ading end. For in the Phaedrus, his subject
respects intelligible beauty, and the participation of beauty pervading
thence through all things; and in the Banquet it respects the amatory
order.

"But if it be necessary to consider, in one Platonic dialogue, the
all-perfect, whole and connected, extending as far as to the complete
number of theology, I shall perhaps assert a paradox, and which will
alone be apparent to our familiars. We ought however to dare, since we
have begun the assertion, and affirm against our opponents, that the
Parmenides, and the mystic conceptions of this dialogue, will accomplish
all you desire. For in this dialogue, all the divine genera proceed in
order from the first cause, and evince their mutual suspension from each
other. And those indeed which are highest, connate with the one, and of
a primary nature, are allotted a form of subsistence, characterized by
unity, occult and simple; but such as are last are multiplied, are
distributed into many parts, and excel in number, but are inferior in
power to such as are of a higher order; and such as are middle, according
to a convenient proportion, are more composite than their causes, but
more simple than their proper progeny. And, in short, all the axioms of
the theological science appear in perfection in this dialogue; and all
the divine orders are exhibited subsisting in connection. So that this
is nothing else than the celebrated generation of the gods, and the
procession of every kind of being from the ineffable and unknown cause of
wholes.[10] The Parmenides therefore, enkindles in the lovers of Plato
the whole and perfect light of the theological science. But after this,
the aforementioned dialogues distribute parts of the mystic discipline
about the gods, and all of them, as I may say, participate of divine
wisdom, and excite our spontaneous conceptions respecting a divine nature.

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[10] The principle of all things is celebrated by Platonic philosophy as
the cause of wholes, because through transcendency of power he first
produces those powers in the universe which rank as wholes, and afterward
those which rank as parts through these. Agreeably to this Jupiter, the
artificer of the universe, is almost always called [Greek: demiourgos ton
olon], the demiurgus of wholes. See the Timaeus, and the Introduction to it.
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And it is necessary to refer all the parts of this mystic discipline to
these dialogue