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 16 of 174
Book I · Chapter 3 · §§ 7–9
Latin
p. 34Unde igitur erit qualitas? Forsitan ab alia qualitate, puta quod ignis alius alium generet? Neque id quidem. Nam qualitas, quia esse nequit absque fomento materiae, ideo materiae suae non dominatur, multo minus dominabitur alienae. Non igitur potest corporis alicuius qualitas corpus aliud sola sua potestate formare. Corpus quidem naturale per ipsam molem, quae soli passioni subiicitur, agit nihil; per qualitatem vero non agit sufficienter. Haec enim quandoquidem non habet sufficientiam existendi, non praestat corpori sufficientiam operandi.
Profecto quia ignis prius genitus fuit ab aliquo quam ipse aliud generaret, prius sibi convenit ut sit effectus quam ut efficiens. Effectui conditio haec innata est, ut pendeat aliunde. Quapropter quoties ignis aliquid operatur, agit tanquam superioris causae instrumentum. Si enim ignis hic aut ille esset causa generandi ignis prima, id est summa, cum a causa alicuius generis prima genus profluat universum, totum ubique ac semper ignem efficeret. Itaque faceret cum se ipsum, tum ignem quemlibet qui ante ipsum fuit et qui post erit.
Cum igitur ignis hic aut ille non sit prima generationis huiusmodi causa, quaerimus cuius sit causae instrumentum. Nunquid ignis alterius? Nequaquam. Primo, quia aequa est illa causa, non superior. Deinde, quia vel extinctus est iam ignis ille unde hic ante manaverat, vel remotissimus. An forte instrumentum est aliorum elementorum? Neque id quidem. Non est enim in dissimilibus et contrariis elementis ulla ignis generandi ratio, cui ignis hic alium generaturus tanquam instrumentum subiiciatur. Num igitur instrumentum sit caeli? Minime. Non enim ignis hic remotissimi illius corporis instrumentum fieri potest aliter quam per medium. Media vero haec corpora sunt inepta. Ac potius inter caelum, sive ignis sphaeram, atque dissimilia elementa, ad ignem hunc in terra gignendum interponendus est ignis aliquis hunc ignem generaturus, quam converso. Similiter in singulis rerum naturalium speciebus argumentabimur.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book I
p. 35From where, then, will quality come? Perhaps from another quality, as when one fire generates another? Not even this will suffice. Because quality cannot exist without the support of matter, it does not rule its own matter, much less will it rule matter other than its own. The quality of one body therefore cannot form another body by its own power alone. A natural body does nothing through its sheer bulk, which is subject only to being acted upon, and through quality it does not act sufficiently. For since quality is not self-sufficient in existing, it does not provide the body with sufficiency in acting.
Because fire was itself generated by something before it generated another thing, it belongs to fire more primarily to be an effect than to be an efficient cause. This condition is innate in every effect: it depends upon something else. Consequently, whenever fire performs any operation, it acts as the instrument of a higher cause. For if this or that particular fire were the first—that is, the highest—cause of generating fire, then, since the whole kind flows from the first cause of any kind, it would produce all fire everywhere and always. It would therefore produce both itself and every fire that existed before it or will exist after it.
Since this or that particular fire is not the first cause of generation of this kind, we ask whose cause it serves as an instrument. Another fire's? By no means. First, because that cause is equal to it, not superior. Second, because the fire from which this one previously flowed has either already been extinguished or is very far away. Is it perhaps an instrument of the other elements? Not even that. Dissimilar and contrary elements possess no principle for generating fire to which this fire, when about to generate another, could be subordinated as an instrument. Is it, then, an instrument of heaven? No. This fire cannot become the instrument of that most distant body except through an intermediary, and these intervening bodies are unsuitable. Indeed, between heaven—or the sphere of fire—and the dissimilar elements, some fire that will generate this fire must be interposed in order to produce fire here on earth, rather than the reverse. We shall argue in the same way for every species of natural things.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book I · I.3.7–I.3.9
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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.