CHAPTER XIX.
Concerning the words, therefore, in the Timæus, which the demiurgus delivers to the Gods in the world, thus much may suffice at present. But after these, it is fit to survey the second measures of total demiurgic providence, which the demiurgus extends from himself to the many and divisible souls. For having constituted these, divided them equal in number to divine animals, and disseminated them about the world, he inserts in them fabricative boundaries, defines the whole periods of them, inscribes in them the laws of Fate, proposes the apparent measures of their generation-producing life, legally institutes, and adorns in a becoming manner all the rewards of virtue, and the works of vice, intellectually comprehends in one the end of every period, and co-arranges with a view to this the whole polity of partial souls. All[268] souls, therefore, of an immortal condition, being allotted a progression from the demiurgus, are filled from him with an united and intellectual providence. Because, however, progeny which are suspended from their causes participate of the perfective efficacy which proceeds from them, divine souls, indeed, primarily subsisting from thence, become auditors of the words of their father immediately; but partial souls participate of the uniform providence of the demiurgus secondarily, and with greater partibility. Hence also the demiurgus, as a legislator, defining to these all the measures of their life, he thus extends demiurgic words, unitedly comprehending the divided nature of the whole of their life, convolving in sameness without time their temporal mutability, and collecting uniformly, according to one simplicity, the multiform and diversified nature of the energy which exists about them. But to divine souls he immediately unfolds the providence of himself, and exhorts them to join with him in a providential inspection of the whole world, to fabricate, adorn and dispose in conjunction with him, mortal natures, to govern generated beings according to the measures of justice, and to lead and convolve all things, following demiurgic providence. Very far therefore, are those interpreters of Plato from according with the fabrication of the universe, who admit that partial are the same with whole souls, and who attribute the same essence to all souls; because all of them are allotted their generation from one demiurgus.
For in the first place, the father in the course of his fabrication adorning, and disposing in an orderly manner partial souls, poured mingling, the remainder of the former mixture, says Timæus, and produced the second and third genera. But in a progression of this kind, the words effective of conversion which he extends to divine souls, are intellectual, and demiurgic, and impart to them generative powers, and perfective goods; but those which he extends to partial souls, are the definite sources of generation, of the laws of Fate, of justice, and all-various periods. If, therefore, every thing which proceeds from the demiurgus is essentially imparted to souls, it is indeed necessary that different measures of words should be the causes of different powers; and that to some among the number of divisible souls, the demiurgus should distribute a polity exempt from mundane affairs, but to others a polity arranged under these souls, and supernally governed by them. These things, however, may elsewhere be more copiously demonstrated.