On the Perennial Philosophy (1540) - Page 4

OF THOSE THINGS WHICH

ARE CONTAINED IN THIS WORK

CONCERNING THE PERENNIAL

PHILOSOPHY.

IN THE FIRST BOOK.


CHAP. I	On the succession of Doctrine from the beginning of the world.
II	On the three ways in which Wisdom is known, but the latter is the most excellent.
III	That the divinity and power of the Father and the Son were celebrated among the ancients.
IV	A confirmation of those things which have been brought forward, from the Theology of the Greeks and Hebrews.
V	On the same Mind, Progeny, and divine Wisdom, from Plato—the queen and moderator of all things—by the consensus of all the ancestors. And that Aristotle praised it, looked up to it, and marveled at those who had spoken of it.
VI	That the Mind, according to Macrobius A 5th-century Roman Neoplatonist, is the Daughter of the highest Good, and the highest Good itself is the supreme Begetter.
VII	From the same Oracles of the Chaldeans A collection of mystical Greek verses from the 2nd century concerning the Mind, the divine Progeny, of which the human soul is an image; and from Philo Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who blended scripture with Platonism.
VIII	On the Mind, the divine Offspring, from Hermes Trismegistus The legendary "thrice-great" Egyptian sage: and that the same is the Creator of the human soul, as seen in the Chaldean Philo.
IX	On the same Mind, likewise from the Chaldean oracles: that it is the creator, and the spectacle of the Gods.
X	On the same Mind, from Hermes and the Platonists, and all its divinity: and that it is the creator of the world, the Idea of the world, and the archetypal world itself.
XI	On the Mind, also from the oracle of the Chaldeans, and Porphyry, and Proclus: and that it is from the Father, that it is the creator of the world; and that it is that which is called the ultra-mundane beyond the physical world Mind.
XII	That the Mind is God, and the craftsman of the world: and that the ancient Philosophers of Greece recognized this: and concerning the Ideas.
XIII	From Proclus and Porphyry Influential Neoplatonist philosophers concerning the Mind, and the Begetter who precedes it.
XIV	From the same Proclus, concerning the Begetter, the highest Good, the divine progeny, the Mind: likewise concerning the third, the Soul or spirit: and concerning the divinity of the Mind itself.
XV	A wonderful testimony of Porphyry concerning the same Mind, begotten from eternity.
XVI	From Plotinus The founder of Neoplatonism concerning that same mind, and its Begetter, and its union with the Father: and that after the Father, the Mind is the greatest of all things.
XVII	From the same Plotinus, that the Mind is after the highest Good, that through it one arrives at the highest, that it is the place and Idea of all beauty, and that it created the world.
XVIII	That creation belongs to the Mind, with the Begetter commanding and the Mind itself working; and concerning these two, from the same Plotinus.
XIX	A wonderful Theology from Plotinus concerning the same Mind: how it is generated by the Father and enriched with all good things.
XX	A summary of those things which Plotinus spoke divinely concerning the First and the Second: concerning the Good and the Mind begotten by it, full of Ideas, the most wise origin of the World.