Liber de causis, proposition 7

prop 173 · creuzer page 256-258

PropositionΠᾶς νοῦς νοερός ἐστι, καὶ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰ μετ᾽ αὐτόν.

PropositionEvery intellect is intellectual, both the things before it and the things after it.

τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστι κατ᾽ αἰτίαν, ὅσα μετ᾽ αὐτόν· τὰ δὲ κατὰ μέθεξιν, ὅσα πρὸ αὐτοῦ. νοῦς δὲ ὁ αὐτός ἐστι καὶ νοερὰν ἔλαχεν οὐσίαν. κατὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἄρα ὕπαρξιν ἀφορίζει πάντα καὶ ἃ κατ᾽ αἰτίαν ἐστίν, ὡς τὰ κατὰ μέθεξιν. Καὶ γὰρ ἕκαστον, ὡς πέφυκεν, οὕτω μετέχει τῶν κρειττόνων, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὡς ἐκεῖνα ἐκεῖνά ἐστιν. Ἢ γὰρ ἂν ὡσαύτως ὑπὸ πάντων μετείχετο. μετέχει δὲ ἄλλα ἄλλως. κατὰ τὴν ἰδιότητα ἄρα τῶν μετεχόντων καὶ δύναμιν αἱ μεθέξεις. Νοερῶς ἄρα ἐν τῷ νῷ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ. ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὰ μετ᾽ αὐτὸν νοερῶς ἐστιν. οὐ γὰρ ἐκ τῶν ἀποτελεσμάτων ἐστίν, οὐδὲ ἐκεῖνα ἔχει ἐν ἑαυτῷ, ἀλλὰ τὰς αἰτίας τὰς ἐκείνων. ἔστι δὲ πάντων τῷ εἶναι αἴτιος. Τὸ δὲ εἶναι αὐτοῦ νοερόν, καὶ τὰ αἴτια ἄρα νοερῶς ἔχει τῶν πάντων· ὥστε πάντα νοερῶς ἔχει πᾶς νοῦς, καὶ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰ μετ᾽ αὐτόν· ὡς οὖν τὰ νοητὰ νοερῶς ἔχει πᾶς νοῦς, οὕτω καὶ τὰ αἰσθητὰ νοερῶς.

For the things after it are in it according to cause, and the things before it according to participation. But intellect is one and the same, and has obtained an intellectual essence. According to its own existence, therefore, it defines all things, both what is in it according to cause and what is in it according to participation. For each thing participates in its superiors as its own nature allows, and not as those superiors are what they are. Otherwise it would be participated in the same way by all things. But different things participate differently. The participations, therefore, follow the distinctive property and the power of the things participating. Intellectually, then, the things before it are in intellect; and the things after it are there intellectually as well. For intellect does not derive from its effects, nor does it hold those effects in itself, but their causes; and it is the cause of all things by its being. And its being is intellectual; therefore it holds the causes of all things intellectually, so that every intellect holds all things intellectually, both the things before it and the things after it. As, then, every intellect holds intelligible things intellectually, so it holds perceptible things intellectually too.

Source of LdC 7, and the single richest apparatus of the twelve. Creuzer here quotes BOTH Aemilius Portus's own note (on the chapter numbering) and Thomas Taylor's 1816 English twice — so this page alone is evidence for the Portus 1618 and Taylor 1816 witnesses and can be cited on both reception margins. The lemma is translated exactly as printed, without smoothing the difficulty that then plays out at LdC 7. Creuzer's lemma prints the adjective νοερός: Πᾶς νοῦς νοερός ἐστι, καὶ τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰ μετ᾽ αὐτόν, and the English renders that, awkwardness and all: 'Every intellect is intellectual, both the things before it and the things after it.' The body of the same proof uses the adverb νοερῶς six times, and the medieval Latin tradition read the adverb too — Aquinas's intellectualiter. On the adverb the lemma would run 'Every intellect is intellectually the things before it and the things after it', which is also how Taylor renders the parallel clause that Creuzer quotes in his own note ('But intellect is likewise intellectually the things posterior to itself'). Nothing is emended here: the lemma stands as printed and the divergence is the point of the LdC 7 crux page. Creuzer also prints, at this proposition, Portus's note that the chapter numbering itself is in error at this place.

Numbered ρογ΄ in Creuzer's edition.

prop bardenhewer 7 · pattin prop 7 · bardenhewer page 74-75

كلّ عقل يعلم ما فوقه وما تحته الّا انّه يعلم ما تحته بانّه علّة له ويعلم ما فوقه لانّه يستفيد منه الفضائل والعقل جوهر عقلىّ فعلى نحو جوهره يعلم الاشياء التى يستفيدها من فوق والاشياء التى هو لها علّة فهو مميّز ما فوقه وما تحته ويعلم ان ما فوقه علّة له وما تحته معلول منه ويعرف علّته ومعلوله بالنوع الذى هو عليه اعنى بنوع جوهره وكذلك كلّ عالم انّما يعلم الشىء الافضل والشىء الادنا الارذل على نحو جوهره وذاته لا على نحو ما عليه الاشياء فان كان هذا هاكذى فلا محالة اذا انّ الفضائل التى تتنزّل على العقل من العلّة الاولى تكون فيه عقليّة وكذلك الاشياء الجسمانيّة المحسوسة تكون فى العقل عقليّة وذلك انّ الاشياء التى فى العقل ليست الآثار بعينها بل هى علل الآثار والدليل على ذلك انّ العقل بعينه علّة الاشياء التى تحته بانّه عقل فاذا كان العقل علّة الاشياء بانّه عقل فلا محالة انّ علل الاشياء فى العقل عقليّة ايضا فقد استبان انّ الاشياء فوق العقل وتحته بقوّة عقليّة وكذلك الاشياء الجسمانيّة مع العقل عقليّة والاشياء العقليّة فى العقل عقليّة لانّه علّة انّيّتها ولانّه انّما يدرك الاشياء بنوع جوهره وهو انّه عقل فيدرك الاشياء ادراكا عقليّا عقليّةً كانت الاشياء ام جسمانيّةً

Every intellect knows what is above it and what is below it, except that it knows what is below it in that it is a cause to it, and knows what is above it in that it acquires from it the excellences. And intellect is an intellectual substance, so it is according to the manner of its substance that it knows the things it acquires from above and the things to which it is a cause. It distinguishes, then, what is above it and what is below it, and it knows that what is above it is a cause to it and what is below it is caused by it; and it knows its cause and the thing it causes in the manner in which it itself is — I mean in the manner of its substance. And likewise every knower knows the more excellent thing and the lower, baser thing according to the manner of its own substance and essence, not according to the manner in which the things themselves are. And if this is so, then without doubt the excellences which come down upon intellect from the first cause are intellectual in it, and likewise corporeal perceptible things are intellectual in intellect. That is because the things which are in intellect are not the traces themselves; rather they are the causes of the traces. And the proof of this is that intellect itself is the cause of the things below it in that it is intellect; so if intellect is the cause of things in that it is intellect, then without doubt the causes of the things in intellect are intellectual also. So it has become clear that the things above intellect and below it are by an intellectual power; and likewise corporeal things are intellectual with intellect, and intellectual things are in intellect intellectual, because it is the cause of their being, and because it grasps things only in the manner of its own substance, which is that it is intellect. So it grasps things by an intellectual grasp, whether the things be intellectual or corporeal.

Plate-verified: transcribed line by line from the page images of Bardenhewer 1882 (leaves n83-n104 of archive.org diepseudoaristo00bardgoog).