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

\\ e tin refort In ing impi lied from w hat Plato liims ll'savs, thus interpret the impartible and the partible essence.

Of those, however, prior to us, ami who make tin* essence of the soul to he inatheruntieul, as being a medium between natural and supernatural things, some asserting that it is number make it to consist of the monad as impartible, and the indefinite du.id as partible. Hut otln rs, considering it as a geometrical hypostasis, assert that it consists of a point and interval, the former being impartible, but the latter partible. Aristander, N'limenius, and their followers, and many other of the interpreters, arc of the former opinion, but Scv crus is of the second. Others, again, as Plutarch and \ttu us, survey ing the physieal esst nee, say, that the irra¬ tional part which precedes [in the ordi r of physical theory] the rational part, is tin- partible essence; but the divine part of the soul, the impartible. And they make the rational essence to consist of the two, of the latter, as that which adorns, and of the former as a subject. They likewise s.iv, that the soul is unhegotten according to its essence, but generated according to its form. Others, however, as Plotinus, who consider the words of Plato in a more philosophic manner, sav, that tin- soul is a medium between intellect and sense, the former being impartible, but the latter divisiblc about bodies. Hut others proceeding higher, and placing two intellects prior to the soul, one possessing the ideas of wholes, but the other of partial natures, >ay that the soul is the medium between these as noo* in.]

* Mi? ii oniittid in tlic original

TiM.Kl S OF PLATO.

I r,

Hut others proceeding higher, and placing two intellects prior to the soul, one possessing the ideas of wholes, but the other of partial natures, >ay that the soul is the medium between these as

* Mi? ii oniittid in tlic original noo* in.]

TiM.Kl S OF PLATO.

I r,

«lrn\ ing it* subsistence Imm both. I'or thus Thi'minnis, the Ashm an, says, who f*>un<i llus opinion in Porphyry as «l<-ri\•■(! from tin' Persian*. These things* therefore, Antoninus ivluti-s who was i|ii* dis< iph* of Ainmuiiiiis. To the first of tlir-s-**, Imwcv. r. k must lx- said, that since Plato dors not make the soul to lie iiuiiiIht, it IS alisunl to investigate the principles of mimhi-r of which the soul consists. Hut to the second, that Plato says the soul is incorporeal when com¬ pared with every body, and that it has a self-motive essence; hut that nothing which possrsses interval is a tiling of this kind. To the third it must he said, that IMato is not of opinion that the irrational is more ancient than the rational part. Tor divinity, as he says, did not think lit that the more ancient should In* governed by the junior nature. To the fourth, tiiat the discussion is not concern- “ ing the psychical knowledge, hut the psychical essence. And hence it is not pro¬ per to say, that the soul is a medium between the two gnostic powers, the intellectual and the sensitive. And to the fifth, that every intellect is unbegotten, and separate from bodies. Hut IMato calls the soul a partible and generated essence, giving it a division opposite to the essence which subsists with invariable sameness, ami to that which is partible about bodies, and separating it from tho essence w hich is external to bodies, and always is. As these particulars, however, have lieen siilu iently discussed, let us consider w hat follows.

“ And again alter the same manner, with respect to the nature of same and the nature of different, he constituted the soul in the middle of the impartibilitv of these, and of the nature which is divisible about bodies.”

“ And again alter the same manner, with respect to the nature of same and the nature of different, he constituted the soul in the middle of the impartibilitv of these, and of the nature which is divisible about bodies.”

Essence, as we have said, lias the first oirhrin the genera, because it is as it were, the Vesta of being. Sameness, therefore, has the second ; and difference, the third ordi r. for some consider difference as having a dignity snjwrior to sanii ness. Hut IMato, in what he before said, has < learly evinced that the similar is better than the dissimilar; and now assuming sameness after essence, directly givt s it the preference to difference. And as we have said that the middle essence is inferior to the intellectual essence, lint transcends that which is divisible about body, thus also we say that the sameness of the soul is inferior to the impartible, but is more united than the partible sameness, and in a similar manner with resjK ct to diffen nee. Hence in the essence of intellect, the sameness, being one* collects itself, and also the essential difference, to the essence which is there, and is one; just as the difference lieing one, separates itself, nnd the essence and same¬ ness from each other. Hut m the soul sameness collects into one the differences

PROCLUS ON THE

[hook III.

p. 46

which are many in the many parts, and dillerence separates the samenesses. I know, therefore, that some l'latonists, arrange sameness in impartible, hut dillerence in partible natures, ami thus make tlie soul to consist of both, as a medium between sameness ami dillerence. Those, however, do not* attend to what Plato here savs, that the soul is a medium between the impartibility of sameness and dillerence, and the partihility of the nature which is divisible about bodies. It is likewise requisite to know that these are the genera of being, and that it is necessary these should be every when* appropriately, in impartible, and partible natures, and m the media between these, and again in intellectual es¬ sences, in souls, in natures, and in corporeal masses. I'or I should be ashamed to divide the genera as thev do, placing one here, hut another there. For if thev had said, that sameness predominates in intelligible and impartible natures, but dillerence in sensible^, and partible natures, they would have spoken rightly. But if they assert that imparliblcs are separate from difference, neither will they be able to give to tin m sameness. For the one ditiers from the same.'' And if they say that partible natures are separate from sameness, they subvert the essence of them.