Diotimos Library · Renaissance Collection · Bilingual Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Proem and Books I–IV · Latin with an independent English translation
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English Page · Branch 10 of 174
Book I · Chapter 2 · §§ 6–10
Latin
p. 22Quod hic etiam intueri licet, quod sicut primum in natura, qui Deus est, agit in omnia, nihil patitur, ita ultimum, quod est materia corporalis, pati oportet ab omnibus, agere vero per se in aliud minime, cum nihil sit infra ipsam quod ab ipsa patiatur.
Ac si in summa infinitaque unitate infinita est agendi virtus, in multitudine infinita nulla est virtus agendi, sed infinita patiendi natura. Infinitam multitudinem corpus esse Pythagorici arbitrantur, quoniam absque fine dividitur.
Si quid igitur agere corpora videantur, non ex ipsa sui mole, ut Democritii, Cyrenaici, Epicurei putaverunt, sed ex aliqua vi et qualitate illis insita operantur. Nec iniuria. Ubi enim contrariorum oritur oppositio, ibi naturalium corporum editur actio. Oppositio illa nascitur in genere qualitatum.
Adde quod materia sub omnibus his corporibus una est, una quoque interminata dimensio. Si igitur actio a materia proveniret aut dimensione, una esset omnium operatio. Nunc vero, cum diversae appareant diversorum corporum actiones, non per materiam dimensionemve unam, sed per varias ipsorum formas qualitatesque operantur. Merito, quoniam qua ratione sunt, eadem agunt. Sunt autem non per molem in specie hac aut illa, sed per hanc formam aut illam. Per formam igitur operantur.
Praesertim cum agens patienti propinquet per formae qualitates prius quam per terminos quantitatis, ac per formae vim transeat in materiam alienam potius quam per quantitatis dimensionem, et singula materiae puncta non dimensione attingat, sed qualitate.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book I
p. 23The same point may also be observed here: just as the first thing in nature, which is God, acts upon all things and suffers nothing, so the last thing, which is corporeal matter, must be acted upon by everything and must not in the least act of itself upon anything else, since nothing lies beneath it to be acted upon by it.
And if an infinite power of acting exists in supreme and infinite unity, then in infinite multiplicity there is no power of acting, but an infinite capacity for being acted upon. The Pythagoreans hold body to be an infinite multiplicity because it is divided without end.
If bodies therefore appear to perform any action, they operate not from their own bulk, as the followers of Democritus, the Cyrenaics, and the Epicureans supposed, but from some power and quality implanted in them. And rightly so: where an opposition of contraries arises, there the action of natural bodies is produced, and that opposition originates within the class of qualities.
Add that the matter underlying all these bodies is one, and so too is indeterminate dimension. If action came from matter or dimension, the operation of all bodies would be one and the same. Yet since different bodies plainly have different actions, bodies operate not through the one matter or dimension but through their various forms and qualities. And rightly so: for they act by the same principle by which they have their being. It is not through bulk that they belong to this species or that, but through this form or that. Therefore they operate through form.
This is especially so because the agent approaches the patient through the qualities of form before it does so through the boundaries of quantity; it passes into other matter through the power of form rather than through quantitative extension, and it reaches every point of matter not by dimension but by quality.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book I · I.2.6–I.2.10
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology places the immortality of the soul at the center of an extended philosophical ascent through body, soul, angel, and God. This exact page-aligned Renaissance edition presents the authorial Proem and Books I–IV in a newly established Latin reading text with an independent English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions.
Historical Text and Translation
The Latin reading text is based on the Florence editio princeps printed by Antonio Miscomini on 7 November 1482 and principally collated against the Paris 1559 printing, with a 1641 Opera printing used only as a late control and OCR aid. Abbreviations are expanded, spelling and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and substantive departures among the witnesses are documented in the edition’s apparatus.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independently worded English translation in house. It aims for a dignified but readable modern register while preserving Ficino’s argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purpose clauses, and direct appeals; long periods are divided only where clarity requires it.
Rights
Ficino’s Latin source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.