Additional Notes on the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes III–V) — Thomas Taylor
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Translation/edition: Thomas Taylor (1804)
Language: English
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## Additional Notes on the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes III–V)


## Additional Notes on the Parmenides

FROM THE MS. COMMENTARY OF PROCLUS ON THAT DIALOGUE.
The beginning of this admirable Commentary, which is dedicated to Asclepiodotus the physician, is as follows:—“I beseech all the Gods and Goddesses to lead my intellect to the proposed theory, and, enkindling in me the splendid light of truth, to expand my dianoëtic power to the science of beings, to open the gates of my soul to the reception of the divine narration of Plato, and, conducting, as to a port, my knowledge to the most splendid of being, to liberate me from an abundance of false wisdom, and the wandering about non-beings, by a more intellectual converse with real beings, through which alone the eye of the soul is nourished and watered, as Socrates says in the Phædrus. And may the intelligible Gods impart to me a perfect intellect; the intellectual, an anagogic power; the supermundane rulers, an energy indissoluble and liberated from material knowledge; the governors of the world, a winged life; the angelic choirs, a true unfolding into light of divine concerns; beneficent dæmons, a plenitude of inspiration from the Gods; and heroes, a magnanimity permanently venerable and elevated! And, in short, may all the divine genera perfectly prepare me for the participation of the most inspective and mystic theory which Plato unfolds to us in the Parmenides, with a profundity adapted to the things themselves! And mayest thou², who art truly agitated with divine fury, in conjunction with Plato, who wert my associate in the restoration of divine truth, my leader in this theory, and the true hierophant of these divine doctrines, fill me with thy most pure intellectual conceptions! FOR, WITH RESPECT TO THIS TYPE OF
PHILOSOPHY, I SHOULD SAY, THAT IT CAME TO MEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF TERRESTRIAL SOULS; THAT IT MIGHT BE INSTEAD OF STATUES, INSTEAD OF TEMPLES, INSTEAD OF THE WHOLE OF SACRED INSTITUTIONS, AND THE LEADER OF SAFETY BOTH TO THE MEN THAT NOW ARE, AND TO
THOSE THAT SHALL EXIST HEREAFTER³.—Ευχομαι τοις θεοις πασι και πασαις, ποδηγησαι μου τον νουν εις την προκειμενην θεωριαν, και φως εν εμοι στιλπνον της αληθειας αναψαντας αναπλωσαι την ἐμην διανοιαν επ’ αυτην την των οντων επιστημην, ανοιξαιτε τας της ψυχης της εμης πυλας εις ὑποδοχην της ἐνθεου του Πλατωνος ὑφηγησεως, και ὁρμισαντας μου την γνωσιν εις το φανοτατον του οντος, παυσαιμε της πολλης δοξοσοφιας, και της περι τα μη οντα πλανης, τῃ περι τα οντα νοερωτατῃ διατριβῃ, παρ’ ὡν μονον το της ψυχης ομμα τρεφεται τε και αρδεται καθαπερ φησιν ὁ εν τῳ Φαιδρῳ Σωκρατης. ενδουναι τε μοι, νουν μεν τελεον, τοις νοητοις θεοις· δυναμιν δε αναγωγον, τοις νοεροις· ενεργειαν δε αλυτον και αφειμενην των ὑλικων γνωσεων, τοις ὑπερ των οντων ὁλων ἡγεμοναις· ζωην δε επτερωμενην, τοις τον κοσμον λαχονταις· εκφανσιν δε των θειων αληθην, τοις αγγελικοις χοροις· αποπληρωσιν δε της παρα, θεων επιπνοιας, τοις αγαθοις δαιμοναις· μεγαλοφρονα δε και σεμνην και ὑψηλην κατα στασιν, τοις ἡρωσι. παντα δε απλως θεια γενη, παρασκευην ενθηναι μοι τελεαν εις την μετουσιαν της εποπτικωτατης του Πλατωνος και μυστικωτατης θεωριας, ἡν εκφαινει μεν ἡμιν αυτος εν τῳ Παρμενιδῃ μετα της προσηκουσης τοις πραγμασι βαθυτητος. ανηπλωσε δε ταις ἑαυτου καθαρωταταις επιβολαις ὁ τω Πλατωνι μεν συ βακχευσας ὡς αληθως και ὁμοστιος καταστας (lege ὁμοστοιχος καταταστατης) της θειας αληθειας, της δε θεωριας ἡμιν γενομενος ταυτης ἡγεμων, και των θειων τουτων λογων οντως ἱεροφαντης. ὁν εγω φαιην αν φιλοσοφιας τυπον εις ανθρωπους ελθειν επ’ ευεργεσια των τηδε ψυχων, αντι των αγαλματων, αντι των ἱερων, αντι της ὁλης ἁγιστειας αυτης, και σωτηριας αρχηγον τοις γε νυν ουσιν ανθρωποις και τοις εισαυθις γενησομενοις.
126a. When we arrived at Athens from Clazomenia, &c. The Italic philosophers, says Proclus, being conversant with the speculation of the forms of beings, eoncerned themselves but little with the philosophy of objects of opinion; but those of Ionia paid little attention to the theory of intelligibles, but minutely considered nature, and the works of nature. Socrates and Plato, however, participating of both these philosophies, gave perfection to the subordinate, and unfolded the more elevated. This, indeed, Socrates manifests in the Phædo, when he says, that formerly he was a lover of physiology, but that afterwards he recurred to forms and the divine causes of beings. Hence, that which they demonstrate in their philosophy, by giving perfection both to the Ionic and Italic doctrines, this Plato appears to me to have indicated by the present circumstance; and what is wonderful in it, and sufficiently explanatory of the things which are here discussed, those from Ionia come to Athens, that they may partake of more perfect dogmas: but those from Athens do not for the same reason go to Italy, that they may partake of the Italic philosophy; but, on the contrary, being at Athens, they there communicate their proper dogmas. Thus, also, those who are able to look to beings themselves, will perceive that things first are every where present with unimpeded energy, as far as to the last of things, through such as are middles; that such as are last are perfected through middles; and that middles receive into themselves that which is imparted by first natures, but move and eonvert to themselves such as are last. Let, therefore, Ionia be a symbol of nature; but Italy of an intellectual essence; and Athens of that which has a middle subsistence, through which, to excited souls, there is an ascent from nature to intellect. This, therefore, Cephalus immediately says in the Introduction, that coming from Clazomenia to Athens for the sake of hearing the discourses of Parmenides, he met in the forum with Adimantus and Glaueo, and through these becoming acquainted with Antiphon, heard the discourses, which he related as he had learnt them from Pythodorus, who had heard them from Parmenides. Through this also it is indicated, that he who is to be led back to an intelligible essence ought, in the first place, to be excited from body, and to fly from a communion with it: for the body is the habitation of the soul. In the next place, that he should connect himself with the allotment of Minerva among wholes, through the participation of which allotment, it is no longer wonderful that the soul should become a spectator of first entities, and through these arrive at the inspection of the unities of beings. But if you are not only willing to speak in this manner, but still more universally, you may say, that the Gods who govern nature, and the all-various powers of material forms, and who also contain the whole of indivisible and sensible reasons, are suspended from the first cause, and, being illuminated by Minerva, are converted to the intellectual region, and hastily withdraw themselves from the mundane system; for this also is said to be the habitation of the Gods which it contains. By this conversion, also, they are led to the united multitude of beings, and there, through divine power, proceed to the monad of all multitude. For what is here said by Plato affords an image of these things to those that are not entirely unacquainted with such-like speculations. For every physical form is worse than multitude; but the multitude above this is, indeed, as it is said to be, multitude, but also participates of a coordinate unity. But prior to this is the exempt one, to which there is an ascent through the duad as a medium. The departure, therefore, from Clazomenia evinces an energy exempt from physical reasons; but the meeting with Adimantus and Glauco in the forum indicates the dominion of the duad in united multitude; and the association with Antiphon through these, the returning to their unity, by which they derive perfection, and a plenitude of divine goods. For in every order of Gods there is a monad, and the dominion of the duad, and the whole of distributed is conjoined with the monad, through united multitude, and the duad it contains, which is the mother, and, as it were, root of this multitude.
These things, as I have said, afford an image of the Gods themselves, and will present to those who are willing to follow the analogy, an abundance of conception. For you may observe that the Clazomenians are many, but that Adimantus and Glauco are two; and through these two the many communicate with Antiphon, who is one. And it is evident that every where the multiplied enjoys the monad through the duad; that things secondary are always suspended from the natures prior to them; and that all are extended to the one Parmenidean intellect. For the Clazomenians are in want of Adimantus and Glauco; these lead the Clazomenians to Antiphon; Antiphon fills them with the discourses of Pythodorus; and Pythodorus is the messenger of the conversation of Parmenides, Zeno, and Socrates. These two again are united to Parmenides, and wish to adhere to his doctrine; Socrates, indeed, looking to the multitude of forms, but Zeno uniting this multitude, and hastening to the one itself. We may also contemplate their order as follows:
—Parmenides, Zeno, and Socrates, preserve an image of the whole of the divine order; but those that follow are assimilated to the secondary genera. And Pythodorus, indeed, may be ranked according to the summit of dæmons, announcing and transmitting to secondary such things as proceed from primary natures. For both these pertain to this summit; the one as to that which is filled, the other as to that which fills. But Antiphon may be ranked according to the dæmoniacal order itself. For this order uses appetite and impulses, and, in short, assumes a secondary life. Hence, he is represented as skilled in the equestrian art. He, therefore, is filled from those that are first, but fills those after him with an anagogic conversation from more elevated natures. But the Clazomenians are analogous to souls conversant with generation, who require, indeed, the assistance of proximate dæmons, but all of them aspire afterthat which is on high, and the participation of divine discourse. Hence, leaving their habitation the body, they proceed from ignorance to intellectual prudence, for this is Athens, and, in the first place, are united to the dæmons above them, to whom the forum and the duad pertain, and an ascent through the duad to the monad. But, in the second place, they are extended through these to certain angels and Gods: for all association and converse between men and Gods, both when asleep and when awake, are through dæmons, as Diotima says in The Banquet. Again, therefore, according to another mode, we may transfer the analogy from things to persons: and it is necessary, prior to the mystic theory of things themselves, to exercise our dianoëtic power in these as in images. For the men also immediately meeting with Adimantus and Glauco, the brothers of Antiphon, on their coming to Athens, possesses an image of another theological conception, that ascending souls derive much assistance from good fortune, which coarranges them with such things as are proper, and where, and in such a manner as is proper; and also that we do not alone require the gifts of good fortune in externals, but in the anagogic energies of the soul. Hence Socrates says in the Phædrus that mania about the objects of love is given to the lover by the Gods with the greatest good fortune. And deducing souls from the intelligible, he says that different souls descend into bodies with different fortunes. Prior to bodies, therefore, they experience the gifts of fortune, and are governed by it, and led to that which is adapted to their nature. Very properly, therefore, are returning souls here said to be conjoined with the causes which give perfection to them through a certain fortune. And you may again see how here also the order of the persons is preserved: for they meet with Adimantus and Glauco. But that of these men Glauco was the more perfect, Socrates manifests in The Republic; for he there says, that he always admired the nature of Glauco. So that, if Adimantus was the inferior, he very properly says that they met with Adimantus and Glauco: for the imperfect is first connected with the more imperfect, and through these partakes of the more perfect.
The very first sentence also manifests the character of the dialogue; for it is void of the superfluous, is accurate and pure. And indeed concise, pure, and spontaneous language is adapted to intellectual projections. Nor does Plato alone preserve this propriety of diction, but Parmenides also in his poetry, though the poetic form of composition is accustomed to use metaphors, figures, and tropes; but at the same time he embraces the unadorned, the simple, and the pure form of enunciation. This is evident from such-like expressions, as “being approaches to being” (εον γαρ εοντι πελαζει); and again, “since they now subsist together (επει νυν εστιν ὁμου); likewise, “it is not fit that there should be any thing, either greater or smaller;” (ουτε τι μειζον, ουτε τι βαιοτερον πελεν χρεων εστι:) and every thing else of this kind. So that it rather appears to be prose than poetical language. It is evident, therefore, in this Introduction of Plato, first, that he has chosen a rapid form of diction; for this is adapted to the things themselves. In the second place, he has attended to conciseness, together with the figure of the impetuous, which entirely binds together the diction, and rapidly gives completion to the conception. And, in the third place, he proceeds through the most necessary words, cutting off all such particulars from the narration, as some one for the sake of ornament might sophistically add.
127a. And upon our begging him to relate the discourses, &c. The request of the Clazomenians represents the genuine adherence of souls to their proper leaders. For they can no otherwise obtain a union and revolve in conjunction with the Gods, than through these dæmons. But a knowledge of them, in the first place, precedes the request: for how can they make a request of those of whose nature they are ignorant, and also of the benefits of which they are the leaders? In the next place, a desire of the participation of them succeeds. For it is necessary to aspire after the things of which we are in want, since without aspiring we shall not be in the order of those that are indigent. But the unwillingness of Antiphon to comply, presents us with an image of the occult and ineffable power of divine causes. For a divine nature, wherever it may be, is with difficulty apprehended and known, and is scarcely unfolded to souls, even when they genuinely receive its participation, and a communion with it. For they require to be accustomed to the divine splendour which divine dæmons exhibit to souls extended to them, and hastening through them to perceive every thing divine. But to souls firmly and stably receiving them, these dæmons expand and unfold divine truth. And this is the narration: an expanding and unfolding of things concealed, and an anagogic perfection imparted to souls from divine dæmons.
127b. Antiphon, therefore, said that Pythodorus related, &c. It appears to me, says Proclus, that the reduction of all the persons to Parmenides, indicates much of the truth of the things themselves. For all the multitude and all the orders of beings are united about their divine cause. And this is indicated to the more sagacious, by saying in succession, Antiphon, Pythodorus, Zeno, Parmenides. The mention also of the Panathenæa contributes to the whole design of the dialogue: for we learn from history, that in the celebration of this festival the Athenians dwelt together. Again, therefore, here also the multitude is united and coarranged about the Goddess who presides over the city. But this was the end of the dialogue, to suspend all things from the one, and clearly to show that every thing is thence derived. The assertion too, that these men did not come to Athens, but to the Panathenæa, is no small praise. They came, therefore, for the sake of the Goddess and the festival, and not for ostentation, nor to philosophize in a popular way, which is rejected by the Pythagoreans. For a thing of this kind is the business of a sophist, and of men intent on gain.
127b. That Parmenides was very much advanced in years, &c. An elderly man among the Greeks was limited by seventy years. Parmenides, therefore, was very elderly. But he was called an old man who passed beyond this decad. The countenance also of Parmenides was graceful through his life: for a certain elegance and venerableness descends from the soul in worthy men, and extends as far as to the body. These things, however, may be much more perfectly surveyed in the soul itself. Thus, for instance, the soul possesses the elderly, from being full of intellect and science. For it is usual to call intellectual disciplines, and those which embrace the whole of nature, hoary, as it is evident from the Timæus, in which those souls are called juvenile with whom there is no hoary discipline, viz. who do not according to their summit participate of intellectual light. For the black belongs to the worse, as the white to the better coordination. But the soul is καλη δε και αγαθη την οψιν⁴, as extending its eye to intelligible beauty, and to the goodness which gives subsistence to all things, and through the participation of which all things are good. We may still, however, more perfectly survey these things in the Gods, according to analogy. For where do the elderly and the hoary subsist in such a manner as in them? Which are likewise celebrated by theologists among the paternal Gods. Where, also, are the beautiful and the good, such as they possess? Plato also, in saying unitedly καλον καγαθον, speaks in a manner the most adapted to those natures in whom the one and the good are the same.
127b. But that Zeno was nearly forty years old, &c. Such was Zeno, perhaps indeed graceful and tall in his person, but much more so in his discourses. For such things as Parmenides delivered in an intorted and contracted manner, these Zeno evolved, and extended into long discussions. And hence the scurrilous Timon calls him either-tongued, as being at the same time skilled in confutation and narration. If also he is said to have been beloved by Parmenides, the ascent indeed to both was to one and the same divinity: for this is the peculiarity of the truly amatory art. But if you are willing to speak more perfectly, and to say that in the Gods themselves things secondary are contained in such as are first, and that all things, in short, are conjoined to being itself from which the progression and extension to beings are derived, you will not, I think, be very remote from the truth.
127b. He likewise said that he met with them together with
Pythodorus, &c.
Let their meeting with Pythodorus be a symbol to those who look to paradigms, of the Gods becoming first unfolded into light through angels, and in the order of angels: for a house is a symbol of the order of each. But this meeting being beyond the walls, signifies the exempt and incomprehensible nature of the Gods. As, therefore, all appear collected in the house of Pythodorus, some from the city, and others elsewhere, so also the governors of the world and the intelligible Gods become apparent in angels, and are known by us through the essence of these.
127b. Where also Socrates came, &c. Here we may perceive how Socrates, through a disposition naturally good in the extreme, earnestly follows these divine men, and how he does not associate with sophists and the wise for the same causes. For he associates with the former in order to confute their ignorance and pride, but with the latter in order to call forth their science and intellect. Here, therefore, he becomes the leader of the lovers of philosophy: for all of them desire to hear, but they obtain their desire together with and through him. But these things as well as the former are images of the Gods. Socrates was young, a young leader, Plato all but repeating what he says in the Phædrus, “the mighty leader Jupiter first proceeds, and the army of Gods and dæmons follows him.” For intellect being every where allotted a convertive order, leads upwards, and together with itself converts all the multitude suspended from it. Socrates also being young is a symbol of the youthfulness which is celebrated in the Gods. For theology calls Jupiter himself and Bacchus boys and young; and, in short, theologists thus call the intellectual when compared with the intelligible and paternal. But the desire of the writings of Zeno symbolically manifests how here those which are the third in order, first participate of the powers which are emitted in those of the middle rank, but afterwards are conjoined with their summits, and have communion with their intelligibles.
127b. Zeno himself read to them, &c. Plato here affords us a wonderful indication of divine concerns; and he who is not asleep to analogies will see in these images a sublime theory. For, in the first place, Parmenides not being present at the beginning, but when the discourse was finished, is a symbol of more divine causes unfolding themselves to subordinate, after a perfect participation of proximate natures, but not before. The discourse of Zeno therefore, being completed, the great Parmenides appears; and together with him Pythodorus and Aristotle enter, of which two the former is Zenonic, but Aristotle is in a certain respect coarranged with Parmenides; for he disposes, together with him, the hypotheses, doing nothing else than answering. But here Parmenides, as we have often said, is analogous to that which is every where first among divine natures, whether it be the first being, or the intelligible, or in whatever other way you may think fit to denominate it: for this is in all the divine orders, and in each of the Gods. Hence he fills all that hear him with divine conceptions, imitating that order which adorns all things, first, middle, and last: for he gives perfection to Zeno, the middle being every where from that summit: but he perfects Socrates through both himself and Zeno; just as there the progression of third is through first and middle natures. He also perfects Pythodorus, but not simply from himself alone, but in conjunction with Zeno and Socrates. But he gives perfection to Aristotle last of all, and from himself alone. For something is imparted from Parmenides as far as to the last habit, to which the energy and power of Zeno do not proceed. Just as the production of the first being naturally extends further than that of life. But Zeno is himself filled from Parmenides, but fills in one way Pythodorus as his disciple, but in another way Socrates as one that explores together with him. Pythodorus, too, is not only able to participate of Zeno, but also of Socrates. For, in divine natures, the middle extends its energy to that which is posterior to itself, and proceeds through all things, imparting mere aptitude to the last of its participants, which it again perfects in conjunction with the natures proximately suspended from it. So that the former participation indicates the imperfect representation of things first, which it imparts energizing prior to secondary natures. But the second participation indicates a perfection of representation subsisting through things proximate. And Socrates, who is the third, gives completion to the triad which pervades through all numbers, and subsists analogous to the intellect which is there, or in whatever other way you may be willing to denominate it. Hence he first participates of the doctrines of Zeno, and is conjoined through him with Parmenides; just as in the Gods, the intellect in each is proximately filled with a certain divine life, but through this is united with the intelligible itself, and its proper hyparxis.
But Pythodorus, as being arranged according to the unfolding genus, is the disciple of Zeno, and participates of the prolific doubts of Socrates. For the Gods give subsistence to angels from middle and third powers, and not from such as are first; for these are generative of Gods. And Aristotle is analogously arranged to souls which through a divine afflatus are often conjoined with the most divine natures, but afterwards fall from this blessedness. For it is nothing wonderful, that a soul which is now entheastically disposed should again choose an atheistical and dark life. But he is filled from Parmenides alone; since in the Gods also, it is the property of such as are first to impart to souls of this kind a certain participation of divine light, through transcendency of power. Thus theologists denominate an intellectual life Saturnian; but not Jovian, though the ascent is through the mighty Jupiter. But as Jupiter, being filled from his father, and ascending to him as to his proper intelligible, elevates also that which is posterior to himself; in like manner souls, though they make their ascent together with Jupiter, yet that intellectual life fills the middle and third orders of them, and, in the last place, souls which energize enthusiastically about it. Nor should you wonder if divine natures have such an order with respect to each other, since you may also behold in philosophers themselves, how he who among these is more perfect is also more powerful; and benefits a greater number. Thus Cebes or Simmias benefits himself alone, or some other similar to himself; but Socrates benefits himself, and these, and Thrasymachus. In like manner Parmenides, being more powerful, benefits him who has the least aptitude of those that are assembled. But he manifests the obscurity of the participation by calling him the youngest of those that are present; which is a symbol of an imperfect habit; and by adding that he afterwards became one of the thirty tyrants; whence also we justly considered him as analogous to those souls that once lived enthusiastically, and in conjunction with angels, just as he makes his entrance together with Pythodorus, but who afterwards fall from this power. For Pythodorus remains in his proper habits, so that he also partakes of another conversation; just as the angelic tribe always remains wholly beneficent, and fills secondary with the participation of divine natures. But Aristotle instead of a philosopher becomes a tyrant. For souls which possess a life of this kind according to habitude and not essentially, sometimes depart from this order, and descend into the realms of generation: for a tyranny is a symbol of the life in generation; since such a life becomes situated under the throne of Necessity, in consequence of being led under passive, unstable and disordered appetite. For Aristotle having been one of the thirty tyrants that governed Athens, contains a representation of a gigantic and earth-born life, which rules over Minerval and Olympian goods. When reason and intellect take the lead in such souls, then Olympian benefits and those of Minerva have dominion, and the whole life is royal and philosophic; but when multitude, or in short that which is worse and earth-born, holds the reins of empire, then the whole life is a tyranny. If, therefore, Plato says that Aristotle was one of the thirty tyrants, it will appear to be the same as if he had said, that he is analogous to souls who at one time energize enthusiastically, and at another rank among the earth-born race, and who, by submitting their life to those most bitter tyrants the passions, become themselves tyrants over themselves. And perhaps the philosopher manifests through these things, that it is not impossible for the same soul to evolve different lives, and at one time to philosophize, and at another to live tyrannically; and again to pass from a tyrannic to a philosophic life. P. 38. If beings are many, it is requisite that the same things should be
both similar and dissimilar, &c.
Through these and the other arguments of Zeno it is shown that it is impossible for the many to have a subsistence when deprived of the one. Beginning from hence too, we shall find a concise way to the first principle of things. It is necessary, therefore, that there should either be many principles not participating of a certain one, or that here should be one principle only void of multitude, or many principles participating of the one, or one containing multitude in itself. But if there are many principles destitute of the one, all such absurdities will happen, as the arguments of Zeno adduce to those who assert that beings are many without the one. If there are many principles, but which participate of a certain one, i. e. which have a certain one consubsistent with them, that participated one must proceed to its participants from another one which has a prior subsistence: for every one which is something belonging to other things proceeds from that which is simply one. But if there is one principle possessing in itself multitude, it will be a whole, and will consist from the many parts or elements which it contains. And this will not be the truly one, but a passive one, as we learn from the Sophista. In consequence of this, too, it will neither be simple nor sufficient, things which it is necessary the principle should possess. It is necessary, therefore, that there should be one principle of all things void of multitude. And thus much we may collect from all the arguments of Zeno.
We may also observe that Socrates again imitates his paradigm intellect, expanding himself and his intellections to Zeno, and calling forth his science. For in the paradigms of these men the subordinate suspend the whole of their energy from the middle natures, and, through an expansion of their proper powers, are supernally filled with more perfect goods.
127e. Is it not then the sole intention of your discourses to evince by
contesting, &c.
Parmenides, establishing himself in the one, and surveying the monad of all beings; does not convert himself to multitude and its dissipated subsistence; but Zeno flies from multitude to the one, and takes away multitude. For the former of these two is similar to one purified, elevated, and having laid aside the multitude in himself; but the latter to one ascending, and laying aside multitude, and this because he is not entirely separated from it. Hence contention (το διαμαχεσθαι) is adapted to him; for he does not yet possess a tranquil life, separated from impediments; nor, as it opposes multitude, does it yet end in the one alone. But this contention, and this ending through many arguments in the same negative conclusion, manifest to Socrates that the many do not subsist separate from the one: for Plato assimilates the path through negations to a battle. Thus in the Republic he exhorts to discourse about the good, as if piercing through a battle, thinking it fit to speak of it in no other way than through negative conclusions. And here it is necessary, indeed, not to consider the word contending carelessly; but through this we should make it known, that both in this place, and in the Republic, contention is intended by Plato to signify negations. As each of the arguments too of Zeno is self-perfect, and demonstrative of the conclusion, this is the peculiarity of scientific power.
128e. Do you think that there is a certain form of similitude, &c. Parmenides leading upwards all beings to the exempt one being, or being itself, and withdrawing his conceptions from that which is multiplied and distributed; to the one monad of all the multitude of beings, the many on the contrary give the multitude of beings a precedency to intellect and union, and do not even consider being itself as the principle; butt hey assert that distributed multitude simply subsists, and receives a progression into being separate from being itself. That thus thinking, however, they defame the doctrine of Parmenides, is evident. For, Parmenides being of opinion that being should be considered as alone characterized by unity, separate from multitude, they on the contrary establish multitude deprived of unity; though indeed it is impossible that multitude should no tar ticipate of the one: for every multitude is of the one. All multitudes, therefore, and all the bulks of bodies, are vanquished by the participation of unity. Hence if multitude requires the one, but the one is unindigent of multitude, it is better to call being one, than the many alone subsisting by themselves separate from the participation of the one. And Parmenides indeed, evincing that being is one, gives subsistence also to the multitude of beings, not only to that of sensibles, but likewise to the multitude of intelligibles: for in these there is a divine number of all things united to each other. Empedocles also afterwards perceiving this, as being himself a Pythagorean, calls the whole of an intelligible nature a sphere, as being united to itself, and asserts that it attracts to itself, through beauty, the beautifying and uniting God. For all things there, loving and desiring each other, are eternally united to each other. Their love also is intelligible, and their association and mixture are ineffable. But the many being exiles from union, and the monad of beings, and through their life, which is divisible and distributed, being drawn down to multitude, to multiform opinions, to indefinite phantasies, to passive senses and material appetites, consider the manies themselves separate from their union, and do not see in what manner these manys are vanquished, through the coordinated monads which they contain, how things indefinite are subject to definite measures, and how dissipated natures subsist in sympathy and in union through the participation of things common; and not perceiving this, they wander from the truth, and basely revile and deride the doctrine of Parmenides. Zeno, therefore, knowing that they were thus affected, becomes indeed a corrector of multitude, but a leader to intellect from folly, and a guardian of the doctrine of his preceptor. And at first he persuades to recur from these multitudes to the unities in the many, and to behold how this multitude, though tending to infinity, is at the same time vanquished by the monad of beings, and is held together by a certain unity which it contains. But he persuades, assuming an hypothesis pleasing to the vulgar, viz. the subsistence of multitude deprived of unity: for thus their assertion is easily confuted; since, if they had established the many together with the one, they would not as yet be confuted through his arguments. Parmenides also himself manifests in his hypothesis, that he is accustomed to show that the same thing is similar and dissimilar, no otherwise than by receiving the many separate from the one.
Zeno, therefore, as we have said, considers these many deprived of the one, which accedes to, and is contained in them. Nor yet does he consider intelligibles alone, nor sensibles alone, but, in short, all such things as are said to be many in the intelligible and sensible orders. For it is the province of a more perfect and principal science to extend the same method to all things of a similar form, and to survey in all things that which is analogous. Whether, therefore, there is intelligible, or sensible, or intellectual, or dianoëtic multitude, all this is assumed at present. Hence it is requisite to discover how multitudes are no where to be found deprived of the one. For, if they were deprived of the one, they would be at the same time similar and dissimilar; since things which do not participate of one and the same are dissimilar to each other; and again, according to this very thing, they communicate with each other, viz. by not participating of the one. But things which possess something common and the same are similar; so that the same things are both similar and dissimilar. If, therefore, the many are without a participation of the one, according to this one thing, the non participation of the one, they will be both similar and dissimilar; viz. considered as possessing this in common they will be similar, but considered as not possessing the one they will be dissimilar: for, because they are passive to this very thing, the non-participation of the one, they are similar; so that the same things are both similar and dissimilar. For, in short, the possession of nothing common is itself common to them: and hence the assertion subverts itself. Indeed, the things which are shown to be both similar and dissimilar are again shown to be neither similar nor dissimilar. For, if they do not participate of the one, they are, in short, not similar; since similars are similar by the participation of a certain one; for similitude is a certain oneness. And again, if they do not participate of the one, this is common to them; but things of which there is something common, these according to this very thing are not dissimilar. So that the many are neither similar nor dissimilar. It is impossible, therefore, that multitude can subsist deprived of the one, because so many absurdities happen to those who adopt such an hypothesis. For it is a dire thing that contradiction should concur; but more dire that this should be the case with contraries; and it is the most dire of all things that both contraries and contradictions should be consequent to the assertion. By showing, therefore, that the same thing is similar and dissimilar, we have collected contraries; but by showing that the same thing is similar and not similar, and neither of these, we have collected contradictions. For the similar is a contradiction to the not similar, and the dissimilar to the non-dissimilar.
Hence also we may be able to evince that it is impossible there should be many first principles. For, with respect to these many principles, whether do they participate of one thing, or not of one thing? For, if they participate, that which they participate will be prior to them, and there will no longer be many principles, but one principle. But if they do not participate, they will be similar to each other, in consequence of this non-participation being common to them, and dissimilar so far as they do not participate of a certain common one. But this is impossible, that the same things according to the same should be both similars and dissimilars. In like manner we may collect that these many principles are neither similars nor dissimilars. But if they were participants of a certain one, we could not collect that they are dissimilars according to the participation of this one, but only that they are similars: and thus we shall subvert the subsistence of many first principles.
Through this method, therefore, Zeno evinces that it is impossible to separate the many from the one, and rises from multitude to the monads of the many, that we may perceive what the nature is of the exempt unities of things. For the coordinated monads are images of those that are uncoordinated. But Socrates agitating the discourse about ideas; supposing things common to have a subsistence themselves by themselves, and surveying another multitude in them, thinks it proper that Zeno should also transfer this method to forms, and make it apparent in these, how the similar is dissimilar, and the dissimilar similar. And shortly after Proclus further observes as follows:
Socrates, before he enters on the doubts in which a formal essence is involved, asks Zeno whether he admits that forms have a subsistence, and whether or not he is among those who embrace this cause as well as himself; and, in short, what opinion he has concerning them. For the Pythagoreans were contemplators of forms; and Socrates himself manifests this in the Sophista, calling the wise men in Italy, the friends of forms. But he who especially venerates and clearly establishes forms is Socrates, from the investigation concerning definitions discovering the nature of the things defined; and passing from these as images to formal causes themselves. He, therefore, in the first place, asks if Zeno also himself admits that there are forms, and venerates this essence of all things, subsisting from and established in itself, and not requiring any other seat, which he characterizes by the words itself by itself (αυτο καθ’ αυτο), conceiving that these words are properly adapted to this essence. For they indicate the unmingled, simple, and pure nature of forms. Thus, through the word itself, he signifies the simplicity of those things; but, through the words by itself, their purity unmingled with secondary natures. And indeed, through the words by itself, he separates forms from the things predicated of the many. For which among these is by itself? since it possesses its subsistence in a habitude to subjects, is collected from sensible perception, is the object of opinion, and is accommodated to the conceptions⁵ of the phantasy. But by the word itself he separates forms from that which is common in particulars, and which is definable: for this is contained in something different from itself, and subsists together with matter; whence also it is filled with internal change, and is in a certain respect mortal, through communion with that which is material. By no means, therefore, must it be said, that forms which subsist by themselves, which are established on a sacred foundation, and are immaterial and eternal, are the same with material forms of posterior origin, and which are full of variety and habitude. For the former are unmingled, undefiled and simple, and are eternally established in the demiurgus of the universe; possessing the undefiled and the pure from inflexible deity, which proceeds together with the demiurgus, but the simple from the demiurgic intellectual essence, which is single and impartible, and, as the Chaldæan theologists would say, has a fontal subsistence. You may also say that the term itself separates form from those conceptions which are derived from sensibles (εννοηματα). For no one of these is itself; since they accord with the things of which they are the conceptions, belong to and subsist in others. But the words by itself separate form from that which subsists in particulars, and which is in something different from itself.
Neither, therefore, must we admit their opinion who say that idea is the same with that which is common in the many: for ideas subsist prior to the things which are common in sensibles, and the latter derive their subsistence from the former. Nor must we assent to those who consider ideas as the same with those conceptions which we derive from sensibles, and who, in consequence of this, inquire how there are not also ideas of individuals, and of things which are contrary to nature. For the conceptions of these things are entirely secondary to the particulars from which they are excited, and are in us, and not in the power that adorned the universe, and in whom we say ideas subsist. Nor yet must we admit the opinion of those who connect ideas with spermatic reasons. For the reasons or productive principles in seeds are imperfect; and those in nature, which generates seeds, are destitute of knowledge. But ideas subsist in energy always the same, and are essentially intellectual. If, therefore, we wish to define their idiom through things which are more known, we must receive from physical reasons, the producing that which they produce, by their very being; but from the reasons of art, the being gnostic of the things which they make, though they do not make by their very being. Hence we say that ideas are demiurgic, and at the same time intellectual causes of all things which are perfected according to nature, being immovable, prior to things moved, simple prior to composites, and separate prior to the things which are inseparable from matter. On this account, Parmenides does not cease discoursing concerning them, till at the end of his arguments he says that they are Gods; through this signifying all that we have previously observed.
With respect to the similar and the dissimilar, these subsist primarily in the demiurgus, or, to speak more clearly, they have in him a fontal subsistence; since they subsist more conspicuously in the assimilative Gods, and especially in the paternal Deities of that order, as is evident from the second hypothesis of this dialogue. But since the demiurgus possesses the one fountain of these, the form of similitude is also contained in him, presubsisting in the one monad of ideas. The demiurgus, therefore, is a monad comprehensive of many divine monads, which impart to each other their proper idioms: one, the idiom of purity; another, of an assimilative essence; and another of something else, according to which they are allotted their proper hyparxis. For it must not be thought that forms indeed presubsist, as the causes of things which are generated according to them, but that there is not a different idea by which generated natures become similar and dissimilar to forms. Both similitude, however, and dissimilitude, are immaterial, pure, simple, uniform, and eternal essences; the former being collective, unific, the cause of bound, and uniform; and the latter, the source of division, internal change, and infinity. But the order of these ideas is neither in the most generic nor in the most specific of forms. For the most generic are such forms as are participated by all beings, so that there is not any thing whatever which does not subsist from the participation of these, such as essence, sameness, difference; since these pervade to all beings. For what is there void of essence? what of difference? what of sameness? Do not all things possess a certain hyparxis? And are they not essentially separated from other things; and do they not also communicate with them? If this be the case, this triad is the common cause of all beings. But the most specific ideas are such as are naturally adapted to be participated by individual forms, such as man, horse, dog; and each of this kind. For these proximately generate the monads in individuals, such as man in particulars, and dog and horse in the many, and in a similar manner each of the rest. But the forms which subsist between these, have indeed a very extended subsistence, but do not energize in all beings. Thus, for instance, justice subsists in souls, but not in wood and stones. Among these middle forms, therefore, similitude and dissimilitude must be ranked: for though they are participated by most, yet not by all things; since, as Proclus well observes, where is there either similitude or dissimilitude among infinites?
129b. For if any one should show that similars themselves become
dissimilar, &c.
Forms are not to be considered as entirely unmingled, and without communication with each other, but each is that which it is, preserving its idiom pure; and at the same time it participates of others without confusion, not as becoming something belonging to them, but as receiving the idiom of that which it participates, and to this imparting its own idiom. Thus, for instance, sameness participates of difference, not being difference, and difference participates of sameness, so far as they communicate with each other. Thus also similitude and dissimilitude participate of each other; but neither is similitude dissimilitude, nor dissimilitude similitude. Nor, so far as the one is similitude, is it dissimilar, nor, so far as the other is dissimilitude, similar. For the expression so far as, is twofold. In the first place, it is used when one thing is always accompanied with another; as if some one should say, So far as there is air, according to this there is also light; and so far as there is light, according to this there is also air. But admitting that there is illuminated air, yet neither is air light, nor light air, but air is in light, and light in air; because the parts of air and light are situated near each other, and there is no one of these according to which the other is not also beheld. But this expression is also used after another manner, when it is applied to any thing which always essentially introduces another thing; as when we say, Man is a recipient of science. For it is not true that light is in the air, or air in light, according to this signification, since air does not entirely cointroduce light, as we say man cointroduces a recipient of science; since the essence of air is different from that of light. Similitude, therefore, participates of dissimilitude according to the former of these modes; for there is nothing belonging to it which does not participate of dissimilitude; and yet the being of the former is different from that of the latter. For it does not participate in one part and not in another, since nothing impedes its pervading through dissimilitude; nor is its impartible nature of such a kind that it participates of it in one respect, and in another remains unmingled with it. For the whole proceeds through the whole, similitude through dissimilitude, and in like manner dissimilitude through similitude. Not, indeed, that each, in consequence of being that which it is, participates of the other; but while it participates it preserves its own essence pure. This, therefore, is the peculiarity of incorporeal forms: to pervade through each other without confusion; to be distinct from each other without separation; and to be more united than things which are corrupted together, through their impartible nature; and to be more distinct from each other than things which are here separated, through their unmingled purity.
Socrates, therefore, says Proclus, doubting whether forms subsist in conjunction with each other, calling on Zeno to assist him in the solution of this doubt, and apprehending that forms are not so mingled that the similar itself is the dissimilar, calls a dogma of this kind a prodigy, and rejects any such mixture. But again, suspecting that forms, through the union of intelligibles, participate in a certain respect of each other, he says he should wonder if any one were able to show that this is the case, employing for this purpose the language of one suspecting. And at length inferring that they may be both united and separated, he calls him who is able to demonstrate this admirable. And here you see the order of ascent: for Socrates in the first place denies; in the second place, he has a suspicion of the truth; and in the third place, he is firmly convinced of the truth through demonstration. And neither is his negation of the mixture of forms blamable; for, according to the mode which he alludes to, they are unmingled: nor is his suspicion false; for in one respect they are able to participate of each other, and in another they do not mutually communicate. And his last decision is most true; for they are both united with and separated from each other. P. 41. Does it also appear to you that there is a certain species or form
of justice, &c.
A divine and demiurgic intellect comprehends things multiplied unitedly, things partible impartibly, and things divided indivisibly. But it is soul which first divides things which presubsist in intellect according to supreme union; and this is not only true of our soul, but likewise of that which is divine. For, because it is not allotted intellections which are alone established in eternity, but desires to comprehend the collected energy of intellect, aspiring after the perfection which it contains, and its simple form of intelligence,—hence, it runs round intellect, and by the transitions of its projective energies divides the impartible nature of forms, perceiving the beautiful itself, the just itself, and every other form separately, and understanding all things by surveying one at a time, and not all things at once. For, in short, as it ranks in the third order from the one, it very properly possesses an energy of this kind. For that is one alone, and is prior to intellection. But intellect understands all things as one; and soul understands all things by surveying one at a time. Division, therefore, first subsists in soul; and hence theologists say, that in the lacerations of Bacchus the intellect of the God was preserved undivided by the providence of Minerva. But soul is that which is first distributed into parts; and to this a section into seven parts first pertains. It is, therefore, no longer wonderful, that, divine forms presubsisting unitedly in the demiurgic intellect, our soul should apply herself to them divisibly, and should at one time survey the first and most common forms; at another, those which possess a middle form; and at another time, the most partial and as it were individual forms. For, since even a divine soul divides that which is impartible by its transitive adhesions and contacts, what ought we to say concerning a partial soul such as ours? Must it not, much prior to this, apprehend partibly and divisibly things which subsist together and in each other? It is, therefore, by no means wonderful that inquiries and answers should at different times apprehend different forms; just as external discourse divides the one and simple conception of the soul, and temporally passes through the united conceptions of intellect.
The forms, however, which were before mentioned by Socrates are most generic and common, viz. unity, multitude, similitude, dissimilitude, permanency, motion; but those which are now presented to our view are partly secondary to these, and partly not; just as, with respect to human virtue, we say that it is partly subordinate to, and partly better than, the soul: for, so far as it is perfective of it is better than the soul, but, so far as it is something belonging to, and subsisting in, the soul, it is subordinate to it. In like manner the good⁶, the beautiful, and the just, are partly more excellent than forms which produce essences, and are partly inferior to them. For, so far as they are most generic, these also communicate with them; but the latter are the primary causes of being to sensibles, and the former are the sources of their perfection; the just proceeding as far as to souls, and adorning and perfecting these, but the beautiful extending its illuminations even as far as to bodies. Hence Socrates in the Phædrus says, that beauty has the prerogative of being the most apparent and the most lovely of all things; but that the splendour of justice is not visible in the imitations of it which are here. Again, the good perfects all things according to the peculiar essence of each. For the beautiful perfects according to the symmetry of form with respect to matter; and symmetry then subsists when that which is naturally more excellent rules over that which is naturally inferior. According to this symmetry, therefore, the beautiful shines in bodies. But the good illuminates according to the perfect; and is present to every thing invested with form, when it possesses perfection from nature. In this triad, therefore, the first is the good, the second the beautiful, and the third the just.
But that there are forms or ideas of these, and of all such as these, as, for instance, of temperance, fortitude, prudence, we shall find, by considering that every virtue, and every perfection according to virtue, assimilates us to a divine nature, and that, by how much the more it is inherent in us, by so much the nearer do we approach to an intellectual life. If, therefore, the beautiful and the good, and every virtue, assimilate us to intellect, intellect will entirely possess the intellectual paradigms of these. For, with respect to the similar, when it is said to be similar to that which is more excellent, then, that which is more excellent possesses that primarily which the subordinate nature receiving becomes similar to it. The forms of the virtues, therefore, must necessarily subsist in intellect prior to soul. Each of these, however, must be considered in a twofold respect, viz. as a divine unity, and as an intellectual form. Thus, for instance, the just which subsists in forms is not the same with that which subsists in the Gods. For the former is one particular idea, is a part of another, and possesses intelligence proceeding as far as to souls; but the latter is a certain whole, and proceeds in its providential energies as far as to the last of things. It also originates from the first intellectual Gods; for there it is first apparent. But the former is an idea contained in the demiurgic intellect. Thus also, with respect to the beautiful, that which subsists as a form is different from that which is the unity of divine beauty. And the energy of the latter, indeed, is directed to the Gods so far as they are Gods, and first originates from the first intelligible; but the former is in ideas, and is beheld about ideas. And lastly, with respect to the good, one is essential, and the other, as we have before observed, is superessential. P. 42. I mean hair, clay, and mud, or any thing else which is vile and
abject, &c.
It is necessary, says Proclus, either that there should only be ideas of things which subsist according to nature, or also of things which are contrary to these; and if only of things according to nature, that there should alone be ideas of things perpetual, or also of each of the things which are not perpetual. And if there are alone ideas of things perpetual, they must either be of such as are essential, or also of such as are unessential. And if of the essential, they must either be alone confined to wholes, or also extend to parts; and if to wholes alone, either to such as are alone simple, or also to such as are composed from these. Such then being the division of ideas, we say, that of intellects proceeding from one intellectual essence it is not proper to establish paradigms: for that of which there is a paradigm must necessarily be an image. But to call an intellectual essence an image, is of all things the most absurd: for every image is the idol (ειδωλον) or resemblance of that of which it is the image; and the Elean guest in the Sophista expressly denominates an idol not true being. If, therefore, every intellectual essence belongs to true being, it will not be proper to denominate it either an image or an idol. For, indeed, every intellectual nature is impartible, and the progression of it is effected through sameness; whence also secondary intellects subsist in unproceeding union in such as are first, and are partially what the intellect which ranks as a whole is totally. But it is necessary in the image that dissimilitude should be mingled with similitude; through the latter of which the image is converted to its paradigm. In intellectual essences, therefore, there are not image and paradigm, but cause alone, and things proceeding from cause. Whence also theologists, placing many fountains in the demiurgic intellect, assert that there is one of the multitude of ideas. Hence, not every thing which proceeds from the demiurgus proceeds according to a formal cause; but such things as make a more extended progression, and such as possess a partible essence, these subsist from an ideal cause. But the other fountains are generative of intellectual and divine hypostases. We must not, therefore, establish in intellect a paradigmatic cause of every intellectual essence, but a cause alone which is characterized by unity, and is divine.
In the next place, it is requisite to consider if there is a primary cause of souls in forms, and whether there is one or many. But that there is, indeed, a certain monad of them in the demiurgus, in which monad every number of souls is comprehended monadically, is evident from the nature of things, and from the doctrine of Plato. For, if soul is the first generated nature, and that which is primarily partible, it is necessary that the impartible form should precede things partible, and the eternal, things which are in any way generated. And if, as time is to eternity, so is soul to intellect, but time is the image of eternity, it is also necessary that soul should be the image of intellect. And if in being there is not only life, as Socrates says in the Philebus, but also soul, it is necessary to consider the soul which is there as the paradigm of the multitude of souls proceeding from intellect, and as comprehending, after the manner of unity, both their order and their number. But if there is not one form of rational souls alone, but there are also many forms after the one, since all of them are immortal, it is necessary that there should be a paradigm of each. Again, however, it is impossible that the proceeding multitude should be just as numerous as that which abides: for progression increases quantity, but diminishes power. We must therefore say, that there is a monad in the divine intellect, which is paradigmatic of all souls, from which the multitude of them flows, and which unitedly comprehends the measure that bounds their number. But with this monad a second number is connate, divided, and paradigmatic of divine souls, containing the proper paradigm of each, and one form, from which divine souls proceed first, and afterwards the multitude coordinate with each. Thus, from the paradigm of the soul of the sun, the divine soul of the sun first proceeds; in the next place, all such angelic souls as are of a solar characteristic; in the third place, such as are of a dæmoniacal rank about the sun; and, in the last place, such as are partial: on which account also there are coordinations of parts to wholes, and of attendants to their leaders; the one intellectual cause of them imparting union and connection to their progression. In like manner, also, the paradigm of the lunar soul first generates the divine soul about the moon, afterwards the angelic, then the dæmoniacal, and then that which is partial; and the intellectual monad comprehends all the number of these. The like also takes place in other divine souls; for each has a separate idea: but the orders of angelic, dæmoniacal, or partial souls, which follow them, participate of the one idea. And as the one monad of the paradigms of souls which are there, gives subsistence to the one soul of the world, so the many monads produce the multitude of souls; and the former comprehends the whole multitude uniformly, but the latter, the measures of their proper series. The demiurgic intellect, therefore, primarily comprehends the forms of divine souls, which it first generates; but each of these forms is one and at the same time many; for it causally contains all the multitude of the souls subsisting under it. And thus every soul subsists according to a certain proper paradigm; but all do not after the same manner participate of the same form. Antient theologists also having the same conceptions on this subject say, that the total causes of souls, which generate the whole series of them, are different from the partial causes, through which they derive a separation according to species, and a division as it were into individual souls.
In the next place, with respect to irrational souls, it is evident that there is also an intelligible paradigm of these; if we consider irrational souls to be all secondary lives, and which are divisible about bodies. Whence then do these derive their perpetuity? It must necessarily indeed be from a certain immovable and intellectual cause: and it appears that this is accomplished as follows:
Again then, one monad and one idea must be arranged prior to these, whether it be fontal or sensitive nature, or in whatever other way you may be willing to call it. For it may be said that irrational souls derive their subsistence from the one demiurgic sense, through a gnostic idiom; but through orexis or appetite, from the highest or fontal nature, which subsists prior to the multitude of natures. From these causes, therefore, the multitude of perpetual but naturally irrational souls proceeds; this multitude subsisting partibly in eternal vehicles, in which also it is established according to a certain number, and the formal measure which is there. For every perpetual multitude is bounded; and prior to every bounded multitude that subsists which bounds and numbers this multitude. These irrational also proceed from rational souls, or rather from the paradigms which they contain: for, through these, here also they are suspended from rational souls, because there the one measure of them, together with the multitude of forms, at the same time generates this number of these. Divine souls indeed, and such as are pure, preserve also their irrational nature undefiled; but partial employ irrational souls, as they have a composite life, the more excellent part having dominion in some, and being frequently in a state of subjection in others. From these perpetual irrational souls, such as are mortal are allotted their generation; these also being preserved according to species, through their intellectual paradigm, but the individuals perishing, because they derive their subsistence from the junior⁷ Gods, as the irrational prior to these are generated from those supernal souls whose fabricating energy is complicated with the monad of the whole of their series. Souls that perish, therefore, have a certain analogy to the divine causes from which they derive their subsistence, and immortal souls to their formal causes.
In the third place, let us consider how we are to admit a paradigm of Nature. For we must not, as Plato says, establish forms of fire, water, and motion, but deprive nature, which is the source of these, of an intellectual cause. Theologists indeed place the fountain of it in the vivific Goddess Rhea; for they say that immense Nature is suspended from the shoulders of the goddess. But, according to Plato, we must say that the form of it subsists in the demiurgic intellect, which form is the origin of every natural vehicle. Timæus also says, that the demiurgus pointed out to souls the nature of the universe, and the laws of fate: for in him the one nature of all things, and the comprehension of those fatal decrees according to which he arranges and divides the universe, subsist. For, if it is the demiurgus who speaks, he converts souls to himself: but, if this be the case, he also shows to them the nature of the universe, and the laws of fate, subsisting in himself. Hence the one form of nature is there; but the souls also that use, produce the natures which are inspired from them; and these perpetual natures again generate partial and temporal natures. It may be concluded, therefore, that the paradigm of natures unitedly comprehends in the demiurgic intellect the number of such as have a perpetual subsistence; but that the separated causes of perpetual natures are contained in Vulcan, who according to theologists is the fabricator of the form of body alone. For from this divinity every physical order, and the number of natures, proximately subsist and are revivified.
In the fourth place, with respect to bodies, must we not admit that the one and total cause of these is in the first demiurgus, which cause comprehends all the number of the bodies that rank as wholes? but, after this monad, that the separated causes of bodies which rank as parts subsist in the fabricating cause of a corporeal nature? This, indeed, must necessarily be the case: for he who comprehends the one mundane form is the first father of the universe; and those things which are generated through necessity must consequently be parts; and these require the providence of that power which fabricates bodies. Besides, this also is evident, that, as we said of souls, it is here likewise requisite to assert that there are intellectual and formal causes of divine bodies; for the vehicles of dæmons and partial souls participate of these causes in a second and third gradation. Thus, for instance, the form of the solar body generates also the solar vehicles of dæmons and partial souls; and hence, as soul is to soul, so is vehicle to its proper sphere. And, in short, since there is a multitude of divine causes, the causes of bodies must be considered as subsisting differently in different divinities. Thus, in Vulcan, the fabricator of body, the separated causes of bodies, so far as bodies, subsist; but in the generative principles of souls they subsist psychically; and in Jupiter, the demiurgus of wholes, they subsist as animals, thence deriving their hypostasis both according to souls and bodies.
It now remains that we consider, with respect to matter, whether there is also a form of this. And here perhaps it is necessary, that as in souls, natures, and bodies, fabrication does not begin from the imperfect; so likewise in matter, prior to that which is formless, and which has an evanescent being, that which is in a certain respect form, and which is beheld in one boundary and permanency, will be the paradigm of matter. This likewise will possess a twofold generation. viz. from its paradigm, and from a divine cause alone: for every thing intellectual produces in conjunction with divinity; but divinity proceeds by itself, and as far as to things which do not possess their generation from intellectual form.
After having, therefore, considered the simple hypostases of beings, let us direct our attention to the things composed from these,—I mean animals and plants. For there will be intellectual paradigms of all these; because not the genus alone but likewise the species of each gives completion to the universe, and makes it more similar to its paradigm. For the intelligible world comprehends all such animals intelligibly as the apparent world contains sensibly. Each therefore of these is assimilated to a certain intellectual form: but animal itself, or the extremity of the intelligible triad, comprehends unitedly and intelligibly the causes of souls, bodies, and animals. For, as it contracts in the tetrad of ideas all the number of them, so it pre-assumes according to union the distributed causes of things which are as it were simple, and also of such which are as it were composite in intellectuals. For, in short, the universal and the essential are thence derived. Or whence do things possess the never-failing, if there is no eternal cause? Whence that which is common, and which extends to a multitude of things? For whatever is derived from the circular motion of the heavens is partial, since the motion itself of the heavens is in a certain respect partial. But that universal should be generated from that which is partial, is among the number of things impossible. Every form, therefore, both of plants and animals, thence subsists according to a certain intellectual paradigm. For every thing generated, and every thing which has in any respect a subsistence, has its being from a cause. Whence then are these visible forms, and from what cause? Shall we say, from one that is mutable? But this is impossible. They must, therefore, derive their subsistence from an immovable cause, since they are perpetual. And we say that an intellectual is a cause of this kind: for it abides perfectly in eternity. Shall we admit, therefore, that there are not only forms of species, but also of particulars? as, for instance, of Socrates, and of every individual, not so far as he is a man, but so far as he is a particular individual. But if this be the case, must not the mortal be necessarily immortal? For, if every thing which is generated according to idea is generated according to an immovable cause, and every thing which subsists according to an immovable cause is immutable in essence, Socrates, and each individual of the human species, will be established according to a perpetual sameness of essence; which is impossible. It is likewise absurd that idea should at one time be the paradigm of something, and at another not. For eternal being possesses whatever it does possess eternally; and hence, that which is paradigmatic will either not possess form, or will always possess it; since it would be absurd to assert that there is any thing accidental among ideas. If therefore it is a paradigm, it is necessary that the image of it also should be erpetual: for every paradigm is the paradigm of an image. But if it is at one time essential, and at another not, it will also at one time be a paradigm, and at another not. Besides, is it not necessary to be persuaded by Socrates, who says that we are led to admit the subsistence of ideas, that we may have the one prior to the many? For, if there are ideas of particulars, there will be one prior to one, or rather infinites prior to finites; since, sensible natures being finite, ideas will be infinite. Nothing, however, can be more absurd than this: for things nearer to the one are more bounded, according to number, than such as are more remote from it. And hence it appears that there can be no ideas of individuals. Since, however, every thing which is generated is generated from a certain cause, we must also admit that there are causes of individuals; the one general cause being the order of the universe, but the many causes, the motion of the heavens, partial natures, the characteristic peculiarities of the seasons, climates, and the inspective guardians of these. For, the cause being moved moves together with itself, in a certain respect, that which is generated from it. Hence, from the idioms of the presiding causes, different appropriate figures, colours, voices, and motions are imparted to different animals. For the generations are various in different places, and partial natures not only proceed from the whole of nature, but receive something from the idiom of seeds, and are fashioned by verging to bodies, and becoming as it were eminently corporeal, through departing from themselves. We see, therefore, that they do not subsist from a paradigmatic cause: for it is not the same thing to subsist from a cause, and to be generated according to a paradigm. For cause is multifariously predicated, one of which is the paradigmatic.
Again, with respect to parts, shall we say that there are also ideas of these, so that there is not only a paradigm of man, but also of finger and eye, and every thing of this kind! Indeed, because each of these is universal and essence, it subsists from a certain stable cause; but because they are parts, and not wholes, they are subordinate to an impartible and intellectual essence. For there is no absurdity in admitting that such things as are not only parts, but wholes, subsist according to that essence; but it is absurd to admit this of such things as are parts only. For the generation of wholes is from thence, since the uniform, prior to the multiplied, and the whole, prior to part, is thence derived. Will it not, therefore, be right to assert of all such things, that the causes of them are not intellectual, (for every intellect is impartible, and consequently wholes subsist in it prior to parts, and impartible prior to partible natures,) but that they are psychical and physical. For that which is primarily partible is in souls, and after these in natures. Here, therefore, there is a reason and form of finger and tooth, and of each of these. And the wholeness of these, indeed, presubsists in intellect, but that which in the one also comprehends multitude is in souls. That which vitally distributes the one from the multitude is in natures; and that which makes a division accompanied with interval is in bodies. In short, it must not be denied that there are definite dæmoniacal causes of these, as invocations upon the finger, eye, and heart evince: but of the wholes which comprehend these parts there are divine causes.
In the next place let us consider accidents. Have these then also ideas, or is there also a twofold consideration about these? For some of them are perfective of, and give completion to, essences, such as similitude, beauty, health, and virtue; but others subsist indeed in essences, yet do not give completion to, nor perfect them, such as whiteness, blackness, and every thing of this kind. Things, therefore, which give completion to, and are perfective of, essences have paradigmatic causes precedaneously; but things which are ingenerated in bodies are indeed produced according to reason, and the temperament of bodies is not sufficient to their generation, but form is derived inwardly from nature, yet they are not produced according to a certain definite intellectual cause. For the essential, the perfective, and the common, pertain to forms; but that which is deprived of all these subsists from some other cause, and not from the first forms. For nature, receiving the order of forms proceeding into corporeal masses, divides wholes from parts, and essences from accidents, which prior to this were united and impartible; expanding these by her divisive powers. It is not indeed possible, that things perfectly divided should immediately subsist from things united, and things most partial from such as are most common; but a division must necessarily be produced from the condition of subjection in the natures which subsist between. We must therefore admit, that there is a cause of figure which is the prolific source of all figures, and one monad of numbers which is generative of all numbers; since even the monad which is with us evinces that it contains unitedly the even and the odd, and all the forms of numbers. What then ought we to think concerning the monad which is there? Must it not be, that it is uniformly the cause of all things, and that its infinite power generates also in us infinite number? Indeed, this must necessarily be the case, since the monad which is here proceeds as the image of that.
In the next place, with respect to things artificial, shall we say that there are ideas also of these? Socrates, indeed, in the Republic, does not refuse to speak of the idea of a bed, and of a table; but there he calls the productive principle in the dianoëtic part of the artist, idea, and says that this productive principle is the progeny of divinity, because he was of opinion that the artificial itself is imparted to souls from divinity. For, if it should be said that the forms of these are in intellect, whether do these pervade to the sensible world immediately, or through nature as a medium? For, if immediately, it will be absurd, since a progression of this kind no where subsists in other forms, but such things as are nearer to intellect are the first participants of ideas. But if through nature as a medium, because the arts are said to imitate nature, much prior to art nature will possess the forms of things artificial. But all things which are generated from nature live, and undergo generation and increase, if they belong to things which are generated in matter: for nature is a certain life, and the cause of things vital. It is however impossible that a bed, or any thing else which is the productiom of art, should live and be increased. And hence things artificial will not have presubsisting ideas, nor intellectual paradigms of their subsistence. If, however, some one should be willing to call the sciences arts, we must make the following division:
—Of arts, such as lead back the soul, and assimilate it to intellect, of these we must admit that there are ideas, to which they assimilate us: for figure, and the intelligence of figure, are similar, and also number, and the intelligence of number. We must admit, therefore, that there are ideas of arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, not indeed so far as they are applied to practical purposes, but so far as they are intellectual, and inspective of divine forms. For these indeed conjoin us with intellect, when, like the Coryphæan philosopher in the Theætetus, we astronomize above the heavens, survey the intellectual harmony according to which the demiurgus generated souls and this universe, and contemplate that number which subsists in all forms occultly and separately, and the intellectual figure, which is generative of all figures, and according to which the father of the universe convolves the world, and gives to each of the elements its proper figure. Of these, therefore, we must establish ideas, and of such other sciences as elevate souls to intellect, and the assistance of which we require in running back to the intelligible. But, with respect to such sciences as pertain to the soul while sporting and employing herself about mortal concerns, and administering to human indigence, of these there are no intellectual forms, but the soul possesses a power in opinion, which is the fruitful source of theorems, and is naturally adapted to generate and judgeof such-like particulars. There are, however, by no means separate forms of the arts, or of things artificial. But it is not wonderful that the causes of these should subsist in dæmons, who are said to be the inspective guardians of arts, and to impart them to men; or that they should also be symbolically in the Gods. Thus, for instance, a certain dæmon of the order of Vulcan is said to preside over the brazier’s art, and to contain the form of this art; but the mighty Vulcan himself is said symbolically to fabricate the heavens from brass. In a similar manner, there is a certain Minerval dæmon who presides over the weaver’s art, Minerva herself being celebrated as weaving in a different and demiurgic manner the order of intellectual forms.
In the next place, withrespect to evil, must we say that there is such thing as evil itself, the idea of evils? or shall we say, that as the form of things endued with interval is impartible, and of things multiplied, monadic, so the paradigm of things evil is good? For the assertion is by no means sane, which admits that evil itself subsists among ideas, lest we should be compelled to say that divinity himself is the cause of those evils of which he contains the paradigms; though we, when we look to those paradigms, become better than we were before. But if some one should say that the form of evils is good, we ask, whether it is alone good in its essence, or also in its energy? For, if in its essence alone, it will be productive of evil by its energy, which it is not lawful to assert; but if in its energy also, it is evident that what is generated by it will be good. For the effect of beneficent power and energy is good, no less than the effect of fire is hot. Evil, therefore, so far as evil, is not generated according to a certain paradigm. But if, as Parmenides also says, every idea is a God, and no God, as we learn from the Republic, is the cause of evil, neither must we say, that ideas being Gods are the causes of evil. But paradigms are the causes of the things of which they are paradigms; and hence, no idea is the cause of evil.
From all that has been said, we may summarily collect that ideas are of universal essences, and of the perfections in these. For the good, the essential, and the perpetual, are most adapted to forms; the first of these pervading from the first cause, the second from the highest being, and the third from eternity, to the first order of forms. From these three elements, therefore, we may define what things are generated according to a certain paradigmatic intellectual cause, and what subsist from other principles, and not from an intellectual paradigm. For hair, though it should be a leading part, will not be there; for it has been shown that other things are there, and not parts. But clay is an indefinite mixture of two elements not subsisting according to a physical reason; since we are also accustomed to connect together ten thousand other particulars for our use. We do not however refer any thing of this kind to form: for these works are either the offspring of art, or of a deliberative tendency to things in our power. And as to mud, since it is a certain evil of that with which it subsists, it cannot subsist from ideas, because, as we have shown, nothing evil is generated from thence. On this account these things, because they are exits and privations of ideas, do not from them derive their origin. For darkness is a privation of light; but the sun, being the cause of light, is not also the cause of its privation. In like manner, intellect, being the cause of knowledge, does not also give subsistence to ignorance, which is the privation of knowledge; and soul, being the supplier of life, does not also impart a privation of life. But if some one should say that intellect knowing good knows also evil, and on this account should place evil in intellect, to this we must reply, that there is no paradigm of evil in intellect, but that it possesses a knowledge of evil; and that this is the paradigm of all the knowledge of evil, which he who receives is benefited. For ignorance is evil, but not the knowledge of ignorance, this being one knowledge both of itself and of ignorance. For, if we thus speak, we shall neither introduce ideas of things evil, as some of the Platonists have, nor shall we say that intellect alone knows things of a more excellent nature, as others have asserted; but, ranking between both, we shall admit that it has a knowledge of evils, but we shall not introduce a paradigmatic cause of these, since it would be evil.
The following translation of extracts from the beginning of the MS. of Damascius περι αρχων, or CONCERNING PRINCIPLES, may be considered as an admirable comment on the concluding part of the first hypothesis of this dialogue, where it is inferred (140e) that the one neither is one, nor is; and that it can neither be named, nor spoken of, nor conceived by opinion, nor be known, nor perceived by any being. The extracts are taken and translated from the MS. in the Bodleian library. The difficulty of translating these extracts, like the sublimity which they contain, can be known only to a few.
Whether shall we say that the one principle of all things is beyond all things? or that it is something belonging to all things, being as it were the summit of the things proceeding from it? And shall we say that all things subsist together with it, or that they are posterior to and originate from it? For if some one should assert this, how will the principle be something external to all things? For, those things are in short all, of which no one whatever is absent. But the principle is absent, as not ranking among all things. All things, therefore, are not simply posterior to the principle, but besides the principle. Further still, all things must be considered as many finite things: for things infinite will plainly not be all. Nothing, therefore, will be external to all things. For allness (παντοτης) is a certain boundary and comprehension, in which the principle is the boundary upwards, and that which is the ultimate procession from the principle, the boundary downwards. All things, therefore, subsist together with the boundaries. Again, the principle is coordinated with the things which proceed from the principle; for it is said to be and is the principle of them. The cause also is coordinated with the things caused, and that which is first with the things posterior to the first. But things of which there is one coordination, being many, are said to be all; so that the principle also is among all things. And, in short, we call such things as we conceive to subsist in any way whatever, all things; and we also conceive the principle to subsist. Hence we are accustomed to call all the city, the governor and the governed, and all the race, the begetter and the begotten. But if all things subsist together with the principle, will not the principle be something belonging to all things, the principle also being assumed in conjunction with all things? The one coordination, therefore, of all things, which we say is all, is without a principle, and without a cause, lest we should ascend to infinity. It is however necessary that every thing should either be the principle, or from the principle. All things, therefore, are either the principle, or from the principle. But if the latter be the case, the principle will not subsist together with all things, but will be external to all things, as the principle of the things proceeding from it. If the former be admitted, what will that be which will proceed from all things, as from the principle? All things, therefore, are neither the principle, nor from the principle⁸. Further still, all things are in a certain respect beheld subsisting in multitude, and a certain sepa raion. For we cannot conceive the all without these. How, therefore, do a certain separation and multitude directly appear? Or are not all things every where in separation and multitude? But is the one the summit of the many, and the monad the united subsistence of things which are separated from each other?
And, still further, is the one more simple than the monad? In the first place, however, if this be said, every monad is number, though subsisting contractedly and in profound union; and thus the monad also is all things. And, in the next place, the one is not something belongng to the many; for thus it would give completion to the many, in the same manner as each of other things. But as numerous as are the many according to a certain division, so numerous also will the one be prior to division, according to the every way impartible. For it is not the one as that which is smallest, as Speusippus appears to say, but it is the one as all things. For by its own simplicity it accedes to all things, and makes all things to be one. Hence all things proceed from it, because it is itself all things prior to all. And as that which has an united subsistence is prior to things which are separated from each other, so the one is many prior to the many. But when we expand every conception belonging to our nature to all things, then we do not predicate all things after the same manner, but in a triple respect at least; viz. unically, unitedly, and in a multiplied manner. All things, therefore, are from the one, and with reference to the one, as we are accustomed to say. If then, according to a more usual manner of speaking, we call things which consist in multitude and separation all things, we must admit that the united, and in a still greater degree the one, are the principles of these. But if we consider these two as all things, and assume them in conjunction with all other things, according to habitude and coordination with them, as we have before said, we must then investigate another principle prior to all things, which it is no longer proper to consider as in any way all things, nor to co-arrange with its progeny. For if some one should say that the one, though it is all things which have in any respect a subsistence, yet is one prior to all things, and is more one than all things; since it is one by itself, but all things as the cause of all, and according to a coordination with all things;—if this should be said, the one will thus be doubled, and we ourselves shall become doubled, and multiplied about its simplicity. For by being the one it is all things after the most simple manner. At the same time also, though this should be said, it is necessary that the principle of all things should be exempt from all things, and consequently that it should be exempt from the most simple allness, and from a simplicity absorbing all things, such as is that of the one. Our soul, therefore, prophesies that the principle which is beyond all things that can in any respect be conceived, is uncoordinated with all things. Neither, therefore, must it be called principle, nor cause, nor that which is first, nor prior to all things, nor beyond all things. By no means, therefore, must we celebrate it as all things, nor, in short, is it to be celebrated, nor recalled into memory. For, whatever we conceive or consider is either something belonging to all things, or is all things, although analysing we should ascend to that which is most simple, which is the most comprehensive of all things, being as it were the ultimate circumference, not of beings, but of non-beings: for, of beings, that which has an united subsistence, and is perfectly without separation, is the extremity, since every being is mingled from elements which are either bound and infinity, or the progeny of these. But the one is simply the last boundary of the many. For we cannot conceive any thing more simple than that which is perfectly one; which if we denominate the principle, and cause, the first and the most simple, these and all other things are there only according to the one. But we not being able to contract our conceptions into profound union, are divided about it, and predicate of the one the distributed multitude which is in ourselves; unless we despise these appellations also, because the many cannot be adapted to the one. Hence it can neither be known nor named; for, if it could, it would in this respect be many. Or these things also will be contained in it, according to the one. For the nature of the one is all-receptive, or rather all-producing, and there is not any thing whatever which the one is not. Hence all things are as it were evolved from it. It is, therefore, properly cause, and the first, the end, and the last, the defensive enclosure of all things, and the one nature of all things; not that nature which is in things, and which proceeds from the one, but that which is prior to them, which is the most impartible summit of all things whatever, and the greatest comprehension of all things which in any respect are said to have a being.
But if the one is the cause of all things, and is comprehensive of all things, what ascent will there be for us beyond this also? For we do not strive in vain, extending ourselves to that which is nothing. For that which is not even one, is not according to the most just mode of speaking. Whence then do we conceive that there is something beyond the one? for the many require nothing else than the one. And hence the one alone is the cause of the many. Hence also the one is entirely cause, because it is necessary that the cause of the many should alone be the one. For it cannot be nothing; since nothing is the cause of nothing. Nor can it be the many: for so far as many they are uncoordinated; and the many will not be one cause. But if there are many causes, they will not be causes of each other, through being uncoordinated, and through a progression in a circle, the same things being causes and the things caused. Each, therefore, will be the cause of itself, and thus there will be no cause of the many. Hence it is necessary that the one should be the cause of the many, and which is also the cause of their coordination: for there is a certain conspiring coordination, and a union with each other.
If, therefore, some one thus doubting should say that the one is a sufficient principle; and should add as the summit that we have not any conception or suspicion more simple than that of the one, and should therefore ask how we can suspect any thing beyond the last suspicion and conception we are able to frame;—if some one should thus speak, we must pardon the doubt. For a speculation of this kind is as it seems inaccessible and immense: at the same time, however, from things more known to us we must extend the ineffable parturitions of our soul, to the ineffable cosensation of this sublime truth. For, as that which subsists without is in every respect more honourable than that which subsists with habitude, and the uncoordinated than the coordinated, as the theoretic than the political life, and Saturn for instance than Jupiter; being than forms, and the one than the many, of which the one is the principle; so, in short, that which transcends every thing of this kind is more honourable than all causes and principles, and is not to be considered as subsisting in any coarrangement and habitude; since the one is naturally prior to the many, that which is most simple to things more composite, and that which is most comprehensive to the things which it comprehends. So that, if you are willing thus to speak, the first is beyond all such opposition, not only that which is in things coordinate, but even that which takes place from its subsistence as the first. The one, therefore, and the united are posterior to the first: for these causally contain multitude as numerous as that which is unfolded from them. The one, however, is no less one, if indeed it is not more so, because separate multitude is posterior to and not in it; and the united is no less united because it contracted in one things separated prior to separation. Each of these, therefore, is all things, whether according to coordination, or according to their own nature. But all things cannot be things first, nor the principle. Nor yet one of them alone, because this one will be at the same time all things, according to the one; but we shall not yet have discovered that which is beyond all things. To which we may also add, that the one is the summit of the many, as the cause of the things proceeding from it. We may likewise say that we form a conception of the one according to a purified suspicion extended to that which is most simple and most comprehensive. But that which is most venerable must necessarily be incomprehensible by all conceptions and suspicions; since also, in other things, that which always soars beyond our conceptions is more honourable than that which is more obvious: so that what flies from all our suspicions will be most honourable. But, if this be the case, it is nothing. Let however nothing be twofold, one better than the one, the other posterior to sensibles. If also we strive in vain in asserting these things, striving in vain is likewise twofold; the one falling into the ineffable, the other into that which in no respect whatever has any subsistence. For this also is ineffable, as Plato says, but according to the worse, but that according to the better. If, too, we search for a certain advantage arising from it, this is the most necessary advantage of all others, that all things thence proceed as from an adytum, from the ineffable, and in an ineffable manner. For neither do they proceed as the one produces the many, nor as the united things separated, but as the ineffable similarly produces all things, ineffably. But if in asserting these things concerning it, that it is ineffable, that it is no one of all things, that it is incomprehensible, we subvert what we say, it is proper to know that these are the names and words of our parturitions, daring anxiously to explore it, and which, standing in the vestibules of the adytum, announce indeed nothing pertaining to the ineffable, but signify the manner in which we are affected about it, our doubts and disappointment; nor yet this clearly, but through indications to such as are able to understand these investigations. We also see that our parturitions suffer these things about the one, and that in a similar manner they are solicitous and subverted. For the one, says Plato, if it is, is not the one. But if it is not, no assertion can be adapted to it: so that neither can there be a negation of it, nor can any name be given to it; for neither is a name simple. Nor is there any opinion nor science of it; for neither are these simple: nor is intellect itself simple. So that the one is in every respect unknown and ineffable.
What then? Shall we investigate something else beyond the ineffable? Or, perhaps, indeed, Plato leads us ineffably through the one as a medium, to the ineffable beyond the one, which is now the subject of discussion; and this by an ablation of the one, in the same manner as he leads us to the one by an ablation of other things. For, that he gives to the one a certain position is evident from his Sophista, where he demonstrates that it subsists prior to being, itself by itself. But if, having ascended as far as to the one, he is silent, this also is becoming in Plato to be perfectly silent, after the manner of the antients, concerning things in every respect unspeakable: for the discourse was, indeed, most dangerous, in consequence of falling on idiotical ears. Indeed, when discoursing concerning that which in no respect has any subsistence, he subverts his assertions, and is fearful of falling into the sea of dissimilitude, or, rather, of unsubsisting void. But if demonstrations do not accord with the one, it is by no means wonderful: for they are human and divisible, and more composite than is fit. Indeed, they are not even adapted to being, since they are formal, or rather they are neither adapted to forms nor essences. Or, is it not Plato himself, who in his Epistles⁹ evinces that we have nothing which is significant of form, no type, nor name, nor discourse, nor opinion, nor science? For it is intellect alone which can apprehend ideas by its projecting energies, which we cannot possess while busily engaged in discourse. If, therefore, we even energize intellectually, since in this case our intellection is characterized by form, we shall not accord with the united and with being. And if at any time we are able to project a contracted intelligence, even this is unadapted and discordant with the one. If, also, we energize according to the most profoundly united intelligence, and through this occultly perceive the one itself, yet even this is expanded only as far as to the one, if there is a knowledge of the one; for this we have not yet determined. At the same time, however, let us now apply ourselves to the discussion of things of such great importance, through indications and suspicions, being purified, with respect to unusual conceptions, and led through analogies and negations, despising what we possess with respect to these, and advancing from things more dishonourable with us to things more honourable. Shall we therefore say, that the nature which we now investigate as the first, is so perfectly ineffable, that it must not even be admitted concerning it that it is thus ineffable; but that the one is ineffable, as flying from all composition of words and names, and all distinction of that which is known from that which knows, and is to be apprehended in a manner the most simple and comprehensive, and that it is not one alone as the idiom of one, but as one all things, and one prior to all things, and not one which is something belonging to all things? These, indeed, are the parturitions of the soul, and are thus purified with respect to the simply one, and that which is truly the one cause of all things. But, in short, we thus form a conception of the one which we contain as the summit or flower of our essence, as being more proximate and allied to us, and more prompt to such a suspicion of that which nearly leaves all things behind it. But, from some particular thing which is made the subject of hypothesis, the transition is easy to that which is simply supposed, though we should in no respect accede to it, but, being carried in that which is most simple in us, should form a suspicion concerning that which is prior to all things. The one, therefore, is thus effable, and thus ineffable; but that which is beyond it is to be honoured in the most perfect silence, and, prior to this, by the most perfect ignorance¹⁰, which despises all knowledge.
Let us, therefore, now consider, in the second place, how it is said to be perfectly unknown. For, if this be true, how do we assert all these things concerning it? For we do not elucidate by much discussion about things of which we are ignorant. But if it is in reality uncoordinated with all things, and without habitude to all things, and is nothing of all things, nor even the one itself, these very things are the nature of it. Besides, with respect to its being unknown, we either know that it is unknown, or we are ignorant of this. But if the latter, how do we say that it is perfectly unknown? And if we know this, in this respect therefore it is known. Or shall we say that it is known, that the unknown is unknown? We cannot therefore deny one thing of another, not knowing that which is the subject of the negation; nor can we say that it is not this or that, when we can in no respect reach it. How, therefore, can we deny of that of which we are perfectly ignorant the things which we know? For this is just as if some one who was blind from his birth should assert that heat is not in colour. Or perhaps, indeed, he also will justly say, that colour is not hot. For he knows this by the touch; but he knows nothing of colour, except that it is not tangible: for he knows that he does not know it. Such a knowledge, indeed, is not a knowledge of colour, but of his own ignorance. And we also, when we say that the first is unknown, do not announce any thing of it, but we confess the manner in which we are affected about it. For the non-perception of the blind man is not in the colour, nor yet his blindness, but in him. The ignorance, therefore, of that of which we are ignorant is in us. For the knowledge of that which is known, is in him that knows, and not in the thing known. But if knowledge is in that which is known, being as it were the splendour of it, so some one should say ignorance is in that which is unknown, being as it were the darkness of it, or obscurity, according to which it is unknown by, and is unapparent to, all things,—he who says this is ignorant, that as blindness is a privation, so likewise all ignorance, and that as is the invisible, so that of which we are ignorant, and which is unknown. In other things, therefore, the privation of this or that leaves something else. For that which is incorporeal, though invisible, yet is intelligible: and that which is not intelligible by a certain intelligence, leaves at the same time something else. But if we take away every conception and suspicion, this also we must say is perfectly unknown by us, about which we close every eye¹¹. Nor must we assert any thing of it, as we do of the intelligible, that it is not adapted to be seen by the eyes, or as we do of the one, that it is not naturally adapted to be understood by an essential and abundant intellection: for it imparts nothing by which it can be apprehended, nothing which can lead to a suspicion of its nature.
For neither do we only say that it is unknown, that being something else it may naturally possess the unknown, but we do not think it fit to predicate of it either being, or the one, or all things, or the principle of all things, or, in short, any thing. Neither, therefore, are these things the nature of it, viz. the nothing, the being beyond all things, supercausal subsis- tence, and the uncoordinated with all things; but these are only ablations of things posterior to it. How, therefore, do we speak concerning it? Shall we say, that, knowing these posterior things, we despise them with respect to the position, if I may so speak, of that which is in every respect ineffable? For, as that which is beyond some particular knowledge is better than that which is apprehended by such knowledge, so that which is beyond all suspicion must necessarily be most venerable; not that it is known to be so, but possessing the most venerable as in us, and as the consequence of the manner in which we are affected about it. We also call this a prodigy, from its being entirely incomprehensible by our conceptions: for it is through analogy, if that which in a certain respect is unknown, according to a more excellent subsistence, is superior to that which is in every respect known. Hence, that which is in every respect unknown according to a more excellent subsistence, must necessarily be acknowledged to be supreme, though it indeed has neither the supreme, nor the most excellent, nor the most venerable: for these things are our confessions about that, which entirely flies from all our conceptions and suspicions. For by this very assertion, that we can form no suspicion of it, we acknowledge that it is most wonderful; since, if we should suspect any thing concerning it, we must also investigate something else prior to this suspicion, and either proceed to infinity in our search, or stop at that which is perfectly ineffable. Can we, therefore, demonstrate any thing concerning it? and is that demonstrable which we do not think fit to consider as a thing whose subsistence we can even suspect? Or, when we assert these things, do we not indeed demonstrate con- cerning it, but not it? For neither does it contain the demonstrable, nor any thing else. What then? Do we not opine concerning it these things which we now assert? But if there is an opinion of it, it is also the object of opinion. Or shall we say we opine that it is not these things? for Aristotle also says that there is true opinion. If, therefore, the opinion is true, the thing likewise is to which opinion being adapted becomes true. For, in consequence of the thing subsisting, the opinion also is true. Though, indeed, how will it be, or how will that be true which is perfectly unknown? Or shall we say this is true, that it is not these things, and that it is not known? Is it therefore truly false, that it is these things, and that it is known? Or shall we say that these things are to be referred to privations, and to that which in a certain respect is not, in which there may be a falling from the hypostasis of form? Just as we call the absence of light darkness. For, light not existing, neither is there any darkness. But to that which is never and in no respect being, nothing among beings can, as Plato says, accede. Neither, therefore, is it non-being, nor, in short, privation; and even the expression never in no respect (το μηδαμη μηδαμως) is incapable of signifying its nature. For this expression is being, and signification is something belonging to beings. Likewise, though we should opine that it is not in any respect, yet at the same time since it thus becomes the object of opinion, it belongs to beings. Hence, Plato very properly calls that which never and in no respect is, ineffable and incapable of being opined, and this according to the worse than the effable and opinion, in the same manner as we say the supreme is according to that which is better than these. What then, do we not think and are we not persuaded that the supreme thus subsists? Or, as we have often said, do not these things express the manner in which we are affected about it? But we possess in ourselves this opinion, which is therefore empty, as is the opinion of a vacuum and the infinite. As therefore we form a phantastic and fictitious opinion of these, though they are not, as if they were, just as we opine the sun to be no larger than a sphere whose diameter is but a foot, though this is far from being the case;—so, if we opine any thing concerning that which never and in no respect is, or concerning that of which we write these things, the opinion is our own, and the vain attempt is in us, in apprehending which we think that we apprehend the supreme. It is, however, nothing pertaining to us, so much does it transcend our conceptions. How, therefore, do we demonstrate that there is such an ignorance in us concerning it? And how do we say that it is unknown? We reply, in one word, Because we always find that what is above knowledge is more honourable; so that what is above all knowledge, if it were to be found, would be found to be most honourable. But it is sufficient to the demonstration that it cannot be found. We also say that it is above all things; because, if it were any thing known, it would rank among all things; and there would be something common to it with all things, viz. the being known. But there is one coordination of things in which there is something common: so that in consequence of this it will subsist together with all things. Hence it is necessary that it should be unknown.
In the third place, the unknown is inherent in beings as well as the known, though they are relatively inherent at the same time. As, therefore, we say that the same thing is relatively large and small, so also we say, that a thing is known and unknown with reference to different things. And as the same thing, by participating of the two forms, the great and the small, is at the same time both great and small, so that which at the same time participates of the known and the unknown is both these. Thus, the intelligible is unknown to sense, but is known to intellect, For the more excellent will not be privation, the inferior at the same time being form; since every absence, and a privation of this kind, is either in matter or in soul; but all things are present in intellect, and still more in a certain respect in the intelligible. Unless, indeed, we denominate privation according to a more excellent subsistence, as we say that is not form which is above form; and that is not being which is superessential; and that is nothing which is truly unknown, according to a transcendency which surpasses all things. If, therefore, the one is the last known of things which are in any respect whatever known or suspected, that which is beyond the one is primarily and perfectly unknown; which also is so unknown, that neither has it an unknown nature, nor can we accede to it as to the unknown, but it is even unknown to us whether it is unknown. For there is an all-perfect ignorance about it, nor can we know it, neither as known, nor as unknown. Hence, we are on all sides subverted, in consequence of not being able to reach it in any respect, because it is not even one thing; or rather, it is not that which is not even one thing. Hence, it is that which in no respect whatever has any subsistence; or it is even beyond this, since this is a negation of being, and that which is not even one thing is a negation of the one. But that which is not one thing, or, in other words, that which is nothing, is a void, and a falling from all things. We do not, however, thus conceive concerning the ineffable. Or shall we say that nothing is twofold, the one being beyond, and the other below, all things? For the one also is twofold, this being the extreme, as the one of matter, and that the first, as that which is more antient than being. So that with respect to nothing also, this will be as that which is not even the last one, but that, as neither being the first one. In this way, therefore, that which is unknown and ineffable is twofold, this, as not even possessing the last suspicion of subsistence, and that, as not even being the first of things. Must we, therefore, consider it as that which is unknown to us? Or this indeed is nothing paradoxical: for it will be unknown even to much-honoured intellect, if it be lawful so to speak.
For every intellect looks to the intelligible; and the intelligible is either form or being. But may not divine knowledge know it; and may it not be known to this superessentially? This knowledge, however, applies itself to the one, but that which we are now investigating is beyond the one. In short, if it also is known, in conjunction with others, it will also be something belonging to all things; for it will be common to it with others to be known, and thus far it will be coordinated with others. Further still, if it is known, divine knowledge will comprehend it. It will, therefore, define it. Every boundary, however, ascends ultimately as far as to the one; but that is beyond the one. It is, therefore, perfectly incomprehensible and invisible, and consequently is not to be apprehended by any kind of knowledge. To which we may add, that knowledge is of things which may be known, as beings, or as having a subsistence, or as participating of the one. But this is beyond all these. Further still, the one also appears to be unknown, if it is necessary that what is known should be one thing, and that which knows another, though both should be in the same thing. So that the truly one will not know itself: for it does not possess a certain duplicity. There will not, therefore, be in it that which knows, and that which is known. Hence, neither will a God, considered according to the one itself alone, and as being conjoined with the one, be united with that which is simple, according to duplicity. For how can the double be conjoined with the simple? But if he knows the one by the one, that which knows, and also that which is known, will be one, and in each the nature of the one will be shown, subsisting alone and being one. So that he will not be conjoined as different with that which is different, or as that which is gnostic with that which is known, since this very thing is one alone; so that neither will he be conjoined according to knowledge. Much more, therefore, is that which is not even the one unknown. But if the one is the last thing known, we know nothing of that which is beyond the one; so that the present rhapsody is vain. Or shall we say we know that these things are unworthy to be asserted, if it be lawful so to speak, of the first hypothesis, since, not yet knowing even intelligible forms, we despise the images which subsist in us of their eternal and impartible nature; since these images are partible, and multifariously mutable. Further still, being ignorant of the contracted subsistence of intelligible species and genera, but possessing an image of this, which is a contraction of the genera and species in us, we suspect that being itself resembles this contraction, but is at the same time something more excellent; and this must be especially the case with that which has an united subsistence. But now we are ignorant of the one, not contracting, but expanding all things to it; and in us simplicity itself consists, with relation to the all which we contain, but is very far from coming into contact with the all-perfect nature of the one. For the one and the simple in our nature, are in the smallest degree that which they are said to be, except that they are a sign or indication of the nature which is there. Thus also assuming in intellect every thing which can be in any respect known or suspected, we think fit to ascribe it as far as to the one; if it be requisite to speak of things unspeakable, and to conceive things which are inconceivable. At the same time, also, we think fit to make that the subject of hypothesis, which cannot be compared, and is uncoordinated with all things, and which is so exempt, that neither in reality does it possess the exempt. For that which is exempt is always exempt from something, and is not in every respect exempt, as possessing habitude to that from which it is exempt, and, in short, preceding in a certain coordination. If, therefore, we intend to make that which is truly exempt the subject of hypothesis, we must not even suppose it to be exempt. For, accurately speaking, its proper name will not be verified when ascribed to the exempt; for in this case it would at the same time be coordinated; so that it is necessary even to deny this of it. Likewise, negation is a certain sentence, and that which is denied is a certain thing; but that of which we are now endeavouring to speak is not any thing. Neither, therefore, can it be denied, nor spoken of, nor be in any way known: so that neither is it possible to deny the negation; but that which appears to us to be a demonstration of what we say, is a perfect subversion of language and conceptions. What end, therefore, will there be of the discourse, except the most profound silence, and an acknowledgment that we know nothing of that which it is not lawful, since impossible, to lead into knowledge?
May it not, therefore, be said by some one who ventures to make such-like inquiries, if we assert something concerning it from things of a posterior nature, since in these the monad is every where the leader of a certain proper number; for there is one first soul and many souls, one first intellect and many intellects, one first being and many beings, and one first unity and many unities;—if this be the case, may it not be said that in a similar manner it is requisite there should be one ineffable and many ineffables? If this then be admitted, it will be necessary to say that the ineffable is ineffably prolific. It will, therefore, generate a proper multitude. Or may we not say, that these and such-like conceptions arise from forgetting what has been before asserted? For there is nothing common between it and other things; nor will there be any thing pertaining to it among things which are spoken of, or conceived, or suspected. Neither, therefore, can the one nor the many, neither the prolific nor the productive, nor that which is in any respect a cause, neither any analogy nor similitude can be ascribed to it. For it is especially necessary to induce quiet, in that which is arcane; firmly abiding in the adytum of the soul. But if it be necessary to indicate something concerning it by negations, we must say that it is neither one nor many, neither prolific nor unprolific, neither cause nor causeless; thus in reality subverting ourselves; I know not how, by negations to infinity. Shall we, therefore, thus trifling adduce that which in no respect has any subsistence whatever? For to this all these assertions are adapted, and after all these the very subversion itself, as the Elean philosopher teaches us. This question indeed is not difficult to solve; for we have before said that all these things apply to that which is not in any respect, in consequence of its being worse than all these, but they apply to the first, in consequence of admitting it to be better than all these. For the things denied are not denied of each after the same manner; but upwards things less, if it be lawful so to speak, are denied of that which is more excellent; and downwards, things better of that which is worse, if it be possible so to speak. For we deny things both of matter and the one, but in a twofold respect, after the above-mentioned manner. This question then, as I have said, is easily solved.
Again, therefore, it may be said, Does not something proceed from it to the things which are here? Or how indeed should this not be the case, if all things are from it? For every thing participates of that from which it proceeds. For, if nothing else, it thence possesses that which it is, respiring its proper principle, and converting itself to it as much as possible. What indeed should hinder it from imparting something of itself to its progeny? What other medium is there? And how is it not necessary that the second should always be nearer to the one principle than the third? and the third than the fourth? And if this be the case, must it not also less depart from it? If this too be the case, must it not also more abide in the boundary of its nature? Hence, too, must it not also be more assimilated to it, so that it likewise will be adapted to participate of it, and so that it will participate of it? How also could we suspect these things concerning it, unless we contained a certain vestige of it,—a vestige hastening as it were to be conjoined with it? Shall we, therefore, say that being arcane it bestows an arcane participation on all things, through which there is in every thing something arcane? For we acknowledge that some things are more arcane than others, the one than being, being than life, life than intellect, and thus always in succession after the same manner; or rather inversely; from matter as far as to a rational essence, these things subsist according to the worse, but those according to the better, if it be lawful so to speak. May we not however say that he who admits this will also make a progression from the first, and a certain arcane order of things proceeding, and that thus we shall introduce all such effables to the arcane, as we have condistributed with the effable? We shall therefore make three monads and three numbers, and no longer two; viz. the essential, the unical, or that which is characterized by unity, and the arcane. And thus we shall admit what we formerly rejected, i. e. multitude in the arcane, and an order of things first, middle, and last. There will also be permanency, progression and regression; and, in short, we shall mingle much of the effable with the ineffable. But if, as we have said, the term it or those can not be introducedto that arcane nature which we consider as above the one and the many neither must any thing else besides the one be admitted as prior to the many, nor any thing else be condistributed with the many in participation. Neither, therefore, is it participated, nor does it impart any thing of itself to its progeny; nor is every God arcane prior to its being one, as it is one prior to its being essence. May we not say, therefore, that language here being subverted evinces that this nature is arcane by conceiving contraries according to every mode from things posterior to it? And why is this wonderful, since we are also involved in similar doubts concerning the one? Indeed, is not this also the case concerning being and that which is perfectly united?
In another part, near the beginning of the same admirable work, he remarks that the one in every thing is the mere true thing itself. Thus, for instance, the one of man is the mere true man, that of soul is the mere true soul, and that of body the mere true body. Thus also the one of the sun, and the one of the moon, are the mere true sun and moon. After which he observes as follows: Neither the one nor all things accords with the nature of the one. For these are opposed to each other, and distribute our conceptions. For, if we look to the simple and the one, we destroy its immensely great perfection: and if we conceive all things subsisting together, we abolish the one and the simple. But this is because we are divided, and look to divided idioms. At the same time, however, aspiring after the knowledge of it, we connect all things together, that we may thus be able to apprehend this mighty nature. But fearing the introduction of all multitudes, or contracting the peculiar nature of the one, and rejoicing in that which is simple and the first in speaking of the most antient principle, we thus introduce the one itself as a symbol of simplicity; since we likewise introduce all things as a symbol of the comprehension of all things. But that which is above or prior to both we can neither conceive nor denominate. And why is it wonderful that we should suffer these things about it, since the distinct knowledge of it is unical, which we cannot perceive? Other things too of this kind we suffer about being. For, endeavouring to perceive being, we dismiss it, but run round the elements of it, bound and infinity. But if we form a more true conception of it, that it is an united plenitude of all things, in this case the conception of all things draws us down to multitude, and the conception of the united abolishes that of all things. Neither however is this yet wonderful. For, with respect to forms also, when we wish to survey any one of these, we run round the elements of it, and, striving to perceive its unity, we obliterate its elements. At the same time, however, every form is one and many; not indeed partly one, and partly many, but the whole of it is through the whole a thing of this kind. Not being able, therefore, to apprehend this collectively, we rejoice in acceding to it with a distribution of our conceptions. But always adhering in our ascent, like those who climb clinging with their hands and feet to things which extend us to a more impartible nature, we obtain in a certain respect a cosensation in the distribution, of that which is uniform. We despise, therefore, this with respect to the collected apprehension of it, which we cannot obtain, unless a certain vestige of collected intelligence in our nature is agitated. And this is the light of truth, which is suddenly enkindled, as if from the collision of fire stones.
For our greatest conceptions, when exercised with each other, verge to a uniform and simple summit as their end, like the extremities of lines in a circle hastening to the centre. And though even thus they subsist indeed with distribution, yet a certain vestige of the knowledge of form which we contain is pre-excited; just as the equal tendency of all the lines in a circle to terminate in the middle affords a certain obscure representation of the centre. After the same manner also we ascend to being, in the first place, by understanding every form which falls upon us as distributed, not only as impartible, but also as united, and this by confounding, if it be proper so to speak, the multitude in each. In the next place, we must collect every thing separated together, and take away the circumscriptions, just as if making many streams of water to be one collection of water, except that we must not understand that which is united from all things, as one collection of water, but we must conceive that which is prior to all things, as the form of water prior to divided streams of water. Thus, therefore, we must expand ourselves to the one, first collecting and afterwards dismissing what we have collected, for the super-expanded transcendency of the one. Ascending, therefore, shall we meet with it as that which is known? Or, wishing to meet with it as such, shall we arrive at the unknown? Or may we not say that each of these is true? For we meet with it afar off as that which is known; and when we are united to it from afar, passing beyond that in our nature which is gnostic of the one, then are we brought to be one, that is, to be unknown instead of being gnostic. This contact, therefore, as of one with one, is above knowledge, but the other is as of that which is gnostic with that which is known. As however the crooked is known by the straight, so we form a conjecture of the unknown by the known. And this indeed is a mode of knowledge. The one, therefore, is so far known, that it does not admit of an approximating knowledge, but appears afar off as known, and imparts a gnostic indication of itself. Unlike other things, however, the nearer we approach to it, it is not the more, but, on the contrary, less known; knowledge being dissolved by the one into ignorance, since, as we have before observed, where there is knowledge there also is separation. But separation approaching to the one is inclosed in union; so that knowledge also is refunded into ignorance. Thus, too, the analogy of Plato requires. For first we endeavour to see the sun, and we do indeed see it afar off; but by how much the nearer we approach to it, by so much the less do we see it; and at length we neither see other things, nor it, the eye becoming spontaneously dazzled by its light. Is, therefore, the one in its proper nature unknown, though there is something else unknown besides the one? The one indeed wills to be by itself, but with no other; but the unknown beyond the one is perfectly ineffable, which we acknowledge neither knows nor is ignorant, but has with respect to itself super-ignorance. Hence by proximity to this the one itself is darkened: for, being very near to the immense principle, if it be lawful so to speak, it remains as it were in the adytum of that truly mystic silence. On this account, Plato in speaking of it finds all his assertions subverted: for it is near to the subversion of every thing, which takes place about the first. It differs from it however in this, that it is one simply, and that according to the one it is also at the same time all things. But the first is above the one and all things, being more simple than both these.
142b. Note. Such then is the intelligible triad. In order to convince the reader that the doctrine here delivered of the intelligible triad is not a fiction devised by the latter Platonists, I shall present him with the following translation from the same excellent work of Damascius (Περι αρχων,) Concerning principles¹², in which the agreement of all the antient theologists concerning this triad is most admirably evinced.
The theology contained in the Orphic rhapsodies concerning the intelligible Gods is as follows:—Time is symbolically placed for the one principle of the universe; but æther and chaos, for the two posterior to this one: and being, simply considered, is represented under the symbol of an egg. And this is the first triad of the intelligible Gods. But for the perfection of the second triad they establish either a conceiving and a conceived egg as a God, or a white garment, or a cloud: because from these Phanes leaps forth into light. For, indeed, they philosophize variously concerning the middle triad. But Phanes here represents intellect. But conceiving him over and above this, as father and power, contributes nothing to Orpheus. But they call the third triad Metis as intellect¹³, Ericapæus as power, and Phanes as father. But whether or not are we to consider the middle triad according to the three-shaped God, while conceived in the egg¹⁴? for the middle always represents each of the extremes; as in this instance, where the egg and the three-shaped God subsist together. And here you may perceive that the egg is that which is united; but that the three-shaped and really multiform God is the separating and discriminating cause of that which is intelligible. Likewise, the middle triad subsists according to the egg, as yet united; but the third¹⁵ according to the God who separates and distributes the whole intelligible order. And this is the common and familiar Orphic theology. But that delivered by Hieronymus and Hellanicus is as follows. According to them water and matter were the first productions from which earth was secretly drawn forth: so that water and earth are established as the two first principles: the latter of these having a dispersed subsistence, but the former conglutinating and connecting the latter. But they are silent concerning the principle prior to these two, as being ineffable: for, as there are no illuminations about him, his arcane and ineffable nature is from hence sufficiently evinced. But the third principle posterior to these two, water and earth, and which is generated from them, is a dragon, naturally endued with the heads of a bull and a lion, but in the middle having the countenance of the God himself. They add, likewise, that he has wings on his shoulders, and that he is called undecaying Time, and Her- cules; that Necessity resides with him, which is the same as Nature, and incorporeal Adrastia, which is extended throughout the universe, whose limits she binds in amicable conjunction. But, as it appears to me, they denominate this third principle as established according to essence, and assert, besides this, that it subsists as male and female, for the purpose of exhibiting the generative causes of all things.
I likewise find in the Orphic rhapsodies, that, neglecting the two first principles, together with the one principle who is delivered in silence, the third principle, posterior to the two, is established by the theology as the original; because this first of all possesses something effable and commensurate to human discourse. For, in the former hypothesis, the highly reverenced and undecaying Time, the father of æther and chaos, was the principle: but in this Time is neglected, and the principle becomes a dragon. It likewise says that there was a triple offspring; moist æther, an infinite chaos, and cloudy and dark Erebus; delivering this second triad analogous to the first: this being potential, as that was paternal. Hence, the third procession of this triad is dark Erebus: its paternal and summit æther, not according to a simple but intellectual subsistence: but its middle, infinite chaos, considered as a progeny or procession, and among these parturient, because from these the third intelligible triad proceeds. What then is the third intelligible triad? I answer, The egg; the duad of the natures of male and female which it contains, and the multitude of all-various seeds, residing in the middle of this triad: and the third among these is an incorporeal God, bearing golden wings on his shoulders; but in his inward parts naturally possessing the heads of bulls, upon which heads a mighty dragon appears, invested with the all-various forms of wild beasts. This last then must be considered as the intellect of the triad; but the middle progeny, which are many as well as two, correspond to power, and the egg itself is the pater- nal principle of the third triad: but the third God of this third triad, this theology celebrates as Protogonus, and calls him Jupiter, the disposer of all things and of the whole world; and on this account denominates him Pan. And such is the information which this theology affords us, concerning the genealogy of the intelligible principles of things.
But in the writings of the Peripatetic Eudemus, containing the theology of Orpheus, the whole intelligible order is passed over in silence, as being every way ineffable and unknown, and incapable of verbal enunciation. Eudemus, therefore, commences his genealogy from Night, from which also Homer begins: though Eudemus is far from making the Homeric genealogy consistent and connected, for he asserts that Homer begins from Ocean and Tethys. It is however apparent that Night is according to Homer the greatest divinity, since she is reverenced even by Jupiter himself. For the poet says of Jupiter—“that he feared lest he should act in a manner displeasing to swift Night¹⁶.’ So that Homer begins his genealogy of the Gods from Night. But it appears to me that Hesiod, when he asserts that Chaos was first generated, signifies by Chaos the incomprehensible and perfectly united nature of that which is intelligible: but that he produces Earth¹⁷ the first from thence, as a certain principle of the whole procession of the Gods. Unless perhaps Chaos is the second of the two principles: but Earth¹⁸, Tartarus, and Love form the triple intelligible. So that Love is to be placed for the third monad of the intelligible order, considered according to its convertive nature; for it is thus denominated by Orpheus in his rhapsodies. But Earth for the first, as being first established in a certain firm and essential permanency. And Tartarus for the middle, as in a certain respect exciting and moving forms into distribution. But Acusilaus appears to me to establish Chaos for the first principle, as entirely unknown; and after this, two principles, Erebus as male, and Night as female; placing the latter for infinity, but the former for bound. But from the mixture of these, he says¹⁹ that Æther, Love, and Counsel are generated forming three intelligible hypostases. And he places Æther as the summit; but Love in the middle, according to its naturally middle subsistence; but Metis or Counsel as the third, and the same as highly-reverenced intellect. And, according to the history of Eudemus, from these he produces a great number of other Gods. But Epimenides establishes Air and Night as the two first principles; manifestly reverencing in silence the one principle prior to these two. But from Air and Night Tar- tarus is generated, forming, as it appears to me, the third principle, as a certain mixed temperature from the two. And this mixture is called by some an intelligible medium, because it extends itself to both the summit and the end. But from the mixture of the extremes with each other an egg is generated, which is truly an intelligible animal: and from this again another progeny proceeds. But according to Pherecydes Syrius, the three first principles are, a Perpetually-abiding Vi- tal Nature, Time²⁰, and an Earthly Nature: one of these subsisting, as I conceive, prior to the other two. But he asserts that Time generates from the progeny of itself, Fire, Spirit, and Water: which signify, as it appears to me, the triple nature of that which is intelligible. But from these, distributed into five profound recesses, a numerous progeny of Gods is constituted, which he calls five-times animated (πεντεμψυχος); and which is, perhaps, the same as if he had said πεντεκόσμος, or a five-fold world. But we may probaby discourse on this subject at some other opportunity. And thus much may suffice at present concerning the hypothesis derived from the Grecian fables, which are both many and various.
But with respect to the theology of the barbarians, the Babylonians seem to pass over in silence the one principle of the universe. But they establish two principles, Tauthe and Apasoon. And they consider Apasoon as the husband of Tauthe, whom they denominate the mother of the Gods; from whom an only-begotten son Mooumis was produced: which, as it appears to me, is no other than the intelligible world deduced from two principles²¹. But from these another procession is derived, Dache and Dachus. And likewise a third from these, Kissare and Assoorus. And from these again three deities are produced, Anus, Illinus, and Aus. But from Aus and Dache a son called Belus is produced, who they say is the demiurgus of the world. But with respect to the Magi, and all the Arion race, as we are informed by Eudemus, some of them call all the intelligible and united world Place, and some of them Time: from which a good divinity and an evil dæmon are distributed; Light and Darkness subsisting prior to these, according to the assertions of others. However, both the one and the other, after an undistributed nature, consider that nature as having a subsistence which distributes the twofold coordination of better natures: one of which coordinations Orosmades presides over, and the other Ari- manius. But the Sidonians, according to the same historian, place before all things Time, Desire, and Cloudy Darkness. And they assert, that from the mingling of Desire and Darkness as two principles, Air and a gentle Wind were produced: Air evincing the summit of the intelligible triad; but the gentle Wind raised and proceeding from this, the vital prototype of the intelligible. And again, that from both these the bird Otus, similar to a night raven, was produced; representing, as it appears to me, intelligible intellect. But as we find (without the assistance of Eudemus) the Phœnician mythology, according to Moschus, places Æther and Air as the two first principles, from which the intelligible God Oulomus was produced; who, as it appears to me, is the summit of the intelligible order. But from this God (yet proceeding together with him) they assert that Chousorus was produced, being the first unfolding procession. And after this an egg succeeds; which I think must be called intelligible intellect. But the unfolding Chousorus is intelligible power, because this is the first nature which distributes an undistributed subsistence: unless, perhaps, after the two principles Æther and Air, the summit is one Wind; but the middle two Winds, the south-west and the south; for in a certain respect they place these prior to Oulomus. But Oulomus himself is intelligible intellect: and unfolding Chousorus²² the first order after the intelligible series. And the egg itself is heaven: from the bursting of which into two parts, the sections are said to have become heaven and earth. But with respect to the Egyptians, nothing accurately is related of them by Eudemus. According to certain Egyptian philosophers, however, among us, an unknown Darkness is celebrated in some Egyptian writings as the one principle of the universe, and this thrice pronounced as such: but for the two principles after the first, they place water and sand, according to Heraiscus; but according to the more antient writer Asclepiades, sand and water; from which, and after which, the first Kamephis is generated. But after this a second, and from this again a third; by all which the whole intelligible distribution is accomplished. For thus Asclepiades determines. But the more modern Heraiscus says, that the Egyptians, denominating the third Kamephis from his father and grandfather, assert that he is the Sun; which, doubtless, signifies in this case intelligible intellect. But a more accurate knowledge of these affairs must be received from the above-mentioned authors themselves. It must, however, be observed, that with the Egyptians there are many distributions of things according to union; because they unfold an intelligible nature into characteristics, or peculiarities of many Gods, as may be learned from such as are desirous of consulting their writings on this subject.
Thus far Damascius; from which curious and interesting relation the reader may not only perceive at one view the agreement of the antient theologists with each other in celebrating the intelligible triad, and venerating in silence the ineffable principle of things, but may likewise behold the origin of the christian trinity, its deviation from truth, and the absurdity, and even impiety, with which a belief in it is unavoidably attended. Consonant too with the above relation is the doctrine of the Chaldæans concerning the intelligible order, as delivered by Johannes Picus, in his Conclusions according to the opinion of the Chaldæan theologists²³. “The intelligible coordination (says he) is not in the intellectual coordination, as Amasis the Egyptian asserts, but is above every intellectual hierarchy, imparticipably concealed in the abyss of the first unity, and under the obscurity of the first darkness.” Coordinatio intelligibilis non est in intellectuali coordinatione, ut dixit Amasis Ægyptius, sed est super omnem intellectualem hierarchium, in abysso primæ unitatis, et sub caligine primarum tenebrarum imparticipaliter abscondita.
But from this triad it may be demonstrated, that all the processions of the Gods may be comprehended in six orders, viz. the intelligible order, the intelligible and at the same time intellectual, the intellectual, the su- permundane, the liberated, and the mundane²⁴. For the intelligible, as we have already observed, must hold the first rank, and must consist of being, life, and intellect, i. e. must abide, proceed, and return, and this superessentially; at the same time that it is characterized, or subsists principally according to being. But, in the next place, that which is both intelligible and intellectual succeeds, which must likewise be triple, but must principally subsist according to life, or intelligence. And, in the third place, the intellec- tual order must succeed, which is triply convertive. But as, in consequence of the existence of the sensible world, it is necessary that there should be some demiurgic cause of its existence, this cause can only be found in in- tellect, and in the last hypostasis of the intellectual triad. For all forms in this hypostasis subsist according to all-various and perfect divisions; and forms can only fabricate when they have a perfect intellectual separation from each other. But since fabrication is nothing more than procession, the demiurgus will be to the posterior order of the Gods what the one is to the orders prior to the demiurgus; and consequently he will be that secondarily which the first cause of all is primarily. Hence, his first production will be an order of Gods analogous to the intelligible order, and which is denominated supermundane. After this he must produce an order of Gods similar to the intelligible and intellectual order, and which are denominated liber- ated Gods. And in the last place, a procession correspondent to the intel- lectual order, and which can be no other than the mundane Gods. For the demiurgus is chiefly characterized according to diversity, and is allotted the boundary of all universal hypostases.

## Additional Notes on the Phædrus

247c. It alone uses contemplative intellect, &c. By the governor of the soul in this place a partial intellect is meant. For this intellect is proximately established above our essence, which it also elevates and perfects; and to which we convert ourselves, when we are purified through philosophy, and conjoin our intellectual power with its intelligence. This partial intellect is participated by all other proximate dæmoniacal souls, and illuminates ours, when we convert ourselves to it, and render our reason intellectual. In short, as every partial soul is essentially suspended from a certain dæmon, and every dæmon has a dæmoniacal intellect above itself, hence, every partial soul will have this intellect ranked prior to itself as an impartible essence. Of this intellect, therefore, the first participant will be a dæmoniacal soul, but the second, the partial souls under this, which also makes them to be partial. It also appears that the intellect immediately above every dæmon, so far as it is a whole and one, is the intellect of the dæmon which proximately participates it, but that it also comprehends the number of the souls which are under it, and the intellectual paradigms of these. Every partial soul, therefore, will have as an indivisible essence its proper paradigm, which this intellect contains, and not simply the whole intellect, in the same manner as the dæmon which is essentially its leader. Hence the impartible belonging to every partial soul may be accurately defined to be the idea of that soul, comprehended in the one intellect which is destined to be the leader of the dæmoniacal series under which every such soul is arranged. And thus it will be true, that the intellect of every partial soul is alone supernally established among eternal entities, and that every such soul is a medium between the impartible above it, and the impartible nature below it. This, then, is the intelligence prior to the soul, and which the soul participates, when its intellectual part energizes intellectually. This also is the intellect which Plato in the Timæus indicates under the appellation of intelligence, when he says “that true being is apprehended by intelligence in conjunction with reason; and to which he likewise alludes in the latter part of the same dialogue, where he says, “that this intelligence is in the Gods, but that it is participated by a few only of the human race.”
246e. Likewise Jupiter the mighty leader, &c. It is said by Plato²⁵ in the Phædrus, that there are twelve leaders who preside over the universe, who govern all the mundane Gods, and all the companies of dæmons, and who sublimely march to an intelligible nature. It is likewise asserted that Jupiter presides over these twelve Gods, who drives a winged chariot, who distributes all things in order, takes care of and leads all the attendant army, first to an elevated place of speculation within the heavens, and to those blessed contemplations and evolutions of intelligibles which it contains; but afterwards to that subcelestial arch which proximately embraces the heavens, and which the heavens contain: and after this arch they proceed into heaven and to the back of heaven. And in this place divine souls are said to stand, and, whilst they are carried along with the heavens, to contemplate every superior essence. But prior to the heavens there is said to be a place which is called supercelestial, in which true essence, the plain of truth, the kingdom of Adrastia, and the divine choir of virtues, reside: and it is asserted that by the intelligence of these monads souls are nourished and benefited, while they follow the revolution of the heavens.
And thus much is asserted in the Phædrus, where Socrates clearly speaks, as one agitated by a divine impulse, and touches on mystical concerns. But it is requisite to consider, in the first place, what this heaven may be, which Socrates speaks of, and in what order of beings it is placed. For, having discovered this, we may then contemplate the subcelestial arch, and the back of heaven; since each of these is assumed according to an habitude, or alliance to heaven; the one, indeed, being primarily situated above, and the other primarily placed under heaven.
What then is that heaven to which Jupiter brings the Gods? If we call it sensible, after the manner of some, it will be necessary that the more excellent genera should naturally be converted to things subordinate. For Jupiter, that great leader in the heavens, if he is himself carried to this sensible heaven, and leads to this all the attendant Gods, he must himself have a conversion to things inferior and posterior to himself. And this, together with Jupiter, must be the case with all the deities and dæmons that are suspended from him; though the same Socrates in the Phædrus asserts, that even a partial soul, when in a perfect state, revolves on high, and governs the universe. How, then, can the leaders of total souls be converted to this sensible heaven, and exchange their intelligible place of survey for a worse condition?—they, who through these souls preside over the universe, that they may illuminate mundane natures, with an absolute and liberated power! Besides, what blessed intellections can the Gods obtain by contemplating this sensible heaven? And what evolutions can there be there of the whole knowledge of sensible concerns? since on this hypothesis Plato must be condemned for producing a relation of no value with respect to the knowledge of the intelligible Gods. For the Gods perfectly know things subsisting in this sensible region, not by a conversion to them, but because they contain the causes of them in themselves. Hence, in consequence of knowing themselves, they likewise know in a causal manner and govern these sensible concerns, not surveying them, and verging to things which are governed, but through love converting subordinate natures to themselves. It is not, therefore, lawful for the Gods, by whom all heaven is governed, and who consider it as worthy their providential care, ever to subsist under its revolution. Nor, indeed, is there any beatitude in the contemplation of things situated under the heavens. Nor are the souls who are converted to a contemplation of this kind in the number of the blessed, and among such as follow the Gods; but they rank among those who exchange intelligible aliment for the food of opinion, and such as Socrates represents those lame souls, who have broken their wings, and are in a merged condition. Since, then, circumstances of this kind belong to partial souls, who do not rank in the number of the blessed, how can we refer a conversion to this sensible heaven to the leading Gods? Besides, Socrates asserts, that souls standing on the back of heaven are carried round by the celestial revolution. But Timæus and the Athenian guest say, that souls perform all things in the heavens from their own motions, and externally invest bodies by their powers; and that in consequence of living their own life, through the whole of time, they impart to bodies secondary powers of motion. How, then, can these things accord with those who consider this heaven as sensible? For souls do not contemplate, and, as it were, dance round intelligibles, in consequence of the revolution of the heavens: but, through the unapparent circumvolution of souls, bodies themselves are carried round in a circle, and about these perform their revolutions. If any one, therefore, should say that this is the sensible heaven, and that souls are at the same time carried round with its revolutions, and are distributed according to its back, profundity, and subcelestial arch, it is necessary to admit that many absurdities will ensue.
But if any one asserts, that the heaven to which Jupiter leads all his attendant Gods and dæmons is intelligible, he will unfold the divine narrations of Plato, in a manner agreeable to the nature of things, and will follow his most celebrated interpreters. For both Plotinus and Jamblichus consider this as a certain intelligible heaven. And prior to these, Plato himself in the Cratylus, following the Orphic theogony, calls Saturn indeed the father of Jupiter, and Heaven the father of Saturn. And he unfolds the Demiurgus of the universe by certain appellations, investigating the truth which names contain. And he denominates the Demiurgus as one who contains a divine intellect: but Heaven as the intelligence of first intelligibles. For Heaven, says he, is sight looking to things on high. And hence, Heaven subsists prior to every divine intellect with which the mighty Saturn is said to be replete; but it understands superior natures, and whatever is situated beyond the celestial order. The mighty Heaven, therefore, is allotted a middle kingdom between intelligibles and intellectuals.
For, indeed, the celestial revolution in the Phædrus is intelligence, by which all the Gods, and their attendant souls, obtain the contemplation of intelligibles. For intelligence is between intellect and the intelligible. In this medium, therefore, we must establish the whole Heaven; and we must assert that it contains one bond of the divine orders; being, indeed, the father of the intellectual race, but generated by the kings prior to itself, whom it is said to behold. We must also consider it as situated between the supercelestial place and subcelestial arch.
Again, therefore, if the supercelestial place is indeed that imparticipable and occult genus of the intelligible Gods, how can we establish there so great a divine multitude, and this separated, viz. truth, science, justice, temperance, the meadow, and Adrastia? For neither are the fountains of virtues proper to the intelligible Gods, nor separation and variety of forms. For such things as are first and most characterized by unity, extend the demiurgic intellect of wholes to an intelligible exemplar, and to the comprehension of forms which there subsist. But, in the Phædrus, Socrates asserts that a partial intellect contemplates the supercelestial place. For this (as it is beautifully said by our ancestors) is the governor of the soul. If, then, it is requisite to investigate the difference of intelligibles from this analogy, as the demiurgic intellect is imparticipable, but that which is partial is participable; so with respect to that which is intelligible, the intelligible of the demiurgus is the first paradigm of first intelligibles, but the intelligible of a partial intellect is the paradigm of secondary intelligibles, which are indeed intelligibles, but are allotted an intelligible supremacy as among intellectuals. But if the supercelestial place is situated above the celestial revolution, but is inferior to the intelligible triads, because it is more expanded; for it is the plain of truth, but is not unknown, and is divided according to a multitude of forms, and contains a variety of powers, and the meadow which is there nourishes souls, and is visible to their natures, the first intelligibles illuminating souls with an ineffable union, at the same time that they are not known by them, through intelligence:—if this be the case, it is necessary that the supercelestial place should be situated between the intelligible nature and the celestial revolution. But also, if Plato himself establishes true essence in this place, must he not consider this place as intelligible, and as participating first intelligibles? For, because it is essence, it is intelligible; but, because it is true essence, it participates of being. And if it contains in itself a multitude of intelligibles, it cannot be placed in the first triad. For one being is there, and not a multitude of beings. But if it possesses a various life, which the meadow evinces, it is inferior to the second triad. For intelligible life is one, and without separation. And from its shining with divided forms, all-various orders, and prolific powers, it is inferior to the third or all-perfect triad. If, therefore, the supercelestial place is posterior to these in antiquity and power, but is placed above the celestial order, it is indeed intelligible, but is the summit of the intellectual Gods. And on this account aliment is thence derived to souls. For that which is intelligible is aliment, because first intelligibles are said to nourish souls; and these are the beautiful, the wise, and the good. For with these, according to Plato, the winged nature of the soul is nourished, but is corrupted, and perishes through things of a contrary nature. These things, however, subsist there in an exempt manner, and through union and silence. But the supercelestial place is said to nourish through intelligence and energy, and to fill the blessed choir of souls with intelligible light, and the prolific rivers of life.
But after the supercelestial place, and Heaven itself, the subcelestial arch is situated, which, as is evident to every one, is placed under, and not in the Heavens: for it is not called by Plato a celestial, but a subcelestial arch. And that it is likewise proximately situated under the celestial revolution, is evident from what is said concerning it. But if it is requisite that the subcelestial arch, thus subsisting, should be established as the same with the summit of intellectuals, and not as the same with the extremity of the intelligible and intellectual Gods, it will be necessary to contemplate what remains. For the intellectual summit separates itself from the celestial kingdom: but the extremity of the intelligible and intellectual Gods is conjoined, and every way surrounded with this kingdom. And this summit establishes the whole of intellect and intellectual multitude, and (as Socrates says) the blessed transitions of the Gods. But the extremity bounds alone the celestial series, and supplies to the Gods an ascent to Heaven. For when the Gods ascend to the banquet, and delicious food, and to the plenitude of intelligible good, then they proceed on high to the subcelestial arch, and through this to the celestial revolution. Hence, if you assert that the subcelestial arch perfects the Gods, and converts them to the whole of heaven, and to the supercelestial place, you will not wander from the conceptions of Plato. For the Gods are nourished with the intelligible, with the meadow, and the divine forms which the supercelestial place contains. But they are replenished with this aliment through the subcelestial arch: for through this they participate of the celestial revolution. They revolve, therefore, through the subcelestial arch; but they receive a vigorous intelligence from the celestial order, and they are replenished with intelligible goods from the supercelestial place. It is evident, therefore, that the supercelestial place is allotted an intelligible summit; but the celestial revolution obtains a middle extent, and the subcelestial arch possesses an intelligible extremity. For all things are contained in this. And intellect indeed is endued with a convertive power; but the intelligible is the object of desire. And divine intelligence fills up the middle; perfecting indeed the conversions of divine natures, and conjoining them with such as are first; but rendering the desires of intelligibles apparent, and replenishing secondary natures with preceding goods. And thus I think we have sufficiently treated concerning the order of these three.
Perhaps, however, some one may inquire, why we characterize according to this medium the whole progression of the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual Gods; and why of the extremes we call one supercelestial, but the other subcelestial, from its habitude to the middle; demonstrating of the one exempt transcendency, but of the other a proximate and conjoined hypobasis (i. e. subject basis, or foundation). To this then we shall briefly answer, that this whole genus of the intelligible and intellectual Gods is connective of both these extremes, to some things indeed being the cause of conversion, but to others of an unfolding into light, and a presence extended to secondary natures. As, therefore, we call all the intelligible Gods paternal and unical, characterizing them from the summit, and assert that they are the boundaries of wholes, the fabricators of essence, the causes of perpetuity, and the authors of the production of form; in the same manner we evince that these middle Gods, from the medium which they contain, are the leaders of the bonds of wholes. For this whole middle order is vivific, connective, and perfective. But its summit indeed unfolds the impressions of intelligibles, and their ineffable union. But its termination converts the intellectual Gods, and conjoins them with intelligibles. And its middle leads this order as to a centre, and establishes the total genera of the Gods. For, through a tendency to the middle, we attribute also to the extremes a habitude of transcendency and subjection; denominating the one above, and the other beneath the middle.
Let us now consider what the negations are by which Plato celebrates this middle order of Gods. Those sacred genera, therefore, the connective, the perfective, and the paternal, of those divine natures which are properly called intellectual, are proximately established after the intelligible summit of all intellectuals. For this summit, being exempt from these, also transcends all the intellectual Gods. For what every genus of Gods is to the one, that the three orders posterior to, are to this summit. Plato, therefore, denominates the celestial order, which connects wholes, and illuminates them with intelligible light, colour; because this apparent beauty of the heavens is resplendent with all-various colours and light. Hence he calls that Heaven intellectual colour and light. For the light proceeding from the good is in the order superior to this unknown and occult, abiding in the adyta of the Gods; but it is unfolded in this order, and from the unapparent becomes apparent. And on this account it is assimilated to colour, the offspring of light. Further still: if Heaven is sight looking to things on high, according to the definition of Socrates in the Cratylus, the intelligible of it is very properly called colour, which is conjoined with sight.
The cause, therefore, of the intelligibles in Heaven is without colour, and is exempt from them. For sensible colour is the offspring of the solar light. But the subcelestial arch, which proximately subsists after the celestial order, is called by Plato figure: for the arch itself is the name of a figure. And, in short, in this order Parmenides also places intellectual figure; but first attributes contact to the summit of intellectuals, as is evident from the conclusions of the Parmenides. For, in the first hypothesis, taking away figure from the one, he uses this as a medium, that the one does not touch itself. Contact, therefore, here first subsists, and is here according to cause. For of such things as the demiurgus is proximately the cause, of these the father prior to him is paradigmatically the cause. Hence contact here is the paradigm of the liberated Gods. These three orders, therefore, are successive, viz. colour, figure, and contact. And of these the supercelestial place is essentially exempt. Hence it is without colour, without figure, and without contact.
In the next place, let us consider the triad which is celebrated by Socrates as presubsisting in the supercelestial place, viz. the plain of truth, the meadow, and the aliment of the Gods. The plain of truth, therefore, is intellectually expanded to intelligible light, and is illuminated with the splendours which thence proceed. But the meadow is the prolific power of life, and of all-various reasons, and is the comprehension of the primary causes of life, and the cause of the variety and the procreation of forms. For meadows in this sensible region are fertile with forms and productive powers, and contain water, which is a symbol of vivific energy. But the nourishing cause of the Gods is a certain intelligible union, comprehending in itself the whole perfection of the Gods, and filling them with vigour and power, that they may provide for secondary natures, and possess an immutable intelligence of such as are first. The Gods, however, participate of these uniformly on high, but with separation in their progressions. Of the aliment, also, one kind is called by Plato ambrosia, and the other nectar. Here, too, we may observe, that the charioteer who is nourished with intelligibles participates of the perfection illuminated from the Gods unically, but the horses divisibly; first of ambrosia, and afterwards of nectar. For it is necessary that they should remain firmly and immovably in more excellent natures, from ambrosia; but that they should immutably provide for secondary natures, through nectar; since they say that ambrosia is a solid, but nectar a liquid nutriment. Hence, the nutriment of nectar signifies that in providence which is unrestrained, indissoluble, and which proceeds to all things with perfect purity. But the nutriment of ambrosia signifies that which is permanent, and which is firmly established in more excellent natures. But from both it is implied, that the Gods are permanent, and at the same time proceed to all things; and that neither their undeviating energy, and which is unconverted to subordinate natures, is unprolific, nor their prolific power and progression, without stability: but, being permanent, they proceed, and, being established in prior natures, provide for things secondary with consummate purity.

## Additional Notes on the Cratylus

EXTRACTED FROM THE MS. SCHOLIA OF PROCLUS ON THAT DIALOGUE.
The scope of the Cratylus²⁶ is to exhibit in things last the prolific energy of souls, and the assimilative power, which, essentially receiving, they evince through the rectitude of names. But since the partial energy of souls frequently fails of its proper ends, just in the same manner as a partial nature, hence names indefinite, and which are casually circulated, naturally take place, and all of them are not the offspring of intellectual science, nor do they all regard an alliance with things themselves. Again, the Cratylus is logical and dialectical, not, however, according to the mere dialectic methods of the Peripatetics, but according to the scientific²⁷ dialectic of the great Plato, which is only adapted to those whose dianoëtic power is perfectly purified, who have been instructed from their youth in disciplines, have purified the juvenile condition of their manners through the virtues; and, in short, have genuinely philosophized. This dialectic also is the defensive enclosure of disciplines, leads us up to the good, the one cause of all things, and was imparted to men through Prometheus, together with a most splendid fire²⁸ from the gods. For the analytics of the Peripatetics, and demonstration, which is the summit of this, may be comprehended by all who are not entirely involved in mental darkness, and who have not drank abundantly of the water of oblivion.
Again, intellect is the producer (προβολευς) of dialectic, from the whole of itself generating the whole of it; according to the progression of all things from the one, giving subsistence to the divisive method; but according to the collective comprehension of every thing in one idiom, to the definitive method; and according to the presence of forms with each other, though which each is what it is, and participates of other forms, the demonstrative method; and generating the analytic method, according to the conversion of all things to the one, and their proper principles.
Again, according to Aristotle, there is one rhetoric, and one dialectic, which are able to persuade or confute on both sides; but Plato says it is better to give a two-fold distribution to each. For one species of rhetoric is flattery, and without art, which he reprobates in the Gorgias; but the other is the science of things good and just, which he celebrates in the Phædrus. And again, he dismisses the dialectic of Aristotle as contentious, but embraces the dialectic, which surveys the principles of things, as a part of philosophy.
The present dialogue makes us to be scientifically knowing in the rectitude of names; and it is necessary that he who intends to be skilled in dialectic should begin from this theory.
As Plato, in the Parmenides, delivers the whole of dialectic, but not merely so, but together with the theory of beings, so now he delivers the rectitude of names, together with the science of things.
Plato now wishes to deliver the principles of things and of dialectic, since he delivers names in conjunction with the things of which they are names.
Why is it that Plato says, that by despising names we shall become, in old age, more rich in prudence, and yet now makes the investigation of them the leading object? May we not say, that he considers them, not so far as they are appellations, but so far as they are images of things? For the definitive art is triple; since either beginning from the highest genus, it proceeds through all the media, to the last differences, which the Elean guest does²⁹, when defining a sophist and politician; or receiving the genus which is near and known, it proceeds through the following differences, such as in this instance, man is an animal pedestrian, biped, and the like; or it uses name alone, such as the becoming is beautiful, and soul is φυσιοχη ουσια, and the like. For if he who at first established names possessed science, he who uses an established name must necessarily fall upon definition. Hence Plato now makes the investigation about such like names his principal design, and through these as media is extended to things themselves. This inquiry also contributes to demonstration. Thus, in the Phædrus, Plato endeavours to show, that the divining art is better than that pertaining to augury, from the name. It likewise contributes to analysis. Thus, in the Phædrus, Plato calls the love which is participated by mortals flying, but that which is imparticipable and divine winged, through the essence and the energy of the god conspiring into one; and thus he appears to ascend and analyze. Frequently also, this is necessary to division. Thus Socrates shows, by division, that the pleasant is one thing, and the good another, because the names also are two.
That³⁰ the persons of the dialogue are Cratylus the Heraclitean, of whom Plato was an auditor, who said that all names are from nature, and that such as are not from nature are not names, just as we say, that he who falsely denominates things says nothing; and Hermogenes, the Socratic, who on the contrary said that there was no name from nature, but that all names are from position; and the third is Socrates, who distinguishing says, that some names are from nature, and others from position; such as are those which are casually made. For the names which belong to things perpetual, rather participate of a subsistence from nature, but those which belong to things corruptible, rather partake of the casual. For he who calls his son Athanasius³¹, manifests the confusion of names about things of this kind.
Further still, since names have both form and matter, according to form they rather participate of a subsistence from nature, but according to matter of a subsistence from position. And Socrates indeed, addressing himself to Hermogenes, separates names firmly established in the gods, such as μυρινη, and the like, from those which subsist in souls, such as βατιεια. But, addressing himself to Cratylus, he admits, indeed, the relation of names to things, but shows that there is much of the casual in names, and at the same time that all things are not moved.
That the heavens, which partake more of motion, have also permanency after a certain manner, as in the poles, and things of this kind. But the earth, which partakes more of permanency, has also motion through its internal change.
That names which subsist from nature partake also of a subsistence from position, and those which subsist from position partake of a subsistence from nature.
That Cratylus being scientific, and employing the greatest brevity of diction, which was the peculiarity of the Heraclitics, in consequence of enunciations not being able to keep pace with the flowing nature of things, appears to answer, through the whole of the dialogue, from the fewest syllables and words. Hence the most imitative Plato, in the very beginning, represents him as saying βουλει. But Hermogenes being doxastic, and venerating the opinions of the many, conformably to his doctrine, that names subsist from position, says, ει σοι δοκει, &c. For δοκησις frequently belongs to things ineligible, and also to such as are eligible, just as will is of things good alone.
That the whole Apolloniacal series is suspended from the government of Jupiter.
That Pythagoras and Epicurus were of the opinion of Cratylus; but Democritus and Aristotle of Hermogenes. Pythagoras therefore being asked what was the wisest of things, said it was number; and being asked what was the next in wisdom said, he who gave names to things. But by number, he obscurely signified the intelligible order, which comprehends the multitude of intellectual forms: for there that which is the first and properly number³² subsists after the superessential one. This likewise supplies the measures of essence to all beings, in which also true wisdom, and knowledge which is of itself, and which is converted to and perfects itself, subsist. And as there the intelligible, intellect, and intelligence are the same, so there also number and wisdom are the same. But by the founder of names, he obscurely signified the soul, which indeed subsists from intellect, and is not things themselves like the first intellect, but possesses the images, and essential transitive reasons of them, as statues of beings. Being therefore is imparted to all things from intellect, which knows itself and is replete with wisdom; but that they are denominated is from soul, which imitates intellect. Pythagoras therefore said, that it was not the business of any casual person to fabricate names, but of one looking to intellect and the nature of things. Names therefore are from nature.
But Democritus, who said that names subsist from position, inferred this from four arguments: First, From sameness of appellation; for different things are called by the same name. Names therefore are not from nature. 2d, From the variety of names, for if different names are adapted to one and the same thing, they are also adapted to each other, which is impossible. 3d, From the change of names: for why was Aristocles called Plato, but Turtamus Theophrastus. 4th, If names are from nature, but yet from a defect of similars, why do we say φρονειν from φρονησις, but from δικαιοσυνη (ουκ εστι παρονομαζειν) we do not derive a word which alludes to this? Names therefore are casual and not from nature. But he calls the first argument πολυσημος, (i. e. having a manifold signification); the second, ισορροπος, (i. e. equivalent, or equiponderant); and the fourth, νωνυμνος, (i. e. nameless). In answer to the first of these arguments, some say, that it is nothing wonderful, if one name shadows-forth many things, as ερως, love, both from ρωμη, strength, and from πτερον, a wing, manifests different things. In answer to the second, it is said, nothing hinders that different names, in a different respect, may manifest the same thing. Thus, for instance, in the words merops and man, the same thing may be called by the former of these words, according to the possession of a distributed life, and by the latter according to αναθρειν α οπωπεν, considering what he has seen. In answer to the third, it is said, that this very thing signifies that names are by nature, viz. that we transfer those that are not properly established, and which are contrary to nature, to a position according to nature. And in answer to the fourth, that it is nothing wonderful, if names which were established at first should fail through a great length of time.
That a subsistence according to nature is four-fold. For it is either as the essences of plants and animals, as well the wholes as the parts; or it is as the energies and powers of these, such as the levity and heat of fire; or it is as shadows and appearances in mirrors; or as artificial images are assimilated to their archetypes. Epicurus therefore thought that names had a subsistence from nature according to the first signification, as works precedaneous by nature, such as voice and sight. And as to see and to hear are according to nature, so also to denominate; so that a name is from nature, as being the work of nature. But Cratylus was of this opinion according to the second signification; and hence he says that the peculiarity of every thing is a name, as being appropriately assigned by the founders of names, artificially and scientifically. For Epicurus said, that the founders of names did not establish them scientifically, but in effecting this were moved physically, like those that snore, howl, roar, and sigh. But Socrates said, that names are from nature, according to the fourth signification, as being the progeny of scientific conceptions, and not of physical appetite (orexis), but of the soul energizing according to imagination, and at the same time establishing names from the first, as much as possible, appropriately to things. He likewise said, that, according to form, all names are the same, have one power, and are from nature. For, according to form, they are similar to things, but differ from each other according to matter.
That the name Cratylus appears to have been assigned παρα τῳ περικρατησαι αραροτως των ηρακλειτου δογματων, from firmly obtaining the dog- mas of Heraclitus, and that on this account he despised flowing things, as not properly having a subsistence. But the name Socrates is παρα τῳ σωτηρα ειναι του κρατους της Ψυχης, from being the saviour of the strength of his soul, that is of his reason, and from not being drawn down under the senses.
That things eternal receive their denomination from powers or energies, but things generated from use and communion.
That he who wishes to imitate any thing, ought to be scientifically knowing in two things, viz. the archetype, and demiurgic art.
That the Heraclitics are accused as arrogant, as dissemblers, and as despisers, by Theodorus in the Theætetus, and now by Hermogenes. It must be observed, however, that these two are not philosophers; for the former was a geometrician, and the latter a youth. And a true philosopher has not leisure to consume his time in things of this kind.
That Socrates did not think that the speculation about the rectitude of names was to be despised, but according to the proverb he considered fine things to be difficult.
That investigation is imparted to souls from Maia the mother of Hermes; but invention is from the Hermaic series. For the more total genera of the gods energize prior to, together with, and posterior to, such as are more partial. Hence we see that investigation is imperfect, and is as matter previously prepared, from the donation of more elevated causes to their participants, such as form supervening from things inferior.
That sophists rejoice in indicative assertions, but philosophers in such as are dialectic. And again, the sophists, as framers of images, assume the person of one skilled in dialectic; and thus their contentious molestation is produced.
That of the Hermaic gift, some things are intellectual and first goods; but others are secondary, and perfective of the dianoëtic power; and others rank in the third degree, purify the irrational nature, and in a particular manner measure the phantastic motions. Others again give subsistence to the reasons of nature; and others are the suppliers of externally proceeding powers, and of gain. For these are the last and the material gifts of the god, which, as astrologers say, the god imparts in ignoble dispositions (αδοξοις διαθεσεσιν).
That it very little belongs to a philosopher, says Plato, to speak about particulars; for it is his business to ascend to the speculation of wholes, and things common.
The reasoning of Hermogenes is as follows: If there is a transposition of names, names are from position, and are the symbols of things. But the first is true, and therefore the second. But the reasoning of Proclus is this: If names are symbols of things, and are from position, we have no longer any occasion for the transposition of names. The first is true, and therefore the second. The followers of Hermogenes therefore speak erroneously; for they look to particulars only, and not also to things eternal. For the names of things eternal are divine and venerable, as being sacred to the gods, whose powers and energies they express. These Socrates, in the Philebus, venerates, and says, that his caution about them is attended with the greatest dread.
That the truth of an enunciative sentence (του απφοαντικου λογου), means one thing with Aristotle, and another with Plato in the present place, in which he says, that names essentially predicated (καθ αυτα λεγομενα) are true. For that of Aristotle speaks of the composition and division of that which is predicated, and has for its subject both the false and the true. But the great Plato knew how to use the significant of truth and falsehood in a fourfold respect. For he uses it either according to the hyparxes themselves of things, as when he says that real beings truly are, but that unreal beings have a false subsistence. Or he uses it according to the passions which are consequent to preceding motions, as when Socrates, in the Philebus, divides pleasure into the true and false. Or according to knowledge, as when he defines false opinions according to the true. Or according to the instruments of the gnostic life, as, for instance, assertions, names, and elements. For in these the true and the false are seen, according to their adaptation and symphony with things. Rhetoricians also have a certain form of diction which they call truth.
That Antisthenes said, that nothing could be contradicted; for according to him every assertion is true. For he who speaks says something. He who says something, speaks of that which has a being. And he who speaks of that which has a being, speaks the truth. In answer to this we must say, that there is also that which is false, and that nothing hinders but that the man who speaks of being may speak falsely. For he who speaks, speaks about something, and does not speak something.
That bad are more known by good men, than the virtue of good men is by the bad. For vice is blind; and in the first place is ignorant of itself, and in the next place of others.
That the dogma of Protagoras is different from that of Euthydemus. For the former says, that though the subject has no existence, yet it appears to beholders to possess a particular quality, through the commixture of the agent and patient. But the dogma of Euthydemus makes every thing to be all things, and asserts that all things are at the same time always true. As he that says, that a piece of wood is white and black, small and great, moist and dry, and likewise, that all the negations of these are true. Hence beginning from different principles, those sophists end in the same thing.
That the power of the first infinity imparts from itself progression to all things whatever which are capable of subsistence; but bound, limits and circumscribes every thing, and establishes it in its proper boundaries. Thus in numbers form pervades to all things from the monad and bound; but the never-failing according to progression from the prolific duad; so that every being has a certain nature, bound, idiom, and proper order, through the first bound. There is therefore contradiction in words, which definitely exhibits the false and the true.
That the word πραττειν, to act, is asserted of those only who energize according to the dianoëtic power, but the word ποιειν, to do, is asserted of those who energize in a different manner from this. Actions therefore and makings have their proper boundaries, instruments, and times; nor does any casual thing do or act any casual thing.
That speech is under action, may be shown from the following division: Every energy of the soul is either effected without body, and this energy is phantasy, opinion, intelligence; or it is effected with body, and this is two-fold. For it is either unattended with free will, and this is sense and involuntary motion, or it is attended with free will, and this is action, under which is discourse.
That Plato coarranges Minerva, Vulcan, and Mars, through that which is common with respect to warlike concerns; through Minerva possessing a kindred art with each of the others; through each of the others being the lover of Venus; and because each was produced from Juno and Jupiter.
That the soul of the world imparts life to altermotive natures: for to these it is the fountain and principle of motion, as Plato says in the Phædrus and in the Laws. But the demiurgus imparts life simply to all things, life, divine, intellectual, psychical, and that which is divisible about bodies.
If names, according to Aristotle³³, are from position, and are symbols of things and conceptions, it is necessary that the sentences composed from them, being enunciative from position, should not be said, from this very circumstance, to be assimilated to composite conceptions, nor that they are of themselves the recipients of truth or falsehood. But indeed enunciative sentences (οι αποφαντικοι λογοι), possessing essentially the speaking falsely or truly, do not possess this from position. Names therefore are not from position.
If every one who gives a name performs a certain action, but he who performs a certain action, performs it through an instrument; hence he who gives a name, since he gives it through an instrument, uses a name as an instrument. But of instruments some are from nature, as the hand and foot; others from position, as a bridle and a name. And of these artificial instruments, some effect something which is subservient to subsistence, as an ax; but others effect that which contributes to signifying and teaching. A name therefore is a thing of this kind: for it is an instrument which teaches and unfolds into light the essence of things; the teaching being assumed from him who uses the instrument, but the unfolding into light from the paradigm. But a name requires, as an instrument, him who uses it, but as an image it requires a reference to its paradigm. So that it is evident from these things, that a name is not a symbol, nor the work of any casual position, but is allied to things, and adapted to them by nature. For every instrument is coordinated to a proper work, and cannot be adapted to any thing else than to that for which it was made. A name therefore, as being an instrument, has a certain connate power, and which coharmonizes with the things signified. As likewise, it is that which teaches, it possesses an order which unfolds conceptions into light; and as giving distinction to essence, it produces in us a knowledge of things.
Again, a name is not the effect of physical instruments: for every name, so far as a name, is significant of somethimg; since voice is not the same with name. Physical instruments therefore, such as the tongue, the arteries, and the lungs, give perfection to voice; and though these cooperate in producing a name, through matter, yet the conception of the founder of names, especically gives completion to it, which conception coharmonizes, in a becoming manner, matter to form and paradigm. But he who discourses, uses a name when established: for every instrument has both one who uses it, and one who makes it. Every thing too which is used has a producing cause; and every thing having a producing cause, is ministrant to something with respect to energy.
A name is said to be from nature, both as an effect, and as an instrument; for it becomes by its formation an image of things, and announces them through conceptions as media. Very properly therefore is a name said to be a doctrinal instrument, οργανον διδασκαλικον; but shortly after it is called the effect of the legislator. And this is for the sake of him who discourses: for it is both an end and good to unfold things. Hence Socrates says, it is rather an instrument, considering it according to its more excellent subsistence. Hence too this instrument is a medium between the teacher and the learner.
That a shuttle and an augur are paradigms adapted to a name. For a name separates things from each other, and enters into the learner, through the depth of his conceptions.
That as Socrates, in the Gorgias, demonstrates to Callicles, who divides that which is just by law, oppositely to that which is just by nature, that law and nature in that which is just concur with each other, in like manner it is necessary to conceive that names subsist both from law and nature; not however from casual law, but from that which is eternal, and which consists according to eternal reasons. A name therefore, through its producing cause, which is scientific, is both from law and position; but through its paradigmatic cause is from nature.
But if this be the case, how does Socrates afterwards show to Cratylus, that it is not only necessary to call that a name which is rightly framed, but that also which is erroneously established. In answer to this, we must say, that law is contemplative of that which is universal. Such names therefore as are given to things perpetual, are founded by law. But since there are also names of things corruptible, it is by no means wounderful if law, which regards universal, has not dominion over these, and that there should be much of the casual in them, as in the names Ambrosius, Athanasius, Poly- chronius³⁴, and the like. But what the art is which produces names we will concisely relate; for not every thing in it is a species of the legislative art. That there is then in the soul an assimilative power is evident; for painting and things of this kind are suspended from this power, which assimilates subordinate to superior natures, and things which subsist in composition to such as are more simple. And again, according to the same power, the soul is able to assimilate herself to natures superior to her own essence, viz. to gods, angels, and dæmons. She also, through the same power, assimilates to herself things subordinate to her own nature; and also assimilates them to things superior to herself. Hence she fabricates statues of gods and dæmons. But wishing to give subsistence after a manner to immaterial similitudes of things, and which are alone the progeny of the rational essence, employing from herself the cooperation of phantasy adapted to speech (λεκτικης φαντασιας), she produces the essence of names. And as the telestic art, through certain symbols, and arcane signatures, assimilates statues of the gods, and makes them adapted to the reception of divine illuminations, so the legislative art, according to the same assimilative power, gives subsistence to names, the statues of things; through such and such sounds shadowing forth the nature of things, and having given subsistence to them, delivers them to the use of mankind. Hence the legislator is said to be the lord of the generation of names. And as it is not holy to behave in a disorderly manner towards the statues of the gods, so neither is it becoming to err about names. For a legislative intellect is the artificer of these, inserting in them images of paradigms; and it is proper to venerate them, through their alliance to the gods.
It also appears to me that Plato establishes the legislator analogous to the demuirgus of the universe: for he it is, according to the Timæus, who establishes the laws of fate, and who governs all things conformably to law. According to Plato too, he is the first fabricator of names: for as we learn from the Timæus, he denominated one of the circulations of the universe same, and the other different. If therefore the legislator is analogous to the demiurgus, must he not necessarily be the lord of the position of names? Hence in this Dialogue Plato calls the legislator, demiurgus, and the most rare of demiurgi. Thus also Socrates, in the Phædrus, says, that the name ιμερος was given by Jupiter. Of names therefore, some are the progeny of the gods, extending also as far as to the soul; but others are the offspring of partial souls, who are able to frame them through intellect and science; and others again subsist through the middle genera. For some meeting with dæmons and angels, have been taught by them names better adapted to things than such as men have established. It is requisite likewise to know the differences of names arising from their producing causes, and to refer all of them to the one demiurgus, a divinity of an intellectual characteristic. Whence also a name has two-fold powers, the one, that which teaches conceptions, and is the cause of communion; but the other, that which gives distinction to essence; since the demuirgus likewise possesses two-fold powers, the one productive of sameness, the other of difference.
That the assimilative energy of the demiurgic intellect is two-fold; the one, that according to which he gives subsistence to the whole world, looking to an intelligible paradigm; the other, that according to which he promulgates names adapted to things; concerning which Timæus briefly indicates, but theurgists teach more clearly, and oracles³⁵ from the gods themselves: “There is a venerable name with a sleepless revolution, leaping into the worlds through the rapid reproofs of the father.” And another oracle says, “The paternal intellect disseminated symbols through the world.” Thus therefore the legislator also, looking to the whole world, delivers the most excellent polity, and imposes names assimilated to things.
That of things artificial there are no definite causes and paradigms, be- cause the effects of such causes and paradigms are essences, and proper measures, have a reference to the universe, and proceed through nature. But every thing artificial is unessential, and is all-variously changed in accommodation to our uses and circumstances, and is separated from things which have a natural subsistence. If, however, some one should call the producing and prolific powers of the gods, which proceed into the universe, demiurgic, intellectual, generative, and perfective arts, we shall not reject a nomination of this kind; since we also find theologists indicating through these divine productions. Hence they call the Cyclops the causes of all artificial production, who also taught Jupiter, Minerva, and Vulcan. But they celebrate Minerva as presiding over other arts, and particularly that of weaving, and Vulcan as the inspective guardian of another art. According to Orpheus, however, the weaving art originates from Minerva, but proceeds into the vivific series of Proserpine: for this goddess and all her choir, abiding on high, are said to weave the order of life, which is participated by all the mundane gods. For the one demiurgus excites all the junior demiurgi to weave together the mortal with the immortal form of life³⁶. But the order of life thus woven ends in the gods who preside over generation, among whom is the Homeric Circe, who weaves all the life in the four elements, and at the same time with her song harmonizes the sublunary realms. Circe therefore is ranked by theologists among these weaving powers. Her shuttle too, as they say, is golden, by this indicating her essence to be intellectual and pure, immaterial and unmingled with generation, and that her employment consists in separating things stable from such as are in motion, according to divine diversity. If therefore, as I have said, some one recurring to these analogies, calls the powers of the gods the causes of these arts, but their effects the illuminations of these powers pervading through the whole world, he will speak with rectitude. For it is necessary not only to suspend from Minerva the weaving art which is with us, but prior to this, that which energizes through nature, and connects generated with eternal, mortal with immortal, corporeal with incorporeal, and sensible with intellectual natures. In like manner we must survey the whole of the tectonic, and each of the other arts, as first subsisting in nature. So that the shuttle will every where have an analogous subsistence, separating the genera which constitute beings, that, together with the connection of them, division may remain, and genuinely preserve their hyparxis. Hence the artists that are with us act under presiding and inspecting gods. They do not however in consequence of this contemplate intelligibles; for they do not operate looking to these, but to the forms which are with themselves, and the reasons of things artificial which they contain; and this by either inventing these, or receiving them from others. For the first artificer of a shuttle conceived in his own mind what kind of a thing a shuttle ought to be, looking to its use, and being led by this, produced in himself that form of a shuttle according to which others are made. But others learning from him, have acquired a knowledge of the form, and conformably to it make the resemblance of the shuttle.
And here we may see how these things are imitations of the demiurgic art, and of intellectual forms: for these forms being always established according to invariable permanency, things corruptible in the world are preserved, and are again renovated through their stable sameness. And the corruption indeed is derived from matter, but the stable sameness from an eternal form. Just as in the shuttles which are here, the corruption is from the matter, but the regeneration from the reason or productive principle in the artist. What the shuttle, therefore, is to the artificer by whom it is made, that are names to the legislator, and all mundane natures to the demiurgus. Hence as forms have a three-fold subsistence, viz. intellectual, scientific, doxastic; all sensible natures are derived from intellectual, names from scientific, and shuttles from doxastic forms.
That the fabrication of the universe is two-fold: for the one gives subsistence to reasons which extend to all things, and to forms which have an invariable subsistence, and sustain no mutation; but the other inserts divisible differences in generated natures. Thus, for instance, the human form pervades supernally from the one and whole intellectual fabrication, through the stars as media. Hence this form has a perpetual subsistence, as originating from an immovable cause. But since men differ from each other in magnitude and colour, and things of this kind, these differences arise from the secondary fabrication of the junior gods, and are conversant with much mutability, through being the production of moveable causes. This however takes place, in order that the variety of things may subsist, and that the perpetual generation of particulars may be multiplied. For different celestial periods give completion to, and at different times generate different things, and produce one connection from all things which contributes to the completion of the universe.
That the shuttle³⁷ is an image of the separating power of the gods, both of those that preside over wholes, and those that preside over parts; for its operation in woofs represents the energy of this power, and exhibits a symbol of the order of the separating gods. Hence when theologists speak of shuttles as belonging to these gods, they do not speak of the idea of a shuttle, but only symbolically use the name. For why do they rather speak of the shuttle, and not of something else? And is it not absurd that science should casually use names, and these when applied to the gods? But they appear to me to assume things of this kind according to analogy. For what a shuttle is in the weaving art, that separation is in the fabrication of forms. But analogy is not the habitude of idea to an image, nor is it from position alone. Thus Plato³⁸ calls certain powers of the soul horses; neither thus denominating them casually, nor meaning that these powers are the ideas of sensible horses, but merely employing analogy. Hence initiators into the mysteries through an alliance of this kind, causing sensibles to sympathize with the gods, use these instruments as signatures of divine powers; the shuttle as a signature of separating, a cup of vivific, a sceptre of ruling, and a key of guardian power. And thus they denominate other powers of the gods, using analogy in a similar manner.
That as things are to each other, so also are their names analogously to each other, according to honour and power. Hence the names of the gods are honourable and venerable, and worthy of the greatest fear to the wise. On this account they say it is not proper that the Greeks should use the Egyptian, Scythian, or Persian names of the gods, but such as are Grecian. For the gods who preside over climates rejoice when they are denominated in the dialects of their proper regions.
If he who uses an instrument is better than him who fabricates it as being more architectonic, how does a partial soul use the irrational nature, and the shelly body, which were fabricated by the junior gods? Or does not the soul also contribute to the fabrication of these? And do not the junior gods use these as instruments? And it is necessary to consider these with reference to each other; the whole fabrication, as they say, to the use of the whole, but the divisible to the divisible.
If he who is skilled in dialectic uses the work of the legislator as a more excellent character, but the judge as one subordinate, it appears to be absurd. May we not say that the one uses it as an instrument, the other as a principle? for a partial soul uses a dæmon as a governor and an inspective guardian, but the body as an instrument. For in the paradigms of these, the father of Jupiter is Saturn, but the daughter is Justice. Hence the legislator is analogous to the demiurgus Jupiter, inserting the laws of fate in souls, and promulgating names to the whole circulations. But he who is skilled in dialectic, is analogous to the Saturnian monad. For the mighty Saturn supernally imparted the principles of intelligence to the demiurgus, and presides over the whole fabrication of the universe. Whence also Jupiter in Orpheus calls him a dæmon:
Ορθου δ’ ημετερην γενεην αριδεικετε δαιμον.
i. e. O illustrious dæmon, direct our offspring.
And Saturn it seems possesses with himself the highest causes of things collected and separated; through the celestial sections³⁹ producing into parts the intellectual wholeness, and becoming the cause of generative progressions and multiplications, and, in short, being the leader of the Titannic race, from which the division of things originates. Through absorptions too, he again collects his own progeny, unites them to himself, and resolves them into his own uniform and impartible cause; since also the demiurgus Jupiter receives proximately from him the truth of things, and primarily understands the ideas which he contains: for Night also delivers oracles to Jupiter. But the father Saturn proximately imparts to him all the measures of the whole fabrication of things.
That with respect to intellect, the essential contains in itself the whole true knowledge of things at once in energy; but the intellect of the philosopher not being essential, but an illumination, and, in short, an image of intellect, understands divisibly, and sometimes only touches on the truth.
That there are five habits of men with respect to knowledge, viz. twofold ignorance, simple ignorance, desire, investigation, invention.
That he who has a scientific knowledge of the methods of invention interprets to the learner, imitating the leading Hermes.
That Socrates is analogous to intellect; but Hermogenes to irrational opinion, aspiring after good; and Cratylus is analogous to the corporeal and material phantasy, on which account he is deceived by the sophists as a slave. But opinion and the phantasy are nearly sisters, as being neighbours (αγχι θυροι).
Why does Plato eject from his Republic the poets about Homer, as imitators, but now⁴⁰ introduces them as divine leaders of the rectitude of names? May we not say, that there the variety of imitation is unadapted to simple and unperverted manners; but that here and every where he admires and embraces their divinely-inspired conceptions? Since however the present discourse is about divine names, it is necessary to speak a little concerning them. And in the first place, let us speak concerning the names which are occultly established in the gods themselves; since some of the antients said that these originated from the more excellent genera⁴¹, but that the gods are established beyond a signification of this kind; but others admitted that names are in the gods themselves, and in those gods that are allotted the highest order.
The gods therefore possess an hyparxis uniform and ineffable, a power generative of wholes, and an intellect perfect and full of conceptions; and they give subsistence to all things according to this triad. Hence it is necessary that the participations of those divinities who are of a more elevated order, and who are arranged nearer to the good, should proceed triadically through all things to which they give subsistence. It is also necessary that among these, those participations should be more ineffable, which are defined according to the hyparxes of the first gods; but that those should be more apparent, and more divided, which are illuminated according to the intellect of exempt causes; and that those participations which are between these, should be such as are the effluxions of prolific powers. For the fathers of wholes giving subsistence to all things, have disseminated in all things vestiges, and impressions, of their own triadic hypostasis; since nature also inserts in bodies an exciting principle (ενουσμα) derived from her proper idiom, through which she moves bodies, and governs them as by a rudder. And the demiurgus has established in the universe an image of his own monadic transcendency; through which he governs the world, holding a rudder, as Plato says, like a pilot. It is proper to think therefore, that these rudders, and this helm of the universe, in which the demiurgus being seated orderly disposes the world, are nothing else than a symbol of the whole fabrication of things, to us indeed difficult of comprehension, but to the gods themselves known and manifest. And why is it requisite to speak concerning these things, since, of the ineffable cause of all, who is beyond intelligibles, there is an impression in every being, and even as far as to the last of things, through which all things are suspended from him, some more remotely, and others more near, according to the clearness and obscurity of the impression which they contain? This it is which moves all things to the desire of good, and imparts to beings this inextinguishable love. And this impression is indeed unknown: for it pervades as far as to things which are incapable of knowledge. It is also more excellent than life; for it is present with things inanimate; and has not an intellectual power; since it lies in things destitute of intellectual energy. As nature therefore, the demiurgic monad, and the father himself who is exempt from all things, have disseminated in things posterior, impressions of their respective idioms, and through these convert all things to themselves, in like manner all the gods impart to their progeny symbols of their cause, and through these establish all things in themselves. The impressions therefore of the hyparxis of the higher order of gods, which are disseminated in secondary natures, are ineffable and unknown, and their efficacious and motive energy surpasses all intelligence. And of this kind are the characters of light, through which the gods unfold themselves to their progeny; these characters subsisting unically in the gods themselves, but shining forth to the view in the genera more excellent than man, and presenting themselves to us divisibly, and accompanied with form. Hence the gods⁴² exhort “To understand the forerunning form of light.” For subsisting on high without form, it becomes invested with form through its progression; and there being established occultly and uniformly, it becomes apparent to us through motion, from the gods themselves; possessing indeed an efficacious energy, through a divine cause, but becoming figured, through the essence by which it is received.
Again, the impressions which are illuminated from powers, are in a certain respect media between things ineffable and effable, and pervade through all the middle genera. For it is not possible for the primary gifts of the gods to arrive to us, without the more excellent genera (i. e. angels, dæmons, and heroes,) previously participating the illuminations which thence proceed. But these illuminations subsisting appropriately in each of their participants, and coordinately in all things, unfold the powers that give them subsistence. Of this kind are the symbols of the gods, which are indeed uniform in the more elevated orders, but multiform in those that are subordinate; and which the theurgic art imitating exhibits through inarticulate evocations (αδιαρθρωτων εκφωνησεων).
The impressions which rank as the third in order, which pervade from intellectual essences to all idioms, and proceed as far as to us, are divine names, through which the gods are invoked, and by which they are celebrated, being unfolded into light by the gods themselves, and reverting to them, and producing to human knowledge as much of the gods as is apparent. For through these we are able to signify something to each other, and to converse with ourselves about the gods. Different nations however participate differently of these, as, for instance, the Egyptians, according to their native tongue, receiving names of this kind from the gods; but the Chaldæans and Indians in a different manner, according to their proper tongue; and in a similar manner the Greeks, according to their dialect. Though a certain divinity therefore may be called by the Greeks Briareus, but differently by the Chaldæans, we must nevertheless admit, that each of these names is the progeny of the gods, and that it signifies the same essence. But if some names are more and others less efficacious, it is not wonderful; since of things which are known to us, such as are dæmoniacal and angelic are more efficacious; and, in short, of things denominated, the names of such as are nearer are more perfect than the names of those that are more remote.
Not every genus of the gods however can be denominated: for Parmenides evinces that the god who is beyond all things is ineffable. “For,” says he, “he can neither be denominated, nor spoken of.” And of the intelligible gods, the first genera, which are conjoined with the one itself, and are called occult, have much of the unknown and ineffable. For that which is perfectly apparent and effable, cannot be conjoined with the perfectly ineffable, but it is requisite that the progression of intelligibles should be terminated⁴³ in this order; in which there is the first effable, and that which is called by proper names. For the first forms are there, and the intellectual nature of intelligibles there shines forth to the view. But all the natures prior to this being silent and occult, are only known by intelligence⁴⁴. Hence the whole of the telestic art energizing theurgically ascends as far as to this order. Orpheus also says, that this is first called by a name by the other gods: for the light proceeding from it is known to and denominated by the intellectual orders. But he thus speaks,
Μητιν σπερμα φεροντα θεων κλυτον οντε φανητα,
Πρωτογονον μακαρες καλεον κατα μακρον ολυμπον.
i. e. “Metis bearing the seed of the gods, whom the gods about lofty Olympus call the illustrious Phanes Protogonus.” In the gods however nomination is united with intellectual conception, and both are present with them through the participation of the light which the mighty Phanes emits to all things. But in our soul these two are divided from each other; and intellectual conception is one thing, and name another: and the one has the order of an image, but the other of a paradigm. In the middle genera there is indeed a separation, but there is also a union of the intellective and onomastic energy. The transportive name (διαπορθμιον ονομα) of Iynxes⁴⁵ (ιγγυων), which is said to sustain all the fountains, appears to me to signify a thing of this kind. Such also is the appellation teletarchic (το τελεταρχικον), which some one of the gods⁴⁶ says, “leaps into the worlds, through the radid reproof of the father,” κοσμοις ενθρωσκειν κραιπνην δια πατρος ενιπην. For all these things are occultly with the gods, but are unfolded according to second and third progressions, and to men that are allied to the gods.
There is therefore a certain abiding name in the gods, through which the subordinate invoke the superior, as Orpheus says of Phanes, or through which the superior denominate the subordinate, as Jupiter, in Plato, gives names to the unapparent periods of souls⁴⁷. For fathers define the energies of their offspring, and the offspring know their producing causes, through the intellectual impressions which they bear. Such then are the first names which are unfolded from the gods, and which through the middle genera end in the rational essence.
There are however other names of a second and third rank; and these are such as partial souls have produced, at one time energizing enthusiastically about the gods, and at another time energizing according to science; either conjoining their own intelligence with divine light, and thence deriving perfection; or committing the fabrication of names to the rational power. For thus artists, such as geometricians, physicians, and rhetoricians, give names to the things the idioms of which they understand. Thus too poets inspired by Phœbus (των ποιητων οι φοιβοληπτοι) ascribe many names to the gods, and to human names give a division opposite to these; receiving the former from enthusiastic energy, and the latter from sense and opinion; concerning which Socrates now says Homer indicates, referring some names to the gods, and others to men.
That the names which are assigned to things by the gods are smooth, well-sounding, and of fewer syllables, than those which are assigned by men, as, for instance, Xanthus⁴⁸ than Scamander, Chalcis than Cymindis, and Myrine than Batieia. And it seems that the first of these names manifests how the gods comprehend and denominate according to a definite cause the whole of a flowing essence; but the second, how the gods bound in intellectual measures a life conversant with generation; and the third, how they divide and permit in a separate manner a life separate from generation. And with respect to Xanthus, Aristotle relates, that the skin of the cattle that drank out of it was yellower than before; and on this account perhaps the gods, who both produce and know the causes of all things, thus denominate it. But the apparent cause of its appellation perhaps was this, that its water passes through a drain made by the hand (οτι δια τινος χειροποιητου σκαφης διερχεται το υδωρ αυτου); and thus by men of superficial conceptions was called Scamander. Chalcis, perhaps, was so called from the shrill and canorous, like sharp sounding brass; for thus certainly the Chaldæans call it, having heard this name from the gods. But Cymindis is from the leaping of the bird (παρα την σκιρτοτητα του ορνεου); and Myrine, from the soul allotted that place from the gods. Lastly, Batieia perhaps was thus called, through the plant which abounds in it. In these too, we have the three-fold differences of divine and human knowledge; the efficaciou s and passive, in Xanthus and Scamander; the logical and physical, in Myrine and Batieia; and the enharmonic and unharmonic, in Chalcis and Cymindis.
That if the nature of the gods is unfigured, uncoloured, and unapparent, the dialectic work is not in them, but a thing of this kind is conversant with things that subsist in these inferior realms and about generation.
That of the gods, some are incorporeal, but others use bodies, and these such as are spherical: for the spherical figure is peculiarly adapted to things which are converted to themselves. But of dæmons some are good and divine, and have spheric vehicles; and others are material, and their vehicles are rectilinear.
With respect to our prayers, they are heard both by gods and dæmons, not externally; but both these comprehend in themselves causally our deliberative tendency to things in our power, and have a causal knowledge of our energies.
That there are Pans⁴⁹ with the feet of goats, such as was that which appeared to the courier Philippides, as he was passing over the mountain Parthenion; and also Minerval souls using various forms, and proximately ruling above men; such as was the Minerva which appeared to Ulysses and Telemachus. But Panic and Minerval dæmons, and much more the gods themselves, are exempt from all such variety.
That it is not because dæmons are allotted certain forms, that the men who are under their guardian protection are allotted, both in common and peculiarly, different characteristic properties, as, for instance, the Scythians properties different from the Æthiopians, and one individual from another. But dæmons that preside over men comprehend all the variety of manners in simplicity, the mutation of figures in sameness, and the difference of motions in stable power.
That the names delivered by theologists by which the gods call things, are from the gods, and not from dæmons only. For the things performed in the mysteries, are performed to the gods themselves, and not to the dæmons suspended from them.
That the gods signify things to men, not requiring for this purpose corporeal organs, but fashioning the air according to their will: for the air being far more plastic than wax, receives the impressions of divine intelligence; which proceeds indeed from the gods without motion, but arrives to us through sound and mutation. For thus we say, that oracles are given by the gods, they not speaking, but using us as instruments, and filling the auditory sense with appropriate knowledge, without percussion and without contact. For they associate with each other through intellectual conceptions, and know what pertains to each other intellectively, but not sensibly.
That, as Homer says, the sun sees and hears all things, and the apparent gods have both a visive and auditory sense, but not externally: for they contain in themselves, prior to wholes, the roots and the causes of all things.
That knowledge does not descend from on high without a medium, but through certain media. For, as in Homer⁵⁰, the knowledge of the conversation between Jupiter and the Sun, descended to Ulysses through the archangelic Hermes and Calypso as media, so Helenus the prophet perceived the will of Apollo and Minerva, not indeed of the divinites who stand at the head of the Apolloniacal and Minerval series, but of those powers of this series that were proximate to him, and of a dæmoniacal characteristic.
That with respect to the names Astyanax⁵¹ and Hector, the philosopher, looking to the form and the thing signified, calls them similar; but grammarians, directing their attention to the matter and the syllables, will say that they are dissimilar.
That it is necessary the founder of names should establish names looking to the forms of the things denominated. But this will become evident to him who looks to the universe. For as there are many psychical descents to this terrestrial abode, and different souls are disseminated according to different allotments, and engaged in different lives, and since among these some choose lives corresponding to those of their presiding and leading gods; hence souls of this kind especially appear to venerate the names of their leaders. My meaning is this: souls that proceed from the Minerval series, and preserve unchanged the form of life adapted to this order, at the same time exhibit themselves by an energy and appellation corresponding to the idiom of the goddess. But souls that descend indeed from this order, and yet choose a life by no means adapted to it, employ likewise foreign and casual names. Hence, as it appears to me, Bacchuses, Esculapiuses, Mercuries, and Herculeses, having the same names with their presiding gods, have proceeded into these terrestrial places, accompanied with the inspiring influence of the gods, neither changing the form of the life, nor the appellation of their proper leaders. They say then, that Hercules, who was called Alcides by his mortal parents, was called Hercules by the Pythian deity, through his alliance to the Herculean order and divinity. For deity gives an appropriate name to man, looking to his whole series and life, which he produces into energy.
That it is requisite to consider the names of things borne along in generation, either by looking to all causes, as well such as are total, as those that are partial, as well those that are remote, as those that are proximate to generated natures; as, for instance, horse considered as a whole, and that which is proximate and corruptible; or it is necessary to consider them looking only to more excellent and perfect natures, which possess invariable rectitude, and which entirely rule over matter; and of this kind are universals. For when an ox is generated from an horse, the partial nature is subdued, and on this account a horse is not generated; but whole nature vanquishes, and on this account an ox is generated. For whence is the form of the ox derived, unless nature simply considered subdues. Hence Plato does not now simply call things of this kind, τερατα, but as it were τιρατα, as not being entirely contrary to nature.
That he who intends to etymologize ought to know, in the first place, the differences of dialects; and, in the second place, the use of the poets. In the third place, he must distinguish simple from composite names. In the fourth place, he must unfold names in a manner accommodated to things themselves. In the fifth place, it is necessary that he should observe the different use of names. In the sixth place, he ought to know the properties of words, such as apocopies, syncopies, ellipses, pleonasms, and the like. In the seventh place, he ought to know the idioms of the elements; for from these, as extremes, the rectitude of names and their alliance to things is demonstrated. In the eighth place, it is necessary that he should distinguish ambiguities, and such names as are homonymous; for the truth of names is retained through these. Further still, it is necessary to know names which deviate from their origin. And such is the critical knowledge which he who etymologizes ought to possess.
That Socrates now appropriately introduces the words θεοφιλον⁵² and μνησιθεον, i. e. dear to divinity, and mindful of divinity; for the alliance of souls to divinity is effected through the love of a divine nature, and the recollection of the hyparxis of deity; and to souls of this kind only does it belong to have paternal and intellectual names. But names, which are the offspring of generation, belong to those who embrace an indefinite and material life.
That names being two-fold, one kind belonging to things perpetual, which are established according to science, and another to things corruptible, and which are the subjects of doubt, it is not likely that fathers should have given their sons inauspicious names, such as Orestes, Atreus, Tantalus, nor is it probable that they foreknew what would be the life of their children in future: for the physiognomic art is attended with great obscurity, and especially when exercised on those that are just born. Of all these doubts, therefore, Socrates delivers to us most clear rules of solution: for men are unacquainted with the unapparent periods of souls, and the appetites (ορεξεις) which they possessed prior to generation, in which nearly the whole of actions is comprehended. Hence they are not judges of the rectitude of names coordinate to every form of life. Gods therefore and dæmons, who causally comprehend the powers and energies of souls, clearly know how to impose names adapted to the respective lives of souls. And as they distribute every other allotment to them according to their desert, so also their names. But since we every where consider fortune as the cause of the coordination of things which appear to be disordered, here also this is to be considered as the most proper principle. For fathers, looking to memory or hope, or something of this kind, give names to their children; but fortune gives them names after another manner, through a symphony with their lives. Agamemnon therefore called his son Orestes, not through rusticity of manners, but through impulse (δια την ορμην) and facility of motion (ευκινησιαν), παρα το ορουειν from rushing, or rather from seeing (ορων) in him such-like marks or tokens of nature; or from wishing that he might become a character of this kind. Fortune, however, after another manner, and more truly, allotted him this name: for it unfolds his whole life. Hence Socrates, from this cause, thinks fit to etymologize his name, but not from a mere human cause; for he saw that this accorded better with the thing. Much more therefore is fortune productive of the proximate cause of the rectitude of names; and when this proximate cause errs, nothing hinders the whole cause, which belongs to fortune, from acting rightly; since the same thing takes place in nature. For when a partial nature acts rightly, whole nature much more acts with rectitude; but when a partial nature wanders from the mark, whole nature is nevertheless able to act with rectitude. Nor let any one think that this fortune is an irrational and indefinite cause: for its work looks to intellect. And a divine, or dæmoniacal power, leaves nothing destitute of its proper superintendence, but directs all, and the very last of our energies, to a good purpose, and to the order of the universe. For we are supernally moved from more excellent causes, who are able, from our essence, as if from the stern of a ship, to pilot all our concerns. Plato therefore introduces this as one cause of the right position of names; but he considers as another cause poets acting under the influence of divine inspiration, looking to the accidental actions of men, and through these as it were sagaciously analyzing and discovering their proper names. What then hinders but that poets, looking to the bold deed of Orestes towards his mother, may have called him Orestes, as ορειον, mountainous, and savage (αγριον), and without fruit (ακαρπον), as having cut off the principle of his proper generation; and that they should have delivered this name to the Greeks?
That Plato, in etymologizing, always first indicates by itself the thing signified; and afterwards that which is assimilated to the thing, and which subsists as a vestige of it in the syllables of the name. Thus in the name of Orestes⁵³ he first says, that it signifies the savage and the rustic (το θηριωδες, και το αγριον), and afterwards he adds, το ορειον, the mountainous, which subsists in the syllables. And in the name of Agamemnon, having first said that it signifies to labour and endure, he adds, he was therefore a good man, δια την επιμονην. And this he does in all the other names.
That Plato, in his etymologies, despising the matter, but being especially attentive to the form of names, says that the name Agamemnon⁵⁴ was composed from the admirable (παρα το αγαστον), and not from the too much (ου παρα το αγαν). But grammarians, as paying attention mostly to the matter, and not seeing the form of life, very properly etymologize this name from the contrary.
That Plato indicates that our very being is in soul, and not in body, by looking to names from psychical idioms, and not from such as are corporeal.
That the divine Plato in what is here said assists us with respect to our morals, since he delivers to us Orestes, Agamemnon, and Atreus, as men vehement, irascible, and avengers. But since the first of these sinned against his mother, and the last towards his children, hence they are very properly blamed. But Agamemnon is called by him admirable and praise-worthy, because he exerted his vehemence on the naturally hostile race of the Barbarians.
That the particulars respecting Pelops teach us, first, to despise appearances, and to look to the whole periods of souls; and to be remiss with respect to human affairs, but strenuous with respect to virtue and things divine. And, in the second place, they teach us that children partake of the punishment belonging to the crimes of their ancestors. For souls, through their coordination⁵⁵ with the unjust, become partakers of injustice; their bodies also consist from base seed; and their external concerns receive their beginning from crimes. Socrates in the Phædrus says, that the telestic art is able to purify these, liberating them from their present evils through the worship of divinity.
That the narration concerning Tantalus⁵⁶ obscurely signifies a soul elevated through contemplation to the intelligible (for the intelligible is the nutriment of the gods); but falling from the intelligible place to earth, and communicating his intellectual life which remains recently perfected (νεοτελη) with the multitude of the irrational nature. Hence he is said to be the son of Jupiter. For every recently-perfected soul falls from the court of Jupiter into generation; and on this account, Jupiter is the father of gods and men. Such a soul too, being enfolded with the evils which are here, and associating with images instead of realities, is said to suffer punishment in Hades; having much of the terrestrial, stony, and material suspended from its nature, through which its intellectual part is buried. It is likewise in want of all divine fruits, possessing the mere imaginations of them, and falling from the true and clear apprehension of them.
That the allotment of a certain name to a certain life is the work of the soul, but the general adoption of this name is from Fame. For Fame, according to Homer, is the angel of Jupiter.
That Socrates from divine names, which are statues of the gods, recurs analytically to the powers and energies of the gods: for he leaves their essences, as being ineffable and unknown, to be alone surveyed by the flower of intellect⁵⁷.
That Jupiter is not said to be, but is the father of those who genuinely preserve the proper form of life, such as Hercules and the Dioscuri; but of those who are never at any time able to convert themselves to a divine nature, he never is nor is said to be the father. Such therefore as having been partakers of a certain energy above human nature, have again fallen into the sea of dissimilitude⁵⁸, and for honour among men have embraced error towards the gods,—of these Jupiter is said to be the father.
That the paternal cause originates supernally from the intelligible and occult gods; for there the first fathers of wholes subsist; but it proceeds through all the intellectual gods into the demiurgic order. For Timæus celebrates this order, as at the same time fabricative and paternal; since he calls Jupiter the demiurgus and father. The fathers however who are superior to the one fabrication are called gods of gods, but the demiurgus is the father of gods and men. Further still, Jupiter is said to be peculiarly the father of some, as of Hercules, who immutably preserve a Jovian and ruling life during their converse with the realms of generation. Jupiter therefore is triply father, of gods, partial souls, and of souls that embrace an intellectual and Jovian life. The intellectual order of the gods, therefore, is supernally bounded by the king⁵⁹ of the total divine genera, and who has a paternal transcendency with respect to all the intellectual gods. This king, according to Orpheus, is called by the blessed immortals that dwell on lofty Olympius, Phanes Protogonus. But this order proceeds through the three Nights, and the celestial orders into the Titannic or Saturnian series, where it first separates itself from the fathers, and changes the kingdom of the Synoches⁶⁰, for a distributive goverment of wholes, and unfolds every demiurgic genus of the gods, from all the above-mentioned ruling and royal causes, but proximately from Saturn the leader of the Titannic orders. Prior however to other fabricators (δημιουργοι) it unfolds Jupiter, who is allotted the unical strength of the whole demuirgic series, and who produces and gives subsistence to all unapparent and apparent natures. And he is indeed intellectual according to the order in which he ranks, but he produces the species and the genera of beings into the order of sensibles. He is likewise filled with the gods above himself, but imparts from himself a progression into being to all mundane natures. Hence Orpheus⁶¹ represents him fabricating every celestial race, making the sun and moon, and the other starry gods, together with the sublunary elements, and diversifying the latter with forms, which before had a disordered subsistence. He likewise represents him presiding over the gods who are distributed about the whole world, and who are suspended from him; and in the character of a legislator assigning distributions of providence in the universe, according to desert, to all the mundane gods. Homer too, following Orpheus, celebrates him as the common father of gods and men, as leader and king, and as the supreme of rulers. He also says that all the multitude of mundane gods is collected about him, abides in and is perfected by him. For all the mundane gods are converted to Jupiter through Themis,
Ζευς δε θεμιστα κελευσε θεους, αγορην δε καλεσσαι
——εδ’ αρα παντη
Φοιτησασα κελευσε Διος προς δωμα νεεσθαι·
i. e. “But Jupiter orders Themis to call the gods to council; and she directing her course every where, commands them to go to the house of Jupiter⁶².” All of them therefore are excited according to the one will of Jupiter, and become διος ενδον⁶³, within Jupiter, as the poet says. Jupiter too, again separates them within himself, according to two coordinations, and excites them to providental energies about secondary natures; he at the same time, as Timæus says, abiding after his accustomed manner,
Ως εφατο κρονιδης πολεμον δ’ αλιαστον εγειρεν⁶⁴·
i. e. “Thus spoke Saturnian Jupiter, and excited inevitable war.” Jupiter however is separate and exempt from all mundane natures; whence also the most total and leading of the other gods, though they appear to have in a certain respect equal authority with Jupiter, through a progression from the same causes, yet call him father. For both Neptune and Juno celebrate him by this appellation. And though Juno speaks to him as one who is of the same order,
Και γαρ εγο θεος ειμι· γενος δε μοι ενθεν οθεν σοι
Και με πρεσβυτατην τεκετο κρονος αγκυλομητις⁶⁵·
i. e. “For I also am a divinity, and Saturn of inflected council endowed me with the greatest dignity, when he begat me.” And though Neptune says,
Τρεις γαρ τ’ εκ κρονου ειμεν αδελφεοι, ους τεκε Ρειη,
Ζευς και εγω, τριτατος δ’Αΐδης ενεροισιν ανασσων⁶⁶·
i. e. “For we are three brothers from Saturn, whom Rhea bore, Jupiter and I, and the third is Pluto, who governs the infernal realms.” Yet Jupiter is called father by both these divinities; and this because he comprehends in himself the one and impartible cause of all fabrication; is prior to the Saturnian triad⁶⁷; connectedly contains the three fathers; and comprehends on all sides the vivification of Juno. Hence, at the same time that this goddess gives animation to the universe, he also together with other gods gives subsistence to souls. Very properly therefore do we say that the demiurgus in the Timæus is the mighty Jupiter. For he it is who produces mundane intellects and souls, who adorns all bodies with figures and numbers, and inserts in them one union, and an indissoluble friendship and bond. For Night also in Orpheus advises Jupiter to employ things of this kind in the fabrication of the universe,
Αυταρ επην δεσμον κρατερον περι πασι τανυσσης·
i. e. But when your power around the whole has spread
A strong coercive bond.——
The proximate bond indeed of mundane natures, is that which subsists through analogy; but the more perfect bond is derived from intellect and soul. Hence Timæus calls the communion of the elements through analogy, and the indissoluble union from life, a bond: for he says animals were generated bound with animated bonds. But a more venerable bond than these subsists from the demiurgic will. “For my will,” says Jupiter in the Timæus, “is a greater and more principle bond,” &c.
Firmly adhering, therefore, to this conception respecting the mighty Jupiter, viz. that he is the demiurgus and father of the universe, that he is an all-perfect imparticipable⁶⁸ intellect, and that he fills all things both with other goods, and with life, let us survey how from names Socrates unfolds the mystic truth concerning this divinity. Timæus then says that it is difficult to know the essence of the demiurgus, and Socrates now says, that it is not easy to understand his name, which manifests his power and energy.
That our soul knows partibly, the impartible nature of the energy of the gods, and that which is characterized by unity in this energy, in a multiplied manner: and this especially takes place about the demiurgus, who expands intellectual forms, and calls forth intelligible causes, and evolves them to the fabrication of the universe. For Parmenides characterizes him by sameness and difference. According to Homer two tubs are placed near him; and the most mystic tradition, and the oracles of the gods, say that the duad is seated with him. For thus they speak: “He possesses both; containing intelligibles in intellect, but introducing sense to the worlds.” These oracles likewise call him twice beyond, and twice there (δις επεκεινα, και δις εκει), and, in short, they celebrate him through the duad. For the demiurgus comprehends in himself unitedly every thing prolific⁶⁹, and which gives subsistence to mundane natures. Very properly therefore is his name two-fold, of which δια manifests the cause through which, and this is paternal goodness; but ζηνα signifies vivification, the first causes of which in the universe the demiurgus unically comprehends. The former, too, is a symbol of the Saturnian and paternal series; but the latter of the vivific and maternal Rhea. So far likewise as Jupiter receives the whole of Saturn, he gives subsistence to a triple essence, the impartible, the partible, and that which subsists between these; but according to the Rhea which he contains in himself, he scatters, as from a fountain, intellectual, psychical, and corporeal life. But by his demiurgic powers and energies, he gives a formal subsistence to these and separates them from forms of a prior order, and from each other. He is also the ruler and king of all things; and is exempt from the three demiurgi. For they, as Socrates says in the Gorgias, divide the kingdom of their father; but Jupiter, the demiurgus, at once without division reigns over the three, and unically governs them.
He is therefore the cause of the paternal triad, and of all fabrication; but he connectedly contains the three demiurgi. And he is a king indeed, as being coordinated with the fathers; but a ruler, as being proximately established above the demiurgic triad, and comprehending the uniform cause of it. Plato, therefore, by considering his name in two ways, evinces that images receive partibly the unical causes of paradigms, and that this is adapted to him who establishes the intellectual duad in himself. For he gives subsistence to two-fold orders, the celestial and the supercelestial; whence also the theologist Orpheus says, that his sceptre consists of four and twenty measures, as ruling over a two-fold twelve⁷⁰.
That the soul of the world gives life to altermotive natures; for to these it becomes the fountain and principle of motion, as Plato says in the Phædrus and Laws. But the demiurgus simply imparts to all things life divine, intellectual, psychical, and that which is divisible about bodies. No one however should think that the gods in their generations of secondary natures are diminished; or that they sustain a division of their proper essence in giving subsistence to things subordinate; or that they expose their progeny to the view, externally to themselves in the same manner as the causes of mortal offspring. Nor, in short, must we suppose that they generate with motion or mutation, but that, abiding in themselves, they produce by their very essence posterior natures, comprehend on all sides their progeny, and supernally perfect the productions and energies of their offspring. Nor again, when it is said that gods are the sons of more total gods, must it be supposed that they are disjoined from more antient causes, and are cut off from a union with them; or that they receive the idiom of their hyparxis through motion, and an indefiniteness converting itself to bound. For there is nothing irrational and without measure, in the natures superior to us. But we must conceive that their progressions are effected through similitude; and that there is one communion of essence, and an indivisible continuity of powers and energies between the sons of gods and their fathers; all those gods that rank in the second order being established in such as are more antient; and the more antient imparting much of perfection, vigour, and efficacious production to the subordinate. And after this manner we must understand that Jupiter is said to be the son of Saturn. For Jupiter being the demiurgic intellect, proceeds from another intellect, superior and more uniform, which increases indeed its proper intellections, but converts the multitude of them to union; and multiplies its intellectual powers, but elevates their all-various evolutions to impartible sameness. Jupiter, therefore, proximately establishing a communion with this divinity, and being filled from him with total intellectual good, is very properly said to be the son of Saturn, both in hymns and invocations, as unfolding into light that which is occult, expanding that which is contracted, and dividing that which is impartible in the Saturnian monad; and as emitting a second more partial kingdom, instead of that which is more total, a demiurgic instead of a paternal dominion, and an empire which proceeds every where instead of that which stably abides in itself.
Why does Socrates apprehend the name of king Saturn⁷¹ to be υβριστικον, insolent, and looking to what does he assert this? We reply, that according to the poets satiety (κορος) is the cause of insolence; for they thus denominate immoderation and repletion; and they say that Satiety brought forth Insolence (υβριν φασιν τικτει κορος). He, therefore, who looks without attention to the name of Saturn, will consider it as signifying insolence. For to him who suddenly hears it, it manifests satiety and repletion. Why, therefore, since a name of this kind is expressive of insolence, do we not pass it over in silence, as not being auspicious and adapted to the gods? May we not say that the royal series ⁷² of the gods, beginning from Phanes, and ending in Bacchus, and producing the same sceptre supernally, as far as to the last kingdom; Saturn being allotted the fourth royal order, appears, according to the fabulous pretext, differently from the other kings, to have received the sceptre insolently from Heaven, and to have given it to Jupiter? For Night receives the sceptre from Phanes; Heaven derives from Night the dominion over wholes; and Bacchus, who is the last king of the gods, receives the kingdom from Jupiter. For the father (Jupiter) establishes him in the royal throne, puts into his hand the sceptre, and makes him the king of all the mundane gods. “Hear me, ye gods, I place over you a king.”
Κλυτε θεοι τον δ’ υμμιν βασιλεα τιθημι
says Jupiter to the junior gods. But Saturn alone, perfectly deprives Heaven of the kingdom, and concedes dominion to Jupiter, cutting and being cut off as the fable says. Plato, therefore, seeing this succession, which in Saturn is called by theologists insolent (υβριστικη), thought it worth while to mention the appearance of insolence in the name; that from this he might evince the name is adapted to the god, and that it bears an image of the insolence which is ascribed to him in fables. At the same time he teaches us to refer mythical devices to the truth concerning the gods, and the apparent absurdity which they contain, to scientific conceptions.
That the great, when ascribed to the gods, must not be considered as belonging to interval, but as subsisting intellectually, and according to the power of cause, but not according to partible transcedency. But why does Plato now call Saturn διανοια, the dianoëtic part of the soul? May we not say, that it is because he looks to the multitude of intellectual conceptions in him, the orders of intelligibles, and the evolution of forms which he contains; since also in the Timæus he represents the demiurgic intellect as reasoning, and making the world, dianoëtically energizing; and this in consequence of looking to his partible and divided intellections, according to which he fabricates not only wholes but parts? When Saturn however is called intellect, Jupiter has the order of the dianoëtic part: and when again, Saturn is called the dianoëtic part, we must say that he is so called according to analogy with reference to a certain other intellect of a higher order. Whether therefore you are willing to speak of intelligible and occult intellect, or of that which unfolds into light (εκφαντορικος νους), or of that which connectedly contains (συνεκτικος νους), or of that which imparts perfection⁷³ (τελεσιουργος νους), Saturn will be as the dianoëtic part to all these: for he produces united intellection into multitude, and fills himself wholly with excited intelligibles. Whence also he is said to be the leader of the Titannic race, and the source of all-various separation and diversifying power. And perhaps Plato here primarily delivers two-fold interpretations of the name of the Titans, which Jamblichus and Amelius afterwards adopted. For the one interprets this name from the Titans extending their powers to all things; but the other from something insectile (παρα το τι ατομον), because the division and separation of wholes into parts receives its beginning from the Titans. Socrates, therefore, now indicates both these interpretations, by asserting of the king of the Titans, that he is a certain great dianoëtic power. For the term great is a symbol of power pervading to all things; but the term a certain, of power proceeding to the most partial natures.
That the name Saturn is now triply analyzed, of which the first asserting this god to be the plenitude of intellectual good, and to be the satiety of a divine intellect, from its conveying an image of the satiety and repletion which are reprobated by the many, is ejected as insolent. The second also, which exhibits the imperfect and the puerile, is in like manner rejected. But the third, which celebrates this god as full of purity, and as the leader of undefiled intelligence, and an undeviating life, is approved. For king Saturn is intellect, and the supplier of all intellectual life; but he is an intellect exempt from coordination with sensibles, immaterial and separate, and converted to himself. He likewise converts his progeny, and after producing them into light, again embosoms and firmly establishes them in himself. For the demiurgus of the universe, though he is a divine intellect, yet he orderly arranges sensibles, and provides for subordinate natures. But the mighty Saturn is essentialized in separate intellection, and which transcend wholes. “For the fire which is beyond the first,” says the Oracle, “does not incline its power downwards.” But the demiurgus is suspended and proceeds from Saturn, being himself an intellect subsisting about an immaterial intellect, energizing about it as the intelligible, and producing that which is occult in it, into the apparent. For the maker of the world is an intellect of intellect. And it appears to me, that as Saturn is the summit of those gods that are properly called intellectual, he is intellect as with reference to the intelligible genus of gods. For all the intellectual adhere to the intelligible genus of gods, and are conjoined with them through intellections. “Ye who understand the supermundane paternal profundity,” says the Hymn to them. But Saturn is intelligible, with reference to all the intellectual gods. Purity, therefore, indicates this impartible and imparticipable transcendency of Saturn. For the not coming into contact with matter, the impartible, and an exemption from habitude, are signified by purity. Such indeed is the transcendency of this god with respect to all coordination with things subordinate, and such his undefiled union with the intelligible, that he does not require a Curetic guard, like Rhea, Jupiter, and Proserpine. For all these, through their progressions into secondary natures, require the immutable defence of the Curetes. But Saturn being firmly established in himself, and hastily withdrawing himself from all subordinate natures, is established above the guardianship of the Curetes. He contains however the cause of these uniformly in himself: for this purity, and the undefiled which he possesses, give subsistence to all the progressions of the Curetes. Hence, in the Oracles, he is said to comprehend the first fountain of the Amilicti, and to ride on all the others. “The intellect of the father riding on attenuated rulers, they become refulgent with the furrows of inflexible and implacable fire.”
Νους πατρος αραιοις εποχουμενος ιθυντηρσιν
Ακναμπτου αστραπτουσιν αμειλικτου πυρος ολκοις.
He is therefore pure intellect, as giving subsistence to the undefiled order, and as being the leader of the whole intellectual series.
Αυτου γαρ εκθρωσκουσιν αμειλικτοι τε κεραυνοι,
Και πρηστηροδοχοι κολποι παμφεγγεος αλκης
Πατρογενους Ἑκατης, και υπεζωκος πυρος ανθος,
Ηδε κραταιον πνευμα πολων πυριων επεκεινα.
i. e. “From him leap forth the implacable thunders, and the prestercapacious bosoms of the all-splendid strength of the father-begotten Hecate, together with the environed flower of fire, and the strong spirit which is beyond the fiery poles.”
For he convolves all the hebdomad of the fountains⁷⁴, and gives subsistence to it, from his unical and intelligible summit. For he is, as the Oracle says, αμιστυλλευτος, uncut into fragments, uniform, and undistributed, and connectedly contains all the fountains, converting and uniting all of them to himself, and being separate from all things with immaculate purity. Hence he is κορονους, as an immaterial and pure intellect, and as establishing himself in the paternal silence. He is also celebrated as the father of fathers. Saturn therefore is a father, and intelligible, as with reference to the intellectual gods.
That every intellect either abides, and is then intelligible, as being better than motion; or it is moved, and is then intellectual; or it is both, and is then intelligible; and at the same time intellectual. The first of these is Phanes; the second, which is alone moved, is Saturn; and the third, which is both moved and permanent, is Heaven.
That Saturn, from his impartible, unical, paternal, and beneficent subsistence in the intellectual orders, has been considered by some as the same with the one cause of all things. He is however only analogous to this cause, just as Orpheus calls the first cause Time (χρονος), nearly homonymously with Saturn (κρονος). But the oracles of the gods characterize this deity by the epithet of the once (τῳ απαξ); calling him once beyond (απαξ επεκεινα). For the once is allied to the one.
That Heaven⁷⁵, the father of Saturn, is an intellect, understanding himself indeed, but united to the first intelligibles; in which he is also firmly established; and connectedly contains all the intellectual orders, by abiding in intelligible union. This god too is connective, just as Saturn is of a sepa- rating idiom; and on this account he is father. For connecting precede separating causes; and the intelligible and at the same time intellectual, such as are intellectual only. Whence also Heaven being the Synocheys (συνοχευς) of wholes, according to one union, gives subsistence to the Titannic series, and prior to this, to other orders of the gods; some of which abide only in him, which he retains in himself, but others both abide and proceed, which he is said to have concealed, after they were unfolded into light. And after all these, he gives subsistence to those divine orders, which proceed into the universe, and are separated from their father. For he produces twofold monads, and triads, and hebdomads, equal in number to the monads. These things however will be investigated more fully elsewhere. But this deity is denominated according to the similitude of the apparent Heaven. For each of them compresses and connects all the multitude which it contains, and causes the sympathy and connection of the whole world to be one. For connection is second to unifying power, and proceeds from it. In the Phædrus therefore Plato delivers to us the production of all secondary natures by Heaven, and shows us how this divinity leads upwards and convolves all things to the intelligible. He likewise teaches us what its summit is, what the profundity of its whole order, and what the boundary of the whole of its progression. Here therefore, investigating the truth of things from names, he declares its energy with respect to things more elevated and simple, and which are arranged nearer to the one. He also clearly appears here to consider the order of Heaven as intelligible, and at the same time intellectual. For if it sees things on high, it energizes intellectually, and there is prior to it the intelligible genus of gods, to which looking it is intellectual; just as it is intelligible to the natures which proceed from it. What then are the things on high which it beholds? Is it not evident that they are the supercelestial place, an essence without colour, without figure, and without the touch, and all the intelligible extent? An extent comprehending, as Plato would say, intelligible animals, the one cause of all eternal natures, and the occult principles of these; but as the followers of Orpheus would say, bounded by Æther upwards, and by Phanes downward. For all between these two gives completion to the intelligible order. But Plato now calls this both singularly and plurally; since all things are there united, and at the same time each is separated peculiarly; and this according to the highest union and separation.
With respect to the term μετεωρολογοι, i. e. those who discourse on sub- lime affairs⁷⁶, we must now consider it in a manner adapted to those who choose an anagogic life, who live intellectually, and who do not gravitate to earth, but sublimely tend to a theoretic life. For that which is called Earth there, maternally gives subsistence to such things as Heaven, which is coordinate to that Earth, produces paternally. And he who energizes there, may be properly called μετεωρολογος, or, one who discourses about things on high. Heaven therefore being of a connective nature, is expanded above the Saturnian orders, and all the intellectual series; and produces from himself all the Titannic race; and prior to this, the perfective and defensive orders; and, in short, is the leader of every good to the intellectual gods. Plato therefore having celebrated Saturn for his intelligence, which is without habitude to mundane natures, and for his life which is converted to his own exalted place of survey, now celebrates Heaven for another more perfect energy: for to be conjoined to more elevated natures, is a greater good than to be converted to oneself. Let no one, however, think that, on this account, the above-mentioned energies are distributed in the gods; as, for instance, that there is providence alone in Jupiter, a conversion alone to himself in Saturn, and an elevation alone to the intelligible in Heaven. For Jupiter no otherwise provides for mundane natures than by looking to the intelligible; since, as Plato says in the Timæus, intellect understanding ideas in animal itself, thought it requisite that as many, and such as it there perceived, should be contained in the universe; but, as Orpheus⁷⁷ says, with a divinely inspired mouth, “Jupiter swallows his progenitor Phanes, embosoms all his powers, and becomes all things intellectually which Phanes is intelligibly.” Saturn also imparts to Jupiter the principles of fabrication, and of providential attention to sensibles, and understanding himself, he becomes united to first intelligibles, and is filled with the goods which are thence derived. Hence also the theologist (Orpheus) says, “that he was nursed by Night⁷⁸.” If therefore the intelligible is nutriment, Saturn is replete not only with the intelligibles coordinated with him, but also with the highest and occult intellections. Heaven himself also fills all secondary natures with his proper goods, but guards all things by his own most vigorous powers; and the father supernally committed to him the connecting and guarding the causes of eternal animal. But he intellectually perceives himself, and is converted to the intelligibles which he contains; and this his intelligence, Plato, in the Phædrus, calls cir- culation. For as that which is moved in a circle is moved about its own centre, so Heaven energizes about its own intelligible, according to intellectual circulation.
But all the gods subsisting in all, and each possessing all energizes, one transcends more in this, and another in a different energy, and each is particularly characterized according to that in which it transcends. Thus Jupiter is characterized by providence, and hence his name is now thus analyzed; but Saturn, by a conversion to himself, whence also he is in- flected counsel, αγκυλομητις; and Heaven by habitude to things more excellent, from which also he receives his appellation. For his giving subsistence to a pure and the Saturnian intellect, represents his energy to the other part. But as there are many powers in Heaven, such as the connective, guardian, and convertive, you will find that this name is appropriately adapted to all these. For the connective is signified through bounding the intellectual gods; since the connective bounds the multitude which he contains. The power which guards wholes subsists through the termination and security of an intellectual essence. And the convertive power subsists through converting, seeing, and intellectually energizing natures, to things on high. But all these are adapted to Heaven. For there is no fear that the gods will be dissipated, and that on this account they require connective causes, or that they will sustain mutation, and that on this account they stand in need of the saving aid of guardian causes; but now Socrates at once manifests all the powers of Heaven, through convertive energy. For this is to behold things on high, to be converted to them, and through this to be connected and defended. And it appears to me that Heaven possesses this idiom according to analogy to the intelligible eternity, and the intelligible wholeness. For Timæus particularly characterizes eternity by this, viz. by abiding in the one prior to it, and by being established in the summit of intelligibles; and Socrates says, that Heaven surveys things on high, viz. the supercelestial place, and such things as are comprehended in the god-nourished silence of the fathers (και οσα τῃ θεοθρεμμονι σιγῃ περιειληπται των πατερων). As therefore Parmenides signifies each of these orders through wholeness, the one through intelligible, and the other through intellectual wholeness; in like manner both Timæus and Socrates characterize them by a conversion to more excellent natures. But the conversion as well as the wholeness is different. For that of eternity is intelligible, on which account Timæus does not say that it looks to its intelligible, but only that it stably abides. But the conversion of Heaven is intellectual, and on this account Socrates says, that it sees things on high, and through this converts, guards, and connects all things posterior to itself. Whence also, in the Phædrus, it is said, by the circulation of itself, to lead all things to the supercelestial place, and the summit of the first intelligibles.
That there being three fathers and kings of which Socrates here makes mention, Saturn alone appears to have received the government from his father, and to have transmitted it to Jupiter by violence. Mythologists therefore celebrate the sections of Heaven and Saturn. But the cause of this is, that Heaven is of the connective, Saturn of the Titannic, and Jupiter of the demiurgic order. Again, the Titannic genus rejoices in separations and differences, progressions and multiplications of powers. Saturn therefore, as a dividing god, separates his kingdom from that of Heaven; but as a pure intellect, he is exempt from a fabricative energy proceeding into matter. Hence also the demiurgic genus is again separated from him. Section therefore is on both sides of him. For so far as he is a Titan, he is cut off from the connective causes, but so far as he does not give himself to material fabrication, he is cut off from the demiurgus Jupiter.
That with respect to the supercelestial place, to which Heaven extends his intellectual life, some characterize it by ineffable symbols; but others, after giving it a name, celebrate it as unknown, neither being able to speak of its form or figure. And proceeding somewhat higher than this, they have been able to manifest the boundary⁷⁹ of the intelligible gods by name alone. But the natures which are beyond this, they signify through analogy alone, these natures being ineffable and incomprehensible. Since that god who closes the paternal order, is said by the wise to be the only deity among the intelligible gods, that is denominated: and theurgy ascends as far as to this order. Since therefore the natures prior to Heaven, are allotted such a transcendency of uniform subsistence, that some of them are said to be effable, and at the same time ineffable; known, and at the same time unknown, through their alliance to the one, Socrates very properly restrains the discourse about them, in consequence of names not being able to represent their hyparxes; and, in short, because it requires a certain wonderful employment, to separate the effable and ineffable, of their hyparxis and power. He accuses therefore his memory, not as disbelieving in the fables, which assert, that there are certain more antient causes beyond Heaven, nor as not thinking it worth while to mention them. For in the Phædrus he himself celebrates the supercelestial place. But he says this, because the first of beings cannot become known by the exercise of memory, and through phantasy, or opinion, or the dianoëtic part. For we are alone naturally adapted to be conjoined to them, with the flower of intellect and the hyparxis of our essence; and through these we receive the sensation of their unknown nature. Socrates therefore says, that what in them is exempt, both from our gnostic and recollective life, is the cause of our inability to give them a name; for they are not naturally adapted to be known through names. Theologists likewise would not remotely signify them, and through the analogy of things apparent to them, if they could be named, and apprehended by knowledge.
That Homer⁸⁰ does not ascend beyond the Saturnian order, but evincing that Saturn is the proximate cause of the demiurgus, he calls Jupiter, who is the demiurgus, the son of Saturn. He also calls the divinities coordinate with him, Juno, Neptune, and Mars; and he denominates Jupiter the father of men and gods. But he does not introduce Saturn, as either energizing, or saying any thing, but as truly αγκυλομητις, in consequence of being converted to himself.
That Orpheus greatly availed himself of the license of fables, and manifests every thing prior to Heaven by names, as far as to the first cause. He also denominates the ineffable, who transcends the intelligible unities, Time; whether because Time presubsists as the cause of all generation, or because, as delivering the generation of true beings, he thus denominates the ineffable, that he may indicate the order of true beings, and the transcendency of the more total to the more partial; that a subsistence according to Time may be the same with a subsistence according to cause; in the same manner as generation with an arranged progression. But Hesiod venerates many of the divine natures in silence, and does not, in short, name the first. For that what is posterior to the first proceeds from something else, is evident from the verse,
“Chaos of all things was the first produced,”
For it is perfectly impossible that it could be produced without a cause; but he does not say what that is which gave subsistence to Chaos. He is silent indeed with respect to both the fathers⁸¹ of intelligibles, the exempt, and the coordinate; for they are perfectly ineffable. And with respect to the two coordinations, the natures which are coordinate with the one, he passes by in silence, but those alone which are coordinate with the indefinite duad, he unfolds through genealogy. And on this account Plato now thinks Hesiod deserves to be mentioned, for passing by the natures prior to Heaven, as being ineffable. For this also is indicated concerning them by the Oracles, which likewise add, “they possess mystic silence,” σιγ’ εχε μυσττα. And Socrates himself, in the Phædrus, calls the intellectual perception of them, μυησις and εποπτεια, in which nearly the whole business is ineffable and unknown.
That, as a discourse concerning the gods is triple, viz. phantastic, like that of Euthyphro⁸², who irrationally imagined battles and stratagems among the gods; scientific, like that of Socrates; and doxastic, which subsists between these, and which, from the opinion of the founder of names, scientifically rises to the essence of the gods;—hence Socrates, perceiving that the conceptions of the multitude about the gods were equally depraved with those of Euthyphro, descends from a scientific energy to inferior concerns, but at the same time elevates those who are detained by phantasy to a middle habit of apprehension concerning the gods. Hence, he ascribes the cause of this descent in speculation to Euthyphro; not considering him as the leader of this knowledge, but as one who, through the phantastically prodigious nature of his discourse, excites to the scientific investigation of truth.
That every where, the extremities of a prior, are conjoined with the summits of a secondary order. Thus, for instance, our master Hermes (ὁ δεσποτης εμων ερμης), being an archangelic monad, is celebrated as a god. But Plato calls the whole extent between gods and men, dæmons; and they indeed are dæmons by nature. Those dæmons however that are now⁸³ mentioned, together with the demigods heroes, are not dæmons and heroes by nature, for they do not always follow the gods; but they are only so from habitude, being souls who naturally deliver themselves to generation, such as was the great Hercules, and others of the like kind. But the peculiarity of heroic souls is magnitude of operation, the elevated and the magnificent; and such heroes it is necessary to honour, and to perform funeral rites to their memory, conformably to the exhortation of the Athenian guest. This heroic genus of souls therefore does not always follow the gods, but is undefiled and more intellectual than other souls. And it descends indeed for the benefit of the life of men, as partaking of a destiny inclining downwards; but it has much of an elevated nature, and which is properly liberated from matter. Hence souls of this kind are easily led back to the intelligible world, in which they live for many periods; while, on the contrary, the more irrational kind of souls are either never led back, or this is accomplished with great difficulty, or continues for a very inconsiderable period of time.
That each of the gods is perfectly exempt from secondary natures, and the first, and more total of dæmons are likewise established above a habitude of this kind. They employ however terrestrial and partial spirits⁸⁴ in the generations of some of the human race; not physically mingling with mortals, but moving nature, perfecting its power, expanding the path of generation, and removing all impediments. Fables therefore, through the similitude of appellation, conceal the things themselves. For spirits of this kind are similarly denominated with the gods, the leading causes of their series. Hence they say, either that gods have connexion with women, or men with goddesses. But if they were willing to speak plainly and clearly, they would say that Venus, Mars, Thetis, and the other divinities, produce their respective series, beginning from on high, as far as to the last of things; each of which series comprehends in itself many essences differing from each other; such as the angelical, dæmoniacal, heroical, nymphical, and the like. The lowest powers therefore of these orders, have much communion with the human race: for the extremities of first, are connascent with the summits of secondary natures. And they contribute to our other natural operations, and to the production of our species. On this account, it frequently is seen that from the mixture of these powers with men heroes are generated, who appear to possess a certain prerogative above human nature. But not only a dæmoniacal genus of this kind, physically sympathizes with men, but a different genus sympathizes with other animals, as Nymphs with trees, others with fountains, and others with stags, or serpents.
But how is it that at one time the gods are said to have connexion with mortal females, and at another time mortal females with the gods. We reply that the communion of gods with goddesses gives subsistence to gods, or dæmons eternally; but heroic souls having a two-fold form of life, viz. dox- astic and dianoëtic, the former of which is called by Plato in the Timæus the circle of difference, and the latter, the circle of sameness, and which are characterized by the properties of male and female;—hence these souls at one time exhibit a deiform power, by energizing according to the masculine prerogative of their nature, or the circle of sameness, and at another time according to their feminine prerogative, or the circle of difference; yet so, as that according to both these energies they act with rectitude, and without merging themselves in the darkness of body. They likewise know the natures prior to their own, and exercise a providential care over inferior concerns, without at the same time having that propensity to such concerns which is found in the bulk of mankind. But the souls which act erroneously according to the energies of both these circles, or which, in other words, neither exhibit accurate specimens of practical or intellectual virtue—these differ in no respect from gregarious souls, or the herd of mankind, with whom the circle of sameness is fettered, and the circle of difference sustains all-various fractures and distortions.
As it is impossible, therefore, that these heroic souls can act with equal vigour and perfection, according to both these circles at once, since this is the province of natures more divine than the human, it is necessary that they should sometimes descend and energize principally according to their doxastic part, and sometimes according to their more intellectual part. Hence, one of these circles must energize naturally, and the other be hindered from its proper energy. On this account heroes are called demigods (ημιθεοι), as having only one of their circles illuminated by the gods. Such of these therefore as have the circle of sameness unfettered, as are excited to an intellectual life, and are moved about it according to a deific energy,—these are said to have a god for their father, and a mortal for their mother, through a defect with respect to the doxastic form of life. But such, on the contrary, as energize without impediment according to the circle of difference, who act with becoming rectitude in practical affairs, and at the same time enthusiastically, or, in other words, under the inspiring influence of divinity,—these are said to have a mortal for their father, and a goddess for their mother. In short, rectitude of energy in each of these circles is to be ascribed to a divine cause⁸⁵. Hence, when the circle of sameness has dominion, the divine cause of illumination is said to be masculine and paternal; but when the circle of difference predominates, it is said to be maternal. Hence too, Achilles in Homer acts with rectitude in practical affairs, and at the same time exhibits specimens of magnificent, vehement, and divinely-inspired energy, as being the son of a goddess. And such is his attachment to practical virtue, that even, when in Hades, he desires a union with body, that he may assist his father. While, on the contrary, Minos and Rhadamanthus, who were heroes illuminated by Jupiter, raised themselves from generation to true being, and meddled with mortal concerns no further than absolute necessity required.
That heroes are very properly denominated from Love, since Love is a great dæmon⁸⁶: and from the cooperation of dæmons, heroes are produced. To which we may add that Love originated from Plenty as the more excellent cause, and from Poverty as the recipient and the worse cause; and heroes are analogously produced from different genera.
That according to Plato το κομψον signifies both the elegant and the ap- propriate (τοτε κομψον και οικειον); and again it signifies the persuasive and the deceitful (το πιθανον και απατηλον): but το κεκομψευμενον signifies μεμηχανημενον.
That as in the universe angels purify souls, freeing them from the stains produced by generation, and elevating them to the gods; and as certain material dæmons also purify by chastising souls looking to matter, tearing them on thorns, as in the Republic they are represented doing to Aridæus;—so indeed the ministers of sacred rites, angelically remove from us every thing which impedes our perception of more excellent nature; but sophists, through exercising us dæmoniacally by arguments on both sides, cut off the injury which we sustain from false opinion; not doing this that they may benefit through doubting those who are confuted, but for the sake of a life phantastic, and conversant with the imitation of opinion. For sophists assume the character of those that are truly scientific and skilled in dialectic. And in like manner the last of dæmons afflict souls, not that they may make them lovers of real being, but because they are allotted a nature defensive of material and image-producing bosoms, but punishing the souls that fall into that place.
That many dæmons have thought fit to unfold the nature of the gods, and have also delivered names adapted to the gods. Thus⁸⁷, too, the gods themselves not only unfolded the intelligible and intellectual orders to the theurgists under the reign of Marcus Antoninus, but also delivered names of the divine orders declarative of their characteristic properties, by which theurgists invoking the gods in the worship adapted to them, were favourably heard by the divinities. Many dæmons also, in appearing to men of a more fortunate destiny, have unfolded to them names connascent with things themselves, through which they have rendered the truth about beings more conspicuous.
That of names some belong to perpetual, and others to corruptible things. And of those which belong to things perpetual, some are devised by men, but others by more divine causes. And of those which are the production of more divine causes than men, some are established by the gods themselves, but others by dæmons. And of those which are devised by men, some are the offspring of science, but others are effected without science. Again, of names which belong to things corruptible, some are produced according to, but others without art; and of those produced without art, and the dianoëtic energy, some subsist according to an unknown divine cause, such for instance as the name Orestes; but others without such a cause. And of those without a cause, some subsist according to hope, others according to memory, and others according to neither of these. But of those which are denominated according to art, some subsist according to things present, others according to things past, and others according to things future. Thus according to things present Aristocles was called Plato; but according to things past Antilochus was denominated Philopater, through having encountered danger for the sake of his father. And names subsist according to things future, as when some one foreknowing through skill in astrology that his son will become renowned, calls him Pericles. There is also a kind of names mixed from fortune and art, and which through this is twofold. One division of this takes place, when some one knows the power of a name, but is ignorant of the nature of the thing of which it is the name. Thus Xanthippus knew that the name Pericles signifies renown, but he did not know that his son Pericles would be most renowned, and therefore did not in consequence of this knowledge thus name him. On the contrary, another division of this happens, when some one is ignorant of the power of the name, but knows the essence of the thing, as in the instance of him who denominated Theseus, Hercules: for he knew that Theseus resembled Hercules, but he was ignorant⁸⁸ that the name Hercules was alone adapted to Hercules, in consequence of Juno becoming the cause to him of so many labours, and of the renown which he afterwards acquired through those labours.
That with respect to the intellections of the soul, some abide in wholes, and comprehend these; but others alone energize on more partial genera; and others are busily employed about the divine conceptions of eternal individuals. Those who contemplate the Saturnian and defensive series are the paradigm of the first of these; those whose conceptions are employed about supercelestial natures, and him⁸⁹ who there drives his winged chariot, are the paradigm of the second; and those who diligently observe and judge of the effects proceeding into generation from the sun and moon, of the third.
That it is the peculiarity of the strange inhabitants of Greece of the present time, neither to consider the sun nor moon as gods⁹⁰, nor to worship the other celestials, though they are our saviours and guides, leading upwards immortal, and fabricating and giving subsistence to mortal souls. I should say however that those who have the hardiness to entertain such an audacious and absurd opinion concerning the celestial gods, belong to souls who are hastening to Tartarus, and to that which is most dark and disor- dered in the universe⁹¹. Let these however remain where they are ranked by Justice.
That the name GOD⁹² is rationally ascribed not only to the apparent, but also to the supercelestial, intellectual, and intelligible causes. For Socrates in the Republic speaks of swiftness itself and slowness itself in intelligible numbers; on which account also the liberated rulers of wholes, who are supercelestial, are celebrated in the Phædrus as driving winged chariots. And theologists say that prior to these the intellectual gods ride in chariots of this kind; that Heaven itself, which connectedly comprehends the intellectual gods, possesses its intelligence in circulation; and that the intelligible causes prior to this, though these are ineffable, have a rapid motion, and unattended with time. For the Oracles⁹³ also call these swift, and say that “proceeding from the father they run to him.” But Orpheus thus speaks about the occult order of the gods:
“Unwearied, in a boundless orb it moves.”
This name may also be interpreted after another manner; since it manifests the producing and fabricative causes of all things: for θειναι and θησω are assumed for το ποιειν.
That there is nothing debile, nothing inefficacious in the gods, but all things there are energies and lives, fervid, and eternally energizing. Of the genera, therefore, posterior to the gods, and which are indeed their perpetual attendants, but produce in conjunction with them mundane fabrications from on high, as far as to the last of things,—of these genera some unfold generation into light; others are transporters of union; others of power; and others call forth the knowledge of the gods and an intellectual essence. But of these, some are called angelic, by those that are skilled in divine concerns, in consequence of being established according to the hyparxis itself of the gods, and making that which is uniform in their nature commensurate with things of a secondary rank. Hence the angelic tribe is boniform, as unfolding into light the occult goodness of the gods. Others among these are called by theologists dæmoniacal, as binding the middle of all things, and as distributing divine power, and producing it as far as to the last of things: for δαισαι is το μερισαι. But this genus possesses abundance of power, and is multifarious, as giving subsistence to those last dæmons who are material, who draw down souls, and proceed to the most partial and material form of energy. Others again are denominated by them heroic, who lead human souls on high through love, and who are the suppliers of an intellectual life, of magnitude of operation, and magnitude of wisdom. In short, they are allotted a convertive order and providence, and an alliance to a divine intellect, to which they also convert secondary natures. Hence they are allotted this appellation as being able to raise and extend souls to the gods (ως αιρειν και ανατεινειν τας ψυχας επι θεους δυναμενα). These triple genera posterior to, are indeed always suspended from the gods, but they are divided from each other. And some of them are essentially intellectual; others are essentialized in rational souls; and others subsist in irrational and phantastic lives. It is also evident, that such of them as are intellectual, are allotted a prudence transcending that of human nature, and which is eternally conjoined with the objects of their intellection. But such of them as are rational, energize discursively according to prudence: and the irrational kind are destitute of prudence; for they dwell in matter, and the darkest parts of the universe. They also bind souls to shadow-producing bosoms (και συνδει τας ψυχας τοις ειδωλοποιοις κολποις), and strangle such as are brought into that region, until they have suffered the punishment which is their due. These three genera, therefore, which are more excellent than us, Socrates now calls dæmons. But if he displeases the material tribe of dæmons by this etymology, you must not wonder. For the etymology is transcendent, and perhaps το μεριζω is παρα το δαιω, as rejoicing in division.
That the hyparxis of the more excellent genera being triple, viz. intellectual, logical, phantastic, the golden⁹⁴ age is analogous to the intellectual genus. For gold, as theologists say is referred to the first of the worlds, the empyrean⁹⁵ and intellectual. But the silver age is analogous to the rational genus: for silver is referred to the middle and ethereal world. And the brazen age is analogous to the irrational and phantastic genus. For the phantasy is a figured, but not a pure intellect; just as brass appears to have the colour of gold, but possesses much of the terrestrial and resisting, and a great alliance with things solid and sensible. Hence this age is analogous to the solid and brazen heaven, or, in other words, to the sensible world, the proximate demiurgus⁹⁶ of which is represented as fabricating it from brass. But the fourth and heroic genus, is subordinate to some of those natures who belong to the above-mentioned three genera, but is superior to others. For the heroic genus touches upon action, and a providental attention to secondary natures, and is inferior to a life which is void of habitude. But it possesses magnitude of operation, and exhibits the magnificence of its proper virtue. And the fifth and very passive human age, is that which is assimilated to much-laboured and black iron, through the material and dark condition of its life. It also exhibits erroneous actions, and such as are distorted and irrational.
That Plato now speculates⁹⁷ about dæmons and heroes, not those which subsist according to habitude, but those which are beyond our essence. He recurs however, through analogy, from those which subsist according to habitude, to those of a more elevated order. But he passes by the material genus of dæmons.
That in the antient tongue dæmons were called damons, is evident from a being then used instead of αι⁹⁸.
That syllables and letters appear to have the relation of essence in names, but acute and grave accents are certain powers of names.
That the intellect in us is Dionysiacal, and is the true image of Bacchus. He therefore who acts erroneously with respect to it, and Titannically divulses its impartible nature through manifold falsehood, certainly sins against Bacchus himself, and more than those who sin against the external statues of the god, because intellect is more than any thing else allied to the gods.
That we are more able to understand the more total genera of the gods, than such as are more partial. For in the leading and ruling gods, we can obtain a clearer knowledge of that which is total in their subsistence, and extends to all things, than in the liberated order of gods. And we more easily learn that the mighty Jupiter is the supplier of life to all things, and that he is the demiurgus, than we learn the nature of that Jupiter who imparts life to things celestial alone. And that there is one whole demiurgus is evident to all; but that there are three demiurgi more partial than this, it is difficult to understand.
That each of the gods, so far as he knows himself, and all the other divine genera, and participates of all things, and is bounded according to his proper hyparxis, so far he gives subsistence to divine names which are to us unknown and ineffable; since all intellectual and divine natures subsist in us psychically. But if conceptions do not subsist in the soul coordinately to intellect, but after the manner of an image, and in subjection, much more must the soul become perfectly giddy in energizing intellectually about the gods. For it can only receive conceptions about the essence and the nomination of divinity, after the manner of an image (εικονικως).
That as he who supplies all mundane light from himself is called the sun, so the divinity who supplies truth from himself is called Apollo.
That according to the analogous of essences and knowledges in the gods, angels, dæmons, and souls, the mutation also of divine names subsists. For the more subordinate natures of dæmons, or heroes, or souls, do not call the gods and themselves in a superior and more intellectual manner, as angels do. “Youths celebrate Vesta as the oldest of the gods,”
Πρεσβυτατην δε θεων εστιαν κελαδησατε κουροι.
For in prayers they are called upon to celebrate Vesta⁹⁹ before the other gods.
That Saturn, in conjunction with Rhea, produced Vesta and Juno, who are coordinate to the demiurgic causes. For Vesta imparts from herself to the gods an uninclining permanency, and seat in themselves, and an indissoluble essence. But Juno imparts progression, and a multiplication into things secondary. She is also the vivifying fountain of wholes, and the mother of prolific powers; and on this account she is said to have proceeded together with Jupiter the demiurgus; and through this communion she generates maternally, such things as Jupiter generates paternally. But Vesta abides in herself, possessing an undefiled virginity, and being the cause of sameness to all things. Each of these divinities however, together with her own proper perfection, possesses, according to participation, the power of the other. Hence, some say that Vesta is denominated from essence (απο της εστιας), looking to her proper hyparxis. But others looking to her vivific and motive power, which she derives from Juno, say that she is thus denominated, ως ωσεως ουσαν αιτιαν, as being the cause of impulsion. For all divine natures are in all, and particularly such as are coordinate with each other, participate of, and subsist in each other. Each therefore of the demiurgic and vivific orders, participates the form by which it is characterized, from Vesta. The orbs of the planets likewise possess the sameness of their revolutions from her; and the poles and centres are always allotted from her their rest.
That Vesta does not manifest essence, but the abiding and firm establishment of essence in itself; and hence this goddess proceeds into light after the mighty Saturn. For the divinities prior to Saturn have not a subsistence in themselves and in another¹⁰⁰, but this originates from Saturn. And a subsistence in self is the idiom of Vesta, but in another of Juno.
That the theology of Hesiod from the monad Rhea produces, according to things which are more excellent in the coordination, Vesta; but, according to those which are subordinate, Juno; and according to those which subsist between, Ceres. But according to Orpheus, Ceres is in a certain respect the same with the whole of vivification, and in a certain respect is not the same. For on high she is Rhea, but below, in conjunction with Jupiter, she is Ceres: for here the things begotten are similar to the begetters, and are nearly the same.
That we ought to receive with caution what is now¹⁰¹ said concerning effluxions and motions. For Socrates does not descend to the material flowing of Heraclitus; for this is false¹⁰², and unworthy the dianoëtic conceptions of Plato. But since it is lawful to interpret things divine analogously, through appropriate images, Socrates very properly assimilates fontal and Saturnian deities to streams; in so doing jesting, and at the same time acting seriously, because good is always derived, as it were, in streams from on high, to things below. Hence, according to the image of rivers, after the fontal deities, who eternally devolve streams of good, the deities, who subsist as principles, are celebrated. For after the fountain of a river, the place where it begins to flow is surveyed.
That those divinities who are peculiarly denominated total intellectual gods, of whom the great Saturn is the father, are properly called fontal. For “from him leap forth the implacable thunders,” says the Oracle concerning Saturn. But concerning the vivific fountain Rhea, from which all life, divine, intellectual, psychical, and mundane, is generated, the Chaldæan Oracles thus speak:
Ρειη τοι νοερων μακαρων πηγη τε ροητε.
Παντων γαρ πρωτη δυναμεις κολποισιν αφραστοις
Δεξαμενη, γενεην επι παν προχεει τροχαουσαν.
i. e. “Rhea¹⁰³ is the fountain and river of the blessed intellectual gods. For first receiving the powers of all things in her ineffable bosoms, she pours running generation into every thing.”
For this divinity gives subsistence to the infinite diffusion of all life, and to all never-failing powers. She likewise moves all things according to the measures of divine motions, and converts them to herself; establishing all things in herself, as being coordinate to Saturn. Rhea therefore is so called from causing a perpetual influx of good, and through being the cause of divine facility, since the life of the gods is attended with ease (θεοι ρεια ζωοντες).
That Ocean¹⁰⁴ is the cause to all the gods of acute and vigorous energy, and bounds the separations of the first, middle, and last orders; converting himself to himself, and to his proper principles, through swiftness of intellect, but moving all things from himself, to energies accommodated to their natures; perfecting their powers, and causing them to have a never-failing subsistence. But Tethys imparts permanency to the natures which are moved by Ocean, and stability to the beings which are excited by him to the generation of secondary natures. She is also the source of purity of essence to those beings who perpetually desire to produce all things: as sustaining every thing in the divine essences which, as it were, leaps forth and percolates. For each of first causes, though it imparts to secondary natures a participation of good, yet, at the same time, retains with itself that which is undefiled, unmingled, and pure from participation. Thus, for instance, intellect is filled with life, being, and intelligence, with which also it fills soul; but establishing in itself that which in each of these is genuine and exempt, it also illuminates from itself to beings of a subordinate rank, inferior measures of these goods. And vigour of energy indeed is present with more antient natures, through Ocean; but the leaping forth and percolating through Tethys. For every thing which is imparted from superior to subordinate natures, whether it be essence, life, or intelligence, is per- colated. And such of these as are primary, are established in themselves; but such as are more imperfect, are transferred to things of a subject order. Just as with respect to streams of water, such of them as are nearer their source are purer, but the more remote are more turbid. Both Ocean and Tethys therefore are fontal gods, according to their first subsistence. Hence Socrates now calls them the fathers of streams. But they also proceed into other orders of gods, exhibiting the same powers among the gods who rank as principles or rulers, among those of a liberated, and those of a celestial characteristic; and appropriately in each of these. Timæus however celebrates their sublunary orders, calling them fathers of Saturn and Rhea, but the progeny of Heaven and Earth. But their last processions are their divisible allotments about the earth; both those which are apparent on its surface, and those which, under the earth, separate the kingdom of Hades from the dominion of Neptune.
That Saturn is conjoined both to Rhea and Jupiter, but to the former as father to prolific power, and to the latter, as father to intelligible¹⁰⁵ intellect.
That Ocean is said to have married Tethys, and Jupiter Juno, and the like, as establishing a communion with her, conformably to the generation of subordinate natures. For an according coarrangement of the gods, and a connascent cooperation in their productions, is called by theologists mar- riage.
That Tethys is denominated from leaping forth and straining or cleans- ing, being as it were Diatethys, and by taking away the first two syallables, Tethys¹⁰⁶.
That Saturn is the monad of the Titannic order of the gods, but Jupiter of the demiurgic. This last divinity however is two-fold, the one exempt and coordinated with Saturn, being a fontal god, and, in short, ranking with the intellectual fathers, and convolving the extremity of them; but the other being connumerated with the sons of Saturn, and allotted a Saturnian summit and dominion in this triad; concerning which also the Homeric Neptune says,
Τρεις γαρ τ’εκ Κρονου ειμεν αδελφεοι ους τεκε Ρειη¹⁰⁷.
As brother gods we three from Saturn came,
And Rhea bore us.
And the first Jupiter indeed, as being the demiurgus of wholes, is the king of things first, middle, and last, concerning whom Socrates also had just said, that he is the ruler and king of all things; and life and salvation are imparted to all things through him. But the ruling Jupiter, who ranks as a principle, and who is coordinate with the three sons of Saturn, governs the third part of the whole of things, according to that of Homer
Τριχθα δε παντα δεδασται¹⁰⁸.
A triple distribution all things own.
He is also the summit of the three, has the same name with the fontal Jupiter, is united to him, and is monadically called Jupiter. But the second is called, dyadically, marine Jupiter and Neptune. And the third is triadically denominated, terrestrial Jupiter, Pluto and Hades. The first of these also preserves, fabricates, and vivifies summits, but the second, things of a second rank, and the third those of a third order. Hence this last is said to have ravished Proserpine, that together with her he might animate the extremities of the universe.
That the Titannic order dividing itself from the connecting order of Heaven, but having also something in itself abiding, and connascent with that order, Saturn is the leader of the separation, and on this account he both arms others against his father, and receives the scythe¹⁰⁹ from his mother, through which he divides his own kingdom from that of Heaven. But Ocean is coordinated with those that abide¹¹⁰ in the manners of the father, and guards the middle of the two orders; so far as a Titan being connumerated with the gods that subsist with Saturn; but so far as rejoicing in a coordination with Heaven conjoining himself with the Synoches. For it is fit that he who bounds the first and second orders, should be arranged in the middle of the natures that are bounded. But every where this god is allotted a power of this kind, and separates the genera of the gods, the Titannic from the connecting (των συνοχικων), and the vivific from the demiurgic. Whence also antient rumour calls Ocean the god who separates the apparent part of Heaven from the unapparent; and on this account poets say, that the sun and the other stars rise from the ocean. What is now said, therefore, by Plato, comprehends all the Titannic order through these two conjunctions; this order abiding and at the same time proceeding. And through the Saturnian order indeed, it comprehends every thing separated from the fathers; but through that of Ocean, every thing conjoined with the connecting gods. Or, if you had rather so speak, through the Saturnian order, he comprehends every maternal cause, but through the other, every thing subservient to the paternal cause. For the female is the cause of progression and separation, but the male of union and stable permanency.
That of the demiurgic triad¹¹¹ which divides the whole world, and distributes the indivisible, one, and whole fabrication of the first Jupiter, the summit, and which has the relation of father, is Jupiter, who through union with the whole demiurgic intellect, having the same appellation with it, is for this reason not mentioned here by Plato. But Neptune¹¹² is allotted the middle, and that which binds together both the extremes; being filled indeed from the essence of Jupiter, but filling Pluto. For of the whole of this triad, Jupiter indeed is the father, but Neptune the power, and Pluto the intellect. And all indeed are in all; but each receives a different character of subsistence. Thus Jupiter subsists according to being; but Neptune according to power, and Pluto according to intellect. And though all these divinities are the causes of the life of all things, yet one is so essentially, another vitally, and another intellectually. Whence also the theologist Orpheus says, that the extremes fabricate in conjunction with Proserpine things first and last; the middle being coarranged with generative cause from his own allotment, without Proserpine. Hence violence is said to have been offered to Proserpine by Jupiter; but she is said to have been ravished by Pluto (διο και φασι την κορην υπο μεν του διος βιαζεσθαι, υπο δε του πλουτωνος αρπαζεσθαι). But the middle is said to be the cause of motion to all things. Hence also, he is called earth-shaker, as being the origin of motion. And among those who are allotted the kingdom of Saturn, the middle allotment, and the agile sea (η ευκινητος θαλασσα) are assigned to him. According to every division, therefore, the summits are Jovian, the middles belong to Neptune, and the extremes to Pluto. And, if you look to the centres, such as the east, that of mid-heaven, and the west; if also you divide the whole world, as for instance into the inerratic, planetary, and sublunary spheres; or again, if you divide that which is generated into the fiery, terrestrial, and that which subsists between; or the earth into its summits, middle and hollow, and subterranean parts, this triad every where distributes the first, middle, and last differences of things fabricated in demiurgic boundaries.
That the name Neptune is now triply analyzed. For Neptune is the trident-bearer, and the Tritons and Amphitrite are the familiars of this god. And the first analyzation of his name is from the allotment over which he presides, and from souls coming into generation, in whom the circle of sameness is fettered; since the sea is analogous to generation. But the second is from communion with the first:
Αλλα ζευς προτερος γεγονει, και πλειονα ηδει¹¹³.
But Jove was born the first, and more he knew.
For a Jupiter of this kind, is the proximate intelligible of Neptune. But the third analysis of his name, is from his energy in externals. For he is motive of nature, and vivific of things last. He is also the guardian of the earth, and excites it to generations.
That Neptune is an intellectual demiurgic god, who receives souls descending into generation; but Hades is an intellectual demiurgic god, who frees souls from generation. For as our whole period receives a triple division, into a life prior to generation, which is Jovian, into a life in generation which is Neptunian, and into a life posterior to generation which is Plutonian; Pluto, who is characterized by intellect, very properly converts ends to beginnings, effecting a circle without a beginning, and without an end, not only in souls, but also in every fabrication of bodies, and, in short, of all periods;—which circle also he perpetually convolves. Thus, for instance, he converts the ends to the beginnings of the souls of the stars, and the convolutions of souls about generation, and the like. And hence Jupiter is the guardian of the life of souls prior to generation.
That some badly analyze the name of Pluto into wealth from the earth, through fruits and metals; but Hades into the invisible, dark, and dreadful. These Socrates now reprobates¹¹⁴, bringing the two names to the same signification; referring the name of Pluto, as intellect, to the wealth of prudence, but that of Hades to an intellect knowing all things. For this god is a sophist, who purifying souls after death, frees them from generation. For Hades is not, as some improperly explain it, evil: for neither is death evil; though Hades to some appears to be attended with peturbations (εμπαθως); but it is invisible, and better than the apparent; such as is every thing intelligible. Intellect, therefore, in every triad of beings, convolves itself to being, and the paternal cause, imitating in its energy the circle.
That men who are lovers of body, badly refer to themselves the passions of the animated nature, and on this account consider death to be dreadful, as being the cause of corruption. The truth however is, that it is much better for man to die, and live in Hades a life according to nature, since a life in conjunction with body is contrary to nature, and is an impediment to intellectual energy. Hence it is necessary to divest ourselves of the fleshly garments with which we are clothed, as Ulysses did his ragged vestments, and no longer like a wretched mendicant, together with the indigence of body, put on our rags. For as the Chaldæan oracle says, “Things divine cannot be obtained by those whose intellectual eye is directed to body; but those only can arrive at the possession of them, who, stript of their garments, hasten to the summit.”
That Plato contemplates desire¹¹⁵, according to each part of the soul. For the irascible part aspires after honour or victory, and the rational after virtue. In like manner he wishes to survey confidence, good hope, pleasure, and the contraries of these, about each part of the soul.
That with the love and will of the gods, the necessity which is with them concurs, against which no god contends.
That the divine Plato knew that there are three kinds of Sirens¹¹⁶: the celestial, which is under the government of Jupiter; that which is produc- tive of generation (γενεσιουργον), and is under the government of Neptune; and that which is cathartic, and is under the government of Pluto. It is common to all these, to incline all things through an harmonic motion to their ruling gods. Hence, when the soul is in the Heavens, the Sirens are desirous of uniting it to the divine life which flourishes there. But it is proper that souls living in generation should sail beyond them, like the Homeric Ulysses, that they may not be allured by generation, of which the sea is an image. And when souls are in Hades, the Sirens are desirous of uniting them through intellectual conceptions to Pluto. So that Plato knew that in the kingdom of Hades there are gods, dæmons, and souls, who dance as it were round Pluto, allured by the Sirens that dwell there.
That Plato knew how to attribute the name sophist¹¹⁷ to a venerable thing: for he thus denominates him who is able to convert other things to himself, such as Jupiter, Hades, and Love.
That not all souls, after being liberated from the body, are thought worthy to associate with Pluto, but such only as are of superior worth: for those that are more corporeal are liberated from vice, by certain cathartic dæmons or angels, laboriously, and accompanied with pain.
That the demiurgic Jupiter, and who is also the ruler of all the demiurgi, wishing to suspend all the series of fabricators from the Titannic series, is very properly said to bind Saturn, as being converted to this divinity, and depending from him; and as surveying the length and breadth of the Saturnian place of survey (περιωπη), and establishing in a Jovian manner Saturn in himself. Jupiter therefore binds Saturn in himself firmly and stably; and Jupiter is in a similar manner bound in Saturn.
That the ascent of the soul is two-fold¹¹⁸; the one according to an elevation to true being, and a purification from things connascent with generation, which the bonds of Pluto afford after death; but the other according to the soul having now arrived at the intelligible, through the purification of Hades, and revolving according to the life and transition of intellections which are there, and which the bonds of Saturn effect through a conjunction with Jupiter. For the soul, placing as it were a vestige of her feet in the intelligible, passes through the extent of intelligibles which is there, and surveys those blessed spectacles, as Socrates teaches us in the Phædrus. And this is a posterior ascent, greater and more perfect than the former. Not only the bonds of Hades therefore are incapable of holding and elevating to the dominion of Jupiter, souls that are astonished about body, but neither can the bonds of Saturn effect this, though these as being of the father are evidently stronger.
That Neptune when compared with Jupiter is said to know many things; but Hades compared with souls to whom he imparts knowledge is said to know all things; though Neptune is more total than Hades.
That as it is necessary to analyze Pluto, not only into the obvious wealth from the earth, but also into the wealth of wisdom, so likewise Ceres must be analyzed not only into corporeal nutriment; but, beginning from the gods themselves, it is requisite to conceive her to be the supplier of aliment, first to the gods themselves, afterwards to the natures posterior to the gods; and, in the last place, that the series of this beneficent energy extends as far as to corporeal nutriment. For the characteristic of love shines forth first of all in the gods: and this is the case with the medicinal and prophetic powers of Apollo, and with those of every other divinity. But nutriment, when considered with reference to the gods, is the communication of intellectual plenitude from more exalted natures to those of an inferior rank. Gods therefore are nourished, when they view with the eye of intellect gods prior to themselves; and when they are perfected and view intelligible beauties, such as justice itself, temperance itself, and the like, as it is said in the Phædrus.
That the design of the great Plato, in the Cratylus, is not to celebrate the first, middle, and last orders of the gods, but only those idioms which are apparent in their names.
That, according to Orpheus, Ceres is the same with Rhea: for Orpheus says, that subsisting on high in unproceeding union with Saturn, she is Rhea, but that by emitting and generating Jupiter, she is Ceres. For thus he speaks,
Ρειην το πριν εουσαν, επει διος επλετο μητηρ
Γεγονε δημητηρ¹¹⁹.
i. e: The goddess who was Rhea, when she bore
Jove, became Ceres.
But Hesiod says that Ceres is the daughter of Rhea. It is however evident, that these theologists harmonize: for whether this goddess proceeds from union with Saturn to a secondary order, or whether she is the first progeny of Rhea, she is still the same. Ceres therefore thus subsisting, and receiving the most antient and ruling order from the whole vivific Rhea (της ολης ζωογονου ρεας), and comprehending the middle centres of whole vivification (της ολης ζωογονιας), she fills all supermundane natures with the rivers of all perfect life, pouring upon all things vitally, indivisibly, and uniformly.
Prior however to all this, she unfolds to us the demiurgic intellect (Jupiter), and imparts to him the power of vivifying wholes: for, as Saturn supplies her from on high with the cause of being; so Ceres from on high, and from her own prolific bosoms, pours forth vivification to the demiurgus. But possessing herself the middle of all vivific deity, she governs the whole fountains which she contains, and comprehends the one bond of the first and last powers of life. She stably convolves too, and contains all secondary fountains. But she leads forth the uniform causes of prior natures to the generation of others. This goddess too comprehends Vesta and Juno: in her right hand parts Juno, who pours forth the whole order of souls; but in her left hand parts Vesta, who leads forth all the light of virtue. Hence, Ceres is with great propriety called by Plato¹²⁰, mother, and at the same time the supplier of aliment: for, so far as she comprehends in herself the cause of Juno, she is a mother; but as containing Vesta in her essence, she is the supplier of aliment. But the paradigm of this goddess is Night: for immortal Night is called the nurse of the gods. Night however is the cause of aliment intelligibly¹²¹: for that which is intelligible is, according to the Oracle¹²², the aliment of the intellectual orders of gods. But Ceres first of all separates the two kinds of aliment in the gods, as Orpheus says:
Μησατο γαρ προπολους, και αμφιπολους, και σπαδους·
Μησατο δ’ αμβροσιην, και ερυθρου νεκταρος αρθρον·
Μησατο δ’ αγλαα εργα μελισσαων εριβομβων¹²³.
 i. e. She cares for pow’rs ministrant, whether they
Or gods precede, or follow, or surround:
Ambrosia, and tenacious nectar red,
Are too the objects of her bounteous care.
Last to the bee her providence extends,
Who gathers honey with resounding hum.
Ceres, therefore, our sovereign mistress (δεσποινα) not only generates life, but that which gives perfection to life; and this from supernal natures to such as are last: for virtue is the perfection of souls. Hence mothers, who are connected with the circulations of time, bring forth their offspring in imitation of this two-fold and eternal generation of Ceres. For, at the same time that they send forth their young into the light, they extend to them milk naturally produced as their food.
That the conjunction of the demiurgic intellect with the vivific causes is triple: for it is conjoined with the fountains prior to itself; is present with its kindred coordinate natures; and coenergizes with the orders posterior to itself. For it is present with the mother prior to itself, convertively (επιστρεπτικως); with Proserpine posterior to itself, providen- tially (προνοητικως); and with Juno coordinate to itself with an amatory energy (ερασμιως). Hence Jupiter is said to be enamoured of Juno,
Ως σεο νυν εραμαι¹²⁴—
As now I love thee—
And this love indeed is legal, but the other two appear to be illegal. This goddess, therefore, produces from herself, in conjunction with the demiurgus and father, all the genera of souls, the supermundane and mundane, the celestial and sublunary, the divine, angelic, dæmoniacal, and partial. After a certain manner too, she is divided from the demiurgus, but in a certain respect she is united to him: for Jupiter is said, in the Philebus, to contain a royal intellect and a royal soul. For he contains uniformly the paternal and maternal cause of the world; and the fountain of souls is said to be in Jupiter; just as again the intelligence of Jupiter is said to be first participated by Juno. For no other divinity, says Jupiter in Homer, knows my mind prior to Juno. Through this ineffable union, therefore, of these divinities, the world participates of intellectual souls. They also give subsistence to intellects who are carried in souls, and who together with them give completion to the whole fabrication of things.
That the series of our sovereign mistress Juno¹²⁵ beginning from on high pervades to the last of things; and her allotment in the sublunary region is the air. For air is a symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit (πνευμα); just as fire is an image of intellect, but water of nature, by which the world is nourished (της κοσμοτροφου φυσεως), and through which all nutriment and increase are produced. But earth is the image of body, through its gross and material nature. Hence Homer, obscurely signifying this, represents Juno suspended with two anvils under her feet: for the air is allotted two heavy elements beneath itself. For
Ηλιον δ’ ακαμαντα βοωπις ποτνια ηρη
Πεμψεν επ’ οκεανοιο ροας—¹²⁶
i. e. “Fair-eyed venerable Juno sent the sun to the streams of the ocean,”— is from the same conception: for he calls the thick cloud produced by Juno, the setting of the sun. The assertion likewise that the end of this name will be conjoined with the beginning, if any one frequently repeats the name of the goddess, evinces the conversion of rational souls to her which proceed from her; and that voice is struck air. On this account also the voice of rational animals is especially dedicated to this goddess, who made the horse of Achilles to become vocal. But Socrates now delivers these three vivific monads in a consequent order; viz. Ceres, Juno, Proserpine; calling the first the mother, the second the sister, and the third the daughter of the demiurgus. All of them however are partakers of the whole of fabrication; the first in an exempt manner and intellectually; the second in a fontal manner and at the same time in a way adapted to a principle (αρχικως); and the third in a manner adapted to a principle and leader (αρχικως και ηγεμονικως).
Of these goddesses the last is allotted triple powers, and impartibly and uniformly comprehends three monads of gods. But she is called Core (κορη) through the purity of her essence, and her undefiled transcendency in her generations. She also possesses a first, middle, and last empire. And according to her summit indeed she is called Diana by Orpheus; but according to her middle, Proserpine; and according to the extremity of the order, Minerva. Likewise, according to an hyparxis transcending the other powers of this triple vivific order, the dominion of Hecate is established; but according to a middle power, and which is generative of wholes, that of Soul; and according to intellectual conversion, that of Virtue¹²⁷. Core, therefore, subsisting on high, and among the supermundane gods, uniformly extends this triple order of divinities; and together with Jupiter generates Bacchus, who impartibly presides over partible fabrication. But beneath, in conjunction with Pluto, she is particularly beheld according to the middle idiom: for it is this which, proceeding every where, imparts vivification to the last of things. Hence she is called Proserpine, because she especially associates with Pluto, and together with him orderly distributes the extremities of the universe. And according to her extremities indeed she is said to be a virgin, and to remain undefiled; but according to her middle, to be conjoined with Hades, and to beget the Furies in the subterranean regions. She therefore is also called Core, but after another manner than the supermundane and ruling Core. For the one is the connective unity of the three vivific principles; but the other is the middle of them, in herself possessing the idioms of the extremes. Hence in the Proserpine conjoined with Pluto you will find the idioms of Hecate and Minerva; but these extremes subsist in her occultly, while the idiom of the middle shines forth, and that which is characteristic of ruling soul, which in the super. mundane Core was of a ruling¹²⁸ nature, but here subsists according to a mundane idiom-
That a lover of piety to the gods ought earnestly to embrace the rectitude of divine names, lest, like those who err concerning Proserpine and Apollo, being ignorant of the analysis of names, he should be subject to the same reproof from Socrates.
That Proserpine is denominated either through judging of forms and separating them from each other, thus obscurely signifying the ablation of slaughter (δια το κρινειν τα ειδη και Χωριζειν αλληλων, ως του φονου την αναιρεσιν αινιττομενον), or through separating souls perfectly from bodies, through a conversion to things on high, which is the most fortunat e slaughter and death, to such as are worthy of it (ἣ δια το χωριζειν τας ψυχας τελεως εκ των σωματων δια της προς τα ανω επιστροφης, οπερ εστιν ευτυχεστατος φονος και θανατος τοις αξιουμενοις τουτου). But the name Φερεφαττα, Pherephatta, according to a contact with generation, is adapted to Proserpine; but according to wisdom and counsel, to Minerva. At the same time however all the appellations by which she is distinguished are adapted to the perfection of soul. On this account also she is called Proserpine, and not by the names of the extremes; since that which was ravished by Pluto is this middle; the extremes at the same time being firmly established in themselves, according to which Core is said to remain a virgin.
That very rationally after Proserpine, Plato¹²⁹ now analyzes Apollo: for there is a great communion between the Coric and the Apolloniacal series; since the former is the unity of the middle triad of rulers (i. e. of the supermundane gods), and emits from herself vivific powers; but the latter converts the solar principles to one union: and the solar principles are allotted a subsistence immediately after the vivific. Hence, according to Orpheus, when Ceres delivered up the government of Proserpine, she thus admonished her:
Αυταρ Απολλωνος θαλερον λεχος εισαναβαα,
Τεξεται αγλαα τεκνα πυριφλεγεθοντα προσωποις¹³⁰.
That is,
But next Apollo’s florid bed ascend;
For thus the god fam’d offspring shall beget;
Refulgent with the beams of glowing fire.
But how could this be the case, unless there was a considerable degree of communion between these divinities?
It is necessary, however, to know thus much concerning Apollo, that, according to the first and most natural conception, his name signifies the cause of union, and that power which collects multitude into one; and this mode of speculation concerning his name harmonizes with all the orders of the god. But Socrates alone considers his more partial powers: for the multitude of the powers of Apollo are not to be comprehended, nor described by us. For when will man, who is merely rational, be able to comprehend not only all the idioms of Apollo, but all those of any other god? Theologists indeed deliver to us a great multitude of Apolloniacal idioms; but Socrates now only mentions four of them. For the world is as it were a decad, being filled from all productive principles, receiving all things into itself, and being converted to the proper principle of the decad, of which the tetrad proximately contains the cause, but in an exempt manner, the monad. And the former without separation and occultly, but the latter with separation; just as Apollo proximately unites the multitude of mundane natures, but the demiurgic intellect exemptly. Why then does Socrates use an order of this kind? For, beginning from the medicinal power of the god, and proceeding through his prophetic and arrow-darting powers, he ends in his harmonic power. We reply, that all the energies of this god are in all the orders of beings, beginning from on high and proceeding as far as to the last of things; but different energies appear to have more or less dominion in different orders. Thus, for instance, the medicinal power of Apollo is most apparent in the sublunary region; for
There slaughter, rage, and countless ills beside,
Disease, decay, and rottenness reside¹³¹.
And as these are moved in an inordinate manner, they require to be restored from a condition contrary, into one agreeable to nature, and from incommensuration and manifold division, into symmetry and union.
But the prophetic energy of the god is most apparent in the heavens; for there his enunciative power shines forth, unfolding intelligible good to celestial natures, and on this account he revolves together with the sun, with whom he participates the same intellect in common; since the sun also illuminates whatever the heavens contain, and extends a unifying power to all their parts. But his arrow-darting energy mostly prevails among the liber- ated¹³² gods; for there, ruling over the wholes which the universe contains, he excites their motions by his rays, which are always assimilated to arrows, extirpates every thing inordinate, and fills all things with demiurgic gifts. And though he has a separate and exempt subsistence, he reaches all things by his energies.
Again, his harmonic power is more predominant in the ruling super- mundane order; for it is this divinity who, harmonizing the universe, establishes about himself according to one union the choir of the Muses, and produces by this mean, as a certain theurgist says, “the harmony of ex- ulting light.” Apollo therefore, as we have shown, is harmonic, and this is likewise the case with the other Apollos¹³³ which are contained in the earth and the other spheres; but this power appears in some places more, and in others less: These powers too subsist in the god himself in an united manner, and exempt from other natures, but in those attendants of the gods who are superior to us, divisibly, and according to participation; for there is a great multitude of medicinal, prophetic, harmonic, and arrow-darting angels, dæmons, and heroes, suspended from Apollo, who distribute in a partial manner the uniform powers of the god.
But it is necessary to consider each of these powers according to one definite characteristic; as, for instance, his harmonic power, according to its binding together separated multitude; his prophetic power, according to the enunicative; his arrow-darting power, according to its being subversive of an inordinate nature; and his medicinal power, according to its perfective energy. We should likewise speculate these characteristics differently in gods, angels, dæmons, heroes, men, animals, and plants; for the powers of the gods extend from on high to the last of things, and at the same time appear in an accommodated manner in each; and the telestic (i. e. mystic) art endeavours through sympathy to conjoin these ultimate participants with the gods. But in all these orders we must carefully observe, that this god is the cause of union to multiplied natures: for his medicinal power, which takes away the multiform nature of disease, imparts uniform health; since health is symmetry and a subsistence according to nature, but that which is contrary to nature is multifarious. Thus too, his prophetic power, which unfolds the simplicity of truth, takes away the variety of that which is false; but his arrow-darting power, which exterminates every thing furious and wild, but prepares that which is orderly and gentle to exercise dominion, vindicates to itself unity, and exterminates a disordered nature tending to multitude; and his musical power, through rhythm and harmony, places a bond, friendship, and union in wholes, and subdues the contraries to these.
And all these powers indeed subsist primarily, in an exempt manner, and uniformly in Jupiter the demiurgus of wholes, but secondarily and separately in Apollo. Hence Apollo is not the same with the demiurgic intellect; for this comprehends these powers totally and paternally, but Apollo with subjection, imitating his father; since all the energies and powers of secondary gods are comprehended in the demiurgus according to cause. And the demuirgus fabricates and adorns the universe according to all these powers, and in a collected manner; but the other deities which proceed from him co-operate with their father according to different powers.
That purification being seen not only in the medicinal, but also in the prophetic art, evinces, that the cathartic power of Apollo comprehends the two powers: for it illustrates the world with the glittering splendors of light, and purifies all material immoderation by Pæonian energies; which physicians and prophets among us imitating, the former purify bodies, and the latter through sulphureous preparations render themselves and their associates pure. For, as Timæus says, the gods purify the universe, either by fire or water; and prophets also in this respect imitate the gods. In the most sacred of the mysteries too, purifications are employed prior to initiation into them, in order to take away every thing foreign from the proposed sacred mystery. We may likewise add, that the referring multiform purifications to the one cathartic power of the gods is adapted to him. For Apollo every where unites and elevates multitude to the one, and uniformly comprehends all the modes of purification, purifying all heaven, generation, and all mundane lives, and separating partial souls from the grossness of matter. Hence the theurgist, who is the leader of the mysteries of this god, begins from purifications and sprinklings:
Αυτος δ’εν πρωταις ιερευς πυρος εργα κυβερνων,
Κυματι ραινεσθω παγερῳ βαρυηχετος αλμης.
i. e. “The priest in the first place governing the works of fire, must sprinkle with the cold water of the loud-sounding sea,” as the Oracle says concerning him. But the assertion that the god presides over simplicity according to knowledge, and unfolds truth into light, presents him to our view as analogous to the good, which Socrates celebrates in the Republic; in which place he calls the sun the progeny of the good, and says that the former is analogous to the latter. Apollo therefore being the source of union, and this to the mundane gods, is arranged analogous to the good; and through truth, he unfolds to us his similitude to it, if it be lawful so to speak. For the simple is a manifestation of the one, and the truth which subsists according to knowledge is a luminous representation of superessential truth, which first proceeds from the good. But the perpetually prevailing might of the god in the jaculation of arrows, evinces his dominion, which vanquishes every thing in the world. For on high, from the supercelestial order, he scatters the rivers of Jupiter, and pours his rays on the whole world: for his arrows obscurely signify his rays. Again, the assertion that he presides over music, represents to us that this god is the cause of all harmony, both unapparent and apparent, through his ruling supermundane powers, according to which he generates, together with Mnemosyne and Jupiter, the Muses. But he orderly disposes every thing sensible by his demiurgic powers, which the sons of theurgists denominate hands; since the energy of the harmony of sounds is suspended from the motion of the hands. He likewise orderly disposes souls and bodies through harmonic reasons, using their different powers as if they were sounds; and he moves all things harmoniously and rhythmically by his demiurgic motions. The whole of this celestial order too, and motion, exhibit the harmonious work of the god; on which account also partial souls are no otherwise perfected than through an harmonic similitude to the universe, and abandoning the dissonance arising from generation; for then they obtain the most excellent life, which is proposed to them by the god.
From discoursing about king Apollo, Plato proceeds to the Muses¹³⁴, and the name of music: for Apollo is celebrated as Musagetes; and he indeed is a monad with respect to the harmony in the world, but the choir of the Muses is the monad of all the number of the hennead (i. e. nine). From both likewise the whole world is bound in indissoluble bonds, and is one and all-perfect, through the communications of these divinities; possessing the former through the Apolloniacal monad, but its all-perfect subsistence through the number of the Muses. For the number nine, which is generated from the first perfect number (that is 3), is, through similitude and sameness, accommodated to the multiform causes of the mundane order and harmony; all these causes at the same time being collected into one summit for the purpose of producing one consummate perfection. For the Muses generate the variety of reasons with which the world is replete; but Apollo comprehends in union all the multitude of these. And the Muses give subsistence to the harmony of soul; but Apollo is the leader of intellectual and impartible harmony. The Muses distribute the phænomena according to harmonical reasons; but Apollo comprehends unapparent and separate harmony. And though both give subsistence to the same things, yet the Muses effect this according to number, but Apollo according to union. And the Muses indeed distribute the unity of Apollo; but Apollo unities harmonic multitude, which he also converts and comprehends. For the multitude of the Muses proceeds from the essence of Musagetes, which is both separate, and subsists according to the nature of the one; and their number evolves the one and primary cause of the harmony of the universe.
That such being the etymology of the name of the Muses, since Plato calls philosophy the greatest music, as causing our psychical powers to be moved harmoniously, in symphony with real beings, and in conformity to the orderly motions of the celestial orbs; and since the investigation of our own essence and that of the universe leads us to this harmony, through a conversion to ourselves and more excellent natures,—hence also we denominate the Muses from investigation. For Musagetes himself unfolds truth to souls according to one intellectual simplicity; but the Muses perfect our various energies, elevating them to an intellectual unity. For investigations have the relation of matter, with reference to the end from invention; just as multitude with respect to the one, and variety with respect to simplicity. We know, therefore, that the Muses impart to souls the investigation of truth, to bodies the multitude of powers, and that they are every where the sources of the variety of harmonies.
That Latona¹³⁵ is a vivific fountain comprehended in Ceres: and hence, according to the Grecian rites, she is worshipped as the same with Ceres, these rites evincing by this the union of the goddesses. But this goddess emits the whole of vivific light, illuminating the intellectual essences of the gods, and the orders of souls: and lastly, she illuminates the whole sensible heaven, generating mundane light, and establishing the cause of this light in her offspring, Apollo and Diana; and causes all things to glitter with intellectual and vivific light. She imparts likewise to souls the consummation of virtue, and an illumination which leads them back to the intellectual port of their father (Jupiter), hastily withdrawing them from the winding paths¹³⁶ of matter, the entanglements of vice, and the roughness of the passage over the sea of generation. It appears to me indeed that theologists, considering this, denominated her λητω, Latona, on account of her extending to souls smoothness of manners, a voluntary life, and divine gentleness and ease. For to such as raise themselves to her divinity, she imparts an ineffable energy, a blameless life, gentleness of manners, serenity, and intellectual tranquillity. Whether, therefore, she is called Leto, from a voluntary life; for λω signifies το βουλομαι, I am willing; or from το λειον, the smooth; her name will perfectly evince, through both these, the powers which she possesses. For the compelled energies of the soul take place through material roughness; and the obliquity of a life in generation diminishes the soul’s voluntary life. But an ascent to the gods imparts a smooth and gentle, instead of a hard and rough, and a voluntary, instead of a compelled life.
Why then is it necessary to call, as some do, Latona matter, as capable of being easily turned, and subsisting as an express resemblance of all forms, like a mirror receiving the representations of all things; and to say that she is the cause of oblivion to those that look into her? Why is it necessary to call Apollo harmony, as subsisting from Latona and Jupiter? For thus the god would be inseparable from matter, and not the cause of the harmony in the universe. It is better, therefore, to say, that Latona is not the receptacle of Apollo, but that she is the mother and fountain of all vivific light, which preserves all things by heat: but that Apollo, who is a separate divinity, is the supplier of all harmonic life, and of all those mundane reasons by which the universe is indissolubly bound. But you may say that Socrates derives her name from Lethe, because she peculiarly causes in souls an oblivion of evils, and of the roughness and storms in generation; of which, while the soul retains the memory, she cannot possibly establish herself in intelligibles: for memory, says Plotinus, leads to the object of memory. And as Mnemosyne excites the memory of intelligibles, so Latona imparts an oblivion of material concerns.
That of our sovereign mistress Diana¹³⁷, Plato delivers three idioms; the undefiled, the mundane, and the anagogic. And through the first of these indeed the goddess is said to be a lover of virginity; but through the second, according to which she is perfective of works (τελεσιουργος), she is said to be the inspective guardian of virtue; and through the third she is said to hate the impulses arising from generation. Of these three likewise, the first is especially adapted to the progression of the goddess, according to which she is allotted an hyparxis in the vivific triad of the supermundane gods; whether we call this deity Hecatic, as theurgists say, or Diana with Orpheus. For there being established, she is filled with undefiled powers from the gods called Amilicti¹³⁸. But she looks to the fountain of virtue, and embraces its virginity. For the virginity which is there does not proceed forth, as the Oracle says, but abiding gives subsistence to Diana, and to supermundane virtue, and is exempt from all communion, conjunction, and progression, according to generation. Hence Core also, according to the Diana and Minerva which she contains, is said to remain a virgin; but according to the prolific power of Proserpine, she is said to proceed forth, and to be conjoined with the third demiurgus, and to bring forth, as Orpheus says, “nine azure-eyed, flower-producing daughters,”
Ἐννεα θυγατερας γλαυκωπιδας ανθεσιουργους·
since the Diana and the Minerva which she contains preserve their virginity always the same. For the former of these is characterized according to her stability, but the latter according to her convertive energy. But that which is generative is allotted in her a middle order. They say too, that she aspires after virginity, since the form of her is comprehended in the vivific fountain, and she understands fontal virtue, gives subsistence to supermundane and anagogic virtue, and despises all material sexual connexion, though she inspects the fruits arising from it. She appears also to be averse to the generations and progressions of things, but to introduce perfections to them. And she gives perfection indeed to souls through a life according to virtue; but to mortal animals she imparts a restitution to form. But that there is a great union between Diana, the mundane Hecate, and Core, is evident to those that are in the least degree conversant with the writings of Orpheus; from which it appears that Latona is comprehended in Ceres, and together with Jupiter gives subsistence to Core, and the mundane Hecate. To which we may also add that Orpheus¹³⁹ calls Diana Hecate. So that it is nothing wonderful, if we should elsewhere call the Diana contained in Core, Hecate.
That Plato coarranges the mundane Bacchus¹⁴⁰ with the mundane Venus, in consequence of her love of Bacchus, and her fashioning, as an image of him, Adonis much honoured in Cilicia and Cyprus. And it is evident that a love of this kind in Venus, which is thus beneficent and providential, must be considered as exerted by a superior to an inferior divinity.
That the young man appears to inquire about our sovereign master Bacchus, as if it were about things of small importance, and on this account he is silenced¹⁴¹ by Socrates. And he does not indeed hear concerning the occult, but only the last and mundane progressions of the gods. These indeed the wise man venerates, though, as he says, they are sports, through these gods being lovers of sport. For, as he says of the terminations, of the other gods, that they are terrible, and that they avenge and punish, and thus give perfection to souls; as, for instance, that Justice follows Jupiter, the avenger of the divine law, and that this divinity is benevolent to those whose manners are orderly, and who live according to intellect, but that she is baneful to those who mingle their life with insolence and ignorance, until she has entirely subverted them, their houses, and cities;—in like manner, he venerates the terminations of Bacchus and Venus, which produce γλυκυθυμια, sweetness of sensation; every where purifying our conceptions concerning the gods, and preparing us to understand that all things look to the best end, whatever it may be. For, because the terminations of these divinities strengthen the infirmity of the mortal nature, and recall corporeal molestation, on this account the gods, the causes of these things, are φιλοπαιγμονες, lovers of sport. Hence, of statues, they make some of them laughing and dancing, and exhibiting relaxation, but others austere, astonishing, and terrible to the view, analogously to the mundane allotments of the gods.
That theologists frequently call Bacchus wine, from the last of his gifts, as, for instance, Orpheus,
Οινου παντα μελη κοσμω λαβε, και μοι ενεικε.
i. e. “Take all the members of wine (that are distributed) in the world, and bring them to me.”
But if the god is thus denominated, certainly his first and middle energies will be thus called, as well as his last; so that Socrates, now looking to this, calls the god διδοινυσος, beginning from wine, which, as we have said, manifests all the powers of the god. Thus also in the Phædrus, Socrates calls love in common great, both that which is divine, and that which is a lover of body. By this epithet wine therefore, we must understand that the idiom of a partial intellect is in common presented to our view. For the word οιουν, such as, is nothing else than intellectual form separated from a total intellect, and in consequence of this becoming participated, particular and alone. For an all-perfect intellect is all things, and energizes according to all things with invariable sameness; but a partial and participated intellect is indeed all things, but this according to one form, such as a solar, lunar, or mercurial form. This therefore, the idiom of which is to be separated from the rest, wine indicates, signifying an intellect such as, and particular (σημαινων τον οιον και τινα νουν). Since therefore every partial fabrication is suspended from the Dionysiacal monad, which distributes participated mundane intellects from total intellect¹⁴², many souls from one soul, and all sensible forms from their proper totalities; on this account theologists call both this god and all his fabrications wine: for all these are the progeny of intellect; and some things participate of the partial distribution of intellect in a more distant, but others in a nearer degree. Wine therefore energizes in things analogous to its subsistence in them: in body, indeed, after the manner of an image, according to a false opinion and imagination; but in intellectual natures, according to an intellectual energy and fabrication; since, in the laceration of Bacchus by the Titans, the heart of the god is said to have alone remained undistributed, i. e. the indivisible essence of intellect. Οτι τον δεσποτην ημων Διονυσον, οι θεολογοι πολλακις, και απο των τελευταιων αυτον δωρων οινον καλουσιν.—Οστις ως ειρηται πασων εστι δηλωτικος των του θεου δυναμεων. Ωσπερ και εν Φαιδρω τον μεγαν ερωτα κοινως λεγει, τον τε θειον, και τον φιλοσωματον. Ο ουν οινος ουτος κοινως εξακουομενος, την ιδιοτητα του μερικου νου παριστησιν ημιν. Το γαρ οιουν, ουκ αλλο τι εστιν ἢ το διηρημενον απο του ολου, και μετεχομενον ηδη νοερον ειδος, και οιον, και μονον γενομενον. Ο μεν γαρ παντελης ιους παντοτ’ (lege παντατ’) εστι και ενεργει κατα παντα ωσαυτως. Ο δε μερικος και μετεχομενος παντα μεν, αλλα καθ’ εν ειδος, οιον το ηλιακον, η το σεληνιακον, ἢ το ερμαικον. Ἐπειδη τοινυν η μεριστη δημιουργια πασα της διονυσιακης εξηρτηται μοναδος, διαιρουσα τους μεν μεθεκτους εν τω κοσμω νοας απο του ολου νου, τας δε πολλας ψυχας, απο της μιας, τα δ’ ειδη τα αισθητα παντα απο των οικειων ολοτητων, δια δη τουτο και αυτον τον θεον οινον προειρηκασιν οι θεολογαι, αυτον τε, και παντα τα δημιουργηματα αυτου. Παντα γαρ εγγονα του νου. Και τα μεν πορρωτερον, τα δ’ εγγυτερον μετεχει της μεριστης του νου διανομης. Ἀναλογως ουν εν τοις ουσιν ο οινος εγγινομενος ενεργει. Εν μεν τῳ σωματι ειδωλικως, κατα ειησιν, και φαντασιαν ψευδη. Εν δε τοις νοεροις το κατα νουν ενεργειν, και δημιουργειν. Επει και εν τη διασπαραξει των τιτανων μονη η καρδια αδιαιρετος μειναι λεγεται· τουτεστιν η αμερης του νου ουσια.
That from sportive conceptions about the gods it is possible for those to energize entheastically, or according to a divinely inspired energy, who apply themselves to things in a more intellectual manner. Thus, for instance, according to the material conceptions of the multitude, Venus derives her origin from foam; and foam corresponds to seed. Hence according to them the pleasure arising from this in coition is Venus. Who, however, is so stupid¹⁴³, as not to survey primary and eternal natures, prior to such as are last and corruptible? I will therefore unfold the divine conception respecting Venus.
They say then that the first Venus was produced from two-fold causes, the one as that through which¹⁴⁴, cooperating with her progression, as calling forth the prolific power of the father, and imparting it to the intellectual orders; but Heaven as the maker and cause unfolding the goddess into light, from his own generative abundance. For whence could that which congregates different genera, according to one desire of beauty, receive its subsistence except from the synochical power of Heaven? From the foam therefore of his own prolific parts thrown into the sea, Heaven produced this goddess, as Orpheus says. But the second Venus Jupiter produces from his own generative powers, in conjunction with Dione: and this goddess likewise proceeds from foam, after the same manner with the more ancient Venus, as Orpheus evinces. These goddesses therefore differ from each other, according to the causes of their production, their orders, and their powers. For she that proceeds from the genitals of Heaven is supermundane, leads upwards to intelligible beauty, is the supplier of an unpolluted life, and separates from generation. But the Venus that proceeds from Dione governs all the coordinations in the celestial world and the earth, binds them to each other, and perfects their generative progressions, through a kindred conjunction. These divinities too are united with each other through a similitude of subsistence: for they both proceed from generative powers; one from that of the connectedly containing power of Heaven, and the other from Jupiter the demiurgus. But the sea signifies an expanded and circumscribed life; its profundity, the universally extended progression of such a life; and its foam, the greatest purity of nature, that which is full of prolific light and power, and that which swims upon all life, and is as it were its highest flower.
That theologists especially celebrate two powers of our sovereign mistress Minerva¹⁴⁵, the defensive and the perfective, the former preserving the order of wholes undefiled, and unvanquished by matter, and the other filling all things with intellectual light, and converting them to their cause; on which account Plato also in the Timæus analogously celebrates Minerva as philopolemic, and philosophic. But three orders of this goddess are delivered by theologists; the one fontal and intellectual, according to which she establishes herself in her father Jupiter, and subsists in unproceeding union with him; but the second ranks among the supermundane gods, according to which she is present with Core, and bounds and converts all the progression of that goddess to herself. And the third is liberated, according to which she perfects and guards the whole world, and circularly invests it with her powers, as with a veil; binding together all the mundane summits, and giving subsistence to all the allotments in the Heavens, and to those which proceed into the sublunary region. Now therefore Socrates celebrates her guardian power, through the name of Pallas; but her perfec- tive power through that of Minerva. She is the cause therefore of orderly and measured motion, which she first imparts to the Curetic order, and afterwards to the other gods. For Minerva, according to this power, is the leader of the Curetes, as Orpheus says, whence also, as well as those divinities, she is adorned with empyrean arms, through which she represses all disorder, preserves the demiurgic series immovable, and unfolds dancing through rhythmical motion. She also guards reason as it proceeds from intellect; through this power vanquishing matter. For the visible region, says Timæus, is mingled from intellect and necessity, the latter being obedient to the former, and all material causes being in subjection to the will of the father. It is this goddess therefore who arranges necessity under the productions of intellect, raises the universe to the participation of Jupiter, excites and establishes it in the port of its father, and eternally guards and defends it. Hence, if the universe is said to be indissoluble, it is this goddess who supplies its permanency; and if it moves in measured motion, through the whole of time, according to one reason and order, she is the source of this supply. She watchfully surveys therefore all the fabrication of her father, and connects and converts it to him; and vanquishes all material indefiniteness. Hence she is called Victory and Health; the former because she causes intellect to rule over necessity, and form over matter; and the latter, because she preserves the universe perpetually whole, perfect, exempt from age, and free from disease. It is the property therefore of this goddess to elevate and distribute, and through an intellectual dance, as it were, to connect, establish, and defend inferior natures in such as are more divine¹⁴⁶.
Printed by R. Wilks, Chancery-lane.

## Notes

[1] Though I have already cited largely from this admirable Commentary, yet I rejoice in the opportunity which is afforded me of making the following additions from it. There is not, perhaps, among the writings of the antients any one which, on the whole, is so well calculated to lead the lover of wisdom gradually to a knowledge of the most sublime, arduous, and felicitous doctrines of the philosophy of Plato. Inestimably great are the benefits which I have derived from the study of it; and it is my earnest wish that the reader of these and the preceding extracts may be able to strengthen this testimony of its excellence by his own experience. For, if I may be allowed to prophesy, this Work, if not at present, will at some future period be the source of the greatest good to mankind, and will be admired and studied as it deserves, while the duration of writings of a different kind, though now so popular, will, when compared with the extent of this, be fleeting like that of morning dreams.
[2] Proclus here invokes his preceptor Syrianus; by which it appears that this Commentary was written after the death of that great philosopher.
[3] This concluding sentence forms the motto to this translation of Plato’s works.
[4] i. e. Literally of a beautiful and good aspect.
[5] A thing of this kind is in modern language an abstract idea. Such ideas as they are of an origin posterior, must also be subordinate to sensibles; and the soul, if she has no higher conceptions, must even be viler than matter itself; matter being the recipient of essential forms, and the soul of such as are generated from these.
[6] Viz. the good, considered as subsisting among ideas, and not as that good which is superessential, and the principle of all things.
[7] See the Timæus.
[8] For the principle so far as it is the principle ranks among all things.
[9] See the seventh Epistle of Plato.
[10] As that which is below all knowledge is an ignorance worse than knowledge, so the silence in which our ascent to the ineffable terminates is succeeded by an ignorance superior to all knowledge. Let it, however, be carefully remembered, that such an ignorance is only to be obtained after the most scientific and intellectual energies.
[11] Παν ομμα μυομεν.
[12] Vide Wolfii Anecdot. Græc. tom. iii. p. 252.
[13] Ὡς νουν is omitted in the original.
[14] This is not an interrogative sentence in the original, but certainly ought to be so.
[15] Το τριτον is, I conceive, erroneously ommitted in the original.
[16] Ἁζετο γαρ μη νυκτι θοη αποθυμια ῥεζοι. Iliad. lib. ξ. ver. 261.
[17] Την is printed instead of Γην.
[18] As the whole of the Grecian theology is the progeny of the mystic traditions of Orpheus, it is evident that the Gods which Hesiod celebrates by the epithets of Earth, Heaven, &c. cannot be the visible Heaven and Earth: for Plato in the Cratylus, following the Orphic doctrine concerning the Gods, as will appear in our notes on that dialogue, plainly shows, in explaining the name of Jupiter, that this divinity, who is subordinate to Saturn, Heaven, Earth, &c. is the artificer of the sensible universe; and consequently Saturn, Heaven, Earth, &c. are much superior to the mundane deities. Indeed, if this be not admitted, the Theogony of Hesiod must be perfectly absurd and inexplicable. For why does he call Jupiter, agreeably to Homer, (πατηρ ανδρων τε θεων τε), “father of Gods and men?” Shall we say that he means literally that Jupiter is the father of all the Gods? But this is impossible; for he delivers the generation of Gods who are the parents of Jupiter. He can, therefore, only mean that Jupiter is the parent of all the mundane Gods: and his Theogony, when considered according to this exposition, will be found to be beautifully consistent and sublime; whereas, according to modern interpretations, the whole is a mere chaos, more wild than the delirious visions of Swedenborg, and more unconnected than the filthy rant of the stool-preaching methodist. I only add, that την is erroneously printed in the Excerpta of Wolfius for γην.
[19] Φημι in the original should doubtless be φησι.
[20] Χθονον is printed for χρονον.
[21] That is, from bound and infinite.
[22] χουσωρος should be read instead of χουσωρου.
[23] Vid. Pici Opera, tom. i. p. 54.
[24] i. e. Θεοι νοητοι, νοητοι και νοεροι, νοεροι, ὑπερκοσμιοι, απολυτοι sive ὑπερουρανιοι, et εγκοσμιοι.
[25] This account of that divine order which was denominated by antient theologists intel- ligible, and at the same time intellectual, is extracted from the fourth book of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.
[26] The extracts with which the reader is here presented, comprehend nearly the whole of the Scholia of Proclus on the Cratylus. They may be justly called an incomparable treasury of theological information, since they are replete with the most mystic wisdom, and many of the most abstruse dogmas of antient theology are here most satisfactorily and perspicuously unfolded. To him also who is desirous of penetrating the depths of Grecian mythology, they will be inestimable; and genuine elucidations of many parts of Homer, of the Hymns of Orpheus, and of the Theogony of Hesiod, can alone be obtained from these Scholia. And in addition to all this, these Scholia are no less rare than valuable, since a copy of them is not to be found either in the university of Oxford or Cambridge, or in the British Museum, or in any of the universities of Scotland or Ireland; and it is seldom to be met with in the universities on the continent. My copy is a transcript of the manuscript now in the possession of Mr. Heber, of Brazen-nose college, Oxford.
[27] For an account of this dialectic, see the Parmenides, and particularly the introduction to it.
[28] See the notes on the Philebus.
[29] In the Sophista and Politicus.
[30] Almost all the paragraphs of these Scholia begin with the word ὁτι, that.
[31] That is, Immortal.
[32] That is, number according to cause, which subsists at the extremity of the intelligible order. For number, according to hyparxis, subsists at the summit of the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual order.
[33] See the Introduction to this Dialogue.
[34] The first and second of these words signify immortal; the third, having an extended duration.
[35] See my collection of these Oracles in the third volume of the Monthly Magazine.
[36] This is asserted in the Timæus.
[37] See p. 495.
[38] See the Phædrus.
[39] i. e. Through the sections of that order of gods which is denominated intelligible and at the same time intellectual.
[40] See p. 500,
[41] Viz. angels, dæmons, and heroes.
[42] Proclus here alludes to one of the Chaldæan oracles.
[43] The first effable subsists in the god Phanes, or the extremity of the intelligible order.
[44] See this explained in the notes on the Parmenides.
[45] The Iynx, Synoches, and Teletarchæ of the Chaldæans, compose that divine order, which is called by the Platonists intelligible, and at the same time intellectual. This order is celebrated by Plato in the Phædrus under the names of the supercelestial place, Heaven, and the subcelestial arch.
[46] This is one of the Chaldæan oracles.
[47] See the Timæus.
[48] See p. 500.
[49] After essential heroes, there is an order of souls who proximately govern the affairs of men, and are dæmoniacal κατα σχεσιν, according to habitude, or alliance, but not essentially. Of this kind are the nymphs that sympathize with water, and the Pans now mentioned by Proclus.
[50] See the twelfth book of the Odyssey.
[51] See p. 501.
[52] See p. 504.
[53] See p. 504.
[54] See p. 505.
[55] The souls of such children, therefore, as are punished for the crimes of their parents, are, from their coordination, naturally allied to the disposition of their parents; and through this alliance become just objects of punishment.
[56] See p. 505.
[57] That is, by the summit, or one of our nature, through which we become united with divinity.
[58] Plato, in the Politicus, thus calls the realms of generation, i. e. the whole of a visible nature.
[59] That is, intelligible intellect, the extremity of the intelligible order.
[60] That is, the divinities who compose the middle of that order of gods, which is denominated intelligible and at the same time intellectual.
[61] As what is here said from Orpheus concerning Jupiter is very remarkable, and is no where else to be found, I give the original for the sake of the learned reader. Διο και Ορφευς δημιουργουντα μεν αυτον την ουρανιαν πασαν γενεαν παραδιδωσι, και ηλιον ποιουντα και σεληνην, και τους αλλους αστῳους θεους· δημιουργουντα δε τα υποσεληνην στοιχεια, και διακρινοντα τοις ειδεσιν ατακτως εχοντα προτερον· σειρας δ’ εφισταντα θεων περι ολον τον κοσμον εις αυτον ανηρτημενας, και διαθεσμοθετουντα πασι τοις εγκοσμιοις θεοις κατ’ αξιαν διανομας της εν τῳ παντι προνοιας.
[62] Iliad. xx. v. 4.
[63] See the 14th line.
[64] Ibid. v. 32.
[65] Iliad. iv. 58.
[66] Iliad. xv. v. 187.
[67] For the Saturnian triad belongs to that order of gods which is called supermundane, and which immediately subsists after the intellectual order; so that the Jupiter who ranks at the summit of this triad is different from and inferior to the demiurgus.
[68] That is, he is not an intellect consubsistent with soul.
[69] And the duad, considered as a divine form or idea, is the sourse of fecundity.
[70] The twelve gods who first subsist in the liberated or supercelestial order, and who are divided into four triads, are Jupiter, Neptune, Vulcan; Vesta, Minerva, Mars; Ceres, Juno, Diana; and Mercury, Venus, Apollo. The first of these triads is fabricative; the second, defensive; the third, vivific; and the fourth, anagogic.
[71] See p. 506.
[72] This royal series consists of Phanes, Night, Heaven, Saturn, Jupiter, Bacchus. “Antient theologists,” says Syrianus (in his Commentary on the 14th book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics), “assert that Night and Heaven reigned, and prior to these the mighty father of Night and Heaven, who distributed the world to gods and mortals, and who first possessed royal authority, the illustrions Ericapæus:

Τοιον ελων διενειμε θεοις, θνητοισι δε κοσμον
Ου πρωτος βασιλευε περικλυτος ηρικεπαιος.

Night succeeded Ericapæus, in the hands of whom she has a septre:

Σκεπτρον εχουσ’ εν χερσιν ηρικεπαιου.

To Night, Heaven succeeded, who first reigned over the gods after mother Night:

Ος πρωτος βασιλευε θεων μετα μητερα νυκτα.

Chaos transcends the habitude of sovereign dominion: and, with respect to Jupiter, the Oracles given to him by Night manifestly call him not the first, but the fifth immortal king of the gods:

Αθανατον βασιλεα θεων πεμπτον γενεσθαι.

According to these theologists, therefore, that principle which is most eminently the first, is the one or the good, after which, according to Pythagoras, are those two principles Æther and Chaos, which are superior to the possession of sovereign dominion. In the next place succeed the first and occult genera of the gods, in which first shines forth the father and king of all wholes, and whom, on this account, they call Phanes.”
[73] Of these intellects, the first is Phanes, the second Heaven, the third Earth, and the fourth the Sub-celestial Arch, which is celebrated in the Phædrus, viz. νους νοητος ο φανης, εκφαντορικος νους ο ουρανος, συνεκτικος νους ἡ γη, τελεσιουργος δε νους ἡ ὑπ’ ουρανιος αψις.
[74] That is, of the whole intellectual order, which consists of Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter, the three Curetes, and the separating monad Ocean.
[75] See p. 507.
[76] See p. 507.
[77] Ως δ’ Ορφευς ενθεῳ στοματι λεγει, και καταπινει τον προγονον αυτου τον φανητα, και εγκολπιζεται πασας αυτου τας δυνααεις ο ζευς, και γινεται παντα νοερως, οσαπερ ην εκεινος νοητως.
[78] Διο και τρεφεσθαι φησιν αυτον ο θιολογος υπο της νυκτος· “εκ παντων δε κρονον νυξ ετρεφεν ηδ’ ατιταλλεν.”
[79] That is Phanes, intelligible intellect, or in the language of Plato, αυτοζωον, animal itself.
[80] Homer however appears to have ascended as far as to the goddess Night, or the summit of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual order. See the extracts from Damascius, in the additional notes to the Parmenides.
[81] That is to say, the first cause, and bound, which is called by Orpheus, Æther.
[82] For the character of Euthyphro, see the dialogue which bears his name. See also p. 507 of the Cratylus.
[83] See p. 508.
[84] Some of these spirits, according to Porphyry, are subject to the power of evil dæmons, as is evident from the following passage, preserved by Augustin: “Sunt spiritus terreni minimi loco terreno quodam malorum dæmonum potestati subjecti. Ab his sapientes Hebræorum * * (vid. August.) sicut audivisti divina Apollonis oracula quæ superius dicta sunt. Ab his ergo Hebræi dæmonibus pessimis et minoribus spiritibus vetabant religiosos, et ipsis vacare prohibebant: venerari autem magis cælestes deos, amplius autem venerari deum patrem. Hoc autem et dii præcipiunt, et in superioribus ostendimus, quemadmodum animadvertere ad deum monent, et illum colere ubique imperant. Verum indocti et impiæ naturæ, quibus vere fatum non concessit a diis dona obtinue, neque habere Jovis immortalis notionem, non audientes deos et divinos viros; deos quidem omnes recusaverunt, prohibitos autem dæmones non solum nullis odiis insequi, sed etiam revereri delegerunt. Deum autem simulantes se colere, ea sola per quæ deus adoratur, non agunt. Nam deus quidem utpote omnium pater nullius indiget: sed nobis est bene, cum eum per justitiam et castitatem, aliasque virtutes adoramus, ipsam vitam precem ad ipsum facientes, per imitationem et inquisitionem de ipso. Inquisitio enim purgat, imitatio deificat affectionem ad ipsum operando.” Porphyr. ap. August. de Civit. Dei. lib. xix. cap. 23. i. e. “There are terrene spirits of the lowest order, who in a certain terrene place are subject to the power of evil dæmons. From these were the wise men of the Hebrews

* * (see Augustin), as you have heard the divine oracles of Apollo above men-

tioned assert. From these worst of dæmons therefore and lesser spirits of the Hebrew, the Oracles forbid the religious, and prohibit from paying attention to them; but exhort them rather to venerate the celestial gods, and still more the father of the gods. And we have above shown how the gods admonish us to look to divinity, and every where command us to worship him. But the unlearned, and impious natures, to whom Fate has not granted truly to obtain gifts from the gods, and to have a knowledge of the immortal Jupiter,—these not attending to the gods and divine men, reject indeed all the gods, and are so far from hating prohibited dæmons, that they even choose to reverence them. But pretending that they worship god, they do not perform those things through which alone god is adored. For god indeed, as being the father of all things, is not in want of any thing; but it is well with us, when we adore him through justice and continence, and the other virtues, making our life a prayer to him, through the imitation and investigation of him. For investigation purifies, but imitation deifies the affection by energizing about divinity.”
[85] Let it however be carefully observed, that this divine cause illuminates, invigorates, and excites these circles in the most unrestrained and impassive manner, without destroying freedom of energy in the circles themselves, or causing any partial affection, sympathy or tendency in illuminating deity.
[86] See the speech of Diotima in the Banquet.
[87] Ουτω και τοις επι ΜΑΡΚΟΥ γενομενοις θεουργοις, οι θεοι ὡς νοητας και νοερας ταξεις εκφαινοντες, ονοματα των θειων διακοσμων εξαγγελτικα της ιδιοτητος αυτων παραδεδωκασιν, οις καλουντες εκεινοι τους θεους εν ταις προσηκουσαις θεραπειαις της παρ’ αυτων ευηκοιας ετυγχανον. This is a very remarkable passage, from which the antiquity of the greater part of the Chaldæan Oracles that are now extant may be ascertained. See my collection of those Oracles, in the Supplement to the 3d volume of the Monthly Magazine.
[88] Ηγνοει δε το ηρακλης ονομα, οτι επι μονου ηρμοζε του ηρακλεους, δια το την ηραν αυτῳ γενεσθαι αιτιαν των τοσουτων αγωνων, και του δια των αγωνων υστερον κλεους.
[89] Viz. Jupiter. See the Phædrus.
[90] This also has been the peculiarity of what are called the civilized nations of the earth for upwards of a thousand years!
[91] Ψυχων αν εγωγε φαιην εις αυτον τον ταρταρον, και τον αφθεγγεστατον του παντος, και ατακτοτατον επειγομενων, την τοιαυτην τολμαν, και την παραλογον ταυτην οιησιν προς τους ουρανιους υποθρασυνομενων θεους· αλλ’ ουτοι μεν εστωσαν οπου περιταχθησαν υπο της δικης. Proclus in saying this will doubtless appear in the light of a most uncharitable bigot, to most readers. It must however be observed that the doctrine of eternal punishment has no place in the Pagan creed; and that, according to the same creed, divinity benevolently punishes the offending soul, in order to purify it from guilt.
[92] See page 508.
[93] Θοας γαρ αυτας και τα λογια καλει· και προιουσας απο του πατρος θεειν επ’ αυτον. By the Oracles, Proclus means the Chaldæan.
[94] See p. 510.
[95] According to the Chaldæans there are seven worlds, one empyrean and the first; after this three ethereal; and then three material worlds, which consist of the inerratic sphere, the seven planetary spheres, and the sublunary region. This last is called by them the hater of life, containing likewise in itself matter, which they call a profundity.
[96] Viz. Vulcan.
[97] See p. 510.
[98] Οτι το εν τῃ αρχαιά φονη τους δαιμονας, δαμονας λεγεσθαι, δηλοι οτι τῳ ᾱ, αντι της ᾱῑ εχρωντο.
[99] See p. 515.
[100] See this explained in the notes on the Parmenides.
[101] See p. 517.
[102] That is to say, it is false to assert of intellectual and divine natures, that they are in a perpetual flux; for they are eternally stable themselves, and are sources of stability to other things.
[103] Gesner, misled by Patricius, has inserted these lines among the Orphic fragments, in his edition of the works of Orpheus.
[104] See p. 517.
[105] Proclus here means that there is the same analogy between Saturn, Rhea, and Jupiter, as in the intelligible triad, between father, power, and intellect.
[106] Οτι ωνομασται η Τηθυς παρα το διαττομενον και ηθουμενον, οιον Διατηθυς, και αφαιρησει των πρωτων δυσσυλλαβων Τηθυς.
[107] Iliad xv. ver. 187.
[108] Ibid. 189.
[109] See the Theogony of Hesiod, v. 176, &c.
[110] Proclus here alludes to the following Orphic verses cited by him in his Commentary on the Timæus, lib. v. p. 296.

Ενθ’ ουν τ’ωκεανος μεν, ενι μεγαροισιν εμιμνεν
Ορμαινων ποτερωσε νοον τραποι, ηε πατερα
Ον γυωση τε βιης, και ατασθαλα λωβησαιτο
Συν κρονω, ηδ’ αλλοις αδελφοις, οι πεπιθοντο
Μητρι φιλη, η τους γε λιπων, μενει ενδον εκηλος·
Πολλα δε πορφυρων, μενει ημερος εν μεγαροισι
Σκυζομενος τη μητρι, κασιγνητοισι δε μαλλον.

i. e. “But Ocean remained within the ample house, considering how he should act, whether he should deprive his father of his strength, and basely injure him, together with Saturn and the rest of his brethren, who were obedient to their dear mother; or, whether leaving these, he should stay quietly at home. After much deliberation, he remained quietly at home, being angry with his mother, but more so with his brothers.”
[111] That is, of the first triad of the supermundane, which subsists immediately after the intellectual order.
[112] See p. 518.
[113] Hom. Iliad.
[114] See p. 518.
[115] Ibid. 519.
[116] Ibid. 520.
[117] See p. 520.
[118] That is, the ascent of the soul may either be considered as taking place while she is ascending to true being, or as that superior energy which she exerts after she has ascended.
[119] This Orphic fragment is not to be found in Gesner’s collection of the Orphic remains.
[120] See page 521.
[121] Because Night subsists at the summit of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual order, and is wholly absorbed in the intelligible.
[122] That is, according to one of the Chaldæan Oracles.
[123] These verses likewise are not in Gesner’s collection.
[124] Iliad. xiv. ver. 328.
[125] See p. 521.
[126] Iliad. xviii. ver. 240.
[127] Proclus says this conformably to the theology of the Chaldæans: for he informs us in his 6th book on the Theology of Plato, p. 372, that, according to that theology, the first monad of the vivific triad is Hecate, the second Soul, and the third Virtue.
[128] That is, of a supermundane nature: for the ruling are the supermundane gods.
[129] See p. 522.
[130] These vsrses are not in Gesner’s collection of the Orphic fragments.
[131] These lines are from Empedocles, and in the original are as follow: Ενθα κοτος τε φονος τε ηαι αλλων εθνεα κηρων, Αυχμηραι τε νοσοι,και σηψεις, εργα τε ρευστα.
[132] For an account of this order of gods, see the notes on the Parmenides.
[133] See the Introduction to the Timæus.
[134] See p. 527.
[135] See p. 527.
[136] Of these winding paths the Dedalean labyrinth is an image.
[137] See page 527.
[138] That is, the Corybantes.
[139] Ηδ’ αρα εκατη παιδος μελη αυθι λυπουσα Λητους ευπλοκαμοιο κορη προσεβησατ’ ολυμπον.
[140] See p. 527.
[141] This is implied by Socrates telling him that he inquires about great things.
[142] With respect to intellect, it is necessary to inform the reader, that one kind is imparticipable and total, such as all intellects unconnected with soul; but another participable indeed, but essentially so, such as the mundane intellect, and the intellects of all the mundane gods and beneficent dæmons; but a third is participable, and subsists as a habit; and to this class our intellects belong.
[143] A countless multitude we may say, O Proclus, of the present day are thus stupid; and few, very few indeed, have entertained a different opinion for upwards of a thousand years.
[144] This cause is Saturn, who according to the fable cut off the genital parts of Heaven. See the Theogony of Hesiod.
[145] See p. 529.
[146] These admirable Scholia on the Cratylus end here; being unfortunately, like most both of the published and unpublished writings of Proclus, incomplete. These very Scholia too appear to be nothing more than extracts from a copious commentary of Proclus which is lost.