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

For how is it possible that things which are in the profundity of the universe, cau be conjoined with those super-

ἡ Ap Opoy is omitted in the original.

* In the original δία τῶν ενυλων, καὶ μεταβλητων; but δία ought evidently to be expunged.

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mundane natures ; things deprived of intelligence, with intellectuals ; perfectly sautable, with eternal natures; very composite things, with such as are simple; and things which in their own nature are dissipated, with united essences? It is necessary, therefore, that man itself, and each of such-like forms, should generate stable monads prior to a dispersed multitude; from which the progression of each to its appropriate number is derived. It is likewise necessary that these monads should exist in the second fabrication. Hence they remain invariably the same, as being alone produced by an immoveable cause. You must not wonder, therefore, #f some one should call man immortal, a brute rational, and a plant intellectual. For each of these is primarily a thing of this kind. But progression producing a diminution of the all-various imitation of the paradigm, exhibits some things sensibles, others irrational, and others intellectual im capacity. For as the water, which primarily proceeds from its wuntain, is most similar to the fontal water, and preserves its proper purity undefiled; thus also the natures Which are first unfolded into hight from intellyible forms, genuinely preserve the similitudes of their paradigms ; batas they proceed, dissolve the perfect sumilitude, and are filled from their subjects with composition and inelegance.

In another way, likewise, the solution of the things investigated may be attempted. For of fabrication the first is total, one, and impartible; the second is partial and multiplied, and proceeds according to a distribution into parts; and the third is not only partible like that which precedes it, but comes into contact with generated natures, and with the forms they contain, Vou have also these three fabrications in Plato, viz. the Jovian, the Dionysiacal, and the Adonaical (or pertaining to Adonis), conformably to which he divides his three polities, as we have elsewhere shown. The third fabrication, therefore, ts the cause of wholes’ and parts, and of things which are not monadtc. The second is the cause of things which are monaaic indeed, but are not wholes. And the first 1s the cause of the whole and the monadic. For such is the universe, which is not a part of any thing, as the sun and moon are, and each of the peculiar parts of the world. If therefore Plato had now spoken concerning cyery fabrication, it would have been requisite to annex the extensions of forms into multitude, and their divisions. But since the present discourse is alone concerning the whole fabrication, or the fabrication which has a total subsistence, what occasion is there to disturb ourselves, in consequence of not remaining in the first fabrications, which are eflected by an

* For edwy here, it is necessary to read odwy,

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mmoveable and total cause? For the whole Demiurgus is a fabricator totally and monadically ; since also producing many Gods, he produces them monadically. Por each of the Gods belonging to the inerratic sphere, is constituted according to one form; since the form of earth is different from that of water, and the form vs water from that of fire; the parts of which have a temporal generation and corruption. Much more, therefore, do such perpetual natures as the stars, and also partial souls, differ in form from each other, For every individual and at the same time partial nature, is material. If also partial souls produce different peculiar lives, from exerting the reasons they contain, it is evident that they possess the reasons of all things universally, and subsisting in forms alone, so that the progressions of each of them are according to different forms. This number too of forms must be placed in the fountain of souls unically (or having a subsistence characterized by unity), but distributedly in the principle* of souls. For how is it possible it should not be necessary, souls being finite, that the number of them should pre-exist in the causes from whence they are derived ? Since even nature comprehends the numbers of the things which she produces according to numbers. If, however, the Gods are monadic, and souls, the genera between these, are likewise monadic ; so that each thing which the Demiurgus constitutes, is entirely monadic. "This likewise appears to be the cause of the perpetuity of the things which he produces, that each receives the whole form of the paradigimatic cause, Ilence every thing which proceeds from the whole Demiurgus has a nature of this hind,

It, therefore, he gives subsistence to the world, the world is one; both on account of the demiurgic monad, and the onlyness of the paradigm; which Plato, as it appears to me, knowing, says, “if it be admitted that itis fabricated according to the paradigm.” For by not saying if it was generated, but Wit was fabricated, according to the paradigm, he indicates the onlyness both of the paradigmatic and the demiurgic cause. For the Demiurgus is a monad, and the paradigm also is a monad; and therefore this universe being generated by a monad, with reference to amonad, is monadic. Why, therefore, you may say, is he satisfied in what follows, with the demonstration from the paradigm? We reply, because the

“i.e. In Rhea, or the vivitic Goddess, considered according to her first subsistence in the intellectual order of Gods. :

>i. δ. In Proserpine, who subsists in the vivific triad of the super-mundane order of Gods, which order consists of the Gods who are called apyac or Principles. See the 5th and 6th Books of my Translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, for an account of the deities called fountains and principles.

Tim. Plat, Vou. I. 3B

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