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 105 of 174
Book II · Chapter 12 · §§ 17–19
Latin
p. 212Hoc igitur est quod dicitur non ens. Contradictio sola rationem non entis includit. Quaecumque igitur contradictionem nullam includunt, ut Peripatetici putant, in entis potentia includuntur, atque ea omnia potest Deus efficere. Quod inde confirmatur quod mens, exclusa contradictione, potest per omnem, immo per immensam entis latitudinem se porrigere. Non debet autem effectrix Dei potestas minus ampla esse quam mentis potentia machinatrix. Adde quod si divinus intellectus bona innumerabilia intuetur, voluntas autem eius ad omnia illa se potest convertere quae intellectus offert tamquam bona, consequens est ut voluntas Dei finitis obiectis non adstringatur.
Igitur et potestas eius ad infinita se porrigit. Quorsum haec? Ut intelligas quicquid contradictionem non includit divinae potentiae subici, atque cum multa non sint in natura rerum quae tamen si essent contradictionem nullam inferrent, quod patet praecipue circa numerum, magnitudinem intervallaque stellarum, scias plurima sub divina potentia contineri quae tamen in rerum ordine numquam reperiuntur. Et cum Deus eorum quae potest quaedam faciat, quaedam non faciat, eum nulla vel naturae vel intelligentiae vel voluntatis necessitate, sed libera voluntatis electione talia operari. Ratio nona. Non iniuria Deus electione, ut ita dixerim, quadam operari dicendus est. Siquidem agentia omnia quaecumque per aliud agunt ducunturque ad operandum reducenda sunt ad agens primum, quod ita per se agat ut se ipsum ad agendum ducat. Ergo ut in actionem suam penitus se convertat. Ergo ut intelligat velitque operari aut non operari, rursusque ita vel aliter operari. Quae autem hoc modo proficiscuntur a Deo nullus ignorat electione libera proficisci. Nullus tamen sapiens nescit electionem in Deo ab essentia non differre.
Verum ne putet forte aliquis divinam voluntatem, si ad creata respexerit, singulis vim inferre, meminisse oportet voluntatem Dei malle universi bonum quam apparens alicuius particulae commodum. Nam in illo bono expressior fulget divinae bonitatis imago, bonumque illud in ordine quodam videtur consistere.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 213That opposite is what is called non-being. Contradiction alone contains the principle of non-being. Whatever includes no contradiction is, as the Peripatetics hold, contained within the potency of being, and God can bring all such things about. This is confirmed by the fact that, once contradiction is excluded, the mind can extend through the entire—indeed, the immeasurable—breadth of being. God's productive power ought not to be narrower than the mind's designing power. Add that, if the divine intellect beholds innumerable goods and his will can turn toward all that the intellect presents as good, it follows that God's will is not confined to finite objects.
God's power therefore extends to infinite things. Why say this? So that you may understand that whatever involves no contradiction lies under divine power. Many things do not exist in the nature of things that, if they did exist, would imply no contradiction—as is especially plain in the case of number, magnitude, and the distances between stars. You should therefore know that divine power contains very many things that are never found in the order of reality. Since God makes some of the things he can make and does not make others, he acts in these matters under no necessity of nature, intelligence, or will, but by the free choice of his will. Ninth argument. God may therefore rightly be said to act by a kind of choice, so to speak. Every agent that acts through another and is led to act must be traced back to a first agent who acts through himself and leads himself to act. Such an agent must turn wholly toward his own action, understand and will whether to act or not, and again whether to act in this way or another. No one doubts that what proceeds from God in this manner proceeds by free choice. Yet every wise person knows that in God choice does not differ from essence.
Yet lest anyone suppose that the divine will does violence to individual creatures when it regards created things, we must remember that God's will prefers the good of the universe to the apparent advantage of any one part. In that universal good the image of divine goodness shines more clearly, and this good appears to consist in a certain order.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.12.17–II.12.19
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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.