Categoria: Proclo

To us however discussing what pertains to every divine nature, what we assert will be known from those commonly received truths adduced in the Phaedrus, and which we have before mentioned. Socrates therefore says that everything divine is beautiful, wise, and good, and he indicates that this triad pervades to all the progressions of the…

After this, wisdom is allotted the second order, being the intelligence of the Gods, or rather the hyparxis of their intelligence. For intelligence indeed, is intellectual knowledge; but the wisdom of the Gods is ineffable knowledge, which is united to the object of knowledge and the intelligible union of the Gods. But it appears to…

In the next place, let us survey the immutability and simplicity of the Gods, what the nature of each of them is, and how both these appear to be adapted to the hyparxis of the Gods, according to the narration of Plato. The Gods therefore are exempt from the whole of things. But filling these,…

In the next place, let us speak concerning the truth which is in the Gods; for this in addition to what has been said is concluded by Socrates, because a divine nature is without falsehood, and is neither the cause of deception or ignorance to us or to any other beings. We must understand therefore,…

The third problem after these we shall connect with the former, and survey how we are to assume the unpervertible in the Gods, who perform all things according to justice, and who do not in the smallest degree subvert its boundary, or its undeviating rectitude, in their providential attention to all other things, and in…

That, therefore, which has the hyparxis of itself, and the whole of its essence defined in the good, and which by its very being produces all things, must necessarily be productive of every good, but of no evil. For if there was anything primarily good, which is not God, perhaps someone might say that divinity…

As the first hypothesis, however; demonstrates by negations the ineffable supereminence of the first principle of things, and evinces that he is exempt from all essence and knowledge, -it is evident that the hypothesis after this as being proximate to it, must unfold the whole order of the Gods. For Parmenides does not alone assume…

From what has been said, therefore, it is evident to everyone, that the Gods being the causes of all motion, some of them are essential and vivific, according to a self-motive, self-vital, and self-energetic power. But others of them are intellectual, and excite by their very being all secondary natures to the perfection of life,…

As we have therefore enumerated all these modes of the Platonic theology, and have shown what compositions and analyses of fables are adapted to the truth respecting the Gods, let us consider, in the next place, whence, and from what dialogs principally, we think the dogmas of Plato concerning the Gods may be collected, and…

Again, therefore, let us discuss this affair in another way, and view with the dianoetic power, where anything futile is delivered. For let it be said, if you please, and we will first of all allow it, that the conclusions of this second hypothesis are about true being. But as this is multitude, and not…

Looking to these things, therefore, we may unfold what is said of paternal causes, and of the prolific powers of mothers in fables. For everywhere, we may suppose that the cause of a more excellent and more uniform nature is paternal; but we may say that the cause of a more subordinate and partial nature…

What therefore is it which unites us to the good? What is it which causes in us a cessation of energy and motion? What is it which establishes all divine natures in the first and ineffable unity of goodness? And how does it come to pass that everything being established in that which is prior…

But in the Philebus, Plato delivers to us the three most principal elements of the good, viz. the desirable, the sufficient, and the perfect. For it is necessary that it should convert all things to itself, and fill all things, and that it should be in no respect deficient, and should not diminish its exuberance.…

In the next place, let us consider what power the simplicity of the Gods possesses; for this Socrates adds in his discourse concerning a divine nature, not admitting that which is various, and multiform, and which appears different at different times, but referring to divinity the unifonn and the simple. Each of the divinities therefore,…