CHAPTER XLVIII.. Having, Therefore, Unfolded to the Readers the Orders and

Having, therefore, unfolded to the readers the orders and characteristic properties of the mundane Gods, and of the triple genera that are perpetually suspended from them, I shall in the next place present him with what Plato says, in celebration of the divinity of the World, the great monad which comprehends all these, so far as the whole of it is a God, consisting of a superessential unity derived from the ineffable principle of all things, a divine intellect, a divine soul, and a deified body. In the Timæus then, Plato celebrates the world as a deity in the following manner; “When, therefore, that God who is an eternally reasoning divinity cogitated about the God who at a certain time would exist, he fabricated his body smooth and equable, and every way from the middle equal and whole, and perfect from the composition of perfect bodies. But placing soul in the middle of the world, he extended it through the whole; and besides this, externally surrounded the body of the universe with soul. And causing circle to revolve in a circle, he established heaven (i.e. the world) one, only, solitary nature, able through virtue to converse with itself, indigent of nothing external, and sufficiently known and friendly to itself. And on all these accounts the world was generated by him, a blessed God.” The first part of this extract, as far as to the word “perfect bodies,” is admirably elucidated by Proclus as follows:

What is here said, imitating the one intellect which comprehends the intellection of wholes in one, collects all things into sameness, and refers to one summit all the fabrication of the corporeal system. It is necessary, therefore, that we should recall to our memory what has been already asserted. It has been said then, that the elements through analogy rendered all things in concord with each other. That the universe was generated a whole consisting of wholes. That it is spherical and smooth, and has itself a knowledge of itself, and a motion in itself. Hence, it is evident that the whole world is assimilated to [its paradigm] all-perfect animal. But the orderly distribution according to the wholes which it contains proceeds analogous to its second and third causes. And the number of its elements indeed, and the unifying bond of them through analogy, corresponds to the essence which is without colour, without figure, and without contact; for number is there. The first wholeness of the world which adorns all things, and which consists of the wholes of the elements, proceeds analogous to the intellectual wholeness. Its sphericity is analogous to intellectual figure. Its sufficiency, intellectual motion, and sameness of convolution, are analogous to the God who absorbs all his offspring in himself. Its animation corresponds to its vivific cause . And its possession of intellect is analogous to the demiurgic intellect; though from this all things proceed, and from the natures prior to it, different things being analogous to different causes. And the more excellent natures indeed are the causes of all that proceeds from secondary principles; but secondary principles are the causes of less numerous and less excellent effects. For with respect to the demiurgus himself, so far as he is intellectual, he produces all things intellectual; but so far as he is being, he is the father of all bodies and of every thing incorporeal; and so far as he is a God, he also gives subsistence to matter itself. In what is now said, therefore, Plato makes a summary repetition of every thing which the universe derives from the intellectual Gods. And thus much concerning the whole theory.

Let us survey, however, more particularly the truth of what is now said. When, therefore, Plato calls the demiurgus, “an eternally reasoning being,” he makes the essence and at the same time the intellection of him through which the world is perpetual, to be eternal. It is requisite, likewise, to observe how he arranges the demiurgus among beings that always exist, assigning to him an eternal order; so that he will not be soul. For in the Laws Plato says that soul is immortal indeed, and indestructible, but is not eternal. Hence, it appears that every one who fancies soul is the demiurgus, is ignorant of the difference between the eternal and the indestructible. But reasoning is significant of distributed or divided fabrication. And the words, “who at a certain time would exist,” do not indicate a temporal beginning, as Atticus imagined they did, but an essence conjoined with time. For Plato says in this dialogue, “that time was generated together with the universe,” and the world is temporal, and time is mundane. For time and the world are consubsistent with each other, and co-produced from the one fabrication of things. And a temporal ever, may be said to be at a certain time, when compared with that which is eternal, just as that which is generatively being, is non-being, when compared with that which is intelligibly being. Though the world, therefore, exists through the whole of time, yet its being consists in becoming to be, and is in a part of time. But this is the ποτε or the at a certain time, mentioned by Plato, and is not a simultaneous subsistence in all time, but is always at a certain time. For the eternal is always in the whole of eternity; but the temporal in a certain time, is always differently in a different time. Hence, the world, as with reference to an eternally existing God, is very properly called a God, who at a certain time would exist. For the former is sensible with reference to the latter, who is intellectual. That which is sensible, therefore, is always generated, but is at a certain time. For it possesses existence partibly, and is perpetually advancing into being from that which always is. For since, as we have before observed, it derives from something else an infinite power of existing, and that which it possesses is finite, but it is perpetual by always receiving, the ability of existing infinitely, being numbered in that which is finite, it is evident that it is at a certain time; from a certain time always possessing existence; and in consequence of that which is imparted to it never ceasing, always becoming to be; but in its own nature existing at a certain time, and having, as Plato says in the Politicus, a renovated immortality. For subsisting in rising into existence, the whole of it does not at once participate of the whole of being, but again and again, not existing without an extension of being. Unless, perhaps, the expression at a certain time, signifies the whole of time. For the evolution of time, as with reference to an eternal infinity is ποτε a certain time. And the whole of time has the same ratio to eternity, that a part of time the ποτε has to the whole.

If, also, you are willing, it may be said after another manner, that Plato denominates the world “a God that at a certain time would exist,” since he has now fashioned a corporeal nature, and given subsistence to intellect, but not yet to soul, because the world also as a God will have a subsistence in the course of his narration. For divinity produces at once both parts and the whole, but language divides things that are consubsistent, generates things that are unbegotten, and distributes eternal natures according to time. The God, therefore, that at a certain time would exist, is that which is fashioned in the narration of Plato, and according to which there are division and composition. For this, also, the Pythagoric Timæus himself indicates to those who are able to understand him, when he says in his treatise [On the soul of the world], “Before heaven (i.e. the world) was generated in words, there were idea and matter, and God the demiurgus.” For he clearly manifests that he fashions in words the generation of the world.

When Plato, likewise, says that the demiurgus fabricated the body of the world smooth and equable, this manifests the one comprehension in the world, and its supreme aptitude to the participation of a divine soul. But the words, “every way from the middle equal,” exhibit the peculiarity of a spherical figure; for this is every way equally distant according to all intervals. And the words “whole and perfect from the composition of perfect bodies,” give to the world a consummate similitude to all-perfect animal; for that was in all things perfect; and also to the demiurgus himself. For as he is the father of fathers, and the supreme of rulers, so the world is the most perfect of perfect natures, and the most total of wholes. You may also say, that Plato calls the world smooth, as not being in want of any motive, or nutritive, or sensitive organs; for this had just before been demonstrated by him. But that it is every way equal from the middle, as having a spherical figure. And that it is whole and perfect, as being all-perfect, and leaving nothing external to itself; for this is properly a whole and perfect. It likewise consists of perfect bodies, as being composed of the four elements. But Plato calls it in the singular number a body, as being only-begotten. And thus beginning from the only-begotten, and proceeding as far as to perfection, he again returns to it through the above-mentioned words, imitating the progression of the world from its paradigm, and its perfect conversion to it.