The Commentaries on the Timaeus of Plato — trans. Thomas Taylor

For this is the paternal port," and the discovery of the father, viz. an undefiled union with him.

* This is in consequence of a union with the Demiurgus beiug so much superior to scientific perception.

* Proclus here alludes to the fabulous wanderings of Ulysses in the Odyssey. Por Homer by these oecultly indicates the life of a man who passes ina regular manner from a sensible to ao intellectual life, and who being throughly purified by the excrcise of the cathartic virtues, is at length able to energize according to the intuitive perception of intellect, and thus after becoming re-united to Penelope or Philosophy, meets with and embraces his father. This appears also to have been the opinion af tbe Pythagorean Numenius, as we are informed by Porphyry in his treatise De Antro Nympharuin, “ΤῸ he thought that the persou of Ulysses in the Odyssey represented to us a man who passes in a regular maoner over the dark and stormy sea of generation; and thus at Jength arrives at that region (ἡ. ἐν the intellectual region) where temmpests and seas are unknown, and finds a nation

“Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.’”

See more onthis subject in my Restoration of the Platonic Theology, p. 294.

p. 255

ἐν the intellectual region) where temmpests and seas are unknown, and finds a nation

“Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.’”

See more onthis subject in my Restoration of the Platonic Theology, p. 294.

p. 255

But to say “ thatwhen found it ts impossible to speak of him to all men,”* perhaps indicates the custom of the Pythagoreans, who had arcane assertions about divine natures, and did not divulge them to all men. For as the Elean guest says, the eyes of the multitude are not strong enough to look to truth. Perhaps also this may be said which is much more venerable, that it is impossible for him who has discovered the maker and father of the universe to speak of him to certain persons such ashe has seen him. For the discovery was not made by the soul speaking, bat closing her eyes, and being converted,” to the divine light. Nor was it made by her being moved with her own proper motion, but through being silent with a silence which leads the way (to union}. For since the essence of other things is not naturally adapted tobe spoken of, either through a name, or through definition, orthrough science, butis seen through intellection alone, as Plato saysin his Epistles, inwhat other way can itbe possible to discover the essence of the Demiurgus, than by intellectual energy? And how when having thus found it, is it possible to tell whatis seen, and explain it to others, through nouns and verbs? For the evolution which is conversant with composition, cannot exhibit a uniform and simple nature, What then, some one may say, do we not assert many things about the Demiurgus, and about the other Gods, and even of the one ilself? To this we reply, we speak indeed about them, but we do not speak of cach of them itself. And we are able indeed to speak scientifically of them, but not intellectually. For this, as we have before observed, is to discover them. But if the discovery is a silence of the soul, how can speech flowing through the mouth, be sufficient to lead that which is discovered into light. ᾿

After these things, therefore, let us, following the light of science, survey who the Demiurgus is, and to what order of beings he belongs. For different philosophers among the ancients were led to different opinions on this subject. For Numenius, indeed, celebrating three Gods, calls the first father, but the second maker, and the third that which is made, For the world according to him is the third God. So that with him the Demiurgus is two-fold, viz. the first and the second Goud, and that which is fabricated is the third God. For itis better to say this, than’ to say as he does speaking tragically, grandfather, ofispring, nephew. He how-

* For μηδε evpovra δυνατα δυνατον εἰναι λέγειν it is necessary to read, μηδε evporra εἰς axarras δυνατον, κι ἃ. ;

* For axcorpayperns, it is requisite to read extorpapiperns.

Ὁ It is necessary here to supply i.

p. 256

He how-

* For μηδε evpovra δυνατα δυνατον εἰναι λέγειν it is necessary to read, μηδε evporra εἰς axarras δυνατον, κι ἃ. ;

* For axcorpayperns, it is requisite to read extorpapiperns.

Ὁ It is necessary here to supply i.

p. 256

ever, who asserts these things, in the first place does not nghtly con-numerate the good with these other causes. For it is not naturally adapted to be conjoined with certain things, nor has it an order secondary to another. But father with Plato {in the text] is arranged as the second to maker, Farther still, Numenius co-arranges that which is exempt, ' from all habitude, with the natures that are under and posterior to it. It is necessary, however, to refer these indeed to the first, but to take away from it all habitude. Neither therefore, is the paternal nature of the maker* adapted to the first. For these things’ are apparent in the orders of Gods posterior to it. In the third place; it is not right to divide father and maker, since Plato celebrates one and the same God by both these names. For one divine fabrication, and one maker and father, are every where delivered by Plato. And by following names, to divulse the one cause fof the world,] is just as if some one, because Plato calls the universe both heaven and the world, should say there are two fabrications, the one heaven, and the other the world; just as here, Numenius says there is a two-fold demiurgic God, the one father, but the other maker.

With respect to Harpocration, it would be wonderful, if he were consistent with himself, in determining things of this kind about the Demiurgus, For this man is inconsistent in what he says according to the doctrine of three Gods and so far as he makes the Demiurgus to be two-fold. For he calls the first God, Heaven and Saturn, the second, Dia and Zena, and the third, Heaven and the World. But again changing the order he calls the first God Dia, and the king of the intelligible; but he denominates the second God, the ruler, and the same divinity, is with him Jupiter, Saturn, and Heaven. The first God therefore, 1s all these; from whom Parmenides takes away all things, every name, all language, and all habitude. And we, indeed, cannot endure to call the first God even father; but he denominates him father, and offspring, and the offspring of an offspring.

But Atticus, the preceptor of Harpocration, immediately makes the Demiurgus to be the same with the good, though the Demiurgus is called good by Plato, but not the good. He is also denominated by him intellect, but he says that the good

* For efnprnyevoy in this place, itis requisite to read εξηρημενον.

* Instead of παντος here, the sense evideotly requires that we should read ποιητὸν.

* Father and maker are first apparent in the intelligible and intellectual, and afterwards iu the other orders of Gods.

Book 11. TIM.EUS OF PLATO. 257 —