OF DAMASCIUS THE DIADOCHUS

D I F F I C U L T I E S A N D S O L U T I O N S

CONCERNING

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES.

Is the One called the Chap. 1. principle of all things beyond all things, or is it one of all things, such as the summit of the things proceeding from it? And do we say that all things are with it, or after it and from it? For if someone were to say the latter, how could it be something outside all things? For those things from which nothing is absent are all things simply; but the principle is absent, therefore not all things simply are after the principle, but beside the principle. Furthermore, are many things ²) limited—

The Munich Codex exhibits the same inscription as the Venetian one, the first leaf of which I owe to the kindness of the renowned Mr. Rinckius, who performs sacred duties in Venice. In the Munich manuscript, the article τῶν the omitted in the text is noted in the margin. Other codices do not have the word διαδόχου successor/diadochus.

1. The Munich Codex omitted the article τῶν before πάντων all things, which the Hamburg and Venetian codices have. Shortly after, the same Munich Codex reads λεγόμενη εἶναι said to be (sic). Damascius immediately, without circumlocution, proposes the primary question, on which many others depend: Whether the unique and supreme principle of the sum of all things stands beyond the sum of all things and exists by itself? Or is it reckoned among the sum of all things, and is it as it were the summit and peak of all things descending from it? A second question is appropriate to this: whether All things exist together at once with that unique principle, or whether they exist after it and descend from it? Next, in the following sections, he explains the notion of the sum of all things. The Munich manuscript has these words in the margin as if they were a chapter heading: Whether the one principle of all things is beyond them, or is ranked with them.

2. The Munich manuscript reads: "And furthermore, it wishes all things to be many and limited," with the Venetian manuscript agreeing; but in the Munich book, letters written above the words (Gamma, alpha, delta, beta) assign them the same order and sequence, which the Hamburg manuscript holds less correctly. The sense is: the sum of all things consists of a finite and limited multitude; for Infinite things are less correctly reckoned as the Total of all things.