Proclus

“ Is it not the demiurgus, who is the cause to us of all these goods, who governs the whole world according to rectitude, binds it by the best analogies, establishes every polity in it, possesses and comprehends the laws of Fate, and extends the sacred laws of Adrastia, as far as to the last of things, and arranges and adorns by justice all celestial and sublunary natures? ”

“ And as the unical cause of whole goods, and which is incomprehensible by all things, is exempt from all things, constitutes all things about itself, generates them from itself, and hastily withdraws the unions of all things to its own ineffable superunion, thus also the uniform and generative principle of every co-ordinate multitude, connects, guards and perfects the whole series of itself, imparts good to it from itself, and fills it with order and harmony. ”

“ For order and well-being are the progeny of an intellectual essence. But it is necessary that soul primarily participating of intellect, should illuminate body with the light proceeding from thence, and fill all things with intellectual arrangement. It must be admitted therefore, that the world is animated and endued with intellect. Hence from this Socrates ascends to the cause itself of the whole world, which produced intellect and soul, and generated the total order [of the universe.] ”

“ But the demiurgus, at onetime indeed, divides the world into five parts, and at another divides the circles of the soul into hebdomads, that he may generate either the celestial spheres, or the seven parts of the soul. We must say therefore, that he is entirely secondary to the intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods, and he is the cause of secondary goods to the world. But we must refer to those Gods the cause of united forms and reasons. That the demiurgic intellect however, is an intellectual God, is I think through these things sufficiently apparent at present. ”

“ Moreover, to congregate all the Gods into their most honourable habitation, from which the whole of generation may be seen, and which possesses the middle of the universe, is to attribute to him a providence exempt from multitude, but extending equally to the whole world; which things indeed are the illustrious goods of the demiurgic monad. ”

“ At one and the same time therefore the world is animated, lives through the whole of its life according to virtue, and possesses from the virtues as its highest end, friendship with itself, and an all-perfect knowledge of itself. ”

“ For he who introduces partial souls into the universe as into their habitation, and imparts to them a total polity which is the best of all polities, and is governed by the most excellent laws, is he who denominates these laws the laws of Fate, who defines the measures of Justice, and legally institutes all things, as Timæus says. Is it not therefore superfluous to endeavour to prove that he who possesses the first paradigm of the political science, is according to Plato the demiurgus? ”

“ Hence also Plato does not simply call Saturn intellect, but a pure and incorruptible intellect. For he in the intellectual is intelligible. Since however, he is not simply intelligible, but as in intellectuals, he is intellect, and is himself paternally so, being both father and intellect, and having the paternal intellectually. In intelligibles therefore, intellect is also father; but in intellectuals father is intellect. Hence Saturn is a pure, immaterial and perfect intellect, established above fabrication in the order of the desirable. ”

“ What other cause can we assign than its contributing to the perfection of the world, and its power and dominion in the fabrication of wholes? For that which gives an orderly distinction to the genera of causes, contrives the most beautiful bond of them, and weaves together one order from wholes, is according to Timæus the power of this analogy. For it established soul in the middle (of the universe) analogous to intellect and a corporeal nature. For soul is the middle of an impartible and partible essence. ”

“ But the demiurgus is simply intellect. As therefore, the simply intelligible is the first of intelligibles, so that which is simply intellect, is the last of intellectuals. For all things are in each of the orders. For in intelligibles life and intellect preexist; and in the breadth of life, there are similarly life and intellect. And in intellectuals there is each of the rest. But in intelligibles indeed, being is according to essence, but life and intellect are according to cause. In intellectuals, intellect indeed is according to essence, but being and life are according to participation. ”

“ For how could the impartible and eternal essence of intellect be immediately conjoined with a corporeal nature? It is necessary therefore that intellect should preside over wholes, that it may connect the order in the world, well-being, and all things. ”

“ The fable says, therefore, that Prometheus adorning the human race, and providentially attending to our rational life, that it may not perish by being merged in the furies of earth, and the necessities of nature, as some one of the Gods says, bound nature to the arts, extended these which are imitations of intellect, as it were to sportive souls, and through these excited our gnostic and dianoëtic power to the contemplation of forms. For every artificial production is effective of form, and adorns the matter which is the subject of it. ”

“ For all intellectuals pervade through each other, and are in each other, according to a certain admirable communion, imitating the union of intelligibles, through being present and mingled with each other. The sphere also which is there, is the intellectual order, energizing in and about itself, and proceeding into itself hebdomatically, being a monad and a hebdomad, the image, if it be lawful so to speak, of the all-perfect intelligible monad, and unfolding its occult union, through progression and separation. ”

“ Or whether all the world subsists from a certain intelligible paradigm, if indeed there are many paradigms of one world, these also will be similar to each other, if they are the causes of the same image. It is necessary therefore, that sameness should be communicated to these from one form; or again, the world will be more venerable than its paradigms according to union. But if the paradigm is one, after the same manner also the demiurgic cause is one. For as there is one image from one paradigm, thus also the progeny being one, derives its subsistence from one demiurgus and father. ”

“ For every one who reasons, passes from one thing to another, and being converted to himself, searches after good. The demiurgic intellect, therefore, in adorning and arranging the universe subsists analogously to him who reasons; for he emits the divided causes of mundane natures, which preexist unitedly in intelligibles. For those things which intelligible intellect constitutes uniformly and exemptly, these intellectual intellect separating, distributing into parts, and as it were fabricating by itself, generates. ”

“ The first of the intellectual Gods therefore, who is parturient with multitude, who is the leader and source of all separation, and who separates himself from the uniform and first Gods, but generates the divided principles of wholes,—this God again converts his progeny to himself, and weaves together these parts with his own sameness, and exhibits himself as one intelligible world in intellectuals, bringing forth in himself, and retaining with himself his own offspring. ”

“ If, however, Jupiter moves the universe according to this period, the world can no longer be said to convolve itself, and to govern every thing it contains. Nor will it be true neither that the whole is convolved by divinity with twofold and contrary circulations, nor again, that two certain Gods convolve it whose decisions are contrary to each other. For if Saturn indeed moves it according to one circulation, but Jupiter moves it according to a period contrary to that of Saturn, two Gods will move it according to contrary circumvolutions. ”