I, however, to an objection of this kind, shall make a just and perspicuous reply. I say then, that Plato everywhere discourses about the Gods agreeably to ancient rumor, and to the nature of things. And sometimes indeed, for the sake of the cause of the things proposed, he reduces them to the principles of the dogmas; and thence, as from a watchtower, contemplates the nature of the thing proposed.
But sometimes he establishes the theological science as the leading end. For in the Phaedrus his subject respects intelligible beauty and the participation of beauty pervading from thence through all things; and in the Banquet it respects the amatory order.
But if it be necessary to survey in one Platonic dialogue, the all-perfect, whole, and connected, extending as far as to the complete number of theology, I shall perhaps assert a paradox, and which will alone be apparent to our familiars. We ought however to dare, since we have entered on such like arguments, and affirm against our opponents, that the Parmenides, and the mystic conceptions it contains, will accomplish all you desire.
For in this dialogue all the divine genera proceed in order from the first cause, and evince their mutual connection and dependence on each other. And those which are highest indeed, connate with the one, and of a primary nature, are allotted a unical, occult and simple form of hyparxis; but such as are last, are multiplied, are distributed into many parts, and are exuberant in number, but inferior in power to such as are of a higher order; and such as are middle, according to a convenient proportion, are more composite than their causes, but more simple than their proper progeny.
And in short, all the axioms of the theologic science, appear in perfection in this dialogue, and all the divine orders are exhibited subsisting in connection. So that this is nothing else than the celebrated generation of the Gods, and the procession of every kind of being from the ineffable and unknown cause of wholes.
The Parmenides, therefore, enkindles in the lovers of Plato, the whole and perfect light of the theological science. But after this, the before-mentioned dialogues distribute parts of the mystic discipline about the Gods, and all of them, as I may say, participate of divine wisdom, and excite our spontaneous conceptions respecting a divine nature.
And it is necessary to refer all the parts of this mystic discipline to these dialogues, and these again to the one and all-perfect theory of the Parmenides. For thus, as it appears to me, we shall suspend the more imperfect from the perfect, and parts from wholes, and shall exhibit reasons assimilated to things, of which, according to the Platonic Timaeus, they are interpreters.
Such then is our answer to the objection which may be urged against us; and thus we refer the Platonic theory to the Parmenides; just as the Timaeus is acknowledged by all who are in the least degree intelligent, to contain the whole science about nature.