Hades? What is the meaning of those dreadful habitations, which are odious to the Gods, of the image and the soul, of shades wandering without intellect, of lives compared to shadows, of the lamentations of souls passing thither, of their being assimilated to bats, of smoke, a crashing noise, and such like particulars, which the poems of Homer contain? What likewise are the rivers in Hades, and those appellations which are the most tragical? For these Socrates reprobates, but at the same time adds, what is common to all fables, “that they contribute to something else; but we (says he) are afraid for our guardians, lest from these terrible relations, they should think death to be dreadful.”
However, that Socrates himself in many places uses names and ænigmas of this kind, is obvious to every one. For, that I may omit the rivers mentioned in the Phædo, the wanderings of souls, their anxieties, the three roads, the punishments, the being carried in rivers, the lamentations and exclamations there, and the supplications of injurers to the injured, of all which Plato says Hades is full;—though these things should be omitted, yet does not what we find written at the end of the Republic accord with the intention of the Homeric poetry, viz. the bellowing mouth, Tartarus, fiery dæmons, the tearing off the flesh of the tyrant Aridæus, and souls full of dust and filth? For, what is there in these which falls short of the tragical in the extreme? So that for the same reason these also are to be rejected, or the Homeric doctrine is not to be reprehended. In defence of both therefore, whether some Epicurean or any other endeavours to accuse such-like fables, we say, that the habits of souls liberated from the body are different, and the places of the universe are multiform, into which they are introduced. Of these also some are so separated from mortal instruments, as neither to have any habitude to things of a worse condition, nor to be filled with the tumult which they contain, and material inanity. The vehicles of such are necessarily pure and luciform, not disturbed by material vapours, nor thickened by a terrestrial nature. But others who are not yet perfectly purified by philosophy, but are drawn down to an affection towards the testaceous body, and pursue a life conjoined with this,—these exhibit such like vehicles suspended from their essence to those who are capable of beholding them, viz. shadowy, material, drawing downwards by their weight, and attracting much of a mortal condition. Hence Socrates, in the Phædo, says that such souls, rolling about sepulchres, exhibit shadowy phantasms; and the poet relates that they are impelled along similar to shadows.
Further still, of those souls which yet embrace a corporeal life there are many differences. For some live a more practic life, and, not yet deserting a life of this kind, embrace an organ adapted to practical energies, from which when they are separated they are indignant; as was the case with the soul of Patroclus,
Which leaving youth and manhood wail’d its fate.
And when in Hades, they still desire an association with this organ, as did the soul of Achilles⁴⁰, because he preferred a life on earth to a separate life, according to which he was not able to energize, but very much excelled in an active life. Others again, through the infelicity of their condition, eagerly embrace the testaceous body, and think that the life conjoined with it differs in no respect from the proper life of the soul. Such as these the divine poetry of Homer assimilates to bats, as looking to that which is dark in the universe, and its very extremity, and which may be denominated a stupendous cavern; and as having the winged nature of the soul gross and terrestrial. Is it therefore wonderful that Achilles, who possessed practical virtue, should desire a life in conjunction with body, and which was capable of being subservient to his actions? For Hercules, being purified through the telestic science, and partaking of undefiled fruits, obtained a perfect restoration among the Gods; whence the poet says of him,
He with th’ immortal Gods delighted lives,
And beauteous Hebe crowns his joys.—
But Achilles, since he embraces rectitude in practical affairs, and the present life, pursues also and desires an instrument adapted to this life. Plato himself, therefore, also says that souls according to the manners to which they have been accustomed, make choice of secondary lives. Is not this likewise worthy of admiration in the divine tradition of Homer—I mean the separation of the soul from its image, and intellect from the soul? Also that the soul is said to use the image⁴¹, but that intellect is more divine than both these? And again, that the image and the soul may in a certain respect be known while yet detained in the body; and that the soul takes care of and providentially attends to the testaceous body, and, when this is not effected, desires its accomplishment; but that intellect is incomprehensible by our phantastic and figured motions? Hence Achilles, on beholding Patroclus speaking concerning the burial of his body, was led to believe that the soul and its image were in Hades, but that intellect was not there, nor prudence, by which these are used. For the energies of the irrational life hastened to adopt this position, but could not credit the reception of the intellectual soul in Hades from the visions of dreams.
Does it not also most perfectly accord with things themselves to say, that the multitude of souls depart from their bodies lamenting, and are divulsed from them with difficulty, through the alluring life and manifold pleasures which they enjoy in them? For every corporeal pleasure, as Socrates says in the Phædo, as if armed with a nail, fastens the soul to the body. And such souls after deserting their bodies use shadowy vehicles, which are disturbed by the ponderous and terrene vapours⁴² of the Sirens, and utter an uncertain voice, and a material sound, which the Homeric poetry denominates a crashing noise. For, as the instruments of ascending souls emit a harmonious sound, and appear to possess an elegant and well-measured motion, so the sound of more irrational souls descending under the earth is similar to a crashing noise, bearing an image of an appetitive and phantastic life alone. Nor must we think that the places in Hades, and the tribunals under the earth, and the rivers which both Homer and Plato teach us are there, are merely fabulous prodigies: but, as many and all-various places are assigned to souls ascending to the heavens, according to the allotments which are there; in like manner it is proper to believe that places under the earth are prepared for those souls that still require punishment and purification. These places, as they contain the various defluxions of the elements on the earth, are called by poets rivers and streams. They likewise contain different orders of presiding dæmons; some of whom are of an avenging, others of a punishing, others of a purifying, and, lastly, others of a judicial characteristic. But if the Homeric poetry calls these places
Horrid and dark, and odious to the Gods,
neither is it proper to condemn it for this. For souls are terrified through the variety and phantasy of the presiding dæmons which are there. The infernal region likewise is extended according to all-various allotments, adapted to the different habits of those that descend thither⁴³. It is also most remote from the Gods, as being the extremity of the universe, and as possessing much of material disorder, and never enjoying the splendor of the solar rays. And thus much concerning those verses which Socrates thinks should be obliterated, and should by no means be heard by those whom he educates: for through these, says he, the love of the soul for the body will be increased, and a separation from it will appear to be of all things most dreadful.

### X. What the causes are through which the poetry of Homer ascribes lamentations both to heroes and Gods; and likewise to the best of heroes and the greatest of the Gods

It now follows that we should consider how the poetry of Homer does not represent one of us weeping and lamenting, when he also ascribes these effects of sorrow to his heroes, but makes the Gods themselves to weep, for the death of mortals whom they loved; though, according to Plato, Socrates neither wept, nor suffered any perturbation of mind, when his familiars wept on account of his approaching death; but Apollodorus, who wept abundantly, and any other who was similarly affected, were reproved by their master. But the divine poet represents his heroes immoderately lamenting the loss of their familiars. And, though some one should say that such things as the following became Priam who was a barbarian, and more irrational in his conduct:
Roll’d in the dust he suppliant call’d on all,
And nam’d them one by one⁴⁴:
yet is it not absurd that Achilles, the son of a goddess, should at one time lie supine, at another prone, and, at another on his side, and, defiling his head with dust, weep in a very puerile manner? And even if such passions were proper in men who are allotted a mortal nature, yet they ought not to be ascribed to the Gods themselves. Why then is it requisite that Thetis should say weeping:
Ah wretched me! unfortunately brave
A son I bore⁴⁵.
For a divine nature is established very remote from pleasure and pain. But though some one should dare to introduce the Gods affected in this manner⁴⁶, yet it is not fit that the greatest of the Gods should lament and mourn both for Hector when pursued by Achilles, and for his son Sarpedon, and exclaim respecting both, Ah me! For such an imitation does not appear to be in any respect adapted to its paradigms, since it ascribes tears to things without tears, pain to things void of pain, and in short passion to things free from passion. These things Socrates reprobates in Homer, and expels from the education of youth, fearful lest some impediment should arise, through such-like assertions, to a right discipline according to virtue. For education is particularly conversant with pleasure and pain; which being increased, the legislator must necessarily be frustrated of his proper end.
To these objections we reply, that since the poet introduces heroes engaged in practical affairs, and living a life adapted to these, he very properly represents them as affected with particular events, and living conformably to such affections. For to philosophers, and those who energize cathartically, pleasures and pains, and the mixtures of these, are by no means adapted; since they are separated from these, lay aside all the trifling of mortality, and hasten to be divested of the forms of life with which they are surrounded from the elements, rapidly withdrawing themselves from material passions the offspring of generation. But pleasures, pains, sympathies, and a scene of all-various passions, are coordinated to those engaged in war, and who energize according to the passive part of the soul. And how could the vehement about actions take place, without the impulse of the appetites? Priam, therefore, and Achilles, neither being philosophers, nor willing to separate themselves from generation, nor living after the manner of the guardians of Plato’s republic,—if they lament and commiserate their familiars, it is by no means wonderful. For the loss of friends, the being destitute of children, and the subversions of cities, appear to warriors to impart a great portion of misery. The accomplishment of mighty deeds, therefore, is adapted to these, as being allotted an heroic nature; and in conjunction with this the pathetic, from their being conversant with particulars.
With respect to the Gods, however, when they are said to weep for or lament those that are most dear to them, another mode of interpretation is to be adopted, and which was formerly admitted by the authors of fables, who indicated by tears the providence of the Gods about mortal, generated, and perishable natures. For this object of providential energy naturally calling for tears afforded a pretext to the inventors of fables; and through these they obscurely signified providence itself. Hence some one, in a hymn to the Sun, says,
Phœbus, the much-enduring race of men
Thy tears excite⁴⁷.—
And on this account, in the mysteries also, we mystically assume sacred lamentations, as symbols of the providence pertaining to us from more excellent natures. Thetis therefore, and Jupiter, are said to lament those most dear to them, when in extreme danger—not that they are passively disposed after the manner of men, but because a certain separate providence proceeds from them, and gifts to particulars. And when the order of the universe concurs with this divisible providence, the preserving energy of that which provides is unimpeded; but when this order opposes, and that which is the object of a particular providence, as being a part of the universe, and allotted generation, sustains that corruption which is adapted to its nature, then fables, adducing the idiom or peculiarity of the providence which this object received according to its order, say that the powers who exert this providential energy lament, but not with exclamation: so that grief with them is a sign of the energy of a particular providence about individuals. After this manner, then, we attribute lamentations to the first Gods; since the greatest and most perfect⁴⁸ of mystical sacrifices (τελεται) deliver in the arcana certain sacred lamentations of Proserpine and Ceres, and of the greatest⁴⁹ goddess herself.
But it is by no means wonderful if the last of the genera which are the perpetual attendants of the Gods, and which proximately attend to the affairs of mortals, in consequence of employing appetites and passions, and having their life in these, should rejoice in the safety of the objects of their providence, but be afflicted and indignant when they are corrupted, and should suffer a mutation according to passions:
The Nymphs lament when trees are leafless found;
But when the trees through fertilizing rain
In leaves abound, the Nymphs rejoice again—
says a certain poet. For all things subsist divinely in the Gods, but divisibly and dæmoniacally in the divided guardians of our nature. And thus much may suffice concerning the lamentations of the Gods.

### XI. What the cause is of the laughter ascribed to the Gods in fables, and why the poetry of Homer makes the Gods to laugh immoderately at Vulcan

Let us in the next place consider whether fables properly attribute to the Gods a passion contrary to that which we have just now discussed, viz. immoderate laughter, and which is thought worthy of reprehension by Socrates.
Vulcan ministrant when the Gods beheld,
Amidst them laughter unextinguish’d rose⁵⁰.
What then is the laughter of the Gods? and why do they laugh in consequence of Vulcan moving and energizing? Theologists, therefore, say that Vulcan, as we have elsewhere observed, is the demiurgus and maker of every thing apparent⁵¹. Hence he is said to have constructed habitations for the Gods:
Then to their proper domes the Gods depart,
Form’d by lame Vulcan with transcendent art.
And this, in consequence of preparing for them mundane receptacles. He is also said to be lame in both his feet, because his fabrication is without legs. For that which is moved with a motion about intellect and prudence does not, says Timæus, require feet. He is likewise said to preside over the brazier’s art, and he himself energizes working in brass. Hence, in the poetry of Homer, heaven is often celebrated as brazen; and many other particulars confirm this opinion. But since every providential energy about a sensible nature, according to which the Gods assist the fabrication of Vulcan, is said to be the sport of divinity, hence Timæus also appears to me to call the mundane Gods junior, as presiding over things which are perpetually in generation, or becoming to be, and which may be considered as ludicrous. The authors of fables are accustomed to call this peculiarity of the providence of the Gods energizing about the world, laughter. And when the poet says that the Gods, being delighted with the motion of Vulcan, laughed with inextinguishable laughter, nothing else is indicated than that they are cooperating artificers; that they jointly give perfection to the art of Vulcan, and supernally impart joy to the universe. For Vulcan suspends all their mundane receptacles, and extends to the providence of the Gods whole physical powers. But the Gods, energizing with a facility adapted to their nature, and not departing⁵² from their proper hilarity, confer on these powers also their characteristic gifts, and move wholes by their perfective providence. In short, we must define the laughter of the Gods to be their exuberant energy in the universe, and the cause of the gladness of all mundane natures. But, as such a providence is incomprehensible, and the communication of all goods from the Gods is never-failing, we must allow that the poet very properly calls their laughter unextinguished. And here you may again see how what we have said is conformable to the nature of things. For fables do not assert that the Gods always weep, but that they laugh without ceasing. For tears are symbols of their providence in mortal and frail concerns, and which now rise into existence, and then perish; but laughter is a sign of their energy in wholes, and those perfect natures in the universe which are perpetually moved with undeviating sameness. On which account I think, when we divide demiurgic productions into Gods and men, we attribute laughter to the generation of the Gods, but tears to the formation of men and animals; whence the poet whom we have before mentioned, in his hymn to the Sun, says,
Mankind’s laborious race thy tears excite,
But the Gods, laughing, blossom’d into light.
But when we make a division into things celestial and sublunary, again after the same manner we must assign laughter to the former, and tears to the latter; and when we reason concerning the generations and corruptions of sublunary natures themselves, we must refer the former to the laughter, and the latter to the tears, of the Gods. Hence, in the mysteries also, those who preside over sacred institutions order both these to be celebrated at stated times. And we have elsewhere observed, that the stupid are neither able to understand things employed by theurgists in secrecy, nor fictions of this kind. For the hearing of both these, when unaccompanied with science, produces dire and absurd confusion in the lives of the multitude, with respect to the reverence pertaining to divinity.

### XII. An apology for those parts in the poetry of Homer, which appear in all-various ways to excite the hearers to a contempt of temperance

It now follows that we should consider whether the poems of Homer are inimical to the acquisition of temperance. The greatest species therefore of temperance, says Socrates, is reverence towards governors; the next to this is a command over the pleasures and desires of the soul; and there is a third consequent to these, which we shall shortly after contemplate. Achilles appears to have erred according to the first of these, when he freely says to the commander of all the Grecian forces,
Drunkard, dog-eyed, with heart of deer⁵³!
But Ulysses according to the third of these, when, defining the most beau tiful life, he says that he particularly approves that polity of men in which there are
The heav’n-taught poet, and enchanting strain;
The well-fill’d palace, the perpetual feast,
A land rejoicing, and a people blest!
The plenteous board high-heap’d with cates divine,
And o’er the foaming bowl the laughing wine⁵⁴!
For in these verses he places the end of life in nothing else than variety of pleasure, and the gratification of desire. Such then being the objections made by Socrates to the verses of Homer, in answer to the first we say, that those guardians which he places over his city, and who are allotted such a transcendency, on account of their erudition and virtue, over those whom they govern, demand the most abundant and the greatest honour, both from their associates and all others; as they are truly the saviours and benefactors of the whole polity over which they preside: nor is it to be supposed that the governed will ever suffer any thing unholy or unjust from them, governing as they do according to intellect and justice. But the poet neither admits that Agamemnon excells all those that are subject to him, in virtue, nor in benefiting others; but he ranks him among those that are benefited by others, and particularly by the military science of Achilles. Very properly, therefore, does he represent him as reviled by those more excellent than himself, and consider the general good of the governed, against which Agamemnon sinned, as of more consequence than gratifying the passions of the chief. The poet therefore introduces the best of the Greeks freely speaking to Agamemnon, without regarding the multitude of soldiers that followed him, or his naval power. For virtue is every where honourable, but not the instruments of virtue. We must not therefore say, that he who employs such disgraceful epithets sins against the rulers and saviours of the whole army, when they are only superior by the multitude of those that are subject to their command, but are far inferior in virtue. For even the commander himself of so great an army, and so difficult to be numbered, acknowledges, a little after, how much Achilles excels him in virtue, laments his own infelicity, and says,
For I have err’d, nor this will I deny.
And,
That happy man whom Jove still honours most,
Is more than armies, and himself an host.
With respect to the words of Ulysses, we may say in their defence, that every thing of this kind is interpreted more symbolically by those who transfer to other conceptions his wanderings, and who think it proper to rank both the Phæacians and their felicity⁵⁵ higher than human nature. For with them the festival, the dainties, and the enchanting strain, have a different signification from that which is obvious to the multitude. It may also be said, that even those who do not depart from the apparent meaning of the poet, may nevertheless reply to such objections, and show, in the first place, that Ulysses, the wisest of the Greeks, does not think it fit that pleasure should have dominion in well-instituted polities, but worthy joy (ευφροσυνη). And how much these differ from each other, we may learn from Plato himself. In the second place, Ulysses approves of the whole city becoming harmonized and unanimous with itself through music, being an auditor of such melodies as lead to virtue. For it is of great consequence to the whole polity, and to true erudition and virtue, that he who exercises music among the vulgar should not be any casual person, but one who derives his knowledge of it supernally through divine inspiration, from its presiding deity. In the third place, such harmony, to those that partake of it, adds an abundance of things necessary, which the multitude in cities very much require. For Ulysses does not remarkably praise a life filled with things of this kind, but that life which is in want of nothing necessary to mortal existence. The wisest of the Greeks, therefore, appears to speak conformably to our dogmas, and to unperverted preconceptions respecting divine felicity. But if Ulysses thought that he deserves approbation who takes away worthy delight, and the discipline subsisting through divine music, alone regarding feasting, and immoderate enjoyments, destitute of the Muse, and directs his attention to pleasure, Socrates with great propriety says that things of this kind are remote from his polity. For it is by no means fit that immoderate pleasure, and a life adapted to gluttony, should have dominion in a city consisting of the happy.

### XIII. What the connexion of Jupiter with Juno obscurely signifies; what the ornament of Juno is; and what the place in which they were connected. What the love of Jupiter signifies; what the divine sleep is; and, in short, the whole interpretation of that fable

To such objections therefore of Socrates it is not difficult to reply; but a doubt yet remains to be solved by us, greater and more difficult, respecting the connexion of Jupiter with Juno; for this Socrates reprehends, as by no means fit to be heard by youth. For, does it not appear to be perfectly impious, to suspect of the greatest of the Gods, that through his love to Juno he should be forgetful of all his former decrees, should have connexion with the goddess on the ground, not waiting to enter into her bedchamber, and should condescend to speak in the language of human lovers? For these in the first place prefer before all things a conjunction with the objects of their love; and in the next place say, that they experience the power of love more than in any former time. For Jupiter is made to speak in this manner in the following verses:
Ne’er did my soul so strong a passion prove,
Or for an earthly, or a heavenly love⁵⁶.
And also that he loved her more
Than when, ascending to the nuptial couch,
In love they mingled, from their parents hid.
Our preceptor⁵⁷ in a most divinely inspired manner has unfolded the occult theory of this fable; from whose writings extracting as much as is sufficient to the present purpose, we shall briefly explain the several parts of the fable, and show that Homer is free from all blasphemy in the preceding verses.
All the divine orders, therefore, proceeding from the one principle of wholes, which Plato usually calls the good, and from those biformed causes proximately appearing after this principle, which Socrates in the Philebus denominates bound and infinity, but other wise men have venerated by other names; these orders likewise being divided and separated from each other, in a manner adapted to the Gods, through those second biformed principles,—the interpreters of the truth concerning the Gods usually oppose in their divisions the male to the female, the even to the odd, and the paternal to the maternal genera. But these divine orders again hastening to union and a connate communion, through the first cause, which is the leader of united goods to all beings, hence I think the authors of fables took occasion in their symbolical theory to ascribe marriage to the Gods, connexions, and a progeny from these, and also celebrated the connexions and conjunctions of their progeny, till they had perfectly contemplated the whole extent of a divine nature, diversified by such like progressions and conjunctions supernally, as far as to mundane natures. As therefore, among the Gods prior to the fabrication of the world, they celebrate the connexions of Saturn and Rhea, of Heaven and Earth, and their cogenerations, in the same manner also, among the fabricators of the universe, they inform us that the first conjunction is that of Jupiter and Juno; Jupiter being allotted a paternal dignity, but Juno being the mother of every thing of which Jupiter is the father. The former likewise produces all things in the rank of a monad, but the latter in conjunction with him gives subsistence to secondary natures, according to the prolific duad: and the former is assimilated to intelligible bound, but the latter to intelligible infinity. For, according to every order of Gods, it is requisite that there should be primary causes subsisting analogously to those two principles. But, to the union of these greatest divinities, it is necessary that there should previously subsist a oneness of transcendency of the monadic and demiurgic God, and a perfect conversion to him of the generative and dyadic cause. For the connate communion of more excellent natures is after this manner effected, more elevated causes being established in themselves, and in natures more divine than themselves, but such as are subordinate giving themselves up to those that are superior. Through these causes, as it appears to me, Juno hastening to a connexion with Jupiter, perfects her whole essence, and prepares it with all-various powers, the undefiled, the generative, the intellectual, and the unific; but Jupiter excites the divine love in himself, according to which he also fills his proximate participants with good, and extends to them a cause collective of multitude, and an energy convertive of secondary natures to himself.
But the union and indissoluble conjunction of both these divinities is effected separate from the universe, and exempt from the mundane receptacles. For Jupiter elevates to this communion, Juno extending to him that which is subordinate and mundane; the Gods indeed being always united, but fables separating them from each other; and referring a connexion separate⁵⁸ from the universe to the will of Jupiter, but the common cooperation of these divinities proceeding into the world, to the providence of Juno. The reason of this is, that every where the paternal cause is the leader of exempt and more uniform good, but the maternal of that good which is proximate to its participants, and is multiplied according to all-various progressions. With great propriety, therefore, are sleep and wakefulness usurped separately in the symbols of fables; wakefulness manifesting the providence of the Gods about the world, but sleep a life separate from all subordinate natures; though the Gods at the same time both providentially energize about the universe, and are established in themselves. But as Timæus represents the demiurgus of wholes, at one time energizing, and giving subsistence to the earth, the heavens, the planets, the fixed stars, the circles of the soul, and the mundane intellect, but at another time abiding in himself, after his accustomed manner, and exempt from all those powers that energize in the universe; so, long before Timæus, fables represent the father of all mundane natures, at one time awake, and at another asleep, for the purpose of indicating his twofold life and energy. “For he contains intelligibles in his intellect, but introduces sense to the worlds⁵⁹,” says one of the Gods. According to the former energy, therefore, he may be said to be awake; for wakefulness with us is an energy of sense; but according to the latter to sleep, as separated from sensibles, and exhibiting a life defined according to a perfect intellect. It may also be said, that he consults about human affairs when awake; for according to this life he provides for all mundane concerns; but that when asleep, and led together with Juno to a separate union, he is not forgetful of the other energy, but, possessing and energizing according to it, at the same time contains both. For he does not, like nature, produce secondary things without intelligence, nor through intelligence is his providence in subordinate natures diminished, but at the same time he both governs the objects of his providence according to justice, and ascends to his intelligible watch-tower. The fable, therefore, indicates this exempt transcendency, when it says that his connexion with Juno was on mount Ida; for there Juno arriving gave herself to the embraces of the mighty Jupiter. What else, then, shall we say mount Ida obscurely signifies, but the region of ideas and an intelligible nature, to which Jupiter ascends, and elevates Juno through love;—not converting himself to the participant, but through excess of goodness imparting this second union with himself, and with that which is intelligible? For such are the loves of more excellent natures,—they are convertive of things subordinate to things first, give completion to the good which they contain, and are perfective of subject natures. The fable, therefore, does not diminish the dignity of the mighty Jupiter, by representing him as having connexion on the ground with Juno, and refusing to enter into her bed-chamber; for by this it insinuates that the connexion was supermundane, and not mundane. The chamber, therefore, constructed by Vulcan indicates the orderly composition of the universe, and the sensible region; for Vulcan, as we have said before, is the artificer of the universe.
If you are also willing to consider the dress of Juno, through which she conjoined herself to the greatest of the Gods, and called forth the paternal providence of Jupiter to a communion with her own prolific powers, you will, I think, in a still greater degree behold the excess of the separate union of the Gods, celebrated in this fable. For she assimilates herself all-variously to the mother of the Gods, from whom she also proceeds, and is adorned with the more partial powers of those natures which presubsist in her totally, and, becoming all but another Rhea, proceeds to the demiurgus of the universe, who had then ascended to his proper intelligible. For she who is about to be conjoined with him who imitates his father, through a life separate from mundane natures, assimilates also her own perfection to the mother of all the divine orders, and thus enters into a connate communion with him. The hairs therefore of the Goddess, and her ringlets widely spreading, which she again binds, are evidently analogous to the hairs of the mother of the Gods: “for her hairs appear similar to rays of light ending in a sharp point,” says some one of the Gods. And the poet calls the hairs of Juno shining. But her zone, with the fringes depending on and not cut off from it, resembles the whole and all-perfect girdle of Rhea. For Juno also is a vivific Goddess, and is generative of all the multitude of souls, which the number of the depending fringes symbolically indicates. Her ear-rings and her sandals represent the first and the last of the partial⁶⁰ powers which flow from thence, some of which subsist about the highest powers of the Goddess, and thence depend, but others are situated about her lowest progressions. The ambrosia and the oil are signs of the undefiled powers of the Goddess; for the inflexible⁶¹ order of Gods subsists about her. What therefore that untamed genus of Gods and cause of purity is to Juno, that is here signified through these symbols. For ambrosia represents a power superior to all impurity and all defilement, and oil, as it produces strength, and is adapted to gymnastic exercises, properly belongs to Curetic deity. For the first Curetes are in other respects ascribed to the order of Minerva, and are said by Orpheus to be crowned with a branch of olive.
The Goddess, therefore, being perfectly furnished with such like sym bols, and becoming as it were a partial Rhea, proceeds to the demiurgus of the universe, that she may be conjoined with him according to that life by which he particularly imitates Saturn; not proceeding into the universe, but being separate from mundane natures; nor consulting about things which are here, according to the sleepless providence of wholes, but exempt from sensibles, according to divine sleep; and in this respect emulating his father, who is represented as sleeping the first of the Gods.
When Saturn tasted the deceitful food,
Loud snoring lay the God.
Since therefore Jupiter thus imitates his father Saturn, with great propriety does the dress of Juno regard the whole of Rhea; and hence Jupiter, through his similitude to Saturn, prefers a connexion on mount Ida to that which proceeds into the universe.
The girdle also, and the assistance of Venus, assimilate Juno still more to Rhea. For there also was the presubsisting monad of this Goddess, proceeding supernally from the connective divinity of Heaven, through Saturn as a medium, and illuminating the whole of an intellectual life with the light of beauty. Venus is said to carry this girdle in her bosom, as possessing its powers conspicuously extended; but Juno after a manner conceals it in her bosom, as being allotted a different idiom of hyparxis, but as possessing the girdle also, so far as she likewise is filled with the whole of Venus. For she does not externally derive the power which conjoins her with the demiurgus, but comprehends it also in herself. But the general opinion of mankind evinces the communion of these Goddesses: for they honour Juno as Nuptial and Pronuba, as beginning such like energies from herself. For she conjoins herself with the demiurgus through the girdle in herself; and hence she likewise imparts to all others a legitimate communion with each other.
But how are Jupiter and Juno said to have been at first connected with each other, concealed from their parents, but that now they are connected in a greater degree, through the excess of love with which Jupiter then loved Juno? Shall we say that the peculiarities of other goods are also twofold; and that, of union, one kind is connate to those that are united, but that the other supernally proceeds to them from more perfect causes? According to the former of these, therefore, they are said to be concealed from their parents, in consequence of being allotted this union as peculiar to themselves; but according to the other they are levated to their causes, and hence this is said to be a greater and more perfect union than the former. But both these unions eternally subsisting together, with the Gods, fables separate them, in the same manner as sleep and wakefulness, progression and conversion, a communication of proper goods to things secondary, and a participation of primary causes: for these the authors of fables, concealing the truth, separate, though they are consubsistent with each other. Every thing, therefore, is asserted by Homer respecting the connexion of the great Jupiter and Juno after a theological manner; which is also testified by Socrates in the Cratylus, who derives the etymology of Juno from nothing else than love, as being, says he, lovely to Jupiter. According to an occult theory, therefore, we must not accuse Homer for writing such things concerning these mighty divinities. But if it should be objected, that things of this kind are not fit to be heard by youth, according to their apparent signification, poets the authors of such fables will say, Our fables are not for youth, nor did we write such things with a view to juvenile discipline, but with an insane mouth; for these are the productions of the mania of the Muses, of which whoever being deprived arrives at the poetic gates, will be both as to himself and his poetry imperfect. And thus much may suffice for these particulars.

### XIV. What the mythology of Homer obscurely signifies concerning Venus and Mars, and the bonds of Vulcan, with which both are said to be bound

Let us now consider the connexion between Mars and Venus, and the bonds of Vulcan. For Socrates says that neither must these be admitted, nor must such fables be delivered to youth. Let us, therefore, concisely relate what the poetry of Homer obscurely signifies by these things. Both these divinities then, I mean Vulcan and Mars, energize about the whole world, the latter separating the contrarieties of the universe, which he also perpetually excites, and immutably preserves, that the world may be perfect, and filled with forms of every kind; but the former artificially fabricating the whole sensible order, and filling it with physical reasons and powers. He also fashions twenty tripods about the heavens, that he may adorn them with the most perfect of many-sided⁶² figures, and fabricates various and many-formed sublunary species,
Clasps, winding bracelets, necklaces, and chains⁶³.
Both these divinities require the assistance of Venus to their energies; the one, that he may insert order and harmony in contraries; and the other, that he may introduce beauty and splendour as much as possible, into sensible fabrications, and render this world the most beautiful of things visible. But, as Venus is every where, Vulcan always enjoys her according to the superior, but Mars according to the inferior, orders of things. Thus, for instance, if Vulcan is supermundane, Mars is mundane; and if the former is cœlestial, the latter is sublunary. Hence the one is said to have married Venus according to the will of Jupiter, but the other is fabled to have committed adultery with her. For a communion with the cause of beauty and conciliation is natural to the demiurgus of sensibles; but is in a certain respect foreign to the power which presides over division, and imparts the contrariety of mundane natures; for the separating are opposed to the collective genera of Gods. Fables therefore denominate this conspiring union of dissimilar causes adultery. But a communion of this kind is necessary to the universe, that contraries may be co-harmonized, and the mundane war terminate in peace. Since, however, on high among cœlestial natures, beauty shines forth, together with forms, elegance, and the fabrications of Vulcan, but beneath, in the realms of generation, the opposition and war of the elements, contrariety of powers, and in short the gifts of Mars, are conspicuous, on this account the sun from on high beholds the connexion of Mars and Venus, and discloses it to Vulcan, in consequence of cooperating with the whole productions of this divinity. But Vulcan is said to throw over them all-various bonds, unapparent to the other Gods, as adorning the mundane genera with artificial reasons, and producing one system from martial contrarieties, and the co-harmonizing goods of Venus. For both are necessary to generation. Since too, of bonds, some are cœlestial, but others sublunary (for some are indissoluble, as Timæus says, but others dissoluble); on this account, Vulcan again dissolves the bonds with which he had bound Mars and Venus, and this he particularly accomplishes in compliance with the request of Neptune; who being willing that the perpetuity of generation should be preserved, and the circle of mutation revolve into itself, thinks it proper that generated natures should be corrupted, and things corrupted be sent back again to generation. What wonder is it, then, if Homer says that Mars and Venus were bound by the bonds of Vulcan, since Timæus also denominates those demiurgic reasons bonds, by which the cœlestial Gods give subsistence to generated natures? And does not Homer speak conformably to the nature of things when he says the bonds were dissolved, since these are the bonds of generation? Indeed the demiurgus of wholes, by composing the world from contrary elements, and causing it through analogy to be in friendship with itself, appears to have collected into union the energies of Vulcan, Mars and Venus. In producing the contrarieties of the elements, too, he may be said to have generated them according to the Mars which he contains in himself; but, in devising friendship, to have energized according to the power of Venus. And in binding together the productions of Venus with those of Mars, he appears to have previously comprehended in himself, paradigmatically, the art of Vulcan. He is therefore all things, and energizes in conjunction with all the Gods. The junior artificers also, imitating their father, fabricate mortal animals, and again receive them when they are corrupted, generating, in conjunction with Vulcan, sublunary bonds, and previously containing in themselves the causes of their solution. For every where, he who comprehends in himself a bond, knows also the necessity of its solution.

### XV. What must be said to the animadversions of Socrates, respecting the avarice ascribed by Homer to his heroes

Let us now consider those places in the poems of Homer, which, according to Socrates, increase the love of riches in our souls. For why does Phœnix advise Achilles to receive gifts when he lays aside his anger, but otherwise not to lay it aside? Why also does Achilles receive gifts from Agamemnon for his insolence, and refuse to restore the dead body of Hector, unless it was redeemed with money? For he who becomes an auditor of things of this kind is in danger of falling into a dire and insatiable avarice. To these objections we shall briefly say, that Phœnix advises Achilles to lay aside his anger on receiving the gifts, and Achilles, on receiving them, did lay it aside, both of them considering the gifts as an argument of the repentance of the giver; but not that they might satisfy the avaricious disposition of their soul, nor considering an increase of riches as the boundary of felicity. For they did not from the first demand these presents, but received them when they were spontaneously offered. But if Achilles restored the dead body of Hector to Priam, on its being redeemed by money, perhaps we may say that it was at that time customary to receive a ransom for the bodies of enemies. This also must be considered, that it belongs to the art of commanding an army, to cut off the riches of the enemy, but to increase the property of those who are compelled to oppose the enemy in a foreign country. But all these and such-like particulars may be defended as the transactions of those heroes who energized according to circumstances, and whose actions are to be estimated according to other manners than those of common men: they are, however, entirely unfit to be heard by those educated under the legislator of Socrates, whose geniuses are philosophic, whose erudition regards a philosophic life, and who are entirely deprived of possessions and property.
If you are willing, we may also add to what has been said respecting Achilles, that he himself accuses Agamemnon of avarice, and reprobates this passion as disgraceful.
Atrides, who in glory art the first,
And no less avaricious than renown’d⁶⁴!
Besides, he indicates to us his contempt of wealth, when he says to Agamemnon,
Thine in each contest is the wealthy prey,
Though mine the sweat and danger of the day.
Some trivial present to my ships I bear,
Or barren praises pay the wounds of war⁶⁵.
Further still, neither would he accept the gifts at first, when they were offered by Agamemnon, because he dd not think it was then fit to be reconciled to him. So that it was not the promise of riches which made him more mild to Agamemnon, by whom he had been treated with insolence; but, when he thought it was proper to lay aside his anger, he prepared himself for battle that he might revenge his friend. And when Agamemnon sent him the gifts, he neither looked at them, nor thought that any accession would thence be made to his own goods, Besides, his contempt of these things is evident from the multitude of rewards proposed by him in the funeral games: for he honoured the several champions with proper gifts; and magnificently bestowed upon Nestor, who through his age was unable to engage in the games, a golden bowl. How therefore, according to Homer, could he be avaricious, who used riches in a proper manner, who when they were present despised them, when absent did not anxiously desire them, and could endure to receive less of them than others? To which we may add, that he reprobated, in the midst of the Greeks, that passion of the soul as a disease, which aspires after immoderate wealth. How likewise can it be said that Phœnix was the teacher of avarice, who exhorts Achilles to imitate the antient custom of the Greeks? For he says,
Thus antient heroes, when with rage inflam’d,
By words were soften’d, and by gifts appeas’d⁶⁶.
But these things, which are adapted to heroic times, and to the customs which then subsisted among heroes, were considered by Homer as deserving the highest imitation; though they are by no means adapted to the youth educated by Socrates, who are assigned no other employment by the legislator, than discipline and the study of virtue. But an attention to riches, and such things as are necessary to the preservation of the life of mortals, is assigned to others who are necessary to the perfection of an inferior republic.

### XVI. In what manner it is requisite to apologize for the negligence of heroes respecting a divine nature, which appears to take place in the poetry of Homer

It now follows that we should consider how we are to answer Socrates, when he accuses Achilles of negligence respecting a divine nature. For how can he be pious and a worshipper of the Gods, who dares to say to Apollo,
Me thou hast injur’d most pernicious God⁶⁷?
who also opposes the river Xanthus though a God, and presents his locks to the dead body of Patroclus, though he had promised them to the river Sperchius? That Achilles therefore, according to Homer, was remarkably cautious respecting a divine nature, is evident from his advising the Greeks to reverence Apollo, to send a sacrifice to him, and to appease Chryses the priest of Apollo. This also follows from his readily obeying the commands of Minerva, when she appeared to him, though contrary to the impulse of his wrath. He likewise asserts that a subserviency to the Gods, and a compliance with the will of more excellent natures, is of all things the most useful; and offers a libation and prays to Jupiter, with science adapted to the Gods. For his first purifying the bowl, and in an especial manner consecrating it to Jupiter alone, and standing in the middle of the enclosure, invoking the power that pervades every where from the middle of the universe, afford a sufficiently conspicuous argument of his piety to a divine nature, and of his knowledge of the signs adapted to the objects of worship.
But if he appears to have spoken to Apollo more boldly than is fit, it is requisite to know that the Apolloniacal orders pervade from on high, as far as to the last of things; and some of them are divine, others angelic, and others dæmoniacal, and these multiformly divided. It must be considered, therefore, that these words were not addressed to a God, but to a dæmoniacal Apollo, and this not the first in rank, and coordinated with those that have a total dominion, but one who proximately presides over individuals; and, in short, (for why should I not speak clearly?) the guardian of Hector himself. For the poet perspicuously says,
Apollo now before Achilles stood,
In all things like Agenor——
This Apollo, therefore, Achilles calls most pernicious, so far as he was a hindrance to his actions, by preserving his enemy uninjured. Nor does he by thus speaking sin against a God, but against a power who ranks amongst the most partial of the Apolloniacal series. For it is not proper to refer either all the speeches or energies to that first Apollo, but we should also attend to his second and third progressions. Thus, for instance, we should consider who the Apollo is that sits with Jupiter and the Olympian Gods; who, that convolves the solar sphere; who the aërial Apollo is; who the terrestrial; who, that presides over Troy; and who, that is the peculiar guardian of Hector, concerning whom the poet also says,
He fled to Hades by Apollo left.
For, by looking to all these orders, we shall be able to refer the speeches of Achilles to some such partial power, who was willing to preserve the object of his care, and impede Achilles in his strenuous exertions. For the words “thou hast injured me” are very properly addressed to a dæmon of this kind, who deprives him of the end of his present labours; and the epithet “most pernicious” clearly evinces that this power is more adverse to him than any other God or dæmon. For he who preserves uninjured a principal enemy, becomes more than any one noxious to the person injured, by impeding his avenging the injury. But, as such language even to such an inferior power is not unattended with punishment, it is said that Achilles shortly after was slain by a certain power of the Apolloniacal order, which Hector when he was dying thus predicts to him:
Paris and Phœbus shall avenge my fate,
And stretch thee here before this Scæan gate.
Does not therefore the poetry of Homer by these things make us more modest respecting a divine nature, since we learn from it that even the most subordinate powers cannot be offended with impunity? Though I am not ignorant that those who are skilled in mystic sacrifices dare many things of this kind respecting dæmons; but perhaps they are defended by more divine natures from sustaining any such injury from subordinate powers. In the mean time justice follows other men, correcting the improbity of their speech.
It is also not difficult to reply to what is said in objection to the contest of Achilles with the river Xanthus. For he was not disobedient to the God himself, but he either contended with the apparent water which hindered his impulse against the enemy, or with some one of the indigenous powers, the associate of the Gods in battle: for Minerva and Neptune were present with him, and afforded him assistance. And it appears to me, indeed, that the poetry of Homer devises contests according to all possible diversities; sometimes relating the battles of men with men, and sometimes of the more excellent genera with each other, as in what is called theomachy, or the battles of the Gods; and sometimes, as in the instance before us, the oppositions of heroes to certain dæmoniacal natures; indicating to those that are able to understand things of this kind, that the first of last natures are after a manner equal to the last of such as are first, and particularly when they are guarded and moved by the Gods. Hence, not only Achilles is said to have contended with Xanthus, but Hercules also with the river Achelous, of whose life Achilles being emulous, he did not avoid similar contests.
Lastly, we may solve the third of the proposed inquiries by saying that the first and principal design of Achilles was, on returning to his country, to offer to the river Sperchius his locks, as he had promised; but when he despaired of his return, in consequence of hearing from his mother,
Soon after Hector shall thy death succeed,
was it not then necessary that he should cut off his hair in honour of his friend? For Socrates in Plato received the crowns which Alcibiades was to have offered to a God, and was crowned with them; nor did he think that he sinned by so doing, or injured the young man. I omit to say that the hairs of Achilles were not yet sacred to the river: for he who had promised to consecrate them on his return, when deprived of this, was also deprived of the consecration of his hairs.

### XVII. An apology for the unworthy treatment of the dead body of Hector, and for the twelve Trojans slain and burnt on the funeral pile of Patroclus, since these things evidently appear to be cruel, absurd, and unbecoming the character of heroes

It now remains that we consider the conduct of Achilles to Hector, his dragging him round the tomb of Patroclus, and his sacrificing twelve Trojan youths on his pile; for these things, says Socrates, cannot be truly ascribed to Achilles, who was the son of a Goddess, and of the most temperate Peleus descended from Jupiter, and who was educated by the wise Chiron. In the first place, then, it is said by the antients that this was the custom of the Thessalians, as the Cyrenæan poet also testifies, when he informs us, “that it is an antient Thessalian custom, to drag round the tomb of the slain the body of the slaughterer.”
Achilles therefore thus acted conformably to the custom of his country, that all due honours might be paid to the funeral of Patroclus. But if Hector dragged Patroclus when a dead body, threatened to cut off his head, and cast his corpse to the Trojan dogs, which is also told to Achilles by Iris—
A prey to dogs he dooms the corse to lie,
And marks the place to fix his head on high⁶⁸.
Rise and prevent (if yet you think of fame)
Thy friend’s disgrace, thy own eternal shame!
does not Achilles, therefore, inflict a proper punishment on Hector, in dragging him round the tomb of Patroclus? For thus he both revenges the cruelty of Hector, and openly testifies his benevolence to his friend. He does not, however, accomplish what he intended; for he restores the dead body of Hector to his friends, and suffers him to be buried. He therefore who introduces such measures to his actions energizes according to the whole of justice, and the providence of the Gods. Hence the poet also says, that, by complying with the will of more excellent natures, he was rendered so mild with respect to Hector, that with his own hands he placed him on the bier.
Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread,
They leave, to cover and inwrap the dead;
Then call the handmaids with assistant toil
To wash the body, and anoint with oil.
This done, the garments o’er the corse they spread;
Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed⁶⁹.
Achilles, therefore, performed every thing pertaining to the dead in a manner adapted to his character. For he illustriously honoured his friend by the vengeance which he inflicted on his enemy, and, afterwards becoming more mild, behaved with great philanthropy to Priam, and paid him the utmost attention and respect.
With respect to the Trojan youths that were slaughtered at the funeral pile of Patroclus, it may be said, that by this action, according to appearance, Achilles perfectly honoured his friend, and that he did nothing more to these Trojans than he was accustomed to do to other enemies, viz. slaying those whom he happened to meet. For what difference is there between dying at a funeral pyre, or in a river? Does he not indeed act better by these, whose bodies were totally destroyed by fire, than by those whose bodies were torn in pieces by savage beasts, and who suffer the same things with Lycaon? to whom Achilles says,
Lie there, Lycaon! let the fish surround
Thy bloated corse, and suck thy gory wound⁷⁰.
But if it be requisite to recall to our memory the more occult speculations of our preceptor respecting these particulars, we must say that the whole transaction of Achilles concerning the pyre imitates the immortalizing of the soul (της ψυχης αποθανατισμος) by theurgists, and pertains to the separate soul of Patroclus. Hence, before the pyre was enkindled, he is said to have invoked the winds, the north and the west, that the apparent vehicle of Patroclus, through their visible motion, might obtain a convenient culture, and that the vehicle, which is more divine than this, might be invisibly purified, and restored to its proper allotment, “being drawn upwards by aërial, lunar and solar splendors,” as one of the Gods somewhere asserts. It is also related of him, that he made a libation all night on the pyre:
All night Achilles hails Patroclus’ soul
With large libations from the golden bowl⁷¹.
The poet all but proclaiming to us, in these verses, that Achilles was busily employed about the soul of his friend, and not about his visible body only, and that all things are symbolically usurped by him. For the libation from a golden bowl signifies the defluxion of souls from their fountain; which defluxion imparts a more excellent life to a partial soul, and is able through undefiled purity to lead it from bodies to an invisible and divine condition of being. And, in short, many arguments in confirmation of this opinion may be derived from the writings of our preceptor.
Since then it appears that Achilles celebrated the funeral of Patroclus mystically, it may be not improperly said, that these twelve Trojans that were slaughtered at the pyre were coordinated as attendants with the soul of Patroclus, the ruling nature of which was both known and reverenced by Achilles. Hence, he chose this number as most adapted to attendants, and as sacred to the all-perfect progressions of the Gods⁷². By no means, therefore, did Achilles slay these Trojans from a certain dire and savage cruelty of soul, but performed the whole of this transaction in conformity with certain sacred laws pertaining to the souls of those that die in battle. Nor ought he to be accused of a proud contempt of Gods and men; nor ought we to deny that he was the son of a Goddess and Peleus, and the disciple of Chiron, for acting in this manner. For some of his actions he performed as regarding universal justice, others as a warrior, and others as employing sacred methods. But in all these the poet has perfectly preserved the measures of imitation. And such is the answer to all that Socrates objects to in Homer, as deserving reprehension.
But if any one should say that the fable is not to be admitted, which says that Theseus and Pirithoüs ravished Helen, and descended into Hades, perhaps these things also, which are asserted more mythologically, may be properly solved by saying that these heroes, being lovers both of unapparent and visible beauty, are fabled to have ravished Helen, and to have descended into the invisible regions; and that, when there, one of them (Pirithoüs), through the elevation, of his intellect was led back by Hercules, but that the other in a certain respect remained in Hades, from not being able to raise himself to the arduous altitude of contemplation. And though some one should contend that this is not the true meaning of the fable, it does not affect the poetry of Homer, which every where attributes, according to imitation, that which is adapted to the Gods, to the genera more excellent than human nature, and to heroic lives; indicating some things more occultly, teaching us other particulars about these things, with intellect and science, and leaving no genus of beings uninvestigated, but delivering each as energizing with respect to itself and other things, according to its own order.

## Introduction to the Laws

Plato, in composing the following books of Laws after his Republic, appears to have acted in perfect conformity to the genius of his philosophy, which every where ascends to things more universal and thence descends to things more particular, and contends that the latter can only be accurately known by contemplating the former. As, therefore, in his Republic, or, the great polity, he assigned all things in common, so here he distributes land and a habitation, a wife and children, to every individual.
The Athenian guest, the chief speaker in this Dialogue, is Plato himself, as is well observed by the Greek Scholiast, whom we have frequently cited in the Notes to the Republic. For this guest observes, in the course of the Laws, that he had already completed two polities; so that either these must be the polities of Plato, or, if this is not admitted, Plato will be the same with the Athenian guest. Plato, therefore, travelling to Crete, met near Cnossus with Megillus the Lacedæmonian, and Clinias the Cretan, whom, together with nine others, the Cnossians had invited to their country that they might there establish a colony, build a city, and give it laws. Megillus then and Clinias, says the Scholiast, betook themselves to the sacred cavern of Jupiter, which was the most holy of all others, and in which the most venerable and arcane of the mysteries were performed⁷³. The Athenian guest meeting with these two, and having asked them in what design they were engaged, they replied, In the establishment of laws. However, as they had been asked many things concerning laws by the guest, and had by no means satisfactorily answered his questions, and as he appeared to them to be well skilled in the subject, they request him to assist them in framing laws for the city.
The genius of Plato in composing these laws is truly admirable; for, prompted by a philanthropy of which a resemblance has from time im memorial been rarely seen, he has devised certain exhortatory introductions, which he calls prefaces, to the several laws, that the citizens may be led by persuasion, and not by terror, to act legally, and that they may spontaneously obey the laws as paternal injunctions, and not unwillingly submit to them as the mandates of a tyrant. The observation, therefore, of Seneca⁷⁴, that ‘nothing can be more trifling, nothing more frigid, than a law with a prologue,’ is frigid and trifling in the extreme, when applied, as Seneca does apply it, to Plato’s prefaces to his Laws. But Seneca was ignorant of the benevolent intention of the divine philosopher, in this instance, and perfectly unskilled in his doctrines. Can the objections, therefore, of such a Roman be of any weight against such a Greek?
In short, Plato, in this work, appears to have most happily blended the Socratic philanthropy with the Pythagoric intellectual elevation. Hence, besides an easy accommodation to familiar discourse, and the ethical peculiarity, in the tenth book, in perfect conformity to the dogmas of the Pythagoræans, he demonstrates the existence of the Gods and Providence, and shows that the divinities possess immutable perfection. This book, indeed, may be considered as forming one of the most important parts of the writings of Plato, as it indisputably proves that he was a firm believer in the religion of his country, and that, when properly understood, the theology of the Pagans is the ne plus ultra of sublimity. An introduction, therefore, of considerable extent will be prefixed to that book, which I earnestly recommend to the diligent perusal of the liberal reader.

## Introduction to the Tenth Book of The Laws

TO THE TENTH BOOK OF THE LAWS.
The following book may be justly considered as forming one of the most important parts of the works of Plato, as it demonstrates the existence of divine natures, the immediate progeny of the ineffable principle of things; and shows that they provide for all things, and govern the universe with justice. It is also important in another point of view, as it incontestably proves that Plato firmly believed in the religion of his country; though this has often been denied by those who, being ignorant of its real nature, have had no conceptions of its unequalled sublimity. As Proclus, therefore, with his usual depth and fecundity of conception, has admirably elucidated Plato’s doctrine on these three important subjects, in his first book On the Theology of Plato, the following translation from that book is subjoined for the benefit of the reader:
I. In the Laws these three things are asserted by Plato: That there are Gods, that they providentially attend to all things, and that they conduct all things according to justice, and receive no perversion from subordinate natures. That these, then, are the principal of all theological dogmas, is obvious to every one. For, what is more principal than the hyparxis of the Gods, or than beneficent providence, or immutable and undeviating power? through which the Gods produce secondary natures uniformly, and preserve and convert them to themselves with perfect purity: they indeed governing others, but being in no respect passive to things subordinate, nor changed together with the variety of the objects of their providential energy. We shall learn, however, in what manner these things are naturally distinguished, if we endeavour first to comprehend by a reasoning process the scientific method of Plato in each of these subjects, and, prior to the rest, by what irreprehensible arguments he proves that there are Gods; and, in the next place, consider the problems which are suspended from this.
Of all beings, then, it is necessary that some should move only, that others should be moved only, and that the natures which subsist between these should both be moved and move; and this in such a manner, that either they must necessarily be moved by others, and move others, or be self-motive. These four hypostases⁷⁵ succeed each other in an orderly progression. For, prior to that which is moved only, and is passive to other primary causes, is that which moves others, and is moved by others; and beyond this is the self-motive nature, originating from itself, and, in consequence of moving itself, imparting to others also the representation of being moved. And after all those which participate of efficient or passive motion the immovable nature succeeds. For every thing self-motive, as possessing its perfection in a life attended with mutation and interval, is suspended from another more antient cause, which always subsists according to the same things, and after the same manner, and whose life is not according to time, but in eternity: for time is the image of eternity. If, therefore, all things which are moved by themselves are moved according to time, but the eternal form of motion is beyond that which is borne along according to time, the self-motive nature will be the second in order, and not the first among beings. And again, that which moves others, and is moved by others, must necessarily be suspended from a self-motive nature: and not this only, but likewise every alter-motive composition or constitution of things, as the Athenian guest demonstrates. For, says he, if every thing which is moved should stop⁷⁶, there will not be that which is first moved, unless the self-motive natures have a subsistence in beings. For the immovable is by no means naturally adapted to be moved, nor would it then be that which is first moved. And the alter-motive nature will require another moving power. The self-motive nature, therefore, alone, as beginning its energy from itself, will move itself, and others also, in a secondary degree. For a nature of this kind imparts to things alter-motive the power of being moved, in the same manner as the immovable inserts in all things the power of moving. And again, in the third place, that which is moved only, we must primarily suspend from the natures which are moved by another, but which move others. For it is requisite that both other things, and the series of natures which are moved, and which extends supernally as far as to the order of things last, should be filled with their proper media. All bodies, therefore, belong to things which are naturally adapted to be moved only, and to be passive. For they are effective of nothing, on account of possessing an hypostasis endued with interval, and participating of magnitude and bulk; since whatever is effective and motive of other things naturally makes and moves in consequence of employing an incorporeal power.
Of incorporeal natures, however, some are divisible about bodies, and others are exempt from such a distribution about the last of things. The natures, therefore, which are divided about the bulks of bodies, whether they consist in qualities, or in material forms, belong to the natures which are moved by another, but which move others. For these, because they have an incorporeal allotment, participate of the power of moving; but again, because they are divided about bodies, and, in consequence of this, are deprived of the power of verging to themselves, are distributed together with their subjects, and are replete with sluggishness from these, they require a moving power which is not borne along to foreign seats, but possesses an hypostasis in itself. Where, then, shall we have that which moves itself? For things which are extended into bulks and intervals, or which are divided in these, and consist about them inseparably, must of necessity either be alone moved, or move in consequence of being moved by others. But it is requisite, as we have before said, that the self-motive nature should be prior to these, which is established in itself, and not in others, and which fixes its energies in itself, and not in things subordinate to itself. There is, therefore, some other nature exempt from bodies, both in the heavens and the muchmutable elements, from which the power of being moved is primarily imparted to bodies. If, then, it be requisite to discover what such an essence is, we shall act rightly in following Socrates, and considering what that nature is, which, by being present to things alter-motive, imparts to them a representation of self-motion, and to which of the above-mentioned natures we should ascribe the power of being moved from themselves. For all inanimate things are alone alter-motive, and their passive properties are naturally derived from a power externally moving and impelling.
If, therefore, the self-motive is more antient than the alter-motive essence, but soul is primarily self-motive, from which the image of self-motion pervades to bodies, soul will be beyond bodies, and the motion of every body will be the progeny of soul, and of its internal motion. Hence, it is necessary that the whole of heaven, and all the bodies it contains, possessing such a variety of motion, and these moved according to nature (for to every body of this kind a circular motion is natural⁷⁷), should have ruling souls, essentially more antient than bodies, moving in themselves, and supernally illuminating bodies with the power of being moved. With respect to these souls, therefore, which orderly distribute the whole world, and its parts, and move and vitalize every thing corporeal, and which, of itself, is destitute of life, inspiring the cause of motion,—with respect to these, it is necessary that they should either move all things rationally, or according to a contrary mode, which it is not lawful to assert. But if this world, and every thing which has an orderly subsistence in it, and which is equably moved and perpetually borne along according to nature, are referred to an irrational soul, which both moves itself and other things, neither the order of the periods, nor motion essentially bounded according to one reason, nor the position of bodies, nor any thing else which is generated according to nature, will have a stable cause, and which is able to arrange every thing according to the same things, and after the same manner. For every thing irrational is naturally adapted to be adorned by another, since, of itself, it is indefinite and inordinate. But to commit all heaven to a thing of this kind, and a circulation which revolves according to the same reason, and after the same manner, by no means accords with the nature of things, nor with our undisciplined conceptions. If, on the contrary, an intellectual and rational soul governs all things, and if every thing which eternally revolves is under the dominion of such a soul, and there is nothing of wholes destitute of soul (for, as Theophrastus somewhere observes, no body that is honourable is deprived of this power),—if this be the case, whether has it this intellectual⁷⁸, perfect, and beneficent nature, according to participation, or according to essence? For, if according to essence, every soul must necessarily be of this kind, if each, according to its own nature, is self-motive. But if it is intellectual according to participation, there will be another intellect in energy more antient than soul, which will possess intellection essentially, and which comprehends in itself, by its very essence, an uniform knowledge of wholes; since it is also necessary that the soul which is essentialized according to reason, should possess a subsistence according to intellect through participation, and that an intellectual nature should be twofold,—one primarily in a divine intellect itself, and another secondarily in soul, and proceeding from this divine intellect.
You may also add, if you are willing, the presence of intellectual illumination in body. For whence is the whole of this heaven either spheric, or carried in a circle, and is rolled round the same according to one definite order? How is it always immutably allotted the same idea and power according to nature, unless it participate of the effective nature of form according to intellect? For soul is the supplier of motion; but the cause of a stable condition, and which leads back the fluctuating mutation of things which are moved, to sameness, and to a life bounded according to one reason, and a circulation subsisting after the same manner, must evidently be superior to soul.
Body, therefore, and the whole of this sensible essence, belong to alter-motive natures; but soul is self-motive, binding in itself all corporeal motions; and prior to this is immovable intellect. Nor must you conceive that this immovable nature of intellect is such as that which we say is sluggish, void of life, and without spirit; for it is the leading cause of all motion, and the fountain of all life, as well of that which is converted to itself, as of that which has its hypostasis in other natures. Through these causes the world is called by Timæus an animated intellectual animal. It is denominated an animal from its own nature, and the life which pervades to it from soul, and which is divided about it; but animated, from the presence of a divine soul in it; and intellectual, from the government of intellect. For a suffi- cient supply of life, the government of soul, and the communication of intellect, connectedly contain the whole of heaven.
But if this intellect is intellect according to essence, since the very being of intellect consists in intellection, and Timæus, demonstrating this, calls it divine, for he says that soul⁷⁹, receiving a divine intellect, is rightly and prudently disciplined,—if this be the case, it is necessary that the whole of heaven should be suspended from the deity⁸⁰ of this intellect, and that motion should be present to this universe from soul, but perpetual permanency and a subsistence after the same manner from intellect, and one union, concord in itself, sympathy and an all-perfect measure, from a unity through which intellect is uniform, soul is one, and every being is a whole and perfect, according to its nature. It is also necessary that every thing secondary, together with the perfection in its own proper nature, should also participate from an order established above it of another more excellent idiom. For that which is corporeal, being alter-motive, derives the appearance of self-motive power from soul, and is through it an animal. But soul, being self-motive, participates of life according to intellect, and, energizing temporally, possesses unceasing energy and ever-vigilant life from its vicinity to intellect. And intellect, possessing its life in eternity, and in an essence ever in energy, and fixing all its intelligence collectively in itself, is perfectly divine, through a cause prior to itself, or, in other words, from the unity which it participates. For, as Plotinus says, it has twofold energies, some as intellect, and others as being inebriated with nectar⁸¹: and, in another place, that this intellect is a God, through that prior to itself which is not intellect. Just as soul, by that summit of itself which is above soul, is intellect; and body, through a power prior to body, is soul.
All things, therefore, as we have said, are suspended from unity through intellect and soul as media. And intellect is, indeed, uniform, or has the form of unity; but soul is mentiform, or has the form of intellect; and the body of the world is vital. Every thing, in short, is suspended from that which is prior to itself. And, with respect to the things posterior to those above mentioned, one enjoys a divine nature more nearly, and another more remotely. And deity, indeed, is prior to an intellectual essence, in which, as in a vehicle, it first rides; but intellect is most divine, as being deified prior to other things. Soul is divine, so far as it requires an intellectual medium; and the body which participates of such a soul, so far as it participates, is, indeed, divine (for the illumination of divine light supernally pervades as far as to the last dependance), but, simply considered, is not divine. But soul, by looking to intellect, and living from itself, is primarily divine.
The same reasoning, also, must be adopted with respect to each of the whole spheres, and the bodies which they contain. For all these imitate the whole of heaven, since they have a perpetual allotment. And the sublunary elements are not entirely mutable according to essence, but abide, according to their wholenesses⁸², in the universe, and comprehend in themselves partial animals: for every wholeness has, in conjunction with itself, more partial hypostases. As, therefore, in the heavens the number of the stars proceeds in conjunction with the whole spheres, and as, in earth, a multitude of terrestrial partial animals subsists, together with its wholeness,—in like manner, I think it is necessary, that in the wholes which are situated between heaven and earth, every element should be filled with its proper numbers. For how, in the extremes, can wholes, which subsist prior to parts, be arranged with their parts, unless there is also the same analogy in the media?
But if each of the spheres is an animal, is perpetually established after the same manner, and gives completion to the universe, so far as it has life always primarily participating of soul, but, so far as it preserves its own order immutably in the world, is comprehended by intellect, and so far as it is one and a whole, being the leader of its proper parts, is illuminated by divine union,—if this be the case, not only the universe, but each of its perpetual parts, is animated, endued with intellect, and as much as possible similar to the whole. For each of these is a universe, with respect to its kindred multitude. In short, there is one wholeness with a corporeal form of the universe, but many others under this, depending on this one; one soul of the world, and after this others orderly distributing, in conjunc- tion with it, its whole parts with inviolable purity; one intellect, and an intellectual number under this participated by these souls; and one God who connectedly contains all mundane and supermundane natures, and a multitude of other Gods who distribute intellectual essences, the souls suspended from these, and all the parts of the world. For, it is impossible that every progeny of nature should be generative of things similar to itself, but that wholes, and the first things in the universe, should not in a much greater degree extend in themselves the exemplar of such like propagation. For the similar is more allied to, and more naturally accords with, the similar, from the reason of cause, than with the dissimilar; and, in like manner, the same than the different, and bound than the infinite. And thus much concerning the first particular, or the existence of the Gods.
II. Let us now direct our attention to the second thing demonstrated in the following book, viz. that the Gods providentially attend both to wholes and parts. That which is self-motive, then, is the principle of motion and being to all mundane natures; and life proceeds from soul, together with local and other motions. A progression, likewise, into being is derived from this; and, by a much greater priority, from an intellectual essence, which binds in itself the life of things self-motive, and precedes, according to cause, all temporal energy. But in a still greater degree is this progression into being derived from an hyparxis, characterized by unity, which contains both intellect and soul, fills with total goods, and proceeds to the last of things. For all the parts of the world are not able to participate of life, nor of intellect and gnostic power; but all things participate of the one, as far as to matter itself, wholes and parts, things according to nature and the contraries to these, and nothing is destitute of a cause of this kind; nor can any thing which participates of being be deprived of the one. If, therefore, the Gods, who are characterized by unity, produce all things, and contain all things in their unknown comprehending powers, how is it possible that they should not also contain a providence, supernally pervading as far as to the most partial natures? For it is every where fit that offspring should enjoy the care of their causes. But all alter-motive are the progeny of self-motive natures; and things which subsist in time, either according to the whole or a part of the whole of time, are the effects of things eternal; because perpetual being is the cause of being which sometimes has a subsistence. Divine and single genera, likewise, presubsist as causes of the subsistence of all multiplied natures; and, in short, there is no multitude of essences or powers which is not allotted its generation from the one. It is necessary therefore, that all these should partake of the providence of preceding causes, being vivified, indeed, by the Gods that are connected with souls, and circularly moved according to temporal periods; but participating the permanent establishment of forms from the intellectual Gods⁸³; and receiving in themselves the presence of union, measure, and the distribution of good, from the first⁸⁴ Gods. Hence it is necessary, either that the Gods should know their productions, because a providential care of their own offspring is natural to them, and that they should not only give subsistence to secondary natures, and impart life, essence, and union, but also comprehend the primary cause of the good in these; or, that, being Gods, they should be ignorant, which it is not lawful to assert, of what is proper to every thing. For what ignorance can there be of things beautiful, with the causes of beauty, or of things good, with those who are allotted an hyparxis bounded in the nature of the good?
Indeed, if the Gods are ignorant of their progeny, neither do souls govern the universe according to intellect, nor are intellects carried in souls, nor prior to these do the unities of the Gods contract all knowledge in themselves, which we have granted from preceding demonstrations. But, if the Gods know their progeny, being the fathers, leaders, and rulers, of all things in the world, and to these, being such, the care of the things governed, consequent to, and generated by, them, pertains,—whether shall we say that these, knowing the law according to nature, are able to give completion to it, or, that through imbecility of providence they are deprived of their possessions or progeny, or whatever else you may think proper to call them? For, if through imbecility they abandon the care of all things, what is the cause of this imbecility? For they do not move things externally, nor are other things the causes of essence, while the Gods merely assume the government of what others have produced, but as from the stern of a ship they direct all things, imparting being, containing the measures of life, and distributing the powers of energy to energizing natures. Whether also are they incapable of providentially attending to all things at once, or do not leave any part destitute of their presiding care? And if they are not curators of all things in the world, whether do they provide for greater things, but neglect lesser? Or do they take care indeed of lesser things, but pay no attention to such as are greater? For, if we similarly deprive them of a providential attention to all things through imbecility, how, attributing to them that which is greater, viz. the production of all things, can we avoid granting what is naturally consequent to this, that they providentially attend to their offspring? For it is the province of a power which makes a greater thing, to direct also a lesser. But if the Gods take care of lesser things, but neglect greater, how can this mode of providence be right? For the more allied and the more similar are naturally more adapted to the communication of good, which the Gods impart. And, if the first of mundane natures are thought worthy of providential attention and of the perfection emanating from the Gods, but the Divinities are incapable of proceeding as far as to the last of things, what is that which will restrain their being present to all things? What will interrupt their unenvying energy? How can those who are capable of effecting greater things, be imbecil with respect to dominion over lesser? Or how will those who produce the essence even of the minutest things, through impotency not be the lords of their perfection? For all these things oppose our natural conceptions. It remains, therefore, that the Gods must know what is adapted to every thing, and possess a power perfective of, and a dominion which rules over, all things. But if they know what is according to nature, and this, to those that generate all things, is to take care of all things, an abundance of power is not deprived of this providential attention.
It may also be inquired, whether the will of providence is in the Gods? or whether this alone is wanting to their knowledge and power, and that, on this account, things are deprived of their care? For if, knowing what is adapted to themselves, and being able to fill the objects of their knowledge, they are not willing to provide for their own progeny, they will be indigent of goodness, will be no longer unenvious, and, by such an hypothesis, we shall subvert the hyparxis according to which they are essentialized. For the very being of the Gods is constituted in goodness, and in this they possess their hypostasis. But to provide for subject natures, is to impart to them a certain good. By depriving the Gods therefore of providence, do we not at the same time deprive them of goodness? And, depriving them of goodness, do we not also ignorantly subvert their hyparxis? By every necessity⁸⁵, therefore, goodness is consequent to the very being of the Gods. And this being admitted, it follows that they do not depart from a providential attention to secondary natures, through indolence, or imbecility, or ignorance; and again, as consequent to this, it must be admitted, that they possess the most excellent knowledge, undefiled power, and unenvying will.
Thus providing, therefore, for all things, they appear to be in no respect deficient in the supply of goods. Let no one, however, suppose a providence of such a kind, as to extend the Gods about secondary natures, and deprive them of their exempt transcendency, or ascribe to them, who are established far remote from all mortal molestation, a busy energy, and laborious life. For their blessedness is not willing to be defiled with the difficulty of administration; since the life also of worthy men is attended with facility of energy, and is free from molestation and pain. But all labours which are the consequence of perturbation, arise from the impediments of matter. If, however, it be requisite to define the mode in which the providence of the Gods energizes, we must establish it to be spontaneous, undefiled, immaterial and ineffable. For they do not govern all things in the same manner as men when they providentially attend to their own affairs, viz. by inquiring what is fit, investigating the good of any particular by dubious reasonings, directing their view to externals, and following effects; but, previously assuming in themselves the measures of wholes, producing from themselves the essences of things, and looking to themselves, in a silent path, they lead, perfect, and fill all things with good, neither producing similar to nature, which alone energizes by its very essence without free deliberation, nor like partial souls, who energize in conjunction with will, and are deprived of essential operation, but they comprehend both these in profound union. And they will, indeed, what they are able to effect by their very essence; but, being able to accomplish, and producing all things by their very essence, they contain, in unenvying will, the cause of production. What busy energy, therefore, what molestation, what punishment of Ixion, can be said to give completion to the providence of the Gods, unless to impart good in any way is laborious to a divine nature? But that which is according to nature is not laborious to any thing: for it is not laborious to fire to impart heat, nor to snow to refrigerate, nor, in short, to bodies to energize according to their proper powers. Nor, prior to bodies, is it laborious to natures to nourish, or generate, or increase; for these are the works of natures. Nor again, prior to these, to souls: for many of the energies of these are from free deliberation; and they move many things and excite many motions by their very essence, through their presence alone. So that, if the communication of good is natural to the Gods, providence also is natural to them; and this we should say is effected by the Gods with facility, and by their very essence alone. But if these things are not natural to the Divinities, neither will they be naturally good: for good imparts good; just as life gives subsistence to another life, and intellect to intellectual illumination. And whatever is primary in every nature generates that which has a secondary subsistence.
What, however, is most illustrious in the Platonic theology is this, that neither does it convert the exempt essence of the Gods to secondary natures, through the care of things subordinate, nor diminish their providential presence to all things, through their undefiled transcendency; but, at the same time that it assigns to them that which is separate in hypostasis, and unmingled with every deterior nature, it celebrates them as extending to all things, and as taking care of and adorning their proper progeny. For the manner in which they pervade through all things is not corporeal, like that of light through the air, nor divisible about bodies, as that of nature, nor converted to things subordinate, as that of a partial soul; but it is separate from, and unconverted to, body, is immaterial, unmingled, unrestrained, uniform, primary, and transcendently exempt. In short, such⁸⁶ a mode of divine providence must be understood in the present case; since it is evident that there is a peculiar mode of providence according to every order of the Gods. For soul is said to provide for things secondary in one way, and intellect in another; but Deity, which is prior to intellect, transcendently provides for all that intellect and soul provide. And of the Gods themselves there is one providence of the sublunary, and another of the celestial. And of those beyond the world there are many orders; but the mode of providence is varied in each.
III. In the third place, let us consider how we are to understand the immutability of a divine nature, which conducts all things according to justice, without departing from undeviating rectitude, both in the providence of all other things and of human affairs. This, then, I think, must be apparent to every one, that every where that which governs according to nature, and pays every attention to the felicity of the governed, must lead and direct them to that which is best. For neither will the pilot, in governing sailors and a ship, have any other principal end than the safety of those that sail in the vessel, and of the vessel itself; nor will the physician, being the curator of the sick, either cut the body, or administer medicines for the sake of any thing else than the health of the subjects of his care; nor can it be said that the general or guardian looks to any other end, than the latter the liberty of those whom he preserves, and the former that of his soldiers. Nor does any other, to whom the government and care of any thing are committed, endeavour to subvert the good of his charge, over which he presides, and, aiming at which, he disposes every thing pertaining to the objects of his government in a becoming manner. If, therefore, we grant that the Gods are the governors of all things, and acknowledge that their providence is extended to all things, goodness being the characteristic of their nature, and that they possess every virtue, how is it possible for them to neglect the felicity of the subjects of their providential energy? Or how can they be inferior to other leaders in the providence of things subordinate? since the Gods 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, being perverted by the gifts of the depraved. In short, whether you are willing to call them leaders, or governors, or guardians, or fathers, a divine nature will not appear to be indigent of any one of such-like appellations. For all things venerable and honourable subsist in them primarily: and, on this account, here also some things are naturally more venerable and honourable than others, because they bear an ultimate resemblance of the Gods. But what occasion is there to insist any further on this? For we hear, I think, paternal, guardian, ruling, and Pæonian powers celebrated by those who are skilled in divine concerns. How is it possible, therefore, that the images of the Gods, when subsisting according to nature, and aiming at their proper end, should provide for the well-being of the subjects of their government, but that the Gods themselves, with whom the whole of good, real and true virtue, and an innoxious life, reside, should not direct their government to the virtue and vice of men? And how do they evince⁸⁷ that virtue is victorious, but that vice is vanquished in the universe? Indeed, by admitting that they attend to the worship of the depraved, we must also admit that they corrupt the measures of justice, subvert the boundary of undeviating science, and evince that the gifts of vice are more honourable than the pursuits of virtue. Such a mode of providence, however, is neither profitable to those that lead, nor to those that are led. For to those that have become vicious there will be no liberation from guilt, because offenders always endeavour to anticipate justice, and decline the measures of desert. But it will be necessary that the Gods (which it is not lawful to assert) should regard the vice of the subjects of their providence, neglect their true safety, and be alone the causes of shadowy goods. This universe, too, must be filled with disorder and incurable perturbation, depravity abiding in it, and must be in a condition similar to that of badly-governed cities; though, is it not perfectly impossible that parts should be governed according to nature rather than wholes, human affairs than things divine, and images than primary causes?
So that if rulers among men rule with rectitude, honouring some and disgracing others, and every where directing the works of vice by the measures of virtue,—by a much greater necessity must the Gods, who are the leaders of wholes, be immutable; for men, through a similitude to the Gods, are allotted this virtue. But, if we acknowledge that men who corrupt the safety and well-being of those who are governed by them, imitate in a greater degree the providence of the Gods, we shall forget that, at the same time, we entirely abolish the truth concerning the Gods, and the transcendency of virtue. For this I think is obvious to every one, that what is more similar to the Gods is more blessed than that which is deprived of them through dissimilitude and diversity. So that, if here, indeed, the uncorrupted and undeviating form of providence is honourable, in a much greater degree must it be honourable with the Gods. But if with them mortal gifts are more venerable than the divine measures of justice,—with men, also, earth-born will be more sufficient than Olympian goods to perfect felicity, and the blandishments of vice than the works of virtue. Through these demonstrations, therefore, Plato, in this book, delivers to us the hyparxis of the Gods, their providential care extending to all things, and their immutable energy, which things are, indeed, common to all the Gods, but have a leading dignity and a primary subsistence according to nature in the doctrine concerning the divinities. For this triad appears supernally pervading from the occult genera as far as to the most partial progressions, in the divine orders; since a uniform hyparxis, a power providential of all secondary natures, and an intellect undeviating and immutable, subsist in all the Gods, as well in those prior to the world, as in those of a mundane characteristic.

## Introduction to the Epinomis

The Epinomis, or Nocturnal Convention, was not written by Plato, but, as we are informed by Diogenes Laertius, by Philip Opuntius, one of Plato’s disciples. This dialogue, which, as its name implies, is a supplement to the Laws, is highly valuable, both for its great antiquity, its author being contemporary with Plato, and the recondite wisdom which it contains. However, notwithstanding its great intrinsic excellence, it appears to me that any one much conversant with the writings of Plato might easily discover that it was not written by that philosopher, though antiquity had been totally silent in this particular; for, where shall we find in it either his heroical strength and magnificence of diction, or his profundity, accuracy, and sublimity of conception?
This dialogue is also very properly inscribed The Philosopher, since the design of it, as the author informs us in the very beginning, is to show what wisdom is, and how it may be obtained. Before, however, he teaches us what wisdom is, he inquires what it is not; and having premised certain things necessary to its definition, he shows that the august name of wisdom can by no means accord with those arts which are subservient to the necessaries and conveniences of life, such as politics, agriculture, architecture, rhetoric, and the like. After this, he enumerates the speculative disciplines, and, in the first place, not only praises but admires arithmetic, which, according to Plato, most of all things sharpens the wit, strengthens the memory, and renders the mind prompt and adapted to every speculation and action. The arithmetic, however, which is here so deservedly praised, is not that which is commonly taught, and which is subservient to merchandize and traffic; but it is entirely speculative, and considers the properties of pure numbers unconnected with any thing sensible. Of this arithmetic Euclid and Nicomachus have transmitted to us the elements; but the study of it is at present neglected, because it is not calculated to promote gain, facilitate calculation, or expedite business. The author also adds, that number was delivered by divinity to men, as a necessary instrument of reason and discursive energy; and that, this being taken away, the soul would appear to be destitute of intellect, and arts and sciences entirely vanish. He also praises geometry, astronomy, music, and physics; and places dialectic, i. e. metaphysics, or wisdom, before all the other sciences, because it employs these as steps in the discovery and adoration of Divinity. He likewise shows that there are three employments of this queen of the sciences about other disciplines. The first consists in beholding the multitude of all these; the second, in surveying the communion and connection in all of them; and the third considers in what manner this multitude and its union contribute to the one itself and divine good. Lastly, the reader may learn from this dialogue, that as religion consists in the worship, so wisdom in the contemplation of Divinity; and that human felicity and the end of laws are only to be obtained in the union of both.

## Introduction to the Timæus

The design, says Proclus, of Plato’s Timæus evidently vindicates to itself the whole of physiology, and is conversant from beginning to end with the speculation of the universe. For the book of Timæus the Locrian concerning nature is composed after the Pythagoric manner; and Plato, thence deriving his materials, undertook to compose the present dialogue, according to the relation of the scurrilous Timon. This dialogue, therefore, respects physiology in all its parts; speculating the same things in images and in exemplars, in wholes and in parts. For it is filled with all the most beautiful modes of physiology, delivering things simple for the sake of such as are composite, parts on account of wholes, and images for the sake of exemplars; and it leaves none of the primary causes of nature unexplored.
But Plato alone, of all the physiologists, has preserved the Pythagoric mode in speculations about nature. For physiology receives a threefold division, one part of which is conversant with matter and material causes; but a second adds an inquiry into form, and evinces that this is the more principal cause; and lastly, a third part manifests that these do not rank in the order of causes, but concauses; and, in consequence of this, establishes other proper causes of things subsisting in nature, which it denominates producing, paradigmatical, and final causes. But this being the case, all the physiologists prior to Plato, confining themselves to speculations about matter, called this general receptacle of things by different names. For, with respect to Anaxagoras himself, as it appears, though while others were dreaming he perceived that intellect was the first cause of generated natures, yet he made no use of intellect in his demonstrations, but rather considered certain airs and ethers as the causes of the phænomena, as we are informed by Socrates in the Phædo. But the most accurate of those posterior to Plato, (such as the more early peripatetics,) contemplating matter in conjunction with form, considered these as the principles of bodies; and if at any time they mention a producing cause, as when they call nature a principle of motion, they rather take away than establish his efficacious and producing prerogative, while they do not allow that he contains the reasons⁸⁸ of his productions, but admit that many things are the progeny of chance. But Plato, following the Pythagoreans, delivers as the concauses of natural things, an all-receiving matter, and a material form, as subservient to proper causes in generation; but, prior to these, he investigates primary causes, i. e. the producing, the paradigmatical, and the final.
Hence, he places over the universe a demiurgic intellect and an intelligible cause; in which last the universe and goodness have a primary subsistence, and which is established above the artificer of things in the order of the desirable, or, in other words, is a superior object of desire. For, since that which is moved by another, or a corporeal nature, is suspended from a motive power, and is naturally incapable either of producing, perfecting, or preserving itself, it evidently requires a fabricative cause for the commencement and continuance of its being. The concauses, therefore, of natural productions must necessarily be suspended from true causes, as the sources of their existence, and for the sake of which they were fabricated by the father of all things. With great propriety, therefore, are all these accurately explored by Plato, and likewise the two depending from these, viz. form, and the subject matter. For this world is not the same with the intelligible and intellectual worlds, which are self-subsistent, and consequently by no means indigent of a subject, but it is a composite of matter and form. However, as it perpetually depends on these, like the shadow from the forming substance, Plato assimilates it to intelligible animal itself; evinces that it is a God through its participation of good, and perfectly defines the whole world to be a blessed God, participating of intellect and soul.
Such, then, being Plato’s design in the Timæus, he very properly in the beginning exhibits, through images, the order of the universe; for it is usual with the Pythagoreans⁸⁹, previous to the tradition of a scientific doc- trine, to present the reader with a manifestation of the proposed inquiry, through similitudes and images: but in the middle part the whole of Cosmogony is delivered; and towards the end, partial natures, and such as are the extremities of fabrication, are wove together with wholes themselves. For the repetition of the Republic, which had been so largely treated of before, and the Atlantic history, unfold through images the theory of the world. For, if we consider the union and multitude of mundane natures, we must say, that the summary account of the Republic by Socrates, which establishes as its end a communion pervading through the whole, is an image of its union; but that the battle of the Atlantics against the Athenians, which Critias relates, is an image of the distribution of the world, and especially so according to the two coordinate oppositions of things. For, if we make a division of the universe into celestial and sublunary, we must say that the Republic is assimilated to the celestial distribution; since Socrates himself asserts that its paradigm is established in the heavens; but that the Atlantic war corresponds to generation, which subsists through contrariety and mutation. And such are the particulars which precede the whole doctrine of physiology.
But after this the demiurgic, paradigmatic, and final causes of the universe are delivered; from the prior subsistence of which the universe is fabricated, both according to a whole and according to parts. For the corporeal nature of it is fabricated with forms and demiurgic sections, and is distributed with divine numbers; and soul is produced from the demiurgus, and is filled with harmonic reasons and divine and fabricative symbols. The whole mundane animal too is connected together, according to the united comprehension which subsists in the intelligible world; and the parts which it contains are distributed so as to harmonize with the whole, both such as are corporeal and such as are vital. For partial souls are introduced into its spacious receptacle, are placed about the mundane Gods, and become mundane through the luciform vehicles with which they are connected, imitating their presiding and leading Gods. Mortal animals too are fabricated and vivified by the celestial Gods; and prior to these, the formation of man is delivered as a microcosm, comprehending in himself partially every thing which the world contains divinely and totally. For we are endued with an intellect subsisting in energy, and a rational soul proceeding from the same father and vivific goddess as were the causes of the intellect and soul of the universe. We have likewise an ethereal vehicle analogous to the heavens, and a terrestrial body composed from the four elements, and with which it is also coordinate. If, therefore, it be proper to contemplate the universe multifariously both in an intelligible and sensible nature, paradigmatically, and as a resemblance, totally and partially, a discourse concerning the nature of man is very properly introduced in the speculation of the universe.
With respect to the form and character of the dialogue, it is acknowledged by all that it is composed according to the Pythagoric mode of writing. And this also must be granted by those who are the least acquainted with the works of Plato, that the manner of his composition is Socratic, philanthropic, and demonstrative. If, therefore, Plato any where mingles the Socratic and Pythagoric property together, this must be apparent in the present dialogue. For it contains, agreeably to the Pythagoric custom, elevation of intellect, together with intellectual and divine conceptions: it likewise suspends every thing from intelligibles, bounds wholes in numbers, exhibits things mystically and symbolically, is full of an elevating property, of that which transcends partial conceptions, and of the enunciative mode of composition. But from the Socratic philanthropy it contains an easy accommodation to familiar discourse, gentleness of manners, proceeding by demonstration, contemplating things through images, the ethical peculiarity, and every thing of this kind. Hence, it is a venerable dialogue, and deduces its conceptions from on high, from the first principles of things; but it mingles the demonstrative with the enunciative, and prepares us to understand physics, not only physically but theologically. For, indeed, Nature herself rules over the universe suspended from the Gods, and directs the forms of bodies through the influence of their inspiring power; for she is neither herself a divinity, nor yet without a divine characteristic, but is full of illuminations from all the various orders of the Gods.
But if it be proper, as Timæus says, that discourses should be assimilated to the things of which they are the interpreters, it will be necessary that the dialogue should contain both that which is physical and that which is theological; imitating by this mean Nature which it contemplates. Further still, since according to the Pythagoric doctrine things receive a triple division, into such as are intelligible, such as are physical, and such as rank in the middle of these, which the Pythagoreans usually call mathematical, all these may very conveniently be viewed in all. For in intelligibles things middle and last subsist in a causal manner; and in mathematical natures both are contained, such as are first according to similitude, and such as are third after the manner of an exemplar. And lastly, in natural things the resemblances of such as are prior subsist. With great propriety, therefore, does Timæus, when describing the composition of the soul, exhibit her powers, and reasons, and the elements of her nature, through mathematical names: but Plato defines the characteristics of these from geometrical figures, and at the same time leaves the causes of all these pre-subsisting in a primary manner in the intelligible intellect, and the intellect of the artificer of the universe.
And thus much for the manner of the dialogue; but its argument or hypothesis is as follows. Socrates coming into the Piræus for the sake of the Bendidian festival, which was sacred to Diana, and was celebrated prior to the Panathenaia⁹⁰, on the twentieth of the month Thargelion or June, discoursed there concerning a republic with Polemarchus, Cephalus, Glauco, Adimantus, and Thrasymachus the sophist. But on the following day he related this discourse in the city to Timæus, Critias, Hermocrates, and a fourth nameless person. On the third day they end the narration; and Timæus commences from hence his discourse on the universe, before Socrates, Critias, and Hermocrates; the same nameless person who was present at the second narration being now absent from the third.
With respect to the term nature, which is differently defined by different philosophers, it is necessary to inform the reader, that Plato does not consider either matter or material form, or body, or natural powers, as worthy to be called nature; though nature has been thus denominated by others. Nor does he think proper to call it soul; but establishing its essence between soul and corporeal powers, he considers it as inferior to the former through its being divided about bodies, and its incapacity of conversion to itself, but as surpassing the latter through its containing the reasons of all things, and generating and vivifying every part of the visible world. For nature verges towards bodies, and is inseparable from their fluctuating empire. But soul is separate from body, is established in herself, and subsists both from herself and another; from another, that is, from intellect through participation, and from herself on account of her not verging to body, but abiding in her own essence, and at the same time illuminating the obscure nature of matter with a secondary life. Nature, therefore, is the last of the causes which fabricate this corporeal and sensible world, bounds the progressions of incorporeal essences, and is full of reasons and powers through which she governs mundane affairs. And she is a goddess indeed, considered as deified; but not according to the primary signification of the word. For the word God is attributed by Plato, as well as by the antient theologists, to beings which participate of the Gods. Hence every pure intellect is, according to the Platonic philosophy, a God according to union; every divine soul according to participation; every divine dæmon according to contact; divine bodies are Gods as statues of the Gods; and even the souls of the most exalted men are Gods according to similitude; while in the mean time superessential natures only are primarily and properly Gods. But nature governs the whole world by her powers, by her summit comprehending the heavens, but through these ruling over the fluctuating empire of generation, and every where weaving together partial natures in amicable conjunction with wholes.
But as the whole of Plato’s philosophy is distributed into the contemplation of intelligibles and sensibles, and this very properly, since there is both an intelligible and sensible world, as Plato himself asserts in the course of the dialogue; hence in the Parmenides he comprehends the doctrine of intelligibles, but in the Timæus of mundane natures. And in the former of these dialogues he scientifically exhibits all the divine orders, but in the latter all the progressions of such as are mundane. Nor does the former entirely neglect the speculation of what the universe contains, nor the latter of intelligibles themselves. And this because sensibles are contained in intelligibles paradigmatically, and intelligibles in sensibles according to similitude. But the latter abounds more with physical speculations, and the former with such as are theological; and this in a manner adapted to the persons after whom the dialogues are called: to Timæus on the one hand, who had composed a book on the universe, and to Parmenides on the other, who had written on true beings. The divine Jamblichus, therefore, asserts very properly, that the whole theory of Plato is comprehended in these two dialogues, the Parmenides and Timæus. For the whole doctrine of mundane and supermundane natures is accurately delivered in these, and in the most consummate perfection; nor is any order of beings left without investigation.
We may behold too the similitude of proceeding in the Timæus to that in the Parmenides. For, as Timæus refers the cause of every thing in the world to the first artificer, so Parmenides suspends the progression of all things from the one. And as the former represents all things as participating of demiurgic providence, so the other exhibits beings participating of a uniform essence. And again, as Timæus prior to his physiology presents us through images with the theory of mundane natures, so Parmenides prior to his theology excites us to an investigation of immaterial forms. For it is proper, after being exercised in discourses about the best polity, to proceed to a contemplation of the universe; and, after an athletic contention through strenuous doubts about ideas, to betake ourselves to the mystic speculation of the unities of beings. And thus much for the hypothesis or argument of the dialogue.
But as a more copious and accurate investigation of some of its principal parts will be necessary, even to a general knowledge of the important truths which it contains, previous to this I shall present the reader with an abstract of that inimitable theory respecting the connection of things, which is the basis of the present work, and of the whole philosophy of Plato. For by a comprehensive view of this kind we shall be better prepared for a minute survey of the intricate parts of the dialogue, and be convinced how infinitely superior the long lost philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato is to the experimental farrago of the moderns.
Since the first cause is the good⁹¹, and this is the same with the one, as is evident from the Parmenides, it is necessary that the whole of things should be the most excellent, that is, the most united that can possibly be conceived. But perfect union in the whole of things can no otherwise take place than by the extremity of a superior order coalescing, κατα σχεσιν, through habitude or alliance, with the summit of an order which is proximately inferior. Again, with respect to all beings, it is necessary that some should move or be motive only, and that others should be moved only; and that between these there should be two mediums, the self-motive natures, and those which move and at the same time are moved. Now that which is motive only, and consequently essentially immovable, is intellect, which possesses both its essence and energy in eternity; the whole intelligence of which is firmly established in indivisible union, and which though a cause prior to itself participates of deific illumination. For it possesses, says Plotinus, twofold energies; one kind indeed as intellect, but the other in consequence of becoming as it were intoxicated, and deifying itself with nectar. But that which is self-motive is soul, which, on account of possessing its energy in transition and a mutation of life, requires the circulations of time to the perfection of its nature, and depends on intellect as a more antient and consequently superior cause. But that which moves and is at the same time moved is nature, or that corporeal life which is distributed about body, and confers generation, nutrition and increase to its fluctuating essence. And lastly, that which is moved only is body, which is naturally passive, imbecil and inert.
Now, in consequence of the profound union subsisting in things, it is necessary that the highest beings or intelligibles should be wholly superessential, κατα σχεσιν, according to proximity or alliance; that the highest intellects should be beings, the first of souls intellects, and the highest bodies lives, on account of their being wholly absorbed as it were in a vital nature. Hence, in order that the most perfect union possible may take place between the last of incorporeals and the first of bodies, it is necessary that the body of the world should be consummately vital; or indeed, according to habitude and alliance, life itself. But it is necessary that a body of this kind should be perpetually generated, or have a subsistence in perpetually becoming to be. For after intellect, which eternally abides the same both in essence and energy, and soul, which is eternally the same in essence but mutable in energy, that nature must succeed which is perpetually mutable both in essence and energy, and which consequently subsists in a perpetual dispersion of temporal extension, and is co-extended with time. Such a body, therefore, is very properly said to be generated, at the same time that this generation is perpetual; because, on account of its divisibility and extension, it alone derives its existence from an external cause: likewise, because it is a composite, and because it is not at once wholly that which it is, but possesses its being in continual generation. This body, too, on account of the perpetuity of its duration, though this is nothing more than a flowing eternity, may be very properly called a whole with a total subsistence: for every thing endued with a total subsistence is eternal; and this may be truly asserted of the body of the world, when we consider that its being is co-extended with the infinite progressions of time. Hence, this divine or celestial body may be properly called ὁλος ὁλικως, or a whole totally, just as the limb of an animal is μερος μερικως, or a part partially. But between whole totally and part partially two mediums are necessarily required, viz. part totally and whole partially (μερος ὁλικως and ὁλος μερικως). The parts, therefore, with a total subsistence which the world contains, are no other than the celestial orbs, which are consequently eternal and divine, after the same manner as the whole body of the world, together with the spheres of the elements; and the wholes partially are no other than the individuals of the various species of animals, such as a man, a horse, and the like.
Now this divine body, on account of its superiority to sublunary natures, was called by Aristotle a fifth body, and was said by Plato to be composed for the most part from fire. But in order to a more perfect comprehension of its nature, it is necessary to observe, that the two elements which, according to Plato, are situated in the extremes, are fire and earth, and that the characteristic of the former is visibility, and of the latter tangibility; so that every thing becomes visible through fire, and tangible through earth. Now the whole of this celestial body, which is called by the antients heaven, consists of an unburning vivific fire, like the natural heat which our bodies contain, and the illuminations of which give life to our mortal part. But the stars are for the most part composed from this fire, containing at the same time the summits of the other elements. Hence, heaven is wholly of a fiery characteristic, but contains in a causal manner the powers of the other elements; as, for instance, the solidity and stability of earth, the conglutinating and unifying nature of water, and the tenuity and transparency of air. For, as earth comprehends all things in a terrestrial manner, so the heavens contain all things according to a fiery characteristic.
But the following extraordinary passage from Proclus admirably unfolds the nature of this divine body, and the various gradations of fire and the other elements. “It is necessary to understand (says he⁹²) that the fire of the heavens is not the same with sublunary fire, but that this is a divine fire consubsistent with life, and an imitation of intellectual fire; while that which subsists in the sublunary region is entirely material, generated and corruptible. Pure fire, therefore, subsists in the heavens, and there the whole of fire is contained; but earth according to cause, subsisting there as another species of earth, naturally associating with fire, as it is proper it should, and possessing nothing but solidity alone. For, as fire there is illuminative, and not burning, so earth there is not gross and sluggish, but each subsists according to that which is the summit of each. And as pure and true fire is there, so true earth subsists here, and the wholeness, ὁλοτης, of earth⁹³; and fire is here according to participation, and materially, as earth is according to a primary subsistence. So that in heaven the summit of earth is contained, and in earth the dregs and sediment of fire. But it is evident that the moon has something solid and dark, by her obstructing the light; for obstruction of light is alone the province of earth. The stars too obstruct our sight, by casting a shadow of themselves from on high. But since fire and earth subsist in heaven, it is evident that the middle elements must be there also; air first of all, as being most diaphanous and agile, but water, as being most vaporous: each at the same time subsisting far purer than in the sublunary region, that all things may be in all, and yet in an accommodated manner in each.
“However, that the whole progression and gradations of the elements may become apparent, it is necessary to deduce the speculation of them from on high. These four elements, then, fire, air, water, and earth, subsist first of all in the demiurgus of wholes, uniformly according to cause. For all causes are previously assumed in him, according to one comprehension; as well the intellectual, divine, pure, and vigorous power of fire, as the containing and vivific cause of air; and as well the prolific and regerminating essence of water, as the firm, immutable, and undeviating form of earth. And this the theologist Orpheus knowing, he thus speaks concerning the demiurgus:
His body’s boundless, stable, full of light.
And
Th’ extended region of surrounding air
Forms his broad shoulders, back and bosom fair.
Again,
His middle zone’s the spreading sea profound.
And
The distant realms of Tartarus obscure
Within earth’s roots his holy feet secure;
For these earth’s utmost bounds to Jove belong,
And form his basis, permanent and strong.
“But from these demiurgic causes a progression of the elements into the universe takes place, but not immediately into the sublunary world. For how can the most immaterial things give subsistence to the most material without a medium; or things immovable be immediately hypostatic of such as are moved in all directions? Since the progression of things is nowhere without a medium, but subsists according to a well-ordered subjection; and generations into these material, dissipated, and dark abodes, take place through things of a proximate order. Since, therefore, the elements in the demiurgus are intellects and imparticipable intellectual powers, what will be their first progression? Is it not manifest that they will yet remain intellectual powers, but will be participated by mundane natures? For from imparticipable intellect the proximate progression is to that which is participated. And, universally, progression takes place from imparticipables to things participated, and from supermundane to mundane forms. But what are these things which yet reman intellectual, but are participated, and what subjection do they possess? Is it not evident that they are no longer intellectual (i. e. essentially intellectual)? But I call those natures intellectual which are the forms of intellect, and of a truly intellectual essence. But becoming participated, and being no longer intellectual, it is evident that they are no longer immovable natures. But, not being immovable, they must be self-motive. For these are proximately suspended from immovable natures; and from things essentially intellectual a progression takes place to such as are so according to participation, and from things immovable to such as are self-motive. These elements, therefore, subsist in life, and are self-motive and intellectual according to participation. But the progression from this must be manifest. For the immediate descent from life is to animal; since this is proximate to life. And from that which is essentially self-motive, to that which is self-motive according to a participation of life. For, so far as it proceeds from life to animal, it suffers a mutation. But so far as it proceeds from that which is immaterial to things immaterial⁹⁴, (that is, such as may be called immaterial when contrasted with mutable matter,) and from divine life to a divine essence, it becomes assimilated to them. If, therefore, you take away from hence that which is immaterial and immutable, you will produce that which is mutable and material. And through this, indeed, they are diminished from such as are before them; but on account of the symmetry and order of their motions, and their immutability in their mutations, they become assimilated to them. If, therefore, you take away this order, you will behold the great confusion and inconstancy of the elements; and this will be the last progression, and the very dregs and sediment of all the prior gradations of the elements.
“Of the elements, therefore, some are immovable, imparticipable, intellectual and demiurgic; but others are intellectual and immovable according to essence, but participated by mundane natures. Others again are self-motive, and essentially lives; but others are self-motive and vital, but are not lives. Some again are alter-motive, or moved by another, but are moved in an orderly manner; and, lastly, others have a disordered, tumultuous, and confused subsistence.”
Such then is the progression of the elements, and such the nature of a celestial body. But, if the body of the world be spherical, and this must necessarily be the case, as a sphere is the most perfect of figures, and the world the best of effects, there must be some part in it corresponding to a centre, and this can be no other than earth. For, in an orderly progression of things, that which is most distant, and the last, is the worst; and this we have already shown is the earth. But in a sphere, that which is most distant from the superficies is the centre; and, therefore, earth is the centre of the world. This conclusion, indeed, will doubtless be ridiculed by every sagacious modern, as too absurd in such an enlightened age as the present to deserve the labour of a confutation. However, as it follows by an inevitable consequence from the preceding theory, and this theory is founded on the harmonious union of things, we may safely assert that it is consubsistent with the universe itself. At such a period, indeed, as the present, when there is such a dire perversion of religion, and men of every description are involved in extreme impiety, we cannot wonder that the spirit of profane innovation should cause a similar confusion in the system of the world. For men of the present day being destitute of true science, and not having the least knowledge of the true nature and progressions of things, in the first place make the universe an unconnected production, generated in time, and of course naturally subject to dissolution; and, in the next place, allow of no essential distinction in its principal parts. Hence, the earth is by them hurled into the heavens, and rolled about their central sun in conjunction with the celestial orbs. The planets are supposed to be heavy bodies similar to our sluggish earth; the fixed stars are all so many suns; and the sun himself is a dense, heavy body, occasionally suffering dimness in his light, and covered with dark and fuliginous spots. With respect to this last particular, indeed, they boast of ocular conviction through the assistance of the telescope; and what reasoning can invalidate the testimony of the eyes? I answer, that the eyes in this particular are more deceived when assisted by glasses, than when trusting to their own naked power of perceiving. For, in reality, we do not perceive the heavenly bodies themselves, but their inflammations in the air: or, in other words, certain portions of air enkindled by the swiftness of their course. This at least cannot be denied to be possible; and, if so, it is not at all wonderful that a gross aërial inflammation should, when viewed through a telescope, appear dim and clouded with spots. But this is not an hypothesis of my own invention, but is derived from Ammonius Hermeas, who, as we are informed by Olympiodorus in the Phædo, was of this opinion, as also was Heraclitus long before him; who, speaking (says Olympiodorus) in his obscure way concerning the sun, says of that luminary “enkindling measures and extinguishing measures,”—that is, enkindling an image of himself in the air when he rises, the same becoming extinguished when he sets.
Nor let the moderns fondly imagine that their system of astronomy was adopted by Pythagoras and his followers, for this opinion is confuted by Spanheim and Dickinson; and this, says Fabricius⁹⁵, with no contemptible arguments: and we are informed by Simplicius⁹⁶, long before them, that the Pythagoreans by the fire in the middle did not mean the sun, but a demiurgic vivific fire, seated in the centre of the earth. The prophecy of Swift, therefore, in his Gulliver’s Travels, that the boasted theory of gravitation would at one time or other be exploded, may certainly be considered as a most true prediction, at least so far as relates to the celestial orbs.
But to return from this digression. The inerratic sphere, according to the Platonic philosophy, has the relation of a monad to the multitude of stars which it contains; or, in other words, it is the proximate cause of this multitude which it contains, and with which it has a coordinate subsistence. But, according to the same philosophy, all the planets are fixed in solid spheres, in conformity to the motions of which they perpetually revolve; but, at the same time, have peculiar motions of their own besides those of the spheres⁹⁷. These spheres too are all concentric, or have the same centre with the earth and the universe, and do not consist of hard impenetrable matter, as the moderns have ignorantly supposed; for being divine or immaterial bodies, such as we have already described, they have nothing of the density and gravity of this our earth, but are able to permeate each other without division, and to occupy the same place together; just like the illuminations emitted from several lamps, which pass through the whole of the same room at once, and pervade each other without confusion, divulsion, or any apparent distinction. So that these spheres are similar to mathematical bodies, so far as they are immaterial, free from contrariety, and exempt from every passive quality; but are different from them, so far as they are full of motion and life. But they are concealed from our sight through the tenuity and subtility of their nature, while, on the contrary, the fire of the planets which are carried in them is visible through the solidity which it possesses. So that earth is more predominant in the planets than in the spheres; though each subsists, for the most part, according to the characteristic of fire. But let it be carefully remembered, that the peculiarity of all fire is the being visible, but that neither heat nor fluidity belongs to every species of fire: and that the property of all earth is the be- ing tangible, but that gravity and subsiding downwards do not belong to all.
But, in consequence of each of these spheres being a ὁλοτης, or part with a total subsistence, as we have already explained, it follows that every planet has a number of satellites surrounding it, analogous to the choir of the fixed stars? and that every sphere is full of Gods, angels, and dæmons, subsisting according to the properties of the spheres in which they reside. This theory indeed is the grand key to the theology of the antients, as it shows us at one view why the same God is so often celebrated with the names of other Gods; which led Macrobius formerly to think that all the Gods were nothing more than the different powers of the sun; and has induced certain superficial moderns, to frame hypotheses concerning the antient theology so ridiculous, that they deserve to be considered in no other light than the ravings of a madman, or the undisciplined conceptions of a child. But that the reader may be fully convinced of this, let him attend to the following extraordinary passages from the divine commentaries of Proclus on the Timæus. And, in the first place, that every planet is attended with a great number of satellites, is evident from the following citation;
—“There are other divine animals attending upon the circulations of the planets, the leaders of which are the seven planets; and these revolve and return in their circulations in conjunction with their leaders, just as the fixed stars are governed by the circulation of the inerratic sphere.”—Ειδεναι και αλλα ζωα θεια ειη ουρανια συνεπομενα ταις των πλανωμενων περιφοραις, ὡν ἡγεμονες εισιν ὁι ἑπτα.—Και συμπεριπολει, και συναποκαθισταται ταις ἑαυτων αρχαις, ὡσπερ και τα απλανη κρατειται ὑπο της ὁλης περιφορας⁹⁸. And in the same place he informs us, that the revolution of these satellites is similar to that of the planets which they attend; and this, he acquaints us a little before, is according to Plato a spiral revolution. Και γαρ ταυτα τρεπομενα εστι, και πλανην εχοντα τοιαυτην, ὁιαν ειρηκεν περι των ἑπτα μικρῳ προτερον. Again, with respect to their number—“about every planet there is a number (of satellites) analogous to the choir of the fixed stars, all of them subsisting with proper circulations of their own⁹⁹.”—Εστι γαρ καθ’ ἑκαστην αριθμος αναλογον τῳ των αστρων χορῳ, συνυφεστος ταις οικειαις περιφοραις.
—And if it should be inquired why, with respect to the fixed stars, there is one monad, the wholeness (ὁλοτης) of them; but among the planets there is both a ὁλοτης, wholeness or totality, that is the sphere of each, and a leader besides in each, that is the apparent orb; he answers in the same place, that as the motion of the planets is more various than that of the fixed stars, so their possession of government is more abundant, for they proceed into a greater multitude. He adds—But in the sublunary regions there is still a greater number of governors; for the monads (that is, totalities) in the heavens generate a number analogous to themselves. So that the planets being secondary to the fixed stars, require a twofold government; one of which is more total and the other more partial.
But with respect to the satellites, the first in order about every planet are Gods; after these, dæmons revolve in lucid orbicular bodies; and these are followed by partial souls such as ours, as the following beautiful passage abundantly evinces. “But that in each of these (the planetary spheres) there is a multitude coordinate to each, you may infer from the extremes. For if the inerratic sphere has a multitude coordinate to itself, and earth is, with respect to terrestrial animals, what the inerratic sphere is to such as are celestial, it is necessary that every wholeness should possess certain partial animals coordinate to itself, through which also the spheres derive the appellation of wholenesses. But the natures situated in the middle are concealed from our sense, while, in the mean time, those contained in the extremes are apparent; one sort through their transcendently lucid essence, and the other through their alliance to ourselves. But if partial souls are disseminated about these spheres, some about the sun, some about the moon, and others about each of the remaining spheres¹⁰⁰; and if prior to souls there are dæmons filling up the herds of which they are the leaders; it is evidently beautifully said that each of the spheres is a world. And this is agreeable to the doctrines of theologists, when they teach us that there are Gods in every sphere prior to dæmons, the government of some receiving its perfection under that of others. As for instance with respect to our queen the Moon, that she contains the goddess Hecate and Diana; and with respect to our sovereign the Sun, and the Gods which he contains, theologists celebrate Bacchus as subsisting there,
The Sun’s assessor, who with watchful eye
Inspects the sacred pole:
They also celebrate Jupiter as seated there, Osiris, and a solar Pan, as likewise other divinities, of which the books of theologists and theurgists are full; from all which it is evident how true it is that each of the planets is the leader of many Gods, which fill up its proper circulation¹⁰¹.”—Ὁτι δε και εν ἑκαστῃ τουτων πληθος εστιν ἑκαστῃ συστοιχον, κατασκευασειας αν απο των ακρων. Ει γαρ ἡ απλανης εχει συστοιχον ἑαυτῃ πληθος, και ἡ γη των χθονιων ζωων εστι, ὡς εκεινη των ουρανιων, αναγκη και ἑκαστην ὁλοτητα παντως εχειν μερικα αττα συστοιχα προς αυτῃ ζωα, δια και ὁλοτητες λεγονται. Λανθανει δε ἡμων τα μεσα την αισθησιν, των ακρων δηλων οντων, των μεν, δια την ὑπερλαμπρον ουσιαν, των δε δια την προς ἡμας συγγενειαν. Ει δε και μερικαι ψυχαι περι αυτους εσπαρησαν, αλλαι μεν περι ἡλιον, αλλαι δε περι σεληνην, αλλαι δε περι ἑκαστον των λοιπων, και προ των ψυχων δαιμονες συμπληρουσι τας αγελας ὡν εισιν ἡγεμονες, δηλον ὁτι καλως ειρηται κοσμον ἑκαστην ειναι των σφαιρων, και των θεολογων ἡμας ταυτα διδασκοντων, ὁποταν περι ἑκαστους θεους εν αυτοις ειναι, προ των δαιμονων, αλλους ὑπο των αλλων τελουντας ἡγεμονιαν, ὁιον, και περι της δεσποινης ἡμων Σεληνης, ὁτι και ἡ Ἑκατη θεα εστιν εν αυτῃ, και ἡ Αρτεμις, και περι του βασιλεως Ἡλιου και των εκει θεων, τον εκει Διονυσον ὑμνουντες, Ἡελιος παρεδρος επισκοπεων πολον αγνον, τον Δια τον εκει, τον Οσιριν, τον Πανα τον ἡλιακον, τους αλλους, ὡν ὁι βιβλοι πληρεις εισι των θεολογων και των θεουργων, εξ ὡν ἁπαντων δηλον, ὁπως αληθες, και των πλανωμενων ἑκαστον αγελαρχην ειναι πολλων θεων, συμπληρουντων αυτου την ιδιαν περιφοραν.
Now, from this extraordinary passage, we may perceive at one view why the Sun in the Orphic hymns is called Jupiter, why Apollo is called Pan, and Bacchus the sun; why the Moon seems to be the same with Rhea, Ceres, Proserpine, Juno, Venus, &c. and, in short, why any one divinity is celebrated with the names and epithets of so many of the rest. For from this sublime theory it follows that every sphere contains a Jupiter, Neptune, Vulcan, Vesta, Minerva, Mars, Ceres, Juno, Diana, Mercury, Venus, Apollo, and in short every deity, each sphere at the same time conferring on these Gods the peculiar characteristic of its nature; so that, for instance, in the sun they all possess a solar property, in the moon a lunar one, and so of the rest. From this theory too we may perceive the truth of that divine saying of the antients, that all things are full of Gods; for more particular orders proceed from such as are more general, the mundane from the supermundane, and the sublunary from the celestial; while earth becomes the general receptacle of the illuminations of all the Gods. “Hence (says Proclus¹⁰²) there is a terrestrial Ceres, Vesta, and Isis, as likewise a terrestrial Jupiter and a terrestrial Hermes, established about the one divinity of the earth; just as a multitude of celestial Gods proceeds about the one divinity of the heavens. For there are progressions of all the celestial Gods into the earth; and earth contains all things, in an earthly manner, which heaven comprehends celestially. Hence we speak of a terrestrial Bacchus, and a terrestrial Apollo, who bestows the all-various streams of water with which the earth abounds, and openings prophetic of futurity.” And if to all this we only add that all the other mundane Gods subsist in the twelve above mentioned, and that the first triad of these is demiurgic or fabricative, viz. Jupiter, Neptune, Vulcan; the second, Vesta, Minerva, Mars, defensive; the third, Ceres, Juno, Diana, vivific; and the fourth, Mercury, Venus, Apollo, elevating and harmonic:
—I say, if we unite this with the preceding theory, there is nothing in the antient theology that will not appear admirably sublime and beautifully connected, accurate in all its parts, scientific and divine. Such then being the true account of the Grecian theology, what opinion must we form of the wretched systems of modern mythologists; and which most deserves our admiration, the impudence or ignorance of the authors of such systems? The systems indeed of these men are so monstrously absurd, that we may consider them as instances of the greatest distortion of the rational faculty which can possibly befall human nature, while connected with such a body as the present. For one of these considers the Gods as merely symbols of agriculture, another as men who once lived on the earth¹⁰³, and a third as the patriarchs and prophets of the Jews. Surely should these systems be transmitted to posterity, the historian by whom they are related must either be considered by future generations as an impostor, or his narration must be viewed in the light of an extravagant romance.
I only add, as a conclusion to this sublime theory, that though the whole of the celestial region is composed from the four elements, yet in some places fire in conjunction with earth (i. e. earth without gravity and density) predominates; in others fire, with the summit of water; and in others again fire with the summit of air: and according to each of these an all-various mutation subsists. Hence some bodies in the heavens are visible, and these are such as have fire united with the solid; but others are still more visible¹⁰⁴, and these are such as have fire mingled with the splendid and diaphanous nature of air. And hence the spheres of the planets, and the inerratic sphere itself, possess a more attenuated and diaphanous essence; but the stars are of a more solid composition. But fire every where prevails, and all heaven is characterized through the power of this exalted element. And neither is the fire there caustic (for this is not even the property of the first of the sublunary elements, which Aristotle calls fiery, πυροειδες) nor corruptive of any thing, nor of a nature contrary to earth; but it perpetually shines with a pure and transparent light, with vivific heat, and illuminating power.
And such are the outlines of the system of the world, according to Pythagoras and Plato; which, strange as the assertion may seem, appears to have been but little known from the æra of the emperor Justinian to the present time. That beautiful mode in which as we have shown the elements subsist both in the heavens and the earth, has not been even suspected by modern natural philosophers to have any existence; and astronomers have been very far from the truth in their assertions concerning the celestial spheres. In consequence of indolence, or ignorance, or prejudice, or from all three in conjunction, the moderns have invented systems no less discordant with the nature of things than different from each other. They have just been able to gain a glimpse of the beautiful union of things in the vegetable and animal tribes belonging to the earth, and have discovered that the lowest of the animal species and the highest of the vegetable approximate so near to each other, that the difference between the two can scarcely be perceived; but this is the very summit of their researches; they are unable to trace the connection of things any further, and rest satisfied in admitting that
The chain continues, but with links unknown.
The divine nature of the celestial bodies cannot be seen through the telescope, and incorporeals are not to be viewed with a microscopic eye: but these instruments are at present the great standards of truth; and whatever opposes or cannot be ascertained by the testimony of these, is considered as mere conjecture, idle speculation, and a perversion of the reasoning power.
But let us now proceed to a summary view of some of the principle parts of this most interesting dialogue. And, in the first place, with respect to the history which is related in the beginning, concerning a war between the inhabitants of the Atlantic island and the Athenians:
—Crantor, the most early of Plato’s commentators, considered this relation (says Proclus) as a mere history unconnected with allegory; while other Platonists, on the contrary, have considered it as an allegory alone. But both these opinions are confuted by Proclus and the best of the Platonists; because Plato calls it a very wonderful, but at the same time true, narration. So that it is to be considered as a true history, exhibiting at the same time an image of the opposition of the natures which the universe contains. But according to Amelius¹⁰⁵ it represents the opposition between the inerratic sphere and the fixed stars; according to Origen¹⁰⁶, the contest between dæmons of a superior and those of an inferior order; according to Numenius, the disagreement between more excellent souls who are the attendants of Pallas, and such as are conversant with generation under Neptune. Again, according to Porphyry, it insinuates the contest between dæmons deducing souls into generation, and souls ascending to the Gods. For Porphyry gives a three-fold distinction to dæmons; asserting that some are divine, that others subsist according to habitude, κατα σχεσιν, among which partial souls rank when they are allotted a dæmoniacal condition, and that others are evil and noxious to souls. He asserts, therefore, that this lowest order of dæmons always contends with souls in their ascent and descent, especially western dæmons; for, according to the Egyptians, the west is accommodated to dæmons of this description. But the exposition of Jamblichus, Syrianus and Proclus is doubtless to be preferred, as more consistent with the nature of the dialogue; which refers it to the opposition perpetually flourishing in the universe between unity and multitude, bound and infinity, sameness and difference, motion and permanency, from which all things, the first cause being excepted, are composed. Likewise, being has either an essential or accidental subsistence, and is either incorporeal or corporeal: and if incorporeal, it either verges or does not verge to body. But bodies are either simple and immaterial, as the celestial bodies, or simple and material, as those of an aërial nature, or composite and material, as those of earth. So that the opposition of all these is occultly signified by that antient war; the higher and more excellent natures being every where implied by the Athenians, and those of a contrary order by the inhabitants of the Atlantic island.
That the reader, however, may be convinced that Plato’s account of the Atlantic island is not a fiction of his own devising, let him attend to the following relation of one Marcellus, who wrote an history of Æthiopian affairs, according to Proclus¹⁰⁷:—“That such, and so great, an island once existed, is evinced by those who have composed histories of things relative to the external sea. For they relate that in their times there were seven islands in the Atlantic sea, sacred to Proserpine: and besides these, three others of an immense magnitude; one of which was sacred to Pluto, another to Ammon, and another, which is the middle of these, and is of a thousand stadia, to Neptune. And besides this, that the inhabitants of this last island preserved the memory of the prodigious magnitude of the Atlantic island, as related by their ancestors; and of its governing for many periods all the islands in the Atlantic sea. And such is the relation of Marcellus in his Æthiopic history.” Ὁτι μεν εγενετο τοιαυτη τις νησος και τηλικαυτη, δηλουσι τινες των ἱστορουντων τα περι της εξω θαλαττης. ειναι γαρ και εν τοις αυτων χρονοις ἑπτα μεν νησους εν εκεινῳ τῳ πελαγει Περσεφονης ἱερας, τρεις δε αλλας απλετους, την μεν Πλουτωνος, την δε Αμμωνος, μεσην δε τουτων αλλην Ποσειδωνος, χιλιων σταδιων το μεγεθος. Και τους οικουντας εν αυτῃ μνημην απο των προγονων διασωζειν περι της Ατλαντιδος οντως γενομενης εκει νησου παμμεγαθεστατης, ην επι πολλας περιοδους δυναστευσαι πασων των εν Ατλαντικῳ πελαγει νησων. Ταυτα μεν ουν ὁ Μαρκελλος εν τοις Αιθιοπικοις γεγραφεν.
Indeed it is not at all wonderful that so large an island should once have existed, nor improbable that many more such exist at present, though to us unknown, if we only consider the Platonic theory concerning the earth, of which the reader will find an account in the Introduction to the Phædo, and which the following extraordinary passage from Proclus¹⁰⁸ abundantly confirms. “It is here (says he) requisite to remember the Platonic hypotheses concerning the earth. For Plato does not measure its magnitude after the same manner as mathematicians; but thinks that its interval is much greater, as Socrates asserts in the Phædo. In which dialogue also he says, that there are many habitable parts similar to our abode¹⁰⁹. And hence he relates that an island and continent of this kind exist in the external or Atlantic sea. For, indeed, if the earth be naturally spherical, it is necessary that it should be such according to its greatest part. But the parts which we inhabit, both internally and externally, exhibit great inequality. In some parts of the earth, therefore, there must be an expanded plain, and an interval extended on high. For, according to the saying of Heraclitus, he who passes through a very profound region will arrive at the Atlantic mountain, whose magnitude is such, according to the relation of the Æthiopian historians, that it touches the æther, and casts a shadow of five thousand stadia in extent; for from the ninth hour of the day the sun is concealed by it, even to his perfect demersion under the earth. Nor is this wonderful: for Athos, a Macedonian mountain, casts a shadow as far as to Lemnos, which is distant from it seven hundred stadia. Nor are such particulars as these, which Marcellus the Æthiopic historian mentions, related only concerning the Atlantic mountain; but Ptolemy also says that the lunar mountains are of an immense height; and Aristotle, that Caucasus is enlightened by the rays of the sun a third part of the night after sun-set, and a third part before the rising of the sun. And if any one considers the whole magnitude of the earth, bounded by its elevated parts, he will conclude that it is truly of a prodigious magnitude, according to the assertion of Plato.”
In the next place, by the fable of Phaëton we must understand the destruction of a considerable part of the earth through fire, by means of a comet being dissolved of a solar nature. Likewise, when he mentions a deluge, it is necessary to remember, that through the devastations of these two elements, fire and water, a more prolific regeneration of things takes place at certain periods of time; and that when Divinity intends a reformation, the heavenly bodies concur with this design in such a manner, that when a conflagration is about to take place, then, according to Berosus¹¹⁰ the Chaldæan, all the planets are collected together in Cancer; but when a deluge, then the planets meet in Capricorn. With respect to Pallas and Neptune, who are mentioned in this part of the dialogue, as the reader will find an account of these Divinities in the Notes to the Cratylus, I shall only add at present, that, according to Proclus, Minerva most eminently presides in the celestial constellation called the Ram, and in the equinoctial circle, where a power motive of the universe principally prevails.
Again, it is necessary to understand, that when the world is said by Plato to be generated, this term expresses its flowing and composite nature, and does not imply any temporal commencement of its existence. For, as the world was necessarily produced according to essential power, this being the most perfect of all modes of operation, it is also necessary that it should be coexistent with its artificer; just as the sun produces light coexistent with itself, fire heat, and snow coldness. The reader must, however, carefully observe, that when we say it is necessary that the cause of the universe should operate according to power, we do not understand a necessity which implies violence or constraint; but that necessity which Aristotle¹¹¹ defines as the perfectly simple, and which cannot have a multifarious subsistence. And hence this term, when applied to the most exalted natures, to whom alone in this sense it belongs, signifies nothing more than an impossibility of subsisting otherwise than they do, without falling from the perfection of their nature. Agreeably to this definition, Necessity was called by antient theologists Adrastia and Themis, or the perfectly right and just: and if men of the present day had but attended to this signification of the word, i. e. if any edition of Aristotle’s works, with a copious index mentioning this sense of necessity, had fortunately existed, they would not have ignorantly supposed that this word, when applied to divine natures, signified constraint, violence, and over-ruling power. As intellect, therefore, is eternal, both according to essence and energy, and as soul is eternal in essence, but temporal in energy, so the world is temporal both in essence and energy. Hence, every thing prior to soul always is, and is never generated; but soul both is, and is perpetually generated; and the world never is, but is always generated: and whatever the world contains in like manner never is; but instead of being always generated, like the whole world, is so at some particular time. Because the world therefore is conversant with perpetual motion and time, it may be said to be always generated, or advancing towards being; and therefore never truly is. So that it resembles the image of a mountain beheld in a torrent, which has the appearance of a mountain without the reality, and which is continually renewed by the continual renovation of the stream. But soul, which is eternal in essence, and temporal in energy, may be compared to the image of the same rock beheld in a pool, and which, of course, when compared with the image in the torrent, may be said to be permanently the same. In fine, as Proclus well observes, Plato means nothing more by generation than the formation of bodies, i. e. a motion or procession towards the integrity and perfection of the universe.
Again, by the demiurgus and father of the world we must understand Jupiter, who subsists at the extremity of the intellectual triad¹¹²; and αυτο ζωον, or animal itself, which is the exemplar of the world, and from the contemplation of which it was fabricated by Jupiter, is the last of the in- telligible triad, and is same with the Phanes of Orpheus: for the theologist represents Phanes as an animal with the heads of various beasts, as may be seen in our Notes to the Parmenides. Nor let the reader be disturbed on finding that, according to Plato, the first cause is not the immediate cause of the universe; for this is not through any defect or imbecility of nature, but, on the contrary, is the consequence of transcendency of power. For, as the first cause is the same with the one, a unifying energy must be the prerogative of his nature; and as he is likewise perfectly superessential, if the world were his immediate progeny, it must be as much as possible superessential and profoundly one: but as this is not the case, it is necessary that it should be formed by intellect and moved by soul. So that it derives the unity and goodness of its nature from the first cause, the orderly disposition and distinction of its parts from Jupiter its artificer, and its perpetual motion from soul; the whole at the same time proceeding from the first cause through proper mediums. Nor is it more difficult to conceive matter after this manner invested with form and distributed into order, than to conceive a potter making clay with his own hands, giving it a shape when made, through the assistance of a wheel, and, when fashioned, adorning it through another instrument with figures; at the same time being careful to remember, that in this latter instance different instruments are required through the imbecility of the artificer, but that in the former various mediums are necessary from the transcendency of power which subsists in the original cause. And from all this it is easy to infer, that matter was not prior to the world by any interval of time, but only in the order of composition; priority here implying nothing more than that which must be considered as first in the construction of the world. Nor was it hurled about in a disordered state prior to order; but this only signifies its confused and tumultuous nature, when considered in itself, divested of the supervening irradiations of form.
With respect to the four elements, I add, in addition to what has been said before, that their powers are beautifully disposed by Proclus as follows, viz:

### Fire. Air

Subtle, acute, movable. Subtle, blunt, movable.

### Water. Earth

Dense, blunt, movable. Dense, blunt, immovable.
In which disposition you may perceive how admirably the two extremes fire and earth are connected, though indeed it is the peculiar excellence of the Platonic philosophy to find out in every thing becoming mediums through that part of the dialectic art called division; and it is owing to this that the philosophy itself forms so regular and consistent a whole. But I have invented the following numbers for the purpose of representing this distribution of the elements arithmetically.
Let the number 60 represent fire, and 480 earth; and the mediums between these, viz. 120 and 240, will correspond to air and water For as 60: 120:: 240: 480. But 60 = 3 × 5 × 4. 120 = 3 × 10 × 4. 240 = 6 × 10 × 4. and 480 = 6 × 10 × 8. So that these numbers will correspond to the properties of the elements as follows:

### Fire: Air

3 × 5 × 4: 3 × 10 × 4::
Subtle, acute, movable: Subtle, blunt, movable.

### Water : Earth

6 × 10 × 4:: 6 × 10 × 8
Dense, blunt, movable:: Dense, blunt, immovable.
With respect to fire it must be observed, that the Platonists consider light, flame, and a burning coal, φως, φλοξ, ανθραξ, as differing from each other; and that a subjection or remission of fire takes place from on high to the earth, proceeding, as we have before observed, from that which is more immaterial, pure, and incorporeal, as far as to the most material and dense bodies: the last procession of fire being subterranean; for, according to Empedocles, there are many rivers of fire under the earth. So that one kind of fire is material and another immaterial, i. e. when compared with sublunary matter; and one kind is corruptible, but another incorruptible; and one is mixed with air, but another is perfectly pure. The characteristic too of fire is neither heat nor a motion upwards, for this is the property only of our terrestrial fire; and this in consequence of not subsisting in its proper place: but the essential peculiarity of fire is visibility; for this belongs to all fire, i. e. to the divine, the mortal, the burning, and the impetuous. It must, however, be carefully observed, that our eyes are by no means the standards of this visibility: for we cannot perceive the celestial spheres, on account of fire and air in their composition so much predominating over earth; and many terrestrial bodies emit no light when considerably heated, owing to the fire which they contain being wholly absorbed, as it were, in gross and ponderous earth.
In like manner, with respect to earth, the characteristic of its nature is solidity and tangibility, but not ponderosity and a tendency downwards; for these properties do not subsist in every species of earth. Hence, when we consider these two elements according to their opposite subsistence, we shall find that fire is always in motion, but earth always immovable; that fire is eminently visible, and earth eminently tangible; and that fire is of a most attenuated nature through light, but that earth is most dense through darkness. So that as fire is essentially the cause of light, in like manner, earth is essentially the cause of darkness; while air and water subsisting as mediums between these two, are, on account of their diaphanous nature, the causes of visibility to other things, but not to themselves. In the mean time moisture is common both to air and water, connecting and conglutinating earth, but becoming the seat of fire, and affording nourishment and stability to its flowing nature.
With respect to the composition of the mundane soul, it is necessary to observe that there are five genera of being, from which all things after the first being are composed, viz. essence, permanency, motion, sameness, dif- ference. For every thing must possess essence; must abide in its cause, from which also it must proceed, and to which it must be converted; must be the same with itself and certain other natures, and at the same time different from others and distinguished in itself. But Plato, for the sake of brevity, assumes only three of these in the composition of the soul, viz. essence, same- ness, and difference; for the other two must necessarily subsist in conjunction with these. But by a nature impartible, or without parts, we must understand intellect, and by that nature which is divisible about body, corporeal life. The mundane soul, therefore, is a medium between the mundane intellect and the whole of that corporeal life which the world participates. We must not, however, suppose that when the soul is said to be mingled from these two, the impartible and partible natures are consumed in the mixture, as is the case when corporeal substances are mingled together; but we must understand that the soul is of a middle nature between these, so as to be different from each, and yet a participant of each.
The first numbers of the soul are these: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27; but the other numbers are,
6
8 9
9 12
12 18
16 27
18 36
24 54
32 81
36 108
48 162
But in order to understand these numbers mathematically, it is necessary to know, in the first place, what is meant by arithmetical, geometrical, and harmonic proportion. Arithmetical proportion, then, is when an equal excess is preserved in three or more given numbers; geometrical, when numbers preserve the same ratio; and harmonic, when the middle term is exceeded by the greater, by the same part of the greater as the excess of the middle term above the lesser exceeds the lesser. Hence, the numbers 1, 2, 3, are in arithmetical proportion; 2, 4, 8, in geometrical, since as 2 is to 4, so is 4 to 8; and 6, 4, 3, are in harmonic proportion, for 4 is exceeded by 6 by 2, which is a third part of 6, and 4 exceeds 3 by 1, which is the third part of 3. Again, sesquialter proportion is when one number contains another and the half of it besides, such as the proportion of three to 2; but sesquitertian proportion takes place when a greater number contains a lesser, and besides this, a third part of the lesser, as 4 to 3; and a sesquioctave ratio is when a greater number contains a lesser one, and an eighth part of it besides, as 9 to 8; and this proportion produces in music an entire tone, which is the principle of all symphony. But a tone contains five symphonies, viz. the diatessaron, or sesquitertian proportion, which is composed from two tones, and a semitone, which is a sound less than a tone; the diapente, or sesquialter proportion, which is composed from three tones and a semitone; the diapason, or duple proportion, i. e. four to two, which is composed from six tones; the diapason diapente, which consists of nine tones and a semitone; and the disdiapason, or quadruple proportion, i. e. four to one, which contains twelve tones.
But it is necessary to observe further concerning a tone, that it cannot be divided into two equal parts; because it is composed from a sesquioctave proportion, and 9 cannot be divided into two equal parts. Hence, it can only be divided into two unequal parts, which are usually called semitones; but by Plato λειμματα, or remainders. But the lesser part of a tone was called by the Pythagoreans diesis, or division; and this is surpassed by a sesquitertian proportion by two tones; and the remaining greater part, by which the tone surpasses the less semitone, is called apotome, or a cutting off.
But as it is requisite to explain the different kinds of harmony, in order to a knowledge of the composition of symphonies, let the reader take notice that harmony receives a triple division, into the Diatonic, Enharmonic, and Chromatic. And the Diatonic genus takes place when its division continually proceeds through a less semitone and two tones. But the Enharmonic proceeds through two dieses. And the Chromatic is that which ascends through two unequal semitones and three semitones; or τριημιτονιον, according to the appellation of the antient musicians. And to these three genera all musical instruments are reduced, because they are all composed from these harmonies. But though there were many different kinds of instruments among the antients, yet the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers used only three—the Monochord, the Tetrachord, and the Polychord; to which three they refer the composition of all the other instruments. From among all these, therefore, Plato assumes the diatonic harmony, as more agreeable to nature; in which the tetrachord proceeds through a less semitone and two tones; tending by this means from a less to a greater semitone, as from a more slender to a more powerful matter, which possesses a simple form, and is at the same time both gentle and robust. And hence, as all instruments are conversant with these three kinds of harmony, Plato, says Proclus, in consequence of preferring the diatonic harmony, alone uses two tones when he orders us to fill up the sesquitertian, sesquioctave and semitone intervals.
With respect to the first numbers, which are evidently those described by Plato, the first three of these, 1, 2, 3, as Syrianus beautifully observes, may be considered as representing the soul of the world, abiding in, proceeding from, and returning to, herself, viz. abiding according to that first part, proceeding through the second, and this without any passivity or imbecility, but returning according to the third: for that which is perfective accedes to beings through conversion. But as the whole of the mundane soul is perfect, united with intelligibles, and eternally abiding in intellect, hence she providentially presides over secondary natures; in one respect indeed over those which are as it were proximately connected with herself, and in another over solid and compacted bulks. But her providence over each of these is twofold. For those which are connected with her essence in a following order, proceed from her according to the power of the fourth term (4), which possesses generative powers; but return to her according to the fifth (9), which reduces them to one. Again, solid natures, and all the species which are discerned in corporeal masses, proceed according to the octuple of the first part (i. e. according to 8), which number is produced by two, is solid, and possesses generative powers proceeding to all things; but they return according to the number 27, which is the regression of solids, proceeding as it were from the ternary, and existing of the same order according to nature: for such are all odd numbers.
And thus much for the first series of numbers, in which duple and triple ratios are comprehended; but after this follows another series, in which the duple are filled with sesquitertian and sesquialter ratios, and the sesquitertian spaces receive a tone. And here, in the first place, in the duple progression between 6 and 12, we may perceive two mediums, 8 and 9. And 8 indeed subsists between 6 and 12 in an harmonic ratio; for it exceeds 6 by a third part of 6, and it is in like manner exceeded by 12 by a third part of 12. Likewise 8 is in a sesquitertian ratio to 6, but 12 is sesquialter to 8. Besides, the difference between 12 and 8 is 4, but the difference between 8 and 6 is 2. And hence, 4 to 2, as well as 12 to 6, contains a duple ratio: and these are the ratios in which the artifice of harmony is continually employed. We may likewise compare 9 to 6 which is sesquialter, 12 to 9 which is sesquitertian, and 9 to 8 which is sesquioctave, and forms a tone; and from this comparison we shall perceive that two sesquitertian ratios are bound together by this sesquioctave, viz. 8 to 6 and 9 to 12. Nor is an arithmetical medium wanting in these numbers; for 9 exceeds 6 by 3, and is by the same number exceeded by 12. And in the same manner we may proceed in all the following duple ratios, binding the duple by the sesquitertian and sesquialter, and connecting the two sesquitertians by a sesquioctave ratio. We may run through the triple proportions too in a similar manner, excepting in the tone. But because sesquitertian ratios are not alone produced from two tones, but from a semitone, and this a lesser, which is deficient from a full tone by certain small parts, hence Plato says, that in the sesquitertian ratios a certain small portion remains¹¹³. And thus much may suffice for an epitome of the mode in which the duple and triple intervals are filled.
But the words of Plato respecting these intervals plainly show, as Proclus well observes, that he follows in this instance the doctrine of the antient theologists. For they assert, that in the artificer of the universe there are separating and connecting powers, and that through the former he separates his government from that of his father Saturn, but through the latter applies the whole of his fabrication to his paternal unity; and they call these operations incisions and bonds. Hence the demiurgus, dividing the essence of the soul, according to these powers in demiurgic bounds, is said to cut the parts from their totality, and again to bind the same with certain bonds, which are μεσοτητες, middles or mediums, and through which he connects that which is divided, in the same manner as he divides, through sections, that which is united. And as the first numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, represented those powers of the soul by which she abides in, proceeds from, and returns to, herself, and causes the progression and conversion of the parts of the universe—so, in these second numbers, the sesquitertian, sesquialter, and other ratios constitute the more particular ornament of the world; and, while they subsist as wholes themselves, adorn the parts of its parts.
I only add, that we must not suppose these numbers of the soul to be a multitude of unities; but we must conceive them to be vital self-motive natures, which are indeed the images of intellectual numbers, but the exemplars of such as are apparent to the eye of sense. In like manner, with respect to harmony, soul is neither harmony itself, nor that which subsists in harmonized natures. For harmony itself is uniform, separate, and exempt from the whole of things harmonized; but that which subsists in things harmonize d is dependent on others, by which also it is naturally moved. But the harmony of the soul subsists in the middle of these two, imparting harmony to others, and being the first participant of it herself.
In order to understand the figure of the soul, in the first place, mathematically, conceive all the above-mentioned numbers to be described in a certain straight rule, according to the whole of its breadth; and conceive this rule to be afterwards divided according to its length. Then all these ratios will subsist in each part of the section. For, if the division were made according to breadth, it would be necessary that some of the numbers should be separated on this side, and others on that. Afterwards let the two lengths of the rule be mutually applied to each other, viz. in the points which divide these lengths in half: but let them not be so applied as to form right angles, for the intended circles are not of this kind. Again, let the two lengths be so incurvated, that the extremes may touch each other; then two circles will be produced, one interior and the other exterior, and they will be mutually oblique to each other. But one of these will be the circle of same- ness, and the other of difference; and the one will subsist according to the equinoctial circle, but the other according to the zodiac: for every circle of difference is rolled about this, as of identity about the equinoctial. Hence, these rectilinear sections ought not to be applied at right angles, but according to the similitude of the letter X, agreeably to the mind of Plato, so that the angles in the summit only may be equal; for neither does the zodiac cut the equinoctial at right angles. And thus much for the mathematical explanation of the figure of the soul.
But again, says Proclus, referring the whole of our discourse to the essence of the soul, we shall say that, according to the mathematical disciplines, continuous and discrete quantity seem in a certain respect to be contrary to each other; but in soul both concur together, i. e. union and division. For soul is both unity and multitude, and one reason and many; and so far as she is a whole she is continuous, but so far as number she is divided, according to the reasons which she contains. Hence, according to her continuity, she is assimilated to the union of intelligibles; but, according to her multitude, to their distinction. And if you are willing to ascend still higher in speculations, soul, according to her union, possesses a vestige and resemblance of the one, but according to her division she exhibits the multitude of divine numbers. Hence we must not say that she alone possesses an arithmetical essence, for she would not be continuous; nor alone a geometrical essence, for she would not be divided: she is therefore both at once, and must be called both arithmetical and geometrical. But so far as she is arithmetical, she has at the same time harmony conjoined with her essence; for the multitude which she contains is elegant and composite, and receives in the same and at once both that which is essential quantity and that which is related. But so far as she is geometrical, she has that which is spherical connected with her essence. For the circles which she contains are both immovable and moved; immovable indeed according to essence, but moved according to a vital energy; or, to speak more properly, they may be said to possess both of these at once, for they are self-motive: and that which is self-motive is both moved and is at the same time immovable, since a motive power seems to belong to an immovable nature. Soul, therefore, essentially pre-assumes all disciplines; the geometrical, according to her totality, her forms, and her lines; the arithmetical, according to her multitude and essential unities; the harmonical, according to the ratios of numbers; and the spherical, according to her double circulations. And, in short, she is the essential, self-motive, intellectual, and united bond of all disciplines, purely comprehending all things; figures in an unfigured manner; unitedly such things as are divided; and without distance such as are distant from each other.
We are likewise informed by Proclus, that, according to Porphyry, a character like the letter X comprehended in a circle was a symbol with the Egyptians of the mundane soul; by the right lines, perhaps (says he), signifying its biformed progression, but by the circle its uniform life and intellective progress, which is of a circular nature. But of these circles the exterior, or the circle of sameness, represents the dianoëtic power of the soul; but the interior, or the circle of difference, the power which energizes according to opinion: and the motion which is perpetually revolved in sameness, and which comprehends the soul, is intellect.
Again, we have before observed that, according to the Platonic philosophy, the planets revolve with a kind of spiral motion; while variously wandering under the oblique zodiac, they at one time verge to the south, and at another to the north, sometimes advance, and sometimes retreat, and being at one time more distant from and at another nearer to the earth. And this motion, indeed, very properly belongs to them, from their middle position, as it is a medium between the right-lined motion of the elements and the circular motion of the inerratic sphere: for a spiral is mixed from the right line and circle. Add too, that there are seven motions in the heavens; the circular, before, behind, upwards, downwards, to the right hand, and to the left. But the spheres alone possess a circular motion. And the stars in the inerratic sphere revolve about their centres; but at the same time have an advancing motion, because they are drawn along towards the west by the sphere in which they are fixed. But they are entirely destitute of the other five motions. On the contrary, the planets have all the seven. For they revolve about their own centres, but are carried by the motions of their spheres towards the east. And besides this, they are carried upwards and downwards, behind and before, to the right hand and to the left. Every star, too, by its revolution about its own centre, imitates the energy of the soul which it contains about its own intellect; but by following the motion of its sphere, it imitates the energy of the sphere about a superior intellect. We may likewise add, that the uniformity in the motions of the fixed stars confers union and perseverance on inferior concerns; but that the manifold and opposite motions of the planets contribute to the production, mingling and governing of things various and opposite.
And here, as the reader will doubtless be desirous of knowing why earth is called by Plato the first and most antient of the Gods within the heavens, I doubt not but he will gratefully receive the following epitome of the beautiful account given by Proclus of the earth in his inestimable commentaries on this venerable dialogue.
—“Earth (says he) first proceeds from the intelligible earth which comprehends all the intelligible orders of the Gods, and from the intellectual earth which is co-ordinated with heaven. For our earth, being analogous to these, eternally abides, as in the centre of heaven; by which being every way comprehended, it becomes full of generative power and demiurgic perfection. The true earth, therefore, is not this corporeal and gross bulk, but an animal endued with a divine soul and a divine body. For it contains an immaterial and separate intellect, and a divine soul energizing about this intellect, and an ethereal body proximately depending on this soul; and, lastly, this visible bulk, which is on all sides animated and filled with life from its inspiring soul, and through which it generates and nourishes lives of all-various kinds. For one species of life is rooted in the earth, and another moves about its surface. For how is it possible that plants should live while abiding in the earth, but when separated from it die, unless its visible bulk was full of life? Indeed it must universally follow that wholes must be animated prior to parts: for it would be ridiculous that man should participate of a rational soul and of intellect, but that earth and air should be deprived of a soul, sublimely carried in these elements as in a chariot, governing them from on high, and preserving them in the limits accommodated to their nature. For, as Theophrastus well observes, wholes would possess less authority than parts, and things eternal than such as are corruptible, if deprived of the possession of soul. Hence there must necessarily be a soul and intellect in the earth, the former causing her to be prolific, and the latter connectedly containing her in the middle of the universe. So that earth is a divine animal, full of intellectual and animastic essences, and of immaterial powers. For if a partial soul, such as ours, in conjunction with its proper ethereal vehicle, is able to exercise an exuberant energy in a material body, what ought we to think of a soul so divine as that of the earth? Ought we not to assert, that by a much greater priority she uses these apparent bodies through other middle vehicles, and through these enables them to receive her divine illuminations?
“Earth then subsisting in this manner, she is said, in the first place, to be our nurse, as possessing, in a certain respect, a power equivalent to heaven; and because, as heaven comprehends divine animals, so earth appears to contain such as are earthly. And, in the second place, as inspiring our life from her own proper life. For she not only yields us fruits, and nourishes our bodies through these, but she fills our souls with illuminations from her own divine soul, and through her intellect awakens ours from its oblivious sleep. And thus, through the whole of herself, she becomes the nurse of our whole composition.
“But we may consider the poles as powers which give stability to the universe, and excite the whole of its bulk to intelligible love; which connect a divisible nature indivisibly, and that which possesses interval in an united and indistant manner. But the axis is one divinity congregating the centres of the universe, connecting the whole world, and moving its divine circulations; about which the revolutions of the stars subsist, and which sustains the whole of the heavens by its power. And hence it is called Atlas, from the immutable and unwearied energy with which it is endued. Add too that the word τεταμενον, extended, signifies that this one power is Titanic, guarding the circulations of the wholes which the universe contains.
“Earth is likewise called the guardian and fabricator of night and day. And that she causes the night indeed is evident; for her magnitude and figure give that great extent to the conical shadow which she produces. But she is the fabricator of the day, considered as giving perfection to the day which is conjoined with night; so that earth is the artificer of both these in conjunction with the sun.
“But she is the most antient and first of the Gods in the heavens, considered with respect to her stability and generative power, her symphony with heaven, and her position in the centre of the universe. For the centre possesses a mighty power in the universe, as connecting all its circulations; and hence it was called by the Pythagoreans the tower of Jupiter, from its containing a demiurgic guard. And if we recollect the Platonic hypothesis concerning the earth (which we have mentioned before), that our habitable part is nothing but a dark hollow, and very different from the true earth, which is adorned with a beauty similar to that of the heavens, we shall have no occasion to wonder at her being called the first and most antient of the celestial Gods.”
Again, according to the Platonic philosophy, some of the fixed stars are sometimes so affected, that for a considerable space of time they become invisible to us; and in this case, both when they withdraw themselves from our view, and when they again make their appearance, they are said by such as are skilled in these affairs, according to the information of Proclus¹¹⁴, both to produce and signify mighty events. But though it is evident from the very words of Plato, in this part of the dialogue, that this opinion concerning certain stars disappearing and becoming again visible was entertained by all the astronomers of his time, and by the Pythagoreans prior to him, yet this most interesting circumstance seems to have been utterly unknown to the moderns. Hence, not in the least suspecting this to be the case, they have immediately concluded from stars appearing of which we have no account, and others disappearing which have been observed in the heavens for many ages, that the stars are bodies, like earthly natures, subject to generation and decay. But this is not wonderful, if we consider that such men as these have not the smallest conception that the universe is a perfect whole; that every thing perfect must have a first, middle, and last; and that, in consequence of this, the heavens alone can rank in the first place, and earth in the last.
As the universe, indeed, as well as each of its principal parts or wholes, is perpetual, and as this perpetuity being temporal can only subsist by periodical circulation, hence all the celestial bodies, in order that all the possible variety of things may be unfolded, form different periods at different times; and their appearings and disappearings are nothing more than the restitutions of their circulations to their pristine state, and the beginnings of new periods. For according to these especially, says Proclus, they turn and transmute mundane natures, and bring on abundant corruptions and mighty mutations, as Plato asserts in the Republic.
In the next place, from the sublime speech of the demiurgus to the junior or mundane Gods, the reader may obtain full conviction that the Gods of the antients were not dead men deified; for they are here represented as commanded by the mundane artificer to fabricate the whole of the mortal race. And with respect to the properties of the sublunary Gods, which Plato comprehends in nine divinities, Proclus beautifully observes that Heaven bounds, Earth corroborates, and Ocean moves, the whole of generation. That Tethys establishes every thing in its proper motion, intellectual natures in intellectual, middle natures in animal, and corporeal natures in physical motion; Ocean at the same time moving all things collected together in one. But Saturn distributes intellectually only, Rhea vivifies, Phorcys scatters spermatic reasons, Jupiter gives perfection to things apparent from unapparent causes, and Juno evolves according to the all-various mutations of apparent natures. And thus through this ennead the sublunary world is in a becoming manner distributed and filled; divinely indeed from the Gods, angelically from angels, and dæmoniacally from dæmons. And again, the Gods subsisting about bodies, souls, and intellects; angels exhibiting their providence about souls and bodies; and dæmons being divided about the fabrication of nature, and the care of bodies. But it may be asked, Why does Plato comprehend the whole extent of the Gods producing generation, in these nine divinities? Because, says Proclus, this ennead accomplishes the fabrication of generation. For in the sublunary regions there are bodies and natures, souls and intellects, and these both totally and partially. And all these subsist in both respects, that is both totally and partially, in each of the elements, because wholes and parts subsist together. Hence, as each element ranks as a monad, and contains bodies and natures, souls and intellects, both totally and partially, an ennead will evidently be produced in each. But Heaven and Earth generate the unapparent essences of these, the former according to union, and the latter according to multiplication: but Ocean and Tethys give perfection to their common and distributed motion; at the same time that the motion of each is different. In like manner, with respect to the wholes which are adorned, Saturn distributes things partial from such as are total, but in an intellectual manner. But Rhea calls forth this distribution from intellectual natures into all-various progressions, and as far as to the ultimate forms of life, in consequence of her being a vivific Goddess. But Phorcys produces the Titanic distinction, as far as to natural reasons. And after these three, the fathers of composite natures succeed. And Jupiter indeed orderly disposes sensible natures totally, in imitation of Heaven. For in the intellectual order, and in the royal series, he proceeds analogous to Heaven¹¹⁵. But Juno moves the wholes, fills them with powers, and unfolds them according to every progression. And the Gods posterior to these fabricate the partial works of sensible natures, according to the characteristics by which they are distinguished; viz. the demiurgic, the vivific, the perfective, and the connective, unfolding and distributing themselves as far as to the last of things. For these last are all of them analogous to the Saturnian order, from whose government the distributive characteristic originally proceeds.
Again, by the Crater in which the mundane soul was mingled, we must understand the vivific Goddess Juno; by the term mingling, a communion of essence; and by a second mixture in a certain respect the same, but yet deficient from the first in a second and third degree, the similitude and at the same time inferiority of partial to total souls, and the order subsisting among partial souls. For some of these are pure and undefiled, associating with generation but for a short time, and this for the God-like purpose of benefiting more ingenious souls; but others wander from their true country for very extended periods of time. For between souls which abide on high without defilement, and such as descend and are defiled with vice, the medium must be such souls as descend, indeed, but without defilement.
But when the artificer of the universe is said to have distributed souls equal in number to the stars, this must not be understood as if one partial soul was distributed under one of the stars, and that the quantity of souls is equal to that of the starry Gods; for this would be perfectly inconsistent with what Plato asserts a little before, that the artificer disseminated some of these into the earth, some into the sun and some into the moon, thus scattering a multitude into each of the instruments of time. But, as Proclus well observes, equality of number here must not be understood monadically, but according to analogy. For in numbers, says he, ten is analogous to unity, thirty to three, fifty to five, and entirely all the numbers posterior to the decad, to all within the decad. And hence five is not equal to fifty in quantity, nor three to thirty, but they are only equal according to analogy. After this manner, therefore, the equal in number must be assumed in partial souls; since there is a number of these accommodated to every divine soul, and which each divine soul uniformly pre-assumes in itself. And hence, when it unfolds this number, it bounds the multitude of partial souls distributed under its essence. Likewise, with respect to these depending souls, such as are first suspended from a divine soul are less in number, but greater in power; but such as are second in progression are less in power, but more extended in number; while at the same time each is analogous to the divine cause from which it proceeds.
Observe, too, that when Plato uses the term the most pious of animals, man alone is not implied, but the inhabitants likewise or partial souls of the several spheres and stars: for, says Proclus, between eternal animals¹¹⁶, and such as live but for a short period¹¹⁷, (viz. whose periods of circulation are short) it is necessary there should be a species of rational animals more divine than man, and whose existence is of a very extended duration. It is likewise worthy of observation, that the soul is conjoined with this gross body through two vehicles as mediums, one of which is ethereal and the other aërial: and of these the ethereal vehicle is simple and immaterial, but the aërial simple and material; and this dense earthly body is composite and material.
Again, when our souls are represented after falling into the present body as suffering a transmutation into brutes, this, as Proclus beautifully observes, must not be understood as if our souls ever became the animating principles of brutal bodies, but that by a certain sympathy they are bound to the souls of brutes, and are as it were carried in them, just as evil dæmons insinuate themselves into our phantasy, through their own depraved imaginations. And by the circulations of the soul being merged in a profound river and impetuously borne along, we must understand by the river, not the human body alone, but the whole of generation (with which we are externally surrounded) through its swift and unstable flowing. For thus, says Proclus, Plato in the Republic calls the whole of generated nature the river of Lethe, which contains both Lethe and the meadow of Ate, according to Empedocles¹¹⁸; the devouring jaws of matter and the light-hating world, as it is called by the Gods; and the winding rivers under which many are drawn down, as the oracles¹¹⁹ assert. But by the circulations of the soul the dianoëtic and doxastic powers are signified; the former of which, through the soul’s conjunction with the body, is impeded in its energies, and the latter is Titanically torn in pieces under the irrational life.
Again, if we consider man with reference to a contemplative life, which is the true end of his formation, we shall find that the head, which is the instrument of contemplation, is the principal member, and that the other members were only added as ministrant to the head. With respect to sight, it must be observed that Democritus, Heraclitus, the Stoics, many of the Peripatetics and antient geometricians, together with the Platonists, were of opinion that vision subsists through a lucid spirit emitted from the eyes: and this spirit, according to Plato and his followers, is an unburning vivific fire similar to celestial fire, from which it originally proceeds. But this fire, the illuminations of which, as we have already observed, give life to our mortal part, is abundantly collected in the eye as in a fat diaphanous substance, whose moisture is most shining and whose membranes are tender and transparent, but yet sufficiently firm for the purpose of preserving the inherent light. But a most serene ray shines through the more solid pupil; and this ray originates internally from one nerve, but is afterwards derived through two small nerves to the two eyes. And these nerves, through the fat humours of the eyes, winding under the tunics, arrive at length at the pupils. But a light of this kind, thus preserved in the small nerves, and bursting through the narrow pupils as soon as it shines forth into dispersed rays, as it commenced from one ray, so it immediately returns into one, from the rays naturally uniting in one common ray: for the eyes also, on account of their lubricity, roundness, and smooth substance, are easily moved hither and thither, with an equal and similar revolution. This visual ray, however, cannot proceed externally and perceive objects at a distance, unless it is conjoined with external light proceeding conically to the eyes; and hence our ray insinuating itself into this light, and becoming strengthened by the association, continues its progression till it meets with some opposing object. But when this is the case, it either diffuses itself through the superficies of the object, or runs through it with wonderful celerity, and becomes immediately affected with the quality of the object. And a resistance, motion, and affection of this kind produces vision, viz. from the vibration of the ray thus affected gradually arriving at the instrument of sight, and by this means exciting that image of the object which is naturally inherent in the instrument, and through which when excited perception ensues. For there are three particulars which belong in general to all the senses; first, an image or mark of the sensible thing impressed in the sensitive instrument; and this constituted both in passion and energy in a certain similitude to the sensible object: but afterwards we must consider an impression of this kind as now perfect, and ending in species, viz. in the common composite life: and, in the third place, that inherent reason of the soul ensues, which germinates from the sensitive soul, is accommodated to species of this kind, and is that through which sensitive judgment and cogitation subsist.
But further, the Platonists admit, with Democritus and Empedocles, that certain material images of things flow through the pores of bodies, and preserve, to a certain distance, not only the qualities but likewise the shape of the bodies from which they flow. And these radial images are intimated by Plato in this dialogue, in the Sophista, and in the seventh book of his Republic; in commenting on the last of which, Proclus observes as follows: “According to Plato, (says he) representations of things are hypostases of certain images fabricated by a dæmoniacal art, as he teaches us in the Sophista; for shadows, of which they say images are the companions, possess a nature of this kind. For these are the effigies of bodies and figures, and have an abundant sympathy with the things from which they fall; as is evident from what the arts of magicians are able to effect, and from what they tell us concerning images and shadows. But why should I speak of the powers of magicians, when irrational animals are able to operate through images and shadows, prior to all reason? for they say that the hyæna, by trampling on the shadow of a dog seated on an eminence, will hurl him down and devour him; and Aristotle says, that if a woman, during her menstrua, looks into a mirror, she will defile both the mirror and the apparent image.”—Ὁτι κατα Πλατωνα ἁι εμφασεις ὑποστασεις εισιν ειδωλων τινων δαιμονιᾳ μηχανῃ δημιουργουμεναι, καθαπερ αυτος εν τῳ σοφιστῃ διδασκει. Και γαρ ἁι σκιαι ἁις τα ειδωλα συζυγειν φησι τοιαυτην εχουσι φυσιν. Και γαρ αυται σωματων εισι και σχηματων εικονες, και παμπολυν εχουσι προς τα αφ’ ὡν εμπιπτουσι συμπαθειαν, ὡς δηλουσι και ὁσα μαχων (lege μαγων) τεχναι προς τε τα ειδωλα δραν και επαγγελλονται και τας σκιας. Και τι λεγω τας εκεινων δυναμεις ἁ και τοις αλογοις ηδη ζωοις ὑπαρχη προ λογου παντος ενεργειν. Ἡ γαρ ὑαινα φασιν την του κυνος εν ὑψει καθημενου πατησασα σκιαν καταβαλλει, και θοινην ποιηται τον κυνα. Και γυναικος καθαιρουμενης φησιν Αριστοτελης, εις ενοπτρον ιδουσης, ἁιματουται, το τε ενοπτρον, και το εμφαινομενον ειδωλον¹²⁰.
—And he likewise informs us in the same place, that these images, on account of their slender existence, cannot otherwise become visible to our eyes, than when, in consequence of being established, restored, and illuminated in mirrors, they again receive their pristine power and the shape of their originals. Hence, says he, density is required in the body which receives them, that the image may not be dissipated from the rarity of the receptacle, and that from many defluxions it may pass into one form. But smoothness likewise is required, lest the asperity of the receptacle, on account of the prominency of some of its parts and the depth of others, should be the cause of inequality to the image. And, lastly, splendour is required; that the image, which naturally possesses a slender form, may become apparent to the sight.
In the next place, with respect to matter, and the various epithets by which Plato calls it in this dialogue, it is necessary to observe, that as in an ascending series of subjects we must arrive at length at something which is better than all things, so in a descending series our progression must be stopped by something which is worse than all things, and which is the general receptacle of the last procession of forms. And this is what the antients called matter, and which they considered as nothing more than a certain indefiniteness of an incorporeal, indivisible, and intellectual nature, and as something which is not formally impressed and bounded by three dimensions, but is entirely remitted and resolved, and is on all sides rapidly flowing from being into non-entity. But this opinion concerning matter, says Simplicius¹²¹, seems to have been adopted by the first Pythagoreans among the Greeks; and after these by Plato, according to the relation of Moderatus. For he shows us—“that, according to the Pythagoreans, there is a first one subsisting prior to the essence of things and every substance; that after this, true being and intelligible or forms subsist: and, in the third place, that which pertains to soul, and which participates of the one and of intellectual forms. But after this (says he) the last nature, which is that of sensibles, subsists; which does not participate of the preceding natures, but is thus affected and formed according to the representation of these; since the matter of sensible natures is the shadow of that non-being which primarily subsists in quantity, or rather may be said to depend upon, and be produced by, this.” Hence Porphyry, in his second book on Matter, says Simplicius, observes that Plato calls matter, quantity, which is formless, indivisible, and without figure; but capacious, and the receptacle of form, figure, division, quality, and other things of a similar kind. And this quantity and form, considered according to the privation of a uniform reason, which comprehends all the reasons of beings in itself, is the paradigm of the matter of bodies; which, says Porphyry, both Plato and the Pythagoreans call a quantum, not after the same manner as form is a quantum, but according to privation and analysis, extension and divulsion, and its mutation from being. Matter, therefore, according to this doctrine, as Simplicius well observes, is nothing else than the permutation and vicissitude of sensible forms, with respect to intelligibles; since from thence they verge downwards, and extend to perfect non-entity, or the last of things—that is, to matter itself. Hence, says he, because dregs and matter are always the last of things, the Egyptians assert that matter, which they enigmatically denominate water, is the dregs of the first life; subsisting as a certain mire or mud, the receptacle of generable and sensible natures; and which is not any definite form, but a certain constitution of subsistence, in the same manner as that which is indivisible, immaterial and true being, is a constitution of an intelligible nature. And though all forms subsist both in intelligibles and in matter, yet in the former they subsist without matter, indivisibly and truly; but in the latter divisibly, and after the manner of shadows. And on this account every sensible form is dissipated through its union with material interval, and falls from the stability and reality of being.
But the following profound and admirable description of matter by Plotinus (Ennead. 3, lib. 6) will, I doubt not, be gratefully received by the Platonic reader.—“Since matter (says he) is neither soul, nor intellect, nor life, nor form, nor reason, nor bound, but a certain indefiniteness; nor yet capacity, for what can it produce? since it is foreign from all these, it cannot merit the appellation of being; but is deservedly called non-entity. Nor yet is it non-entity in the same manner as motion and permanency are non-beings, considered as different from being: but it is true non-entity; the mere shadow and imagination of bulk, and the desire of subsistence; remaining fixed without abiding, of itself invisible, and avoiding the desire of him who is anxious to perceive its nature. Hence, when no one perceives it, it is then in a manner present; but cannot be viewed by him who strives intently to behold it. Again, in itself contraries always appear; the small and the great, the less and the more, deficience and excess. So that it is a phantom, neither abiding nor yet able to fly away; capable of no one denomination, and possessing no power from intellect; but is constituted in the defect and shade, as it were, of all real being. Hence, too, in each of its vanishing appellations, it eludes our search: for, if we think of it as something great, it is in the mean time small; if as something more, it becomes less; and the apparent being which we meet with in its image is non-being, and, as it were, a flying mockery. So that the forms which appear in matter are merely ludicrous; shadows falling upon shadow, as in a mirror, where the position of the apparent is different from that of the real object; and which, though apparently full of forms, possesses nothing real and true. But the things which enter into, and depart from, matter, are nothing but imitations of being, and semblances flowing about a formless semblance. They seem, indeed, to effect something in the subject matter, but in reality produce nothing; from their debile and flowing nature being endued with no solidity and no rebounding power. And since matter likewise has no solidity, they penetrate it without division, like images in water, or as if any one should fill a vacuum with forms.”
Such, then, being the true condition of matter and her inherent shadowy forms, we may safely conclude that whatever becomes corporeal in an eminent degree has but little power of recalling itself into one; and that a nature of this kind is ready by every trifling impulse to remain as it is impelled; to rush from the embraces of bound, and hasten into multitude and non-entity. Hence, as Plotinus beautifully observes, (Ennead. 3, lib. 6,)— “those who only place being in the genus of body, in consequence of impulses and concussions, and the phantasms perceived through the senses, which persuade them that sense is alone the standard of truth, are affected like those in a dream, who imagine that the perceptions of sleep are true. For sense is alone the employment of the dormant soul; since as much of the soul as is merged in body, so much of it sleeps. But true elevation and true vigilance are a resurrection from, and not with, the dull mass of body. For, indeed, a resurrection with body is only a transmigration from sleep to sleep, and from dream to dream, like a man passing in the dark from bed to bed. But that elevation is perfectly true which entirely rises from the dead weight of bodies; for these, possessing a nature repugnant to soul, possess something opposite to essence. And this is further evident from their generation, their continual flowing and decay; properties entirely foreign from the nature of being, substantial and real.”
Lastly, when Plato composes the elements from mathematical planes, it is necessary to observe that, as these are physical planes, they must not only have length and breadth, but likewise depth, that they may be able to subsist as principles in natural effects.—“For the Pythagoreans (says Simplicius¹²²) considered every physical body as a figured quantity, and as in itself matter, but fashioned with different figures. That, besides this, it differs from a mathematical body in being material and tangible, receiving its tangibility from its bulk, and not either from heat or cold. Hence, from the subject matter being impressed with different figures, they assert that the four elements of the elements subsist. For these elements rank more in the nature of principles, as for instance, the cubic of earth; not that earth has wholly a cubic figure, but that each of the parts of earth is composed from many cubes, which through their smallness are invisible to our sight; and in the same manner the other elements from other primary figures. They add too, that from this difference of figures all the other properties of the elements ensue, and their mutations into each other. For, if it is inquired why much air is produced from a little water, they can very readily assign the cause by saying, that the elements of water are many, and that, the icosaedrons of water being divided, many octaedrons, and consequently a great quantity of air, will be produced.”
Simplicius likewise informs us, that the more antient of Plato’s interpreters, among which the divine Jamblichus ranks, considered Plato as speaking symbolically in this part concerning the figures of the elements; but the latter Platonic philosophers, among whom Proclus, in my opinion, ranks as the most eminent, explained this part according to its literal meaning. And Simplicius, in the same book, has fortunately preserved the arguments of Proclus in defence of Plato’s doctrine respecting these planes, against the objections of Aristotle.
Should it be asked in what this doctrine concerning planes differs from the dogma of Democritus, who asserted that natural bodies were fashioned according to figures, we may answer with Simplicius¹²³, that Plato and the Pythagoreans by a plane denoted something more simple than a body¹²⁴, atoms being evidently bodies; that they assigned commensuration and a demiurgic analogy¹²⁵ to their figures, which Democritus did not to his atoms; and that they differed from him in their arrangement of earth.
And thus much may suffice at present for an epitome of some of the principal parts of this most interesting dialogue. For, as it is my design at some future period to publish as complete a commentary as I am able from the inestimable commentaries of Proclus on this dialogue, with additional observations of my own, a more copious introduction might at present be considered as superfluous. The difficulty, indeed, of proceeding any further, might alone very well apologise for the want of completion in this compendium. For the commentary of Proclus, though consisting of five books, is imperfect¹²⁶, and does not even extend so far as to the doctrine of vision, which in the present introduction I have endeavoured to explain. I trust, therefore, that the candid and liberal reader will gratefully accept these fruits of my application to the Platonic philosophy; and as this introduction and the following translation were the result of no moderate labour and perseverance, I earnestly hope they may be the means of awakening some few at least from the sleep of oblivion, of recalling their attention from fluctuating and delusive objects to permanent and real being; and thus may at length lead them back to their paternal port, as the only retreat which can confer perfect security and rest.

## Introduction to the Critias

It is a singular circumstance, that though there is not, perhaps, any thing among the writings of the antients which has more generally attracted the attention of the learned in every age than the Atlantic history of Plato, yet no more than one single passage of about twenty or thirty lines has, prior to my translation of the Timæus, appeared in any modern language. Much has been said and written by the moderns respecting the Atlantic island; but the extent of the original source has not even been suspected.
That the authenticity of the following history should have been questioned by many of the moderns, is by no means surprising, if we consider that it is the history of an island and people that are asserted to have existed NINE THOUSAND years prior to Solon; as this contradicts the generallyreceived opinion respecting the antiquity of the world. However, as Plato expressly affirms, that it is a relation in every respect true¹²⁷, and, as Crantor¹²⁸, the first interpreter of Plato, asserts, “that the following history was said, by the Egyptian priests of his time, to be still preserved inscribed on pillars,” it appears to me to be at least as well attested as any other narration in any antient historian. Indeed, he who proclaims that “truth is the source of every good both to Gods and men,” and the whole of whose works consists in detecting error and exploring certainty, can never be supposed to have wilfully deceived mankind by publishing an extravagant romance as matter of fact, with all the precision of historical detail.
Some learned men have endeavoured to prove that America is the Atlantic island of Plato; and others have thought that the extreme parts of Africa towards the south and west were regarded by Plato in this narration. These opinions, however, are so obviously erroneous, that the authors of them can hardly be supposed to have read this dialogue, and the first part of the Timæus; for in these it is asserted that this island, in the space of one day and night, was absorbed in the sea.
I only add, that this dialogue is an appendix, as it were, to the Timæus, and that it is not complete, Plato being prevented by death from finishing it, as we are informed by Plutarch in his life of Solon.

## Notes

[1] The whole of this Introduction is extracted from the MS. Commentary of Proclus on this dialogue; excepting some occasional elucidations by the translator.—T.
[2] For, the perceptions of intellect being intuitive, whatever it sees it sees collectively, at once, and without time.
[3] This is the case with the sensible universe, considered as a whole.
[4] Twofold ignorance takes place when a man is ignorant that he is ignorant; and this was the case with Alcibiades in the first part of this dialogue, and is the disease of the multitude.
[5] Hyparxis signifies the summit of essence; and, in all the divinities except the first God, is the one considered as participated by essence. See the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[6] The Eleusinian, which Proclus calls the most holy of the mysteries, are likewise always denominated by him τελεται: and Suidas informs us that τελετη signifies a mysterious sacrifice, the greatest and most honourable. So that Socrates in the above passage clearly indicates that such fables belong to the most sacred of the mysteries.
[7] Hence, according to the fable, Saturn was bound by Jupiter, who is the demiurgus or artificer of the universe.
[8] The Titans are the ultimate artificers of things.
[9] See the notes to the Cratylus.
[10] Such fables, also, call forth our unperverted conceptions of divine natures, in which they efficaciously establish us, by untaught sacred disciplines; and, in short, they give perfection to the vital powers of the soul.
[11] Αδυνατοις is erroneously printed in the original for αδυτοις.
[12] Proclus says this with reference to what took place in the mysteries, as is evident from the following extract from his MS. Commentary on the First Alcibiades: Εν ταις ἁγιωταταις των τελετων προ της του θεου παρουσιας δαιμονων χθονιων τινων συμβολοι προφαινονται, και οψεις εκταραττουσαι τους τελουμενους, και αποσπωσαι των αχραντων αγαθων, και εις την ὑλην εκπροκαλουμεναι· δια το και ὁι θεοι παρακελευονται μη προτερον εις εκεινους βλεπειν, πριν ταις απο των τελετων φραχθωμεν δυναμεσιν· ου χρη κεινους σε βλεπειν πριν σωμα τελεσθεις, και δια τουτο τα λογια προστιθησιν, ὁτι τας ψυχας θελγοντες αει των τελετων ἀπαγουσιν. i. e. “In the most holy of the mysteries, before the God appears, certain terrestrial dæmons present themselves, and sights which disturb those that are to be initiated, tear them away from undefiled goods, and call forth their attention to matter. Hence the Gods exhort us not to look at these, till we are fortified by the powers which the mysteries confer. For thus they speak: It is not proper for you to behold them till your body is initiated. And on this account the oracles (i. e. the Chaldæan) add, that such dæmons, alluring souls, seduce them from the mysteries.” Agreeably to this, Proclus, also, in Plat. Theol. p. 7. observes, Εν ταις των τελετων ἁγιωταταις φασι τους μυστας, την μεν πρωτην πολυειδεσι και πολυμορφοις των θεων προβεβλημενοις γενεσιν ἁπανταν. i. e. “In the most holy of the mysteries they say that the mystics at first meet with the multiform and many-shaped genera which are hurled forth before the gods.”
[13] For ὑπερ, as in the original, read ὑπαρ.
[14] Viz. bound and infinity, which are the highest principles after the ineffable cause of all.—See the Philebus, and the Notes to my Translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
[15] The form of a thing considered according to its causal subsistence, or a subsistence in its cause, is said to be a whole prior to parts.
[16] Iliad. lib. 2. ver. 288, &c.
[17] See the Phædrus.
[18] For five is not only an odd, but also a spheric number: for all its multiplications into itself terminate in five; and therefore end where they began.
[19] For six is a perfect number, being equal to the sum of all its parts.
[20] That is to say, though Venus is not represented by Homer as actually producing friendship in the adverse Gods, yet this is occultly signified by her being present; for she is the source of all the harmony, friendship, and analogy in the universe, and of the union of form with matter.
[21] Iliad. lib. 24. ver. 527.
[22] Viz. bound and infinity.
[23] These twofold coordinations of the Pythagoræans are as follow: Bound, infinity: the odd, the even: the one, multitude: right hand, left hand: the masculine, the feminine: the quiescent, that which is in motion: the straight, the curved: light, darkness: good, evil: the square, the oblong. See my Translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, book 1.
[24] For πειθω signifies persuasion, and πιθος is a tub.
[25] Iliad. lib. 24. ver. 534, &c.
[26] For ὁ δε ὁμως, as in the original, read ὁ δε Ὁμηρος.
[27] Δεινη γαρ Κρονιδαο νοου κραντειρα τετυκται.
[28] Pandarus seems to be derived απο του παντα δραν, that is, as we commonly say of a very depraved character, he was a man capable of any thing.
[29] Iliad. lib. 4. ver. 86.
[30] See the 10th Book.
[31] For δημιουργιας, read δημηγοριας.
[32] Iliad. lib. 20.
[33] Odyss. lib. 17. ver. 485.
[34] Viz. the Chaldæan Oracles. See my Collection of these Oracles in the third volume of the Monthly Magazine.
[35] Hence also Homer, Iliad. lib. 20. ver. 131. says, χαλεποι δε θεοι φαινεσθαι εναργεις.—i. e. O’erpowering are the Gods when clearly seen.
[36] Iliad. lib. 5.
[37] A divine nature must necessarily produce the sensation of weight in the body by which it is received, from its overpowering energy; for body lies like non-entity before such a nature, and fails, and dies away, as it were, under its influence.
[38] Iliad. lib. 1.
[39] Iliad. 21. ver. 285.
[40] Heroes are divided into two kinds: those that energize according to practical, and those that energize according to intellectual virtue. Achilles was a hero of the former class, and Hercules of the latter. For an ample account of the characteristics of these two kinds, see my Pausanias, vol. iii. p. 229.
[41] The irrational part of the soul is the image of the rational, in the same manner as the rational soul is the image of intellect. Body also is the image of the irrational soul, and matter, or the last of things, is the image of body.
[42] For αγμων here read ατμων.
[43] Instead of reading the latter part of this sentence, and the beginning of the next, as it is erroneously printed in the original, viz. φερομενων πορρωτατω. Τα δε εστι &c. it is necessary to read, as in the translation, φερομενων. Πορρωτατω δε εστι &c.
[44] Iliad. 22.
[45] Iliad. 18.
[46] i. e. Jupiter, who is called the greatest of the Gods, with reference to the mundane Gods, of whom he is the demiurgus and father. For, that he is not the first God, is evident from the Cratylus, Timæus and Parmenides of Plato; which see.
[47] Δακρυα μεν σεθεν εστι πολυπλημων (lege πολυτλημων) γενος ανδρων.
[48] viz. the Eleusinian mysteries.
[49] viz. Rhea, who is the mother of the Gods.
[50] Iliad. lib. 1. circa finem.
[51] viz. He is the artificer of the whole of a corporeal nature. Proclus also, somewhere in his comment on the Timæus, assigns another reason for the fiction of Vulcan’s lameness, viz. because he is the fabricator of things last in the progressions of being (for such are bodies), and which are not able to proceed into another order. I prefer this explanation to the former.
[52] Instead of και της οικειας ευπαθειας αφισταμενοι, read και της οικειας ευπαθειας ουχ αφισταμενοι.
[53] Iliad. lib. 1.
[54] Odyss. lib. 10. at the beginning.
[55] See these explained in my History of the Platonic Theology, annexed to my Translation of Proclus on Euclid.
[56] Iliad. lib. 14.
[57] viz. the great Syrianus.
[58] In the original μεριστην; but it is necessary to read χωριστην, as in our translation.
[59] This is a part of one of the Chaldæan Oracles, to my collection of which I have already referred the reader.
[60] viz. Dæmoniacal powers. The dress therefore of Juno signifies her being invested with powers of this kind.
[61] viz. The Curetes.
[62] viz. The dodecaedron, which is bounded by twelve equal and equilateral pentagons, and consists of twenty solid angles, of which the tripods of Vulcan are images; for every angle of the dodecaedron is formed from the junction of three lines.
[63] Iliad. lib. 18. ver. 402.
[64] Iliad. lib. 1.
[65] Iliad lib. 1.
[66] Iliad. lib. 9.
[67] Iliad. lib. 22.
[68] Iliad. lib. 18.
[69] Iliad. lib. 24.
[70] Iliad. lib. 21.
[71] Iliad. lib. 23.
[72] For τον θεον in the original, read των θεων.
[73] προσεχως δ’ ωρμημενοις επι το του Διος αντρον ἱερον, τουτο γενομενον ἁγιωτατον, εν ῳ τα σεπτοτατα και αρρητοτατα των μυστηριων επιτελειτο.—Schol. Græc. in Plat. p. 214.
[74] Senec. Epist. 94.
[75] Hypostasis (ὑποστασις) is an individual subsistence.
[76] The force of this argument for the existence of a self-motive nature is very great. If all motion were to stop, whence could it again originate? Not from the immovable; for it is a mover only, and therefore cannot be that which is first moved. Nor could motion originate from the alter-motive nature; for this, as its name implies, derives its motion from another.
[77] See the Introduction to my Translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
[78] Intuitive perception is the characteristic of intellect, as discursive energy of the rational soul.
[79] i. e. the soul of the world.
[80] See the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[81] That is, as energizing super-intellectually through its unity, which is the blossom of its essence, and which abides in unproceeding union in the ineffable cause of all.
[82] Each of the elements is a wholeness from the possession of one perfect form which remains perpetually the same.—See the Introduction to the Timæus.
[83] It is necessary here in the original, after the word καταστασεως, to add εκ των νοερων θεων.
[84] Viz. from the intelligible Gods, who are wholly characterized by the superessential. See the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[85] In the original instead of πασαν αναγκην, we find πασαν αρετην.
[86] Viz. This general mode of providence is applicable to all the Gods; but a peculiar mode is also united with it. For the providence of superior Gods is more universal, but that of the inferior Deities more particular. In short, the providence of the Gods is varied according to the subjects, times, and places of its energy; not that the diversity of the latter produces, but, on the contrary, proceeds from, the variety of the former.
[87] Proclus here alludes to the Chaldæan Oracles, of one of which the sentence, “Virtue is victorious, but vice is vanquished in the universe,” is a part, as appears from his Commentary on the Republic, p. 376.
[88] That Aristotle himself, however, was not of this opinion, I have shown in the Introduction to my Translation of his Metaphysics.
[89] Ειναι γαρ τοις Πυθαγορειοις εθος, προ της επιστημονικης διδασκαλιας προτιθεναι την δια των ὁμοιων, και των εικονων των ζητουμενων σκεμματων δηλωσιν. Procl. in Tim. p. 10.
[90] Sacred to Minerva.
[91] See the sixth Book of the Republic.
[92] In Tim. p. 152.
[93] For it is necessary that the first subsistence of each of the elements should be, as we have before observed, according to part total, in order to the perfect union of the world; and this part total is called by the Platonists ὁλοτης, or a wholeness.
[94] He means the divine bodies of the stars, and the body of the heavens; which, compared with sublunary bodies, may be justly called immaterial bodies.
[95] Vid. Biblioth. Græc. vol. 1. de Orpheo.
[96] In Aristot. de Cœlo, lib. 2.
[97] For Plato makes no mention of epicycles and eccentric circles.
[98] Vid. Procl. in Tim. p. 279.
[99] Page 275.
[100] This Plato himself asserts in the following dialogue.
[101] Procl. in Tim. p. 279.
[102] In Tim. p. 282.
[103] See my notes on the Cratylus.
[104] That is, in themselves: but they are invisible to us, on account of their possessing but little of the resisting nature of earth; and this is the reason why we cannot see the celestial spheres.
[105] A disciple of Plotinus contemporary with Porphyry.
[106] Not the father, of that name, but a disciple of Ammonius Saccas, and contemporary with Plotinus.
[107] In Tim. p. 55.
[108] In Tim. p. 56.
[109] The latter Platonists appear to have been perfectly convinced that the earth contains two quarters in an opposite direction to Europe and Asia; and Olympiodorus even considers Plato as of the same opinion, as the following passage from his commentary on this part of the Phædo clearly evinces.—“Plato (says he) directs his attention to four parts of the globe, as there are two parts which we inhabit, i. e. Europe and Asia; so that there must be two others, in consequence of the antipodes.” Καταστοχαζεται δε των τεσσαρων (τοπων) επειδη δυο καθ’ ἡμας εισιν, ἡ Ευρωπη και ἡ Ασια, ωστε δυο αλλοι κατα τους αντιποδας. Now in consequence of this, as they were acquainted with Africa, the remaining fourth quarter must be that which we call America. At the same time let it be carefully remembered, that these four quarters are nothing more than four holes with respect to the whole earth, which contains many such parts; and that consequently they are not quarters of the earth itself, but only of a small part of the earth in which they are contained, like a small globe in one of a prodigious extent.
[110] Vid. Senec. Natural. Quæst. III. 29.
[111] Metaphys. lib. 5.
[112] See the Notes on the Cratylus and Parmenides.
[113] The proportion of 256 to 243 produces what is called in music λειμμα, limma, or that which remains.
[114] In Tim. p. 285. And in p. 333 he informs us, that the fixed stars have periods of revolution, though to us unknown, and that different stars have different periods. See also Chalcidius in Plat. Tim. p. 218.
[115] For there are six kings, according to Orpheus, who preside over the universe—Phanes, Night, Heaven, Saturn, Jupiter, Bacchus; and of these Saturn proceeds analogous to Phanes, and Jupiter to Heaven.
[116] i. e. stars and spheres.
[117] i. e. men.
[118] Εν ᾑ και ἡ Ληθη, και ὁ της Ατης λειμων, ὡς φησιν Εμπεδοκλης, και το λαβρον της ὑλης, και ὁ μισοφανης κοσμος, ὡς ὁι θεοι λεγουσι, και τα σκολια ρειθρα, ὑφ’ ὡν ὁι πολλοι κατασυρονται, ὡς τα λογια φησιν. Procl. in Tim. p. 339. See more concerning this in my Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.
[119] Viz. the oracles of Zoroaster.
[120] Vid. Procl. in Plat. Polit. p. 430.
[121] In Aristot. Phys. p. 50, b.
[122] De Cœlo, lib. iv. p. 139.
[123] De Cœlo, p. 142.
[124] Viz. than any visible sublunary body.
[125] i. e. active and fabricative powers.
[126] It is a circumstance remarkably unfortunate, as I have before observed, that not one of the invaluable commentaries of this philosopher has been preserved entire. For that he wrote a complete commentary on this dialogue, is evident from a citation of Olympiodorus on Aristotle’s Meteors from it, which is not to be found in any of the books now extant. In like manner, his treatise on Plato’s theology is imperfect, wanting a seventh book; his commentaries on the Parmenides want many books; his scholia on the Cratylus are far from being complete; and this is likewise the case with his commentary on the First Alcibiades.
[127] Πανταπασι γε μην αληθης.
[128] Ὁ πρωτος του Πλατωνος εξηγητης Κραντωρ. Procl. in Tim. p. 24. et mox—Μαρτυρουσι δε και ὁι προφηται φησι των Αιγυπτιων εν στηλαις ταις ετι σωζομεναις ταυτα γεγραφθαι λεγοντες.