Τὸ μὲν τῷ αὐτομάτῳ καὶ τύχῃ διδόναι τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ σύστασιν ὡς ἄλογον καὶ ἀνδρὸς οὔτε νοῦν οὔτε αἴσθησιν κεκτημένου, δῆλόν που καὶ πρὸ λόγου καὶ πολλοὶ ἱκανοὶ καταβέβληνται δεικνύντες τοῦτο λόγοι· τὸ δὲ τίς ὁ τρόπος τοῦ ταῦτα γίνεσθαι ἕκαστα καὶ πεποιῆσθαι, ἐξ ὧν καὶ ἐνίων ὡς οὐκ ὀρθῶς γινομένων ἀπορεῖν περὶ τῆς τοῦ παντὸς προνοίας συμβαίνει, καὶ τοῖς μὲν ἐπῆλθε μηδὲ εἶναι εἰπεῖν, τοῖς δὲ ὡς ὑπὸ κακοῦ δημιουργοῦ ἐστι γεγενημένος [ὁ κόσμος], ἐπισκέψασθαι προσήκει ἄνωθεν καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς τὸν λόγον λαβόντας.
To ascribe the being and structure of this All to spontaneity and chance is unreasonable, the mark of a man who has neither intellect nor perception; this is plain, I suppose, even before argument, and many adequate arguments have been set down to show it. But what is the manner in which each of these things comes to be and has been made? Some of them do not seem to come about rightly, and so people come to be puzzled about the providence of the All: it has occurred to some to say that there is none, and to others that [the cosmos] has been made by an evil craftsman. This we should examine, taking up the argument from above and from the beginning.
πρόνοιαν τοίνυν τὴν μὲν ἐφ’ ἑκάστῳ, ἥ ἐστι λόγος πρὸ ἔργου ὅπως δεῖ γενέσθαι ἢ μὴ γενέσθαι τι τῶν δεόντων πραχθῆναι ἢ ὅπως τι εἴη ἢ μὴ εἴη ἡμῖν, ἀφείσθω· ἣν δὲ τοῦ παντὸς λέγομεν πρόνοιαν εἶναι, ταύτην ὑποθέμενοι τὰ ἑξῆς συνάπτωμεν. εἰ μὲν οὖν ἀπό τινος χρόνου πρότερον οὐκ ὄντα τὸν κόσμον ἐλέγομεν γεγονέναι, τὴν αὐτὴν ἂν τῷ λόγῳ ἐτιθέμεθα, οἵαν καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς κατὰ μέρος ἐλέγομεν εἶναι, προόρασίν τινα καὶ λογισμὸν θεοῦ, ὡς ἂν γένοιτο τόδε τὸ πᾶν, καὶ ὡς ἂν ἄριστα κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν εἴη.
Providence for each individual, then—a reasoning before action about how something that ought to be done should or should not come about, or how we should or should not have something—let that be set aside. Let us assume the providence we call providence of the All, and connect what follows. If we said that the cosmos came to be at some point in time, not having existed before, we would posit in our account the same providence we said there is in particular cases: a kind of foresight and reasoning on the part of god about how this All might come to be, and how it might be as good as possible.
ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ ἀεὶ καὶ τὸ οὔποτε μὴ τῷ κόσμῳ τῷδέ φαμεν παρεῖναι, τὴν πρόνοιαν ὀρθῶς ἂν καὶ ἀκολούθως λέγοιμεν τῷ παντὶ εἶναι τὸ κατὰ νοῦν αὐτὸ εἶναι, καὶ νοῦν πρὸ αὐτοῦ εἶναι οὐχ ὡς χρόνῳ πρότερον ὄντα, ἀλλ’ ὅτι παρὰ νοῦ ἐστι καὶ φύσει πρότερος ἐκεῖνος καὶ αἴτιος τούτου ἀρχέτυπον οἷον καὶ παράδειγμα εἰκόνος τούτου ὄντος καὶ δι’ ἐκεῖνον ὄντος καὶ ὑποστάντος ἀεί, τόνδε τὸν τρόπον· ἡ τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τοῦ ὄντος φύσις κόσμος ἐστὶν ὁ ἀληθινὸς καὶ πρῶτος, οὐ διαστὰς ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ οὐδὲ ἀσθενὴς τῷ μερισμῷ οὐδὲ ἐλλιπὴς οὐδὲ τοῖς μέρεσι γενόμενος ἅτε ἑκάστου μὴ ἀποσπασθέντος τοῦ ὅλου· ἀλλ’ ἡ πᾶσα ζωὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ πᾶς νοῦς ἐν ἑνὶ ζῶσα καὶ νοοῦσα ὁμοῦ καὶ τὸ μέρος παρέχεται ὅλον καὶ πᾶν αὐτῷ φίλον οὐ χωρισθὲν ἄλλο ἀπ’ ἄλλου οὐδὲ ἕτερον γεγενημένον μόνον καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀπεξενωμένον· ὅθεν οὐδὲ ἀδικεῖ ἄλλο ἄλλο οὐδ’ ἂν ᾖ ἐναντίον.
But since we say that the cosmos has always existed and has never not existed, we would be right, and consistent, to say that providence for the All is its being in accordance with Intellect, and that Intellect is prior to it—not as being earlier in time, but because the cosmos comes from Intellect, and Intellect is prior by nature and is its cause, as an archetype, so to speak, and model, of which the cosmos is an image, existing through it and subsisting forever. It goes like this. The nature of Intellect and being is the true and first cosmos. It is not separated from itself, not weakened by division, not deficient even in its parts, since none of them is torn away from the whole. Rather, its whole life and whole intellect, living and thinking together in one, makes the part a whole and all of it friendly to itself; no part is separated from another, or has become merely other and estranged from the rest. So no part wrongs another, not even if it is its opposite.
πανταχοῦ δὲ ὂν ἓν καὶ τέλειον ὁπουοῦν ἕστηκέ τε καὶ ἀλλοίωσιν οὐκ ἔχει· οὐδὲ γὰρ ποιεῖ ἄλλο εἰς ἄλλο. τίνος γὰρ ἂν ἕνεκα ποιοῖ ἐλλεῖπον οὐδενί; τί δ’ ἂν λόγος λόγον ἐργάσαιτο ἢ νοῦς νοῦν ἄλλον; ἀλλὰ τὸ δι’ αὑτοῦ δύνασθαί τι ποιεῖν ἦν ἄρα οὐκ εὖ ἔχοντος πάντη, ἀλλὰ ταύτῃ ποιοῦντος καὶ κινουμένου, καθ’ ὅ τι καὶ χεῖρόν ἐστι· τοῖς δὲ πάντη μακαρίοις ἐν αὑτοῖς ἑστάναι καὶ τοῦτο εἶναι, ὅπερ εἰσί, μόνον ἀρκεῖ, τὸ δὲ πολυπραγμονεῖν οὐκ ἀσφαλὲς ἑαυτοὺς ἐξ αὑτῶν παρακινοῦσιν. ἀλλὰ γὰρ οὕτω μακάριον κἀκεῖνο, ὡς ἐν τῷ μὴ ποιεῖν μεγάλα αὖ ἐργάζεσθαι, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ μένειν οὐ σμικρὰ ποιεῖν.
Being everywhere one and complete wherever it is, it stands still and undergoes no alteration; for no part acts on another. For what purpose would it act, when it lacks nothing? Why would a rational principle produce a rational principle, or an intellect another intellect? The capacity to make something by oneself turns out, then, to belong to what is not in a good state in every respect, but makes and moves in so far as it is worse. For beings that are blessed in every way, it is enough to stand still in themselves and be what they are; to busy themselves would not be safe for them, since it would draw them out of themselves. But that world is so blessed that by not acting it accomplishes great things, and by remaining in itself it makes no small ones.
ὑφίσταται γοῦν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ ἐκείνου καὶ ἑνὸς κόσμος οὗτος οὐχ εἷς ἀληθῶς· πολὺς γοῦν καὶ εἰς πλῆθος μεμερισμένος καὶ ἄλλο ἀπ’ ἄλλου ἀφεστηκὸς καὶ ἀλλότριον γεγενημένον καὶ οὐκέτι φιλία μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔχθρα τῇ διαστάσει καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐλλείψει ἐξ ἀνάγκης πολέμιον ἄλλο ἄλλῳ. οὐ γὰρ ἀρκεῖ αὑτῷ τὸ μέρος, ἀλλὰ σωζόμενον τῷ ἄλλῳ πολέμιόν ἐστιν ὑφ’ οὗ σώζεται· γέγονε δὲ οὐ λογισμῷ τοῦ δεῖν γενέσθαι, ἀλλὰ φύσεως δευτέρας ἀνάγκῃ· οὐ γὰρ ἦν τοιοῦτον ἐκεῖνο οἷον ἔσχατον εἶναι τῶν ὄντων. πρῶτον γὰρ ἦν καὶ πολλὴν δύναμιν ἔχον καὶ πᾶσαν· καὶ ταύτην τοίνυν τὴν τοῦ ποιεῖν ἄλλο ἄνευ τοῦ ζητεῖν ποιῆσαι.
At any rate, from that true and single cosmos this cosmos takes its existence, a cosmos that is not truly one. It is, in any case, many and divided into a multitude, one part standing apart from another and become estranged from it; there is no longer friendship alone but enmity too, because of the separation, and in its deficiency each part is of necessity at war with another. For the part is not sufficient to itself; while being preserved, it is at war with the other by which it is preserved. And it came to be not by a reasoning that it ought to come to be, but by the necessity of a secondary nature. For that world was not such as to be the last of beings. It was first, and had much power—all power; and so it had this power too, of making something else without seeking to make it.
ἤδη γὰρ ἂν αὐτόθεν οὐκ εἶχεν, εἰ ἐζήτει, οὐδ’ ἂν ἦν ἐκ τῆς αὐτοῦ οὐσίας, ἀλλ’ ἦν οἷον τεχνίτης ἀφ’ αὑτοῦ τὸ ποιεῖν οὐκ ἔχων, ἀλλ’ ἐπακτόν, ἐκ τοῦ μαθεῖν λαβὼν τοῦτο. νοῦς τοίνυν δούς τι ἑαυτοῦ εἰς ὕλην ἀτρεμὴς καὶ ἥσυχος τὰ πάντα εἰργάζετο· τοῦτο δὲ λόγος ἐκ νοῦ ῥυείς. τὸ γὰρ ἀπορρέον ἐκ νοῦ λόγος, καὶ ἀεὶ ἀπορρεῖ, ἕως ἂν ᾖ παρὼν ἐν τοῖς οὖσι νοῦς.
For if it sought, it would not already have it from itself, and it would not come from its own being; it would be like a craftsman who has his making not from himself but brought in from outside, acquired by learning. Intellect, then, giving something of itself to matter, made all things while remaining unmoved and at rest; and this something is a rational principle flowing from Intellect. For what flows out of Intellect is a rational principle, and it flows forever, as long as Intellect is present among the things that are.
ὥσπερ δὲ ἐν λόγῳ τῷ ἐν τῷ σπέρματι ὁμοῦ πάντων καὶ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ὄντων καὶ οὐδενὸς οὐδενὶ μαχομένου οὐδὲ διαφερομένου οὐδὲ ἐμποδίου ὄντος, γίνεταί τι ἤδη ἐν ὄγκῳ καὶ ἄλλο μέρος ἀλλαχοῦ καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐμποδίσειεν ἂν ἕτερον ἑτέρῳ καὶ ἀπαναλώσειεν ἄλλο ἄλλο, οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς νοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ λόγου ἀνέστη τόδε τὸ πᾶν καὶ διέστη καὶ ἐξ ἀνάγκης τὰ μὲν ἐγένετο φίλα καὶ προσηνῆ, τὰ δὲ ἐχθρὰ καὶ πολέμια, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἑκόντα, τὰ δὲ καὶ ἄκοντα ἀλλήλοις ἐλυμήνατο καὶ φθειρόμενα θάτερα γένεσιν ἀλλήλοις εἰργάσατο καὶ μίαν ἐφ’ αὑτοῖς τοιαῦτα ποιοῦσι καὶ πάσχουσιν ὅμως ἁρμονίαν ἐνεστήσατο φθεγγομένων μὲν ἑκάστων τὰ αὑτῶν, τοῦ δὲ λόγου ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς τὴν ἁρμονίαν καὶ μίαν τὴν σύνταξιν εἰς τὰ ὅλα ποιουμένου.
In the rational principle in a seed, all the parts are together and in the same place, none fighting with another, none at odds, none an obstacle; then something comes to be in bulk, with its different parts in different places, and then one part may even obstruct another, and one consume another. In just the same way, from one Intellect and the rational principle that comes from it this All arose and spread apart, and of necessity some things became friendly and gentle, others hostile and warlike. Some willingly, some unwillingly, they did each other harm, and in perishing brought about each other’s coming to be. And yet, acting and being acted upon in this way, they established a single harmony among themselves, each sounding its own notes, while the rational principle over them produces the harmony and a single ordering for the whole.
ἔστι γὰρ τὸ πᾶν τόδε οὐχ ὥσπερ ἐκεῖ νοῦς καὶ λόγος, ἀλλὰ μετέχον νοῦ καὶ λόγου. διὸ καὶ ἐδεήθη ἁρμονίας συνελθόντος νοῦ καὶ ἀνάγκης, τῆς μὲν πρὸς τὸ χεῖρον ἑλκούσης καὶ εἰς ἀλογίαν φερούσης ἅτε οὔσης ἀλόγου, ἄρχοντος δὲ νοῦ ὅμως ἀνάγκης. ὁ μὲν γὰρ νοητὸς μόνον λόγος, καὶ οὐκ ἂν γένοιτο ἄλλος μόνον λόγος· εἰ δέ τι ἐγένετο ἄλλο, ἔδει ἔλαττον ἐκείνου καὶ μὴ λόγον, μηδ’ αὖ ὕλην εἶναι· ἄκοσμον γάρ· μικτὸν ἄρα. καὶ εἰς ἃ μὲν λήγει ὕλη καὶ λόγος, ὅθεν δὲ ἄρχεται ψυχὴ ἐφεστῶσα τῷ μεμιγμένῳ, ἣν οὐ κακοπαθεῖν δεῖ νομίζειν ῥᾷστα διοικοῦσαν τόδε τὸ πᾶν τῇ οἷον παρουσίᾳ.
For this All is not Intellect and rational principle, as that world is, but participates in Intellect and rational principle. That is why it needed harmony: Intellect and necessity came together, necessity dragging toward the worse and carrying toward unreason, since it is itself without reason, but Intellect nevertheless ruling over necessity. For the intelligible is rational principle alone, and there could not come to be another that is rational principle alone. If something else came to be, it had to be less than that, and not a rational principle—nor, again, matter, for matter is without order. So it is a mixture. What it ends in is matter and rational principle; where it begins is soul, presiding over the mixture. And we must not think that soul suffers hardship: it governs this All with the greatest ease, by its presence, so to speak.
καὶ οὐκ ἄν τις εἰκότως οὐδὲ τούτῳ μέμψαιτο ὡς οὐ καλῷ ἢ τῶν μετὰ σώματος οὐκ ἀρίστῳ, οὐδ’ αὖ τὸν αἴτιον τοῦ εἶναι αὐτῷ αἰτιάσαιτο πρῶτον μὲν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ὄντος αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐκ λογισμοῦ γενομένου, ἀλλὰ φύσεως ἀμείνονος γεννώσης κατὰ φύσιν ὅμοιον ἑαυτῇ· ἔπειτα οὐδ’ εἰ λογισμὸς εἴη ὁ ποιήσας, αἰσχυνεῖται τῷ ποιηθέντι· ὅλον γάρ τι ἐποίησε πάγκαλον καὶ αὔταρκες καὶ φίλον αὑτῷ καὶ τοῖς μέρεσι τοῖς αὑτοῦ τοῖς τε κυριωτέροις καὶ τοῖς ἐλάττοσιν ὡς αὑτῷ προσφόροις. ὁ τοίνυν ἐκ τῶν μερῶν τὸ ὅλον αἰτιώμενος ἄτοπος ἂν εἴη τῆς αἰτίας· τά τε γὰρ μέρη πρὸς αὐτὸ τὸ ὅλον δεῖ σκοπεῖν, εἰ σύμφωνα καὶ ἁρμόττοντα ἐκείνῳ, τό τε ὅλον σκοπούμενον μὴ πρὸς μέρη ἄττα σμικρὰ βλέπειν.
Nor could one reasonably fault this cosmos for not being beautiful, or for not being the best of things that have bodies, nor again blame the cause of its existence. First, because it exists of necessity and did not come from reasoning, but from a better nature naturally generating something like itself. Then, even if it were a reasoning that made it, that reasoning would not be ashamed of what it made. For it made a whole that is all-beautiful, self-sufficient, and friendly to itself and to its own parts, the more important and the lesser alike, as being suited to it. So someone who blames the whole on the basis of its parts would be making an absurd charge. One must consider the parts in relation to the whole itself, whether they are in harmony and fit with it; and in considering the whole, one must not look at a few small parts.
τοῦτο γὰρ οὐ τὸν κόσμον αἰτιωμένου, ἀλλά τινα τῶν αὐτοῦ χωρὶς λαβόντος, οἷον εἰ παντὸς ζῴου τρίχα ἢ τῶν χαμαὶ δάκτυλον ἀμελήσας τὸν πάντα ἄνθρωπον, δαιμονίαν τινὰ ὄψιν, βλέποι, ἢ νὴ Δία τὰ ἄλλα ζῷα ἀφεὶς τὸ εὐτελέστατον λαμβάνοι, ἢ τὸ ὅλον γένος παρείς, οἷον τὸ ἀνθρώπου, Θερσίτην εἰς μέσον ἄγοι.
That is not blaming the cosmos, but taking some of its parts in isolation—as if someone were to look at a single hair of a whole living being, or a toe, ignoring the whole human being, a wondrous sight; or, by Zeus, were to pass over the other animals and pick out the most worthless; or, passing over a whole kind, humankind for instance, were to bring Thersites forward.
The cosmos speaks
The whole cosmos declares that god made it complete, full of living beings, gods and good souls.
ἐπεὶ οὖν τὸ γενόμενον ὁ κόσμος ἐστὶν ὁ σύμπας, τοῦτον θεωρῶν τάχ’ ἂν ἀκούσαις παρ’ αὐτοῦ, ὡς ἐμὲ πεποίηκε θεὸς κἀγὼ ἐκεῖθεν ἐγενόμην τέλειος ἐκ πάντων ζῴων καὶ ἱκανὸς ἐμαυτῷ καὶ αὐτάρκης οὐδενὸς δεόμενος, ὅτι πάντα ἐν ἐμοὶ καὶ φυτὰ καὶ ζῷα καὶ συμπάντων τῶν γεννητῶν φύσις καὶ θεοὶ πολλοὶ καὶ δαιμόνων δῆμοι καὶ ψυχαὶ ἀγαθαὶ καὶ ἄνθρωποι ἀρετῇ εὐδαίμονες. οὐ γὰρ δὴ γῆ μὲν κεκόσμηται φυτοῖς τε πᾶσι καὶ ζῴοις παντοδαποῖς καὶ μέχρι θαλάττης ψυχῆς ἦλθε δύναμις, ἀὴρ δὲ πᾶς καὶ αἰθὴρ καὶ οὐρανὸς σύμπας ψυχῆς ἄμοιρος, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖ ψυχαὶ ἀγαθαὶ πᾶσαι, ἄστροις ζῆν διδοῦσαι καὶ τῇ εὐτάκτῳ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ἀιδίῳ περιφορᾷ νοῦ μιμήσει κύκλῳ φερομένῃ ἐμφρόνως περὶ ταὐτὸν ἀεί· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔξω ζητεῖ.
Since, then, what has come to be is the cosmos as a whole, if you contemplate it you might perhaps hear it say: God made me, and from there I came to be, complete, made up of all living beings, sufficient for myself and self-sufficient, lacking nothing, since all things are in me: plants and animals, and the nature of all things that come to be, and many gods and peoples of spirits, and good souls, and human beings made happy by virtue. For it is not the case that the earth is adorned with all its plants and animals of every kind, and the power of soul has reached as far as the sea, while the whole air and ether and the whole heaven have no share in soul. No: up there are all the good souls, giving life to the stars and to the well-ordered, eternal revolution of the heaven, which, in imitation of Intellect, moves intelligently in a circle around the same center forever; for it seeks nothing outside itself.
πάντα δὲ τὰ ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐφίεται μὲν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, τυγχάνει δὲ κατὰ δύναμιν τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἕκαστα· ἐξήρτηται γὰρ πᾶς μὲν οὐρανὸς ἐκείνου, πᾶσα δὲ ἐμὴ ψυχὴ καὶ οἱ ἐν μέρεσιν ἐμοῖς θεοί, καὶ τὰ ζῷα δὲ πάντα καὶ τὰ φυτὰ καὶ εἴ τι ἄψυχον δοκεῖ εἶναι ἐν ἐμοί. καὶ τὰ μὲν τοῦ εἶναι μετέχειν δοκεῖ μόνον, τὰ δὲ τοῦ ζῆν, τὰ δὲ μᾶλλον ἐν τῷ αἰσθάνεσθαι, τὰ δὲ ἤδη λόγον ἔχει, τὰ δὲ πᾶσαν ζωήν. οὐ γὰρ τὰ ἴσα ἀπαιτεῖν δεῖ τοῖς μὴ ἴσοις· οὐδὲ γὰρ δακτύλων τὸ βλέπειν, ἀλλὰ ὀφθαλμῶν τοῦτο, δακτύλου δὲ ἄλλο, τὸ εἶναι οἶμαι δακτύλῳ καὶ τὸ αὑτοῦ ἔχειν.
All the things in me aspire to the Good, and each attains it according to its own power. For the whole heaven depends on it, and all my soul, and the gods in my parts, and all the animals and plants, and whatever in me seems to be soulless. Some seem to share only in being, others in life, others more fully in perceiving; others already have reason, others the whole of life. For one must not demand equal things from things that are not equal. Seeing does not belong to fingers but to eyes; to a finger belongs something else—being a finger, I suppose, and having what is its own.
πῦρ δὲ εἰ ὑπὸ ὕδατος σβέννυται καὶ ἕτερον ὑπὸ πυρὸς φθείρεται, μὴ θαυμάσῃς. καὶ γὰρ εἰς τὸ εἶναι ἄλλο αὐτὸ ἤγαγεν, οὐδ’ ἀχθὲν ὑφ’ αὑτοῦ ὑπ’ ἄλλου ἐφθάρη, καὶ ἦλθε δὲ εἰς τὸ εἶναι ὑπ’ ἄλλου φθορᾶς, καὶ ἡ φθορὰ δὲ αὐτῷ οὐδὲν ἄν, εἰ οὕτω, δεινὸν φέροι, καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ φθαρέντος πυρὸς πῦρ ἄλλο. ἐν μὲν γὰρ [τῷ] ἀσωμάτῳ οὐρανῷ ἕκαστον μένει, ἐν δὲ τῷδε τῷ οὐρανῷ πᾶν μὲν ἀεὶ ζῇ καὶ ὅσα τίμια καὶ κύρια μέρη, αἱ δὲ ἀμείβουσαι ψυχαὶ σώματα ἄλλοτε ἐν ἄλλῳ εἴδει γίγνονται, καὶ ὅταν δὲ δύνηται, ἔξω γενέσεως στᾶσα ψυχὴ μετὰ τῆς πάσης ἐστὶ ψυχῆς. σώματα δὲ ζῇ κατ’ εἶδος καὶ καθ’ ὅλα ἕκαστα, εἴπερ ἐξ αὐτῶν καὶ ζῷα ἔσται καὶ τραφήσεται· ζωὴ γὰρ ἐνταῦθα κινουμένη, ἐκεῖ δὲ ἀκίνητος.
If fire is put out by water, and something else is destroyed by fire, don’t be surprised. Something else brought it into being; it was not brought into being by itself, and it was destroyed by something else. It came into being, too, through the destruction of something else, so that, if this is how things stand, its destruction would bring it nothing terrible; and in place of the fire that was destroyed there is another fire. In the bodiless heaven each thing remains. In this heaven the whole is always alive, and so are all its honored and principal parts, while the souls change bodies and come to be now in one form, now in another; and when it is able to, a soul stands outside generation and is with the whole of Soul. Bodies live by species, and each of them as a whole, since animals will come from them and will be nourished. For life here is in motion, but there it is motionless.
ἔδει δὲ κίνησιν ἐξ ἀκινησίας εἶναι καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἐν αὑτῇ ζωῆς τὴν ἐξ αὐτῆς γεγονέναι ἄλλην, οἷον ἐμπνέουσαν καὶ οὐκ ἀτρεμοῦσαν ζωὴν ἀναπνοὴν τῆς ἠρεμούσης οὖσαν. ζῴων δὲ εἰς ἄλληλα ἀναγκαῖαι αἱ ἐπιθέσεις καὶ φθοραί· οὐ γὰρ ἀίδια ἐγένετο. ἐγένετο δέ, ὅτι λόγος πᾶσαν ὕλην κατελάμβανε καὶ εἶχεν ἐν αὑτῷ πάντα ὄντων αὐτῶν ἐκεῖ ἐν τῷ ἄνω οὐρανῷ· πόθεν γὰρ ἂν ἦλθε μὴ ὄντων ἐκεῖ; ἀνθρώπων δὲ εἰς ἀλλήλους ἀδικίαι ἔχοιεν μὲν ἂν αἰτίαν ἔφεσιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ἀδυναμίᾳ δὲ τοῦ τυχεῖν σφαλλόμενοι ἐπ’ ἀλλήλους τρέπονται. ἴσχουσι δὲ ἀδικοῦντες δίκας κακυνόμενοί τε ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἐνεργείαις κακίας ταττόμενοί τε εἰς τόπον χείρονα· οὐ γὰρ μήποτε ἐκφύγῃ μηδὲν τὸ ταχθὲν ἐν τῷ τοῦ παντὸς νόμῳ.
But motion had to come from motionlessness, and from the life within itself there had to come another life from it: a life that breathes, as it were, and is not still, the breathing of the life that is at rest. Animals’ attacks on one another and their destructions are necessary, since they did not come into being to be everlasting. They came into being because a rational principle took hold of all matter and had them all within itself, since they are there in the heaven above. Where would they have come from if they were not there? Men’s wrongs against one another might have as their cause the desire for the good; but failing through their inability to attain it, they turn on one another. When they do wrong they pay the penalty: they are made worse in their souls by the activities of vice, and they are placed in a worse region. For nothing ever escapes what has been ordained in the law of the All.
ἔστι δὲ οὐ διὰ τὴν ἀταξίαν τάξις οὐδὲ διὰ τὴν ἀνομίαν νόμος, ὥς τις οἴεται, ἵνα γένοιτο ἐκεῖνα διὰ τὰ χείρω καὶ ἵνα φαίνοιτο, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν τάξιν ἐπακτὸν οὖσαν· καὶ ὅτι τάξις ἀταξία καὶ διὰ τὸν νόμον καὶ τὸν λόγον, καὶ ὅτι λόγος παρανομία καὶ ἄνοια οὐ τῶν βελτιόνων τὰ χείρω πεποιηκότων, ἀλλὰ τῶν δέχεσθαι δεομένων τὰ ἀμείνω φύσει τῇ ἑαυτῶν ἢ συντυχίᾳ καὶ κωλύσει ἄλλων δέξασθαι οὐ δεδυνημένων. τὸ γὰρ ἐπακτῷ χρώμενον τάξει τούτου ἂν οὐ τύχοι ἢ δι’ αὑτὸ παρ’ αὑτοῦ ἢ δι’ ἄλλο παρ’ ἄλλου· πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ὑπ’ ἄλλων πάσχει καὶ ἀκόντων τῶν ποιούντων καὶ πρὸς ἄλλο ἱεμένων. τὰ δὲ δι’ αὑτὰ ἔχοντα κίνησιν αὐτεξούσιον ζῷα ῥέποι ἂν ὁτὲ μὲν πρὸς τὰ βελτίω, ὁτὲ δὲ πρὸς τὰ χείρω.
Order does not exist because of disorder, nor law because of lawlessness, as someone thinks, so that the better might come to be through the worse and be made visible by it. No: disorder exists because of order, which is imposed from outside. It is because there is order that there is disorder, and it is because of law and rational principle; and it is because there is a rational principle that there is lawlessness and folly. The better have not produced the worse; it is that the things that need to receive the better have not been able to receive them, whether because of their own nature, or by chance, or through hindrance from other things. For what makes use of an imposed order might fail to attain it either because of itself, from itself, or because of something else, from something else. Many things also suffer at the hands of others, even when the agents do not intend it and are aiming at something else. But living beings that have, of themselves, a self-determined motion might incline sometimes toward the better, sometimes toward the worse.
τὴν δὲ πρὸς τὰ χείρω τροπὴν παρὰ τοῦ ζητεῖν ἴσως οὐκ ἄξιον· ὀλίγη γὰρ τροπὴ κατ’ ἀρχὰς γενομένη προιοῦσα ταύτῃ πλέον καὶ μεῖζον τὸ ἁμαρτανόμενον ἀεὶ ποιεῖ· καὶ σῶμα δὲ σύνεστι καὶ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἐπιθυμία· καὶ παροφθὲν τὸ πρῶτον καὶ τὸ ἐξαίφνης καὶ μὴ ἀναληφθὲν αὐτίκα καὶ αἵρεσιν εἰς ὅ τις ἐξέπεσεν εἰργάσατο. ἕπεταί γε μὴν δίκη· καὶ οὐκ ἄδικον τοιόνδε γενόμενον ἀκόλουθα πάσχειν τῇ διαθέσει, οὐδ’ ἀπαιτητέον τούτοις τὸ εὐδαιμονεῖν ὑπάρχειν, οἷς μὴ εἴργασται εὐδαιμονίας ἄξια. οἱ δ’ ἀγαθοὶ μόνοι εὐδαίμονες· διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ θεοὶ εὐδαίμονες.
The turn toward the worse is perhaps not worth looking into. A slight turn, made at the beginning, keeps making the error larger and greater as it goes on in that direction; and there is a body with it, and, necessarily, desire. And the first step, the sudden one, if it is overlooked and not taken back at once, has even produced a choice of what one has fallen into. Yet punishment follows; and it is not unjust that one who has become like this should suffer what corresponds to his disposition. Nor must we demand that happiness belong to those who have done nothing to deserve happiness. Only the good are happy; that, after all, is why the gods are happy too.
εἰ τοίνυν καὶ ψυχαῖς ἐν τῷδε τῷ παντὶ ἔξεστιν εὐδαίμοσιν εἶναι, εἴ τινες μὴ εὐδαίμονες, οὐκ αἰτιατέον τὸν τόπον, ἀλλὰ τὰς ἐκείνων ἀδυναμίας οὐ δυνηθείσας καλῶς ἐναγωνίσασθαι, οὗ δὴ ἆθλα ἀρετῆς πρόκειται. καὶ μὴ θείους δὲ γενομένους θεῖον βίον μὴ ἔχειν τί δεινόν; πενίαι δὲ καὶ νόσοι τοῖς μὲν ἀγαθοῖς οὐδέν, τοῖς δὲ κακοῖς σύμφορα· καὶ ἀνάγκη νοσεῖν σώματα ἔχουσι. καὶ οὐκ ἀχρεῖα δὲ οὐδὲ ταῦτα παντάπασιν εἰς σύνταξιν καὶ συμπλήρωσιν τοῦ ὅλου. ὡς γὰρ φθαρέντων τινῶν ὁ λόγος ὁ τοῦ παντὸς κατεχρήσατο τοῖς φθαρεῖσιν εἰς γένεσιν ἄλλων — οὐδὲν γὰρ οὐδαμῇ ἐκφεύγει τὸ ὑπὸ τούτου καταλαμβάνεσθαι — οὕτω καὶ κακωθέντος σώματος καὶ μαλακισθείσης δὲ ψυχῆς τῆς τὰ τοιαῦτα πασχούσης τὰ νόσοις καὶ κακίᾳ καταληφθέντα ὑπεβλήθη ἄλλῳ εἱρμῷ καὶ ἄλλῃ τάξει.
If, then, souls can be happy even in this All, and some are not, we must not blame the place but their incapacities, which were unable to compete well where the prizes of virtue are set out. And if those who have not become divine do not have a divine life, what is terrible in that? Poverty and illness are nothing to the good, and they are of benefit to the bad; and those who have bodies must fall ill. Nor are even these things entirely useless for the ordering and completion of the whole. Just as, when some things are destroyed, the rational principle of the All uses what has been destroyed for the generation of others—nothing anywhere escapes being taken hold of by it—so too, when a body has been harmed, and a soul that undergoes such things has been weakened, what illness and vice have seized is placed under another chain of sequence and another order.
καὶ τὰ μὲν αὐτοῖς συνήνεγκε τοῖς παθοῦσιν, οἷον πενία καὶ νόσος, ἡ δὲ κακία εἰργάσατό τι χρήσιμον εἰς τὸ ὅλον παράδειγμα δίκης γενομένη καὶ πολλὰ ἐξ αὑτῆς χρήσιμα παρασχομένη. καὶ γὰρ ἐγρηγορότας ἐποίησε καὶ νοῦν καὶ σύνεσιν ἐγείρει πονηρίας ὁδοῖς ἀντιταττομένων, καὶ μανθάνειν δὲ ποιεῖ οἷον ἀγαθὸν ἀρετὴ παραθέσει κακῶν ὧν οἱ πονηροὶ ἔχουσι. καὶ οὐ γέγονε τὰ κακὰ διὰ ταῦτα, ἀλλὰ ὅτι χρῆται καὶ αὐτοῖς εἰς δέον, ἐπείπερ ἐγένετο, εἴρηται. τοῦτο δὲ δυνάμεως μεγίστης, καλῶς καὶ τοῖς κακοῖς χρῆσθαι δύνασθαι καὶ τοῖς ἀμόρφοις γενομένοις εἰς ἑτέρας μορφὰς χρῆσθαι ἱκανὴν εἶναι. ὅλως δὲ τὸ κακὸν ἔλλειψιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θετέον· ἀνάγκη δὲ ἔλλειψιν εἶναι ἐνταῦθα ἀγαθοῦ, ὅτι ἐν ἄλλῳ.
Some things are of benefit to those who suffer them, poverty and illness for instance; and vice has achieved something useful to the whole by becoming an object lesson in justice and supplying many useful things out of itself. It has made people wide awake, and it rouses intellect and intelligence in those who stand against the ways of wickedness; and it makes them learn what a good thing virtue is, by setting beside it the evils the wicked have. Evils did not come to be for these purposes. What has been said is that, since they did come to be, it uses them too as needed. This belongs to the greatest power: to be able to use even evils well, and to be capable of using things that have become shapeless to make other shapes. On the whole, evil must be set down as a falling short of the good; and there must be a falling short of the good here, because it is in something else.
τὸ οὖν ἄλλο, ἐν ᾧ ἐστι τὸ ἀγαθόν, ἕτερον ἀγαθοῦ ὂν ποιεῖ τὴν ἔλλειψιν· τοῦτο γὰρ οὐκ ἀγαθὸν ἦν. διὸ οὐδὲ ἀπολέσθαι τὰ κακά, ὅτι τε ἄλλα ἄλλων ἐλάττω πρὸς ἀγαθοῦ φύσιν ἕτερά τε ἄλλα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ὑποστάσεως ἐκεῖθεν λαβόντα, τοιαῦτα δὲ γενόμενα τῷ πόρρω.
So the something else in which the good is, being other than the good, produces the falling short; for this was not good. That is why evils will not be destroyed: some things are less than others in relation to the nature of the good, and things other than the good have received from there the cause of their existence but have become like this by being far off.
τὸ δὲ παρ’ ἀξίαν, ὅταν ἀγαθοὶ κακὰ ἔχωσι, φαῦλοι δὲ τὰ ἐναντία, τὸ μὲν λέγειν ὡς οὐδὲν κακὸν τῷ ἀγαθῷ οὐδ’ αὖ τῷ φαύλῳ ἀγαθὸν ὀρθῶς μὲν λέγεται· ἀλλὰ διὰ τί τὰ μὲν παρὰ φύσιν τούτῳ, τὰ δὲ κατὰ φύσιν τῷ πονηρῷ; πῶς γὰρ καλὸν νέμειν οὕτως; ἀλλ’ εἰ τὸ κατὰ φύσιν οὐ ποιεῖ προσθήκην πρὸς τὸ εὐδαιμονεῖν, οὐδ’ αὖ τὸ παρὰ φύσιν ἀφαιρεῖ τοῦ κακοῦ τοῦ ἐν φαύλοις, τί διαφέρει τὸ οὕτως ἢ οὕτως; ὥσπερ οὐδέ, εἰ ὁ μὲν καλὸς τὸ σῶμα, ὁ δὲ αἰσχρός. ἀλλὰ τὸ πρέπον καὶ [τὸ] ἀνάλογον καὶ τὸ κατ’ ἀξίαν ἐκείνως ἂν ἦν, ὃ νῦν οὐκ ἔστι· προνοίας δὲ ἀρίστης ἐκεῖνο ἦν.
Then there is the injustice of desert, when good people have bad things and worthless people the opposite. To say that nothing is bad for the good man, nor anything good for the worthless one, is correct. But why does the one get what is contrary to nature, and the wicked what accords with nature? How is it fine to distribute things like that? Still, if what accords with nature adds nothing toward being happy, and what is contrary to nature takes nothing away from the evil in the worthless, what difference does it make whether it’s this way or that? No more than it does if one man is beautiful in body and the other ugly. But the fitting, the proportionate and what accords with desert would have been the other way, and that is not how things are now; and the other way would have been the work of the best providence.
καὶ μὴν καὶ τὸ δεσπότας εἶναι καὶ ἄρχοντας τῶν πόλεων τοὺς κακούς, τοὺς δὲ ἐπιεικεῖς δούλους εἶναι, οὐ πρέποντα ἦν, οὐδ’ εἰ προσθήκην ταῦτα μὴ φέρει εἰς ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ κτῆσιν. καίτοι καὶ τὰ ἀνομώτατα ἂν πράξειεν ἄρχων πονηρός· καὶ κρατοῦσι δὲ ἐν πολέμοις οἱ κακοὶ καὶ παντοῖα αἰσχρὰ δρῶσιν αἰχμαλώτους λαβόντες. πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα ἀπορεῖν ποιεῖ, ὅπως προνοίας οὔσης γίνεται. καὶ γὰρ εἰ πρὸς τὸ ὅλον βλέπειν δεῖ τὸν ὁτιοῦν μέλλοντα ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ μέρη ὀρθῶς ἔχει τάττειν ἐν δέοντι αὐτῷ καὶ μάλιστα, ὅταν ἔμψυχα ᾖ καὶ ζωὴν ἔχῃ καὶ λογικὰ ᾖ, καὶ τὴν πρόνοιαν δὲ ἐπὶ πάντα φθάνειν καὶ τὸ ἔργον αὐτῆς τοῦτο εἶναι, τὸ μηδενὸς ἠμεληκέναι.
And then, for the bad to be masters and rulers of cities and decent people to be slaves would not be fitting either, even if these things add nothing to the possession of good and evil. And yet a wicked ruler might commit the most lawless acts; and the bad win in wars and do every kind of shameful thing once they have taken prisoners. All these things make one wonder how they happen if there is providence. For even if whoever is going to make anything at all must look to the whole, it is still right to order the parts as is due, especially when they are ensouled and have life and are rational; and providence must reach to everything, and this must be its work: to have neglected nothing.
εἰ οὖν φαμεν ἐκ νοῦ τόδε τὸ πᾶν ἠρτῆσθαι καὶ εἰς ἅπαντα ἐληλυθέναι τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ, πειρᾶσθαι δεῖ δεικνύναι, ὅπῃ ἕκαστα τούτων καλῶς ἔχει.
If, then, we say that this All depends on Intellect, and that its power has reached into everything, we must try to show in what way each of these things is as it should be.
πρῶτον τοίνυν ληπτέον, ὡς τὸ καλῶς ἐν τῷ μικτῷ ζητοῦντας χρὴ μὴ πάντη ἀπαιτεῖν ἀλλ’ ὅσον τὸ καλῶς ἐν τῷ ἀμίκτῳ ἔχει, μηδ’ ἐν δευτέροις ζητεῖν τὰ πρῶτα, ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ καὶ σῶμα ἔχει, συγχωρεῖν καὶ παρὰ τούτου ἰέναι [τι] εἰς τὸ πᾶν, ἐπαινεῖν δὲ παρὰ τοῦ λόγου ὅσον ἠδύνατο δέξασθαι τὸ μῖγμα, εἰ μηδὲν τούτου ἐλλείπει· οἷον, εἴ τις ἐσκόπει τὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν αἰσθητὸν ὅστις κάλλιστος, οὐκ ἂν δήπου τῷ ἐν νῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἠξίωσε τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνο ἀποδεδέχθαι τοῦ ποιητοῦ, εἰ ὅμως ἐν σαρξὶ καὶ νεύροις καὶ ὀστέοις ὄντα κατέλαβε τῷ λόγῳ, ὥστε καὶ ταῦτα καλλῦναι καὶ τὸν λόγον δυνηθῆναι ἐπανελθεῖν τῇ ὕλῃ.
First, then, we must accept that those who look for what is fine in the mixed must not demand it wholly, as much as being fine amounts to in the unmixed, nor look for first things among the second. Since it has a body too, we must grant that something comes from this as well into the All, and praise as coming from the rational principle as much as the mixture was able to receive, if nothing of this is lacking. For instance, if someone were examining the perceptible human being to see who is most beautiful, he would surely not expect him to be the same as the human being in Intellect; he would be satisfied with the maker if, even though the man is in flesh and sinews and bones, he has taken hold of him with the rational principle, so as to make these beautiful too and to enable the rational principle to spread over the matter.
ταῦτα τοίνυν ὑποθέμενον χρὴ προιέναι τὸ ἐντεῦθεν ἐπὶ τὰ ἐπιζητούμενα· τάχα γὰρ ἂν ἐν τούτοις τὸ θαυμαστὸν ἂν εὕροιμεν τῆς προνοίας καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως, παρ’ οὗ ὑπέστη τὸ πᾶν τόδε. ὅσα μὲν οὖν ἔργα ψυχῶν, ἃ δὴ ἐν αὐταῖς ἵσταται ταῖς ἐργαζομέναις τὰ χείρω, οἷον ὅσα κακαὶ ψυχαὶ ἄλλας ἔβλαψαν καὶ ὅσα ἀλλήλας αἱ κακαί, εἰ μὴ καὶ τοῦ κακὰς ὅλως αὐτὰς εἶναι τὸ προνοοῦν αἰτιῷτο, [οὐκ] ἀπαιτεῖν λόγον οὐδὲ εὐθύνας προσήκει αἰτίαν ἑλομένῃ διδόντας·
With these assumptions laid down, we must go on from here to the questions we are investigating; for perhaps in them we may find what is wonderful in the providence and the power from which this All came to exist. Take, then, all the works of souls that stay within the very souls that do the worse things: all the harm bad souls have done to others, for example, and all that bad souls have done to each other. Unless one blames what exercises providence for their being bad at all, it is not proper to demand an account of it, nor to call it to audit, since we assign the blame to the soul that chose.
εἴρηται γὰρ ὅτι ἔδει καὶ ψυχὰς κινήσεις οἰκείας ἔχειν καὶ ὅτι οὐ ψυχαὶ μόνον, ἀλλὰ ζῷα ἤδη, καὶ δὴ καὶ οὐδὲν θαυμαστὸν οὔσας ὅ εἰσιν ἀκόλουθον βίον ἔχειν· οὐδὲ γάρ, ὅτι κόσμος ἦν, ἐληλύθασιν, ἀλλὰ πρὸ κόσμου τὸ κόσμου εἶναι εἶχον καὶ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι καὶ ὑφιστάναι καὶ διοικεῖν καὶ ποιεῖν ὅστις [ὁ] τρόπος, εἴτε ἐφεστῶσαι καὶ διδοῦσαί τι παρ’ αὑτῶν εἴτε κατιοῦσαι εἴτε αἱ μὲν οὕτως, αἱ δ’ οὕτως· οὐ γὰρ ἂν τὰ νῦν περὶ τούτων, ἀλλ’ ὅτι, ὅπως πότ’ ἂν ᾖ, τήν γε πρόνοιαν ἐπὶ τούτοις οὐ μεμπτέον.
For it has been said that souls too had to have motions of their own, and that they are not only souls but already living beings; and so it is no wonder that, being what they are, they have a life that follows from it. They did not come because there was a cosmos. Before the cosmos they already had the capacity to belong to a cosmos, to care for it, to bring it into existence, to govern it and to make it, in whatever way: whether by presiding over it and giving something from themselves, or by coming down into it, or some in one way and some in another. That is not our subject now; the point is that, however it may be, providence is not to be blamed for these things.
ἀλλ’ ὅταν πρὸς τοὺς ὑπεναντίους τὴν παράθεσιν τῶν κακῶν τις θεωρῇ, πένητας ἀγαθοὺς καὶ πονηροὺς πλουσίους καὶ πλεονεκτοῦντας ἐν οἷς ἔχειν δεῖ ἀνθρώπους ὄντας τοὺς χείρους καὶ κρατοῦντας καὶ αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ ἔθνη καὶ τὰς πόλεις; ἆρ’ οὖν, ὅτι μὴ μέχρι γῆς φθάνει; ἀλλὰ τῶν ἄλλων γινομένων λόγῳ μαρτύριον τοῦτο καὶ μέχρι γῆς ἰέναι· καὶ γὰρ ζῷα καὶ φυτὰ καὶ λόγου καὶ ψυχῆς καὶ ζωῆς μεταλαμβάνει. ἀλλὰ φθάνουσα οὐ κρατεῖ. ἀλλὰ ζῴου ἑνὸς ὄντος τοῦ παντὸς ὅμοιον ἂν γένοιτο, εἴ τις κεφαλὴν μὲν ἀνθρώπου καὶ πρόσωπον ὑπὸ φύσεως καὶ λόγου γίγνεσθαι λέγοι κρατοῦντος, τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ἄλλαις ἀναθείη αἰτίαις, τύχαις ἢ ἀνάγκαις, καὶ φαῦλα διὰ τοῦτο ἢ δι’ ἀδυναμίαν φύσεως γεγονέναι. ἀλλ’ οὔτε ὅσιον οὔτε εὐσεβὲς ἐνδόντας τὸ μὴ καλῶς ταῦτα ἔχειν καταμέμφεσθαι τῷ ποιήματι.
But what about when someone looks at how evils are distributed in relation to their opposites: good men poor and wicked men rich, the worse having more of what human beings, being human, need to have, and ruling both over them and over nations and cities? Is it, then, because providence does not reach as far as the earth? But the fact that everything else comes about by a rational principle is evidence that it reaches the earth too; for animals and plants share in rational principle and soul and life.—But though it reaches, it does not prevail.—But since the All is a single living being, that would be like someone saying that a man’s head and face are produced by nature and a rational principle that prevails, while assigning the rest to other causes, to chances or necessities, and saying it turned out poor because of these, or through the weakness of nature. It is neither holy nor pious to concede that these things are not well ordered and then find fault with the work.
Good men and bad rulers
Humans stand between gods and beasts; the bad rule because the good neglect to arm themselves.
λοιπὸν δὴ ζητεῖν ὅπῃ καλῶς ταῦτα, καὶ ὡς τάξεως μετέχει, ἢ ὅπῃ μὴ κακῶς. παντὸς δὴ ζῴου τὰ μὲν ἄνω, πρόσωπον καὶ κεφαλή, καλλίω, τὰ δὲ μέσα καὶ κάτω οὐκ ἴσα· ἄνθρωποι δὲ ἐν μέσῳ καὶ κάτω, ἄνω δὲ οὐρανὸς καὶ οἱ ἐν αὐτῷ θεοί· καὶ τὸ πλεῖστον τοῦ κόσμου θεοὶ καὶ οὐρανὸς πᾶς κύκλῳ, γῆ δὲ οἷα κέντρον καὶ ὡς ἕν τι τῶν ἄστρων. θαυμάζεται δὲ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀδικία, ὅτι ἄνθρωπον ἀξιοῦσιν ἐν τῷ παντὶ τὸ τίμιον εἶναι ὡς οὐδενὸς ὄντος σοφωτέρου. τὸ δὲ κεῖται ἐν μέσῳ θεῶν καὶ θηρίων καὶ ῥέπει ἐπ’ ἄμφω καὶ ὁμοιοῦνται οἱ μὲν τῷ ἑτέρῳ, οἱ δὲ τῷ ἑτέρῳ, οἱ δὲ μεταξύ εἰσιν, οἱ πολλοί.
It remains, then, to ask in what way these things are as they should be, and how they share in order—or in what way they are not bad. In every animal the upper parts, the face and head, are more beautiful, while the middle and lower parts are not their equal. Human beings are in the middle and below; above are heaven and the gods in it. Most of the cosmos is gods and the whole heaven in a circle, while the earth is like a center, and like one of the stars. People are astonished at injustice among men because they think man is the precious thing in the All, as though there were nothing wiser. But man lies in the middle between gods and beasts and inclines toward both. Some become like the one, some like the other, and some—the majority—are in between.
οἱ δὴ κακυνθέντες εἰς τὸ ἐγγὺς ζῴων ἀλόγων καὶ θηρίων ἰέναι ἕλκουσι τοὺς μέσους καὶ βιάζονται· οἱ δὲ βελτίους μέν εἰσι τῶν βιαζομένων, κρατοῦνταί γε μὴν ὑπὸ τῶν χειρόνων ᾗ εἰσι χείρους καὶ αὐτοὶ καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν ἀγαθοὶ οὐδὲ παρεσκεύασαν αὑτοὺς μὴ παθεῖν. εἰ οὖν παῖδες ἀσκήσαντες μὲν τὰ σώματα, τὰς δὲ ψυχὰς ὑπ’ ἀπαιδευσίας τούτων χείρους γινόμενοι ἐν πάλῃ κρατοῖεν τῶν μήτε τὰ σώματα μήτε τὰς ψυχὰς πεπαιδευμένων καὶ τὰ σιτία αὐτῶν ἁρπάζοιεν καὶ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν τὰ ἁβρὰ λαμβάνοιεν, τί ἂν τὸ πρᾶγμα ἢ γέλως εἴη;
Those who have turned bad, so as to come close to irrational animals and beasts, drag the middle ones along and use force on them. These are better than those who force them, but they are overpowered by the worse insofar as they too are worse: they are not good, and they have not prepared themselves not to suffer this. Suppose boys who have trained their bodies, but whose souls have become worse than their bodies through lack of education, were to beat in wrestling those who have been trained neither in body nor in soul, and snatch their food and take their soft clothes: what would the affair be but a joke?
ἢ πῶς οὐκ ὀρθὸν καὶ τὸν νομοθέτην συγχωρεῖν ταῦτα μὲν πάσχειν ἐκείνους δίκην ἀργίας καὶ τρυφῆς διδόντας, εἰ ἀποδεδειγμένων γυμνασίων αὐτοῖς οἱ δ’ ὑπ’ ἀργίας καὶ τοῦ ζῆν μαλακῶς καὶ ἀνειμένως περιεῖδον ἑαυτοὺς ἄρνας καταπιανθέντας λύκων ἁρπαγὰς εἶναι; τοῖς δὲ ταῦτα ποιοῦσι πρώτη μὲν δίκη τὸ λύκοις εἶναι καὶ κακοδαίμοσιν ἀνθρώποις· εἶτα αὐτοῖς καὶ κεῖται ἃ παθεῖν χρεὼν τοὺς τοιούτους· οὐ γὰρ ἔστη ἐνταῦθα κακοῖς γενομένοις ἀποθανεῖν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἀεὶ προτέροις ἕπεται ὅσα κατὰ λόγον καὶ φύσιν, χείρω τοῖς χείροσι, τοῖς δὲ ἀμείνοσι τὰ ἀμείνω. ἀλλ’ οὐ παλαίστρα τὰ τοιαῦτα· παιδιὰ γὰρ ἐκεῖ.
Or how could it not be right for the lawgiver, too, to let those others suffer this as the penalty for their laziness and luxury, if, when gymnasia had been set up for them, they let themselves, through laziness and soft, slack living, become fattened lambs, the prey of wolves? For those who do this, the first penalty is being wolves and wretched men; and then there also lies in store for them what such people must suffer. For those who have become bad, it does not stop here, with dying; what always follows on what went before is according to rational principle and nature, worse things for the worse, better for the better. But things like this are not a wrestling school: there, it’s play.
ἔδει γὰρ μειζόνων τῶν παίδων μετὰ ἀνοίας ἀμφοτέρων γινομένων ἀμφοτέρους μὲν ζώννυσθαι ἤδη καὶ ὅπλα ἔχειν καὶ ἡ θέα καλλίων ἢ κατὰ πάλας γυμνάζοντι· νῦν δὲ οἱ μὲν ἄοπλοι, οἱ δὲ ὁπλισθέντες κρατοῦσιν. ἔνθα οὐ θεὸν ἔδει ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀπολέμων αὐτὸν μάχεσθαι· σώζεσθαι γὰρ ἐκ πολέμων φησὶ δεῖν ὁ νόμος ἀνδριζομένους, ἀλλ’ οὐκ εὐχομένους· οὐδὲ γὰρ κομίζεσθαι καρποὺς εὐχομένους, ἀλλὰ γῆς ἐπιμελουμένους, οὐδέ γε ὑγιαίνειν μὴ ὑγιείας ἐπιμελουμένους· οὐδ’ ἀγανακτεῖν δεῖ, εἰ τοῖς φαύλοις πλείους γίνοιντο καρποὶ ἢ ὅλως αὐτοῖς γεωργοῦσιν ἢ ἄμεινον. ἔπειτα γελοῖον τὰ μὲν ἄλλα πάντα τὰ κατὰ τὸν βίον γνώμῃ τῇ ἑαυτῶν πράττειν, κἂν μὴ ταύτῃ πράττωσιν, ᾗ θεοῖς φίλα, σώζεσθαι δὲ μόνον παρὰ θεῶν οὐδὲ ταῦτα ποιήσαντας, δι’ ὧν κελεύουσιν αὐτοὺς οἱ θεοὶ σώζεσθαι.
When the boys had grown bigger, both lots remaining foolish, both ought by then to have girded themselves and taken up arms, and the spectacle would be finer than for a wrestling trainer. As it is, some are unarmed, and those who have armed themselves win. Here it was not right for a god to fight in person for those who will not fight; for the law says that in wars one must be saved by being brave, not by praying. Nor does one get in a harvest by praying, but by tending the land; nor be healthy without tending one’s health. Nor should one be indignant if the worthless get bigger harvests, or if farming goes better for them in general. Then too, it’s ridiculous that people should do everything else in life by their own judgment, even if they don’t do it in a way the gods would like, and expect to be saved by the gods alone without even doing the things by which the gods tell them to be saved.
καὶ τοίνυν οἱ θάνατοι αὐτοῖς βελτίους ἢ τὸ οὕτως ξῶντας εἶναι, ὅπως ζῆν αὐτοὺς οὐκ ἐθέλουσιν οἱ ἐν τῷ παντὶ νόμοι· ὥστε τῶν ἐναντίων γιγνομένων, εἰρήνης ἐν ἀνοίαις καὶ κακίαις πάσαις φυλαττομένης, ἀμελῶς ἂν ἔσχε τὰ τῆς προνοίας ἐώσης κρατεῖν οὕτως τὰ χείρω. ἄρχουσι δὲ οἱ κακοὶ ἀρχομένων ἀνανδρίᾳ· τοῦτο γὰρ δίκαιον, καὶ οὐκ ἐκεῖνο.
And so death is better for them than staying alive in a way the laws of the All do not want them to live. So if the opposite happened, and peace were kept amid every kind of folly and vice, providence would be neglectful, letting the worse prevail like that. The bad rule because of the cowardice of the ruled: this is just, and the other is not.
οὐ γὰρ δὴ οὕτως τὴν πρόνοιαν εἶναι δεῖ, ὥστε μηδὲν ἡμᾶς εἶναι· πάντα δὲ οὔσης προνοίας καὶ μόνης αὐτῆς οὐδ’ ἂν εἴη· τίνος γὰρ ἂν ἔτι εἴη; ἀλλὰ μόνον ἂν εἴη τὸ θεῖον. τοῦτο δὲ καὶ νῦν ἔστι· καὶ πρὸς ἄλλο δὲ ἐλήλυθεν, οὐχ ἵνα ἀνέλῃ τὸ ἄλλο, ἀλλ’ ἐπιόν τῳ, οἷον ἀνθρώπῳ, ἦν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ [πρόνοια] τηροῦσα τὸν ἄνθρωπον ὄντα· τοῦτο δέ ἐστι νόμῳ προνοίας ζῶντα, ὃ δή ἐστι πράττοντα ὅσα ὁ νόμος αὐτῆς λέγει. λέγει δὲ τοῖς μὲν ἀγαθοῖς γενομένοις ἀγαθὸν βίον ἔσεσθαι καὶ κεῖσθαι καὶ ἐσύστερον, τοῖς δὲ κακοῖς τὰ ἐναντία.
Providence must not be such that we are nothing. If providence were everything, and it alone, it would not even exist; for of what would it still be the providence? There would be only the divine. And that exists even now. It has come to something else too, not to destroy that other, but coming upon something—a man, say—it was there over him [as providence], keeping the man a man; and that means living by the law of providence, which is doing everything its law says. And it says that for those who have become good there will be a good life, laid up for them hereafter too, and for the bad the opposite.
κακοὺς δὲ γενομένους ἀξιοῦν ἄλλους αὐτῶν σωτῆρας εἶναι ἑαυτοὺς προεμένους οὐ θεμιτὸν εὐχὴν ποιουμένων· οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ θεοὺς αὐτῶν ἄρχειν τὰ καθέκαστα ἀφέντας τὸν ἑαυτῶν βίον οὐδέ γε τοὺς ἄνδρας τοὺς ἀγαθούς, ἄλλον βίον ζῶντας τὸν ἀρχῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἀμείνω, τούτους αὐτῶν ἄρχοντας εἶναι· ἐπεὶ οὐδ’ αὐτοὶ ἐπεμελήθησάν ποτε, ὅπως ἄρχοντες ἀγαθοὶ γένοιντο τῶν ἄλλων, ὅπως αὐτοὶ εἶεν ἐπιμελούμενοι, ἀλλὰ φθονοῦσιν, ἐάν τις ἀγαθὸς παρ’ αὑτοῦ φύηται· ἐπεὶ πλείους ἂν ἐγένοντο ἀγαθοί, εἰ τούτους ἐποιοῦντο προστάτας.
For those who have become bad and abandoned themselves to expect others to be their saviors is not a lawful prayer to make. Nor, then, should they expect gods to rule them in every detail, setting aside their own life, nor good men, who live another life better than human rule, to be their rulers. For they themselves never took care that good men should become rulers over the rest, so that they themselves might be cared for; instead they envy anyone who grows good on his own. There would have been more good men if they had made such men their leaders.
γενόμενον τοίνυν ζῷον οὐκ ἄριστον, ἀλλὰ μέσην τάξιν ἔχον καὶ ἑλόμενον, ὅμως ἐν ᾧ κεῖται τόπῳ ὑπὸ προνοίας οὐκ ἐώμενον ἀπολέσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἀναφερόμενον ἀεὶ πρὸς τὰ ἄνω παντοίαις μηχαναῖς, αἷς τὸ θεῖον χρῆται ἐπικρατεστέραν ἀρετὴν ποιοῦν, οὐκ ἀπώλεσε τὸ λογικὸν εἶναι τὸ ἀνθρώπινον γένος, ἀλλὰ μετέχον, εἰ καὶ μὴ ἄκρως, ἐστὶ καὶ σοφίας καὶ νοῦ καὶ τέχνης καὶ δικαιοσύνης, τῆς γοῦν πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἕκαστοι — καὶ οὓς ἀδικοῦσι δὲ οἴονται δικαίως ταῦτα ποιεῖν, εἶναι γὰρ ἀξίους — οὕτω καλόν ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ποίημα, ὅσον δύναται καλὸν εἶναι, καὶ συνυφανθὲν εἰς τὸ πᾶν μοῖραν ἔχει τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων ὅσα ἐπὶ γῆς βελτίονα. ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὅσα ἐλάττω ζῷα αὐτοῦ κόσμον γῇ φέροντα μέμφεται οὐδεὶς νοῦν ἔχων.
So the human race has come to be as a living being that is not the best, but holds a middle rank and has chosen it. Even so, providence does not let it perish in the place where it lies, but it is always being brought back up toward the higher by all kinds of devices, which the divine uses to make virtue prevail more. It has not lost its rationality: it shares, if not to the highest degree, in wisdom and intellect and skill and justice—at least the justice each has toward the others; and even those they wrong they think they wrong justly, since they deserve it. In this way man is a beautiful work, as beautiful as he can be, and, woven into the All, he has a lot better than that of the other animals on earth. Indeed no one with sense finds fault with the other animals, those lesser than he, that bring adornment to the earth.
γελοῖον γάρ, εἴ τις μέμφοιτο, ὅτι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους δάκνοι, ὡς δέον αὐτοὺς ζῆν κοιμωμένους. ἀνάγκη δὲ καὶ ταῦτα εἶναι· καὶ αἱ μὲν πρόδηλοι παρ’ αὐτῶν ὠφέλειαι, τὰς δὲ οὐ φανερὰς ἀνεῦρε πολλὰς ὁ χρόνος· ὥστε μηδὲν αὐτοῖς μάτην μηδὲ ἀνθρώποις εἶναι. γελοῖον δὲ καὶ ὅτι ἄγρια πολλὰ αὐτῶν μέμφεσθαι γινομένων καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἀγρίων· εἰ δὲ μὴ πεπίστευκεν ἀνθρώποις, ἀλλὰ ἀπιστοῦντα ἀμύνεται, τί θαυμαστόν ἐστιν;
It would be ridiculous to find fault with them because they bite people, as though people ought to spend their lives asleep. These too must exist. Some of the benefits they bring are obvious, and time has discovered many that were not apparent, so that nothing about them is pointless, even for human beings. It’s ridiculous, too, to complain that many of them are wild, when there are wild men as well. And if an animal does not trust men, but defends itself because it distrusts them, what is surprising about that?
ἀλλ’ εἰ ἄνθρωποι ἄκοντές εἰσι κακοὶ καὶ τοιοῦτοι οὐχ ἑκόντες, οὔτ’ ἄν τις τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας αἰτιάσαιτο, οὔτε τοὺς πάσχοντας ὡς δι’ αὑτοὺς ταῦτα πάσχοντας. εἰ δὲ δὴ καὶ ἀνάγκη οὕτω κακοὺς γίνεσθαι εἴτε ὑπὸ τῆς φορᾶς εἴτε τῆς ἀρχῆς διδούσης τὸ ἀκόλουθον ἐντεῦθεν, φυσικῶς οὕτως. εἰ δὲ δὴ ὁ λόγος αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ ποιῶν, πῶς οὐκ ἄδικα οὕτως; ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ἄκοντες, ὅτι ἁμαρτία ἀκούσιον· τοῦτο δὲ οὐκ ἀναιρεῖ τὸ αὐτοὺς τοὺς πράττοντας παρ’ αὑτῶν εἶναι, ἀλλ’ ὅτι αὐτοὶ ποιοῦσι, διὰ τοῦτο καὶ αὐτοὶ ἁμαρτάνουσιν· ἢ οὐδ’ ἂν ὅλως ἥμαρτον μὴ αὐτοὶ οἱ ποιοῦντες ὄντες. τὸ δὲ τῆς ἀνάγκης οὐκ ἔξωθεν, ἀλλ’ ὅτι πάντως.
But if men are bad involuntarily, and not willingly so, one could blame neither those who do wrong nor those who suffer, as if they suffered through their own fault. And if it is necessary for them to become bad like this, whether through the revolution of the heavens or through the first principle that gives what follows from there, then it is so by nature. But if it is the rational principle itself that makes them so, how is that not unjust?—Well, “involuntarily” means that error is involuntary. But this does not take away the fact that those who act are themselves acting from themselves. It is because they themselves act that they themselves err; otherwise they would not have erred at all, if they were not the ones acting. And “necessity” does not come from outside; it only means that it happens in every case.
τὸ δὲ τῆς φορᾶς οὐχ ὥστε μηδὲν ἐφ’ ἡμῖν εἶναι· καὶ γὰρ εἰ ἔξωθεν τὸ πᾶν, οὕτως ἂν ἦν, ὡς αὐτοὶ οἱ ποιοῦντες ἐβούλοντο· ὥστε οὐκ ἂν αὐτοῖς ἐναντία ἐτίθεντο ἄνθρωποι οὐδ’ ἂν ἀσεβεῖς, εἰ θεοὶ ἐποίουν. νῦν δὲ παρ’ αὐτῶν τοῦτο. ἀρχῆς δὲ δοθείσης τὸ ἐφεξῆς περαίνεται συμπαραλαμβανομένων εἰς τὴν ἀκολουθίαν καὶ τῶν ὅσαι εἰσὶν ἀρχαί· ἀρχαὶ δὲ καὶ ἄνθρωποι. κινοῦνται γοῦν πρὸς τὰ καλὰ οἰκείᾳ φύσει καὶ ἀρχὴ αὕτη αὐτεξούσιος.
And the revolution of the heavens does not mean that nothing is up to us. For if everything came from outside, it would be as the makers themselves wanted; so men would not set themselves against them, nor would there be impious men, if gods made them. As it is, this comes from men themselves. Once a principle is given, what follows is carried through, and all the principles there are are taken into the sequence too; and men are principles as well. At any rate, they are moved toward fine things by their own nature, and this principle is self-determining.
πότερα δὲ φυσικαῖς ἀνάγκαις οὕτως ἕκαστα καὶ ἀκολουθίαις καὶ ὅπῃ δυνατὸν καλῶς; ἢ οὔ, ἀλλ’ ὁ λόγος ταῦτα πάντα ποιεῖ ἄρχων καὶ οὕτω βούλεται καὶ τὰ λεγόμενα κακὰ αὐτὸς κατὰ λόγον ποιεῖ οὐ βουλόμενος πάντα ἀγαθὰ εἶναι, ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις τεχνίτης οὐ πάντα τὰ ἐν τῷ ζῴῳ ὀφθαλμοὺς ποιοῖ· οὕτως οὐδ’ ὁ λόγος πάντα θεοὺς εἰργάζετο, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν θεούς, τὰ δὲ δαίμονας, δευτέραν φύσιν, εἶτα ἀνθρώπους καὶ ζῷα ἐφεξῆς, οὐ φθόνῳ, ἀλλὰ λόγῳ ποικιλίαν νοερὰν ἔχοντι.
Is each of these things like this through natural necessities and sequences, and as well as possible? Or not: rather, the rational principle makes all these things as their ruler and wills them so, and itself produces even the so-called evils in accordance with reason, not wanting everything to be good—as a craftsman would not make every part of an animal eyes. In the same way the rational principle did not make everything gods: it made some gods, some spirits, a second nature, then men and animals next in order—not out of envy, but by a reason that contains intellectual variety.
ἡμεῖς δέ, ὥσπερ οἱ ἄπειροι γραφικῆς τέχνης αἰτιῶνται, ὡς οὐ καλὰ τὰ χρώματα πανταχοῦ, ὁ δὲ ἄρα τὰ προσήκοντα ἀπέδωκεν ἑκάστῳ τόπῳ· ἢ εἴ τις δρᾶμα μέμφοιτο, ὅτι μὴ πάντες ἥρωες ἐν αὐτῷ, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἰκέτης καί τις ἄγροικος καὶ φαύλως φθεγγόμενος· τὸ δὲ οὐ καλόν ἐστιν, εἴ τις τοὺς χείρους ἐξέλοι, καὶ ἐκ τούτων συμπληρούμενον.
But we are like people with no experience of painting who complain that the colors are not beautiful everywhere, when the painter has in fact given each place what suits it; or like someone who finds fault with a play because not everyone in it is a hero, but there is also a servant, and some rustic who talks badly. But the play is not beautiful if one takes out the inferior characters; they too are part of what completes it.
εἰ μὲν οὖν αὐτὸς ὁ λόγος ἐναρμόσας ἑαυτὸν εἰς ὕλην ταῦτα εἰργάσατο τοῦτο ὢν οἷός ἐστιν, ἀνόμοιος τοῖς μέρεσιν, ἐκ τοῦ πρὸ αὐτοῦ τοῦτο ὤν, καὶ τοῦτο τὸ γενόμενον οὕτω γενόμενον οὐκ ἂν σχοίη κάλλιον ἑαυτοῦ ἄλλο. ὁ δὲ λόγος ἐκ πάντων ὁμοίων καὶ παραπλησίων οὐκ ἂν ἐγένετο, καὶ οὗτος ὁ τρόπος [οὐ] μεμπτὸς πάντα ὄντος κατὰ μέρος ἕκαστον ἄλλως. εἰ δὲ ἔξω ἑαυτοῦ ἄλλα εἰσήγαγεν, οἷον ψυχάς, καὶ ἐβιάσατο παρὰ τὴν αὐτῶν φύσιν ἐναρμόσας τῷ ποιήματι πρὸς τὸ χεῖρον πολλάς, πῶς ὀρθῶς; ἀλλὰ φατέον καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς οἷον μέρη αὐτοῦ εἶναι καὶ μὴ χείρους ποιοῦντα ἐναρμόττειν, ἀλλ’ ὅπου προσῆκον αὐταῖς καταχωρίζειν κατ’ ἀξίαν.
If, then, the rational principle itself, fitting itself into matter, produced these things, being what it is—unlike in its parts, and being so because of what comes before it—then what came to be in this way could not have anything else more beautiful than itself. A rational principle would not have come from parts that are all alike and similar; and that way would be open to blame, since the principle is all things, each part differently. But if it brought in other things from outside itself, souls for example, and forced many of them against their own nature, fitting them into its work in the direction of the worse, how is that right? No: we must say that the souls too are, as it were, parts of it, and that it fits them in without making them worse, settling them where it is appropriate for them, according to their desert.
ἐπεὶ οὐδ’ ἐκεῖνον ἀποβλητέον τὸν λόγον, ὃς οὐ πρὸς τὸ παρὸν ἑκάστοτέ φησι βλέπειν, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὰς πρόσθεν περιόδους καὶ αὖ τὸ μέλλον, ὥστε ἐκεῖθεν τάττειν τὴν ἀξίαν καὶ μετατιθέναι ἐκ δεσποτῶν τῶν πρόσθεν δούλους ποιοῦντα, εἰ ἐγένοντο κακοὶ δεσπόται, καὶ ὅτι σύμφορον αὐτοῖς οὕτω, καὶ εἰ κακῶς ἐχρήσαντο πλούτῳ πένητας, καὶ [ὅτι] ἀγαθοῖς οὐκ ἀσύμφορον πένησιν εἶναι, καὶ φονεύσαντας ἀδίκως φονευθῆναι ἀδίκως μὲν τῷ ποιήσαντι, αὐτῷ δὲ δικαίως τῷ παθόντι, καὶ τὸν πεισόμενον συναγαγεῖν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ τῷ ἐπιτηδείῳ ποιῆσαι, ἃ παθεῖν ἐχρῆν ἐκεῖνον. μὴ γὰρ δὴ κατὰ συντυχίαν δοῦλον μηδὲ αἰχμάλωτον ὡς ἔτυχε μηδὲ ὑβρισθῆναι εἰς σῶμα εἰκῇ, ἀλλὰ ἦν ποτε ταῦτα ποιήσας, ἃ νῦν ἐστι πάσχων· καὶ μητέρα τις ἀνελὼν ὑπὸ παιδὸς ἀναιρεθήσεται γενόμενος γυνή, καὶ βιασάμενος γυναῖκα [γυνὴ] ἔσται, ἵνα βιασθῇ.
For we must not reject that other account either, which says that what is looked to each time is not the present but the earlier cycles, and the future as well, so as to assign desert from there. It changes those who were masters before into slaves, if they were bad masters (and that this is good for them); those who used wealth badly into poor men (and being poor does no harm to the good); and those who murdered unjustly are murdered—unjustly as far as the one who does it is concerned, but justly as far as the victim is concerned. And it brings the one who is to suffer together with the one fit to do to him what he had to suffer. For no one is a slave by accident, or a prisoner of war as it happens, or outraged in body at random: he once did the things he is now suffering. Someone who killed his mother will be killed by a son, having become a woman; and a man who raped a woman will become [a woman], so as to be raped.
ὅθεν καὶ θεία φήμη Ἀδράστεια· αὕτη γὰρ ἡ διάταξις Ἀδράστεια ὄντως καὶ ὄντως Δίκη καὶ σοφία θαυμαστή. τεκμαίρεσθαι δὲ δεῖ τοιαύτην τινὰ εἶναι τὴν τάξιν ἀεὶ τῶν ὅλων ἐκ τῶν ὁρωμένων ἐν τῷ παντί, ὡς εἰς ἅπαν χωρεῖ καὶ ὅ τι μικρότατον, καὶ ἡ τέχνη θαυμαστὴ οὐ μόνον ἐν τοῖς θείοις, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧν ἄν τις ὑπενόησε καταφρονῆσαι ὡς μικρῶν τὴν πρόνοιαν· οἵα καὶ ἐν τοῖς τυχοῦσι ζῴοις ἡ ποικίλη θαυματουργία καὶ τὸ μέχρι τῶν φυτῶν ἐν καρποῖς καὶ ἔτι φύλλοις εὐειδὲς καὶ τὸ ῥᾷστα εὐανθὲς καὶ ῥαδινὸν καὶ ποικίλον, καὶ ὅτι οὐ πεποίηται ἅπαξ καὶ ἐπαύσατο, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ποιεῖται τῶν ὑπεράνω φερομένων κατὰ ταῦτα οὐχ ὡσαύτως.
Hence, too, “Adrasteia,” a word from the gods: for this ordering truly is Adrasteia, and truly Justice, and a wonderful wisdom. We must infer that the order of the whole is always something of this kind from what we see in the All: how it extends to everything, even the very smallest, and how wonderful the art is not only in divine things but also in those one might have supposed providence would disdain as small. Think of the intricate wonder-working even in ordinary animals, and the comeliness that reaches even to plants, in their fruits and even their leaves, and how effortlessly they flower, how slender and varied they are; and think that this was not made once and then stopped, but is always being made, while the things above move along the same courses, though not in the same way.
μετατίθεται τοίνυν τὰ μετατιθέμενα οὐκ εἰκῇ μετατιθέμενα οὐδ’ ἄλλα σχήματα λαμβάνοντα, ἀλλ’ ὡς καλόν, καὶ ὡς πρέποι ἂν δυνάμεσι θείαις ποιεῖν. ποιεῖ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ θεῖον ὡς πέφυκε· πέφυκε δὲ κατὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ οὐσίαν· οὐσία δὲ αὐτοῦ, ἣ τὸ καλὸν ἐν ταῖς ἐνεργείαις αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον συνεκφέρει. εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἐκεῖ ταῦτα, ποῦ ἂν εἴη;
So the things that change are not changed at random, nor do they take on other shapes haphazardly, but as is beautiful, and as it would befit divine powers to make. For everything divine makes as its nature is; its nature accords with its being; and its being is what brings out, along with its activities, the beautiful and the just. If these are not there, where could they be?
ἔχει τοίνυν ἡ διάταξις οὕτω κατὰ νοῦν, ὡς ἄνευ λογισμοῦ εἶναι, οὕτω δὲ εἶναι, ὡς, εἴ τις ἄριστα δύναιτο λογισμῷ χρῆσθαι, θαυμάσαι, ὅτι μὴ ἂν ἄλλως εὗρε λογισμὸς ποιῆσαι, ὁποῖόν τι γινώσκεται καὶ ἐν ταῖς καθ’ ἕκαστα φύσεσι γινόμενον εἰς ἀεὶ νοερώτερον ἢ κατὰ λογισμοῦ διάταξιν.
The ordering, then, accords with Intellect in such a way that it is without reasoning; yet it is such that, if someone were able to use reasoning as well as possible, he would be amazed that reasoning could not have found any other way of making it. One can see something like this happening even in individual natures, which are always more intellectual than an ordering made by reasoning.
ἐφ’ ἑκάστου μὲν οὖν τῶν γινομένων ἀεὶ γενῶν οὐκ ἔστιν αἰτιᾶσθαι τὸν ποιοῦντα λόγον, εἴ τις μὴ ἀξιοῖ ἕκαστον οὕτω γεγονέναι χρῆναι, ὡς τὰ μὴ γεγονότα, ἀίδια δέ, ἔν τε νοητοῖς ἔν τε αἰσθητοῖς ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ὄντα, προσθήκην αἰτῶν ἀγαθοῦ πλείονα, ἀλλ’ οὐ τὸ δοθὲν ἑκάστῳ εἶδος αὔταρκες ἡγούμενος, οἷον τῷδε, ὅτι μὴ κέρατα, οὐ σκοπούμενος, ὅτι ἀδύνατον ἦν λόγον μὴ οὐκ ἐπὶ πάντα ἐλθεῖν, ἀλλ’ ὅτι ἔδει ἐν τῷ μείζονι τὰ ἐλάττω καὶ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ τὰ μέρη καὶ οὐκ ἴσα δυνατὸν εἶναι· ἢ οὐκ ἂν ἦν μέρη. τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἄνω πᾶν πάντα, τὸ δὲ κάτω οὐ πάντα ἕκαστον. καὶ ἄνθρωπος δὴ καθ’ ὅσον μέρος ἕκαστος οὐ πᾶς.
So in each of the kinds that are always coming to be, one cannot blame the rational principle that makes them—unless someone thinks each ought to have come to be like the things that have not come to be but are everlasting, always the same, both among intelligibles and among perceptibles. Such a person asks for a larger addition of good and does not consider the form given to each sufficient—complaining about this one, for example, that it has no horns. He does not consider that it was impossible for a rational principle not to reach everything, but that there had to be lesser things within the greater, and parts within the whole, and they could not be equal; otherwise they would not be parts. Up above, everything is all things; here below, each is not all things. And a man too, insofar as each is a part, is not the whole.
εἰ δέ που ἐν μέρεσί τισι καὶ ἄλλο τι, ὃ οὐ μέρος, τούτῳ κἀκεῖνο πᾶν. ὁ δὴ καθ’ ἕκαστα ᾗ τοῦτο οὐκ ἀπαιτητέος τέλειος εἶναι εἰς ἀρετῆς ἄκρον· ἤδη γὰρ οὐκέτ’ ἂν μέρος. οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ τῷ ὅλῳ τὸ μέρος κοσμηθὲν εἰς μείζονα ἀξίαν ἐφθόνηται· καὶ γὰρ κάλλιον τὸ ὅλον ποιεῖ κοσμηθὲν ἀξίᾳ μείζονι.
But if in some parts there is also something else, which is not a part, then by this that part too is all. So the individual, as such, is not to be required to be perfect, reaching the summit of virtue; for then he would no longer be a part. Yet the whole does not begrudge the part being adorned to greater worth; for the part, adorned with greater worth, makes the whole more beautiful too.
καὶ γὰρ γίνεται τοιοῦτον ἀφομοιωθὲν τῷ ὅλῳ καὶ οἷον συγχωρηθὲν τοιοῦτον εἶναι καὶ συνταχθὲν οὕτως, ἵνα καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἀνθρώπου τόπον ἐκλάμπῃ τι ἐν αὐτῷ, οἷον καὶ κατὰ τὸν θεῖον οὐρανὸν τὰ ἄστρα, καὶ ἡ ἐντεῦθεν ἀντίληψις οἷον ἀγάλματος μεγάλου καὶ καλοῦ [ᾖ] εἴτε ἐμψύχου εἴτε καὶ τέχνῃ Ἡφαίστου γενομένου, [καὶ] ὦσι μὲν καὶ κατὰ τὸ πρόσωπον ἐπιστίλβοντες ἀστέρες καὶ ἐν τοῖς στήθεσι δὲ ἄλλοι καὶ ᾗ ἔμελλεν ἐπιτρέψειν ἄστρων θέσις κειμένων.
For it becomes so by being made like the whole, and, as it were, being allowed to be so and being ordered so, in order that even in man’s region something may shine out in it, as the stars do in the divine heaven; and that the impression from here [may be] that of a great and beautiful statue, whether alive or made by the art of Hephaestus, [and] with stars glittering on its face and others on its breast, and wherever the setting of stars placed there would allow.
τὰ μὲν οὖν ἕκαστα αὐτὰ ἐφ’ ἑαυτῶν θεωρούμενα οὕτως· ἡ συμπλοκὴ δὲ ἡ τούτων γεννηθέντων καὶ ἀεὶ γεννωμένων ἔχοι ἂν τὴν ἐπίστασιν καὶ ἀπορίαν κατὰ τε τὴν ἀλληλοφαγίαν τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων καὶ τὰς ἀνθρώπων εἰς ἀλλήλους ἐπιθέσεις, καὶ ὅτι πόλεμος ἀεὶ καὶ οὐ μήποτε παῦλαν οὐδ’ ἀνοχὴν λάβῃ, καὶ μάλιστα εἰ λόγος πεποίηκεν οὕτως ἔχειν, καὶ οὕτω λέγεται καλῶς ἔχειν. οὐ γὰρ ἔτι τοῖς οὕτω λέγουσιν ἐκεῖνος ὁ λόγος βοηθεῖ, ὡς καλῶς κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἔχει [καὶ] αἰτία ὕλη οὕτως ἐχόντων, ὡς ἐλαττόνως ἔχειν, καὶ ὡς οὐ δυνατὸν τὰ κακὰ ἀπολέσθαι, εἴπερ οὕτως ἐχρῆν ἔχειν, καὶ καλῶς οὕτω, καὶ οὐχ ἡ ὕλη παρελθοῦσα κρατεῖ, ἀλλὰ παρήχθη, ἵνα οὕτω, μᾶλλον δὲ ᾖ καὶ αὐτὴ αἰτίᾳ λόγου οὕτως.
So much for the individual things considered each by itself. But the interweaving of these things that have been generated and are always being generated might give cause for pause and perplexity: the other animals eating one another, men attacking one another, and the fact that there is always war and it never gets any pause or truce—especially if a rational principle has made it so, and it is said to be well so. For those who say this, that other argument no longer helps: that things are as good as possible, [and] matter is the cause of their being so, so as to be in a lesser state, and that evils cannot be destroyed—if indeed things had to be so, and it is well so. Matter has not come forward and taken control; it was brought forward so that things might be so—or rather, it too is so by the causality of the rational principle.
Life as a stage play
Wars and deaths are scene changes in a play; only the outer man weeps and laments.
ἀρχὴ οὖν λόγος καὶ πάντα λόγος καὶ τὰ γινόμενα κατ’ αὐτὸν καὶ συνταττόμενα ἐπὶ τῇ γενέσει πάντως οὕτως. τίς οὖν ἡ τοῦ πολέμου τοῦ ἀκηρύκτου ἐν ζῴοις καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀνάγκη; ἢ ἀλληλοφαγίαι μὲν ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀμοιβαὶ ζῴων οὖσαι οὐ δυναμένων, οὐδ’ εἴ τις μὴ κτιννύοι αὐτά, οὕτω μένειν εἰς ἀεί. εἰ δὲ ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ δεῖ ἀπελθεῖν οὕτως ἀπελθεῖν ἔδει, ὡς ἄλλοις γενέσθαι χρείαν παρ’ αὐτῶν, τί φθονεῖν ἔδει; τί δ’ εἰ βρωθέντα ἄλλα ἐφύετο; οἷον εἰ ἐπὶ σκηνῆς τῶν ὑποκριτῶν ὁ πεφονευμένος ἀλλαξάμενος τὸ σχῆμα ἀναλαβὼν πάλιν εἰσίοι ἄλλο πρόσωπον, ἀλλ’ οὐ τέθνηκεν ἀληθῶς οὗτος.
The origin, then, is a rational principle, and all things are a rational principle, and what comes to be in accordance with it and is ordered together in its generation is in every case so. What, then, is the necessity of this truceless war among animals and among men? Or rather: animals eating one another is necessary, being exchanges of animals that could not remain as they are forever, even if no one killed them. And if, when the time came for them to depart, they had to depart in such a way as to be of use to others, why begrudge it? And what if, once eaten, others grew up? It’s as if, on the stage, an actor who has been murdered were to change his costume and come on again, taking up another mask: he did not truly die.
εἰ οὖν καὶ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν ἀλλαγή ἐστι σώματος, ὥσπερ ἐσθῆτος ἐκεῖ, ἢ καὶ παντελὴς ἀπόθεσις σώματος, ὥσπερ ἐκεῖ ἔξοδος ἐκ τῆς σκηνῆς παντελὴς οὔποτε εἰς ὕστερον πάλιν ἥξοντος ἐναγωνίσασθαι, τί ἂν δεινὸν εἴη ἡ τοιαύτη τῶν ζῴων εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολὴ πολὺ βελτίων οὖσα τοῦ μηδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν αὐτὰ γενέσθαι;
If, then, dying too is a change of body, as of costume there, or even a complete putting off of body, like a complete exit from the stage there, never to come back later to compete, what would be terrible in this kind of transformation of animals into one another, which is far better than their never coming to be in the first place?
ἐκείνως μὲν γὰρ ἐρημία ζωῆς καὶ τῆς ἐν ἄλλῳ οὔσης ἀδυναμία· νῦν δὲ πολλὴ οὖσα ἐν τῷ παντὶ ζωὴ πάντα ποιεῖ καὶ ποικίλλει ἐν τῷ ζῆν καὶ οὐκ ἀνέχεται μὴ ποιοῦσα ἀεὶ καλὰ καὶ εὐειδῆ ζῶντα παίγνια. ἀνθρώπων δὲ ἐπ’ ἀλλήλους ὅπλα θνητῶν ὄντων ἐν τάξει εὐσχήμονι μαχομένων, οἷα ἐν πυρρίχαις παίζοντες ἐργάζονται, δηλοῦσι τάς τε ἀνθρωπίνας σπουδὰς ἁπάσας παιδιὰς οὔσας τούς τε θανάτους μηνύουσιν οὐδὲν δεινὸν εἶναι, ἀποθνήσκειν δὲ ἐν πολέμοις καὶ ἐν μάχαις ὀλίγον προλαβόντας τοῦ γινομένου ἐν γήρᾳ θᾶττον ἀπιόντας καὶ πάλιν ἰόντας. εἰ δ’ ἀφαιροῖντο ζῶντες χρημάτων, γινώσκοιεν ἂν μηδὲ πρότερον αὑτῶν εἶναι καὶ τοῖς ἁρπάζουσιν αὐτοῖς γελοίαν εἶναι τὴν κτῆσιν ἀφαιρουμένων αὐτοὺς ἄλλων· ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῖς μὴ ἀφαιρεθεῖσι χεῖρον γίνεσθαι τῆς ἀφαιρέσεως τὴν κτῆσιν.
That would mean a desolation of life, and life that is in something else would be impossible. As it is, the abundant life in the All makes all things and varies them in living, and cannot bear not to be always making beautiful, comely living toys. When men, mortal as they are, take up arms against each other and fight in seemly order, as they do in play in the war dances, they show that all human seriousness is play, and they announce that deaths are nothing terrible; dying in wars and battles is getting a little ahead of what happens in old age, going away sooner and coming again. And if they are robbed of their property while alive, they might realize that it was not theirs before either, and that the possession is laughable for the robbers themselves, since others rob them in turn; for even for those who are not robbed, possessing it turns out worse than being robbed.
ὥσπερ δὲ ἐπὶ τῶν θεάτρων ταῖς σκηναῖς, οὕτω χρὴ καὶ τοὺς φόνους θεᾶσθαι καὶ πάντας θανάτους καὶ πόλεων ἁλώσεις καὶ ἁρπαγάς, μεταθέσεις πάντα καὶ μετασχηματίσεις καὶ θρήνων καὶ οἰμωγῶν ὑποκρίσεις. καὶ γὰρ ἐνταῦθα ἐπὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ βίῳ ἑκάστων οὐχ ἡ ἔνδον ψυχή, ἀλλ’ ἡ ἔξω ἀνθρώπου σκιὰ καὶ οἰμώζει καὶ ὀδύρεται καὶ πάντα ποιεῖ ἐν σκηνῇ τῇ ὅλῃ γῇ πολλαχοῦ σκηνὰς ποιησαμένων. τοιαῦτα γὰρ ἔργα ἀνθρώπου τὰ κάτω καὶ τὰ ἔξω μόνα ζῆν εἰδότος καὶ ἐν δακρύοις καὶ σπουδαίοις ὅτι παίζων ἐστὶν ἠγνοηκότος. μόνῳ γὰρ τῷ σπουδαίῳ σπουδαστέον ἐν σπουδαίοις τοῖς ἔργοις, ὁ δ’ ἄλλος ἄνθρωπος παίγνιον. σπουδάζεται δὲ καὶ τὰ παίγνια τοῖς σπουδάζειν οὐκ εἰδόσι καὶ αὐτοῖς οὖσι παιγνίοις.
As we watch on the stage in theaters, so we should view murders, and all deaths, and the capture and plundering of cities: all of it changes of scene and costume, and acted-out lamenting and wailing. For here too, in each of the events of life, it is not the soul within but the outer shadow of the man that wails and laments and does everything, on a stage that is the whole earth, where people have set up stages in many places. Such are the doings of a man who knows only how to live the lower, outer life, and has not realized that in his tears and his serious pursuits he is playing. Only the serious person should take serious works seriously; the rest of mankind is a toy. And toys are taken seriously by those who do not know how to be serious and are toys themselves.
εἰ δέ τις συμπαίζων αὐτοῖς [σπουδαῖος] τὰ τοιαῦτα πάθοι, ἴστω παραπεσὼν παίδων παιδιᾷ τὸ περὶ αὑτὸν ἀποθέμενος πρόσωπον. εἰ δὲ δὴ καὶ παίζοι Σωκράτης, παίζει τῷ ἔξω Σωκράτει. δεῖ δὲ κἀκεῖνο ἐνθυμεῖσθαι, ὡς οὐ δεῖ τεκμήρια τοῦ κακὰ εἶναι τὸ δακρύειν καὶ θρηνεῖν τίθεσθαι, ὅτι δὴ καὶ παῖδες ἐπὶ οὐ κακοῖς καὶ δακρύουσι καὶ ὀδύρονται.
And if someone [serious] who plays along with them should suffer such things, let him know that he has stumbled into a children’s game and has laid aside the mask he wore. If Socrates too should play, it is the outer Socrates who plays. We must also bear this in mind: we must not take weeping and lamenting as evidence that there are evils, since children too weep and wail over things that are not evils.
ἀλλ’ εἰ καλῶς ταῦτα λέγεται, πῶς ἂν ἔτι πονηρία; ποῦ δ’ ἀδικία; ἁμαρτία δὲ ποῦ; πῶς γὰρ ἔστι καλῶς γινομένων ἁπάντων ἀδικεῖν ἢ ἁμαρτάνειν τοὺς ποιοῦντας; κακοδαίμονες δὲ πῶς, εἰ μὴ ἁμαρτάνοιεν μηδ’ ἀδικοῖεν; πῶς δὲ τὰ μὲν κατὰ φύσιν, τὰ δὲ παρὰ φύσιν φήσομεν εἶναι τῶν γινομένων, ἁπάντων τῶν δρωμένων κατὰ φύσιν ὄντων; πῶς δ’ ἂν καὶ πρὸς τὸ θεῖον ἀσέβειά τις εἴη τοιούτου ὄντος τοῦ [ποιοῦντος καὶ τοῦ] ποιουμένου; οἷον εἴ τις ἐν δράματι λοιδορούμενον ποιητὴς ὑποκριτὴν ποιήσαιτο καὶ κατατρέχοντα τοῦ ποιητοῦ τοῦ δράματος. πάλιν οὖν σαφέστερον λέγωμεν τίς ὁ λόγος καὶ ὡς εἰκότως τοιοῦτός ἐστιν.
But if this is rightly said, how can there still be wickedness? Where is injustice? Where is error? How, if everything comes about well, can those who act do wrong or err? And how are they unhappy, if they neither err nor do wrong? How shall we say that some of what happens is according to nature and some contrary to nature, when everything that is done is according to nature? And how could there be any impiety toward the divine, when [the maker and] what is made are like this? It would be as if a poet in a play were to make an actor abuse and disparage the poet of the play. Let us say again, then, more clearly, what the rational principle is, and how it is reasonably the way it is.
ἔστι τοίνυν οὗτος ὁ λόγος — τετολμήσθω γάρ· τάχα δ’ ἂν καὶ τύχοιμεν — ἔστι τοίνυν οὗτος οὐκ ἄκρατος νοῦς οὐδ’ αὐτονοῦς οὐδέ γε ψυχῆς καθαρᾶς τὸ γένος, ἠρτημένος δὲ ἐκείνης καὶ οἷον ἔκλαμψις ἐξ ἀμφοῖν, νοῦ καὶ ψυχῆς καὶ ψυχῆς κατὰ νοῦν διακειμένης γεννησάντων τὸν λόγον τοῦτον ζωὴν λόγον τινὰ ἡσυχῇ ἔχουσαν. πᾶσα δὲ ζωὴ ἐνέργεια, καὶ ἡ φαύλη· ἐνέργεια δὲ οὐχ ὡς τὸ πῦρ ἐνεργεῖ, ἀλλ’ ἡ ἐνέργεια αὐτῆς, κἂν μὴ αἴσθησίς τις παρῇ, κίνησίς τις οὐκ εἰκῇ. οἷς γοῦν ἂν παρῇ καὶ μετάσχῃ ὁπωσοῦν ὁτιοῦν, εὐθὺς λελόγωται, τοῦτο δέ ἐστι μεμόρφωται, ὡς τῆς ἐνεργείας τῆς κατὰ τὴν ζωὴν μορφοῦν δυναμένης καὶ κινούσης οὕτως, ὡς μορφοῦν.
This rational principle, then—let us dare to say it; perhaps we may even hit the mark—this, then, is not unmixed Intellect, nor Intellect itself, nor of the kind of pure soul either; it depends on that, and is a kind of radiance shining out from both. Intellect and Soul—Soul disposed according to Intellect—begot this rational principle, a life that quietly holds a certain reason. All life is activity, even the poor kind; and activity not in the way fire is active: its activity, even if no perception is present, is a movement that is not random. At any rate, whatever it is present to, and whatever shares in it in any way at all, is at once given a rational principle, that is, given shape, since the activity that belongs to life is able to shape, and moves in such a way as to shape.
ἡ τοίνυν ἐνέργεια αὐτῆς τεχνική, ὥσπερ ἂν ὁ ὀρχούμενος κινούμενος εἴη· ὁ γὰρ ὀρχηστὴς τῇ οὕτω τεχνικῇ ζωῇ ἔοικεν αὐτὸς καὶ ἡ τέχνη αὐτὸν κινεῖ καὶ οὕτω κινεῖ, ὡς τῆς ζωῆς αὐτῆς τοιαύτης πως οὔσης. ταῦτα μὲν οὖν εἰρήσθω τοῦ οἵαν δεῖ καὶ τὴν ἡντινοῦν ζωὴν ἡγεῖσθαι ἕνεκα.
So its activity is artistic, as a dancer in motion would be. For the dancer himself is like a life that is artistic in this way, and his art moves him, and moves him as though the life itself were in a way of this kind. Let this be said, then, to show what we should think any life whatever is like.
ἥκων τοίνυν οὗτος ὁ λόγος ἐκ νοῦ ἑνὸς καὶ ζωῆς μιᾶς πλήρους ὄντος ἑκατέρου οὐκ ἔστιν οὔτε ζωὴ μία οὔτε νοῦς τις εἷς οὔτε ἑκασταχοῦ πλήρης οὐδὲ διδοὺς ἑαυτὸν οἷς δίδωσιν ὅλον τε καὶ πάντα. ἀντιθεὶς δὲ ἀλλήλοις τὰ μέρη καὶ ποιήσας ἐνδεᾶ πολέμου καὶ μάχης σύστασιν καὶ γένεσιν εἰργάσατο καὶ οὕτως ἐστὶν εἷς πᾶς, εἰ μὴ ἓν εἴη. γενόμενον γὰρ ἑαυτῷ τοῖς μέρεσι πολέμιον οὕτως ἕν ἐστι καὶ φίλον, ὥσπερ ἂν εἷς ὁ τοῦ δράματος ἔχων ἐν αὑτῷ πολλὰς μάχας.
This rational principle, then, coming from one Intellect and one life, each of them full, is neither one life nor some one intellect, nor full everywhere, nor does it give itself whole and entire to those it gives itself to. By setting its parts against one another and making them deficient, it produced the constitution and generation of war and battle; and so it is one whole, even if it is not one thing. For having become hostile to itself in its parts, it is in this way one and friendly, as the plot of a play is one while containing many battles within itself.
τὸ μὲν οὖν δρᾶμα τὰ μεμαχημένα οἷον εἰς μίαν ἁρμονίαν ἄγει σύμφωνον οἷον διήγησιν τὴν πᾶσαν τῶν μαχομένων ποιούμενον· ἐκεῖ δὲ ἐξ ἑνὸς λόγου ἡ τῶν διαστάτων μάχη· ὥστε μᾶλλον ἄν τις τῇ ἁρμονίᾳ τῇ ἐκ μαχομένων εἰκάσειε καὶ ζητήσειε διὰ τί τὰ μαχόμενα ἐν τοῖς λόγοις.
Now the play brings what has been in conflict into a single harmony, as it were, a concordant one, making, as it were, one whole story of the combatants. But there, the battle of the things that stand apart comes from one rational principle. So one would do better to compare it to the harmony that comes from conflicting notes, and to ask why there are conflicting elements in the rational principles.
εἰ οὖν καὶ ἐνταῦθα ὀξὺ καὶ βαρὺ ποιοῦσι λόγοι καὶ συνίασιν εἰς ἓν ὄντες ἁρμονίας λόγοι εἰς αὐτὴν τὴν ἁρμονίαν, ἄλλον λόγον μείζονα, ὄντες ἐλάττους αὐτοὶ καὶ μέρη, ὁρῶμεν δὲ καὶ ἐν τῷ παντὶ τὰ ἐναντία, οἷον λευκὸν μέλαν, θερμὸν ψυχρόν, καὶ δὴ πτερωτὸν ἄπτερον, ὑπόπουν ἄπουν, λογικὸν ἄλογον, πάντα δὲ ζῴου ἑνὸς τοῦ σύμπαντος μέρη καὶ τὸ πᾶν ὁμολογεῖ ἑαυτῷ τῶν μερῶν πολλαχοῦ μαχομένων, κατὰ λόγον δὲ τὸ πᾶν, ἀνάγκη καὶ τὸν ἕνα τοῦτον λόγον ἐξ ἐναντίων λόγων εἶναι ἕνα τὴν σύστασιν αὐτῷ καὶ οἷον οὐσίαν τῆς τοιαύτης ἐναντιώσεως φερούσης.
Here too, then, rational principles make high and low, and, being principles of harmony, come together into one, into harmony itself—another, greater rational principle—while they themselves are lesser, and parts. We also see opposites in the All—white and black, hot and cold, and indeed winged and wingless, footed and footless, rational and irrational—all of them parts of the one living being that is the whole; and the All agrees with itself though its parts are often at war, and the All is according to a rational principle. If all this is so, this one rational principle too must be one made of opposite principles, since it is this kind of opposition that gives it its constitution and, as it were, its being.
καὶ γὰρ εἰ μὴ πολὺς ἦν, οὐδ’ ἂν ἦν πᾶς, οὐδ’ ἂν λόγος· λόγος δὲ ὢν διάφορός τε πρὸς αὑτόν ἐστι καὶ ἡ μάλιστα διαφορὰ ἐναντίωσίς ἐστιν· ὥστε εἰ ἕτερον ὅλως, τὸ δὲ ἕτερον ποιεῖ, καὶ μάλιστα ἕτερον, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ἧττον ἕτερον ποιήσει· ὥστε ἄκρως ἕτερον ποιῶν καὶ τὰ ἐναντία ποιήσει ἐξ ἀνάγκης καὶ τέλειος ἔσται, οὐκ εἰ διάφορα μόνον, ἀλλ’ εἰ καὶ ἐναντία ποιεῖ εἶναι ἑαυτόν.
For if it were not many, it would not be all, nor a rational principle. Being a rational principle, it differs from itself, and the greatest difference is opposition. So if it makes something other at all, and it does make the other, it will make what is most other rather than what is less other. Making things other to the utmost, then, it will of necessity make opposites too, and it will be complete not if it makes itself merely different things, but if it makes itself opposites as well.
ὢν δὴ τοιοῦτος οἷος καὶ πάντως ποιεῖ, πολὺ μᾶλλον τὰ ποιούμενα ποιήσει ἐναντία, ὅσῳ καὶ διέστηκε μᾶλλον· καὶ ἧττον ἓν ὁ κόσμος ὁ αἰσθητὸς ἢ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ, ὥστε καὶ πολὺς μᾶλλον καὶ ἡ ἐναντιότης μᾶλλον καὶ ἡ τοῦ ζῆν ἔφεσις μᾶλλον ἑκάστῳ καὶ ὁ ἔρως τοῦ εἰς ἓν μᾶλλον. φθείρει δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐρῶντα τὰ ἐρώμενα πολλάκις εἰς τὸ αὑτῶν ἀγαθὸν σπεύδοντα, ὅταν φθαρτὰ ᾖ, καὶ ἡ ἔφεσις δὲ τοῦ μέρους πρὸς τὸ ὅλον ἕλκει εἰς αὐτὸ ὃ δύναται. οὕτως οὖν καὶ οἱ ἀγαθοὶ καὶ οἱ κακοί, ὥσπερ παρὰ τῆς αὐτῆς τέχνης ὀρχουμένου τὰ ἐναντία· καὶ αὐτοῦ τὸ μέν τι μέρος ἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ κακὸν φήσομεν, καὶ οὕτω καλῶς ἔχειν. καίτοι οὐδὲ κακοὶ ἔτι.
Being of such a kind that it makes in every case, it will make what it makes far more opposed, the further apart these stand. The perceptible cosmos is less one than its rational principle, so it is more many, and there is more opposition, and a greater desire in each thing to live, and a greater love of coming into one. Lovers often destroy what they love, hurrying toward their own good, when the beloved things are perishable; and the desire of the part for the whole draws into itself what it can. So too, then, the good and the bad are like the opposite movements of a dancer performing by one and the same art; and we shall say that one part of him is good and another bad, and that it’s well so. And yet then they are not even bad any more.
ἢ τὸ μὲν κακοὺς εἶναι οὐκ ἀναιρεῖται, ἀλλ’ ἢ μόνον ὅτι μὴ παρ’ αὑτῶν τοιοῦτοι. ἀλλ’ ἴσως συγγνώμη τοῖς κακοῖς· εἰ μὴ καὶ τὸ τῆς συγγνώμης καὶ μὴ ὁ λόγος ποιεῖ· ποιεῖ δὲ ὁ λόγος μηδὲ συγγνώμονας ἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις εἶναι. ἀλλ’ εἰ τὸ μὲν μέρος αὐτοῦ ἀγαθὸς ἀνήρ, τὸ δὲ ἄλλο πονηρός, καὶ πλείω μέρη ὁ πονηρός, ὥσπερ ἐν δράμασι τὰ μὲν τάττει αὐτοῖς ὁ ποιητής, τοῖς δὲ χρῆται οὖσιν ἤδη· οὐ γὰρ αὐτὸς πρωταγωνιστὴν οὐδὲ δεύτερον οὐδὲ τρίτον ποιεῖ, ἀλλὰ διδοὺς ἑκάστῳ τοὺς προσήκοντας λόγους ἤδη ἀπέδωκεν ἑκάστῳ εἰς ὃ τετάχθαι δέον· οὕτω τοι καὶ ἔστι τόπος ἑκάστῳ ὁ μὲν τῷ ἀγαθῷ, ὁ δὲ τῷ κακῷ πρέπων.
Or rather, their being bad is not done away with; only this is: that they are such of themselves.—But perhaps the bad deserve forgiveness.—Unless the rational principle also makes forgiveness and its absence; and the rational principle makes us unforgiving toward such people. But if one part of it is a good man and another a wicked one, and the wicked man is more of its parts, it is as in plays: the poet assigns some things to the actors, but makes use of them as they already are. He does not himself make the leading actor, or the second or the third; by giving each the lines that suit him, he has thereby assigned each to the place where he should be put. In the same way there is a place for each, one fitting the good man, another the bad.
ἑκάτερος οὖν κατὰ φύσιν καὶ κατὰ λόγον εἰς ἑκάτερον καὶ τὸν πρέποντα χωρεῖ τὸν τόπον ἔχων, ὃν εἵλετο. εἶτα φθέγγεται καὶ ποιεῖ ὁ μὲν ἀσεβεῖς λόγους καὶ ἔργα ‘ποιῶν’, ὁ δὲ τὰ ἐναντία· ἦσαν γὰρ καὶ πρὸ τοῦ δράματος τοιοῦτοι οἱ ὑποκριταὶ διδόντες ἑαυτοὺς τῷ δράματι.
Each, then, according to nature and rational principle, goes to the one or the other, the place that fits him, holding the place he chose. Then he speaks and acts, the one “producing” impious words and deeds, the other the opposite; for the actors were like this even before the play, giving themselves over to the play.
ἐν μὲν οὖν τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις δράμασιν ὁ μὲν ποιητὴς ἔδωκε τοὺς λόγους, οἱ δὲ ἔχουσι παρ’ αὑτῶν καὶ ἐξ αὑτῶν τό τε καλῶς καὶ τὸ κακῶς ἕκαστος — ἔστι γὰρ καὶ ἔργον αὐτοῖς μετὰ τὰς ῥήσεις τοῦ ποιητοῦ· ἐν δὲ τῷ ἀληθεστέρῳ ποιήματι, ὅ τι μιμοῦνται κατὰ μέρος ἄνθρωποι ποιητικὴν ἔχοντες φύσιν, ψυχὴ μὲν ὑποκρίνεται, ἃ δ’ ὑποκρίνεται λαβοῦσα παρὰ τοῦ ποιητοῦ, ὥσπερ οἱ τῇδε ὑποκριταὶ τὰ προσωπεῖα, τὴν ἐσθῆτα, τοὺς κροκωτοὺς καὶ τὰ ῥάκη, οὕτω καὶ ψυχὴ αὐτὴ τὰς τύχας οὐ λαβοῦσα εἰκῇ· κατὰ λόγον δὲ καὶ αὗται· καὶ ἐναρμοσαμένη ταύτας σύμφωνος γίνεται καὶ συνέταξεν ἑαυτὴν τῷ δράματι καὶ τῷ λόγῳ παντί· εἶτα οἷον φθέγγεται τὰς πράξεις καὶ τὰ ἄλλα, ὅσα ἂν ψυχὴ κατὰ τρόπον τὸν ἑαυτῆς ποιήσειεν, ὥσπερ τινὰ ᾠδήν.
In human plays the poet has supplied the words, but each actor has from himself and of himself his acting well or badly—for they have work to do, too, beyond the poet’s lines. But in the truer poem, which men with a poetic nature imitate in part, soul is the actor, and what it acts it has received from the poet. Just as actors here receive their masks and costume, the saffron robes and the rags, so soul itself receives its fortunes, and not at random: these too accord with rational principle. And having fitted these on, it comes into tune and has ordered itself into the play and the whole rational principle. Then it voices, as it were, its actions and everything else a soul would do in its own manner, like a kind of song.
καὶ ὡς ὁ φθόγγος καὶ τὸ σχῆμα παρ’ αὑτοῦ καλὸν ἢ αἰσχρὸν καὶ ἢ κόσμον προσέθηκεν, ὡς δόξειεν ἄν, εἰς τὸ ποίημα ἢ προσθεὶς τὴν αὑτοῦ τῆς φωνῆς κάκην οὐκ ἐποίησε μὲν τὸ δρᾶμα ἕτερον ἢ οἷον ἦν, αὐτὸς δὲ ἀσχήμων ἐφάνη, ὁ δὲ ποιητὴς τοῦ δράματος ἀπέπεμψε κατ’ ἀξίαν ἀτιμάσας καὶ τοῦτο ἔργον ποιῶν ἀγαθοῦ κριτοῦ, τὸν δὲ ἤγαγεν εἰς μείζους τιμὰς καί, εἰ ἔχοι, ἐπὶ τὰ καλλίω δράματα, τὸν δὲ ἕτερον, εἴ που εἶχε χείρονα, τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον εἰσελθοῦσα εἰς τόδε τὸ πᾶν ποίημα καὶ μέρος ἑαυτὴν ποιησαμένη τοῦ δράματος εἰς ὑπόκρισιν τὸ εὖ ἢ τὸ κακῶς εἰσενεγκαμένη παρ’ αὑτῆς καὶ ἐν τῇ εἰσόδῳ συνταχθεῖσα καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα χωρὶς ἑαυτῆς καὶ τῶν ἔργων αὑτῆς λαβοῦσα δίκας τε καὶ τιμὰς αὖ ἔχει.
An actor, by his own voice and bearing, is fine or ugly. Either he adds an adornment to the poem, as it would seem; or, adding the badness of his own voice, he does not make the play other than it was, but he himself is seen to be graceless, and the poet of the play sends him off in disgrace, as he deserves, doing the work of a good judge, while he promotes the other to greater honors and, if he has them, to finer plays, and the first, if he had worse plays somewhere, to these. In the same way soul enters into this poem that is the All and makes itself a part of the play. It brings to the performance, from itself, its acting well or badly; it is placed in the cast at its entrance, and receives everything else apart from itself and its own works; and then in turn it receives penalties and honors.
πρόσεστι δέ τι τοῖς ὑποκριταῖς ἅτε ἐν μείζονι τόπῳ ἢ κατὰ σκηνῆς μέτρον ὑποκρινομένοις καὶ τοῦ ποιητοῦ παντὸς τούτου ποιοῦντος κυρίους καὶ δυνάμεως οὔσης μείζονος ἐπὶ πολλὰ ἰέναι εἴδη τόπων τιμὰς καὶ ἀτιμίας ὁρίζουσι τῷ συνεπιλαμβάνειν καὶ αὐτοὺς ταῖς τιμαῖς καὶ ἀτιμίαις ἁρμόζοντος ἑκάστου τόπου τοῖς ἤθεσιν, ὡς συμφωνεῖν τῷ τοῦ παντὸς λόγῳ ἐναρμοζομένου κατὰ δίκην ἑκάστου τοῖς μέρεσι τοῖς δεξομένοις, ὥσπερ χορδῆς ἑκάστης εἰς τὸν οἰκεῖον καὶ προσήκοντα τόπον ταττομένης κατὰ λόγον τὸν τοῦ φθέγγεσθαι, ὁποῖόν ἐστιν αὐτῇ τὸ τῆς δυνάμεως εἰς τοῦτο.
But these actors have something more, since they act in a greater space than a stage’s measure, and the poet of this whole makes them masters; and since they have a greater power to go to many kinds of places, they themselves determine honors and dishonors, because they themselves contribute to their honors and dishonors. Each place is fitted to their characters, so as to be in tune with the rational principle of the All, each one being justly fitted to the parts that will receive it—just as each string is set in its own proper and fitting place according to the ratio of its sounding, whatever the power it has for this.
καὶ γὰρ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ τὸ πρέπον καὶ τὸ καλόν, εἰ ἕκαστος οὗ δεῖ τετάξεται φθεγγόμενος κακὰ ἐν τῷ σκότῳ καὶ τῷ ταρτάρῳ· ἐνταῦθα γὰρ καλὸν τὸ οὕτω φθέγγεσθαι· καὶ τὸ ὅλον τοῦτο καλὸν οὐκ, εἰ λίθος εἴη ἕκαστος, ἀλλ’ εἰ τὸν φθόγγον τὸν αὑτοῦ εἰσφερόμενος συντελοῖ εἰς μίαν ἁρμονίαν ζωὴν καὶ αὐτὸς φωνῶν, ἐλάττω δὲ καὶ χείρω καὶ ἀτελεστέραν· ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ἐν σύριγγι φωνὴ μία, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐλάττων τις οὖσα καὶ ἀμυδρὰ πρὸς ἁρμονίαν τῆς πάσης σύριγγος συντελεῖ, ὅτι μεμέρισται ἡ ἁρμονία εἰς οὐκ ἴσα μέρη καὶ ἄνισοι μὲν οἱ φθόγγοι πάντες, ὁ δὲ τέλειος εἷς ἐκ πάντων.
For in the whole there is fittingness and beauty if each is placed where he should be, uttering evil things in the darkness and in Tartarus; for there it is beautiful to utter in that way. And this whole is beautiful not if each were a stone, but if each, bringing in his own note, contributes to one harmony, voicing a life himself too, though a lesser, worse and less complete one. In the same way, in a panpipe there is not one sound: even a lesser and faint one contributes to the harmony of the whole pipe, because the harmony is divided into unequal parts, and all the notes are unequal, while the complete note is one, made of them all.
καὶ δὴ καὶ ὁ λόγος ὁ πᾶς εἷς, μεμέρισται δὲ οὐκ εἰς ἴσα· ὅθεν καὶ τοῦ παντὸς διάφοροι τόποι, βελτίους καὶ χείρους, καὶ ψυχαὶ οὐκ ἴσαι ἐναρμόττουσιν οὕτω τοῖς οὐκ ἴσοις καὶ οὕτω καὶ ἐνταῦθα συμβαίνει καὶ τοὺς τόπους ἀνομοίους καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς οὐ τὰς αὐτάς, ἀλλ’ ἀνίσους οὔσας καὶ ἀνομοίους τοὺς τρόπους ἐχούσας, οἷον κατὰ σύριγγος ἤ τινος ἄλλου ὀργάνου ἀνομοιότητας, ἐν τόποις τε πρὸς ἀλλήλας διαφέρουσιν εἶναι [καὶ] καθ’ ἕκαστον τόπον τὰ αὑτῶν συμφώνως καὶ τοῖς τόποις καὶ τῷ ὅλῳ φθεγγομένας. καὶ τὸ κακῶς αὐταῖς ἐν καλῷ κατὰ τὸ πᾶν κείσεται καὶ τὸ παρὰ φύσιν τῷ παντὶ κατὰ φύσιν καὶ οὐδὲν ἧττον φθόγγος ἐλάττων.
So too the whole rational principle is one, but divided into unequal parts. Hence the All, too, has different places, better and worse, and unequal souls fit in accordingly with the unequal places. And so it turns out here too that the places are unlike, and the souls are not the same but unequal and of unlike character, as with the unlike parts of a panpipe or some other instrument; and that they are in places that differ from one another, [and] in each place utter their own notes in tune both with the places and with the whole. Their badness will be set within beauty as regards the All, and what is contrary to nature for them will be according to nature for the All; and it is nonetheless a lesser note.
ἀλλ’ οὐ χεῖρον πεποίηκε τὸ ὅλον οὕτω φθεγγομένη, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ὁ δήμιος πονηρὸς ὢν χείρω πεποίηκε τὴν εὐνομουμένην πόλιν, εἰ δεῖ καὶ ἄλλῃ χρῆσθαι εἰκόνι. δεῖ γὰρ καὶ τούτου ἐν πόλει, (δεῖ δὲ καὶ ἀνθρώπου τοιούτου πολλάκις,) καὶ καλῶς καὶ οὗτος κεῖται.
But the soul that sounds this way has not made the whole worse, just as the executioner, wicked as he is, has not made the well-governed city worse—if we may use another image too. The city needs him too (and it often needs a man of that kind too), and he too is well placed.
χείρους δὲ καὶ βελτίους ψυχαὶ αἱ μὲν καὶ δι’ ἄλλας αἰτίας, αἱ δὲ οἷον ἐξ ἀρχῆς οὐ πᾶσαι ἴσαι· ἀνὰ λόγον γὰρ καὶ αὗται τῷ λόγῳ μέρη οὐκ ἴσα, ἐπείπερ διέστησαν. χρὴ δὲ ἐνθυμεῖσθαι καὶ τὰ δεύτερα καὶ τὰ τρίτα καὶ τὸ μὴ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐνεργεῖν ἀεὶ μέρεσι ψυχήν. ἀλλὰ πάλιν αὖ καὶ ὧδε λεκτέον· πολλὰ γὰρ ἐπιποθεῖ εἰς σαφήνειαν ὁ λόγος. μὴ γὰρ οὐδὲν δεῖ ἐπεισάγειν τοιούτους ὑποκριτάς, οἳ ἄλλο τι φθέγξονται ἢ τὰ τοῦ ποιητοῦ, ὥσπερ ἀτελοῦς παρ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ δράματος ὄντος αὐτοὶ ἀποπληροῦντες τὸ ἐλλεῖπον καὶ τοῦ ποιήσαντος διὰ μέσου κενοὺς ποιήσαντος τόπους, ὡς τῶν ὑποκριτῶν οὐχ ὑποκριτῶν ἐσομένων, ἀλλὰ μέρους τοῦ ποιητοῦ, καὶ προειδότος ἃ φθέγξονται, ἵν’ οὕτω τὰ λοιπὰ συνείρειν καὶ τὰ ἐφεξῆς οἷός τε ᾖ.
Souls are worse and better, some for other reasons as well, and some because, as it were, they are not all equal from the beginning; for they too are unequal parts, in proportion to the rational principle, since they have become separated. We must also bear in mind the second and third levels, and that soul does not always act with the same parts. But then again we must also put it like this, for the argument needs much more to be clear. Perhaps we need not bring in actors of the kind who will utter something other than the poet’s words—as if the play were incomplete in itself and they were filling in what is lacking, the poet having left empty places in the middle—as though the actors were going to be not actors but a part of the poet, and he knew in advance what they would say, so as to be able to string together the rest and what follows.
καὶ γὰρ τὰ ἐφεξῆς ἐν τῷ παντὶ καὶ [τὰ] ἑπόμενα τοῖς κακοῖς τῶν ἔργων λόγοι καὶ κατὰ λόγον· οἷον ἐκ μοιχείας καὶ αἰχμαλώτου ἀγωγῆς παῖδες κατὰ φύσιν βελτίους καὶ ἄνδρες, εἰ τύχοι, καὶ πόλεις ἄλλαι ἀμείνους τῶν πεπορθημένων ὑπὸ ἀνδρῶν πονηρῶν. εἰ οὖν ἄτοπος ἡ εἰσαγωγὴ τῶν ψυχῶν, αἳ δὴ τὰ πονηρά, αἱ δὲ τὰ χρηστὰ ἐργάσονται — ἀποστερήσομεν γὰρ τὸν λόγον καὶ τῶν χρηστῶν ἀφαιροῦντες αὐτοῦ τὰ πονηρά — τί κωλύει καὶ τὰ τῶν ὑποκριτῶν ἔργα μέρη ποιεῖν, ὥσπερ τοῦ δράματος ἐκεῖ, οὕτω καὶ τοῦ ἐν τῷ παντὶ λόγου, καὶ ἐνταῦθα καὶ τὸ καλῶς καὶ τὸ ἐναντίον, ὥστε εἰς ἕκαστον τῶν ὑποκριτῶν οὕτω παρ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου, ὅσῳ τελειότερον τοῦτο τὸ δρᾶμα καὶ πάντα παρ’ αὐτοῦ. ἀλλὰ τὸ κακὸν ποιῆσαι ἵνα τί;
For in the All too, what follows and comes after bad deeds are rational principles and according to rational principle. From adultery and the carrying off of captives, for example, come children who are by nature better, and men too, it may be, and other cities better than those sacked by wicked men. If, then, it is absurd to bring in souls, some of which will do the wicked things and some the good—for we shall deprive the rational principle of the good things too if we take the wicked ones away from it—what prevents us from making the actors’ deeds parts as well, as they are parts of the play there, so of the rational principle in the All; and from saying that here too both acting well and its opposite come from it, so that they reach each of the actors in this way from the rational principle itself, all the more since this play is more complete and everything comes from it? But to make evil—what for?
καὶ αἱ ψυχαὶ δὲ οὐδὲν ἔτι ἐν τῷ παντὶ αἱ θειότεραι, ἀλλὰ μέρη λόγου πᾶσαι· καὶ ἢ οἱ λόγοι πάντες ψυχαί, ἢ διὰ τί οἱ μὲν ψυχαί, οἱ δὲ λόγοι μόνον [τοῦ] παντὸς ψυχῆς τινος ὄντος;
And then the more divine souls are no longer anything in the All; all of them are parts of the rational principle. And either all rational principles are souls, or why are some souls and others only rational principles, when [the] All belongs to some soul?