CHAPTER X.

After this, the demiurgus says, “That mortal natures therefore may subsist, and that the universe may be truly all, convert yourselves according to nature to the fabrication of animals, imitating the power which I employed in your generation.” A twofold scope of fabrication, says Proclus, is here delivered, one indeed providential, but the other assimilative; the one being more proximate, but the other more total. For to fabricate for the sake of giving subsistence to mortal natures, indicates providence, and the perfection of power. For all super-plenitude of power is prolific of other things subordinate to itself. But to fabricate for the sake of giving completion to the universe, indicates an energy according to assimilative power, in order that this universe may be rendered similar to all-perfect animal, in consequence of being adorned with all the numbers of divine and mortal animals. For if all things were immortal, the most divine of sensible natures would be unprolific. And if the universe was not filled with all the forms of life, it would not be perfect, nor sufficiently similar to all-perfect animal. That neither of these defects therefore might happen, the first demiurgus excites the second fabrication supernally from his own exalted place of survey. He also pours on the mundane Gods vivific and demiurgic power, through which they generate from themselves secondary essences, fill them with life, and give them a specific distinction. For the peculiarity of vivific deity is to vivify, but of demiurgic deity to be productive of form. The expression therefore “convert yourselves” is of an exciting nature, and is similar to the mandate of Jupiter to the Gods in Homer,

Haste, to the Greek and Trojan hosts descend.

For as that calls them to the war of generation, so this in Plato excites them to the fabrication of mortals, which they effect through motion. And this indeed is accomplished by all the mundane Gods, but especially by the governors of the world [or the planets], and in the most eminent degree by the sovereign sun. For the demiurgus gave him dominion over wholes, fabricated him as a guardian, and ordered him, as Orpheus says,

----O’er all to rule.

The words likewise, “according to nature,” bound their fabrication according to measure and the good: and besides this, spread under them all physical production as an instrument to their energies. This therefore which is subservient to their will they move and govern. And in the third place, these words define their subsistence as media; for it pertains to the middle to fabricate the extremes according to nature. For things which sometimes have an existence are suspended from those that are perpetual according to time; and the latter are suspended from eternal entities. And primary natures indeed are generative of media; but these are productive of such beings as are last in the series of things. The word “yourselves” also which denotes manual operation, excites the divine lives themselves to fabrication. Nor ought we to wonder whence demiurgic power is derived to divine souls, this being the peculiarity of the superessential Gods. For as Orpheus, placing an intellectual essence in Jupiter, renders it demiurgic, thus also Plato producing words from the father, evinces that the souls which rank as wholes are divine and demiurgic. Nor must we doubt why of mundane natures some are immortal, but others mortal, since all of them are generated according to intelligible causes; for some of them proceed from one, but others from another proximate producing cause. And it is necessary to look to these, and not to paradigms alone. Nor must we investigate ideas of Socrates, Plato, or of any thing that ranks as a particular. For the demiurgus divides mortal animals according to genera, and stops at total intellections; and through these comprehends every thing of a partial nature. For as the demiurgus makes that which is material immaterially, and that which is generated ingenerably, thus also he produces mortal natures immortally. For he makes these indeed, but through the junior Gods; since prior to their making, he made by intellection alone. Nor must we deny that mortal natures subsist also divinely, and not mortally only. For the things which the demiurgus now extends in his speech are hypostases or subsisting natures about the junior or mundane Gods, which the heavens primarily receive; and according to which the Gods fabricate the mortal genera. For the monads of every mortal-formed life proceed into the heavens from the intelligible forms. But from these monads which are divine, all the multitude of material animals is generated. For if we adopt these conceptions, we shall accord with Plato, and shall not wander from the nature of things.

Again, when the demiurgus says, “Imitating the power which I employed about your generation,” we must understand by this that an assimilation to the one exempt fabrication of things, and a conversion to it, is the highest end of the second fabrication. For it is necessary that self-motive should follow immoveable natures, and such as are very mutable, such as are always moved, and that there should be perpetually a series of secondary beings assimilated to those that are prior to them. Since however there was a divine will and a divine power in the demiurgus, he unfolds his will to the mundane Gods through learning; and through this perfects their demiurgic will. But he unfolds his power to them through this imitation, according to which he orders them to imitate the power of the one demiurgus, conformably to which they were generated by him. For by saying that which he wills, he imparts to them will; and by saying that which he is able to effect, he supplies them with power. And in the last place he demonstrates them to be secondary fabricators imitators of their father. Whether, therefore, there is a mundane power, or an efficacious energy of dæmons, or a fortitude and supernatural strength of heroes, to all this the demiurgus gives subsistence, and imparts it to those that give completion to the whole of the second fabrication. For the first power is in him, and the monad of demiurgic powers. Since, however, he is also intellect and father, all things will be in him, viz. father, the power of the father, and the paternal intellect. Hence Plato was not ignorant of this division; and on this account the demiurgus as being father, calls power his power. This also he manifests by adding, “which I employed about your generation.” For the father is the cause of this in conjunction with power; just as father here in conjunction with the female is the cause of the propagation of the human species. [For power is of a feminine characteristic.]