PROCLUS, THE PLATONIC SUCCESSOR

the fountain from which they are generated,—
for it is not lawful that the first causes of beings
should be the principle of evils,—but [it is
rather a fountain of good] as imparting to evils
end and bound, and illuminating their obscurity
by its own beneficent light a . For evil, indeed,
is infinite from partial causes, but receives an
end from wholes; and on this account it is evil
to these causes, but to wholes is not evil. For
the infinite in evils is not according to power,
—since thus, by the infinitude of themselves,
a It appears to me that Morbeka, in his translation of the
above sentence, has either omitted or altered something
which Proclus said. For how can an adorning and
arranging cause be called in any way the fountain of
evils? I have therefore added [it is rather a fountain of
good].
[142] they would participate of the nature of
good,—but it is in consequence of a defect of
power. And evils are in a certain respect
corroborated by good through the participation
of bound.
The authors of these assertions, therefore, thus
conceiving, and being persuaded that the
generation of evils is not inordinate, make God
to be the cause of the order of these. But it
appears to me, that not the Barbarians only, but
likewise the most eminent of the Greeks,
ascribing to the Gods a knowledge of all
things,—both of such as are evil, and such as
are good,—ascribe the generation of things
essentially good to the Gods, and also of such
as are evil, so far as they receive a portion of
good, and the power of existing, in order to
accomplish a certain end. For, as we have
often said, evil is not evil without a mixture [of
good]; but it is in one respect evil, and in
another good. And so far', indeed, as it is
good, it is from the Gods; but so far as evil, it
derives its subsistence from another, and that