MATERIAL Y METODOS

Chapter 34. On the First Differentiation

■ The fi rst part of the chapter makes a prima facie case for procession, relying on the authority of Plato’s treatment of the form of the Good, and on the succession of henads from the One that Damascius has already outlined. But the bulk of the chapter is given over to an analysis of the fi rst principles, beginning from the One but descending to unifi ed substance or subsistence, throughout which Damascius denies the possibility of any differentiation arising. The fi nal part of the chapter returns once more to Platonic texts, to the Republic and then again to the Philebus, where Damascius attempts to show that Plato simply defers any discussion about the origins of differentia- tion from the One. ■

(I 99) What follows after this discussion is an inquiry into whether there is a procession from the One into its subsequents, and of what kind it is, or whether the One gives no share of itself to them. One might reasonably raise puzzles about either position. For if the One gives no share of itself to its products, how has it produced them as so unlike itself, that they enjoy nothing of its nature? How can it be the cause of them through its own nature, since they do not partici- pate in that nature? Again, how do they revert to it, and how can they desire it, when they are unable to participate in it, since the One is in every way unparticipated? And how can the things that proceed be maintained if they are not completely rooted in their own cause?

Does not Socrates say in the Republic that the truth is a light1 proceeding from the One, connected to the intelligible and

intellectual? Therefore Socrates knows that this light has come from the One and also that it participates in the One. But if even matter bears a fi nal trace of the One, certainly what is prior to matter has various kinds of participations in the One, that are nevertheless distinctive for each being (I 100), according to the degree of the reality of each. [Another argument for procession] is that], for one who investigates the question, the One is manifest in all beings. For each individual and universal, each mortal being and each sempeternal being, and each entity either bereft of quality or endowed with quality, does not just belong to the many, but also [to] the one prior to the many. Prior to the divisible there is the indivisible, prior to the distinct there is the Unifi ed. The all of each being is the co-aggregate of all things that is prior to all things, which we refer to as the Unifi ed, but we designate as Being, and prior to the Unifi ed, there is the One-all that is stationed in the One, just as Being is all things in the Uni- fi ed, and as all things that are in [a state of ] differentiation are in that which is distinct. Therefore in each all there is an analogue of the One before all things, and this is the procession of the One into all things, the perfect reality that is in the One that is prior to the reality of each thing, or rather it is the root of each reality.2

But if the One proceeds, one can inquire in what way it proceeds.3 For what will be the source of distinction in its case? Every procession takes place together with distinction, whereas multiplicity is the cause of every distinction. Distinction is always the cause of multiplicity, whereas the One is before mul- tiplicity. If the One is also before the One in the sense that the One is taken as one without [others],4 then a fortiori the One is before the many. Therefore the nature of the One is entirely without distinction. And therefore the One cannot proceed. All things proceed from the One into another nature, though, of course, the One has produced them, and yet the One itself does not proceed into anything, nor does it share any part of itself with anything. It is necessary that that which is given as a share (I 101) is subordinate to that which gives it, and what is given is not that which gives it, but is like the giver, and not even that in an absolute way, but is in some measure like that. But self-extension or measures or anything else of this nature, are discerned where there is multi- plicity, that is, they occur together with distinction and as an outfl ow or change in the same thing, even if no otherness befalls it. Yet that nature is before any multiplicity of any kind, or any trace of multiplicity. For when the many arise, then procession too fi nds place, whether that procession involves similar or dissimilar orders. Therefore the One is entirely without procession, nor does it emit an illumination from itself into any being that belongs to the all, for illu- mination too is distinct from that which illuminates.

Again, not even Being can proceed, the Being that we posit as entirely unifi ed, that is. This Being that is prior to any differentiation associated with substance “rests, sacred, without movement,” as Plato says.5 The Being that is absolutely unifi ed has come to rest and in no way suffers any differentiation;

therefore it could not make itself distinct within the procession of the many. For it could surely not be distinguished as belonging in the procession of what- ever is prior to the Unifi ed, since they would [already be Being] nor of course into the procession of what arises after it. How could the second act on the fi rst or the effect on the cause? Therefore not even Being proceeds into many through subordination or through division or through any kind of procession at all.

Thus Parmenides says: You shall not cut off what-is from holding fast to what-is.6

That is why Parmenides also said that Being is One. Therefore one cannot say that Being proceeds, since it cannot be cut [into many] either. A fortiori, then, neither can the One proceed.

(I 102) Moreover, whatever proceeds and whatever comes to be in individu- als as a measure or trace of the One, is prior to that which arises through a procession from other origins. Hence [the beings that proceed from the One] are either entirely unifi ed with each other with the result that the One is not cut off from the One (but on this alternative all things will be one, and all will be nothing other than the One itself) or else, these individuals are distinct from each other. Now, either they are uncaused and arise spontaneously, which is absurd, or else they are from a cause. And again, either their cause is the mul- tiplicity after the One, in which case the procession will not be native to the One, but to multiplicity, or else their cause will be the One, and yet how can the One be subject to differentiation? Or perhaps the cause is something prior to the One; as for example we think is the case with the One that is called all things before all things, in the sense that it is not one from among all things. Rather it is all things before all things, as we were saying, whereas what we were in search of was the procession of all things. For that One is neither capa- ble of making distinctions nor is it subject to distinction. Nor is it many, nor does it cause the many, nor is it even One, nor again does it cause the One, so that neither does it proceed nor remain nor revert, since it is all things precisely insofar as it is beyond all things.

In addition to these arguments, if the measure of that nature proceeds and is in individual beings or in individual phenomenal existences, clearly it imparts the defi ning nature to each thing. If it imparts nothing to the perish- able and mortal, how can a cause for these be defended? And yet if it does bestow something on them, it is not the same that it bestows on eternal or on perpetually existent beings. Therefore what it imparts is perishable and mor- tal. And yet what destruction could arise from the One, or from that which is not even One, which is not even capable of being indestructible? The sem- peternal and eternity itself are many times removed from the One. (I 103) Therefore, the same diffi culty remains for us in the case of the fi rst being, as well. For this, too, is prior to eternity, so that it must be prior to the eternal, and how much more therefore will it be prior to the sempeternal. It is as

remote as possible, accordingly, from that which is perishable. And so it could not be the case that the echo of the One in any individual perishable being is itself perishable.

But perhaps the echo of the One functions like matter7 (since it is on the this side of the other beings,8 and is so to speak, a kind of matter or is matter itself; in that case, the one is somehow matter, whereas Being is prior to mat- ter). It is both perishable and imperishable potentially, while it is neither of them in act. Still, our discussion is not about the echo of the One that has come to reside here, but about the One that is before matter and before all that is in potential, and fi nds its place among the Forms themselves.

Clearly the intermediates prior to the ultimate forms participate in the single principle that governs the wholes. Perhaps, then, these intermediates are imperishable, and at different times different of the perishable pleromas converge around them, changing in proximity with what cannot change.

But if this were true, then there could be no particular participation belonging to each individual, as for example the participation of this particu- lar reed writing these things, or as for example of this particular paper having these things written on it. Participation in a particular good is requi- site, unless the intermediates have not proceeded from the principle without differentiation.

Another question: does the perishable insofar as it is perishable participate in the One or not participate in the One? For if it does not, then the One could not be the cause of the perishable, whereas if it does, then what the One imparts will also be perishable, and the same syllogism can be formulated concerning the imperishable, as well. Perhaps participation belongs only to beings that are sempeternal, as for example, when we speak of the participation that belongs to the wholes?

(I 104)In the fi rst place, as has been said, not even the sempeternal belongs to the One. And then again, what is the reasoning here; would there be partici- pation in some elements of the One, while not in others? And yet the One is entirely beyond both perishable and imperishable.

Perhaps, then, all things do participate in the One, but the participation is just single, without division, being present as a whole to all things, as for exam- ple the light of the sun is present as the same light to all things,9 even if it is not present as a whole, since of course sunlight is divisible and corporeal. Because the One is beyond indivisible being as well as beyond totality, it likely is partici- pated by totality, while differentiation belongs to the lower order, to that which participates in the One, and not in the participated. At any rate, this is Plotinus’ solution: Plotinus holds that this is how we should understand Being, namely, that it is present as a whole every where universally, in each and every individ- ual member of the multiplicity.10 But even if participation is itself without divisions and there is a single participation by which all things participate in Being and in the One, since the manner of participation is the same in each

case, nevertheless, as participation, it both proceeds from subsistence and is differentiated from subsistence.

What, then, differentiates the second from the fi rst? For it makes no differ- ence whether the One is differentiated from the One or whether the many are distinguished successively in terms of their differentiation. That nature [in any case] denies this differentiation. Is participation in the One no other than its [own] subsistence, since the One does not bestow on its participants anything other than what it itself is?

But this relationship is more appropriate to matter, and to composite elements more generally. For these too bestow themselves on that (I 105) which is composed of them, becoming a kind of matter for what is composed of elements. And even if one does not agree with this, still matter possesses noth- ing beyond itself that it may bestow upon the world, and so it bestows itself.

[We respond to this objection as follows]: matter is taken here in the lower sense, whereas the One bestows itself on each and all in the superior sense, that is, not as matter, nor even as form, but as the primary participation in the primary cause, which is to say, as the subsistence abiding in the participants. This subsistence refuses even to be differentiated from them, even if they pro- ceed from it to the extent that they participate in the multiplicity.

Therefore there is no procession from that subsistence, either: rather the procession is generated from multiplicity, whereas all things arise from sub- sistence as one, and again, as Being, just as the root alone is before the growth of the branches, and is already the tree as a whole, which [arises] from the crown of the root. Again, it is like a center in which all the terminal points of the many lines [converge] and all the lines are together simultaneously in the One prior to the spatial distance that belongs to the indefi nite extension of the lines. The distance arises after the center, and the center is not its cause, but rather the cause is the fl ow of that which is in contact with the One.11 There too there is a variegated cause that originates the processions, in the sense that substantial procession is from the substantial cause, and again, unifi ed proces- sion is from the unifi ed cause.

These things, to be sure, are sacred and beyond the ordinary: nor do they agree with our conceptions, which do not share this nature, for our conceptions constantly invent the idea that all things are products of the One, and that the trace of the cause is immanent in the effects, and is not only present as transcend- ing the effect. [We imagine that] this, the trace of the One, is substantialized along with Being. Since if the light of the sun (I 106) is universally available for partici- pation, still there is already a sunlike luminosity in the eyes that belongs to them inherently and not as something they share with the sun.12 Indeed, it is by what is native to us that we have a share in the universal. Does not Plato himself say that there is a ray of the soul, that belongs to the soul, and it is this that we must lift to the light in order to touch the truth?13 Yes, certainly, and he also says that there is a universal participation that emanates from the single principle of all

things, which he called truth.14 It [truth] is not like the sun but like the light of the sun.

Did Plato perhaps suppress a more accurate inquiry concerning these things because of the masses when he posited the cause that brings about mul- tiplicity as [present] in the same entity and so found scope to distinguish the many from the One?

But the argument before us sees the single fi rst principle (which Plato actually named) as occupying its own place, if you will; and the cause that gen- erates multiplicity as occupying its own place. But that Plato purposefully omit- ted this differentiation he made clear by not positing the pluralizing cause as cause of the mixed, although he accepted many elements [as present in it] and assumed three principles instead of the One, and perhaps did not even posit the One principle that we are now speaking about among [the three], but only posited the principle after the two principles, in which the mixed arises. For this is one, and the division of this gives rise to the three monads, but [he was] not [talking about] the division of the fi rst principle.15 Yet to these considera- tions, if need arises, we shall return once more.16

Chapter 35. On the Origin of Distinction

■ In a continuation of his fi rst argument concerning procession from the One, in which Damascius posited that there can be no procession without distinction, Damas- cius now considers the second of the henads, the One-all. In some sense, this principle functions as the equivalent to the indefi nite dyad or to the principle of indefi nite mul- tiplicity, the apeiron, and yet, as Damascius is at pains to point out, these functions cannot strictly belong to the henad as such, since it represents but a limited way of viewing the One. ■

Still our thoughts do not articulate the fi rst principles accurately, whence they assume that there is simply the same cause for unity and division, not realizing that the principle that introduces distinction (I 107) is other than that which preserves beings in a state that is free from distinction, and that this principle fi rst distinguishes itself from the One, and next it becomes the cause of this [distinction] for others. But if the One is the cause of all, it nevertheless makes all things one, and yet again it does not make at all, nor does it even act, since actualization differs somehow from that which actualizes. Nor does it exercise power, since power is, as they say,17 an extension of substance, but the One refuses to be substance. For Being is third from the One in the mixed, that is, unifi ed substance, and it also subsists in the unifi ed mixed. Of this principle [we shall speak] later.18

What I am now saying is that the single principle is to such an extent removed from making distinctions that it does not even unify. Nor does it create