CHAPTER XXIII.
It remains therefore that in conformity to what is written in the Phædrus, we should survey the subcelestial arch, and the peculiarity of the Gods that are there. Before however we begin the doctrine concerning it, I wish to premise thus much, that some of the most celebrated of the interpreters prior to us, conceiving that this subcelestial arch is a divine order arranged under the heaven, have thought fit to rank it immediately after the first God, calling the first God Heaven. But others have arranged both the heaven, and the subcelestial arch in the breadth of intelligibles. For the Asinæan philosopher indeed [Theodorus] being persuaded by Plotinus, calls that which proximately proceeds from the ineffable, the subcelestial arch, as in his treatise concerning names he philosophizes about these things. But the great Iamblichus conceiving the mighty heaven to be a certain order of the intelligible Gods, (and in one place he considers it to be the same with the demiurgus,) asserts that the order proximately established under the heaven, and as it were begirding it, is the subcelestial arch. And these things he has written in his Commentaries on the Phædrus. Let no one therefore think that we make any innovation concerning the theology of this order, and that we are the first who divide the subcelestial arch from the heaven; but that we are principally persuaded by Plato, who distinguishes these three orders, the supercelestial place, the celestial circulation, and the subcelestial arch; and that after Plato, we are persuaded by those who investigate his theory in a divinely-inspired manner, viz. by Iamblichus and Theodorus. For why is it necessary to speak of our leader [Syrianus,] who was truly a Bacchus, [i.e. one agitated with divine fury,] and who in a remarkable manner was full of deity about Plato, and caused as far as to us the admirable nature of the Platonic theory, and the astonishment with which it is attended, to shine forth?
He therefore in his treatise on the concord [of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, has most perfectly unfolded the peculiarity of this order, the subcelestial arch.] The two above-mentioned wise men, however, differ very much from each other in their theory. For Theodorus, in calling the first cause Heaven, does not any longer permit Heaven to be sight perceiving the things above, as Socrates in the Cratylus etymologizes it to be. For the first God neither sees, nor is sight, nor is inferior to any thing. Neither therefore does Theodorus admit this explanation of the name, nor does he celebrate the supercelestial place, as Socrates does under the influence of divine inspiration. For there is neither any place, nor intelligible of the one, nor any multitude of forms, nor does the genus of souls ascend beyond the first God; since there is not any thing beyond him. But the divine Iamblichus, as he supposes that Heaven subsists indefinitely after the first cause, and as he has not delivered the peculiarity of its hyparxis, he is indeed pure from the above-mentioned doubts, but he should teach us what the celestial order is, how it subsists, and what genus of Gods prior to the demiurgus gives completion to it. He however who has perfected every thing [on this subject,] and has confirmed all that he has said by invincible arguments, is our preceptor [Syrianus,] who has surveyed all the orders between the first God, and the kingdom of the heaven, and who has intellectually beheld the peculiarity of this order, and has delivered to us his mystics the accurate truth concerning it. In this way therefore, our fathers and grandfathers differ from each other; but all of them in common distinguish the subcelestial arch from the celestial circulation.