Thomas Taylor

“ That he who rushes from the forge, or the mines, with a soul distorted, crushed and bruised by base mechanical arts, and madly presumes to teach theology to a deluded audience, is master of this sublime, this most important science? For my own part I know of no truths which are thus obvious, thus accessible to every man, but axioms, those self-evident principles of science which are conspicuous by their own light, which are the spontaneous unperverted conceptions of the soul, and to which he who does not assent deserves, as Aristotle justly remarks, either pity or correction. ”

“ Would a wise man make such a proposal? How does this inconsistent scheme reflect upon the infinitely wise and gracious God? Shall vain man throw such an odium upon his Maker? God forbid! But such an odium does this decree throw upon unerring wisdom; and all the quibbles in the world cannot clear it of the same. Again: let God speak like thunder, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God!” yet if the sinner is incapable of taking the warning, what empty bombast does it make of the awful threatening! ”

“ With no less magnificence therefore than piety, does Proclus thus speak concerning the ineffable principle of things. "Let us now if ever remove from ourselves multiform knowledge, exterminate all the variety of life, and in perfect quiet approach near to the cause of all things. For this purpose, let not only opinion and phantasy be at rest, nor the passions alone which impede our anagogic impulse to the first be at peace; but let the air, and the universe itself, be still. And let all things extend us with a tranquil power to communion with the ineffable. ”

“ What also hinders, but that to each thing by itself, and in conjunction with the whole alliance of souls, justice may in a very transcendent manner be decreed by the Gods? For if a communion of the same nature in souls, both when they are in and when they are out of bodies, produces a certain identical connexion and common order with the life of the world, it is likewise necessary that, a fulfilment of justice should be required by wholes, and especially when the magnitude of the unjust deeds antecedently committed by one soul transcends the infliction of one punishment due to the offences. ”

“ Hence, he asserts of theoretic arithmetic that it imparts no small aid to our ascent to real being, and that it liberates us from the wandering and ignorance about a sensible nature. Geometry too is considered by him as most instrumental to the knowledge of the good, when it is not pursued for the sake of practical purposes, but as the means of ascent to an intelligible essence. Astronomy also is useful for the purpose of investigating the fabricator of all things, and contemplating as in most splendid images the ideal world, and its ineffable cause. ”

“ For consider, if you are willing, the last of divine natures, viz. a soul purely liberated from bodies. What does such a soul want with the generation which is in pleasure, or the restitution which is in it to a natural condition, since such a soul is above nature, and lives an unbegotten life? Why, also, should it participate of the pain which leads to corruption and dissolves the harmony of the body, since it is beyond all body, and the nature which is divided about body, and is entirely separate from the harmony which descends from the soul into the body? ”

“ Let not such then presume to explore the regions of Platonic philosophy. The land is too pure to admit the sordid and the base. The road which conducts to it is too intricate to be discovered by the unskillful and stupid, and the journey is too long and laborious to be accomplished by the effeminate and the timid, by the slave of passion and the dupe of opinion, by the lover of sense and the despiser of truth. ”

“ Do not, therefore, the corruption and privation of symmetry arise from an aberration which is effective of difference, and which is material and passive? Hence the imbecility of material and terrene places, not being able to receive the genuine power and most pure life of the etherial natures, transfers its own passion to first causes. Just as if some one having a diseased body, and not being able to bear the vivific heat of the sun, should falsely dare to say, in consequence of looking to his own maladies, that the sun is not useful to health or life. ”

“ And as in each part of the universe and in nature itself, the demiurgus of all which the world contains established resemblances of the unknown essence of the gods, that all things might be converted to divinity through their alliance with it, in like manner I am of opinion, that the divine intellect of Plato weaves conceptions about the gods with all its progeny, and leaves nothing deprived of the mention of divinity, that from the whole of its offspring a reminiscence of total natures may be obtained, and imparted to the genuine lovers of divine concerns. ”

“ For it is necessary that the soul, which is hurled like seed into the realms of generation, should lay aside the stubble and bark, as it were, which she obtained from being disseminated into these fluctuating realms; and that purifying herself from every thing circumjacent, she should become an intellectual flower and fruit, delighting in an intellectual life, instead of doxastic nutriment, and pursuing the uniform and simple energy of the period of sameness, instead of the abundantly wandering motion of the period which is characterized by difference. ”

“ This intellect, therefore, comprehending in the depths of its essence an ideal world, replete with all various forms, excludes privation of cause and casual subsistence, from its energy. But as it imparts every good and all possible beauty to its fabrications, it converts the universe to itself, and renders it similar to its own omniform nature. Its energy, too, is such as its intellection; but it understands all things, since it is most perfect. Hence there is not any thing which ranks among true beings, that is not comprehended in the essence of intellect ”

“ What is the indication of a God, or angel, or archangel, or dæmon, or a certain archon, or soul being present? For to speak boastingly, and to exhibit a phantasm of a certain quality, is common to Gods and dæmons, and to all the more excellent genera. So that the genus of Gods will in no respect be better than that of dæmons.
Since the ignorance of, and deception about, divine natures is impiety and impurity, but a scientific knowledge of the Gods is holy and beneficial, the ignorance of things honourable and beautiful will be darkness, but the knowledge of them will be light. ”

“ But it would be absurd to say that the energies of every irrational soul are not the energies of that soul, but of one more divine; since they are infinite, and mingled with much of the base and imperfect. For this would be just the same as to say that the irrational enemies are the energies of the rational soul. I omit to mention the absurdity of supposing that the whole essence is not generative of its proper energies. For if the irrational soul is a certain essence, it will have peculiar energies of its own, not imparted from something else, but proceeding from itself. ”

“ For every thing which is measured by time is of this kind. And farther still, was the place which at a certain time they are allotted, without a presiding deity prior to this allotment, or was it under the government of other Gods? For if it was without a presiding deity, how is it to be admitted that a certain part of the universe was once entirely destitute of divinity? How can any place remain without the guardianship of superior beings? And if any place is sufficient to the preservation of itself, how does it afterwards become the allotment of some one of the Gods? ”

“ Every where, however, the leading end, as I may say, is either physical or political, while the conceptions about divine natures are introduced either for the sake of invention or perfection. How, therefore, can such a theory as yours be any longer venerable and supernatural, and worthy to be studied beyond every thing, when it is neither able to evince the whole in itself, nor the perfect, nor that which is precedaneous in the writings of Plato, but is destitute of all these, is violent and not spontaneous, and does not possess a genuine, but an adventitious order, as in a drama? ”

“ But the prophetess in Delphi, whether she gives oracles to mankind through an attenuated and fiery spirit, bursting from the mouth of the cavern, or whether being seated in the adytum on a brazen tripod, or on a stool with four feet, she becomes sacred to the God; whichsoever of these is the case, she entirely gives herself up to a divine spirit, and is illuminated with a ray of divine fire. And when, indeed, fire ascending from the mouth of the cavern circularly invests her in collected abundance, she becomes filled from it with a divine splendour. ”

“ The intelligent reader will readily admit that this dogmas is so far from being derogatory to the dignity of the Supreme, that on the contrary it exalts that dignity, and, preserves in a becoming manner the exempt transcendency of the ineffable. If therefore we presume to celebrate him, for as we have already observed, it is more becoming to establish in silence those parturitions of the soul which dare anxiously to explore him, we should celebrate him as the principle of principles, and the fountain of deity, or in the reverential language of the Egyptians, as a darkness thrice unknown. ”

“ For there is no occasion to fear that our progression will be through an unsubstantial void, by conceiving something about the first principles which is greater and more transcendent than their nature. For it is not possible for our conceptions to take such a mighty leap as to equal, and much less to pass beyond, the dignity of the first principles of things. ”

“ Those of angels are luminous; but dæmons present themselves to the view with a turbid fire. The light of heroes is mingled with many things. And, with respect to archons, the light of those that have the government of the world is more pure; but of those that preside over matter, exhibits itself mingled from things of a dissimilar and contrary nature. And the light of souls manifests itself to be partibly filled with many of the mixtures which exist in generation. ”

“ From this magnificent, sublime, and most scientific doctrine of Plato, respecting the arcane principle of things and his immediate progeny, it follows that this ineffable cause is not the immediate maker of the universe, and this, as I have observed in the Introduction to the Timaeus, not through any defect, but on the contrary through transcendency of power. All things indeed are ineffably unfolded from him at once, into light; but divine media are necessary to the fabrication of the world. ”

“ But as in all things the image of good exhibits a similitude of divinity; thus, likewise, in all things a certain obscure or more manifest image of divine prediction shines forth to the view. Nevertheless, no one of these is such as the divine species of divination; nor must the one, divine, and unmingled form of it be characterized from the many phantasms which proceed from it into generation. Nor, if there are certain other false and deceitful resemblances, which are still more remote from reality, is it fit to adduce these in forming a judgment of it. ”

“ If therefore the artificer of the universe produced it by art, he would not cause it simply to be, but to be in some particular manner; for all art produces form. Whence therefore does the world derive its being? If he produced it from nature, since that which makes by nature imparts something of itself to its productions, and the maker of the world is incorporeal, it would be necessary that the world, the offspring of such an energy, should be incorporeal. It remains therefore, that the demiurgus produced the universe by power alone ”

“ But if our soul necessarily lives well, when living according to the circle of sameness, much more must this be the case with divine souls. It is, however, possible for our soul to live according to the circle of sameness, when purified, as Plato says. Cathartic virtue, therefore, alone must be called the salvation of souls; since this cuts off, and vehemently obliterates, material natures, and the passions which adhere to us from generation; separates the soul and leads it to intellect; and causes it to leave on earth the vehicles with which it is invested. ”

“ In short, the principles of the philosophy of Plato are of all others the most friendly to true piety, pure morality, solid learning, and sound government. For as it is scientific in all its parts, and in these parts comprehends all that can be known by man in theology and ethics, and all that is necessary for him to know in physics, it must consequently contain in itself the source of all that is great and good both to individuals and communities, must necessarily exalt while it benefits, and deify while it exalts. ”

“ That, however, which is truly a representation of the Gods, is in other respects genuine and pure, immutable and true, and is inaccessible to, and unimpeded by, spirits of a contrary nature. For, as darkness is not adapted to sustain the splendour of the glittering light of the sun, but suddenly becomes totally invisible, entirely recedes, and immediately vanishes; thus, also, when the power of the Gods, which fills all things with good, abundantly shines forth, no place is left for the tumult of evil spirits, nor can it present itself to the view ”

“ Immediately subsisting after this immense unknown we in the next place behold a mighty all- comprehending one, which as being next to that which is in every respect incomprehensible, possesses much of the ineffable and unknown. From this principle of principles, in which all things casually subsist absorbed in superessential light and involved in unfathomable depths, we view a beauteous progeny of principles, all largely partaking of the ineffable, all stamped with the occult characters of deity, all possessing an over-flowing fullness of good. ”

“ We must embrace, therefore, not those who honour these things, but those who reverence divinity through these, as through most clear mirrors, and which are produced by nature, in a becoming manner, conceiving them to be the instruments or the art of the God by whom all things are perpetually adorned. But we ought to think that no inanimate being can be more excellent than one that is animated, nor an insensible than a sensitive being, not even though some one should collect together all the gold and emeralds in the universe. ”

“ For as the true end of man according to his philosophy is an assimilation to divinity, in the greatest perfection of which human nature is capable, whatever contributes to this is to be ardently pursued; but whatever has a different tendency, however necessary it may be to the wants and conveniences of the mere animal life, is comparatively little and vile. Hence it necessary to pass rapidly from things visible and audible, to those which are alone seen by the eye of intellect. ”

“ Whence, also, does the imagination, receiving from a certain thing a divining power, become prophetic of futurity? For we do not see that any one of the things which are sown through generation possess any thing more than what is imparted to it by its first generating cause. But, in the present instance, the imagination will receive a certain more excellent addition from that which has no existence. Unless some one should say, that dæmons preside over the matter which is derived from animals, and that when this matter is adduced, the presiding dæmon is sympathetically moved towards it. ”