PROCLUS THE SUCCESSOR

ON THE TIMAEUS OF PLATO

BOOK THREE

Page 139, Basel edition Reason contemplates the world in one way according to the wholeness within it—by which it resembles the "completely perfect Living Being" original: pantelei zōōi; a reference to the divine archetype of the universe and has itself become a living being, possessed of soul and intellect, and unique in its kind—but in another way according to the division within it. This occurs, for instance, when reason distinguishes the soul 5 from the body and examines those elements having a more formal rank apart from those allotted a more material nature. It investigates how the body-like realm was established and what rank it obtained, and how the breadth of the soul-nature proceeded from the Demiurge The "Craftsman" or creator-god in Plato's philosophy and according to what rational principles. For since 10 the world has been revealed as a living being possessed of soul and intellect, there are these three things within it: body, soul, and intellect. Now, the intellect is in every way ungenerated; for it has been allotted an eternal essence and activity. The body, however, is in every way generated; for it exists entirely within the flow of time. But the soul is of a middle essence. Just as 15 it is stationed in the middle between the indivisible and the divisible, in this same way it is the boundary between the ungenerated and the generated. It is "generated" in relation to the intellect, but "ungenerated" in relation to the nature of the body; it exists as the limit of those things that always are, yet is the very first among things that come into being. For these reasons, then, Plato 20 transmits a manifold account of the generation of the body, bringing it forth entirely from elsewhere, but he brings forth the soul both from itself and from the entirety of the demiurgic and life-generating activity, The text breaks off here at "intellect..."

M P Q Manuscript sigla: M = Marcianus 196, P = Parisinus 1810, Q = Marcianus 197
The title is omitted in M. 2 Kroll suggests deleting the first and; compare page 2, lines 11–12. 3 Compare Timaeus 30B, 31B. 12 and is omitted in P. 14 essence is omitted in P at the start of the page. 22 Kroll suggests the reading life-generation original: zōogonias.