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 — John Shaqi
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
“But in consequence of his abiding, says Plato, as soon as his children
understood the order of their father, they became obedient to it.”
When the Demiurgus speaks, says Proclus, then the junior Gods have the
order of hearers. When he intellectually perceives, then they learn;
for learning is dianoetic. When he abides according to union itself,
then his children intellectually perceive. For they always receive from
him an inferior order. And as filled indeed from him, they preserve
the analogy of hearers with reference to him; but as evolving his one
power, they are analogous to learners. For he who learns evolves the
intellect of his preceptor. As being deified, however, by him, they
have the analogy of those that perceive intellectually. For intellect
becomes deific, by its contact[96] with _the one_. The father,
therefore, abiding, his children very properly intellectually perceive.
For they are intellects participated by divine souls, that ride in
the vehicles of undefiled bodies. But they intellectually perceive
the order of the father presubsisting in him prior to the arranged
effects, according to which order he became all things. Mortal natures,
therefore, were fashioned and animated by the demiurgic intellection
alone. But the junior Gods unfold his total production, through their
own manifest fabrication; being filled from the demiurgic monad.
In the last place, Plato adds, “And receiving the immortal principle
of mortal animal, in imitation of their artificer, they borrowed from
the world the parts of fire and earth, water and air, as things which
they should restore back again; and conglutinated the received parts
together, but not with the same indissoluble bonds by which they were
connected.” On-these words Proclus admirably comments as follows:
Plato indicates to us, the separation of the second from the first
fabrication, through many words and steps.[97] For if the Demiurgus
orderly disposes, but the junior Gods are obedient to his mandates,
the former by merely commanding is the cause of generated natures, but
the latter being excited by the Demiurgus, receive from thence the
boundary of the whole of their fabrication. And if, indeed, he abides
in himself, but they are moved about him, it is evident that he is
eternally the cause of things which subsist in time, but that they
being filled from him energize according to the whole of time. And if
he perfectly establishes himself in his own accustomed manner, but
they proceeding from him, unfold into light this united and ineffable
disposition of himself, they derive from him secondary measures of
fabrication.