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 62 of 174
Book II · Chapter 5 · §§ 1–4
Latin
p. 126Deus est semper.
Si res quaelibet tanto est diuturnior quanto virtus per quam permanet servaturque potentior est, Deus per infinitam virtutem suam in infinitum et ipse permanet et cetera servat. Item divina veritas omne rerum antecedit initium, omnium rerum fini succedit; nam et ante cuiusque initium verum erat initium illud fore, et post omnem cuiusque finem verum erit finem illum fuisse; quicquid autem aliquando verum est veritate verum. Si autem veritas ipsa incepisse dicatur aliquando, longe antea per eandem veritatem verum fuerat veritatem illam aliquando incepturam. Ac si desinere fingatur, adhuc postea per eandem veritatem verum erit veritatem illam desivisse. Veritas igitur neque incipere umquam neque desinere cogitari potest. Rursum, si Deus super motum tempusque exsistit omnino, temporalem mutationem a priore in posterius secundum esse atque non esse non suscipit. Accedit quod, si Deus est summa essendi necessitas, quod in sequentibus ostendemus, numquam potuit poteritve non esse. Denique, si quicquid aliquando nascitur ab aliquo fit priore, et quicquid resolvitur in aliquid quod antiquius est resolvitur, non potest incepisse aut desinere quod est primum.
Cogitamus saepenumero mente durationem quandam simplicem absque principio atque fine, appellamusque eam, ut ita loquar, sempiternitatem, quae quidem ipse Deus est, etiam si minime discernamus. Omnis enim simplex infinitas Deus ipse est. Discernere autem tunc prohibet phantasia, quae mox sempiternitatem ipsam simplicem atque consistentem fluxu quodam multiplici induit et confundit. Itaque fallit nos, nimirum dum ad accidentalem temporis fluxum trahit quod est substantialis status aeternitatis.
Atque ita impellit ut quod Deus est tempus esse putemus. Deus ergo aeternus tunc se nobis offert, sed tempore involutus.
Nemo vero dubitare debet Deum semper esse, quando Deus est ipsum semper, immo sempiternitas ipsa est ipse Deus. Et quae sempiterna dicuntur, illa sunt proprie quae Deus propagat per se ipsum et in se ipsum.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 127God always is.
Each thing endures the longer, the more powerful the force by which it remains and is preserved. God, therefore, through his infinite power, himself endures without end and preserves all other things. Again, divine truth precedes the beginning of every thing and follows the end of all things. For even before the beginning of each thing it was true that that beginning would be, and after the end of every single thing it will be true that that end has been; and whatever is at any time true is true through truth. But if truth itself is said to have begun at some time, long before then it had been true through that same truth that truth would one day begin. And if it is imagined to cease, even afterward it will still be true through the same truth that that truth has ceased. Truth, therefore, cannot be conceived either ever to begin or ever to cease. Again, if God exists altogether above motion and time, he does not undergo temporal change from earlier to later in respect of being and not-being. Add that if God is the supreme necessity of being, as we shall show later, he never could and never will be able not to exist. Finally, if whatever comes into being at some time is made by something prior, and whatever is dissolved is dissolved into something more ancient, that which is first can neither have begun nor cease.
We often conceive in the mind a certain simple duration without beginning or end, and call it, so to speak, sempiternity. This is God himself, even if we fail entirely to discern it. For every simple infinity is God himself. Yet imagination then prevents us from discerning it: at once it clothes and confounds that simple, abiding sempiternity in a kind of manifold flux. Thus it deceives us, precisely by drawing into the accidental flow of time what is the substantial stability of eternity.
And so imagination drives us to suppose that what is God is time. The eternal God, therefore, then presents himself to us, but shrouded in time.
No one should doubt that God always is, since God is the very ‘always’—indeed, sempiternity itself is God himself. And those things said to be sempiternal are properly those which God extends through himself and into himself.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.5.1–II.5.4
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.