Sub-lunary gods and daemons, Tim. 40d6–7

To speak about the other daemons and to know their genesis is a task greater than ourselves. (Tim. 40d6–7)

How these beings are known

Since he intends to pursue an account concerned with the sub-lunary gods, he says that this is remarkable and a task greater than ourselves, perhaps in as much as these matters go beyond tradition that belongs to us, should we propose both to discover their genesis and to show it to others. After all, what he said earlier about the Demiurge – that it is ‘quite a task both to find him and to declare him to all’ (28c3–5) – surely applies now to [speaking] about the sub-lunary gods: that to know their genesis and to speak [about them] is a task greater than ourselves.

What, then, does the manner of this indication that is used by him mean? After all, since he has given accounts that are numerous and remarkable about the entire heaven and about the intelligible Paradigm, how can he say that the account that dealswith the generation-producing (genesiourgos) gods is a task too great for him? Or perhaps it is possible [for him] to say these things because these [generation-producing gods] were thought by many among the physiologists to be soul-less things that are just randomly carried along, without exercising providential care, i.e. the elements. While agreeing that the things in the heavens participate in intellect and the gods due to the order among them, they abandoned the realm of Becoming as something subject to great change, indefinite and without providential care – things of the kind that Aristotle too subsequently believed them to be, since he established unmoved causes only for the celestial revolutions (whether there were eight or more) but abandoned these elements [down here] to be soul-less. Lest we should be afflicted with the same [errors] as these people, Plato right at the beginning celebrated and announced the generation of the sub-lunary gods as divine and intellectual, there being no need whatsoever of any such [corresponding] indication in the case of the celestial gods.

THE STRUCTURE OF BOOK 4

Book 4 of Proclus’ Timaeus Commentary continues the structure introduced at the opening of Book 3. Proclus takes Plato's dialogue to provide an account of ten gifts bestowed on the visible cosmos by its creator, the Demiurge. Each of these gifts makes a progressively greater contribution to the goodness of the Demiurge's creation, rendering it ever more perfect and its life ever more divine and blessed. Book 2 (Volumes III and IV in this series) deals with the first seven gifts of the Demiurge:

• 1. Being perceptible due to the presence of the elements (Tim. 31b).

• 2. Having its elements bound together through proportion or analogia (31c).

• 3. Being a whole constituted of wholes (32c).

• 4. Being spherical in shape so that it is most similar to itself and similar to the paradigm upon which it is modelled (33b).

• 5. Being self-sufficient or autarchˆes (33c).

• 6. Rotating upon its axis makes it similar to the motion of Intellect (Tim. 34a, cf. Laws 10. 898a).

• 7. Being animated by a divine World Soul (Tim. 34b).

Book 4 (the present volume) provides the last three Demiurgic gifts to the cosmos:

• 8. Time, in virtue of which it is a moving image of eternity had by its intelligible paradigm, the Living Being Itself (Tim. 36e–37a).

• 9. The heavenly bodies in it, which Plato describes as the ‘instruments of time’ and Proclus as ‘sanctuaries of the gods’ (Tim. 39d; in Tim. ii 5.28).

• 10. All the living things within the visible cosmos make it an even more perfect or complete imitation of its paradigm since the Living Being Itself contains four genera of living things: celestial, aerial, aquatic and terrestrial living things (39e–40a).

Proclus’ commentary in Book 4 does not exhaust the tenth and final gift of the Demiurge. The present volume contains his account of the celestial genus of living things. The final section of the present work begins his discussion of the sub-lunary gods, a topic that continues in Book 5.The nature of the breaks between the books, however, finds some rationale in Plato's text. At 40d4–5 Timaeus says that he is finished discussing the visible and created gods. He next turns to a genealogy of the ‘traditional gods’ such as Ouranos,Okeanys and Tethys, referring to them initially as ‘daemons’.

Explication of Tim. 38c3–6

As a result of god's reasoning and discursive thought with respect to the 53 genesis of time and in order that time should be engendered, the Sun, the Moon and the five other stars (which possess the name ‘wandering stars’) came to be for the sake of distinguishing and preserving the 5 numbers of time. (Tim. 38c3–6)

Visible and invisible tim

Since there are two acts of creation, as we have often remarked – the one being invisible, single, simple, hypercosmic and universal (holos), while the other is visible, pluralised, multiple in form and divided within the cosmos – there are two corresponding sets of activities. One activity is primary-effective (prôtourgos), changeless and intellectual while the other is secondary-effective (deuterourgos) and proceeds together with motion and dances around the intellect. While the one transcends that which it produces, the other is ranked alongside its products. There has also been a two-fold procession of time into existent things, the first of which is hypercosmic while the other is encosmic. While the first one both proceeds and remains simultaneously, the other is carried along in motion. The time that undergoes participation is likewise two-fold. On the one hand, there is that which exists by virtue of simple participation (kata haplên methexin). On the other hand, there is that in the cycles of the celestial stars which produces months, days, nights and years. Now since there is such a distinction between these two kinds of time, Plato – having provided the conceptions that pertain to the single and simple essence of time – intends to go on to discuss the variety that the [kind] of time that is participated in a divisible manner has – an [objective] toward which the theory (theôria) about the planets makes a contribution (for it is throughmotions of these things dancing around the Sun that the kind of time that is understood in conjunction with [them] is produced). This introduces the ninth Demiurgic gift to the cosmos.

Introduction, Tim. 39e4–6

But with respect to the fact that it did not yet contain all the living beings that have been generated within it, so far it was still dissimilar. Wherefore, of course, he completed what still remained, impressing upon it the nature of the paradigm. (Tim. 39e4–6)

It is clear that since he is always assimilating the cosmos to the Living Being Itself, Plato simultaneously has made mention of this three times: making this universe one of a kind (monogenes, 31b3), finishing it off with eternity (37d3–9), and rendering it all-perfect (pantelˆes, 37d4). And plausibly so, for the Living Being Itself is characterised by these three things – by being one of a kind, eternal, and all-perfect. Since it has been ranked in the third order among the intelligibles, it has the property of being one of a kind as a result of the first [order] (in accordance with which there is the One-Being), while it has the property of being eternal as a result of the second (in accordance with which there is Eternity), but it has the property of being all-perfect as a result of itself. It is necessary and not a digression to see what this property of being all-perfect consists in.

Now since wholeness is triple, as we have frequently noted, and originates from on high among the intelligibles themselves, and since this cosmos is an image of the finest of the intelligibles, it was also necessary that it be established in accordance with each one of the kinds of wholeness – first, in accordance with that which is before the parts; second, in accordance with that which is composed of the parts; and for the same reason with respect to the remaining one. Now the Demiurge himself has already ordered [the cosmos] in terms of the first form of wholeness, for the first thing that it has become is ‘a living being endowed with soul and intellect’ (Tim. 30b8), since when that which was moved in a discordant and disorderly fashion was arranged and received order, then soul, intellect and divine unification supervened.

THE EIGHTH GIFT OF THE DEMIURGE: TIME

The transition to eternity: Tim. 37c6–d2

When the Father who generated the universe regarded (noein) it as

something in motion and alive, an image of the eternal gods, he was delighted and rejoiced in it, and then gave some thought to what could be done in order to make it even more like its paradigm. So in as much as its model was itself an eternal living being, he thus set about to produce a universe that had the same character to the extent that this was possible. (Tim. 37c6–d2)

General discussion

The single [Creator] who invariably (kata tauton) creates the things that are wholes all at once (athrôos) both generates and brings about the reversion of his products upon himself, and both perfects and assimilates them to their paradigms. [This happens] either via one and the same power which is both generative and such as to call creations back to

their cause (anaklêtikos), as well as perfective and assimilative – a view pleasing to some among the older [interpreters] – or via different ones, according to other [interpreters]. It is as if the intermediate position amid the disagreement and opposition between these menwere nothing of any moment, for neither would those who are for unifiying [these functions] be willing for the one [Creator] to be without a trace of plurality, nor can those who distinguish [among the Creator's powers] bring themselves

to say that the number of these powers is irregular or such that one could be left out, and the latter party would instead willingly declare that [the number of powers] is comprehended by its own proper monad and unified by it. As a result, some of them say that these powers are a ‘tetradic monad’, while others say that on the contrary it is a ‘unified tetrad’ or, if

you like, a ‘monadified tetrad’. Now it is clear since theDemiurge under discussion here is also a single one, it is obvious that he implants all in one go (homou men) the assimilative power in the junior creators who come after him when he directs them to imitate his own power with respect to their own creation.