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
We say, however, in common respecting all of them, that establishing
themselves above the mundane Gods, they contain all the choir of
the liberated Gods. And souls indeed are suspended from them, but
intellectual souls, and such as are as it were powers generative of
souls. Hence Socrates also gives to them chariots. For Jupiter is said
to drive a winged chariot, and the other Gods after the same manner
as Jupiter use secondary vehicles. But what else can we say these are
than supermundane souls, on which they ride, and which are intellectual
indeed, but the sources of partibility and division, from which mundane
souls are allotted their hypostasis; a more abundant separation, and
a greater number of parts appearing in them, in consequence of their
being adapted to be bound through analogy? In the liberated Gods,
therefore, the psychical peculiarity unites itself to intellect. Hence
also, Jupiter is said to drive a winged chariot, without division,
in consequence of this chariot being intellectual, and not departing
from an immaterial and divine intellect. But in the mundane Gods,
divisions of horses and charioteers are delivered. [For Socrates says
in the Phædrus], “All the horses, therefore, and chariots of the Gods
are good, and consist of such things as are good.” Hence an energy
according to time first shines forth in the mundane Gods, where there
is a more abundant separation of powers. But in the liberated Gods,
time is always with eternity, and partibility with union. For they are
the principles of souls, and the causes of mundane natures, and are as
it were intellectual seeds abiding in the intellectual comprehensions
of themselves. And thus much concerning these things.
CHAPTER XXIII.