The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 1 of 2) : $b translated from the Greek, to which a seventh book is added, in order to supply the deficiency of another book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost, also, a translation from the Greek of Proclus' Elements of theology, to which are added a translation of the treatise of Proclus, On providence and fate, a translation of extracts from his treatise, entitled, Ten doubts concerning
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But with respect to producing
a mixture, and mingling through the first principles, by how much _to
make_ is subordinate to _the unfolding into light_, and _generation_ to
_patefaction_, by so much is that which is mixed allotted a progression
from _the one_, inferior to that of the two principles.
That which is mixed therefore, is intelligible essence, and subsists
primarily from [the first] God, from whom infinity also and bound are
derived. But it subsists secondarily from the principles posterior to
the unical God, I mean from bound and infinity. For the fourth cause
which is effective of the mixture is again God himself; since if any
other cause should be admitted besides this, there will no longer be a
fourth cause, but a fifth will be introduced. For the first cause was
God, who unfolds into light the two principles. But after him are the
two principles bound and infinity. And the mixture is the fourth thing.
If therefore the cause of the mixture is different from the first
divine cause, this cause will be the fifth and not the fourth thing,
as Socrates says it is. Farther still, in addition to these things,
if we say that God is especially the supplier of union to beings, and
the mixture itself of the principles is a union into the hypostasis of
being, God is also certainly the cause of this primarily. Moreover,
Socrates in the Republic clearly evinces that _the good_ is the
cause of being and essence to intelligibles, in the same manner as
the sun is to visible natures. Is it not therefore necessary, if that
which is mixed is primarily being, to refer it to the first God, and to
say that it receives its progression from him? If also the demiurgus
in the Timæus, constitutes the essence of the soul itself by itself
from an impartible and a partible essence, which is the same thing as
to constitute it from bound and infinity; for the soul according to
bound is similar to the impartible, but according to infinity, to the
partible essence;--if therefore the demiurgus mingles the essence of
the soul from these, and again separately, from same and different,
and if from these being now preexistent, he constitutes the whole
soul, must we not much more say that the first God is the cause of the
first essence? That which is mixed therefore, proceeds, as we have
said, from the first God, and does not subsist from the principles
alone posterior to _the one_, but proceeds also from these, and
is triadic. And in the first place indeed, it participates from God
of ineffable union, and the whole of its subsistence. But from bound,
it receives hyparxis, and the uniform, and a stable peculiarity. And
from infinity, it receives power, and the occult power which is in
itself, of all things. For in short, since it is one and not one, the
one is inherent in it according to bound, but the non-one according to
infinity. The mixture however of both these, and its wholeness, are
derived from the first God. That which is mixed therefore, is a monad,