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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indeed, choose lives accommodated to their appropriate Gods, but others
foreign lives, through oblivion of the divinities to whom they belong;
thus also with respect to sacred places, some are adapted to the power
which there receives its allotment, but others are suspended from a
different order. And on this account, as the Athenian guest in Plato
says, some places are more fortunate, but others more unfortunate.
The divine Iamblichus however, doubts how the Gods are said to be
allotted certain places according to definite times, as by Plato in the
Timæus, Minerva is said to have been first allotted the guardianship of
Athens, and afterwards of Sais. For if their allotment commenced from
a certain time, it will also at a certain time cease. For every thing
which is measured by time is of this kind. And farther still was the
place which at a certain time they are allotted, without a presiding
deity prior to this allotment, or was it under the government of other
Gods? For if it was without a presiding deity, how is it to be admitted
that a certain part of the universe was once entirely destitute of
divinity? How can any place remain without the guardianship of superior
beings? And, if any place is sufficient to the preservation of itself,
how does it afterwards become the allotment of some one of the Gods?
But if it should be said that it is afterwards under the government of
another God, of whom it becomes the allotment, this also is absurd.
For the second God does not divulse the government and allotment of
the former, nor do the Gods alternately occupy the places of each
other, nor dæmons change their allotments. Such being the doubts on
this subject, he solves them by saying that the allotments of the Gods
remain perpetually unchanged, but that the participants of them, at one
time indeed enjoy the beneficent influence of the presiding powers, but
at another are deprived of it. He adds that these are the mutations
measured by time, which sacred institutes frequently call the birth-day
of the Gods.[66]
CHAPTER III.