CHAPTER IX.
If, however, it be requisite from these things, and from all the mystic discipline concerning this God, to consider and discuss the orders which he constitutes in wholes, in the first place, we must direct our attention to the three kings mentioned in the Gorgias, who distributing the kingdom of Saturn were produced by him, as being allotted in a divided manner a uniform and impartible dominion, and over whom he places the divine law, which is the cause of distribution according to intellect, both to the Gods themselves, and to all the natures posterior to the Gods. In the second place, we must consider the rulers and kings mentioned in the Laws, who are said to preside over the different allotments of souls, and who are not men, but dæmons of a more divine and excellent genus, who distribute to souls the measures of good, cut off their generation-producing lives, restrain their disorderly lation, retain them in the intelligible, and comprehend them in the kingdom of Saturn. In the third place, therefore, we must direct our attention to the dæmon Gods, who preside over the parts of the world, and the herds [of souls] that are in it, as the Elean guest says in the Politicus, and who at one time come into contact with the objects of their government, and distribute to them intellectual, and all unapparent goods, but at another time withdraw themselves from the physical life of the world, recur to their own place of survey, and imitate the exempt transcendency of the demiurgus and father of the universe.
But after these things, we must survey the twofold circulations of the mundane Gods, viz. the Saturnian and the Jovian; for these Gods always have each of these, as the fable says in the Politicus. For it is evident that the mutation of the stars and the sun takes place in each of the revolutions. This period, therefore, being twofold, it is obvious to every one that the periods are full of Saturnian goods, and participate of the Saturnian series. And not only the mundane Gods, but likewise all the more excellent genera that follow the Gods, energize according to both these energies, and revolve according to the twofold circulations, through which souls also sometimes participate of an intellectual life, and proceed in this path, exchanging for sense intellect as the leader of their motion and circulation. Saturn, therefore, extends his kingdom supernally from the first Gods, as far as to partial souls, perfects all things, and fills them with intellectual goods, distributing to different natures different measures of good. For on account of this, law also subsists with him, as Socrates says in the Gorgias: “This law therefore was in the time of Saturn, and always was, and now is, among the Gods.” For law is the distribution of intellect; but this God is the first, most pure, and incorruptible intellect.
If, however, this God is the primary leader of all division, and is the origin of intellectual separation, it is necessary on this account, that law should be with him, which distinguishes the orders of beings, divides the intellectual genera, and separates all forms according to a well-ordered progression; but imparts to all things by illumination the measure of hyparxis, connecting the order which is in them, preserving the boundaries of divine distribution immutable, and possessing the same dignity in the kingdom of Saturn, and in intellectuals, as Adrastia in the supercelestial place, and in the intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual orders. For from each of them an immutable guard, and the progression of order to all things are generated. But they differ from each other, because law indeed divides the one into multitude, defines the measures of intellectual subsistence, and distributes to every thing an appropriate good, producing the different measures of beings from the one [Saturnian] intellect. But Adrastia abiding in the intelligible, guards all things uniformly, and preserves total order in a firm undeviating manner, exempt from all division. Law, therefore, is a certain God which divides divine forms, and definitely imparts to every thing that which is adapted to it according to the plenitude proceeding from one uniform cause; and it is also co-existent with the Saturnian order, in which the separations of beings, and the all-perfect progression of forms first subsist. Hence the demiurgus likewise looking to this conducts all things according to law, and constitutes mundane providence an image of the union of the father; but fate and the fatal laws, an image of the division according to law. Souls, therefore, live according to law; in the Jovian period indeed being governed conformably to the laws of Fate; but in the Saturnian period living according to divine law they are subservient to the multitude [of divine forms] and are extended to the one cause of all; and ascending to the intelligible place of survey, they are subjected to the sacred law of Adrastia. For this law extends from on high as far as to the last of things, and defines to souls the measures of whole periods, as Socrates says in the Phædrus. Who therefore this greatest God is, and what the goods are of which he is the cause to souls, and prior to these, to Gods and dæmons, the leaders of souls, let it, from these things be manifest.