CHAPTER VI.

And thus much concerning the whole conception of the speech. It is necessary, however, since we have said the words are demiurgic or fabricative, that they should be received in a manner adapted to demiurgic providence. But if these words are intellectual conceptions, and the intellectual conceptions themselves are productions, what shall we say the demiurgus effects in the multitude of mundane Gods by the first words of his speech? Is it not evident we must say that this energy of his is deific? For this one divine intellectual conception which is the first and most simple proceeding from the demiurgus, deifies all the recipients of it, and makes them demiurgic Gods, participated Gods, and Gods unapparent, and at the same time apparent. For this, as has been said, is the meaning of “Gods of Gods.” For the term Gods is not alone adapted to them; since they are not alone unapparent; nor the word Gods twice enunciated, as if some one should say Gods and Gods; for every bond of this kind is artificial, and foreign from divine union.

It is also necessary to observe that every mundane God has an animal suspended from him, according to which he is denominated mundane. He has likewise a divine soul, which rules over its depending vehicle; and an immaterial and separate intellect, according to which he is united to the intelligible, in order that he may imitate the world in which all these are contained. And by the animal suspended from him, he is indeed a part of the sensible universe; but by intellect he belongs to an intelligible essence; and by soul he conjoins the impartible life which is in him, with the life that is divisible about body. Such a composition, however, being triple in each mundane God, neither does Plato here deliver the demiurgus speaking to intellects; for intellects subsist in unproceeding union with the divine intellect, and are entirely unbegotten; but soul is the first of generated natures, and a little after the demiurgus addresses these when he says, “since ye are generated.” Nor does he represent the demiurgus as speaking only to the animals which are suspended from the souls of these Gods; for they pertain to corporeal natures, and are not adapted to enjoy the one demiurgic intelligence, without a medium. Nor yet does he represent him as speaking to souls by themselves; for they are entirely immortal; but the Gods whom he now addresses are said by him not to be in every respect immortal. If therefore it be requisite for me to say what appears to me to be the truth, the words of the demiurgus are addressed to the composite from soul and animal, viz. to the animal which is divine, and partakes of a soul. For intellect does not know the demiurgic will through reason, but through intelligence, or in other words, through intellectual vision; nor through conversion, but through a union with that intellect which ranks as a whole, as being itself intellect, and as it were of the same colour with it. But soul as being reason, and not intellect itself, requires appropriately to its essence the energy of reason, and a rational conversion to the intelligible. To these, therefore, as being essentially rational, and as being essentialized in reasons, the demiurgic speech proceeds. And it is adapted to them in a twofold respect; first, as being participated by bodies; for they are Gods of those Gods; and secondly, as participating of intellects; for they are Gods of [viz. derived from] intellects which are also Gods. And they participate of intellects, and are participable by bodies. Hence the assertions that they are generated, and that they are not entirely immortal, and every thing else in the speech, are appropriately adapted to them, so far as they have a certain co-ordination and connexion with mundane natures, and so far as they are participated by them. But the mandates “learn and generate,” and every thing else of this kind which is more divine than generated natures, are adapted to them as intellectual essences.

Let us in the next place attend to the meaning of the words, “Of whom I am the demiurgus and father, whatever is generated by me is indissoluble, such being my will in its fabrication.” Plato then appears to give a triple division to the energy of the one demiurgus in his production of the junior Gods, viz. a division into the deific, into that which imparts connexion and into that which supplies a similitude to animal itself. For the address of the demiurgus evinces those to be Gods that proceed from him. But the assertions respecting the indissoluble and dissoluble, by defining the measure of a medium between these, impart a distribution and connexion commensurate to the order of the mundane Gods. And the words calling on them to the fabrication of mortal natures, cause them to be the sources of perfection to the universe, and the fabricators of secondary animals, conformably to the imitation of the paradigm. But through these three energies the demiurgus elevates his offspring to all the intelligible Gods, and establishes them in the intelligible triads. In the one being indeed, [or the summit of these triads] through the first of these energies; for that is primarily deified, in which the one is deity, but being is the first participant of it. For the one itself is alone deity, without habitude to any thing, and is not participable; but the one being in which there is the first participation is God of God. And being is deity as the summit of all things; but the one of it is deity as proceeding from the one itself, which is primarily God. But through the second of these energies the demiurgus establishes his offspring in the second of the intelligible triads, i.e. in eternity itself. For eternity is the cause of this indissoluble permanency to every thing which continues perpetually undissolved. Hence all mundane natures are bound according to the demiurgic will, and have something of the indissoluble through the participation of him; the natures which are primarily indissoluble being different from these, and those that are truly immortal subsisting for his sake. And he establishes them in all-perfect animal [or the third of the intelligible triads] through the third of these energies. For to this the vivific assimilates the mundane Gods, and inserts in them the paradigms of animals which they generate. And this, indeed, will be one scope of generation, the converting and perfecting the proceeding multitude of the Gods. But after the one there will be a triple design, which establishes them in the three intelligible orders.

This second demiurgic intelligence, therefore, after the first which is deific, illuminates the mundane Gods with a firm establishment, an immutable power, and an eternal essence, through which the whole world, and all the divine allotments subsist always the same, participating through the father of an immutable nature and undecaying power. For every thing which is generated from an immoveable cause, is indissoluble and immutable; but all the progeny of a moveable cause are moveable. Hence among mundane natures, such as proceed from the demiurgic cause alone, in consequence of being generated according to an invariable sameness are permanent, and are exempt from every mutable and variable essence. But such as proceed both from this cause, and from other moveable principles, are indeed immutable so far as they proceed from the demiurgus, but mutable so far as they proceed from the latter. For those natures which the demiurgus alone generates, these he fabricates immutable and indissoluble, both according to their own nature, and according to his power and will. For he imparts to them a guardian and preserving power, and he connects their essence in a manner transcendent and exempt. For all things are preserved in a twofold respect, from the power which he contains, and from his providential goodness, which is truly able and willing to preserve every thing which may be lawfully perpetually saved. The most divine of visible natures therefore, are, as we have said, from their own nature indissoluble; but they are likewise so from the demiurgic power which pervades through all things, and eternally connects them. For this power is the guard and the divine law which connectedly contains all things. But a still greater and more principal cause than these is the demiurgic will which employs this power in its productions. For what is superior to goodness, or what bond is more perfect than this, which imparts by illumination union, connects an eternal essence, and is the bound and measure of all things; to which also the demiurgus now refers the cause of immutable power, saying, “such being my will in its fabrication.” For he established his own will as a guard over his own proper works, as that which gives union, connexion and measure to the whole of things.

Who the demiurgus, however, is, and who father is, has been unfolded by us before, and will be now also concisely shown. There are then these four; father alone; maker alone; father and maker; maker and father. And father indeed is æther [or bound] being the first procession from the one. Father and maker is the divinity who subsists according to the intelligible paradigm [at the extremity of the intelligible order,] and whom Orpheus says, the blessed Gods call Phanes Protogonus. But maker and father is Jupiter, who is now called by himself the demiurgus, but whom the Orphic writers would call the father of works. And maker alone, is the cause of partible fabrication, as the same writers would say. To father alone, therefore, all intelligible, intellectual, supermundane and mundane natures are in subjection. To father and maker, all intellectual, supermundane, and mundane natures are subordinate. To maker and father who is an intellectual deity, supermundane and mundane natures are subservient. But to maker alone, mundane natures alone are in subjection. And all these particulars we learn from the narration of Orpheus; for according to each peculiarity of the four there is a subject multitude of Gods.