CHAPTER XL.

Having in the preceding chapters presented the reader from the most genuine sources, with all the information that can at present be obtained concerning the mundane Gods, the order of scientific theology requires that those perpetual attendants of the Gods, denominated angels, dæmons and heroes, should be in the next place considered. As all these ministrant powers however, are frequently called by one name dæmons; and as Love is denominated by Plato a great dæmon, and contains in himself the paradigm of the whole dæmoniacal series, it is necessary that the developement of the nature of Love should precede the discussion of the peculiarities of dæmons. The following admirable account therefore of this mighty divinity, by Proclus the Coryphæus of all true philosophers, is extracted from his MS. Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato.

There are different properties of different Gods. For some are the fabricators of wholes, of the form of beings, and of their essential ornament. But others are the suppliers of life, and are the sources of its various genera. Others again preserve the unchangeable order, and guard the indissoluble connexion of things. And others lastly, who are allotted a different power, preserve all things by their beneficent energies. In like manner every amatory order is the cause to all things of conversion to divine beauty, leading back, conjoining, and establishing all secondary natures in the beautiful, replenishing them from thence, and irradiating all things with the gifts of its light. On this account it is asserted in the Banquet of Plato that Love is a great dæmon, because Love first demonstrates in itself a power of this kind, and is the medium between the object of desire and the desiring nature, and is the cause of the conversion of subsequent to prior natures. The whole amatory series therefore, being established in the vestibule of the cause of beauty, calls upwards all things to this cause, and forms a middle progression between the object of Love and the natures which are recalled by Love. Hence it pre-establishes in itself the paradigm of the whole dæmoniacal order, obtaining the same middle situation among the Gods as dæmons between divine and mortal natures. Since therefore, every amatory series possesses this property among the Gods, we must consider its uniform and occult summit as ineffably established in the first orders of the Gods, and conjoined with the first and intelligible beauty; its middle process as shining forth among the supermundane Gods, with an intellectual condition; its third progression as possessing an exempt power among the liberated Gods; and its fourth as multifariously distributed about the world, producing many orders and powers from itself, and distributing gifts of this kind to the different parts of the world.

But after the unific and first principle of Love, and after the tripartite essence perfected from thence, a various multitude of Loves shines forth with divine light, from whence the choirs of angels are filled with Love; and the herds of dæmons full of this God attend on the Gods who are recalled to intelligible beauty. Add too, that the army of heroes, together with dæmons and angels, are agitated about the participation of the beautiful with divine bacchanalian fury. Lastly, all things are excited, revive and flourish through the influx of the beautiful. But the souls of such men as receive an inspiration of this kind, and are naturally allied to the God, assiduously move about beauty, and fall into the realms of generation, for the purpose of benefiting more imperfect souls, and providing for those natures which require to be saved. The Gods indeed, and the attendants on the Gods, abiding in their proper habits, benefit all following natures, and convert them to themselves; but the souls of men descending, and touching on the coasts of generation, imitate the beneficent providence of the Gods. As, therefore, souls established according to some other God descend with purity into the regions of mortality, and benefit souls that revolve in it; and some indeed benefit more imperfect souls by prophecy, others by mystic ceremonies, and others by divine medicinal skill;--thus also souls that chose an amatory life, are moved about the deity who presides over beautiful natures, for the purpose of taking care of well-born souls. But from apparent beauty they are led back to divine beauty, and together with themselves elevate those who are the objects of their love. And this also divine Love primarily effects in intelligibles. For he unites himself to the object of love, extends to it the participants of his power, and inserts in all things one bond, and one indissoluble friendship with each other, and with the beautiful itself. Souls therefore possessed with Love, and participating the inspiration thence derived, in consequence of using an undefiled vehicle, are led from apparent to intelligible beauty, and make this the end of their energy. Likewise enkindling a light in more imperfect souls, they also lead these back to a divine nature, and are divinely agitated together with them about the fountain of all-perfect beauty.

But such souls as from a perverse education fall from the gift which is thence derived, yet are allotted an amatory nature, these, through their ignorance of true beauty, are busily employed about that which is material and divisible, at which also they are astonished in consequence of not knowing the passion which they suffer. Hence, they abandon every thing divine, and gradually decline into impiety and the darkness of matter. They appear indeed to hasten to a union with the beautiful, in the same manner as perfectly amatory souls; but they are ignorant of the union, and tend to a dissipated condition of life, and to matter, which Plato calls the sea of dissimilitude. They are also conjoined with the base itself, and material privation of form. For where are material natures able to pervade through each other? Or where is apparent beauty, pure and genuine, being thus mingled with matter, and replete with the deformity of its subject? Some souls therefore genuinely participate the gifts of Love, and by others these gifts are perverted. For as according to Plotinus the defluxion of intellect produces craft, and an erroneous participation of wisdom sophistry, so likewise the illumination of Love when it meets with a depraved recipient, produces a tyrannic and intemperate life.