CHAPTER XXVIII.
After this however, let us discuss each of them, beginning according to nature. First, therefore, the intelligible, and at the same time, intellectual number presents itself to our view; and which is connected with multitude. For every number is multitude. But with respect to multitude, one kind subsists unitedly, and another kind with separation. Number, however, is separate multitude; for there is difference in it. For in the intelligible there was power, and not difference, and this power generated multitude, and conjoined it to the monads. Number therefore is in continuity with intelligible multitude; and this is necessary. For the monad was there, and also the duad; since whole also was there, and was always monadic; and becoming to be two, has no cessation. Hence the monad and the duad were there, which are the first and exempt principles of numbers. And in these multitude was unitedly; since the monad which is the fountain of numbers, and the duad possess all multitude according to cause; the former paternally, but the latter maternally. And on this account intelligible multitude is not yet number, but is intelligibly established in the uniform principles, I mean the monad and the duad; generatively indeed, in the duad, but paternally in the monad. For the third God was father and mother; since if animal itself is in it, it is also necessary that the cause of the male and the female should there primarily preexist. For these are in animals. Hence according to Timæus, and according to Parmenides, the maternal and the paternal cause are there. And in these, intelligible animals, and intelligible multitudes are comprehended. From these first principles also number together with difference proceed, and they generate the monads and the duads which are in number, and all numbers. For both the generative and the paternal subsist in these in a feminine manner.
All the monads likewise of this triad are paternal. Hence prior to other things they participate of the monadic cause, but according to the power of difference. For there indeed, I mean in the intelligible, the maternal was paternally; but here the paternal subsists maternally; just as there, the intellectual subsists intelligibly, but here the intelligible, intellectually. From that order therefore, the first number subsists proximately, but being generated analogous to the first triad of intelligibles, it also evidently proceeds from it. Hence also, Parmenides beginning his discourse about number, reminds us of the first hypothesis through which he generates the one being, asserting that the one participates of essence, and essence of the one, in consequence of this subsisting according to that triad. And this very properly. For being intelligible and intellectual, so far indeed, as it is allotted an intelligible order in intellectuals, it proceeds from the summit of intelligibles, but so far as it precedes the intellectual orders, it proceeds from the intellectual of intelligibles. In that intelligible triad, however, the one was of being, and being of the one, through the ineffable and occult union of these two, and their subsistence in each other. But in the intelligible and at the same time intellectual triad, difference presenting itself to the view, which is the image of the concealed and ineffable power in the first triad of intelligibles, and luminously exerting its own energy, separates the one from being, and being from the one, leads each into divided multitude, and thus generates total number. For number, as we have frequently said, is divided and not united multitude, and subsists from the principles according to a second progression, but is not occultly established in the principles. Hence also, it is simply different from multitude. And in intelligibles indeed, there is multitude; but in intellectuals number. For there indeed, number is according to cause; but here multitude is according to participation. For there indeed, division subsists intelligibly; but here union has an intellectual subsistence. If therefore number proceeds from these, and is allotted such an order, Parmenides very properly especially mentions these triads, asserting that the one participates of essence, and essence of the one,[236] and that through these the many become apparent. For one of these indeed, is the illustrious property of the first triad, but the other, of the third triad. And in the first triad indeed, participation[237] was the presubsistence of the union of the one and being; but in the third triad many intelligibles present themselves to the view, Plato all but proclaiming that the most splendid of intelligibles subsists according to intelligible multitude, though multitude is there occult, and uniformly. For according to each order of divine natures, multitude is appropriately generated in the extremities.