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
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Farther still, in those Gods likewise, the first effective cause of
light subsists, generating those supermundane and intellectual rays,
through which souls, and all the more excellent genera obtain an
elevating progression. With these Gods also, there is the demiurgic
duad which produces both simple and composite natures, those that are
of a more ruling, and those that are of an inferior order. And in
short, this demiurgic duad governs the twofold co-ordinations of the
world. Hence those who are wise in divine concerns call this primary
cause of light, and the demiurgic duad hands, as being efficacious,
motive, and fabricative of wholes. But they establish them to be
twofold, the one indeed being dexter, but the other sinister; which
things also Timæus admits to be primarily in the celestial periods,
and says that this division is derived from the first demiurgus. If,
therefore, the demiurgic monad constituted the solar order prior to the
world, why is it wonderful that in that order he should establish this
division according to the right and left? For Socrates also calls the
motive powers of the Parcæ hands, and says that the eldest of the three
moves the universe with both her hands; so that we must not refuse
to transfer the name of hands to divine concerns. Moreover, will not
likewise the last of the solar principles according to Plato be that
from which the interpreters of divine concerns say, a happy life, and
unpolluted fruits are derived to wholes? Since he calls the sun the
offspring of _the good_, and this essentially pertains to it. For
it is evident that as the good extends felicity to all beings, thus
also the sun extends to mundane natures measures of felicity adapted to
each, and gives completion to this through similitudes, and a tendency
to the whole demiurgus. Hence also I think, felicity is said to consist
in an assimilation to divinity. And felicity pertains to all the Gods
in the world, according to the one ruling cause of them. For thence
perfection and blessedness flow upon all things.
CHAPTER XIII.