To this man, therefore, should we undertake to return thanks adequate to the benefits which we have received from him j the whole of time would not be sufficient. But if it is necessary, not only' that we should have received from others the transcendant good of the Platonic
' Meaning Plato. * Meaning his preceptor Syrian us. ' The word jmwv is omitted in the original.
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Of Pmto
philosophy, but that we should leave to posterity monuments of those blessed spectacles of which we have been spectators, and emulators to the utmost of our ability, under a leader the most perfect of the present time, and who arrived at the summit of philosophy ; perhaps we shall act properly in invoking the gods, that they will enkindle the light of truth in our soul, and in supplicating the attendants and ministers of better natures to direct our intellect and lead it to the all-perfect, divine, and elevated, end of the Platonic theory. For I think that every where he who participates in the least degree of intelligence, will begin his undertakings from the Gods, and especially in explications respecting the Gods : for we can no otherwise be able to understand a divine nature than by being perfected through the light of the Gods ; nor divulge it to others unless governed by them* and exempt from multiform opinions, and the variety which subsists in words, preserving at the same time the interpretation of divine names. Knowing therefore this, and complying with the exhortation of the Platonic Timteus, we in the first place establish the Gods as leaders of the doctrine respecting themselves. But may they in consequence of hearing our prayers be propitious to us, and benignantly approaching, guide the intellect of our soul, and lead it about the Vesta of Plato, and to the arduous sublimities of this speculation ; where, when arrived, we shall receive all the truth concerning them, and shall obtain the best end of our parturient conceptions of divine concerns, desiring to know something respecting them, inquiring about them of others, and, at the same time, as far as we are able, exploring them ourselves.
Akd thus much by way of preface. But it is necessary that I should unfold the mode of the proposed doctrine, what it is requisite to expect it will be, and define ihe preparatives which a hearer of it ought to possess ; that being properly adapted, he may approach, not to our discourses, but to the intellectually-elevated and deific philosophy of
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4 ON THE THEOLOGY BOOK I.
Plato. For it is proper that convenient aptitudes of auditors should be proposed according to the forms of discourses, just as in the mysteries, those who are skilful in concerns of this kind, previously prepare receptacles for the Gods, and neither always use the same inanimate particulars, nor other animals, nor men, in order to procure the presence of the divinities ; but that alone out of each of these which is naturally capable of participating divine illumination, is by them introduced to the proposed mystic rites.
The present discourse, therefore, will first of all be divided by me into three parts. In the beginning, considering all those common conceptions concerning the Gods, which Plato summarily delivers, together with the power and dignity every where of theological axioms ; but in the middle of this work, speculating the total orders of the Gods, enumerating their peculiarities, defining their progressions after the manner of Plato, and referring every thing to the hypotheses of theologists ; and, in the end, speaking concerning the Gods which are in different places celebrated in the Platonic writings, whether they are supermundane or mundane, and referring the theory respecting them to the total genera of the divine orders.
In every part of this work, likewise, we shall prefer the clear, distinct, and simple, to the contraries of these. And such things as are delivered through symbols, we shall transfer to a clear doctrine concerning them ; but such as are delivered through images, we shall transmit to their exemplars. Such things too as are written in a more affirmative way, we shall examine by causal reasonings ; but such as arc composed through demonstrations, we shall investigate ; and besides this, explain the mode of truth which they contain, and render it known to the hearers. And of things enigmatically proposed, we shall elsewhere discover perspicuity, not from foreign hypotheses, but from the most genuine writings of Plato. But with respect to the things which immediately occur to the hearers, of these we shall contemplate the consent with things themselves. And from all these particulars, one perfect form of the Platonic theology will present itself to our view, together with its truth which pervades through the whole of divine intellections, and the one intellect which generated all
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CliAP. II. OF PLATO. 5
the beauty of this theology, and the mystic evolution of this theory. Such, therefore, as I have said, will be my present treatise.
But the auditor of the proposed dogmas is supposed to be adorned with the moral virtues, and to be one who has bound by the reason of virtue all the illiberal and inharmonious motions of the soul, and harmonized them to the one form of intellectual prudence : for, as Socrates says, it is not lawful for the pure to be touched by the impure. But every vicious man is perfectly impure ; and the contrary character is pure. He must likewise have been exercised in all the logical methods, and have contemplated many irreprehensible conceptions about analyses, and many about divisions, the contraries to these, agreeably, as it appears to me, to the exhortation of Parmenides to Socrates. For prior to such a contest in arguments, the knowledge of the divine genera, and of the truth established in them, is difficult and impervious. But in the third place, he must not be unskilled in physics. For he who has been conversant with the multiform opinions of physiologists, and has after a manner explored in images the causes of beings, will more easily advance to the nature of separate and primary essences. An auditor therefore of the present work, as I have said, must sot be ignorant of the truth contained in the phenomena, nor unacquainted with the paths of erudition, and the disciplines which they contain ; for through these we obtain a more immaterial knowledge of a divine essence. But all these must be bound logether in the leader intellect. Being likewise a partaker of the dialectic of Plato, meditating those immaterial energies which arc separate from corporeal powers, and desiring to contemplate by intelligence* in conjunction with reason [true] beings, our auditor must genuinely apply himself to the interpretation of divine and blessed dogmas, and fill his soul, according to the Oracle, with profound love; since, as Plato somewhere observes, for the apprehension of this theory, a better assistant than love cannot be obtained.
He must likewise be exercised in the truth which pervades through all things, and must excite his intelligible eye to real and perfect truth. He
* Instead of tws >"t* Aoyw, iU» necessary to read, vo^w prr* Xayov.
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must establish himself in a firm, immovable, and safe kind of divine knowledge, and must be persuaded not to admire any thing else, nor even to direct his attention to other things, but must hasten to divine light with an intrepid reasoning energy, and with the power of an unwearied life ; and in short, must propose to himself such a kind of energy and rest as it becomes him to possess who intends to be such a coryphaeus as Socrates describes in the Theaetetus. Such then is the magnitude of our hypothesis, and such the mode of the discourses about it. Before, however, I enter on the narration of the things proposed, I wish to speak about theology itself, its different modes, and what theological forms Plato approves, and what he rejects ; that these being previously known, we may more easily learn in what follows, the auxiliaries of the demon- strations themselves.
All, therefore, that have ever touched upon theology, liave called things first, according to nature, Gods ; and have said that the theological science is conversant about these. And some, indeed, have considered a corporeal essence, as that alone which has any existence, and have placed in a secondary rank with respect to essence, all the genera of incorporeal natures, considering the principles of things as having a corporeal form, and evincing that the habit in us by which we know these, is corporeal. But others, suspending indeed all bodies from incorporeal natures, and defining the first hyparxis1 to be in soul, and the powers of soul, call (as it appears to me) the best of souls, Gods ; and denominate the science which proceeds as far as to these, and which knows these, theology. But such as produce the multitude of souls from another more ancient principle, and establish intellect as the leader of wholes, these assert that the best end is a union of the soul with intellect, and consider the intellectual form of life as the most honourable of all things. They
■ Hrparxis, it the summit of any nature, or blossom, as it were, of Its essence.
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doubtless too consider theology, and the discussion of intellectual essence, as one and the same. All these, therefore, as I have said, call the first and most self-sufficient principles of things, Gods, and the science respecting these, theology.
The divine narration however, of Plato alone, despises all corporeal natures, with reference to principles. Because, indeed, every thing divisible and endued with interval, is naturally unable either to produce or preserve itself, but possesses its being, energy, and passivity through soul, and the motions which soul contains. But Plato demonstrates that the psychical essence [i.e. the essence pertaining to soul] is more ancient than bodies, but is suspended from an intellectual hypostasis. For every thing which is moved according to time, though it may be self-moved, is indeed of a more ruling nature than things moved by others, but is posterior to an eternal motion. He shows, therefore, as we have said, that intellect is the father and cause of bodies and souls, and that all things both subsist and energize about it, which are allotted a life conversant with transitions und evolutions.
Plato, however, proceeds to another principle entirely exempt from intellect, more incorporeal and ineffable, and from which all things, even though you should speak of such as ore last, have necessarily a subsistence. For all things are not naturally disposed to participate of soul, but such things only as are allotted in themselves a more clear or obscure life. Nor are all things able to enjoy intellect and being, but such only as subsist according to form. But it is necessary that the principle of all things should be participated by all things, if it does not desert any thing, since it is the cause of all things which in any respect are said to have a subsistence. Plato having divinely discovered this first principle of wholes, which is more excellent than intellect, and is concealed in inaccessible recesses ; and having exhibited these three causes and monads, and evinced them to be above bodies, I mean soul, the first intellect, and a union above intellect, produces from these as monads, their proper numbers ; one multitude indeed being uniform,' but the second intellectual, and the third psychical. For every monad is the leader of a multitude
* Wherever this word occurs in this translation, it signifies that which is characterized by unity.
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coordinate to itself. But as Plato connects bodies with souls, so likewise he connects souls with intellectual forms, and these again with the unities of beings. But he converts all things to one ira participate unity. And having run back us far as to this unity, he considers himself as having obtained the highest end of the theory of wholes ; and that this is the truth' respecting the Gods, which is conversant with the unities of beings, and which delivers their progressions and peculiarities, the contact of beings with them, and the orders of forms which are suspended from these unical' hypostases.