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 40 of 174
Book I · Chapter 6 · §§ 1–4
Latin
p. 82Super angelum est Deus. Quoniam anima est mobilis multitudo, angelus multitudo immobilis, Deus immobilis unitas.
Angelum prius immobilem esse Platonici arbitrantur: essentia, virtute, actione, quoniam semper sit idem, aeque possit, intelligat semper omnia simul et velit eadem, et quantum in se est agat subito quicquid agit. Haec Platonici. Quid vero dicant alii, alias dicam. Nondum tamen quiescere hic cum Anaxagora et Hermotimo ratio nos permittit, sed altius iubet ascendere. Porro anima, quia mobilis est, ab alio pertransit in aliud. Igitur aliud in se habet et aliud. Quod haec habet, habet et multitudinem. Quapropter anima in se ipsa multitudo quaedam est, multitudo, inquam, mobilis. Angelus qui proxime hanc antecedit esse nequit immobilis unitas, quia duae quaedam huiusmodi res, quarum una sit mobilis multitudo et altera immobilis unitas, longissime inter se distare videntur. Unitas siquidem multitudini opponitur, immobile mobili. Quoniam ergo res illae ab omni parte invicem opponuntur, proxime sibi non succedunt, sed medio quodam indigent copulante.
Animam vero ipsam, quae est mobilis multitudo, angelus absque medio antecedit. Ideo non potest angelus esse immobilis unitas, ne duo extrema sine medio coniungantur. Immobilis certe est, ut supra probavimus. Ergo non unitas.
Restat ut sit angelus immobilis multitudo. Ubi cum anima convenit eo quod ipse multitudo est, sicut et illa. Discrepat autem quia illa est mobilis, hic immobilis.
Multitudinem certe aliquam ponere in angelo cogimur. At qualem? Qualis convenit intellectui, hoc est, ut essentiam habeat atque esse, vim intelligendi, intellectionis actum, rerumque intellectarum species plurimas.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book I
p. 83Above the angel stands God: the soul is a mobile multiplicity; the angel, an immobile multiplicity; God, an immobile unity.
The Platonists hold, first, that the angel is immobile in essence, power, and action: it is always the same, its power remains equal, it always understands all things at once and wills the same things, and, so far as lies within it, it performs at once whatever it performs. So say the Platonists. What others say I shall tell elsewhere. Yet reason does not allow us to rest here with Anaxagoras and Hermotimus, but commands us to climb higher. Now because soul is mobile, it passes from one thing into another. It therefore contains one thing and another within itself; and whatever contains these contains multiplicity. Hence soul is itself a certain multiplicity—a mobile multiplicity, I say. The angel that immediately precedes it cannot be an immobile unity, for two such things, one a mobile multiplicity and the other an immobile unity, appear to stand very far apart. Unity is opposed to multiplicity, and the immobile to the mobile. Since these two things are opposed in every respect, they do not immediately follow one another, but require an intermediary to unite them.
Yet soul itself, which is a mobile multiplicity, is immediately preceded by the angel. The angel therefore cannot be an immobile unity, lest the two extremes be joined without an intermediary. It is certainly immobile, as we proved above; therefore it is not a unity.
It remains, then, that the angel is an immobile multiplicity. In this it agrees with soul, because it too is a multiplicity, as soul is; but it differs because soul is mobile, while the angel is immobile.
We are certainly compelled to posit some multiplicity in the angel. But what kind? The kind suited to intellect: namely, that it possess essence and being, the power of understanding, the act of intellection, and numerous forms of the things understood.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book I · I.6.1–I.6.4
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
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.