Having, therefore, unfolded to the readers the orders and
characteristic properties of the mundane Gods, and of the triple genera
that are perpetually suspended from them, I shall in the next place
present him with what Plato says, in celebration of the divinity of
the World, the great monad which comprehends all these, so far as the
whole of it is a God, consisting of a superessential unity derived from
the ineffable principle of all things, a divine intellect, a divine
soul, and a deified body. In the Timæus then, Plato celebrates the
world as a deity in the following manner; “When, therefore, that God
who is an eternally reasoning divinity cogitated about the God who at
a certain time would exist, he fabricated his body smooth and equable,
and every way from the middle equal and whole, and perfect from the
composition of perfect bodies. But placing soul in the middle of the
world, he extended it through the whole; and besides this, externally
surrounded the body of the universe with soul. And causing circle to
revolve in a circle, he established heaven (i.e. the world) one, only,
solitary nature, able through virtue to converse with itself, indigent
of nothing external, and sufficiently known and friendly to itself. And
on all these accounts the world was generated by him, a blessed God.”
The first part of this extract, as far as to the word “perfect bodies,”
is admirably elucidated by Proclus as follows:
What is here said, imitating the one intellect which comprehends the
intellection of wholes in one, collects all things into sameness,
and refers to one summit all the fabrication of the corporeal
system. It is necessary, therefore, that we should recall to our
memory what has been already asserted. It has been said then, that
the elements through analogy rendered all things in concord with
each other. That the universe was generated a whole consisting of
wholes. That it is spherical and smooth, and has itself a knowledge
of itself, and a motion in itself. Hence, it is evident that the
whole world is assimilated to [its paradigm] all-perfect animal. But
the orderly distribution according to the wholes which it contains
proceeds analogous to its second and third causes. And the number of
its elements indeed, and the unifying bond of them through analogy,
corresponds to the essence which is without colour, without figure, and
without contact;[187] for number is there. The first wholeness of the
world which adorns all things, and which consists of the wholes of the
elements, proceeds analogous to the intellectual wholeness.[188] Its
sphericity is analogous to intellectual figure.[189] Its sufficiency,
intellectual motion, and sameness of convolution, are analogous to
the God who absorbs all his offspring in himself.[190] Its animation
corresponds to its vivific cause [Rhea]. And its possession of
intellect is analogous to the demiurgic intellect; though from this all
things proceed, and from the natures prior to it, different things
being analogous to different causes. And the more excellent natures
indeed are the causes of all that proceeds from secondary principles;
but secondary principles are the causes of less numerous and less
excellent effects. For with respect to the demiurgus himself, so far as
he is _intellectual_, he produces all things intellectual; but so
far as he is _being_, he is the father of all bodies and of every
thing incorporeal; and so far as he is a God, he also gives subsistence
to matter itself. In what is now said, therefore, Plato makes a
summary repetition of every thing which the universe derives from the
intellectual Gods. And thus much concerning the whole theory.
Let us survey, however, more particularly the truth of what is now
said. When, therefore, Plato calls the demiurgus, “an eternally
reasoning being,” he makes the essence and at the same time the
intellection of him through which the world is perpetual, to be
eternal. It is requisite, likewise, to observe how he arranges the
demiurgus among beings that always exist, assigning to him an eternal
order; so that he will not be soul. For in the Laws Plato says that
soul is immortal indeed, and indestructible, but is not eternal.
Hence, it appears that every one who fancies soul is the demiurgus, is
ignorant of the difference between the eternal and the indestructible.
But _reasoning_ is significant of distributed or divided fabrication.
And the words, “who at a certain time would exist,” do not indicate
a temporal beginning, as Atticus imagined they did, but an essence
conjoined with time. For Plato says in this dialogue, “that time was
generated together with the universe,” and the world is temporal,
and time is mundane. For time and the world are consubsistent with
each other, and co-produced from the one fabrication of things. And a
_temporal ever_, may be said to be _at a certain time_, when compared
with that which is eternal, just as that which is _generatively being_,
is _non-being_, when compared with that which is _intelligibly being_.
Though the world, therefore, exists through the whole of time, yet
its being consists in _becoming to be_, and is in a part of time. But
this is the ποτε or the _at a certain time_, mentioned by Plato, and
is not a simultaneous subsistence in all time, but is always _at a
certain time_. For the eternal is always in the whole of eternity; but
the temporal in a certain time, is always differently in a different
time. Hence, the world, as with reference to an _eternally_ existing
God, is very properly called a God, who at _a certain time_ would
exist. For the former is sensible with reference to the latter, who is
intellectual. That which is sensible, therefore, is _always generated_,
but _is_ at a certain time. For it possesses existence partibly, and is
perpetually advancing into being from that which always is. For since,
as we have before observed, it derives from something else an infinite
power of existing, and that which it possesses is finite, but it is
perpetual by always receiving, the ability of existing infinitely,
being numbered in that which is finite, it is evident that it is at a
certain time; from _a certain time_ always possessing existence; and
in consequence of that which is imparted to it never ceasing, always
becoming to be;[191] but in its own nature existing at a certain time,
and having, as Plato says in the Politicus, a renovated immortality.
For subsisting in rising into existence, the whole of it does not
at once participate of the whole of being, but again and again, not
existing without an extension of being. Unless, perhaps, the expression
_at a certain time_, signifies the _whole_ of time. For the evolution
of time, as with reference to an _eternal infinity_ is ποτε _a certain
time_. And the whole of time has the same ratio to eternity, that a
part of time the ποτε has to the whole.
If, also, you are willing, it may be said after another manner, that
Plato denominates the world “a God that at a certain time would exist,”
since he has now fashioned a corporeal nature, and given subsistence
to intellect, but not yet to soul, because the world also as a God
will have a subsistence in the course of his narration. For divinity
produces at once both parts and the whole, but language divides things
that are consubsistent, generates things that are unbegotten, and
distributes eternal natures according to time. The God, therefore,
that at a certain time would exist, is that which is fashioned in the
narration of Plato, and according to which there are division and
composition. For this, also, the Pythagoric Timæus himself indicates to
those who are able to understand him, when he says in his treatise [On
the soul of the world], “Before heaven (i.e. the world) was generated
in words, there were idea and matter, and God the demiurgus.” For he
clearly manifests that he fashions in words the generation of the world.
When Plato, likewise, says that the demiurgus fabricated the body of
the world smooth and equable, this manifests the one comprehension
in the world, and its supreme aptitude to the participation of a
divine soul. But the words, “every way from the middle equal,”
exhibit the peculiarity of a spherical figure; for this is every way
equally distant according to all intervals. And the words “whole and
perfect from the composition of perfect bodies,” give to the world
a consummate similitude to all-perfect animal; for that was in all
things perfect; and also to the demiurgus himself. For as he is the
father of fathers, and the supreme of rulers, so the world is the most
perfect of perfect natures, and the most total of wholes. You may also
say, that Plato calls the world smooth, as not being in want of any
motive, or nutritive, or sensitive organs; for this had just before
been demonstrated by him. But that it is every way equal from the
middle, as having a spherical figure. And that it is whole and perfect,
as being all-perfect, and leaving nothing external to itself; for
this is properly a whole and perfect. It likewise consists of perfect
bodies, as being composed of the four elements. But Plato calls it in
the singular number a body, as being only-begotten. And thus beginning
from the only-begotten, and proceeding as far as to perfection, he
again returns to it through the above-mentioned words, imitating the
progression of the world from its paradigm, and its perfect conversion
to it.