Proclus on Love

[sdi]

Oh dear, I got Thomas Taylor'd again. I was following up on a prior question I had when I fell down another four-page-long footnote, once again from Proclus' commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, but this time on Love:

There are different properties of different Gods: for some are artificers of wholes, of the form of beings, and of their essential ornament; but others are the suppliers of life, and are the sources of its various genera; but others preserve the unchangeable order, and guard the indissoluble connection of things; and others, lastly, who are allotted a different power, preserve all things by their beneficent energies. In like manner every amatory order is the cause to all things of conversion to divine beauty, leading back, conjoining, and establishing all secondary natures in the beautiful, replenishing them from thence, and irradiating all things with the gifts of its light. On this account it is asserted in the Banquet that Love is a great dæmon, because Love first demonstrates in itself a power of this kind, and is the medium between the object of desire and the desiring nature, and is the cause of the conversion of subsequent to prior natures. The whole amatory series, therefore, being established in the vestibule of the cause of beauty, calls upwards all things to this cause, and forms a middle progression between the object of Love and the natures which are recalled by Love. Hence it pre-establishes in itself the exemplar of the whole dæmoniacal order, obtaining the same middle situation among the Gods as dæmons between divine and mortal natures. Since, therefore, every amatory series possesses this property among the Gods, we must consider its uniform and occult summit as ineffably established in the first orders of the Gods, and conjoined with the first and intelligible beauty; but its middle process as shining forth among the supermundane Gods, with an intellectual condition; but its third progression as possessing an exempt power among the liberated Gods; and its fourth as multifariously distributed about the world, producing many orders and powers from itself, and distributing gifts of this kind to the different parts of the world. But after the unific and first principle of Love, and after the tripartite essence perfected from thence, a various multitude of Loves shines forth with divine light, from whence the choirs of angels are filled with Love; and the herds of dæmons full of this God attend on the Gods who are recalled to intelligible beauty. Add too, that the army of heroes, together with dæmons and angels, are agitated about the participation of the beautiful with divine bacchanalian fury. Lastly, all things are excited, revive, and flourish, through the influx of the beautiful. But the souls of such men as receive an inspiration of this kind, and are naturally allied to the God, assiduously move about beauty, and fall into the realms of generation, for the purpose of benefiting more imperfect souls, and providing for those natures which require to be saved. The Gods indeed and the attendants on the Gods, abiding in their proper habits, benefit all following natures, and convert them to themselves: but the souls of men defending, and touching on the coast of generation, imitate the beneficent providence of the Gods. As, therefore, souls established according to some other God defend with purity into the regions of mortality, and benefit souls that revolve in it; and some indeed benefit more imperfect souls by prophecy, others by mystic ceremonies, and others by divine medicinal skill: so likewise souls that choose an amatory life are moved about the deity who presides over beautiful natures, for the purpose of taking care of well-born souls. But from apparent beauty they are led back to divine beauty, and together with themselves elevate those who are the objects of their love. And this also divine Love primarily effects in intelligibles: for he unites himself to the object of love, extends to it the participants of his power, and inserts in all things one bond, and one indissoluble friendship with each other, and with the beautiful itself. Souls, therefore, possessed with love, and participating the inspiration thence derived, in confequence of using an undefiled vehicle, are led from apparent to intelligible beauty, and make this the end of their energy. Likewise enkindling a light in more imperfect souls, they also lead these back to a divine nature, and are divinely agitated together with them about the fountain of all-perfect beauty.

But such souls as from a perverse education fall from the gift which is thence derived, but are allotted an amatory nature, these through their ignorance of true beauty, are busily employed about that which is material and divisible, at which also they are astonished in consequence of not knowing the passion which they suffer. Hence they abandon every thing divine, and gradually decline into impiety and the darkness of matter. They appear indeed to hasten to a union with the beautiful, in the same manner as perfectly amatory souls; but they are ignorant of the union, and tend to a dissipated condition of life, and to the sea of dissimilitude. They are also conjoined with the base itself, and material privation of form. For where are material natures able to pervade through each other? Or where is apparent beauty, pure and genuine, being thus mingled with matter, and replete with the deformity of its subject? Some souls, therefore, genuinely participate the gifts of Love, and by others these gifts are perverted. For as according to Plotinus the defluxion of intellect produces craft, and an erroneous participation of wisdom sophistry, so likewise the illumination of Love, when it meets with a depraved recipient, produces a tyrannic and intemperate life. [...]

Love is neither to be placed in the first nor among the last of beings. Not in the first, because the object of Love is superior to Love: nor yet among the last, because the lover participates of Love. It is requisite, therefore, that Love should be established between the object of love and the lover, and that it should be posterior to the beautiful, but prior to every nature endued with love. Where then does it first subsist? How does it extend itself through the universe, and with what monads does it leap forth?

There are three hypostases, therefore, among the intelligible and occult Gods; and the first indeed is characterized by the good, understanding the good itself, and residing in that place where according to the oracle the paternal monad abides: but the second is characterized by wisdom, where the first intelligence flourishes; and the third by the beautiful, where, as Timæus says, the most beautiful of intelligibles abides. But there are three monads according to these intelligible causes subsisting uniformly according to cause in intelligibles, but first unfolding themselves into light in the ineffable order of the Gods, I mean faith, truth, and love. And faith indeed establishes all things in good; but truth unfolds all the knowledge in beings; and lastly, love converts all things, and congregates them into the nature of the beautiful. This triad indeed thence proceeds through all the orders of the Gods, and imparts to all things by its light a union with intelligible itself. It also unfolds itself differently in different orders, every where combining its powers with the idioms of the Gods. And among some it subsists ineffably, incomprehensibly, and unifically; but among others, as the cause of connecting and binding; and among others, as endued with a perfective and forming power. Here again it subsists intellectually and paternally; there, in a manner entirely motive, vivific, and effective: here, as governing and assimilating; there, in a liberated and undefiled manner; and elsewhere, according to a multiplied and divisive mode. Love, therefore, supernally descends from intelligibles to mundane concerns, calling all things upwards to divine beauty. Truth also proceeds through all things, illuminating all things with knowledge. And lastly, faith proceeds through the universe, establishing all things unically in good. Hence the oracles assert that all things are governed by, and abide in, these. And on this account they order Theurgists to conjoin themselves to divinity through this triad. Intelligibles themselves, indeed, do not require the amatory medium, on account of their ineffable union. But where there is a union and separation of beings, there also Love abides. For it is the binder and conciliator of natures posterior and prior to itself; but the convertor of subsequent into prior, and the anagogic and perfecting cause of imperfect natures.

The oracles, therefore, speak of Love as binding, and residing in all things: and hence, if it connects all things, it also copulates us with the governments of dæmons. But Diotima calls Love a great dæmon, because it every where fills up the medium between desiring and desirable natures. And, indeed, that which is the object of Love vindicates to itself the first order, but that which loves is in the third order from the beloved object. Lastly, Love usurps a middle situation between each, congregating and collecting together that which desires and that which is desired, and filling subordinate from better natures. But among the intelligible and occult Gods it unites intelligible intellect to the first and secret beauty by a certain life better than intelligence. Hence, the theologist of the Greeks calls this Love blind; for he says "feeding in his breast blind, rapid Love." But in natures posterior to intelligibles, it imparts by illumination an indissoluble bond to all things perfected by itself: for a bond is a certain union, but accompanied with much separation. On this account the oracles are accustomed to call the fire of this Love a copulator: for, proceeding from intelligible intellect, it binds all following natures with each other, and with itself. Hence, it conjoins all the Gods with intelligible beauty, and dæmons with Gods; but it conjoins us with both Gods and dæmons. In the Gods, indeed, it has a primary subsistence, in dæmons a secondary one, and in partial souls a subsistence through a certain third procession from principles. Again, in the Gods it subsists above essence: for every genus of Gods is superessential. But in dæmons it subsists according to essence; and in souls according to illumination. And this triple order appears similar to the triple power of intellect. For one intellect subsists as imparticipable, being exempt from all partial genera; but another as participated, of which also the souls of the Gods participate as of a better nature; and another is from this ingenerated in souls, and which is, indeed, their perfection. And these three distinctions of intellect Timæus himself signifies. That Love, therefore, which subsists in the Gods must be considered as analogous to imparticipable intellect: for this is exempt from all the beings which receive and are illuminated by its nature. But dæmoniacal Love is analogous to participated intellect: for this is essential, and is perfected from itself, in the same manner as participated intellect is proximately resident in souls. And the third Love is analogous to intellect which subsists as a habit, and which inserts an illumination in souls. Nor is it unjustly that we confider Love as coordinate with this intellectual difference: for in intelligible intellect it possesses its first and occult hypostasis: and if it thence leaps forth, it is also established there according to cause. And it appears to me that Plato, finding that intelligible intellect was called by Orpheus both Love and a great dæmon, was himself pleased to celebrate Love in a similar manner. Very properly, therefore, does Diotima call it a great dæmon; and Socrates conjoins the discourse about Love with that concerning dæmons. For, as every thing dæmoniacal is suspended from the amatory medium, so also the discourse concerning a dæmoniacal nature is conjoined with that concerning Love, and is allied to it. For Love is a medium between the object of love and the lover; and a dæmon is a medium between man and divinity.