Having in the preceding chapters presented the reader from the most
genuine sources, with all the information that can at present be
obtained concerning the mundane Gods, the order of scientific theology
requires that those perpetual attendants of the Gods, denominated
angels, dæmons and heroes, should be in the next place considered.
As all these ministrant powers however, are frequently called by one
name dæmons; and as Love is denominated by Plato a great dæmon, and
contains in himself the paradigm of the whole dæmoniacal series, it is
necessary that the developement of the nature of Love should precede
the discussion of the peculiarities of dæmons. The following admirable
account therefore of this mighty divinity, by Proclus the Coryphæus
of all true philosophers, is extracted from his MS. Commentary on the
First Alcibiades of Plato.
There are different properties of different Gods. For some are the
fabricators of wholes, of the form of beings, and of their essential
ornament. But others are the suppliers of life, and are the sources of
its various genera. Others again preserve the unchangeable order, and
guard the indissoluble connexion of things. And others lastly, who are
allotted a different power, preserve all things by their beneficent
energies. In like manner every amatory order is the cause to all
things of conversion to divine beauty, leading back, conjoining, and
establishing all secondary natures in the beautiful, replenishing them
from thence, and irradiating all things with the gifts of its light.
On this account it is asserted in the Banquet of Plato that Love is a
great dæmon, because Love first demonstrates in itself a power of this
kind, and is the medium between the object of desire and the desiring
nature, and is the cause of the conversion of subsequent to prior
natures. The whole amatory series therefore, being established in the
vestibule of the cause of beauty, calls upwards all things to this
cause, and forms a middle progression between the object of Love and
the natures which are recalled by Love. Hence it pre-establishes in
itself the paradigm of the whole dæmoniacal order, obtaining the same
middle situation among the Gods as dæmons between divine and mortal
natures. Since therefore, every amatory series possesses this property
among the Gods, we must consider its uniform and occult summit as
ineffably established in the first orders of the Gods, and conjoined
with the first and intelligible beauty; its middle process as shining
forth among the supermundane Gods, with an intellectual condition; its
third progression as possessing an exempt power among the liberated
Gods; and its fourth as multifariously distributed about the world,
producing many orders and powers from itself, and distributing gifts of
this kind to the different parts of the world.
But after the unific and first principle of Love, and after the
tripartite essence perfected from thence, a various multitude of Loves
shines forth with divine light, from whence the choirs of angels are
filled with Love; and the herds of dæmons full of this God attend on
the Gods who are recalled to intelligible beauty. Add too, that the
army of heroes, together with dæmons and angels, are agitated about
the participation of the beautiful with divine bacchanalian fury.
Lastly, all things are excited, revive and flourish through the influx
of the beautiful. But the souls of such men as receive an inspiration
of this kind, and are naturally allied to the God, assiduously move
about beauty, and fall into the realms of generation, for the purpose
of benefiting more imperfect souls, and providing for those natures
which require to be saved. The Gods indeed, and the attendants on the
Gods, abiding in their proper habits, benefit all following natures,
and convert them to themselves; but the souls of men descending, and
touching on the coasts of generation, imitate the beneficent providence
of the Gods. As, therefore, souls established according to some other
God descend with purity into the regions of mortality, and benefit
souls that revolve in it; and some indeed benefit more imperfect
souls by prophecy, others by mystic ceremonies, and others by divine
medicinal skill;--thus also souls that chose an amatory life, are moved
about the deity who presides over beautiful natures, for the purpose
of taking care of well-born souls. But from apparent beauty they are
led back to divine beauty, and together with themselves elevate those
who are the objects of their love. And this also divine Love primarily
effects in intelligibles. For he unites himself to the object of
love, extends to it the participants of his power, and inserts in all
things one bond, and one indissoluble friendship with each other, and
with the beautiful itself. Souls therefore possessed with Love, and
participating the inspiration thence derived, in consequence of using
an undefiled vehicle, are led from apparent to intelligible beauty, and
make this the end of their energy. Likewise enkindling a light in more
imperfect souls, they also lead these back to a divine nature, and are
divinely agitated together with them about the fountain of all-perfect
beauty.
But such souls as from a perverse education fall from the gift which
is thence derived, yet are allotted an amatory nature, these, through
their ignorance of true beauty, are busily employed about that which
is material and divisible, at which also they are astonished in
consequence of not knowing the passion which they suffer. Hence, they
abandon every thing divine, and gradually decline into impiety and the
darkness of matter. They appear indeed to hasten to a union with the
beautiful, in the same manner as perfectly amatory souls; but they are
ignorant of the union, and tend to a dissipated condition of life, and
to matter, which Plato calls the sea of dissimilitude. They are also
conjoined with the base itself, and material privation of form. For
where are material natures able to pervade through each other? Or where
is apparent beauty, pure and genuine, being thus mingled with matter,
and replete with the deformity of its subject? Some souls therefore
genuinely participate the gifts of Love, and by others these gifts are
perverted. For as according to Plotinus the defluxion of intellect
produces craft, and an erroneous participation of wisdom sophistry,
so likewise the illumination of Love when it meets with a depraved
recipient, produces a tyrannic and intemperate life.