CHAPTER XIII.

“But in consequence of his abiding, says Plato, as soon as his children understood the order of their father, they became obedient to it.” When the Demiurgus speaks, says Proclus, then the junior Gods have the order of hearers. When he intellectually perceives, then they learn; for learning is dianoetic. When he abides according to union itself, then his children intellectually perceive. For they always receive from him an inferior order. And as filled indeed from him, they preserve the analogy of hearers with reference to him; but as evolving his one power, they are analogous to learners. For he who learns evolves the intellect of his preceptor. As being deified, however, by him, they have the analogy of those that perceive intellectually. For intellect becomes deific, by its contact with the one. The father, therefore, abiding, his children very properly intellectually perceive. For they are intellects participated by divine souls, that ride in the vehicles of undefiled bodies. But they intellectually perceive the order of the father presubsisting in him prior to the arranged effects, according to which order he became all things. Mortal natures, therefore, were fashioned and animated by the demiurgic intellection alone. But the junior Gods unfold his total production, through their own manifest fabrication; being filled from the demiurgic monad.

In the last place, Plato adds, “And receiving the immortal principle of mortal animal, in imitation of their artificer, they borrowed from the world the parts of fire and earth, water and air, as things which they should restore back again; and conglutinated the received parts together, but not with the same indissoluble bonds by which they were connected.” On-these words Proclus admirably comments as follows: Plato indicates to us, the separation of the second from the first fabrication, through many words and steps. For if the Demiurgus orderly disposes, but the junior Gods are obedient to his mandates, the former by merely commanding is the cause of generated natures, but the latter being excited by the Demiurgus, receive from thence the boundary of the whole of their fabrication. And if, indeed, he abides in himself, but they are moved about him, it is evident that he is eternally the cause of things which subsist in time, but that they being filled from him energize according to the whole of time. And if he perfectly establishes himself in his own accustomed manner, but they proceeding from him, unfold into light this united and ineffable disposition of himself, they derive from him secondary measures of fabrication.

Moreover, he is said to have a paternal dignity, but they are denominated his children, as expressing his prolific power, and his single goodness. And he indeed, is celebrated as delivering from his exalted abode the principles of fabrication; but they are celebrated as receiving the immortal principle contributing to the orderly distribution of mortals. He is said to have the fountain of the vivification of perpetual natures; but they are the causes of the subsistence of mortal-formed animals. And he indeed extends himself as a paradigm to the many Gods; but they are said to imitate the demiurgic intellect. He is said to produce the whole world, and the plenitudes of it; but they are said to borrow parts from the fabrications of their father, in order to the completion of their proper works. And he indeed employs all incorporeal powers; but they also employ such as are corporeal. He gives subsistence to indissoluble bonds; but they to such as are dissoluble. And he, indeed, is said to insert a union more ancient than the natures which it unites; but they are said to introduce an adventitious union, and which is of an origin posterior to this, to the beings that consist of many contrary natures. And he is said to produce all things impartibly; but they with division, minutely distributing the subsistence of mortal natures into small and invisible nails. From these things, therefore the separation of the two fabrications may be assumed; but the union and contact of them may be surveyed from the words before us. For here a contact is effected of the second with the first fabrication; of apparent with unapparent, and of divided with monadic production.

Hence it is necessary that the lowest part of the first and unapparent fabrication, should coalesce with the summit of the second. For thus also the heavens are conjoined with generation [or the sublunary region] the lowest of the celestial bodies exhibiting the principle of mutation; but the summit of the essence of sublunary natures, being moved in conjunction with the heavens. Hence too, here also the rational soul is conjoined with the mortal form of life; viz. the lowest and most partial of the productions of the father, with the highest of the natures generated by the junior Gods. For they, indeed, as being certain fathers produce lives; but as fabricators, bodies. And they imitate indeed Vulcan by the fabrication of bodies; but Juno by vivification. But through both these they imitate the whole Demiurgus. For he is maker and father; but they fashion bodies by borrowing parts from wholes. For every where parts derive their composition from wholes. When, however, the wholes are incorporeal, they remain undiminished by the subsistence of the parts; but when they are corporeal, the parts that are generated from them diminish the wholes. Hence an ablation always taking place, but the parts always remaining, the wholes perish. And thus generation will no longer exist, and the works of the first fabrication will all vanish through the second, which it is not lawful to assert. That nothing of this kind, therefore, may take place in the universe, the composite parts are again dissolved, in order to fill up their wholes. And the generation of one thing is the corruption of another; but the corruption of one thing is the generation of another; in order that generation and corruption may always remain. For if generation existed only once, it would at a certain time stop, in consequence of consisting of finite things, and these being consumed. But these perishing corruption also would stop, all things being destroyed. Hence if it is necessary that one of these should exist, the other also will exist. Every thing, therefore, which is generated from the second fabrication is a composite and dissoluble, and deriving its composition from time, will also in time be again dissolved. The junior Gods, therefore, are very properly said to borrow parts which are again to be restored to their wholes. But they borrow them from the universe. For that which they borrow is fire, earth, water and air; and they again restore them to the universe. The father, therefore, wishes the wholes to remain which he generated and arranged. And thus much concerning all the fabrication of the junior Gods.