The Theology of Plato, in six books — trans. Thomas Taylor

hem with wisdom and intelligence, thus also Saturn being the object of desire and love to Jupiter, contains him in himself by indissoluble bonds.. And these things Socrates indicates in the Cratylus, jesting, and at the same time being serious in what he says. The object of desire therefore* and the intelligible to Jupiter, is Saturn. But the mighty Jupiter himself is a divine and demiurgic intellect. Hence, it is necessary that there should be a third other intellectual cause, generative of life. For Jupiter indeed is the cause of life, as Socrates says, but intellectuallyand secondarily. But we say that life is every where arranged prior to intellect. Hence, we roust say that the queen Rhea, being the mother of Jupiter, but subordinate to the father Saturn, gives completion to this middle, existing as a vivific world, and establishing in herself the causes of the whole of life. These three paternal orders, therefore, have appeared to us in intellectuals : one of them indeed subsisting according to the intelligible power of intellectuals;' but another according to divine and intellectual life; and another according to intellectual intellect. For we celebrate the middle deity, herself by herself, as the mother of the demiurgus, and of wholes. When, however, we survey

' It appears from the version of Porta*, that the words o pr» tuna rr/t yoynjv twafui rm ntfm, are omitted in the original. Indeed, the sense requires that they should be inserted.

CHAP. III.

OF PLATO.

p. 319

her together with the extremes, we denominate her a paternal cause, as being comprehended in the fathers ; and as generating some things together with Saturn, but others in conjunction with Jupiter.

Moreover, Plato following Orpheus, calls the inflexible and undefiled triad of the intellectual Gods Curetic, as is evident from what the Athe* nian guest sajs in the Laws, celebrating the armed sports of the Curetes, and their rythmical dance. For Orpheus represents the Curetes who are three, as the guards of Jupiter. And the sacred laws of the Cretans, and all the Grecian theology, refer a pure and undefiled life and energy to this order. For ro x«p«* to koron, indicates nothing else than the pure and incorruptible. Hence, we hare before said, that the mighty Saturn, as being essentially united to the cause of undefiled purity, is a pure intellect. The paternal Gods therefore are three, and the undefined Gods also are three, Hence it remains that we should survey the seventh monad.

hare before said, that the mighty Saturn, as being essentially united to the cause of undefiled purity, is a pure intellect. The paternal Gods therefore are three, and the undefined Gods also are three, Hence it remains that we should survey the seventh monad.

If, therefore, we consider the fabulous elections, both the Saturn ian and the Celestial, of which Plato makes mention, and thinks that such like narrations should always be concealed in silence, that the arcane truth of them should be surveyed, and that they are indicative of mystic conceptions, because these things are not fit for young men to hear,— [if we consider these] we may obtain from them what the separative deity is, who accomplishes the divisions, and segregates the Saturnian genera indeed from the Celestial, and the Jovian from the Saturnian, and who separates the whole intellectual order from the natures prior and posterior to it, disjoins the different causes in it from each other, and always imparts to secondary natures, secondary measures of dominion. And let not any one be disturbed, or oppose me on hearing these things. How therefore does Plato reject exertions* bonds, and the tragical apparatus of fables ? For he thinks that all such particulars will be condemned by the multitude and the stupid, through ignorance of the arcana they contain ; but that they will exhibit to the wise certain admirable opinions. Hence, he indeed does not admit such a mode of fiction, but thinks it proper to be persuaded by the ancients who were the offspring of the Gods, and to investigate their arcane conceptions. As therefore hep. 320 rejects the Saturnian fables, when they are narrated to Euthyprhon, aud the auditors of the Republic, yet at the same time admits them in the Cratylus, placing about the mighty Saturn and Pluto, other secondary bonds, — thus also, I think he forbids exections to be introduced to those who know only the apparent meaning of what is said, and does not admit that there is illegal conduct in the Gods, nnd nefarious aggressions of children against their parents, but he opposes, and confutes as much as possible such like opinions. He assents however to their being narrated to those who arc able to penetrate into the mystic truth, and investigate the concealed meaning of fables, and admits the separation of wholes, whether [mythologists] are willing to denominate them exections for the purpose of concealment, or in whatever other way they may think fit to call them.

into the mystic truth, and investigate the concealed meaning of fables, and admits the separation of wholes, whether [mythologists] are willing to denominate them exections for the purpose of concealment, or in whatever other way they may think fit to call them. For bonds and exections are symbols of communion and separation, and each is the progeny of the same divine mythology. Nor is there any occasion to wonder, if from these things we endeavour to confirm the opinion of Plato; but it is requisite to know how the philosophy of Plato admits all such particulars, and how it rejects them, and in what manner he apprehends they may be the causes of the greatest evils, and of an impious life to those that hear them. The seven intellectual Gods, therefore, will through these, conceptions appear to have been thought worthy of being mentioned by Plato.

CHAPTER IV.

It is, however, 1 think, necessary syllogistically to collect the progression of them according to hebdomads, from images. The demiurgus therefore, [in the Timaeus] fabricates the soul of the universe an image or all the divine orders, in the same manner as he fabricates this sensible

CHAP. IV.

OF PLATO.

world an image of intelligibles. And in the first ' place indeed, he constitutes the whole essence of the soul, and afterwards divides it into numbers, binds it by harmonies, and adorns it with figures, I mean the rectilinear and the circular. After this also, he divides it into one circle and seven circles. Whence therefore, arc this monad and hebdomad derived, except from the intellectual Gods? For figure, number, and true being, are prior to them. And as in the fabrication of the soul, after the subsistence of the psychical figure, the division of the circles according to the monad and hebdomad follows, thus also in the Gods, after intellectual and intelligible figure, the intellectual breadth, and that sphere of the Gods succeed. The multitude therefore of the seven hebdomads subsist from the divine intellectual hebdomad entering into itself. And on this account, the demiurgus thus divides the circles in the soul, because he, and every intellectual order, produce an intellectual hebdomad from each monad. I do not however assert, and now contend, that the seven circles are allotted an hyparxis similar to the seven Gods that proceed from the demiurgus, but that the demiurgus dividing the soul according to circles, introduces number to the sections from the intellectual Gods, I mean the monadic and the hebdomadic number.