Taylor - Theoretic Arithmetic.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

dissimilarly similar to divinity. It is similar, so far as it alone
subsists by a negation of all things. But it is dissimilarly similar,
because divinity is better and beyond all things, but matter
is worse than, and below all things.
Again, when they said that the monad in reality mingled
and is the recipient of all things, this likewise was asserted by
them from the analogy of the monad to deity; for all things
are mingled by and comprehended in the ineffable nature of
divinity. But they called it chaos from resembling the infinite,
for chaos, according to Pythagoras," is analogous to infinity, in
the same manner as ether is said by him to correspond to
bound. And bound and infinity are the two great principles cf
things immediately posterior to the ineffable. For the same
reason they called it a chasm. But they called it confusion,
commixture, obscurity, and darkness, because in the ineffable
principle of things of which it is the image, all things are profoundly
one without any separation or distinction, as being all
things prior to all, and in consequence of being involved in unfathomable
depths, are concealed in unknown obscurity and
darkness. Hence, as we are informed by Damascius in his admirable
MS. treatise ?FEPC ~ P X ~ the V , Egyptians asserted nothing
of the first principle of things, but celebrated it as a thrice unknown
darkness transcending all intellectual perception. ~V~PVqxagrv
rporqv ap~qv QXOTO~ UZEQ ~(XOQV VO'IJGCV, 0x0~0~ ayvamov, TQIG
7097~ ~VTPILOV~~S. AS Tartarus too subsists at the extremity
of the universe, in a descending series, it is dissimilarly similar
to the ineffable which is the extremity of things in an ascending
series. But when they called the monad Styx, it was in
consequence of looking to its immutable nature. For Styx, according
to its first subsistence, is the cause by which divine natures
retain an immutable sameness of essence; for this is the
occult meaning of the fabulous assertion, that the Gods swear
* See the notes to my translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics.