Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato

beautiful things, whatever and wherever they may be, whether in souls or in bodies, are suspended from one fountain of beauty. Thus too, whatever possesses symmetry, and whatever is true, and all principles, are in a certain respect, connascent Meaning "born together" or "sharing a common origin"; having a shared nature from the moment of existence. with the first principle, so far as they are principles and fountains and goodnesses, with an appropriate subjection and analogy. For what the one principle is to all beings, that each of the other principles is to the multitude comprehended under the idiom of its principle. For it is impossible, since each multitude is characterized by a certain difference, that it should not be extended to its proper principle, which illuminates one and the same form to all the individuals of that multitude. For the one is the leader of every multitude; and every peculiarity or idiom in the many is derived to the many from the one. All partial principles therefore are established in that principle which ranks as a whole, and are comprehended in it, not with interval and multitude, but as parts in the whole, as multitude in the one, and number in the monad In Platonism, the "monad" is the primary unit or "one" from which the series of numbers emerges.. For this first principle is all things prior to all: and many principles are multiplied about the one principle, and in the one goodness, many goodnesses are established. This too, is not a certain principle like each of the rest: for of these, one is the principle of beauty, another of symmetry, another of truth, and another of something else, but it is simply principle. Nor is it simply the principles of beings, but it is the principle of principles. For it is necessary that the idiom of principle, after the same manner as other things, should not begin from multitude, but should be collected into one monad as a summit, and which is the principle of principles.

Such things therefore as are first produced by the first good, in consequence of being connascent with it, do not recede from essential goodness, since they are immovable and unchanged, and are eternally established in the same blessedness. They are likewise not indigent of the good, because they are goodnesses themselves. All other natures however, being produced by the one good, and many goodnesses, since they fall off from essential goodness, and are not immovably established in the hyparxis A technical term referring to the "essential existence" or the very "flower" of a thing's being—its most fundamental reality. of divine goodness, on this account they possess the good according to participation.”

From this sublime theory the meaning of that ancient Egyptian dogma, that God is all things, is at once apparent. For the first principle,[6] as Simplicius A 6th-century Neoplatonist philosopher and one of the last great pagan commentators on Aristotle and Plato. in the above passage justly observes, is all things prior to all; i.e. he comprehends all things causally, this being the most transcendent mode of comprehension. As all things therefore, considered as subsisting causally in deity, are transcendently more excellent than they are when considered as effects preceding from him, hence that mighty and all–comprehending whole, the first principle, is said to be all things prior to all; priority here denoting exempt transcendency. As the monad and the centre of a circle are images from their simplicity of this greatest of principles, so likewise do they perspicuously shadow forth to us its causal comprehension of all things. For all number may be considered as subsisting occultly in the monad, and the circle in the centre; this occult being the same in each with causal subsistence.

[6] By the first principle here, the one is to be understood for that arcane nature which is beyond the one, since all language is subverted about it, can only, as we have already observed, be conceived and venerated in the most profound silence.

That this conception of causal subsistence is not an hypothesis devised by the latter Platonists, but a genuine dogma of Plato, is evident from what he says in the Philebus: for in that Dialogue he expressly asserts that in Jupiter Refers to Zeus, often interpreted by Platonists as the "Demiurge" or the Mind that fashions the universe. a royal intellect, and a royal soul subsist according to cause. Pherecydes Syrus, too, in his Hymn to Jupiter, as cited by Kircher Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century Jesuit scholar who wrote extensively on Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient mysteries. (in Oedipus Aegyptiacus), has the following lines:

original Greek: O theos esti kuklos, tetragonos ede trigonos, Keinos de gramme, kentron, kai panta pro panton.

God is a circle, square and triangle,
And he is a line, center, and all things before all.

i.e. Jove is a circle, triangle and square, centre and line, and all things before all. From which testimonies the antiquity of this sublime doctrine is sufficiently apparent.

And here it is necessary to observe that nearly all philosophers: prior to Jamblichus Iamblichus (c. 245–325 AD), a hugely influential Neoplatonist who emphasized theurgy and refined the hierarchy of the "One." (as we are informed by