The divine Jamblichus then asserts that Jupiter is the perfector of all generation ; but that Juno is the cause of power, connexion, plenitude and life to all things; and that the brethren of them are those that communicate with them in the fabrication of generation, being also themselves intellects, and receiving a completion according to a perfection and power similar to them. But Theodorus, again dividing the life which animates the total in habitude, and forming it as he is accustomed to do into triads, calls Jupiter the power that governs the upper region as far as to the air; but Juno the power who is allotted the aerial part of [209]
the world ; and the brethren of them those that give completion to the remaining parts. For Jupiter is the essential of the soul that subsists in a material habit, because there is nothing more vital than essence. But Juno is the intellectual part of such a soul, because the natures on the earth are governed by the productive principles proceeding from the air.
And the other number is the psychical distributed into particulars.
We, however, consequently to what has been before asserted, say, that according to Plato there are many orders of Jupiter. For one is the demiurgus, as it is written in the Cratylus; another, is the first of the Saturnian triad, as it is asserted in the Gorgias ; another is the liberated, as it is delivered in the Phaedrus; and another is the celestial, whether in the inerratic sphere, or among the planets. Moreover, as the first Jupiter produced into the visible fabrication the power of his father, which was concealed in the unapparent, being excited to this by his mother Rhea; after the same manner the Jupiter delivered here, who is the fabricator of generation, causes the unapparent divisions and separations of forms made by Saturn to become apparent; but Rhea calls them forth, into motion and generation; and Phorcys inserts them in matter, produces sensible natures, and adorns the visible essence, in order that there may not only be divisions of productive principles in natures and in souls, and in intellectual essences prior to these, but likewise in sensibles. For this is the peculiarity of fabrication. And if it be requisite to speak what appears to me to be the truth, Saturn indeed produces intellectual sections, but Rhea such as are psychical, and Phorcys such as are physical. For all spermatic productive principles are under nature.
But Jupiter adorning sensible and visible sections, gives a specific distinction to such beings in the sublunary region as are totally vital, and causes them to be moved. Since, however, these sensible forms which are generated and perfected, are multiformly evolved, being moved and changed according to allvarious evolutions, on this account, the queen Juno is conjoined with Jupiter, giving perfection to this motion
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of visible natures, and to the evolution of forms. Hence fables represent her as at one time sending mania to certain persons, but ordering others to undergo severe labours, in order that through intellect being present with all things, and partial souls energizing divinely both theoretically and practically, every progression, and all the generation of the sublunary region may obtain complete perfection.
Such, therefore, being the nature of this duad, there are also other demiurgic powers which triply divide the apparent world of generation ; one of these being allotted the government of air; another, that of water; and another that of earth, conformably to demiurgic allotments. Hence they are said to be the brothers of these, because they also preside over the visible fabrication. And farther still, there are others the progeny of these; which is the last progression of the divinities mentioned in this place by Plato. Hence, they are delivered anonymously; Plato by this indicating the diminution of it as far as to the last division : For as in the Gods that are above the world, the partible proceeds from the total fabrication, and the series of kings terminates in this; after the same manner also among the sublunary Gods, the progeny of Jupiter proceed from the Jovian order; among which progeny, likewise, is the choir of partible fabrication. For the beforementioned demiurgi producing sensibles totally, it is necessary that those deities should have a subsistence who distribute different powers and peculiarities to different natures, and divide the sublunary generation into multitude. Hence Plato alone denominates them others, and does not employ the expressions such as, and all, because they associate with allvarious diversity.
With respect, therefore, to this ennead of Gods, Heaven terminates, Earth corroborates, and Ocean moves all generation. But Tethys establishes every thing in its proper motion; intellectual essences in intellectual; middle essences in psychical; and such as are corporeal in physical, motion; Ocean at the same time collectively moving all things.
Saturn alone divides intellectually; Rhea vivifies; Phorcys distributes spermatic productive principles; Jupiter perfects things apparent from
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such as are unapparent; and Juno evolves according to the allvarious mutations of visible natures. And thus through this ennead all the sublunary world derives its completion, and is fitly arranged; divinely indeed from the Gods, but angelically, as we say, from angels, and daemoniacally from daemons; the Gods indeed subsisting about bodies, souls and intellects; but angels exhibiting their providence about souls and bodies; and daemons being distributed about the fabrication of nature, and the providential care of bodies. But again, the number of the ennead is adapted to generation. For it proceeds from the monad as far as to the extremities without retrogression;1 which is the peculiarity of generation. For reasons (i. e. productive principles) fall into matter, and are unable to convert themselves to the principles of their existence.
1 The meaning of Proclus in asserting that the ennead proceeds from the monad as far as to the extremities without retrogression is as follows: The ennead, according to the Pythagoreans, circulates all numbers within itself, and there can be no number beyond it. For the natural progression of numbers is as far as to 9, but after it their retrogression takes place. For 10 becomes as it were again the monad. Thus, if from each of the numbers 10, 11,12, 13, 14, 15,16, 17,18, and 19, the number 9 is subtracted, the numbers that remain will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 9,10. And vice versa, the progression will receive an increase by the addition of 9. For, if to each of the numbers 1,2, 3, 4, 5, &c. 9 is added, the numbers produced will be 10, 11, 12, 13, &c.
Likewise by subtracting from 20 twice 9, from 30 thrice 9, from 40 four times 9, from 50 five times 9
etc., the numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, &c will be produced. By taking likewise from 100 eleven times 9, we again return to the monad. And after the same manner we may proceed to infinity.
Hence it is not possible there should be any elementary number beyond the ennead. Hence too the Pythagoreans, called it Ocean and the Horizon, because all numbers are comprehended by and revolve within it. On this account likewise, it was called by them Halios, and Concord and Perseia because it congregates all numbers, and collects them into one, and does not permit the conspiration of the numbers beyond it to be dissipated. Vid.
Anonym. in opere quod inscripsit ta theologoumena tes arithmetikes.
Moreover, the duad is triadic ; for three dyadic orders were assumed; viz. Heaven and Earth; Ocean and Tethys; Jupiter and Juno. And this last duad ranks as the fourth progression, because prior to it, is the triad Phorcys, Saturn, and Rhea ; which manifests the complication here, of the perfect and the imperfect, and of bound with infinity. For all celestial natures are definite, and as Aristotle says, are always in the end.
But things in generation proceed from the imperfect to the perfect, and
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receive the same boundary indefinitely. Besides this, the tetrad arising from the generation of these divinities is adapted to the orders of the fabricators of the sublunary region; in order that they may contain multitude unitedly, and the partible impartibly ; and also to the natures that exist in generation. For the sublunary elements are four; the seasons according to which generation is evolved are four; and the centres are four. And in short, there is an abundant dominion of the tetrad in generation.
Why, however, it may be said, does Plato comprehend all the multitude of the Gods that fabricate generation, in this ennead ? I answer, because this ennead gives completion to all the fabrication of generation.
For in the sublunary realms there are bodies and natures, souls, and intellects, and this both totally and partially. And all these are in both respects in each of the elements. This ennead in each of the elements, is as follows, viz. total and partial bodies, total and partial natures, total and partial souls, and total and partial intellects, and the monad which contains these, viz. the elementary sphere itself; because wholes and parts are consubsistent with each other. Heaven and Earth, however, generate the unapparent essences of these, i.e. of wholes and parts, the former indeed according to union, but the latter according to multiplication. And the former according to bound, but the latter according to infinity; being the leaders of essence to all things. But Ocean and Tethys give perfection to both the common and divided motion of them. There is, however, a different motion of different things, viz. of total intellect, of total soul, and of total nature; and in a similar manner in such of these as are partial.
The sublunary wholes, therefore, being thus adorned and distributed, Saturn, indeed, divides partial from total natures, but intellectually; Rhea, calls forth this division from intellectuals, into allvarious progressions, as far as to the last forms of life, being a vivific deity ; but Phorcys produces the Titannic separation, to physical productive principles.
After these three, are the fathers of composite natures. And
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Jupiter indeed, adorns sensibles totally, according to an imitation of Heaven. For the Jupiter in the intellectual order, proceeds analogous to the intellectual Heaven, in the royal series. But Juno moves wholes, fills them with powers, and evolves, according to every progression.
And the Gods posterior to these fabricate the partial works of sensibles, some according to one, but others according to another peculiarity, either demiurgic, or vivific, or perfective, or connective, being evolved and dividing themselves, as far as to the last of things, analogously to the Saturnian order. For the dividing peculiarity originates from the Saturnian dominion.
CHAPTER XXXII.
IN the last place, let us consider why Plato denominates the sublunary deities, " such as become apparent when they please." Shall we say it is because these material elements are hurled forth before them as veils of the splendour of the etherial vehicles which are proximately suspended from them? For it is evident that being mundane they must also necessarily have a mundane starry vehicle. The light of them, however, shines forth to the view, when they are about to benefit the places that receive their illumination. But if Plato says that they become visible when they please, it is necessary that this appearance of them should either be an evolution into light of the incorporeal powers which they contain, or of the bodies which are entirely spread under them. But if it is an evolution of their incorporeal powers, this is also common to the visible Gods. For they are not always apparent by their incorporeal powers, but only sometimes, and when they please. It is not proper, therefore, to divide the sublunary oppositely to the visible Gods,
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according to that which is common to both, but so far as they have entirely something peculiar. But if they produce a luminous evolution of certain bodies when they please, they must necessarily use other bodies prior to these material elements; and which then become visible to us, when it seems fit to the powers that use them. Hence, other bodies more divine than such as are apparent, are spread under the invisible Gods; and according to these, they are said to be, and are mundane. Through these also as media, they ride in and govern these elements. For they impart to them as much of themselves as they are able to receive, and contain the forms and the natures of them in their powers. For since no one of these is an object of sense, and it is necessary that the vehicles of rational souls should be things of this kind, it is evident that they must use other vehicles prior to these visible bodies.
With respect, however, to all the Gods that govern generation, we must not say, that they have an essence mingled with matter, as the Stoics assert they have. For nothing which verges to matter is able to govern with intellect and wisdom, nor is properly a producing cause, but an organ of something else. Nor must we say that they have an essence unmingled with matter, but powers and energies mingled with it, as Numenius and his followers assert. For the energies of the Gods concur with their essences, and their inward subsist prior to their externally proceeding energies; since a partial soul also prior to the life which is inserted in the animal suspended from it, contains a more principal life in itself; and prior to the externally proceeding motion, through which it moves other things, it is moved with a motion converted to itself.
The sublunary Gods, therefore, are entirely unmingled with matter; adorning indeed things mingled in an unmingled, and things generated, in an unbegotten manner. They likewise contain partibles impartibly, are the causes of life, the suppliers of intellect, the replenishers of power, the givers of soul, the primary leaders of all good, and the sources of order, providence, and the best administration. They also give subsistence to more excellent animals about themselves, are the leaders of angels, the rulers of daemons, and the prefects of heroes; governing
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through this triple army the whole of generation. If, therefore, we assert that the appropriate order of these divinities about generation, is the basis and seat of the total Gods, we shall speak rightly. And we shall likewise not err in asserting that they convolve the end of the divine decrement to the beginning. Such then being the nature of these divinities, Plato indeed looking to the Gods that are both intelligible and intellectual, and to those that are properly called intellectual, surveyed four progressions of them in common. But they also contain powers derived from the supermundane Gods ; whether they proceed from the twelve leaders, or from certain other deities.
From the celestial choir of Gods likewise, a certain order proceeds into generation, which, as the divine Jamblichus says, is doubled in its progression. For from the twentyone leaders, fortytwo governments of Gods who are the fabricators of generation, are derived, according to each elementary allotment. But from the thirtysix decadarchs,1 seventytwo sublunary rulers proceed; and in a similar manner other Gods; being the double of the celestial Gods in multitude, but falling short of them in power. It is likewise necessary to survey their triple progressions, their quintuple divisions, and their divine generation according to the hebdomad.
For they receive an orderly distribution in a threefold, fivefold, and sevenfold manner analogous to the whole world; in order that each of the elements may be a world, and may be truly an imitation of the universe. Such, therefore, is the concise doctrine concerning the sublunary Gods, according to twofold essences, lives, and allotments; just as Plato also makes the ruling progeny of them to be dyadic.
1 These thirtysix decadarchs are the divinities alluded to by the Emperor Julian in his Oration to the Sun, when he says, " that the Sun divides the zodiac into twelve powers of Gods, and each
of these into three others, so that thirtysix are produced in the whole."
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
HAVING therefore discussed the theory pertaining to the celestial and sublunary Gods, it now remains that we ascend to the summit or monad of all the mundane Gods, Bacchus, in whose divinity they all subsist and are rooted, similarly to the fixed stars in the inerratic sphere. For after this manner, every monad analogously contains its coordinate multitude.
Bacchus therefore, is the mundane intellect, from which the soul and body of the world are suspended. With respect however, to intellect it is necessary to observe that one kind is imparticipable and total; another is participable indeed but essentially so; and a third is participable, and subsists as a habit. All intellects unconnected with soul belong to the first kind. The mundane intellect, and the intellects of all the mundane Gods and beneficent daemons, rank in the second division. And to the third class such intellects as ours belong. This deity also is the monad of the Titans, or ultimate fabricators of things, by whom he is said in divine fables to have been torn in pieces; because the mundane soul which participates of this divinity, and is on this account intellectual, is participated by the Titans, and through them distributed into every part of the universe. Plato in the Cratylus says of this divinity " that he is the giver of wine ; and that oinos (wine) may most justly be denominated oionous because it is accustomed to deprive those of intellect who possessed it before"
On which words Proclus in his MS Scholia on that dialogue observes as follows : "The young man Cratylus appears to inquire about our sovereign master Bacchus, as if it were about things of small importance, and on this account he is silenced by Socrates.1
1 This is implied by Socrates telling him that he inquires about great things.
And he does not indeed pay attention to the occult, but only to the last and mundane progressions of the Gods. These indeed, the wise man venerates, though [217]as he says, they are sports, through these Gods [Bacchus and Venus] 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,
till she has entirely subverted them, their houses and cities;—in like manner, he venerates the terminations of Bacchus and Venus, which produce glucothumia, sweetness of sensation; everywhere 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 alleviate corporeal molestation, on this account the Gods the causes of these things, are 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.
But theologists frequently call Bacchus wine, from the last of his gifts, as for instance, Orpheus [says]
"Take all the members of Wine [that are distributed] in the world, and bring them to me."
If however 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 didoinusos, beginning from wine, which as we have said manifests all the powers of Bacchus. Thus also in the Phaedrus, 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 peculiarity of a partial intellect, is in common presented to our view. For the word oioun, such as, is nothing else than intellectual form separated from a total intellect, and in consequence of this becoming participated, particular and
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alone. For an allperfect intellect is all things, and energises 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 peculiarity of which is to be separated from the rest, wine indicates, signifying an intellect such as, and particular.
Since, therefore, every partial fabrication is suspended from the Dionysiacal or Bacchic monad, which distributes participated mundane intellects from total intellect, (or that intellect which ranks as a whole) many souls from one soul, and all sensible forms from their proper wholenesses; 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. For in the laceration of Bacchus by the Titans, the heart of the God is said to have alone remained undistributed, i.e. the indivisible or impartible essence of intellect.
With respect to the mundane soul which is the immediate participant of this Bacchic intellect, the composition of it is most accurately delivered by Plato in the Timaeus, and admirably unfolded by Proclus in his Commentaries on that dialogue.
For full information therefore on this subject I refer the reader to those works; and shall only summarily observe at present that there are five genera of being, from which all things after the first being are composed; viz. essence, permanency, motion, sameness, and difference. For everything must possess essence; must abide in its cause, from which also it must proceed, and to which it must be converted; must be the same with itself and certain other natures, and at the same time different from others, and distinguished in itself. But Plato for the sake of brevity, assumes only three of these in the composition of the mundane soul, viz. essence, sameness, and difference; for the other two must necessarily subsist in conjunction with these.
When [219]therefore Plato says, "that from an essence impartible, and always subsisting according to sameness of being, and from a nature divisible about bodies, the demiurgus mingled from both a third form of essence, having a middle subsistence between the two,"—
by the impartible essence he means intellect, and by the nature which is divisible about bodies, a corporeal life. Hence the mundane soul is a medium between the mundane intellect, and the whole of that corporeal life which the world participates. We must not however suppose that when the soul is said to be mingled from these two, the indivisible and divisible natures are consumed in the mixture, as is the case when corporeal substances are mingled together; but we must understand that the soul is of a middle nature between these, so as to be different from each, and yet a participant of each. In short, the intellect participated by soul, is called by Plato impartible; but the nature which is divisible about bodies is the corporealformed life proceeding from the mundane soul, and which has the relation of splendour to it.
For intellect is analogous to the Sun; soul, to the light proceeding from the sun; and a divisible life to the splendour proceeding from light.
Proclus observes on the above cited words of Plato, that they are conformable to the Orphic traditions. "For, says he, [In Tim. p. 184], Orpheus does not predicate the impartible of every intelligible or intellectual order, but according to him there are certain natures superior to this appellation, in the same manner as others are superior to other names. For king and father are not adapted to all the divine orders. Where, therefore, according to Orpheus, shall we first survey, the impartible, in order that we may understand the divine conception of Plato? Orpheus therefore establishes one demiurgus of every divisible fabrication, analogous to the one father who generates the total fabrication, and from him produces the whole intellectual mundane multitude, the number of souls, and corporeal compositions. And this one demiurgus indeed (i. e. Bacchus) generates all these unitedly; but the Gods that surround him, divide and separate his fabrications. Orpheus however says, that all his other
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fabrications were distributed into parts by the Gods whose characteristic is of a dividing nature; but that his heart alone was preserved impartible, through the providence of Minerva. For since he gives subsistence to intellects, souls and bodies; but souls and bodies indeed, receive in themselves an abundant division and distribution into parts, intellect remaining united and indivisible, being all things in one, and comprehending total intelligibles in one intellection;—this being the case, he says that the intellectual essence alone, and the intellectual number was saved entire by Minerva.
For says he,
The intellectual heart alone was left,
directly calling it intellectual.
If therefore the impartible heart is intellectual, it will evidently be intellect and an intellectual number; not indeed every intellect, but the mundane; for this is the impartible heart, since the divided God was also the fabricator of this. Orpheus therefore calls the impartible essence of Bacchus intellect. But he denominates the life which is divisible about body, which is physical, and pregnant with seeds, the genitals of the God.
And he says that Diana who presides over all the generation in nature, and is the midwife of physical productive principles, extends these genitals, distributing as far as to subterranean natures, the prolific power of the God. But all the remaining body of Bacchus was, he says, the psychical essence, this also being divided into seven parts. For they divided all the seven parts of the body, says the theologist, speaking of the Titans; just as Timaeus divides the soul into seven parts. And perhaps Timaeus, when he says that soul is extended through the whole world, will remind the followers of Orpheus of the Titanic division, through which soul is not only spread round the universe like a veil, but is also extended through it. Very properly therefore, does Plato call the essence which is proximately above soul, an impartible essence.
And in short, he thus denominates the intellect which is participated by soul, following the Orphic fables, and wishing to be as it were an interpreter of what is said in the mysteries" And thus much concerning Bacchus, or the monad of the mundane Gods.
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CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN the next place let us direct our attention to the Parmenides of Plato, and see how in that most theological dialogue the mundane Gods are characterized. In the first hypothesis therefore of that dialogue, in which all the divine orders are denied of the one, Parmenides characterizes the mundane Gods by the equal and the unequal as follows: "
But since the one is such, it will neither be equal nor unequal either to itself or to another. How so? If it were equal, indeed, it would be of the same measures with that to which it is equal. Certainly. But that which is greater or less than the things with which it is commensurate, will possess more measures than the less quantities, but fewer than the greater. Certainly. But to those to which it is incommensurable, with respect to the one part, it will consist of less; and with respect to the other of greater measures. How should it not ? Is it not therefore impossible that a thing which does not participate of same should either be of the same measures, or admit any thing in any respect the same ?
It is impossible. It will therefore neither be equal to itself nor to another, if it does not consist of the same measures. It does not appear that it will. But if it consists of more or fewer measures, it will be of as many parts as there are measures; and so again, it will no longer be the one, but as many as there are measures. Right. But if it should be of one measure, it would become equal to that measure. It has, however, appeared that the one cannot be equal to any thing. It has appeared so.
The one, therefore, neither participates of one measure, nor of many, nor of a few; nor (since it in no respect participates of same) can it ever, as it appears, be equal to itself or to another, nor again greater or less either than itself or another. It is in every respect so."
As the commentary of Proclus on the second hypothesis of the Parmenides, in which the equal and the unequal are affirmed of the one, is [222]
lost, and in which I have no doubt, the properties of the mundane Gods were most fully unfolded, I shall present the reader with the following extract from his commentary on the above passage in the Parmenides of Plato. The peculiarity of the mundane Gods is the equal and the unequal, the former of these indicating their fullness, and their receiving neither any addition nor ablation; (for such is that which is equal to itself, always preserving the same boundary;) but the latter, the multitude of their powers, and the excess and defect winch they contain. For