The Athenian guest also celebrates this truth which subsists primarily in the Gods ; for he says that truth is the leader to the Gods of every good, and likewise of every good to men. For as the truth which is in souls conjoins them with intellect, and as intellectual truth conducts all tlie intellectual orders to the one, thus also the truth of the Gods unites tlie divine unities to the fountain of all good, with which being conjoined, they are filled with all boniform power. For every where the hyparxis of truth has a cause which is collective of multitude into one ; since in the Republic also, the light proceeding from the good, and which conjoins intellect with the intelligible, is denominated by Platp truth. This cha- racteristic property theref ore, which unites and binds together the natures that fill and the natures that are filled, according to all the orders of the Gods, must be arranged as originating supernally and proceeding as far as to the last of things.
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To us however discussing what pertains to every divine nature, what we assert will be known from those commonly received truths adduced in the Phaedrus, and which we have before mentioned. Socrates therefore says that every thing divine is beautiful, wise, and good,' and he indicates that this triad pervades to all the progressions of the Gods. What there- fore is the goodness, what the wisdom, and what the beauty of the Gods ? With respect to the goodness of the Gods therefore, we have before ob- served, that it preserves and gives subsistence to the whole of things, that it every where exists as the summit, as that which fills subordinate natures, and as pre-existing in every order analogous to the fir*t principle of the divine orders. For according to this all the Gods are coo joined with the one cause of all things, and on account of this primarily derive their subsistence as Gods. For in all beings there is not any thing more perfect than the good, and the Gods. To the most excellent of l)eiiigs therefore, and which are in every respect perfect, the best and most perfect of things is adapted.
Btt in the Philebus, Plato delivers to us the three most principal ele- ments of the good, vis. the desirable, the sufficient, and the perfect. For it is necessary that it should convert all things to itself, and fill all things, and that it should be in no respect deficient, and should not diminish its exuberance. Let no one therefore conceive the desirable to be such as that which is frequently extended in sensibles as the object of appetite.
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Chap. Xxii. of Plato. 73
For such is apparent beauty. Nor let him suppose it to be such as is in- deed able to energize upon and excite to itself the natures which are able to participate it, but which at the same time may be apprehended by in- telligence, and is educed by us according to a projecting energy, and an adhesion of the dianoetic power. For it is ineffable, and prior to all knowledge extends to all beings. For all things desire the good, and are converted to it. But if it be requisite summarily to unfold the characte- ristic peculiarity of the desirable, as the supplier of light proceeds by his rays into secondary natures, converts the eye to himself, causes it to be solar-form, and to resemble himself, and through a different similitude conjoins it with his own fulgid splendour, thus also I think the desirable of the Gods allures and draws upward all things to the Gods in an ineff- able manner by its own proper illuminations, being every where present to all things, and not deserting any order whatever of beings. Since even matter itself is said to be extended to this desirable, and through this desire is filled with as many goods as it is able to participate. It is there- fore the centre of all beings, and all beings, and all the Gods have their essences, powers and energies about this. And the extension and desire of things towards this is inextinguishable. For all beings aspire after this desirable which is unknown and incomprehensible. Not being able there- fore either to know or receive that which they desire, they dance round it, and are parturient and as it were prophetic with respect to it. But they have an unceasing and never-ending desire of its unknown and in- effable nature, at the same time that they are unable to embrace and embosom it. For being at once exempt from all things, it is similarly present to and moves all things about itself, and is at the same time by all of them incomprehensible. By this motion also and this desire it preserves all things. But by its unknown transcendency through which it surpasses the whole of things, it preserves its proper union un mingled with secondary natures. Such therefore is the desirable.
But the sufficient is full of boniform power, proceeds to all things, and extends to all beings the gifts of the Gods. For we conceive such a sufficiency as this to be a power pervading and protending to the last of things, extending the unenvyiug and exuberant will of the Gods, and
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not abiding in itself, but unically comprehending the super-plenitude, the never-failing, the infinite, and that which is generative of good in the divine hyparxis. For the desirable being firmly established, and surpas- sing the whole of things, and arranging all beings about itself, the suffi- cient begins the progression and multiplication of all good, calls forth that which is primary in the uniform hyparxis of the desirable, by its own pro- lific ' exuberance, and by the beneficent replenishings which pervade to all things, and copiously produces and imparts it to every being. It is owing to the sufficient therefore, that the stability of divine natures, and that which proceeds from its proper causes is full of goodness, and that, in short, all beings are benefited, abiding in, proceeding from, and being united to their principles, and essentially separated from them. Through this power therefore, the intellectual genera give subsistence to natures similar to themselves, souls desire to generate, and imitate the beings prior to souls, natures deliver their productive principles into another place, and all things possess, in short, the love of generation. For the sufficiency of the goodness of the Gods, proceeding from this goodness, is dissemi- nated in all beings, and moves all things to the unenvying communication of good ; intellect indeed to the communication of intellectual, but soul of psychical, and nature of natural good.
All things therefore abide through the desirable of goodness, and gene- rate and proceed into second ami third generations through the sufficient. But the third thing, the perfect, is convertivc of the whole of things, and circularly collects them to their causes ; and this is accomplished by divine, intellectual, psychical and physical perfection. For all things participate of conversion, since the infinity of progression is through this again re- called to its principles ; and the perfect is mingled from the desirable and sufficient. For every thing of this kind is the object of desire, and is generative of things similar to itself. Or in the works of nature also, are not perfect things every where lovely and prolific through the acme fof their beauty ? The desirable therefore establishes all things, and com- prehends them in itself. The sufficient excites them into progressions
1 Instead of pwi/i? it it necessary to read yw.p».
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Chap. Xxiii. of Plato. 75
and generations. And the perfect consummately leads progressions to conversions and convolutions. But through these three causes, the good* ness of the Gods fixing the unical power and authority of its proper hy- postasis in this triad, is the primary and most principal fountain and vestal seat of things which have any kind of subsistence whatever.
After this, wisdon\is allotted the second order, being the intelligence • of the Gods, or rather the hyparxis of their intelligence. For intelligence indeed, is intellectual knowledge ; but the wisdom of the Gods is ineffa- ble knowledge, which is united to the object of knowledge and the intel- ligible union of the Gods. But it appears to me that Plato especially surveyed this in the triad [of the beautiful, the wise and the good,] as may be inferred from the conceptions scattered about it in many places. I say then that Diotima in the Banquet is of opinion that wisdom is full of that which is known, and that it neither seeks, nor investigates, but possesses the intelligible. Hence, she says, that no one of the Gods phi- losophizes, nor desires to become wise ; for a God is wise. Hence that which is philosophic is imperfect, and indigent of truth ; but that which is wise is full and unindigent, and has every thing present which it wishes and desires nothing. But the desirable and the appetible are proposed to the philosopher. Socrates, however, in the Republic considers that which is generative of truth and intellect, as affording an indication of wisdom, to our souls indeed the ascent to divine plenitude being accom- plished through knowledge,' but to the Gods intellect being present from the fulness of knowledge.1 For the progression in them is not from an
' For ymqnots it is requisite to read ynxrinf. 1 The same emendation is necessary here as above.
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imperfect habit to the perfect ; but from a self-perfect hyparxis a power prolific of inferior natures proceeds. But in the Theatetus he indicates that the perfective of things imperfect, and that which calls forth con- cealed intelligence in souls, pertain to wisdom. For he says, it compels me to obstetrication, but prevents me from generating. It is evident therefore, from these things, that the genus of wisdom is triadic. Hence it is full of being and truth, is generative of intellectual truth, and is perfective of intellectual natures that are in energy, and itself possesses a stable power. We must admit therefore, that these things pertain to the wisdom of the Gods. For this wisdom is full indeed of divine goodness, generates divine truth, and perfects all things posterior to itself.
In the next place let us consider the beautiful, what it is, and how it primarily subsists in the Gods. It is said therefore to be boniform beauty, and %telligiblc beauty, to be more ancient than intellectual beauty, and to be beauty itself, and the cause of beauty to all beings ; add all such like epithets. And it is rightly said. But it is separate not only from the beauty which is apparent in corporeal masses, from the symmetry which is in these from psychical elegance, and intellectual splendour, but also from the second and third progressions in the Gods ; and subsisting in the intelligible place of survey, it proceeds from this to all the genera of the Gods, and illuminates their superesscntial unities, and all the essences suspended from these unities, as far as to the appa- rent vehicles of the Gods. As therefore through the first goodness all the Gods are boniform, and through intelligible wisdom they have a knowledge ineffable, and established above intellect, thus also, I think, through the summit of beauty, every thing divine is lovely. For from
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Chap. Xxiv. of Plato. 77
thence all the Gods derive beauty, and being filled with it, fill the natures posterior to themselves, exciting all things, agitating them with Bacchic fury about the love of themselves, and pouring supernally on all things the divine effluxion of beauty.