Thursday, January 27, 2011

Angels and Neoplatonism -- Selected Conclusions



24.3. The name of God applies simply and absolutely to one, who is the God
of gods; simply not absolutely to anything supersubstantial; according to
essence to anything intellectual; according to participation to divine souls;
according to contact and conjunction to demons; according to similitude to
human souls.

24.5. In intelligibles number does not exist but multitude, and the paternal and
maternal cause of numbers; but in intellectuals number exists according to
essence and multitude communicatively.

24.7. By the one/many, whole/parts, finite/infinite, in the Parmenides, we
have to understand the second order of the intelligible-intellectual trinity, fol-
lowing the triple division of that order.

24.17. Granted, as theology teaches, the divine hierarchies are distinct, it
should be understood that all exist in all in their own mode.

24.18. Just as the paternal property exists only in intelligibles, so the produc-
tive or formative property exists only in the new gods; the paternal and
productive property simultaneously in the intelligible exemplar; the productive
and paternal property in the demiurge.

24.21. It is the property of the supermundane gods to assimilate and transmit
to beings that sympathy and reciprocal communion that they possess firom
their similarity to one another.

24.55. Just as a perfect understanding should be sought firom intelligibles, so
the power that leads upwards should be sought firom intellectuals; an operation
that is absolute and cut off firom matter firom the ultramundanes; a winged life
fi-om the mundanes; the true expression of the divine firom the angelic choirs;
its fulfillment, whose inspiration comes firom the gods, firom good demons.

SIX CONCLUSIONS ACCORDING TO THE OPINION OF THE CHALDEAN THEOLOGIANS.

26.1. The principal order of separated things is not the first order, as the Egyp-
tians suppose, but over it exists the fontal order, unitively exalted over all.

26.2. Fate is not the necessity of the first seminal power but is an intellectually
participated habit of animate reasons — unbending in respect to superior things,
inevitable in respect to inferior things.

26.3. The substantial quahties of visible things do not reflect downwards from
a particular separated power, as the Egyptians believe, but firom the first recep-
tacle of the font of hght, through animate splendor.

26.4. Partial souls are not illuminated immediately by the splendor of intellect,
as the Egyptians say, but through the mediation of total demonical souls.

26.5. The intelligible order does not subsist within the intellectual order, as
Ahmose the Egyptian said, but over the whole intellectual hierarchy, unparti-
cipatively hidden in the abyss of the first unity, and under the cloud of the
first darkness.

26.6. Whatever exists firom the moon upwards is pure light, and that is the
substance of the mundane spheres. (345)

FOURTEEN CONCLUSIONS ACCORDING TO
THE MATHEMATICS OF PYTHAGORAS.

25.2. In participated numbers some are images of numbers, others the unions
of images.

The Magic in the Orphic Hymns

10>7. Anyone who does not know how to intellectuaHze sensible properties
perfectly through the method of secret analogizing understands nothing sound
from the Orphic hymns.

10>9. Guardians in Orpheus and powers in Dionysius are the same.

10>13. Typhon in Orpheus and Samael in the Cabala are the same.

NINE CONCLUSIONS ACCORDING TO IAMBLICHUS.


23.1. The speculative intellect is a separated form in regard to substance and
mode [of operation]. The practical intellect is separated in regard to substance,
conjoined in regard to mode. The rational soul is conjoined according to sub-
stance, separated according to mode. The irrational soul is conjoined according
to substance and mode.

23.2. The demiurge of the sensible world is the seventh of the intellectual
hierarchy.

23.3. Corporeal nature exists in the intellect immovably, in the first soul
through itself movably, in the animal soul through itself movably participa-
tively, in heaven through another movably in an orderly way, below the
moon through another movably in a disorderly way.

23.4. The elements are found in the eight heavenly bodies in two celestial
modes, which anyone will find if he proceeds in reverse order through that
numeration of Binah. (265)

Farmer: Hints as to Pico's sense here can be gathered from 11>67 in his Cabalistic theses.

23.6. When the soul is assimilated to the intellect in an elevated fashion,
motion in the vehicle becomes perfectly circular.

23.7. There is no force in the celestial stars that in itself is evil.

23.9. unparticipated soul


Angels in Pico's 900 Conclusions (includes the 2 Syrianus gems from "doctrine of Plato" section)
Thomas Aquinas

2.18. Aeviturnity exists subjectively in more beatified angels.

2.21. No multiplicity of angels exists in the same species.

Henry of Ghent
5.6. Operations of angels are measured in discrete time.

5.7. Angels understand through a knowing habit that is co-natural with them.

Giles of Rome

6.5. Angels were not created in grace.

6.6. The [fallen] angel is obstinate and impenitent, because specific divine
forces were withdrawn from it. (110)

6.7. A superior angel illuminates an inferior not because it presents to it a
luminous object, or because it particularizes and divides for the other what is
united in itself, but because it strengthens and fortifies the intellect of the
inferior.

Proclus
24.41. Insofar as the demiurge in the form of the one sees the oneness of what
is essentially one, he makes the mundane gods firom that part. Insofar as he
sees the being of what is essentially one, he makes angels in the same part.
Insofar as he sees the oneness of one being, he makes demons there. Insofar as
he sees the existence of one being, he makes animals in the same place.

Hebrew Cabalist Wisemen

28.2. There are nine hierarchies of angels, whose names are the Cherubim,
Serafim, Hasmalim, Haiot, Aralim, Tarsisim, Ofanim, Tefsarim, Isim.

28.28. By the winged creatures who were created on the fifth day we should
understand the mundane angels who appear to men, not those who do not
appear except in spirit.

28.30. No angel having six wings is ever transformed.

Paradoxical Reconciliative Conclusions

1>8. In this article taken from their commentaries [on the Sentences], Whether
an angel can desire divine equality in a simple sense, Thomas and Scotus do not
disagree.

1>17. On the way in which angels exist in place, Thomas and Scotus do not
differ.

Philosophical Conclusions Dissenting from the Common Philosophy

2>65. Granted that the intellective power in us is an accident, in angels it is
a substance.

Paradoxical Conclusions Introducing New Doctrines in Philosophy

3>12. Just as an angel is necessarily composed out of essence and existence, so
the soul is necessarily composed out of substance and accident.

3>43. The act by which the angelic and rational nature is bestowed with
the greatest happiness is an act neither of the intellect nor of the will, but
is the union of the unity that exists in the otherness of the soul with the
unity that exists without otherness.

3>49. It is more improperly said that God is intellect or that which has
intellect, than that the rational soul is an angel.

3>63. Although in the soul there exists in act an intellectual nature, through
which it convenes with the angel, just as a rational nature exists in it, through
which it is distinguished from that, there is nothing intrinsic in it through
which it is able, without the appropriate image, to understand something dis-
tinct from itself.

Theological Conclusions Opposed to the Common Mode of Speaking
4>17. The first sin of the angel was the sin of omission, the second the sin of
voluptuousness, the third the sin of pride.

Conclusions on the Doctrine of Plato
5>13. If we follow the theology of Syrianus, it is rational [to claim] that priests
in the ecclesiastical hierarchy correspond to the analogous powers in the celes-
tial hierarchy.

5>21. When Plato says that Love was bom from the union of Poverty and
Plenty in the garden of Jove, on the birthday of Venus while the gods feasted,
he means only this, that then the first love, that is, the desire of beauty, was
bom in the angelic mind when in it the splendor of ideas, though imperfecdy,
began to shine.

5>17. If we follow the doctrine of Syrianus, it is appropriate after the unity of
total intellection, which is also divided triply into substantial, potential, and
operative intellection, to posit another triad of intellection, namely, partial,
participated, and imagerial.

5>26. Beauty exists in God as its cause, in the total intellect truly essen-
tially totally, in the particular intellect truly partially essentially, in the
rational soul truly participationally, in the visible accidents of the heavens
imagerially essentially totally, in subcelestial visible qualities imagerially
partially essentially, in quantities imagerially participationally.

Questions to Which He Will Respond through Numbers

7a>28. What is the difference between the mode of understanding of angels
and of rational souls. (710)
7a>29. What is the difference between the mode of understanding of God and
of angels.
7a>30. WTiether the angelic nature is in some way all things.

Farmer 70-71
11>10. That which among the Cabalists is called Metatron
is without doubt that which is called Pallas by Orpheus, the paternal mind
by Zoroaster, the son of God by Mercury, wisdom by Pythagoras, the
intelligible sphere by Parmenides.

Pico conclusions -- Ammonius, Simplicius, Alexander, Plotinus

AMMONIUS.

16.1. The definition of the soul given by Aristotle...should be accepted causally, not formally.

SIMPLICIUS.

17.2-6 the active intellect / possible intellect.


ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS.

18.6. When Aristotle in the ninth book of the Metaphysics says that separated
and divine things are either totally known or totally unknown to us, this
should be understood of that cognition achieved by those who have finally at-
tained the highest actuation of the intellect.

THEMISTIUS.

19.1. There are many possible intellects that are illuminated only. There are
also many participated active intellects that are illuminating and illuminated.
But there is only one active intellect that is illuminating only.

19.2. I believe that the active intellect that is illuminating only in Themistius
is the same as Metatron in the Cabala.

PLOTINUS

20.7. Man's greatest happiness exists when our particular intellect is fully
conjoined to the first and total intellect.

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