And thus much for the developement of such particulars in the speech of
the demiurgus as relate to the junior or mundane Gods. Others, however,
no less important respecting the fabrication of these Gods remain to
be collected from another part of the Timæus; and which accompanied
with the admirable elucidations of Proclus are as follow: After the
demiurgus had instructed souls in all that was necessary to their well
being, and had disseminated some of them into the earth, others into
the moon, and others into the remaining different instruments of time,
Plato adds: “But after this semination he delivered to the junior Gods
the province of fabricating mortal bodies, and generating whatever
else remained necessary to the human soul; and gave them dominion
over every thing consequent to their fabrications.” Who the junior
Gods are, says Proclus, must now be shown; for that the mundane Gods
are thus denominated is evident. But it seems they are thus called
by Plato, either from a comparison with the more ancient dignity of
the unapparent [i.e. the intellectual] fabrication, and with the
transcendency of the power in it, and the perfection of intellectual
vision. For that which is more intellectual is with the Gods more
ancient.
“But Jove was born the first, and more he knows,” says Homer. Or they
are thus denominated, because they always make generation to be new;
and when it becomes old and imbecil through its subject nature, again
recall it to a subsistence according to nature by their motions,
sending into it effluxions of all-various productive principles
and powers, and thus render it perpetually new. Or, they are thus
called, because having intellectual essences suspended from them,
they eternally energize with the acme of intellectual vigor. For as
the poets say, Hebe pours out their wine, and they drink nectar, and
survey the whole sensible world. Employing, therefore, immutable and
undeviating intellections, they fill all things with their demiurgic
providence. Or they have this appellation, because Curetic deity is
present with them, [or deity belonging to the order of the Curetes,]
illuminating their intellectual conceptions with purity, their motion
with inflexibility, and supplying the whole of them with rigid power,
through which they govern all things without departing from the
characteristics of their nature. Or, which is the truest reason of all
the preceding, they are thus denominated, because the monad of them
is called the _recent_ God. For theologists give this appellation to
Bacchus, who is the monad of all the second fabrication. For Jupiter
established him the king of all the mundane Gods, and distributed to
him the first honours. On this account also, theologists are accustomed
to call the sun _a recent God_, and Heraclitus says, that the sun is _a
diurnal youth_, as participating of Dionysiacal power. Or, for a reason
most appropriate to Platonic principles, they are thus denominated,
because bodies which have generation are suspended from them; and the
essence of these is not allotted a subsistence in eternity, but in the
whole of time. They are junior, therefore, not as once beginning to
exist, but as being always generated, and as we have before observed,
subsisting in becoming to be, or perpetually rising into existence. For
every thing which is generated has not the whole of what it possesses
present at once, nor a simultaneous infinity, but an infinity which is
perpetually supplying. Thus, therefore, they are called junior, as
having a subsistence co-extended with time, and always advancing into
existence, and as possessing a renovated immortality.
Again, the delivery of the first fabrication is a communication and
generation of demiurgic powers, exempt from every thing which the
second fabrication produces proximately, a progression of production
from the unapparent into the apparent, and a division of uniform power
into the multiplied government of the world. But the formation of
bodies assimilates the junior Gods to the unapparent fabrication. For
that was the cause of bodies that rank as wholes, just as they are the
causes of partial bodies, at the same time exhibiting a diminution
of power. For of the body of which they are the makers and formers,
the demiurgus also is the cause; but they are the formers of partial
bodies, which are bodies endued with certain qualities. Hence body
indeed is simply unbegotten as from time, and incorruptible as was also
the opinion of Aristotle. “For,” says he, “there would be a vacuum if
body could be generated, external[91] to the body of the universe.
But this _particular_ body is corruptible, as being of a partial
nature; for the _wholes_ of the elements derived their subsistence
from _total_ fabrication. The accession, however, of the human soul
which remained[92] to be generated, assimilates the mundane Gods to the
paternal power. For it is the province of a father to generate life;
since the first father, and every father is the cause of life; the
intelligible father, indeed, of intelligible, but the intellectual of
intellectual, and the supermundane of supermundane life. And hence, the
mundane Gods who generate corporeal life are fathers. The fabrication,
however, adapted to these Gods, produces the nature of partial animals.
For this partial animal which is suspended from the immortal soul,
consists of soul and body. But the _dominion_ which the demiurgus
gave the junior Gods, excites their providential inspection, their
connective power, and their guardian comprehensions. For without these,
the bodies that are fashioned, and the mortal form of life, would
rapidly vanish into non-entity. Prior, therefore, to the generation
of these, the demiurgus made their ruling Gods to be the guardians and
saviours of them. In the junior Gods, therefore, there are demiurgic
powers, according to which they invest generated natures with forms;
vivific powers, according to which they give subsistence to a secondary
life; and perfective powers, through which they give completion to what
is deficient in generation. There are also many other powers in them
besides these, which are inexplicable by our conceptions.