Míguez
5. Si se arguyen que la unidad posee siempre y a la vez estas formas, y que ambas son una misma cosa, con lo cual podría prescindirse de la materia, es claro que los cuerno tendrían necesidad de ella; porque el cuerpo nunca de forma y es siempre un todo, compuesto de forma y de materia. La inteligencia descubre su carácter dual, y procede a su división hasta llegar a un término simple que ya no puede ser analizado; divide, desde luego, en tanto le es posible hacerlo, y camina así hacia la profundidad del ser. Pero he aquí que la profundidad se confunde, con la materia, y la materia toda se vuelve sombría; la le trae la luz, y esa forma es lo que ve la inteligencia. Viendo en forma, la inteligencia considera que la oscuridad queda situada bajo la luz, de la misma manera que el ojo, también semejante a la luz, lanza su mirada hacia esta y hacia los colores luminosos, distinguiendo así la oscuridad propia de la materia, oculta bajo los colores.
Esta oscuridad de las cosas sensibles es muy diferente de la oscuridad de las cosas inteligibles. Y son realmente diferentes tanto la materia como la forma que se añade a ellas, porque la materia divina tiene un límite preciso y una vida también inteligible, en tanto que la materia del cuerpo resulta ser igualmente limitada, pero no posee vida ni inteligencia, sino que es una cosa muerta aunque ordenada.
En los cuerpos la forma viene a ser una imagen; de tal modo que su sujeto tendrá que ser también una imagen. En el mundo de lo alto la forma es algo real; de modo que su sujeto también lo será. En cuanto a los que llaman sustancia a la materia, hablarían con rectitud si se refiriesen a la materia inteligible: allí, el sujeto de las formas es sin duda una sustancia, o mejor aún, es la sustancia pensada con su misma forma, sustancia completa y toda ella plena de luz.
Trataríamos de indagar ahora si la materia inteligible es eterna, lo que plantea la misma cuestión para las ideas. Es claro que las ideas son engendradas porque tienen un principio, pero podríamos considerarlas como no engendradas puesto que no tienen comienzo en el tiempo; producidas de siempre por un principio, las ideas no se hacen, sin embargo, continuamente, cual ocurre con las cosas del mundo sensible, sino que existen desde toda la eternidad, como acontece con el mundo inteligible. La alteridad inteligible está produciendo siempre la materia, y es como su principio y su movimiento primero; este movimiento también es llamado alteridad porque movimiento y alteración se han originado a la vez. No obstante, movimiento y alteridad son algo indefinido, algo que viene de lo que es primero; de él necesitarán para su definición. Y se definen, ambos, por esa su conversión hacia él. Antes de que la conversión se verifique, la materia y la alteridad son indefinidas; la materia no es buena entonces, porque no posee la claridad de aquél. Si la luz le viene de aquél (esto es, del Bien), la materia misma, que recibe la luz, no podrá poseerla antes de haberla recibido; pues ella no es la luz, sino que llega a poseerla y a recibirla de otra cosa. Vaya por delante, sin embargo, que hemos revelado más de lo que convenía sobre materia inteligible.
Bouillet
V. Si, de ce que les intelligibles sont immuables et qu’en eux la matière est toujours unie à la forme, on en concluait qu’ils ne contiennent pas de matière, on serait conduit à prétendre qu’il n’y a pas de matière dans les corps : car toujours la matière des corps a une forme, toujours chaque corps est complet [contient une forme et une matière]. Chaque corps n’en est pas moins composé, et l’intelligence reconnaît qu’il est double : car elle divise jusqu’à ce qu’elle arrive au simple, à ce qui ne peut plus se décomposer ; elle ne s’arrête que lorsqu’elle trouve le fond des choses. Or, le fond de chaque chose (βάθος), c’est la matière. Toute matière est ténébreuse, parce que la raison [la forme] est la
lumière, et que l’intelligence est la raison. Quand l’intelligence considère la raison dans un objet, elle regarde comme ténébreux ce qui est au-dessous de la raison (τὸ ϰάτω), ce qui est au-dessous de la lumière. De même l’œil, étant lumineux et portant son regard sur la lumière et sur les couleurs qui sont des espèces de lumière, considère comme ténébreux et matériel ce qui est au-dessous, ce que cachent les couleurs.
Il y a d’ailleurs une grande différence entre le fond ténébreux des choses intelligibles et celui des choses sensibles : il y a autant de différence entre la matière des premières et celle des secondes qu’il y en a entre la forme des unes et celle des autres. La matière divine, en recevant la forme qui la détermine, possède une vie intellectuelle et déterminée. Au contraire, lors même que la matière des corps devient une chose déterminée, elle n’est ni vivante, ni pensante ; elle est morte malgré sa beauté empruntée. La forme des objets sensibles n’étant qu’une image, leur matière n’est également qu’une image (εἴδωλον). La forme des intelligibles possédant une véritable réalité, leur substance a le même caractère. On a donc raison d’appeler essence la matière, quand on parle de la matière intelligible : car la substance des intelligibles est véritablement une essence, surtout si on la conçoit avec la forme qui est en elle ; alors l’essence est l’ensemble lumineux [de la matière et de la forme]. Demander si la matière intelligible est éternelle, c’est demander si les idées le sont : en effet, les intelligibles sont engendrés en ce sens qu’ils ont un principe ; ils sont non-engendrés en ce sens qu’ils n’ont pas commencé d’exister, que, de toute éternité, ils tiennent leur existence de leur principe ; ils ne ressemblent pas aux choses qui deviennent toujours, comme notre monde ; mais ils existent toujours, comme le monde intelligible.
La Différence qui est dans le monde intelligible (ἡ ἑτερότης ἡ ἐκεῖ) y produit toujours la matière : car, dans ce monde, c’est la Différence qui est le principe de la matière, ainsi que le Mouvement premier (ἡ ϰίνησις ἡ πρώτη) ; aussi ce dernier est-il également appelé Différence parce que la Différence et le Mouvement premier sont nés ensemble. Le Mouvement et la Différence, qui procèdent du Premier [du Bien], sont indéterminés et ont besoin de lui pour être déterminés. Or ils se déterminent quand ils se tournent vers lui. Auparavant, la matière est indéterminée ainsi que la Différence ; elle n’est pas bonne parce qu’elle n’est pas encore éclairée par la lumière du Premier. Puisque le Premier est la source de toute lumière, l’objet qui reçoit de lui sa lumière ne la possède pas toujours ; cet objet diffère de la lumière et il la possède comme une chose étrangère puisqu’il la tient d’autrui.
Voilà quelle est la nature de la matière contenue dans les essences intelligibles. Nous l’avons expliquée plus longuement peut-être qu’il n’était nécessaire.
Guthrie
THE BOTTOM OF EVERYTHING IS MATTER. WHICH IS RELATIVE DARKNESS.
5. If, we were to conclude that there were no matter in intelligible entities, because they were immutable, and because, in them, matter is always combined with (shape), we would be logically compelled to deny the existence of matter in bodies; for the matter of bodies always has a form, and every body is always complete (containing a form and a matter). Each body, however, is none the less composite, and intelligence observes its doubleness; for it splits until it arrives to simplicity, namely, to that which can no longer be decomposed; it does not stop until it reaches the bottom things. Now the bottom of each thing is matter. Every matter is tfark, because the reason (the form) is the light, and because intelligence is the reason. When, in an object, intelligence considers the reason, it considers as dark that which is below reason, or light. Likewise, the eye, being luminous, and directing its gaze on light and on the colors which are kinds of light, considers what is beneath, and hidden by the colors, as dark and material.
INTELLIGIBLE MATTER CONSISTS OF REAL BEING, ESPECIALLY AS SHAPED.
Besides, there is a great difference between the dark bottom of intelligible things and that of sense-objects ; there is as much difference between the matter of the former and of the latter as there is between their form. The divine matter, on receiving the form that determines it, possesses an intellectual and determinate life. On the contrary, even when the matter of the bodies becomes something determinate, it is neither alive nor thinking; it is dead, in spite of its borrowed beauty. As the shape (of sense-objects) is only an image, their substrate also is only an image. But as the shape (of intelligible entities) possesses veritable (reality), their substrate is of the same nature. We have, therefore, full justification for calling matter “being,” that is, when referring to intelligible matter; for the substrate of intelligible entities really is “being,” especially if conceived of together with its inherent (form). For “being” is the luminous totality (or complex of matter and form). To question the eternity of intelligible matter is tantamount to questioning that of ideas; indeed, intelligible entities are begotten in the sense that they have a principle; but they are non-begotten in the sense that their existence had no beginning, and that, from all eternity, they derive their existence from their principle. Therefore they do not resemble the things that are always becoming, as our world; but, like the intelligible world, they ever exist.
THE CATEGORIES OF MOVEMENT AND DIFFERENCE APPLIED TO INTELLIGIBLES.
The difference that is in the intelligible world ever produces matter ; for, in that world, it is the difference that is the principle of matter, as well as of primary motion. That is why the latter is also called difference, because difference and primary motion were born simultaneously.
The movement and difference, that proceed from the First (the Good), are indeterminate, and need it, to be determinate. Now they determine each other when they turn towards it. Formerly, matter was as indeterminate as difference; it was not good because it was not yet illuminated by the radiance of the First. Since the First is the source of all light, the object that receives light from the First does not always possess light; this object differs from light, and possesses light as something alien, because it derives light from some other source. That is the nature of matter as contained in intelligible (entities). Perhaps this treatment of the subject is longer than necessary.
Taylor
V. If, however, it should be said, that because it always possesses these things, and both [the subject and the forms] are one, this subject is not matter, neither will the subject of bodies here be matter. For the matter of sensibles is never without form, but there is always the whole body. At the same time, however, this is a composite ; and intellect discovers its twofold nature. For it divides till it arrives at that which is simple, and which is no longer capable of being analyzed. But so far as it is able, it proceeds into the profundity of body. The profundity, however, of each body is matter. Hence all matter is dark, because reason is light, and intellect is reason. Hence, too, intellect beholding the nature of each [i.e. of intelligible and sensible matter], conceives that which is beneath, as under light, to be dark; just as the eye which is luciform, extending itself to the light, and to colours which are illuminations, says, that what is under colours, is dark and material, and concealed by the colours. Nevertheless, that which is dark in intelligibles is different from that which is dark in sensibles; and the matter of the one differs as much from the matter of the other, as the supervening form of the one from that of the other. For divine matter receiving that which defines and bounds it, possesses a definite and intellectual life. But sensible matter becomes, indeed, a certain definite thing, yet neither vital nor intellectual, but an unadorned privation of life. The morphe1 also, is an image, so that the subject likewise is an image. In intelligibles, however, the morphe is truly form, so that the subject also is real. Hence, those who say that matter is essence, if they assert this of intelligible matter, speak rightly. For the subject there is essence, or rather, is the object of intellectual perception, together with that which it contains, and is wholly illuminated essence. To investigate, however, whether intelligible matter is eternal, is similar to the inquiry whether ideas are eternal. For they are generated, indeed, so far as they have a principle of their subsistence; but they are not generated [according to the usual acceptation of the term] because they have not a temporal beginning, but always proceed from something else, not like the natures which are always rising into existence, or becoming to be, as is the case with the world, but they always are, in the same manner as the world which is there [has an eternal subsistence]. For the difference which is there always produces matter; since this which is the first motion is the principle of matter. Hence, it is called difference, because motion and difference were unfolded into light together with it. But the motion and difference which proceed from the first cause of all, are indefinite, and are in want of this cause in order that they may become terminated. They are, however, terminated, when they are converted to it. But prior to this, matter and difference are indefinite, and are not yet good, but are without the light of the good. For if light is from the good, that which receives the light, prior to its reception of it, does not always possess it, hut possesses it, being different from it. since the light is from something else. And thus much concerning intelligible matter, which we have discussed perhaps more than is fit.
MacKenna
5. It may be objected that the Intellectual-Principle possesses its content in an eternal conjunction so that the two make a perfect unity, and that thus there is no Matter there.
But that argument would equally cancel the Matter present in the bodily forms of this realm: body without shape has never existed, always body achieved and yet always the two constituents. We discover these two – Matter and Idea – by sheer force of our reasoning which distinguishes continually in pursuit of the simplex, the irreducible, working on, until it can go no further, towards the ultimate in the subject of enquiry. And the ultimate of every partial-thing is its Matter, which, therefore, must be all darkness since light is a Reason-Principle. The Mind, too, as also a Reason-Principle, sees only in each particular object the Reason-Principle lodging there; anything lying below that it declares to lie below the light, to be therefore a thing of darkness, just as the eye, a thing of light, seeks light and colours which are modes of light, and dismisses all that is below the colours and hidden by them, as belonging to the order of the darkness, which is the order of Matter.
The dark element in the Intelligible, however, differs from that in the sense-world: so therefore does the Matter – as much as the forming-Idea presiding in each of the two realms. The Divine Matter, though it is the object of determination has, of its own nature, a life defined and intellectual; the Matter of this sphere while it does accept determination is not living or intellective, but a dead thing decorated: any shape it takes is an image, exactly as the Base is an image. There on the contrary the shape is a real-existent as is the Base. Those that ascribe Real Being to Matter must be admitted to be right as long as they keep to the Matter of the Intelligible Realm: for the Base there is Being, or even, taken as an entirety with the higher that accompanies it, is illuminated Being.
But does this Base, of the Intellectual Realm, possess eternal existence?
The solution of that question is the same as for the Ideas.
Both are engendered, in the sense that they have had a beginning, but unengendered in that this beginning is not in Time: they have a derived being but by an eternal derivation: they are not, like the Kosmos, always in process but, in the character of the Supernal, have their Being permanently. For that differentiation within the Intelligible which produces Matter has always existed and it is this cleavage which produces the Matter there: it is the first movement; and movement and differentiation are convertible terms since the two things arose as one: this motion, this cleavage, away from the first is indetermination [= Matter], needing The First to its determination which it achieves by its Return, remaining, until then, an Alienism, still lacking good; unlit by the Supernal. It is from the Divine that all light comes, and, until this be absorbed, no light in any recipient of light can be authentic; any light from elsewhere is of another order than the true.