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
If, likewise, it should be asked why Plato does not mention the
kingdoms of Phanes and Night, to whom we have said Jupiter and Juno are
analogous? It may be readily answered, that the tradition of Orpheus
contains these; on which account Plato celebrates the kingdom of Heaven
and Earth as the first, the Greeks being more accustomed to this than
to the Orphic traditions; as he himself says in the Cratylus, where he
particularly mentions the Theogony of Hesiod, and recurs as far as to
this kingdom according to that poet. Beginning, therefore, from this
Theogony as more known, and assuming Heaven and Earth as the first
kingdoms above the world, he produces the visible Heaven and Earth
analogous to those in the intellectual order, and celebrates the latter
as the most ancient of the Gods within the former. From these also, he
begins the Theogony of the sublunary Gods. These things, however, if
divinity pleases, will be manifest from what follows. At present we
shall only add, that it is requisite to survey all these names divinely
or dæmoniacally, and according to the allotments of these divinities in
the four elements. For this ennead is in ether and water, in earth and
in air, all-variously, according to the divine, and also according to
the dæmoniacal peculiarity. And again, these names are to be surveyed
aquatically and aerially, and likewise in the earth terrestrially, in
order that all of them may be every where, according to an all-various
mode of subsistence. For there are many modes of providence divine
and dæmoniacal, and many allotments according to the division of the
elements.
CHAPTER XXVIII.