The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 2 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 p
Plato · en
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 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 self-subsistent 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,[75] 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, are 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.[76] 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.