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

For through observations of this kind, they discover the effective powers of the ¢clestial configurations. For assuming that certainp. 104 things happen from certain things existing, they are able syllogistically to collect, from the same signs, the causes of future events. It appears also to me, that the doctrine of the Pythagoreans which prepares souls to remember their former lives, imitates such a history as this of the Egyptians. For as itis fit to assume different lives of one man, or rather of one soul, thus also different periods must be assumed of one nation. Hence, as in the one, the recollections of the transactions of a furmer life are perfective of souls, so in the other, the histories of former periods afford the greatest assistance to the acquisition of wisdom. Farther still, such observations are assimilated to the orderly distribution of the universe. Por they imitate the stable productive powers of nature, through which remaining lininoveable, order is ingenerated in things that are mutable. If, therefore, the world is a most sacred temple, in which the productive powers that connect the universe Ὁ eternally remain, the recording of ancient deeds in temples will be an Image οἵ the subsistence of these powers. And what is asserted by the Egyptians may δι σαν, that whatever in sensibles is stable, of a firtn consistence, and always subsisting after the same manner, proceeds from the intelligible Gods ; but that whatever is moved, and at different times is generated and corrupted ina different mannez, is derived from the junior fabrication, For the sacerdotal genus by which mention is made of ancient transactions, conveys an image of the divine order, which is connective of wholes and of stability, and which guards all things by divine memory, and from which the junior fabrication being filled, imparts by illumination to things of a very mutable nature, sameness, Connexion, and permanency.

“ While on the contrary, you and other nations, commit only recent transactions to writing, and to other contrivances which cities have employed for transmitting information to posterity.”

Contrivance is a symbol of the cause which always fabricates new things, produces things which are not yet in existence, and co-adapts all things to the one perfection of the world. For in our domestic concerns, we call the preparation . of every thing necessary, contrivance. And such also in cities, are literature and arts, forums and baths, and the like. But in the universe, coutrivances are such things as receive a temporal and partial composition. As, therefore, temples signify the receptacles of perpetual productive powers, and also of such as are of a connective and guardian nature ; thus likewise cities manifest hypostases convist-

p. 105

As, therefore, temples signify the receptacles of perpetual productive powers, and also of such as are of a connective and guardian nature ; thus likewise cities manifest hypostases convistp. 105ing of many, dissimilar, and mortal powers. But recent transactions only being committed to writing, evinces that the existence of such writings and arts, is of a more recent nature, ᾿

“And so again in accustomed years,a celestial efluxion rushes on them like a disease.”

This also is evidentin men. For deluges destroy their race, being excited indeed from the celestial periods, but having water for their matter, Tlence the whole of this is called a celestial edlusxion, and, as it were, a disease, because it is corruptive of other things. ‘That, however, which is corruptive, is indeed to a partial nature evil, but to the whole of things good. But Plato says, “in accustomed ycars,” because such like destructions are accomplished conformably to certain circulations, Which also have themselves a certain consecutive order with reference to. the whole period of a divinely generated [or perpetually circulating] nature. This also seems to be manifested through these particulars, that such things as are alone generated from wholes are necessarily consummated according to mundane petiods, which are detined by the same number; but that such things as happen from certain partial causes, will not entirely happen to be the same, though the configurations of the period are the same. In the universe, however, you may survey the same thing, by understanding that all generated natures are corrupted, and yield to the mundane periods, and to the circulations of the whole life [of the world, and that the periods are conjoined to each other, and accomplish one continued lite.

Tenee those among you who survive, are illiterate and unacquainted with the Muses. And thus it happens that you become juvenile again, and ignorant of the transactions of ancient times, as well of those among us, as of those in the regions which you inhabit.”

- For from a deluge, Plato says, that herdsmen and shepherds are left, but that the inhabitants of cities are destroyed. Hence those that remain are illiterate and without the Muses, And on account of the former, indecd, they are unable through writing to transmit: memorials of the pre-existent period 5 but on account of the latter, they are not sufliciently capable of preserving in verse or melody the events that happened prior to the deluge, Lence they become oblivious of all

Tim. Plat. Vou. I. . O

p. 106

Plat. Vou. I. . O

p. 106

things. But through oblivion they return to the life of children, For an ignorant old man, says Aristotle, does not at all differ from a child in understanding. A thing of this kind, however, happens to souls that have recently descended into generation. For having exchanged for the former period, which was intellectual, " ἃ certain, secondary and genesiurgic condition of being, they become oblivious of intelligibles, through the deluge arising from matter, Such representations also of intelligibles, as they once had from the vision of them they lose in the progressions of time. Thus, therefore, every thing in the world returns to juvenility from juvenility through regeneration being borne along differently at diflerent: times, in consequence of the form of it naturally subsisting in motion. Moreover, the assertion that mutations taking place, those that remain, are illiterate and unacquainted with the Muses, Indicates to those who consider it physically, that) the analysis of bodies takes place as far as to that which is formless and without morphe; and also that in this mutation, the destruction of the elements happens, wich is manifested through the word με αἰ, and the dissolution of harmony, which again the Gods who are the inspective guardians of renovation, easily remedy, and restore co a condition according to nature,

“The transactions therefore, OG Solon, which you relate from your antiquities, ditier very little from puerile fables.”

The Egyptian priest compares the venerable and very ancient narrations of Solon to the fables of children, Por the fables of the wise are about things ofan cternal nature; but those of children about temporal things and which are of small consequence. And the former, indeed, contain intellectual concealed truth; but the latter, truth of a grovelling nature, end which indicates nothing elevated. To the latter fables therefore, the histories of Solon are analogous ; but to the former, the histories of the Eeyvptians. Por the one look to that which is small, but the other have a most extended survey, And the one are only histories, but the other coutribute to science. Prom these things, therefore, the paradigms also of them are to be surveyed. Phe effects, indeed, of the junior fabrication, are called the sports of the Gods, and resemble fables. | For they are the imaves of beings, and participate of forms in an ultimate degree. But the things which primarily derive their subsistence from intelligibles, are intellectual, eternal, and stable, aad have the essence of themselves concealed,

* Por seapas here, it is necessary to read soepus.

ὄπα

p. 107

“Tor, in the first place, you only mention one deluge of the earth, though in former times there have been many.”