Commentary on Plato's Alcibiades

The good and that which is prior by nature is not merely the communication of itself to all things, nor the outpouring of goods, but it also 25 employs them, and exists in various things that are called good. I mean, for instance, in the case of sons and all causes, it communicates its goodness to them, or it binds them to be the same, a distribution of perfection for all that are more ancient and for those that follow. For, as Timaeus says, it is not right for a god, nor is it the way of the best, to do anything other than what is most beautiful and proportionate. But there is no symmetry for the first in the second, nor does the same good or the equality of essences shine forth. To those, just as the Athenian Stranger A reference to the main speaker in Plato's Laws says, or to the unequal, that which is unequal, or the equality of the unequal. And to the greater, it gives greater things; to the lesser, it gives lesser things. This is the best of all musical constitutions, according to the good, generating and preserving divine life. For the good is naturally good, because we think, because it is one in the divine. And for the soul, it is the good of time and joy; for the body, it is purification. Therefore, it is the perfection of gods, and for angels and demons, and for souls, and for us (as we agree). Since essence exists in those things which differ, and perfection is that which grants them their goodness, or the good in existing things: thus, as Homer says, a great tribe of names exists, neither of gods and heroes, nor of those between them, knowing the good and both extremes. But to have a correct understanding of these things, one must know the essence before the perfection. For perfection is not itself, but belongs to the essence by which it is participated. Therefore, one must first contemplate everything: whether it belongs to the indivisible essences, or to divisible bodies, or to those arranged in between. to be