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

But ardent request follows, rendering that which ought to partake of more perfect goods, adapted to the participation of them.

«That afterwards, one of the priests said :—Nothing of envy, Ὁ Solon, prevents us from complying with your request. But tor your sake and that of your city, I will relate the whole; and especially on account of the Goddess.”

Solon being an Athenian, has a resemblance to the Tutelar Goddess Minerva, so faras he adheres to more perfect intellectual pereeptions. And the priest resembles one speaking, as 1 were, from a certain adytam, For he teaches what Was committed to writing in the temples 5 and) presents to us an Imitation of the middle orders of the junior fabrication, and of the whole paternal cause 5 which orders transmitting the gifts of a more elevated to a subordinate cause, fill from that as froma certain fountain the divine order. All things, likewise, are clegantly effected by the speaker. For Solon is perfected, the city is praised, and the Goddess is celebrated. Phe ascent also is from Solon to the Goddess through the city as a medium; imitating the convertive power of the Goddess, And. this, likewise, is indeed beneticent; viz. to energize for the sake of the

‘ perfection of secondary natures: for it imitates ‘ providence, and the superplenary power of divine beings. But it is in a still greater degree beneficent, to energize for the sake of the city: for the energy is more ample, and embraces a greater power. Besides this, it is stl more divine to extend all the narration to the Goddess, and to terminate the whole energy in her; all) which, the unenvying communication of the priest genuinely represents to us, not only indicating the privation of envy, but the divine and prompt generation of good.

Again, however, we must not be ignorantly disturbed, if now indeed the priest as being the dispensator of the narration, is said to adumbrate a greater and more divine cause; bat at another time, the Athenians being the ancestors of Solon,

πληρωσιν in this place, it is necessary to read ra de rpwra δια δυναμεων agOorwr, καὶ ayabornros, κ. ἃ.

* For ποίρίγαι here, it is necessary to read pupecrac,

p. 113

ἃ.

* For ποίρίγαι here, it is necessary to read pupecrac,p. 113 are more ancient than the inhabitants of Sais; the Athenians being arranged according to the mundane causes of the whole contrariety of things. For so far as pertains to the narration, they have this order; but so far as pertains to physical progression, they bring with them an image of certain more elevated and divine orders, And if you are willing so to speak, since all fabrication, and the mundane contraricty, are antecedently comprehended in the father of wholes, together with adorning causes, and things which are adorned, you may there also assume according to analogy, the paradigmatic cause of the Athenians in intellectual lives, For again, the veil (of Minerva] is the last image of the whole contrariety of things. But in the universe, the true works of the Gods have a precedency, and likewise in the productive and primary causes of them; where also it is said, Minerva became apparent, invested with armour. Or rather, the veil is the last work of the weaving art, containing in itself an image of the mundane war, and of the demiurgic order proceeding from the Goddess into the universe; which veil she wove in conjunction with her father. A better image however of this, is that which in the narration of Plato, and in enigmas, represents to us the whole contrariety of things, and of the works of Minerva; which narration contributes to the whole (deseriptive) fabrication of the world, in the same manner as the veil to the splendid precession of the Goddess, and the whole of the solemnity. Fur the Panathenaa is aninage of the Minerval fabrication in the universe. The veil, however, is superior to both these, which is woven in the universe, in the intellectual dight of Minerva. For contrariety is spread under the one life of the world, and the war is apart of the fabrication of things, which the ruling art of Minerva arranges in a becoming manner. And prior to all these, is the veil, Which is pre-established in paradigmatic causes and the intelligible, and is comprehended in the one intellectual perception of Minerva, — For,

In weaving, all th’ immortals she excels, says Orpheus, Hence, the weaving art is there primarily, and the vetl of the essence of this Goddess, which essence is all things intellectually, that the uni-

_ Verse is according to a mundane eharacteristic. For in ruling over the war of the universe, she does not look any where else than into herself.

That we may however recur to the thing proposed to be considered, ‘the Egyplian priest directly imitates the unenvying providence of the Demiurgus, about which Plato a litde farther on says, “ FHe was good, but envy never subsists in him who ts good, about any thing.” For the orders which exist proximately with him,

Tim. Plat. νοις 1, ᾿

p. 114

Plat. νοις 1, ᾿

p. 114

have from him, and on account of him, an unenvying participation of good. And through this privation of envy, the priest fills indeed the mind of Solon, but praises the city, and celebrates the tutelar Goddess ; conjoining partial and total’ natures, uniting things contained to the things that contain them, and suspending all things from the Goddess, according to one bond and one series.

“Who is allotted the guardianship both of your city and ours, and by whom they have been nourished and educated.”

The Egyptian, after a certain admirable manner, converts all things to the Goddess, and produces them from, and again converts them to her. For recurring froma citizen through the city to the power who presides over it, he makes this conversion. But again proceeding from the Goddess to the natures that primarily, and also to those that secondarily participate of her, he imitates the progression of things from her divinity, Again also asserting that the participants are nourished and disciplined by the Goddess, he likewise converts these to her. How is it possible, therefore, that these particulars should notin an admirable manner imitate demiurgic powers, which are established in natures prior to themselves, and generate those posterior to, and convert them to the causes of themselves? And thus much concerning these particulars.

What, however, is the meaning of this allotment? And how are the Gods said to be distributed into the universe? Of allotments therefore, some are those of partial souls, and others, of the undefiled genera. Some are diemoniacal, others angelic, and others, of the Gods themselves. Porat the father of the universe was one alone, and there was only one providence and one law, there would be no need of allotments, nor of divine distribution. Since, however, after the one father there is a triad, after the uniform a multiform providence, and after one law a multitude of fatal laws, it is also necessary that there should be a division of the subjects of government, and another providence and order about other things. Through this cause therefore the universe is divided by demiurgic numbers, viz. by the duad, triad, tetrad, pentad, ebdomad, and dodecad. — For after the one fabrication, the section ofthe universe into two, heaven and generation, constitutes two-fold allotments, the celestialand genesinrgic. After this, the triad divides the universe, about which Neptune in [Lomer* says,

‘To me by lot belongs the hoary deep,
‘The spacious heaven to Jove, to Pluto, Hades dark.

* For v\usa here, it is necessary to read oda.

* iad av, vs. 190, δ,

p. 11

The tetradic distribution follows the tiple order; giving a four-fold) arranzement to the elements in the universe, as the Pythagoreans say, celestially and ethereatiy, above the earth, and under the earth. Next to this is the five-fold division. For