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 72 of 174
Book II · Chapter 7 · §§ 6–9
Latin
p. 146Praeterea, quoniam Deus non miscetur alicui, nullius proprius dux, sed communis exsistit. Si est communis, commune sibi competit munus. Esse ipsum rebus omnibus est commune. Esse igitur, ubicumque sit, pendet ex Deo.
Quod mystice tetigit Zoroaster: εἰσὶ πάντα πυρὸς ἑνὸς ἐκγεγαῶτα, id est, omnia sunt ex uno igne genita. Insuper inferiora mundi corpora de non esse migrant in esse et de esse transeunt in non esse. Superiora de alio esse mutantur in aliud.
Seu de alio essendi modo mutantur in alium. Propterea haec omnia aeque se habent per naturam suam ad esse atque non esse. Si nihil aliud sit super huiusmodi corpora, vel non accepissent esse umquam, vel, si quando accepissent, iam dudum esse omnia desivissent. Non accepissent, quoniam si aeque se habent per naturam suam ad esse atque non esse, se ipsa ad esse nequaquam determinant. Iam pridem desivissent, quia cum fluant natura sua, si non ab alio stabiliore detinerentur, iam dudum in nihilum defluxissent. Praeest ergo mobilibus mundi corporibus substantia incorporalis et stabilis.
Haec si aeque se habet ad esse atque non esse ut corpora, rursus indiget alio terminante. Tandem ergo una quaedam substantia sit oportet, quae sit necessario per se ipsam, haec simplex erit omnino. Quippe si componeretur ex partibus, non per se esset quidem, sed per partium conspirationem atque per illum qui diversas inter se partes conciliavisset.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I: Book II
p. 147Moreover, since God is mingled with nothing, he is no thing’s private guide, but the common guide. If he is common, a common office belongs to him. Being itself is common to all things. Wherever being exists, therefore, it depends upon God.
Zoroaster touched on this mystically: εἰσὶ πάντα πυρὸς ἑνὸς ἐκγεγαῶτα, that is, ‘all things are born from one fire.’ Moreover, the lower bodies of the world pass from not-being into being and from being into not-being. The higher bodies are changed from one being into another.
Or rather, they are changed from one mode of being into another. All these bodies, therefore, are by their own nature equally disposed toward being and not-being. If nothing existed above bodies of this kind, either they would never have received being, or, if they had ever received it, they would all long since have ceased to be. They would not have received it because, being by their own nature equally disposed toward being and not-being, they in no way determine themselves toward being. They would long since have ceased because, since by their nature they flow, had they not been held by something more stable, they would long ago have flowed away into nothing. Therefore an incorporeal and stable substance presides over the moving bodies of the world.
If this substance in turn stands equally disposed toward being and not-being, as bodies do, it requires another to determine it. At last, therefore, there must be one substance which exists necessarily through itself; this will be altogether simple. For if it were composed of parts, it would not exist through itself, but through the concord of its parts and through the one who had reconciled those diverse parts with one another.
Socrates
Reading Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Book II · II.7.6–II.7.9
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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.