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
Ocean and Tethys, therefore, so far as they abide, and are united to
Heaven, produce in conjunction with him the kingdom of Saturn and
Rhea; and so far as they are established in the first power of their
mother, so far they produce Phorcys in conjunction with her.[151] For
she produces him together with Nereus and Thaumas,[152] from being
mingled through love with the sea. For Phorcys is not celestial, but
Ocean, as is evident from the Theogony.[153] And so far as Tethys is
full of Earth, so far being as it were a certain Earth, she may be said
to produce this Phorcys in conjunction with Ocean; so far as Ocean
also comprehends the intelligible in himself. Hence Tethys, so far as
she is Earth according to participation, and Ocean so far as he is
causally the sea, give subsistence in conjunction with Saturn and Rhea
to this God. If, however, any arguments should demonstrate that in the
intellectual order Saturn is above Ocean, or Rhea above Tethys, it must
be said that this arrangement is indeed there; for in that order the
causes of intellection are superior to those of motion; but that here
on the contrary, all things are in mutation and a flowing condition,
so that here Ocean is very properly prior to Saturn, since it is the
fountain of motion, and Tethys is prior to Rhea. Hence, after another
manner, the doubt may be thus solved.
That we may speak, however, about each of these Gods, Theodorus refers
souls that subsist in habitude to these divinities, and arranges
them as presiding over the three divisions of the world. And Phorcys
indeed, he arranges in the starless sphere, as moving the lation of the
universe. He ought, however, to persuade us that Plato was acquainted
with a certain starless sphere, and afterwards, that he thus arranged
Phorcys in this sphere. But he places Saturn over the motions of
the stars, because time[154] is from these, and the generations and
corruptions of things. And he places Rhea over the material part of
the world, because by materiality she has a redundancy with respect to
the divinities prior to herself. But the divine Jamblichus arranges
them in the three spheres between the heavens and the earth. For some
of the sublunary deities give a two-fold division to the sublunary
region, but these divide it in a three-fold manner. And Phorcys indeed,
according to him, presides over the whole[155] of a humid essence,
containing all of it impartibly. But Rhea is a divinity connective of
flowing and aerial-formed spirits. And Saturn governs the highest and
most attenuated sphere of ether, having a middle arrangement according
to Plato; because the middle and the centre in incorporeal essences,
have a greater authority than the powers situated about the middle.
We, indeed, admire this intellectual explanation of Jamblichus; but
we think it proper to survey these Gods every where, both in all the
elements, and all orders. For thus we shall behold that which is common
in them, and which extends to all things.