Receiving and giving

Use in the book

When God is imagined receiving qualities from himself, Ficino separates the giver as efficient cause from the recipient as subject. He rejects that divided role in the first agent. Later, receiving and undergoing characterize body, whereas giving and acting characterize incorporeal nature. This contrast is qualified immediately: quality, soul, and angel all have receptive potency in different respects. Angel receives illumination and intelligible adornment without being bodily matter. Soul receives what it lacked through a changing act. The celestial-light example makes the receiver decisive: Mercury and the moon receive the same solar illumination in different manners, the latter successively. Thus reception does not by itself identify either a body or an absence of activity. The recipient’s nature explains how the gift is possessed.

Selected annotated passages.

Places to read

1. II.11.3Giving and receiving would divide efficient cause from subject within God.
2. III.1.9Receiving and undergoing contrast with giving and acting.
3. III.1.12Angel receives intellectual form and illumination.
4. III.1.32Different receivers illustrate simultaneous and successive possession.

Translation in this edition

“Receive” renders several verbs. The English “passive” should not make every instance sound inert: angelic reception is compatible with stable intellectual activity. At II.13.3, capiant bonitatem concerns receiving goodness according to each nature, not grasping an object with the hands.

accipere

accipere. Printed forms: acceperit; accipit.

Receive something. The verb concerns either hypothetical divine reception or the material a father obtained elsewhere; its object specifies the dependence. References: II.11.3, II.13.2. See Receiving and giving.

capere

capere. Printed forms: capere; capit.

Receive or take in. God’s hypothetical reception of qualities would assign him the recipient’s role, incompatible with the first pure agent in this argument. References: II.11.3. See Receiving and giving.

dare

dare. Printed forms: dat; dedit.

Give or bestow. Giving identifies the efficient role; elsewhere the giver of being is the source on which the creature’s being depends. References: II.11.3, II.12.8. See Receiving and giving.

haurire / implere

haurire / implere. Printed forms: haurit; impletur.

Draw from a source / fill. Angel draws goodness immediately from God and remains filled; fountain and fullness express received stability. References: III.1.7. See Receiving and giving.

suscipere

suscipere. Printed forms: suscipere; suscipit; suscipitur.

Take up or receive. The receiving mode belongs to the recipient; soul’s gradual reception is contrasted with angel’s immediate fullness. References: III.1.9, III.1.32. See Receiving and giving.

vicem gerere

vicem gerere. Printed forms: gerit subiecti vicem; vicem genitricis substantiae gerit; vicem gerit.

Occupy or perform another role. The same hypothetical subject would count as efficient cause insofar as giving and as recipient insofar as receiving. References: II.11.3. See Receiving and giving.

To perform the office of a generative substance. Living nature supplies the substantial role that accidental qualities cannot adequately perform alone. References: IV.1.19. See Substance and accident.

Use in the book

V.6 distinguishes destructive bodily reception from the reception of indivisible images. Water and a mirror receive appearances without being destroyed, and the soul receives through sense and reason. The point is the received mode, not a claim that mirrors themselves think.

V.7.2 then invokes the principle that whatever is received is received according to its receiver. Essence considered in itself is immortal; when a separate essence receives being in its own mode, Ficino infers immortal being. Bodily forms differ because their mode is contracted to a bodily subject. The receiver principle thus helps connect the essence/being distinction to particular kinds of subsistence.

V.8.3 applies the same reasoning against destructive external force. The soul receives spiritually. An eternal spiritual object has no need to consume its recipient for nutrition or to destroy it to reproduce itself. The argument does not deny that cognition changes what a person knows; it denies the material process that would destroy the subject’s essence.

V.13.13 and V.13.15 apply reception in the opposite direction: a creature’s power is bounded by the subject in which it inheres, and infinite creative power could not first be narrowed to a finite angel and still effect unlimited creation. The same general principle can therefore explain a receiver’s stable act and the limit on a derived agent’s operation. Its precise role depends on which receiver and which act are in question.

Places to read

1. V.6.1, V.8.3Images illustrate nondestructive spiritual reception.
2. V.7.2The receiver’s mode governs its reception of being.
3. V.13.13, V.13.15, V.13.16Finite recipients delimit operative power and cannot mediate infinite creation.

Translation in this edition

Captus can be capacity rather than captivity. Susceptio is not automatically “suffering.” The article follows the book’s comparisons without endorsing its historical physical account of images as modern optics.

alimentum / alere

alimentum / alere. Printed forms: alat; alimento.

Nourishment and nourishing. An eternal spiritual recipient or object does not need to destroy another for food; bodily hidden nutrition later tests deliberate control. References: V.8.3, V.14.2. See Reception and the receiver.

beneficus

beneficus. Printed forms: benefica; beneficus.

Beneficent, communicating a preserving or perfecting power. The superior causes' infusion is contrasted with destructive bodily qualities and cannot be made a corruption of soul. References: V.6.1, V.11.2. See Reception and the receiver.

captus

captus. Printed forms: captu.

The receiving capacity or mode of a recipient. Being is received according to the mode of the essence receiving it; 'capacity' here does not mean captivity. References: V.7.2. See Reception and the receiver.

pro viribus

pro viribus. Printed forms: pro viribus.

As far as its powers permit. Natural self-preservation and production of likeness are bounded by an agent's actual capacity, not asserted as unlimited achievements. References: V.4.6, V.8.3, V.8.4. See Reception and the receiver.

propagare / propagatio

propagare / propagatio. Printed forms: propagandae; propagatione; propagationem; propaget.

To propagate or communicate one's nature through production. Natural agents produce likenesses rather than aim at sheer nothingness; an eternal spiritual form has no reproductive need to consume its recipient. References: V.4.6, V.6.1, V.8.3. See Reception and the receiver.

speculum / aqua

speculum / aqua. Printed forms: aqua; speculis; speculo; speculum.

Mirror and water, reflective recipients used to illustrate nondestructive images or continuous dependence. The argument selects a relation of image and recipient; it does not attribute cognition to the mirror itself. References: V.6.1, V.8.3, V.10.2, V.12.12. See Reception and the receiver.

subiectum

subiectum. Printed forms: subiecta; subiectam; subiecti; subiecto; subiectum; Subiectum.

An underlying subject in which a form or actuality inheres, not a grammatical subject in these passages. Matter is subject to bodily forms; essence is subject to being; the argument must identify which dependence is intended. References: V.4.1, V.4.6, V.12.2, V.13.13. See Reception and the receiver.

susceptaculum

susceptaculum. Printed forms: susceptaculum; susceptaculum suum.

A receptacle or bearer capable of receiving. Universal matter receives forms; the spiritual-reception argument asks why an eternal object would destroy its recipient. References: V.4.1, V.8.3. See Reception and the receiver.

suscipere / capere / accipere

suscipere / capere / accipere. Printed forms: accipere; accipiat; accipit; accipitur; capere; capit; capitur; capiuntur; susceptio; Susceptio; suscipi; suscipiat; suscipiendas; suscipit.

To receive, take or admit, with the receiver's mode governing what follows. Matter admits contrary forms, while soul receives spiritually; receptive language by itself does not imply destructive material passivity. References: V.4.1, V.5.9, V.6.1, V.7.2, V.8.3, V.12.2, V.12.13, V.13.13. See Reception and the receiver.

Socrates and named pupils or companions (authorities and interlocutors)

Socrates and named pupils or companions. Socrates and Plato frequently function as concrete individuals in arguments about reception, generation and universals. Xenophon, Alcibiades and Phaedrus in VII.1.1 are remembered persons; Phaedrus there is not a citation of the dialogue. Antisthenes and Xenophon in VIII.1.2 likewise help distinguish individuals from common nature. References: V.7.1, V.8.1, VII.1.1, VIII.1.2. See Reception and the receiver; Receiving images: wax, seals and mirrors; Common nature, participation, and the divine Idea.