powers of colons, directly shadowing forth divine intellections through such a form of words. But in the words before us he omits no transcendency either of the grand and robust in the sentences and the names adapted to these devices, or of magnitude in the conceptions and the figures which give completion to this idea. Besides this, also, much distinction and purity, the unfolding of truth, and the illustrious prerogatives of beauty, are mingled with the idea of magnitude, this being especially adapted to the subject things, to the speaker, and to the hearers.
For the objects of this speech are, the perfection of the universe, an assimilation to allperfect animal [i. e. to its paradigm], and the generation of all mortal animals; the maker of all things, at the same time, presubsisting and adorning all things through exempt transcendency; but the secondary fabricators adding what was wanting to the formation of the universe. All, therefore, being great and divine, as well the persons as the things, and shining with beauty and a distinction from each other, Plato has employed words adapted to the form of the speech.
" Homer, also, when energizing enthusiastically, represents Jupiter speaking, converting to himself the twofold coordinations of Gods ; becoming himself, as it were, the centre of all the divine genera in the world, and making.all things obedient to his intellection. But at one time he conjoins the multitude of Gods with himself without a medium, and at another through Themis as the medium.
But Jove to Themis gives command to call
The Gods to council.
" This Goddess pervading everywhere collects the divine number, and converts it to the demiurgic monad. For the Gods are both separate from mundane affairs, and eternally provide for all things, being at the same time exempt from them through the highest transcendency, and extending their providence everywhere. For their unmingled nature is not without providential energy, nor is their providence mingled with matter. Through transcendency of power they are not filled with the subjects of their government, and through beneficent will, they make all things similar to themselves; in permanently abiding, proceeding, and in
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being separated from all things, being similarly present to all things.
Since, therefore, the Gods that govern the world, and the daemons the attendants of these, receive after this manner unmingled purity, and providential administration from their father; at one time he converts them to himself without a medium, and illuminates them with a separate, unmingled, and pure form of life. Whence also I think he orders them to be separated from all things, to remain exempt in Olympus, and neither convert themselves to Greeks nor Barbarians; which is just the same as to say, that they njust transcend the twofold orders of mundane natures, and abide immutably in undefiled intellection. But at another time he converts them to a providential attention to secondary natures, through Themis, and calls upon them to direct the mundane battle, and excites different Gods to different works. These divinities, therefore, especially require the assistance of Themis, who contains in herself the divine laws, according to which providence is intimately connected with wholes. Homer, therefore, divinely delivers twofold speeches, accompanying the twofold energies of Jupiter; but Plato, through this one speech, comprehends those twofold modes of discourse. For the Demiurgus renders the Gods unmingled with secondary natures, and causes them to provide for, and give existence to, mortals. But he orders them to fabricate in imitation of himself: and in an injunction of this kind, both these are comprehended, viz. the unmingled through the imitation of the father, for he is separate, being exempt from mundane wholes ; but providential energy, through the command to fabricate, nourish, and increase mortal natures. Or rather, we may survey both in each; for in imitating the demiurgus, they provide for secondary natures, as he does for the immortals; and in fabricating they are separate from the things fabricated. For every demiurgic cause is exempt from the things generated by it; but that which is mingled with and filled from them is imbecil and inefficacious, and is unable to adorn and fabricate them.
And thus much in common respecting the whole of the speech.
" Let us then, in the first place, consider what we are to understand by "Gods of Gods" and what power it possesses: for that this invocation
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is collective and convertive of multitude to its monad, that it calls upwards the natures which have proceeded to the one fabrication of them, and inserts a boundary and divine measure in them, is clear to those who are not entirely unacquainted with suchlike discourses. But how those that are allotted the world by their father are called Gods of Gods, and according to what conception, cannot easily be indicated to the many; for there is an unfolding of one divine intelligence in these names."
Proclus then proceeds to relate the explanations given by others of these words; which having rejected as erroneous, he very properly, in my opinion, adopts the following, which is that of his preceptor, the great Syrianus. " All the mundane Gods are not simply Gods, but they are wholly Gods which participate: for there is in them that which is separate, unapparent, and supermundane, and also that which is the apparent image of them, and has an orderly establishment in the world. And that, indeed, which is unapparent in them is primarily a God, this being undistributed and one: but this vehicle which is suspended from their unapparent essence is secondarily a God. For if, with respect to us, man is twofold, one inward, according to the soul, the other apparent, which we see, much more must both these be asserted of the mundane Gods; since divinity also is twofold, one unapparent and the other apparent. This being the case, we must say, that " Gods of Gods" is addressed to all the mundane divinities, in whom there is a connection of unapparent with apparent Gods: for they are Gods that participate. In short, since twofold orders are produced by the Demiurgus, some being supermundane, and others mundane, and some being without, and others with participation
[of body], if the Demiurgus now addressed the supermundane orders, he would have alone said to them," Gods:" for they are without participation [i. e. without the participation of body], are separate and unapparent:— but since the speech is to the mundane Gods, he calls them Gods of Gods, as being participated by other apparent divinities. In these also daemons are comprehended ; for they also are Gods, as to their order with respect to the Gods, whose peculiarity they indivisibly participate.
Thus also Plato, in the Phaedrus, when he calls the twelve Gods the
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leaders of daemons, at the same time denominates all the attendants of the divinities Gods, adding, "and this is the life of the Gods." All these, therefore, are Gods of Gods, as possessing the apparent connected with the unapparent, and the mundane with the supermundane.
CHAPTER VI.
AND thus much concerning the whole conception of the speech. It is necessary, however, since we have said the words are demiurgic or fabricative, that they should be received in a manner adapted to demiurgic providence. But if these words are intellectual conceptions, and the intellectual conceptions themselves are productions, what shall we say the demiurgus effects in the multitude of mundane Gods by the first words of his speech ? Is it not evident we must say that this energy of his is deific? For this one divine intellectual conception which is the first and most simple proceeding from the demiurgus, deifies all the recipients of it, and makes them demiurgic Gods, participated Gods, and Gods unapparent, and at the same time apparent. For this, as has been said, is the meaning of "Gods of Gods." For the term Gods is not alone adapted to them; since they are not alone unapparent; nor the word Gods twice enunciated, as if someone should say Gods and Gods; for every bond of this kind is artificial, and foreign from divine union.
It is also necessary to observe that every mundane God has an animal suspended from him, according to which he is denominated mundane.
He has likewise a divine soul, which rules over its depending vehicle; and an immaterial and separate intellect, according to which he is united to the intelligible, in order that he may imitate the world in which all these are contained. And by the animal suspended from him, he is indeed a part of the sensible universe; but by intellect he belongs to an intelligible essence; and by soul he conjoins the impartible life which is
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in him, with the life that is divisible about body. Such a composition, however, being triple in each mundane God, neither does Plato here deliver the demiurgus speaking to intellects; for intellects subsist in unproceeding union with the divine intellect, and are entirely unbegotten; but soul is the first of generated natures, and a little after the demiurgus addresses these when he says, "since ye are generated." Nor does he represent the demiurgus as speaking only to the animals which are suspended from the souls of these Gods; for they pertain to corporeal natures, and are not adapted to enjoy the one demiurgic intelligence, without a medium. Nor yet does he represent him as speaking to souls by themselves ; for they are entirely immortal; but the Gods whom he now addresses are said by him not to be in every respect immortal.
If therefore it be requisite for me to say what appears to me to be the truth, the words of the demiurgus are addressed to the composite from soul and animal, viz. to the animal which is divine, and partakes of a soul. For intellect does not know the demiurgic will through reason, but through intelligence, or in other words, through intellectual vision; nor through conversion, but through a union with that intellect which ranks as a whole, as being itself intellect, and as it were of the same colour with it. But soul as being reason, and not intellect itself, requires appropriately to its essence the energy of reason, and a rational conversion to the intelligible. To these, therefore, as being essentially rational, and as being essentialized in reasons, the demiurgic speech proceeds. And it is adapted to them in a twofold respect; first, as being participated by bodies; for they are Gods of those Gods; and secondly, as participating of intellects; for they are Gods of [viz. derived from] intellects which are also Gods. And they participate of intellects, and are participate by bodies. Hence the assertions that they are generated, and that they are not entirely immortal, and every thing else in the speech, are appropriately adapted to them, so far as they have a certain coordination and connection with mundane natures, and so far
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as they are participated by them. But the mandates "learn and generate," and' every thing else of this kind which is more divine than generated natures, are adapted to them as intellectual essences.
Let us in the next place attend to the meaning of the words, " Of whom I am the demiurgus and father, whatever is generated by me is indissoluble, such being my will in its fabrication." Plato then appears to give a triple division to the energy of the one demiurgus in his production of the junior Gods, viz. a division into the deific, into that which imparts connection and into that which supplies a similitude to animal itself. For the address of the demiurgus evinces those to be Gods that proceed from him.
But the assertions respecting the indissoluble and dissoluble, by defining the measure of a medium between these, impart a distribution and connexion commensurate to the order of the mundane Gods.
And the words calling on them to the fabrication
of mortal natures, cause them to be the sources of perfection to the universe, and the fabricators of secondary animals, conformably to the imitation of the paradigm. But through these three energies the demiurgus elevates his offspring to all the intelligible Gods, and establishes them in the intelligible triads. In the one being indeed, [or the summit of these triads] through the first of these energies; for that is primarily deified, in which the one is deity, but being is the first participant of it.
For the one itself is alone deity, without habitude to any thing, and is not participable; but the one being in which there is the first participation is God of God. And being is deity as the summit of all things; but the one of it is deity as proceeding from the one itself, which is primarily God. But through the second of these energies the demiurgus establishes his offspring in the second of the intelligible triads, i. e. in eternity itself. For eternity is the cause of this indissoluble permanency to every thing which continues perpetually undissolved.
Hence all mundane natures are bound according to the demiurgic will, and have something of the indissoluble through the participation of him ; the natures which are primarily indissoluble being different from these, and those that are truly immortal subsisting for his sake. And he establishes them in allperfect animal [or the third, of the intelligible
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triads] through the third of these energies. For to this the vivific assimilates the mundane Gods, and inserts in them the paradigms of animals which they generate.
And this, indeed, will be one scope of generation, the converting and perfecting the proceeding multitude of the Gods.
But after the one there will be a triple design, which establishes them in the three intelligible orders.
This second demiurgic intelligence, therefore, after the first which is deific, illuminates the mundane Gods with a firm establishment, an immutable power, and an eternal essence, through which the whole world, and all the divine allotments subsist always the same, participating through the father of an immutable nature and undecaying power.
For every thing which is generated from an immoveable cause, is indissoluble and immutable; but all the progeny of a moveable cause are moveable.
Hence among mundane natures, such as proceed from the demiurgic cause alone, in consequence of being generated according to an invariable sameness are permanent, and are exempt from every mutable and variable essence. But such as proceed both from this cause, and from other moveable principles, are indeed immutable so far as they proceed from the demiurgus, but mutable so far as they proceed from the latter. For those natures which the demiurgus alone generates, these he fabricates immutable and indissoluble, both according to their own nature, and according to his power and will.
For he imparts to them a guardian and preserving power, and he connects their essence in a manner transcendent and exempt. For all things are preserved in a twofold respect, from the power which he contains, and from his providential goodness, which is truly able and willing to preserve every thing which may be lawfully perpetually saved. The most divine of visible natures therefore, are, as we have said, from their own nature indissoluble; but they are likewise so from the demiurgic power which pervades through all things, and eternally connects them.
For this power is the guard and the divine law which connectedly contains all things.
But a still greater and more principal cause than these is the demiurgic will which employs this power in its productions. For what is superior to goodness, or what bond is more perfect than this, which imparts by illumination
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union, connects an eternal essence, and is the bound and measure of all things; to which also the demiurgus now refers the cause of immutable power, saying, " such being my will in its fabrication" For he established his own will as a guard over bis own proper works, as that which gives union, connexion and measure to the whole of things.
Who the demiurgus, however, is, and who father is, has been unfolded by us before, and will be now also concisely shown. There are then these four; father alone; maker alone; father and maker; maker and father. And father indeed is aether [or bound] being the first procession from the one. Father and maker is the divinity who subsists according to the intelligible paradigm [at the extremity of the intelligible order,]
and whom Orpheus says, the blessed Gods call Phanes Protogonus.
But maker and father is Jupiter, who is now called by himself the demiurgus, but whom the Orphic writers would call the father of works.
And maker alone, is the cause of partible fabrication,1 as the same writers would say. To father alone, therefore, all intelligible, intellectual, supermundane and mundane natures are in subjection. To father and maker, all intellectual, supermundane, and mundane natures are subor
dinate. To maker and father who is an intellectual deity, supermundane and mundane natures are subservient. But to maker alone, mundane natures alone are in subjection. And all these particulars we learn from the narration of Orpheus; for according to each peculiarity of the four there is a subject multitude of Gods.
1 This divinity is Vulcan.
CHAPTER VII.
IN the next place, the demiurgus says " Every thing, therefore, which is bound is dissoluble, but to be willing to dissolve that, which is
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beautifully harmonized and well composed, is the province of an evil nature." It is requisite then to consider how the dissoluble and indissoluble are asserted of the.Gods, and to conjoin proper modes of solution with appropriate bonds. For every thing is not bound after a similar manner, nor is that which is bound in one way, dissolved in different ways.
But that which is in a certain respect bound, has also its dissolution according to this mode. That which is in every respect bound, is likewise in every respect dissolved. And that which is bound by itself is also by itself dissolved.
But that which is bound by something different from itself, has also on that its dissolution depending. That likewise which is bound in time, is also dissolved according to time.
But that which is allotted a perpetual bond, must also be said to be perpetually dissolved. For in short, dissolution is conjoined with every bond. For a bond is not union without multitude; since the one does not require a bond. Nor is it an assemblage of many and different things, no longer preserving their characteristic peculiarities. For a thing of this kind is confusion ; and that which results from them is one thing, consisting of things corrupted together, but does not become bound. For it is necessary that things that are bound should remain as they are, but not be bound when corrupted. Hence a bond then alone takes place, when there are many things, and which are preserved, having one power connective and collective of them, whether this power be corporeal or incorporeal. If this, however, be the case, things that are bound are united through the bond, and separated, because each preserves its own proper nature.
Every where, therefore, as we have said, a bond has also dissolution connected with it. Bonds, however, and their dissolutions differ in subsisting in a certain respect, and simply, from themselves, and from others, according to time, and perpetually. For in these their differences consist. We must not, therefore, wonder if the same thing is both dissoluble and indissoluble; and if it is in a certain respect indissoluble, and in a certain respect dissoluble. So that the works of the father, if they are indeed indissoluble, are so, as not to be dissolved according to time. But they are dissoluble, as having together with
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a bond, a separation of the simple things of which they consist, according to the definite causes of things that are bound, existing in him that binds. For as that which is selfsubsistent is said to be so in a twofold respect; one, as supplying all things from itself alone, but another, as subsisting indeed from itself, and also from another which is the cause of it, thus also the indissoluble is so, from another, and from itself; just as that which is moved is twofold, and subsists in a similar manner.
To these two modes, however, two modes of dissolution are also opposed; viz. that which is dissoluble from another and from itself is opposed to that which is indissoluble from another and from itself.
And this, indeed, is dissoluble in itself, as consisting of things that are separate. But in consequence of having in something else prior to itself the causes of its subsistence, by this cause, and according to this mode alone it becomes dissoluble. Again, that which is simply dissoluble in a twofold respect, and which contains in itself the cause of its dissolution, and also receives it from another, is opposed to that which is simply indissoluble in a twofold respect, from itself and from another. These, therefore, ale four in number, viz. that which is simply indissoluble from another and from itself. And again, that which is indissoluble after a certain manner in a twofold respect; that which is dissoluble after a certain manner in a twofold respect; and that which is dissoluble simply from itself, and from another. Of these four, however, the first pertains to intelligibles; for they are indissoluble, as being entirely simple, and receiving no composition or dissolution whatever. But the fourth belongs to mortal natures, which are dissoluble from themselves and from others, as consisting of many things, and being composed by their causes in such a way, as to be at a certain time dissolved. And the middles pertain to the mundane Gods; for the second and the third of these four concur with them. For after a certain manner, these as being the works of the father are indissoluble; and they are saved from themselves
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and through his will. And again, they are in a certain respect dissoluble, because they are bound by him ; and he contains the productive principle of those simple natures from which they are composed. Every thing, therefore, which is bound is dissoluble; and this is also the case with the works of the father. For these are, all bodies, the composition of animals, and the number of participated souls. But intellects which ride as it were in souls as in a vehicle, cannot be called the works of the father; for they were not generated, but were unfolded into light in an unbegotten manner, as if fashioned within the adyta of his essence, and not proceeding out of them. For there are no paradigms of these, but of middle and last natures; since soul is the first of images. But the wholes such as animals, the participants of soul and intellect, and generated natures, derive their subsistence from intellectual paradigms, of which animal itself is the comprehending cause.
Bodies, therefore, are bound through analogy ; for this is the most beautiful bond of them.
But animals are bound with animated bonds. And souls which contain something of a partible nature are bound by media, [viz. by geometrical, arithmetical and harmonical ratios ;] for Plato calls these and all the productive principles of which the soul consists, bonds. Hence the indissoluble in the mundane Gods subsists according to nature ; for each of them is generated indissoluble; such being the works of the father through the power, which he contains. They arc also indissoluble from the demiurgic will, since they are of a composite nature, and possess the indissoluble with a bond. But there is likewise in a certain respect a dissolution of them, so far as they consist of things of a simple nature, of which the father contains in himself the definite causes. At one and the same time, therefore, they are indissoluble and dissoluble. They are not, however, so indissoluble as the intelligible ; for that is indissoluble through transcendency of simplicity.
But these are at the same time indissoluble and dissoluble, as consisting of simple natures, and as being perpetually bound. For all the natures that are bound being dissoluble, such as are perpetual, possessing through the whole of time, beauty from the intelligible, divine union, and demiurgic harmony, are indissoluble. But mortal natures are dissoluble alone, because they are connected with the deformity and inaptitude of matter. And the former indeed are beautifully harmonized through the union inserted in them by their harmonizing cause; but this is not the case with the latter, on account of the multitude of causes which no longer insert in them a similar union; for their union is dissipated through the multitude which is mingled in their composition: so that they are very properly allotted a remitted harmony.
Hence, every thing which is bound is dissoluble. But one thing is thus dissoluble and indissoluble, and another is dissoluble only, just as the intelligible is alone indissoluble. Why, therefore, is that which is primarily bound at one and the same time dissoluble and indissoluble? Because it is beautifully harmonized, and is well composed. For from being well composed it obtains union ; since goodness is unific. But from the intelligible it obtains the beautifully; for from thence beauty is derived. And from fabricating power it obtains harmony; for this is the cause of the Muses, and is the source of harmonical arrangement to mundane natures. Hence we again have the three causes, the final through the well, the paradigmatic through the beautifully; and the demiurgic through the harmonized. But it is necessary that a composition of this kind, harmonized by the one fabricating power, filled with divine beauty, and obtaining a boniform union, should be indissoluble; for the demiurgus says, that to dissolve it is the province of an evil nature.
Moreover, prior to this Plato had said, that the universe is indissoluble except by him by whom it was bound. If, however, it is entirely impossible for the universe to be dissolved by any other, but the father alone is able to dissolve it, and it is impossible for him to effect this, for it is the province of an evil nature,—it is impossible for the universe to be dissolved. For either he must dissolve it, or some other. But if
some other, who is it that is able to offer violence to the demiurgus ?
For it is impossible that a dissolution of it should be effected, except by him that bound it. But if he dissolves it, how being good, can he dissolve that which it beautifully harmonised and well composed. For that which is subversive of these, is productive of evil; just as that which is subversive of evil is allotted a beneficent nature. Hence, there is an equal necessity that the demiurgus should be depraved, if it be lawful so to speak, or that this world should be dissolved, [viz. each of these is equally impossible.] Such, therefore, is the necessity which Plato assigns to the incorruptibility of the universe. Hence, that Plato gives the indissoluble to the composition of the mundane Gods, he clearly manifests when he orders them to bind mortal natures, not with those indissoluble bonds with which they are connected. For if the connective bonds of these Gods are indissoluble, they themselves must be essentially indissoluble. Here, however, he says that they are not in every respect indissoluble. It is evident, therefore, from both these assertions, that they are indissoluble, and at the same time dissoluble, and that they are not in every respect indissoluble, in consequence of their being appropriately bound. But if these things are true, there is every necessity that the dissolution of them should be very different from that which we call corruption. For that which is dissoluble after such a manner as the corruptible, not being indissoluble, is so far from being not in every respect indissoluble, that it is in every respect dissoluble. Hence it is not proper to say that the mundane Gods are of themselves corruptible, but remain incorruptible through the will of the father; but we ought to say that they are in their own nature incorruptible.
Chapter VIII.
In the next place let us attend to the meaning of the following part of the speech of the demiurgus to the mundane Gods, at beautifully unfolded by Proclus: "Hence so far as you are generated, you are not immortal, nor in every respect indissoluble, yet you shall never be dissolved, nor become subject to the fatality of death; my will being a much greater and more excellent bond than the vital connectives with which you were bound at the commencement of your generation." Since all the mundane Gods to whom these words are addressed consist of divine souls, and animals suspended from them, or in other words, since they are participated souls, and since the demiurgus denominates them indissoluble and at the same time dissoluble, in the way above explained, he now wishes to collect in one point of view, and into one truth, all that he had said separately about them. For at one and the same time he takes away from them the immortal and the indissoluble, and again confers these on them through a subversion of their opposites. For media are allotted this nature, not receiving the nature of the extremes, and appearing to comprehend the whole of both. Just as if some one should call the soul impartible and at the same time partible, as consisting of both, and neither impartible, nor partible, as being different from the extremes. For see how a middle of this kind may be surveyed in the mundane Gods.
That is principally and primarily called immortal, which supplies itself with immortality ; since that also is primarily being which is being from itself; intellect which is intellect from itself; and one which is from itself one. For everywhere that which primarily possesses any thing is such from itself; since if it were not so from itself but from another, that other would be primarily, either intellect, or life, or the one, or something else ; and either this would be primarily so, or if there is nothing primarily, the ascent will be to infinity. Thus therefore, that is truly immortal, which is immortal from itself, and which imparts to itself immortality. But that which is neither vital according to the whole of itself, nor selfsubsistent, nor possesses immortality from itself, is not primarily immortal. Hence as