It now remains to show what conceptions we ought to have of the Gods
mentioned by Plato in the passage before cited from the Timæus. For
of the ancients, some referred what is said about them to fables,
others to the fathers of cities, others to guardian powers, others
to ethical explanations, and others to souls. These, however, are
sufficiently confuted by the divine Jamblichus, who demonstrates
that they wander from the meaning of Plato, and from the truth of
things. After this manner, therefore, we must say, that Timæus being
a Pythagorean, follows the Pythagorean principles. But these are the
Orphic traditions. For what Orpheus delivered mystically through arcane
narrations, these Pythagoras learned, being initiated by Aglaophemus in
the mystic wisdom which Orpheus derived from his mother Calliope. For
these things Pythagoras says in the _Sacred Discourse_. What then
are the Orphic traditions, since we are of opinion that the doctrine of
Timæus about the Gods should be referred to these? They are as follow:
Orpheus delivered the kingdoms of the Gods who preside over wholes,
according to a perfect number, viz. Phanes, Night, Heaven, Saturn,
Jupiter, Bacchus. For Phanes is the first that bears a sceptre, and the
first king is the celebrated Ericapæus. But the second is Night, who
receives the sceptre from her father [Phanes.] The third is Heaven,
who receives it from Night. The fourth is Saturn, who, as they say,
offered violence to his father. The fifth is Jupiter, who subdued
his father. And after him, the sixth is Bacchus. All these kings,
therefore, beginning supernally from the intelligible and intellectual
Gods, proceed through the middle orders, and into the world, that they
may adorn mundane affairs. For Phanes is not only in intelligibles,
but also in intellectuals, in the demiurgic, and in the supermundane
order; and in a similar manner, Heaven and Night. For the peculiarities
of them proceed through all the middle orders. And with respect to the
mighty Saturn, is he not arranged prior to Jupiter, and does he not
after the Jovian kingdom, divide the Bacchic fabrication in conjunction
with the other Titans? And this indeed, he effects in one way in the
heavens, and in another in the sublunary region; in one way in the
inerratic sphere, and in another among the planets. And in a similar
manner Jupiter and Bacchus. _These things, therefore, are clearly
asserted by the ancients._
If, however we are right in these assertions, these divinities have
every where an analogous subsistence; and he who wishes to survey
the progressions of them into the heavens, or the sublunary region,
should look to the first and principal causes of their kingdoms. For
from thence, and according to them, their generation is derived. Some,
therefore, say, that Plato omits to investigate the Gods who are
analogous to the two kings in the heavens, I mean Phanes and Night.
For it is necessary to place them in a superior order, and not among
the mundane Gods; because prior to the world, they are the leaders of
the intellectual Gods, being eternally established in the adytum, as
Orpheus says of Phanes, who by the word adytum signifies their occult
and immanifest order. Whether, therefore, we refer the circulation of
same and different, mentioned by Plato in this dialogue, to the analogy
of these, as male and female, or paternal and generative, we shall
not wander from the truth. Or whether we refer the sun and moon, as
opposed to each other among the planets, to the same analogy, we shall
not err. For the sun indeed through his light preserves a similitude
to Phanes, but the moon to Night. Jupiter, or the demiurgus, in the
intellectual, is analogous to Phanes in the intelligible order. And
the vivific crater Juno is analogous to Night, who produces all life
in conjunction with Phanes from unapparent causes; just as Juno is
parturient with, and emits into light, all the soul contained in the
world. For it is better to conceive both these as prior to the world;
and to arrange the demiurgus himself as analogous to Phanes; since he
is said to be assimilated to him according to the production of wholes;
but to arrange the power conjoined with Jupiter, (i.e. Juno) and which
is generative of wholes, to Night, who produces all things from the
father Phanes. After these, however, we must consider the remaining, as
analogous to the intellectual kingdoms.
If, likewise, it should be asked why Plato does not mention the
kingdoms of Phanes and Night, to whom we have said Jupiter and Juno are
analogous? It may be readily answered, that the tradition of Orpheus
contains these; on which account Plato celebrates the kingdom of Heaven
and Earth as the first, the Greeks being more accustomed to this than
to the Orphic traditions; as he himself says in the Cratylus, where he
particularly mentions the Theogony of Hesiod, and recurs as far as to
this kingdom according to that poet. Beginning, therefore, from this
Theogony as more known, and assuming Heaven and Earth as the first
kingdoms above the world, he produces the visible Heaven and Earth
analogous to those in the intellectual order, and celebrates the latter
as the most ancient of the Gods within the former. From these also, he
begins the Theogony of the sublunary Gods. These things, however, if
divinity pleases, will be manifest from what follows. At present we
shall only add, that it is requisite to survey all these names divinely
or dæmoniacally, and according to the allotments of these divinities in
the four elements. For this ennead is in ether and water, in earth and
in air, all-variously, according to the divine, and also according to
the dæmoniacal peculiarity. And again, these names are to be surveyed
aquatically and aerially, and likewise in the earth terrestrially, in
order that all of them may be every where, according to an all-various
mode of subsistence. For there are many modes of providence divine
and dæmoniacal, and many allotments according to the division of the
elements.