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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Facing Pages · Branch 106 of 174
Book II · Chapter 12 · §§ 20–21
Latin
p. 214Exactus autem ordo requirit ut omnes rerum gradus in universo contineantur, ita ut quaedam sint causae stabiles, quaedam mobiles, et illae quae mobiles sunt effectus producant insuper magis vagos et quodam variabili modo. Nam effectus proximarum causarum modum potius quam remotarum imitari videntur. Deus autem non modo res ipsas vult esse, verum etiam essendi modos qui ad eas per consequentiam requiruntur. Cum vero rebus quibusdam secundum naturae suae modum conveniat ut sint quodammodo contingentes:
Deus eligit aliquid, ut theologi quidam inquiunt, quodammodo secundum contingentiam evenire. Nihil tamen ita praevaricatur ut vel ordinem universi perturbet vel ordinatoris effugiat providentiam.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 215Perfect order requires every rank of things to be contained within the universe: some causes must be stable, others mobile, and the mobile causes must in turn produce effects that wander more widely and arise in a variable manner. Effects appear to imitate the mode of their proximate causes rather than that of remote causes. God wills not only that things themselves should exist, but also the modes of being that follow necessarily with them. Certain things, according to the manner of their nature, must therefore be contingent in some measure.
God chooses, as certain theologians say, that something should occur in a contingent manner. Yet nothing so transgresses as either to disturb the order of the universe or to escape the providence of its ordainer.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.12.20–II.12.21
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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.