Thus much therefore may suffice concerning the unbegotten hyparxis of the Gods. It now remains, I think, to speak of divine names. For Socrates in the Cratylus thinks fit to unfold in a remarkable degree the rectitude of names in divine natures. And Parmenides indeed, in the first hypothesis, as he denies of the one everything else that is known, and all knowledge, so likewise he denies of it name and language. But in the second hypothesis, besides all other things, he shows that this one may be spoken of and that it has a name. In short therefore, it must be admitted that the first, most principal and truly divine names are established in the Gods themselves. But it must be said that the second names, which are the imitations of the first, and which subsist intellectually, are of a daemoniacal allotment.
And again we may say that those names which are the third from the truth, which are logically devised, and which receive the ultimate resemblance of divine natures, are unfolded by scientific men, at one time energizing divinely, and at another intellectually and generating moving images of their inward spectacles.
For as the demiurgic intellect establishes resemblances about matter of the first forms contained in himself, and produces temporal images of things eternal, divisible images of things indivisible, and adumbrated images as it were of true beings, – after the same manner I think the science that is with us representing intellectual production, fabricates resemblances of other things, and also of the Gods themselves, representing that which is void of composition in them, through composition; that which is simple, through variety; and that which is united through multitude; and thus fashioning names, ultimately exhibits images of divine natures.
For it generates every name as if it were a statue of the Gods. And as the theurgic art through certain symbols calls forth the exuberant and unenvying goodness of the Gods into the illumination of artificial statues, thus also the intellectual science of divine concerns, by the compositions and divisions of sounds unfolds the occult essence of the Gods. Very properly therefore, does Socrates in the Philebus say, that on account of his reverence of the Gods, he is agitated with the greatest fear respecting their names.
For it is necessary to venerate even the ultimate echoes of the Gods, and venerating these to become established in the first paradigms of them. And thus much concerning divine names, which at present may be sufficient for the purpose of understanding the theology of Plato. For we shall accurately discuss them when we speak of partial powers.