From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMens is mind; secunda qualifies a mind receiving from a first source.
- In the Platonic TheologyIn III.1.12 Ficino cites a saying attributed to Zoroaster in which the Father perfects things and gives them to the second mind.
- In this editionThe printed menti...
- A place to readThe Father gives completed things to the second mind within an argument about angelic reception, illumination, and multiplicity.
Meaning
Mens is mind; secunda qualifies a mind receiving from a first source. The ordinal marks its place in a relation of dependence, not a second independent God.
Use in the book
In III.1.12 Ficino cites a saying attributed to Zoroaster in which the Father perfects things and gives them to the second mind. The surrounding argument concerns angel: its essence receives illumination, intellectual actuality, and forms. Second mind therefore functions here within the hierarchy below God. The phrase should not be interpreted as another independent first principle, or assigned a different theological identity without evidence beyond this passage.
Further passage references. III.1.12
Places to read
- III.1.12The Father gives completed things to the second mind within an argument about angelic reception, illumination, and multiplicity.
Translation in this edition
The printed menti... secundae is dative in Ficino’s Latin gloss of the attributed Greek saying. The entry’s nominative mens secunda is a lookup form, and the English follows the Latin gloss rather than establishing the saying’s external textual history.
mens secunda
mens secunda. Printed forms: menti praebuit secundae.
Second mind. The Latin gloss of the attributed Zoroastrian saying concerns angel’s received intellectual formation below God. References: III.1.12. See Second mind.
Giving to the second mind (Greek quotation)
καὶ νῷ παρέδωκε δευτέρῳ
In the Zoroastrian attribution, the father perfects all things and hands them to a second mind. Ficino applies the line to an angelic essence receiving illumination and the adornment of forms. The language of first and second moments explains dependence; the lexicon does not infer a literal temporal gap in angelic creation from that wording alone.
Place. III.1.12. See Second mind.