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
Since, therefore, every partial fabrication is suspended from the
Dionysiacal or Bacchic monad, which distributes participated mundane
intellects from total intellect, (or that intellect which ranks as a
whole) many souls from one soul, and all sensible forms from their
proper wholenesses; on this account theologists call both this God
and all his fabrications _wine_. For all these are the progeny of
intellect. And some things participate of the partial distribution
of intellect in a more distant, but others in a nearer degree. Wine
therefore energizes in things analogous to its subsistence in them;
in body indeed, after the manner of an image, according to a false
opinion and imagination; but in intellectual natures, according to an
intellectual energy and fabrication. For in the laceration of Bacchus
by the Titans, the _heart_ of the God is said to have alone remained
undistributed, i.e. _the indivisible_ or impartible _essence of
intellect_.
With respect to the mundane soul which is the immediate participant
of this Bacchic intellect, the composition of it is most accurately
delivered by Plato in the Timæus, and admirably unfolded by Proclus
in his Commentaries on that dialogue. For full information therefore
on this subject I refer the reader to those works; and shall only
summarily observe at present that there are five genera of being, from
which all things after the first being are composed; viz. _essence_,
_permanency_, _motion_, _sameness_, and _difference_. For every thing
must possess _essence_; must _abide_ in its cause, from which also
it must _proceed_, and to which it must be _converted_; must be the
_same_ with itself and certain other natures, and at the same time
different from others, and distinguished in itself. But Plato for the
sake of brevity, assumes only three of these in the composition of
the mundane soul, viz. _essence, sameness, and difference_; for the
other two must necessarily subsist in conjunction with these. When
therefore Plato says, “that from an essence impartible, and always
subsisting according to sameness of being, and from a nature divisible
about bodies, the demiurgus mingled from both a third form of essence,
having a middle subsistence between the two,”--by the impartible
essence he means intellect, and by the nature which is divisible about
bodies, a corporeal life. Hence the mundane soul is a medium between
the mundane intellect, and the whole of that corporeal life which the
world participates. We must not however suppose that when the soul
is said to be mingled from these two, the indivisible and divisible
natures are consumed in the mixture, as is the case when corporeal
substances are mingled together; but we must understand that the soul
is of a middle nature between these, so as to be different from each,
and yet a participant of each. In short, the intellect participated by
soul, is called by Plato impartible; but the nature which is divisible