What Plato says here about the Gods who bore personal names, and were believed in by the contemporary public — is substantially equivalent to the well-known profession of ignorance enunciated by the Sophist Protagoras, introduced by him at the beginning of one of his treatises. Περὶ δὲ θεῶν οὔτε εἰ εἰσίν, οὔθ’ ὁποῖοί τινές εἰσι, δύναμαι λέγειν· πολλὰ γάρ ἐστι τὰ κωλύοντά με (Sextus Emp. adv. Mathem. ix. 56); a declaration which, circumspect as it was (see the remark of the sillographer Timon in Sextus), drew upon him the displeasure of the Athenians, so that his books were burnt, and himself forced to leave the city.
Address and order of the Demiurgus to the generated Gods.
Having thus, during one short paragraph, proclaimed his deference, if not his adhesion, to inspired traditions, Plato again resumes the declaration of his own beliefs and his own book of Genesis, without any farther appeal to authority, and without any intimation that he is touching on mysteries too great for his reason. When these Gods, the visible as well as the invisible,[51] had all been constructed or generated, he (or Timæus) tells us that the Demiurgus addressed them and informed them that they would be of immortal duration — not indeed in their own nature, but through his determination: that to complete the perfection of the newly-begotten Kosmos, there were three other distinct races of animals, all mortal, to be added: that he could not himself undertake the construction of these three, because they would thereby be rendered immortal, but that he confided such construction to them (the Gods): that he would himself supply, for the best of these three new races, an immortal element as guide and superintendent, and that they were to join along with it mortal and bodily accompaniments, to constitute men and animals; thus imitating the power which he had displayed in the generation of themselves.[52]
[51] Plato, Timæus, p. 41 A.
[52] Plato, Timæus, p. 41 C. τρέπεσθε κατὰ φύσιν ὑμεῖς ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν ζώων δημιουργίαν, μιμούμενοι τὴν ἐμὴν δύναμιν περὶ τὴν ὑμετέραν γένεσιν.
Preparations for the construction of man. Conjunction of three souls and one body.
After this address (which Plato puts into the first person, in Homeric manner), the Demiurgus compounded together, again and in the same bowl, the remnant of the same elements out of which he had formed the kosmical soul, but in perfection and purity greatly inferior. The total mass thus formed was distributed into souls equal in number to the stars. The Demiurgus placed each soul in a star of its own, carried it round thus in the kosmical rotation, and explained to it the destiny intended for all. For each alike there was to be an appointed hour of birth, and of conjunction with a body, as well as with two inferior sorts or varieties of soul or mind. From such conjunction would follow, as a necessary consequence, implanted sensibility and motive power, with all its accompaniments of pleasure, pain, desire, fear, anger, and such like. These were the irrational enemies, which the rational and immortal soul would have to controul and subdue, as a condition of just life. If it succeeded in the combat so as to live a good life, it would return after death to the abode of its own peculiar star. But if it failed, it would have a second birth into the inferior nature and body of a female: if, here also, it continued to be evil, it would be transferred after death to the body of some inferior animal. Such transmigration would be farther continued from animal to animal, until the rational soul should acquire thorough controul over the irrational and turbulent. When this was attained, the rational soul would be allowed to return to its original privilege and happiness, residing in its own peculiar star.[53]
[53] Plato, Timæus, p. 42 B-D.
It was thus that the Demiurgus confided to the recently-generated Gods the task of fabricating both mortal bodies, and mortal souls, to be joined with these immortal souls in their new stage of existence — and of guiding and governing the new mortal animal in the best manner, unless in so far as the latter should be the cause of mischief to himself. The Demiurgus decreed and proclaimed this beforehand, in order (says Plato) that he might not himself be the cause of any of the evil which might ensue[54] to individual men.
[54] Plato, Timæus, p. 42 D-E. Διαθεσμοθετήσας δὲ πάντα αὐτοῖς ταῦτα, ἵνα τῆς ἔπειτα εἴη κακίας ἑκάστων ἀναίτιος … παρέδωκε θεοῖς σώματα πλάττειν θνητά, τό τε ἐπίλοιπον ὅσον ἔτ’ ἦν ψυχῆς ἀνθρωπίνης δέον προσγενέσθαι, τοῦτο καὶ πάνθ’ ὅσα ἀκόλουθα ἐκείνοις ἀπεργασαμένους ἄρχειν, καὶ κατὰ δύναμιν ὅ, τι κάλλιστα καὶ ἄριστα τὸ θνητὸν διακυβερνᾷν ζῶον, ὅ, τι μὴ κακῶν αὐτὸ ἑαυτῷ γίγνοιτο αἴτιον.