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

But these pertain to souls falling into generation and to material things, and are not the instruments of immutable safety, but ofa venesiurgic life, corrupting the purity of intellect, and destroying the life which subsists according to reason. The divine Tamblichus, however, explains these in a divinely Inspired manner, For since itis requisite that every thing divine should operate and not suffer, in order that by operating it may not have the ineflicacious, which is assimilated to matter, and that by not suffering it may not have an eflicacious power resembling that of material natures, which actin conjunction with passion ;— in order that both these may be accomplished, he says, that sliclds are powers through which a divine nature remains impassive and undetiled, surrounding itself with an inftangible guard. But spears are the powers according to which it proceeds through all things without contact,” and operates on all things, cutting off that which is material, and giving aid to every genesiurgic form, These powers, however, are first seen about Minerva. Hence in the statues of her she is) represented with a spear and shicld. Por she vanquishes all things, and according to theologists, remains without declination, and with undetiled purity, in her father: But these have a secondary subsistence, in both the total and partial Minerval powers. For as the Jovian and demiurgic multitude, mitates Its monad, and as the prophetic and Apolloniacal multitude participates of the Apollomacal pecularity ; thus, also, the Minerval number, adtunbrates the undefiled and unmingled nature of Minerva. This, also, takes place in an ultimate degree in Minerval souls, For in these, likewise, the shield is the untamed and uninclining power of reason; but the spear is that power which amputates matter and liberates the soul from damoniacal or fatal passions ; of which powers the Athenians participate ina purer manner, bat the Sattans ina secondary degree, receiving these through the measure of alliance to the Goddess.

“You may perceive, too, what great attention was paid immediately from the beginning by the laws to prudence and modesty, and besides these, to divination and medicine, as subservient to the preservation of health. And from these, which are divine goods, the laws, proceeding

* For ἀνάψω, here, itis necessary to read avagns.

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tothe invention of such as are merely human, procured all such other disciplines as follow from those we have just enumerated.”

And from these, which are divine goods, the laws, proceeding

* For ἀνάψω, here, itis necessary to read avagns.

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tothe invention of such as are merely human, procured all such other disciplines as follow from those we have just enumerated.”

A little farther on, he calls the Goddess both a lover of wisdom and a lover of war, in order that the arrangement of the polity of the Athenians and Saitans might be produced conformably to her as a paradigm. And what indeed pertains to the exercise of war, is sufficiently indicated trom what has been said ; but that which pertains to wisdom, he exhibits to us in the present words ; in order that by the one, the philopolemie, and by the other, the philosophic nature of Minerva might be adumbrated. What then is this prudence?) The theory of wholes and of supermundane natures, from which, after the first of goods which are perfective of souls, a certain facility is obtained in the concerns of human life, proceeding in conjunction with divination and medicine. And in one way, indeed, this prudence is the source of disciplines in invisible causes, in another way, about the world, and in the last place, about human affairs. For since the Goddess herselfis immaterial and separate wisdom, on this account, to the natures that are allied to her, she unfolds into light all the parts of divine and human prudence. Por with respect to divination, also, one kind must be admitted to exist in the intellectual, and another in the mundane Gods. And of the latter, one kind proceeds from the Gods, another from dawmons, and another from the discuarsive energy of the human soul, existing rather as something artificial and conjectural, Ina similar manner also with respect to medicine, one kind indeed exists in the Gods themselves, and this is ofa Psconian nature ; but another kind, in demons, being ministrant and subservient to the Gods, from whom likewise matter and instruments are procured for the advents of the Gods. For as there are many dwmons about Love, thus also about Esculapius, some are allotted the order of attendants, but others that of forerunners of the God, And another kind exists in human lives, being that which is noparted from theorems and experience, according to which some are adapted ina greater, and others in a less degree to divine medicine. But there is also a mixture of these two kinds of prudence, viz. the prophetic and the medicinal, with the Egyptians ; because the causes of these are antecedently comprehended in one divinity, and from one fountain many streams are distributed about the world. And thus much has been said in common about the prudence which is now menioneddl.

In order, however, to unfold each particular more fully, we must say, that daw, indeed, is the order proceeding from the one intellect of Minerva; but adlention,

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And thus much has been said in common about the prudence which is now menioneddl.

In order, however, to unfold each particular more fully, we must say, that daw, indeed, is the order proceeding from the one intellect of Minerva; but adlention,p. 134 the providence pervading from wholes as far as to material natures 3 and immediately from the deginning, the nataral aptitude of Minerval souls to prudence. For that which is neither adventitious nor foreign, appears to be signified by these words, But if some one should) refer what is said to the mundane order, because the distribution of things does not proceed from the imperfeet to the perfect, but is always arranged and accompanied in its progression with that which is excellent, it appears to me that this is manifested by the words unmediately from the beginning. The words, however, must be referred to the order of the whole world, because there are invisible causes of the natures that are arranged in the world, whieh perfect pradence (i.e. wisdom) primarily contemplates, Por the form of prudence is not, as Porphyry says it ts, artificial, or adapted to the arts. For this, as Tamblichus observes, is the gift of Valean, but not of Minerva. But attention was also paid to divination and medicine, heeause itis fit, in the first place, to contemplate the other powers of the mundane Gods, and thus afterwards, their prophetic and) sanative production; since we are allotted the government of a generated body, and to us who are enclosed in body, futurity is immanitest. For a material life exhibits much of the contingent, end of an hyparsis diflerently moved at different times. But by such other disciplines as follow from these, he doubtless means geometry, astronomy, lowistic, arithmetic, and the sciences allied to these; all which the law having established, led the Athenians and Saitans to the possession of an admirable prudence. And thus much concerning these particulars,

Porphyry, however, says, that medicine very properly proceeds from Minerva, because Eseulapius is the lunar intelleet, inthe same manner as Apollo is the solar intellect. But the divine Tamblichus blames this assertion, as confounding the essences of the Gods, and as not always rightly distributing according to pre sent circumstances the intellects and souls of the mundane Gods, For it must be admitted that) Esculapins exists inthe sun, and that he proceeds from: that luminary about the generated place; in order that as the heavens, ΝῸ likewise veneration may be connected by this divinity, according to a second participation, and may be tilled from it with symmetry, and good temperament.

“ According to all this orderly distribution therefore, and co-arranges ment, the Goddess first established and adorned your city.”

Vhe word αἱ manifests the united comprehension in the Goddess of all the natures that are adorned by her, and that neither is any thing pretermitted by