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

| Night therefore says to him asking, how all things will be a certain one, and yet each be separate and apart from the rest:

All things receive inclosed on ev'ry side,

In wther’s wide inctlable embrace :

Then in the midst of wther place the heav’n ;
Tn which let earth of infinite extent,

The sea, and stars, the crown of heav’n, be fixt. But after she has laid down rules respecting all other productions, she adds: And when your power around the whole has spread

A strong coercive bond, a golden chain

Suspend from wther. This bond which is derived from nature, soul and intellect, being perfectly strong and indissoluble. For Plato also says, that animals were generated, bound with animated bonds. Orpheus, likewise, Homerically calls the divine orders

* For θεὼν here, it is necessary to read θέον.

ap. 205 which are above the world,' a golden chain; which Plato emulating says, “ That the Demiurgus placing intellect in soul, but soul in body, fabricated the universe 5” and that he gave subsistence to the junior Geds, through whom also he adorns the parts of the universe. If therefore, itis Jupiter who possesses the one power, who absorbs Phanes, in whom the intellizible causes of wholes first subsist, who produces all things, according to the counsels of Night, and who gives authority both to the other Gods, and to the three sons of Saturn,—he is the one and whole Demiureus of all the world, and has the fitth order among'the kings, [1. e. among the Gods of the royal series,] as it is divinely demonstrated by our preceptor in his Orphic Conferences. Jupiter likewise,.is co-ordinate with Heaven and Phanes, and on this account he is both maker and father, and each of these totally.

e. among the Gods of the royal series,] as it is divinely demonstrated by our preceptor in his Orphic Conferences. Jupiter likewise,.is co-ordinate with Heaven and Phanes, and on this account he is both maker and father, and each of these totally.

That Plato, however, had these conceptions respecting the mighty Jupiter, is manifested by him in the Cratylus from names: for he there shows that he is the cause and supplier of life to all things. For he says, “ Zhat we denominate him Dia and Zena, through whom life ts present to all things.” But in the Gorgias he co-arranges, and at the same time exempts him from the sons of Saturn, in order that he may be prior to the three, and participated by them. He also makes Law to be his assessor, in the same manner as Orpheus. For with him also Law is placed by the side of Jupiter, according to the counsels of Night. Farther still, Plato in the Laws represents total Justice to be the attendant of Jupiter, in the same manner as the theologist. But in the Philebus he shows, that a royal soul and a royal intellect pre-exist in Jupiter according to the reason of cause. And conformably to this he now represents him as giving subsistence to intellect and soul, unfolding the laws of Fate, and producing all the orders of the mundane Gods, and constituting all animals as far as to the last of things; some things being generated by him alone, but others through the celestial Gods as media. To which we may also add, thatin the Politicus he calls Jupiter the Demiurgus and father of the universe, just as in the present dialogue he says concerning him, “Ofwhom Lam the Demiurgus, and father of works.” He likewise says inthe Politicus, that the present order of the world is Jovian, aud that the world is moved wcording to Fate. The world therefore living a Jovian life, has Jupiter for the Demiurgus and father of its life. If, likewise, he represents the Demiurgus delivering a speech,’ this too is in reality Jovian. For in the Meno, he on this

• * Instead of των θείων πραξεων vo των exoopiwy in this place, it is necessary to read των θείων rulrwy νπερ Tey ἐγκοσμιων.
• * For δημιουργουντα here, it is necessary to read énunyopourra.

Tim. Plat. Vou. I. aL

p. 268

account calls him a sophist, as filling the Gods posterior to him with all-various reasons. This also the divine poet [Homer] manifests, who represents him thus speaking' from the summit of Olympus.

Hear, all ye Gods and Goddesses, my words.

Plat. Vou. I. aL

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account calls him a sophist, as filling the Gods posterior to him with all-various reasons. This also the divine poet [Homer] manifests, who represents him thus speaking' from the summit of Olympus.

Hear, all ye Gods and Goddesses, my words.

And converting the two-fold co-ordinations to himself. Through the whole of his poetry, likewise, he praises him as the supreme of rulers, and the father of men and Gods, and celebrates him with all demiurgic conceptions. As, therefore, we have shown that all the Grecian theology attributes the total fabrication of things to Jupiter, what ought we to conceive of these words of Plato? Is it not, that the same God king Jupiter, is with him maker and father, and is neither father alone, nor father and maker. For father is the monad, as the Pythagoreans say, but the decad is the demiurgic® order of divine natures, “to which divine number arrives from the secret recesses of the monad, which decad is the venerable universal recipient, surrounding all things with bound, is immutable and unwearied, and is called the sacred decad.” Hence, after the paternal monad, and the paternal and at the same time effective tetrad, the demiurgic decad proceeds. And it is indeed immutable, because an immutable deity subsists together with it. But it surrounds all things with bound, as supplying with order things that are disorderly, and with ornament things that are unadorned. It likewtse illuminates souls with intellect, as being intellect totally, and body with soul, as possessing and comprehending the cause of soul, and generates things which are truly generated, both such as are middles, and such as are last, in consequence of comprehending in itself demiurgic being. From what is written also in’ the Protagoras, we may collect what the demiurgic order is. For Jupiter there becomes the cause of the whole political science, and of the reasons essentially disseminated in souls. This, however, is to bind the whole fabrication of things, and to connect all things by his own immutable powers. For as the theolovist establishes about him. the Curetic order, thus also Plato says, that he is surrounded with terrible guards. And as the former establishes him on the summit of Olympus, so the latter assigns to him a tower, in which being eternally seated, he adoins all things through the middle orders. Who the Demiurgus therefore is, and that he is a divine intellect, the cause of total fabrication, is evident from what has been said; and likewise that Jupiter himselfis celebrated as the Demiurgus both by Orpheus and Plato.

• * Here also it is requisite to make the same emendation as above,
• * Δημιονργικὴ is omitted in the original,

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