Platonic Theology (Thomas Taylor trans.)

INTRODUCTION.

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I REJOICE in the opportunity which is afforded me of presenting the truly philosophic reader, in
the present work, with a treasure of Grecian theology; of a theology, which was first mystically
and symbolically promulgated by Orpheus, afterwards disseminated enigmatically through images
by Pythagoras, and in the last place scientifically unfolded by Plato and his genuine disciples. The
peculiarity indeed, of this theology is, that it is no less scientific than sublime; and that by a geo-
metrical series of reasoning originating from the most self-evident truths, it developes all the deified
progressions from the ineffable principle of things, and accurately exhibits to our view all the links
of that golden chain of which deity is the one extreme, and body the other.

That also which is most admirable and laudable in this theology is, that it produces in the mind
properly prepared for its reception the most pure, holy, venerable, and exalted conceptions of the
great cause of all. For it celebrates this immense principle as something superior even to being
itself; as exempt from the whole of things, of which it is nevertheless ineffably the source, and does
not therefore think fit to connumerate it with any triad, or order of beings. Indeed, it even apologises
for attempting to give an appropriate name to this principle, which is in reality ineffable, and
ascribes the attempt to the imbecility of human nature, which striving intently to behold it, gives
the appellation of the most simple of its conceptions to that which is beyond all knowledge and all
conception. Hence it denominates it the one, and the good; by the former of these names indica-
ting its transcendent simplicity, and by the latter its subsistence as the object of desire to all beings.
For all things desire good. At the same time however, it asserts that these appellations are in reality
nothing more than the parturitions of the soul which standing as it were in the vestibules of the
Procl. VOL. I. b

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