From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordFicino varies verbs of flow to distinguish going out, dispersing, entering another, ebbing away, returning and overflowing back.
- In the Platonic TheologyA life whose entire operation passes into other things is said to fail in four ways.
- In this editionThe apparatus preserves the separately numbered four failures and the repeated implet/implere, “brings to fullness.”
- A place to readExternal work is possible through will and bodily instruments even though understanding terminates inwardly.
Meaning
Ficino varies verbs of flow to distinguish going out, dispersing, entering another, ebbing away, returning and overflowing back. Sustentaculum is a supporting prop. The watery language makes dependence and loss visible without identifying soul as a liquid.
Use in the book
A life whose entire operation passes into other things is said to fail in four ways. It wavers and needs external support; disperses and weakens; becomes mixed with foreign things; and finally, because of these deficiencies, falls away from its own nature. These are four linked vulnerabilities, not merely synonyms for mortality.
Rational life returns into itself. Ficino argues that it therefore supports itself, is not weakened or contaminated in the same way, and does not ebb out of its nature. Outwardly exhausted life tends toward death; life overflowing back into itself grows into fuller life. This extension of the reflexivity argument depends on the opposition between wholly outward operation and retained inward operation.
The last step uses the range of motion as an index of life. Rational life exercises bodily motions, possesses their exemplars and returns their activity to its principle through reflection. Ficino argues that such fullness excludes a privation of life. The account is a metaphysical contrast, not a blanket recommendation to avoid all outward activity: the same chapter allows will to move arms and produce a work, and the earlier virtues include civil prudence and justice.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The apparatus preserves the separately numbered four failures and the repeated implet/implere, “brings to fullness.” Reducing every flow verb to “moves” would conceal the staged account of dependence.
effluere / diffluere / defluere
effluere / diffluere / defluere. Printed forms: defluat; defluere; diffluendo; effluendo; effluit.
Flowing outward, dispersing and ebbing away, distinct images of dependent life. Outward effluence needs support, weakens, takes contamination and eventually loses its proper condition in the four-stage account. References: VIII.15.3. See Outward flow and rational life’s return.
implere / consummare
implere / consummare. Printed forms: consumiturque; consummatur; implere; implet.
Bringing to fullness or completion, contrasted with being consumed. Ficino says fuller rational motion fills the range of living; similar-looking consummation and consumption verbs have opposite roles in the life/death contrast. References: VIII.15.3. See Outward flow and rational life’s return.
relabi / redundare
relabi / redundare. Printed forms: influit; profluere; redundat; relabitur.
Flowing back, overflowing back, flowing forth and flowing into another. Rational life's return is contrasted with wholly outward expenditure; the contrast does not prohibit all external action. References: VIII.15.3. See Outward flow and rational life’s return.
sustentaculum / inquinatio
sustentaculum / inquinatio. Printed forms: debilitatem; indigentiam; inquinationemque; inquinatur; sustentaculo.
External support, contamination, weakness and need. These are the four vulnerabilities developed through the flow metaphor, against which self-returning rational life is contrasted. References: VIII.15.3. See Outward flow and rational life’s return.