“But in consequence of his abiding, says Plato, as soon as his children
understood the order of their father, they became obedient to it.”
When the Demiurgus speaks, says Proclus, then the junior Gods have the
order of hearers. When he intellectually perceives, then they learn;
for learning is dianoetic. When he abides according to union itself,
then his children intellectually perceive. For they always receive from
him an inferior order. And as filled indeed from him, they preserve
the analogy of hearers with reference to him; but as evolving his one
power, they are analogous to learners. For he who learns evolves the
intellect of his preceptor. As being deified, however, by him, they
have the analogy of those that perceive intellectually. For intellect
becomes deific, by its contact[96] with _the one_. The father,
therefore, abiding, his children very properly intellectually perceive.
For they are intellects participated by divine souls, that ride in
the vehicles of undefiled bodies. But they intellectually perceive
the order of the father presubsisting in him prior to the arranged
effects, according to which order he became all things. Mortal natures,
therefore, were fashioned and animated by the demiurgic intellection
alone. But the junior Gods unfold his total production, through their
own manifest fabrication; being filled from the demiurgic monad.
In the last place, Plato adds, “And receiving the immortal principle
of mortal animal, in imitation of their artificer, they borrowed from
the world the parts of fire and earth, water and air, as things which
they should restore back again; and conglutinated the received parts
together, but not with the same indissoluble bonds by which they were
connected.” On-these words Proclus admirably comments as follows:
Plato indicates to us, the separation of the second from the first
fabrication, through many words and steps.[97] For if the Demiurgus
orderly disposes, but the junior Gods are obedient to his mandates,
the former by merely commanding is the cause of generated natures, but
the latter being excited by the Demiurgus, receive from thence the
boundary of the whole of their fabrication. And if, indeed, he abides
in himself, but they are moved about him, it is evident that he is
eternally the cause of things which subsist in time, but that they
being filled from him energize according to the whole of time. And if
he perfectly establishes himself in his own accustomed manner, but
they proceeding from him, unfold into light this united and ineffable
disposition of himself, they derive from him secondary measures of
fabrication.
Moreover, he is said to have a paternal dignity, but they are
denominated his children, as expressing his prolific power, and his
single goodness. And he indeed, is celebrated as delivering from his
exalted abode the principles of fabrication; but they are celebrated
as receiving the immortal principle contributing to the orderly
distribution of mortals. He is said to have the fountain of the
vivification of perpetual natures; but they are the causes of the
subsistence of mortal-formed animals. And he indeed extends himself as
a paradigm to the many Gods; but they are said to imitate the demiurgic
intellect. He is said to produce the whole world, and the plenitudes
of it; but they are said to borrow parts from the fabrications of
their father, in order to the completion of their proper works. And he
indeed employs all incorporeal powers; but they also employ such as
are corporeal. He gives subsistence to indissoluble bonds; but they
to such as are dissoluble. And he, indeed, is said to insert a union
more ancient than the natures which it unites; but they are said to
introduce an adventitious union, and which is of an origin posterior
to this, to the beings that consist of many contrary natures. And he
is said to produce all things impartibly; but they with division,
minutely distributing the subsistence of mortal natures into small and
invisible nails. From these things, therefore the separation of the two
fabrications may be assumed; but the union and contact of them may be
surveyed from the words before us. For here a contact is effected of
the second with the first fabrication; of apparent with unapparent, and
of divided with monadic production.
Hence it is necessary that the lowest part of the first and unapparent
fabrication, should coalesce with the summit of the second. For thus
also the heavens are conjoined with generation [or the sublunary
region] the lowest of the celestial bodies exhibiting the principle
of mutation; but the summit of the essence of sublunary natures,
being moved in conjunction with the heavens. Hence too, here also the
rational soul is conjoined with the mortal form of life; viz. the
lowest and most partial of the productions of the father, with the
highest of the natures generated by the junior Gods. For they, indeed,
as being certain fathers produce lives; but as fabricators, bodies. And
they imitate indeed Vulcan by the fabrication of bodies; but Juno by
vivification. But through both these they imitate the whole Demiurgus.
For he is maker and father; but they fashion bodies by borrowing
parts from wholes. For every where parts derive their composition
from wholes. When, however, the wholes are incorporeal, they remain
undiminished by the subsistence of the parts; but when they are
corporeal, the parts that are generated from them diminish the wholes.
Hence an ablation always taking place, but the parts always remaining,
the wholes perish. And thus generation will no longer exist, and the
works of the first fabrication will all vanish through the second,
which it is not lawful to assert. That nothing of this kind, therefore,
may take place in the universe, the composite parts are again
dissolved, in order to fill up their wholes. And the generation of one
thing is the corruption of another; but the corruption of one thing
is the generation of another; in order that generation and corruption
may always remain. For if generation existed only once, it would at a
certain time stop, in consequence of consisting of finite things, and
these being consumed. But these perishing corruption also would stop,
all things being destroyed. Hence if it is necessary that one of these
should exist, the other also will exist. Every thing, therefore, which
is generated from the second fabrication is a composite and dissoluble,
and deriving its composition from time, will also in time be again
dissolved. The junior Gods, therefore, are very properly said to
borrow parts which are again to be restored to their wholes. But they
borrow them from the universe.[98] For that which they borrow is fire,
earth, water and air; and they again restore them to the universe.[99]
The father, therefore, wishes the wholes to remain which he generated
and arranged. And thus much concerning all the fabrication of the
junior Gods.