Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Name: Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Author: Marsilio Ficino

Books V–VIII · Latin with an independent English translation

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Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume IIBook V · Chapter 14 · §§ 3–6

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English Page · Branch 51 of 191

Book V · Chapter 14 · §§ 3–6

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Latin

p. 96

Quod si non libeat eam vocare vitam per se viventem, quemadmodum soles dicere calorem per se calentem, saltem per superiora cogeris confiteri animam esse substantiam propria vita vitalem, quemadmodum dicis ignem substantiam proprio calore calentem. Utrum horum acceperis minime curo. Utrinque enim sequitur idem quod quaerimus. Sed ego superioribus rationibus adducor ut animam per se vitam appelle, vitam, inquam, naturalem formamque vitalem. Vitae autem formaeque vitali contraria mors quodammodo dicitur, seu aliqua mortifera qualitas formae, sicut caliditati frigiditas, humiditati contraria est siccitas.

Ea vero est contrariarum natura formarum ut neque aliqua earum aliam capiat, ut calor non suscipit frigus, neque substantia cui una illarum formarum est propria etiam suscipiat aliam formam suae formae contrariam, ut ignis, cui calor est proprius, frigus non accipit ut simul sit et ignis et frigidus.

Sed abit potius aut perditur tam calor quam ignis frigore veniente quam aut calor aut ignis fiat frigidus. Est ergo uterque, ut ita loquar, infrigescibilis, cum frigoris particeps evadere nequeat. Similiter anima, quoniam aut vita ipsa naturalis est aut vitam habet tamquam naturalem sui pedisequam, mortem, ut dixi, ipsius contrariam non admittit. Si non admittit mortem, ita ferme immortalis est, sicut ignis, quia non suscipit frigus, infrigescibilis. Si idem foret infrigescibile quod imperdibile, ignis sicut non frigescit ita neque etiam perderetur. Nunc autem perditur potius quam frigescat. Verum, cum idem sit immortale quod imperdibile, anima, quae non admittendo mortem dicitur immortalis, est etiam imperdibilis.

Ideo abit veniente morte, non perditur. Tota superior disputatio his verbis Zoroastris comprehenditur: ἀθάνατός τε μένει καὶ ζωῆς δεσπότις ἐστί, id est, immortalis manet ac vitae domina est. Quasi dicat: ideo immortalis manet, quia vitam habet pedisequam, sicut sol lucem, crinita comam.

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II: Book V

p. 97

If you are unwilling to call the soul a life that lives through itself, as you are accustomed to speak of heat that is hot through itself, the preceding arguments at least compel you to admit that the soul is a substance made vital by its own life, just as you call fire a substance made hot by its own heat. I care little which account you accept, since either yields what we seek. The foregoing arguments nevertheless lead me to call the soul life in its own right—natural life, I mean, and a life-giving form. Death, or some death-bearing formal quality, is in a certain sense called the contrary of life and of a life-giving form, just as cold is contrary to heat and dryness to moisture.

The nature of contrary forms is such that neither one receives the other—heat, for example, does not admit cold—nor does a substance to which one of them properly belongs receive the form contrary to its own. Fire, whose proper form is heat, does not admit cold while remaining at once both fire and cold.

Rather than heat or fire becoming cold when cold arrives, both the heat and the fire depart or perish. Each is therefore, so to speak, incapable of becoming cold, since neither can come to participate in cold. Likewise, because the soul is either natural life itself or possesses life as its natural attendant, it does not admit death, its contrary, as I have said. If it does not admit death, it is immortal in much the same way that fire, because it does not admit cold, is incapable of becoming cold. If being incapable of cold were the same as being incapable of destruction, fire would no more perish than become cold. In fact, it perishes rather than becoming cold. But since to be immortal is the same as to be imperishable, the soul, which is called immortal because it does not admit death, is also incapable of destruction.

Therefore, when death arrives, the soul departs; it does not perish. The whole preceding argument is contained in these words of Zoroaster: ‘It remains immortal and is mistress of life.’ It is as though he said that the soul remains immortal because life follows in its train, as light attends the sun and streaming hair attends a comet.

166.The two permissible formulations—life itself or a substance vital through its own life—are distinguished before Ficino states his preference.

167.Vitalis is rendered according to context as ‘made vital’ and ‘life-giving,’ preserving the argument without a wooden repetition.

168.The distinction between contrary forms and the substances whose proper forms they are is preserved.

169.Ficino’s coined contrast infrigescibilis / imperdibilis is rendered by the repeated ‘incapable of becoming cold’ / ‘incapable of destruction.’

170.The qualification in the fire analogy is preserved: fire avoids its contrary by perishing, whereas the immortal soul is also imperishable.

171.M1482 and G1559 read the feminine δεσπότις; the normalized Greek agrees with Ficino's Latin domina, “mistress.” The English follows Ficino's own gloss rather than importing a later rendering.

172.Pedisequa retains the image of an attendant following behind; Ficino’s compressed sun/light and comet/hair comparisons are both kept.

About This Reading Edition

Volume II continues Ficino’s inquiry into the immortality of the soul through Books V–VIII. Its arguments consider the rational soul’s self-motion, its relation to the body, sensation, and the powers of the mind. The Latin and independent English translation follow the supplied edition’s facing pages and matching comparison units.

Historical Text and Translation

The Latin reading text is independently established from the Florence 1482 editio princeps (M1482), collated against the Paris 1559 printing (G1559), with the Paris 1641 Opera used only as a late control. Abbreviations are expanded, spelling and punctuation are conservatively normalized, and consequential readings are recorded in the apparatus.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation in the voice established in Volume I, preserving Ficino’s argumentative sequence, metaphors, technical distinctions, repetitions, conditions, purposes, and qualifications. Editorial notes and witness variants accompany their passages as numbered notes. The edition and source statement, contents, and reading guidance are also retained. The source locator register remains available in the downloadable edition.