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

Nor is it fit to separate from each other, things which are conjoined by nature, And thas much for this particular.

* By an unaccountable mistake the original has Σωκρατὴν instead of coopoy in this place, which lattcr is evidently the teue reading.

noox 11] ΤΙΜ ΖΚ OF PLATO. .7

Longinus however and Origen contend with each other from another principle, about what kind of polity Socrates speaks, in these words; whether about the first, orthe middle polity. For in the latter, the polity is seen living physically, politically, and intellectually. Longinus therefore thinks, that what is here said pertains to the middle polity, because Socrates calls the assistants guardians, and says that the guardians are warriors. But Origen is of opinion that what is said respects the first polity. For in this Soerates delivers disciplines to the guardians. We however say in answer to such-like assertions, that it is not proper to divulse the one polity ; nor to separate the continuity of life from itself. For the polity is one, perfecting itself, and co-augmenting itself by more perfect additions. But the whole polity possesses the physical in the mercenaries, the warlike in the ausiliaries, and the intellectual in the guardians. So that the discussion is about the whole polity. And itis not proper to contend about these things, but rather to consider this, how the polity may very properly be said to be both subordinate to, and superior to physiology." For so faras it has for its matter human concerns, and is desirous of adorning these, it has an order secondary to, and more partial than physiology. But so far as it subsists in universal reasonings, and is arranged incorporeally, and immatenally, it is superior to, and more total than physiology. The world also is a certain polity, and a partial polity [with reference to the imelligible world], because every body is partial. In short, the polity preexists indeed in the intelligible, but exists in the heavens, and subsists in the Jast place in human lives. So that if it is superior to physical fabrication, it was very properly discussed prior to the Timieus; but ifit is inferior to it, because it is an ethical world, but the other is mundane and all-perfect, we are very properly required to recur from things subordinate to such as are of a more venerable nature. Aud both are true, through the above-mentioned causes. Since, however, as we have said, the form of the polity is universal, and is impressed in a partial matter, hence also Socrates employs the words what kind for the sake of the form, but the words of what sort of men on account of the matter.

— ©Try. And what was said, Socrates, was in the opinion of all of us very conformable to intellect.”

A narration conformable to intellect, but neither conformable to pleasure, nor

* Here also the original has erroneously θεολογίας instead of φυσιολογιαι.

p. 28

— ©Try. And what was said, Socrates, was in the opinion of all of us very conformable to intellect.”

A narration conformable to intellect, but neither conformable to pleasure, nor

* Here also the original has erroneously θεολογίας instead of φυσιολογιαι.

p. 28

the decision of the vulgar, indicates the admirable perfection and intellectual nature of the discussion [contained in it), And prior to this, it obscurely signifies the concordant congress of all secondary causes about one intellect, and one united fabrication. The word very too, which is added, unfolds the transcendent union, through which all demiurgic causes converge as to one centre, and one paternal cause of all things.

“Soc. Did we not then, in the first place, separate husbandmen and other artificers from the belligerent genus?”

The discourse about a polity, and the conglomerated and concise repetition, in asummary Way, of the genera contained in it, contributes to the whole narration of the mundane fabrication, For itis possible from these as images to recur to wholes. This very thing also was ina remarkable degree adopted by the Pytharoreans, Who investigated the similitades of beings from analogies, and betook themsclves from images to paradigms ; which likewise is now in a prefatory manner eflected by Plato, who points out to us, and gives us to survey in human lives those things which take place in the universe. Por the polities of worthy men are assimilated to the celestial order. Ttis necessary, therefore, that we also should refer the images which are now mentioned (to their paradigms), and in the first place, what is said about the division of the genera. For this section of genera, imitates the demiurgic division in the world, according to which incorporeal nas tures are not able to pass into the nature of bodies, nor mortal bodies to leave their own essence, and migrate into an incorporeal hypostasis. According to which, also, mortal natures remain mortal; immortal natures eternally continue τὸ. be never-failing ; and the diferent orders of them have paradigmatic causes pre-subsisting in wholes. For if you are willing to arrange the whole city analogous to the whole world ; since itmust not be said that man is ἃ microcosin, and a city not; and to divide it into two parts, the upper city and the lower, and to assimilate the former to the heavens, and the latter to generation, vou will find that the analogy is perfectly appropriate. Likewise, according to a division of it into three parts, you may assume in the city, the mercenary, the military, and the guardian : butin the soul, the epithymetic part, which procures the necessities of the body ; the irascible part, whose office is to expel whatever is injurious to the animal, and is also ministrant to our ruling power; and the rational part, which os essentially philosophic and has a regal authority over the whole of our life. In every multi-

In every multi-

ὩΣ τοι Oe PRI πὰς Ὁ κ

SEER OE 9 Be τον

ἐών pooK 1] TIMGEUS OF PLATO. 29 tude of souls, however, there are, that whieh performs the partof a mercenary about generation, that whoech is ministrant to the mundane providence of the Gods, and that which is elevated to the intelligible. But in all mundane natures,

‘ and the order of there are, in short, the tribe of mortals, the tribe of damons, the celestial Gods ς for they are truly the guardians and saviours of the whole of things. And again, damons precede as in asolemn procession the fabrication of the celestial Gods, and suppress all the confusion and disorder in the world.

There ts likewise a certain physical providence of mortal natures, which generates and comprehends them contormably to a divine intellect.

Farther sal, according to another division, the agricultural tribe of the city is analogous to the Moon, which comprehends the sacred laws of nature, the cause of generation. But the inspective guardian of the common marriages, is analosous to Venus, who is the cause of all harmony, and of the union of the male with the female, and of form with matter, That which providentially attends to clegant allotinents, is analocous to Termes, on account of the lots of which the God is the guardian, and also on account of the fraud which they contain, But that which is disciplinative and judicial in the city, is analogous to the Sun, with whom, according to theologists, the mundane Dice, the elevator and the seven-fold reside, And that whieh is belligerent, is analogous to the order proceeding from Mars,* which governs all the coutraricuics of the world, and the diversity of the mniverse. That which is royal, is analogous to Jupiter, who is the supplier of ruling prudence, and of the practical and adorning intellect. But that which is philosophic, is analogous to Saturn, so far as he is an intellectual God, and ascends as far as to the first cause. These things, therefore, may thus be cassumed through analogies. Plato, however, appears to have divided the city into two parts, and to have established as one genus, that which is agricultural and that which pertains to the arts, which is called demiurgic τ but that which is belligerent, as another; not that he now recapitulates the military polity, as Longinus says, but because through the word dedligerent, he comprehends the auxiliaries and the guardians. For of these, the former war with their hands, but the latter by their counsels. Just as also among the Greeks, Ajax indeed fights, as being the barrier of the Greeks, and Nestor likewise fights, who is the guardian of the Greeks ; the latter as a defender, repelling the enemy by his counsels ; but the former, by employing his hands. Unless it should be said, that Plato now