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

ὄπα

p. 107

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

Por the deluge of Deucalion is much celebrated by the Greeks, though as the Egyptian says, there were many others prior to it. Thus also in wholes, the junior fabrication gives completion to wholes partially, and multitudinously, and renders that which is present in a good condition through regeneration. But in intelligibles, the causes of the first subsistence and of the circulation of forms, are antecedently comprehended unically Cor according to the nature of the one].

“ And,in the next place, you are ignorant of a most beautiful and excellent race of men, who once inhabited your country ; from whence you and the whole of your city descended, though a small seed only of this adimirable people once remained. But your ignorance in this atfair is owing to the posterity of this people, who for many ages were destitute of literature, and became as it were dumb.”

The Egyptian wishes to conjoin the second to the former period, and to show that there is one connexion and life of the first Athenians, and of those that now exist, through a small seed, as he says, remaining. For thus also in’ the world the seeds of a former period conjoin that which succeeds it to its principles, throuch the essence of causes, the unceasing motion of the universe, and as some one says, its immutable inutation. We must not, however, wonder if the priest now indeed says, that Solon is the offspring of those excellent men. For we must again direct our attention to the cause of all mundane contrariety. For Solon, so far as he is an animal, possesses from them the genus; but 50 far as he is ἃ partial intellect, receiving the narration of a war, he is analogous to the divinity, who transports the productive principle of mundane contrariety, supernally from intelligibles to the sensible region. — Nor is it proper to be disturbed by such like objections, but to know the nature of analogies ; and that the same things through analogy, become first, middle, and last.

“ or prior to that greatest destruction by water, there was a most excellent city of Athenians, which surpassed all others in war, and was in every respect governed by the most equitable laws, and whose deeds and polities are said to have becn the most beautitul of all that we have received the knowledge of by the hearing, under the heavens.”

p. 108

Plato does not perhaps mean by the greatest destruction, the deluge of Deucalion, but some one of the deluges prior to it. But he calls the city of the Athenians most warlike, and governed by the most equitable laws, as being an imitation of its guardian Goddess, whom he afterwards says, is both philosophic and philopolemic. For the Athenians partake of the warlike from the philopolemic, and of equitable legislation from the philosophic. By the most beautiful deeds he means the victory over the Atlanties. But by the most beautiful polities he does not intend to signify that they changed many of them, but he thus speaks, because one polity may be called the number of many polities ; just as one world is connective of many worlds. Por if the lite ofeach maividual is a certain polity, but the common life is the communion of many partial lives, the one polity will consist of many polities, the beauty of it depending on its union, Tle also adds, the most beautiful of all that we lnovw under the heavens, Weeause itis the first initation of the polity of the world; so that you may say, itis the best of those under the heavens; for the paradigm of it is inthe heavens. And thus much forparticulars,

Again, however, we should remind ourselves respecting the whole deed of the Athenians, that it is neither called a fable, nor a mere history ; some indeed receiving What is narrated as a history, but others, as a fable. And some asserting, that, in the first place, the developement of these, and such dike narrations, appeared τὸ Plato himself tobe the province of a certain laborious and not very fortunate man;' and in the second place, that what is delivered by Plato is not a thing of such an enigmatical mature, as the doctrine of Phereeydes, but that he teaches with perspicuity concerning most of his dogmas, Neither, therefore, say they, should we force him to analyse, since the man proposes to instructus without ambiguity. Phey also add, in the third place, that neither is a developement in the present: instance necessary. Per the cause of the insertion of this narration is known to be the deleht and allurement of the reader. And in the fourth place, that fwe analyse all things, we shall safler the same as those who ina slippery mannerare conversant with) Tomer, Others again think that the developement of this history should be referred to physical harmony, from what Plato savs of the narration about Phaeton, thatat has mdeed the form of a fable, bat: that at} manifests a certain matural event; saice the

Ug yptians also, who, as Plato says, were the fathers of this relation, obscurely signified the arcana of nature through fable. So that the developement of this narration

* Plato says this in the Phwdrus of the man who does uot adapt the eapliations of fables to divine concerns, but interprets them plysically,

p. 109

So that the developement of this narration

* Plato says this in the Phwdrus of the man who does uot adapt the eapliations of fables to divine concerns, but interprets them plysically,p. 109 will be adapted to him, who speaks in the person of the Egyptians. For as Timwus himself, contormably to the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, makes his discussion from numbers and figures, as interpreting nature throuch images ; thus, also, the Egyptian priest will teach the trath of things through symbols adapted to himself. Po which may be added, that Plato himself elsewhere accuses those who speak every thing from what is at hand, in order, says he, that they may render their wisdom manifest, even to shoemakers. So that he who delivers true assertions through enigmas, is not foreign from the mind of Plato. And such are the arguments of each.

We however, say, that all these particulars are a history, and also an indication of the mundane contrariety, and the whole order of things; the history, indeed, narrating the past transactions of men, but symbolically comprehending in itself those things which are comprehended in the universe, and the mundane contrariety. For the progression according to opposition, commencing from the first intelligibles, divides the world by powers that are eppositely arranged. And if you are willing, we will divide the universe according to the divine orders, which are In uninterrupted succession, and survey, conformably to the Pythagoreans, the co-ordinations that it contains. From the two principles, therefore, it is divided into bound and infinity, or rather into things allied to bound and_ the infinite. Tor of things that are mixed, some pertain to the former, but others to the latter principle. But from that which is unfolded into light as the third after these principles, the universe is divided into the united and the multiplied." For there multitude first subsists unitedly. From the triad that is next to this, it is divided into things perpetual, and things corruptible.? For the measure of existence to all things is derived from thence, From the third triad it is divided into the male and female:! for in this each of these primarily subsists: But from the first triad of the next order, itis divided according to the even and the odd; for number characterized by unity — there.4 From the second triad, it is divided into the partial and the total.’ And from the third,’ into the straight and the cireular. Again, of the intellectual triads, it is divided, according to the first, into things that are

This third thing, after the two principles bound and infinity, is being ilself. > This triad constitutes intelligible life, or eternity itself,

ω

This triad forms intelligible intellect, or [avro2wor] animal itself. This tnad is the summit of the order which is called intelligible, and at the same time intellectual.

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