Passages similar to: The Six Enneads — On Providence (2)
Source passage
Neoplatonic
The Six Enneads
On Providence (2) (6)
But, if all this be true, how can evil fall within the scope of seership? The predictions of the seers are based on observation of the Universal Circuit: how can this indicate the evil with the good? Clearly the reason is that all contraries coalesce. Take, for example, Shape and Matter: the living being is a coalescence of these two; so that to be aware of the Shape and the Reason-Principle is to be aware of the Matter on which the Shape has been imposed. The living-being of the compound order is not present like the living being of the Intellectual order: in the compound entity, we are aware, at once, of the Reason-Principle and of the inferior element brought under form. Now the Universe is such a compound living thing: to observe, therefore, its content is to be aware not less of its lower elements than of the Providence which operates within it. This Providence reaches to all that comes into being; its scope therefore includes living things with their actions and states, the total of their history at once overruled by the Reason-Principle and yet subject in some degree to Necessity. These, then, are presented as mingled both by their initial nature and by the continuous process of their existence; and the Seer is not able to make a perfect discrimination setting on the one side Providence with all that happens under Providence and on the other side what the substrate communicates to its product. Such discrimination is not for a man, not for a wise man or a divine man: one may say it is the prerogative of a god. Not causes but facts lie in the Seer's province; his art is the reading of the scriptures of Nature which tell of the ordered and never condescend to the disorderly; the movement of the Universe utters its testimony to him and, before men and things reveal themselves, brings to light what severally and collectively they are. Here conspires with There and There with Here, elaborating together the consistency and eternity of a Kosmos and by their correspondences revealing the sequence of things to the trained observer- for every form of divination turns upon correspondences. Universal interdependence, there could not be, but universal resemblance there must. This probably is the meaning of the saying that Correspondences maintain the Universe. This is a correspondence of inferior with inferior, of superior with superior, eye with eye, foot with foot, everything with its fellow and, in another order, virtue with right action and vice with unrighteousness. Admit such correspondence in the All and we have the possibility of prediction. If the one order acts on the other, the relation is not that of maker to thing made- the two are coeval- it is the interplay of members of one living being; each in its own place and way moves as its own nature demands; to every organ its grade and task, and to every grade and task its effective organ.
It is necessary, however, to think that the soul which uses divination of this kind, not only becomes an auditor of the prediction, but also...
(1) It is necessary, however, to think that the soul which uses divination of this kind, not only becomes an auditor of the prediction, but also contributes in no small degree from itself to the consummation of it, and of what pertains to its operations. For this soul is coexcited and cooperates, and at the same time foreknows, through a certain necessary sympathy. Such a mode, therefore, of divination as this is entirely different from the divine and true mode, being alone able to predict respecting small and diurnal concerns, viz. respecting such as being placed in a divided nature, are borne along about generation, and which impart motions from themselves to those things that are able to receive them, and produce multiform passions in things which are naturally adapted to be copassive. Perfect foreknowledge, however, can never be effected through passion. For that which is itself especially immutable, immaterial, and entirely pure, is accustomed to apprehend the future; but that which is mingled with the most irrational and dark nature of a corporeal-formed and material essence is filled with abundant ignorance. An artificial apparatus, therefore, of this kind does not deserve to be called divination; nor is it proper to bestow much attention upon it, nor to believe in any other person who uses it, as if it possessed in itself a certain clear and known indication of truth. And thus much concerning divination of this kind.
If both the orders, those on the right and those on the left, are brought together with one another by the thought which is set between them, which...
(1) If both the orders, those on the right and those on the left, are brought together with one another by the thought which is set between them, which gives them their organization with each other, it happens that they both act with the same emulation of their deeds, with those of the right resembling those of the left, and those of the left resembling those of the right. And if at times the evil order begins to do evil in a foolish way, the order emulates, in the form of a man of violence, also doing what is evil, as if it were a power of a man of violence. At other times the foolish order attempts to do good, making itself like it, since the hidden order, too, is zealous to do it. Just as it is in the things which are established, so (it is) in the things which have come to be. Since they bring things unlike one another, those who were not instructed were unable to know the cause of the things which exist. Therefore, they have introduced other types (of explanation), some saying that it is according to providence that the things which exist have their being. These are the people who observe the stability and the conformity of the movement of creation. Others say that it is something alien. These are people who observe the diversity and the lawlessness and the evil of the powers. Others say that the things which exist are what is destined to happen. These are the people who were occupied with this matter. Others say that it is something in accordance with nature. Others say that it is a self-existent. The majority, however, all who have reached as far as the visible elements, do not know anything more than them.
Divine divination, therefore, which is conjoined with the Gods, alone truly imparts to us a divine life; since it participates of [divine]...
(1) Divine divination, therefore, which is conjoined with the Gods, alone truly imparts to us a divine life; since it participates of [divine] foreknowledge, and divine intellections, and renders us in reality divine. It likewise causes us to be genuine participants of the good , because the most blessed intellectual perception of the Gods is filled with all good. Hence those who possess this divination “ do not ,” as you conjecture, “ foresee future events, and are nevertheless unhappy .” For all divine foreknowledge is boniform. Nor “ do they foresee, indeed, what is future, but do not know how to use this knowledge properly .” For, together with the foreknowledge, they receive the beautiful itself, and true and appropriate order: and utility is also present with it. For the Gods, in conjunction with it, deliver a transcendent power of defence against the inconveniences which accede from nature. And when it is necessary to exercise virtue, and the ignorance of future events contributes to this, then the Gods conceal what will be for the sake of rendering the soul better. But when the ignorance of what is future does not at all contribute to this, and foreknowledge is advantageous to souls, for the sake of their salvation and reascent [to divinity], then the Gods insert the foreknowledge which pertains to divination in the penetralia of the essences of souls.
If some one, however, dismissing primordial causes, should refer divination to secondary offices, such as the motions of bodies, or the mutations of...
(3) If some one, however, dismissing primordial causes, should refer divination to secondary offices, such as the motions of bodies, or the mutations of passions, or certain other motions, or the energies of human life, or animal or physical reasons, and should think that in so doing he asserts something manifest; or if, considering the symmetries of these with reference to each other, as causes, he should apprehend that he can assign something accurate concerning divination, he wholly deviates from the truth. But the one right boundary, and the one principle of all these particulars, is by no means to produce without a cause the foreknowledge of futurity, from things which have no prescience in themselves, but to survey from the Gods who contain in themselves the terminations of all the knowledge of beings, divination distributed about the whole world, and about all the natures that are separately contained in it. For such a cause as this is primordial, and is especially most common, containing in itself primarily those things which it gives to its participants, and particularly imparting truth, of which divination is in want; and antecedently comprehending the essence and cause of future events, from which foreknowledge necessarily and incessantly proceeds. Let such a principle as this, therefore, be the origin in common of all divination, from which it is possible to discover scientifically all the species of it; which we shall now unfold, conformably to the questions proposed by you.
Through them, also, he inserts in us wisdom, and through every thing which is in the world excites our intellect to the truth of real beings, of...
(4) Through them, also, he inserts in us wisdom, and through every thing which is in the world excites our intellect to the truth of real beings, of things which are in generation, and of future events. From these things, therefore, I think it is manifest, that the mode of divination is perfectly contrary to what you suspected it to be. For it is of a ruling and primordial nature, of an unrestrained power, and transcendent nature, comprehending in itself all things, but not being comprehended by any thing, nor enclosed by its participants. For it ascends into, and rules over, all things simultaneously, and without circumscription, and collectively signifies future events. Hence, from what has been said, you may easily dissolve these vulgar doubts, which disturb most men, and may in a becoming manner elevate yourself to the intellectual, divine, and irreprehensible presignification of the Gods from all things. Through this, therefore, we have evinced, that divinity is not drawn down to the signs employed by divination.
It appears, therefore, that the divination of oracles accords with all the hypotheses which we have before adduced concerning prediction. For if a...
(1) It appears, therefore, that the divination of oracles accords with all the hypotheses which we have before adduced concerning prediction. For if a power of this kind was inseparable from the nature of places, and of the bodies which are the subjects of it, or proceeded according to a motion defined by number, it would not be able to foreknow, with invariable sameness, things which exist every where and always. But being separate and liberated from places and things which are measured by the numbers of time, and also from those which are detained in place, it is equally present with all things wherever they may be, and subsists simultaneously with all the natures that are produced according to time. It likewise comprehends in one the truth of all things, through its separate and transcendent essence.
Let us, therefore, pass on to the mode of divination which is effected through human art, and which possesses much of conjecture and opinion. But...
(1) Let us, therefore, pass on to the mode of divination which is effected through human art, and which possesses much of conjecture and opinion. But concerning this you say as follows: “ Some also establish the art of the investigation of futurity through the viscera, through birds, and through the stars .” And there are, indeed, many other arts of this kind, but the above are sufficient to exhibit the whole artificial species of divination. Universally, therefore, this art employs certain divine signs, which derive their completion from the Gods, according to various modes. But from divine portents, according to an alliance of things to the signs which are exhibited, art in a certain respect decides, and from certain probabilities conjecturally predicts. The Gods, therefore, produce the signs, either through nature, which is subservient both generally and particularly to the generation of effects; or through genesiurgic dæmons, who presiding over the elements of the universe, partial bodies, and every thing contained in the world, conduct with facility the phænomena, conformably to the will of the Gods. But these signs symbolically premanifest the decrees of divinity and of futurity, as Heraclitus says, “neither speaking nor concealing, but signifying;” because they express the mode of fabrication through premanifestation. As, therefore, the Gods generate all things through forms , in a similar manner they signify all things through signs, impressed as it were by a seal ( δια συνθηματων ). Perhaps, likewise, they render by this mean our intelligence more acute. And thus much has been said by us in common concerning the whole of this kind of human art.