Chalcidius's Commentary on Plato's Timaeus

In the passage last mentioned, as also in c. 255, there are found—albeit sparingly—echoes of the well-known Platonic account in the Symposium (202 E), to which later demonology gladly appealed ¹). Less significant are the citations from the Phaedo (60 E) ²), Crito (44 B) ³), Theages (128 D) ⁴), which he erroneously cites as Euthydemus, and Theaetetus ⁵) (194 C). Reference is also made to the Parmenides ⁶). Finally, it should be mentioned that the distinction between ratio reason and oratio speech/discourse in c. 104 recalls the Sophist ⁷). —

Next to Plato, Chalcidius holds Aristotle in high regard. He generously grants that he usually judges correctly ⁸),

VI. c. 135: "Therefore, with all the regions of the sky having been allotted, demons are established as inhabitants, making mutual journeys: those powers inhabiting the middle seat of the world offering obedience to the sky." — 985 C: "and the heavens having been filled with living beings, they are interpreted to one another and to the highest gods, and all things are interpreted because the middle beings of the living creatures are carried toward the earth and toward the entire heaven, being carried with a light force."

VII. c. 135: "The remaining (water) demons are neither as credible nor as convenient, nor always invisible, but are sometimes contemplatable." 985 B: "One might rightly compare the fifth, that of water, to a demigod; comparing it to have come into being from it, and to be sometimes visible, and at other times hidden and becoming unseen, providing a wonder to the dim sight."

¹) c. 133: "For as a god is to an angel, so an angel is to a man. Furthermore, that they are useful to us as interpreters and messengers, bringing our prayers to God and likewise conveying God's will to men..." Symp. 202 E: "For all that is demonic is midway between god and mortal. It interprets and carries back and forth to the gods things from men, and to men things from the gods—from the former, prayers and sacrifices; from the latter, commands and rewards for sacrifices—and being in the middle of both, it fills the gap, so that the whole is bound together with itself." — c. 255: "There is no connection (for God) with the body," therefore God uses demons. Symp. 203 A: "God does not mingle with man" (previously: "through this, all divination proceeds, and the art of priests, and those concerning sacrifices, and initiations, and incantations, and all divination and sorcery").

²) c. 254. — ³) l. c. — ⁴) c. 255. — ⁵) c. 328. — ⁶) c. 335.

⁷) c. 104: "Reason resides in the innermost depths of the mind. But this differs from speech. For speech is the interpreter of reason conceived in the mind." Cf. Sophist (toward the end): "Is thought and speech not the same? Except that the dialogue within the soul with itself, taking place without voice, has been named by us 'thought.' And the former—making one's own thought manifest through the voice with words and names, as if into a mirror or water, imprinting the opinion into the flow through the mouth—would be [speech]."

⁸) "For almost all other things are said correctly and as the nature of things dictates, and in agreement with Platonic doctrines" (c. 225).