Before and after in nature · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordPrius and posterius can indicate temporal succession or explanatory order.
In the Platonic TheologyThe preservation argument calls nonbeing prior to an effect’s being because considered without its cause the effect would not exist.
In this editionThe English “first in the order of nature” explicates secundum naturam and should be retained.
A place to readBeginningless duration is compatible with natural priority of causal dependence

Meaning

Prius and posterius can indicate temporal succession or explanatory order. Secundum naturam explicitly marks the latter. Antecedere and sequi likewise need not mean events separated by clock-time.

Use in the book

The preservation argument calls nonbeing prior to an effect’s being because considered without its cause the effect would not exist. This is an analysis of dependence, not a report of a datable period when an eternal world failed to exist. Ficino has just allowed the conditional case of a world that always existed.

In the hierarchy of effects, a thing first is, then is this or that and has this or that character. Being is also described as the last thing lost: a particular determination can disappear while being remains. The trace analogy subsequently says the first cause’s impression is earlier and effaced later. These expressions concern how determinations presuppose being. The argument does not require that a creature existed as undifferentiated being during an earlier moment before acquiring every specific character.

Places to read

II.7.18, II.7.20, II.7.21Beginningless duration is compatible with natural priority of causal dependence
II.7.28, II.7.29Being is first in nature and last lost relative to its determinations
II.7.32Earlier impression and later effacement extend that order into a trace-image

Translation in this edition

The English “first in the order of nature” explicates secundum naturam and should be retained. Read II.7.28 with the opening “Then” in II.7.29: the editorial division interrupts one contrast.

antecedere / sequi / praecedere

antecedere / sequi / praecedere. Printed forms: antecedit; praecedens; praecedente; sequentes; sequentibus; succedit.

To precede, follow, or succeed, with temporal and explanatory uses distinguished. Later causes follow God in dependence, whereas a sequence of prior choices would postpone action indefinitely. References: II.5.1, II.7.23, II.8.3. See Before and after in nature.

prius / posterius / deinde

prius / posterius / deinde. Printed forms: Deinde; posterius; Prius; prius; ultimum.

Before, after, next, and last, here often ordering dependence. Being is prior in nature and last lost, not a temporally separate stage lacking every determination. References: II.7.20, II.7.28, II.7.29, II.7.32. See Before and after in nature.