P r o c l u s
T H E T H E O L O G Y
O F P L A T O
OVERVIEW
-
0.1
- The Golden Chain of which deity is the one extreme, and body the other
-
0.2
- This theology produces the most pure, holy, venerable, and exalted conceptions
of the great cause of all
-
0.3
- The supreme is the principle of all principles
-
0.4
- It is necessary that the progression of beings should be continued, and
that no vacuum should intervene either in incorporeal or corporeal natures
-
0.5
- Each of these deities too, is the leader of a series which extends from
itself to the last of things
-
0.6
- This most sublime theory is congenial to the unperverted conceptions
of the human mind
THE
DIVINE NATURE
-
1.1
- Concerning the truth which is in the Gods
-
1.2
- The knowledge and truth of the Gods is alone known to the Gods themselves
-
1.3
- Truth is the leader to the Gods of every good
-
1.4 - What is
the goodness, what the wisdom, and what the beauty of the Gods?
THE
FIRST PRINCIPLE
-
2.1
- The twofold division to all things
-
2.2
- What is sensible is splendid because it imitates the primogenial cause
of itself
-
2.3
- Some things are intelligibles and others are sensibles, but the summits
of them are uniformly established in intelligibles
-
2.4
- The first good is not only the cause of what is good, but similarly of
things beautiful
-
2.5 - The
Good prior to forms is beyond beings, and is established above all knowledge
-
2.6
- The first light proceeds from The Good as the fountain of every intelligible,
or intellectual, or mundane deity
-
2.7
- The first principle gives subsistence to the boniform essence of the
Gods
-
2.8
- The Good is the most final of all ends and the centre of all desirable
natures
-
2.9
- Let us now in perfect quiet approach near to the cause of all things
THE
INTELLIGIBLE GODS
-
3.1
- Let The One be honoured by us in silence, and prior to silence by union
-
3.2
- There are two principles after The One: bound and infinity
-
3.3
- All beings are from bound and infinity
-
3.4
- The first of things mingled, is the first of beings
-
3.5
- The first of beings is triple
-
3.6
- The first of beings is intelligible essence
-
3.7
- Essence subsists from bound and infinity
THE
INTELLIGIBLE
AND
INTELLECTUAL
GODS
-
4.1
- The Gods who connectedly contain life, being the middle of the intelligible
and intellectual Gods are called intelligible and at the same time intellectual
-
4.2
- The intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods subsist triadically
-
4.3
- Life is primarily in intelligibles; but secondarily in intelligibles
and intellectuals; and in a third degree in intellectuals
-
4.4
- The intelligible and intellectual Gods are partly intelligible and partly
intellectual
-
4.5
- They are likewise divided triply, because in these all things, viz. essence,
life, and intellect, are vitally, in the same manner as they are intelligibly
in the Gods prior to them, and intellectually in the Gods that derive their
subsistence from these
-
4.6
- The intelligible and at the same time intellectual Gods are triply divided
-
4.7
- In the intelligible and at the same time intellectual order, each triad
has essence, life and intellect
-
4.8
- There are twelve leaders who preside over the whole [of mundane concerns,]
and who conduct all the mundane Gods, and all the herds of daemons, and
convert them to the intelligible nature
THE
INTELLECTUAL GODS
-
5.1
- The intellectual Gods proceed from all the Gods prior to them
-
5.2
- We may call the Gods in this order fathers and fabricators
-
5.3
- The three intellectual fathers
-
5.4
- The three undefiled Gods
-
5.5 - The
separative deity
-
5.6
- Each monad is the leader of an intellectual hebdomad and extends this
hebdomad from on high, from the summit of Olympus, as far as to the last,
and terrestrial orders
-
5.7
- The intellectual powers proceed according to the intelligible orders
-
5.8
- Saturn is the summit of a divine intellect reigning over all the intellectual
Gods
-
5.9
- Saturn and Jupiter are two intellects, and intellectual fathers; the
one, indeed, being intellectual; but the other intelligible, in intellectuals
-
5.10
- Plato following Orpheus, calls the inflexible and undefiled triad of
the intellectual Gods Curetic
-
5.11
- The separative deity is who accomplishes the divisions
-
5.12
- The demiurgus fabricates the soul of the universe an image of all the
divine orders, in the same manner as he fabricates this sensible world
an image of intelligibles
-
5.13
- After the division of the circles, the demiurgus assumes some things
which are symbols of the assimilative, and others which are symbols of
the liberated Gods, and through these, he refers the soul to these orders
of the Gods
-
5.14
- Saturn illuminates the pure and incorruptible nature of intellect, and
establishing his own all-perfect power in his own summit of intellectuals,
abides in, and at the same time proceeds from his father [Heaven]
-
5.15
- Jupiter is said to bind his father, and in placing bonds about his father,
he at the same time binds himself [to him]
-
5.16
- Each of the divine natures is unconverted to that which is inferior to
itself, but is converted to itself, and through itself reverts to that
which is more excellent
-
5.17
- The demiurgic intellect is at the same time intelligible and intellect,
but has the intelligible of his father, which he binds as the fable says
-
5.18
- Saturn leads forth the prolific powers of his father Heaven as far as
to the last of things
THE
RULING GODS
AND
THE
LIBERATED GODS
-
6.1
- All the orders of the principles or rulers are suspended from the demiurgus
-
6.2
- The ruling Gods are perfectly exempt from generated natures
-
6.3
- The ruling principles proceed from the Gods prior to them
-
6.4
- These Gods, shining forth the first of the intellectuals, express the
Gods from whom they derive their subsistence
-
6.5
- The government of the liberated Gods is allotted the middle bond of the
extremes, possessing sovereign authority over all mundane natures
-
6.6
- The order of the ruling Gods is in continuity with the kingdom of the
intellectual Gods
-
6.7
- The ruling Gods are allotted the first and highest rank among the partial
orders
-
6.8
- The liberated Gods are the media between the supermundane and mundane
Gods
-
6.9
- We are accustomed to celebrate the liberated genus of Gods as supercelestial
-
6.10
- The demiurgus and father produces from himself three orders of Gods
-
6.11
- In the mundane Gods themselves, we may perceive a twofold energy
-
6.12
- Our souls, at one time live according to the elevating progression, and
at another according to the mundane
-
6.13
- The soul which is perfect and winged, revolves on high, and obtains this
end, and this true blessedness, through the Gods
THE
MUNDANE GODS
-
7.1
- The mundane Gods, or those divinities who give completion to the
sensible world, are assigned the last order of deific progression
-
7.2
- The world is throughout filled with deity
-
7.3
- Of the mundane Gods, some are the causes of the existence of the world;
others animate it; others again harmonize it thus composed of different
natures; and others, lastly, guard and preserve it when harmonically arranged
-
7.4
- The division of the mundane Gods is into the celestial and sublunar
-
7.5
- The allotments of the mundane Gods are conformable to the divisions of
the universe
-
7.6
- The allotments of angels and daemons is co-suspended from the divine
allotments
-
7.7
- The natures that are in generation and generation itself, have also something
immutable, and which is naturally adapted to remain perpetually the same
-
7.8
- The allotments of the Gods do not change, nor do they subsist differently
at different times
-
7.9
- Partial souls such as ours, which at different times embrace different
lives, some of them indeed, choose lives accommodated to their appropriate
Gods, but others foreign lives, through oblivion of the divinities to whom
they belong
-
7.10
- The allotments of the Gods remain perpetually unchanged, but that the
participants of them, at one time indeed enjoy the beneficent influence
of the presiding powers, but at another are deprived of it
Links
Prometheus
Trust: with the edition of The Theology of Plato by Proclus,
translated by Thomas Taylor.
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Copyright
©1999 Roy George
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