BOOK I CH. VIII § 19. 89

Phaedrus, cf. Grote’s Plato Vol. 11 ch. 36 p. 282 foll, Ambrose objecting from the Christian side, says (Hex. 1 3) ‘the Creator had no need of art gui momento suae voluntatis majestatem tantae operationis inplevit, ut ea quae non erant esse faceret tam velociter, ut neque voluntas operation’ prae- curreret neque operatio voluntate’.
quae molitio—fuerunt. The objection is ‘if we take the term dyyroup- yos literally and look on the Creator as a gigantic builder, where was the needful machinery to be found? or if we accept Plato’s view that the — Snpcovpyos Was incorporeal, and therefore incapable himself of touching or being touched, whom did he employ as his agents? If on the other hand we think of a divine fiat, how could senseless matter act in obedience to this, and what was the origin of those four elements themselves?’ See the answer to this, together with a fragment from 1. D. 11, in Lact. Jnst. Div. 11 8.
mol. ferr. vect. mach. ‘His mode of building, tools, levers, scaffold- ing’.
muneris: used of a public spectacle or a building made over to public use. So in C.’s translation of the Zimaeus (c. 2), is qui aliquod munus efficere molitur=6 Snutovpyos (Pl. Tim. 28 a). It is joined with opus in reference to the creation, WV. D. 1 90 architectum tanti operis tantique muneris, and Tuse.1 70. Cf. Vell. Pat. 11 48 and 130. [Mr Roby suggests that munus in this sense may be etymologically connected with munio and moenta. |
illae quinque formae: Plato represents the Demiurgus as educing the four elements out of the primaeval chaos (materia prima, trn, xepa, rd dexopuevov) by stamping upon it certain geometrical forms, the combination of which gave rise to the five regular solids. The material particles which received the form of the cube constituted earth, those which were in the form of a pyramid constituted fire, the octohedron was the basis of air, the eicosthedron of water, while the dodecahedron was the basis of the universe itself, cf. Zim. 48 B, 53 ¢ foll., Grote’s Plato ur p. 266 foll., R. and P. $§ 269, 270, Phaedo 110 B 8wdexaoxuroe odhaipae with Wytt.’s n., Plut. Def. Or. 34 p. 428, Qu. Conv. vil 2, 3. This theory was borrowed from the Pythagoreans (Plut. de Pl. Ph. 11 6). In the Zpinomis 981 c aether appears as a fifth element, guinta essentia, corresponding to the dodeca- hedron, and this agrees with the statement of Xenocrates preserved in the Scholia to Arist. Phys. p. 427 Brandis. It is strange that none of the editors before Sch. saw the right meaning of the present passage. The reference to the five solids is unmistakable by any reader of the Timaeus, if it is once recognized that religua can only be the four elements just spoken of. Davies however seems to have been thinking more of the latter part of the sentence where the mss have apte cadentes ad animum efficiendum, and puzzled himself to find five constituents of mind (Plato 7im. 35 4 having mentioned only three—the indivisible essence of ideas ravrov, the divisible essence of bodies @arepov, the mixture of both), instead of constituents of
90 BOOK I CH. vit § 19.
matter. Sch.’s emendation aficiendum is generally accepted and gives the required sense. Thus we read, with regard to the origin of sensation and the manner in which it affects the reason, 7’m. 64—68 ‘such parts of the body as are composed of the finer particles of air and fire readily propagate the impulses from without péype mep av eri ro dpovipov €edOovra e€ayyeiAn Tod romjoavtos THY Svvapw: cf. also Tim. 42 Cc speaking of the irrational accretions which gather round the soul from fire and water and air and earth. The only defence for efictendum would be that it is a simple mis- understanding of Plato, which would be natural enough on the part of an Jpicurean, as we shall see when we come to the historical section, but