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 122 of 174
Book III · Chapter 1 · §§ 10–11
Latin
p. 246Constat igitur qualitas ex actu atque potentia. Anima autem, licet sit a materia separabilis atque ob id actus dicatur et a passione corporis aliena, tamen nondum merus est actus; est enim mobilis. Si movetur aliquid, per motum nanciscitur quo ante caruerat. Ut carebat, potentiam illam habet, quam susceptivam et quodammodo passivam potentiam nuncupamus. Ut agit movendo nonnihil, est actus; et dum acquirit aliquid, etiam actus efficitur. Est ergo anima ex potentia et actu composita. Sed numquid angelus actus est merus? Minime. Deus plane, quia distat penitus a materia, in qua passiva potentia est sine ulla agendi virtute, ideo merus esse intelligitur vigor agendi, seorsum a suscipiendi patiendique natura. Si Deus est purus actus, nequit angelus esse talis. Quia quod unum in se est numquam fit plura nisi per alienae naturae additamentum. Unica est ipsius puri actus natura et definitio, quae in Deo quidem est, ut patet. Quod si etiam in angelo dicatur esse, interrogabimus numquid in angelo sit aliquid aliud praeter actum necne. Si nihil, unus solummodo restat actus purus. Siquidem nihil differt actus qui tribuitur angelo ab actu Dei, cum nihil insit utrisque praeter actum et actus ipse sua ratione sit unus. Sin additum est aliquid angelo praeter actum, non amplius est angelus purus actus, sed infectus permixtione, et actus non absolutus, sed talis potius aut talis, sicut non est pura lux quae viridis est vel rubens, sed est et lux simul et qualitas elementorum aliqua per quam rubens fit vel viridis.
Quapropter angelus quoque ex actu componitur et potentia. Atque hoc est quod in Philebo vult Plato, ubi ait Deum esse rerum omnium terminum infiniti expertem, res autem alias praeter ipsum omnes ex termino et infinito componi. Terminum vocat actum, infinitum vero potentiam, quae secundum se indeterminata terminatur et formatur ab actu.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book III
p. 247Quality therefore consists of actuality and potency. Soul, however, although separable from matter and for that reason called actuality, and although free from the passivity of body, is not yet pure actuality, for it is movable. If something is moved, through motion it acquires what it lacked before. Insofar as it lacked that thing, it possessed the potency we call receptive and in a certain sense passive; insofar as it performs some moving, it is actuality; and while it acquires something, it is also actualized. Soul, then, is composed of potency and actuality. But is angel pure actuality? By no means. God assuredly, because he is wholly removed from matter—in which passive potency exists without any power of acting—is understood to be pure energy of action, apart from the nature of receiving and undergoing. If God is pure actuality, angel cannot be the same. For what is one in itself never becomes many except through the addition of an alien nature. Pure actuality itself has one nature and definition, which belongs to God, as is clear. If it is said to belong also to angel, we shall ask whether anything exists in angel besides actuality. If nothing does, only one pure actuality remains, since the actuality attributed to angel differs in no way from God’s when nothing inheres in either except actuality, and actuality is by its own nature one. But if something is added to angel besides actuality, angel is no longer pure actuality: he is tainted by admixture, and his actuality is not absolute but of this or that kind. So light that is green or red is not pure light, but is at once light and some elemental quality through which it becomes red or green.
Therefore angel too is composed of actuality and potency. This is what Plato means in the Philebus, where he says that God is the limit of all things, free from the infinite, while all other things besides him are composed of limit and infinite. He calls limit actuality, and infinite potency, which, indeterminate in itself, is bounded and formed by actuality.
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Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book III · III.1.10–III.1.11
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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.