, according to
participation; a fourth, according to contact; and a fifth, according to
similitude. Thus every superessential nature is primarily a god; but
every intellectual nature is so according to union. And again, every
divine soul is a god according to participation; but divine daemons are
gods according to contact with the gods; and the souls of men obtain this
appellation through similitude. Each of these, however, except the first,
is as we have said, rather divine than a god; for the Athenian Guest in
the Laws, calls intellect itself divine. But that which is divine is
secondary to the first deity, in the same manner as the united is to the
one; that which is intellectual to intellect; and that which is animated
to soul. Indeed, things more uniform and simple always precede, and the
series of beings ends in the one itself.

Doxastic. This word is derived from doxa, opinion, and signifies that
which is apprehended by opinion, or that power which is the extremity of
the rational soul. This power knows the universal in particulars, as that
every man is a rational animal; but it knows not the dioti, or why a
thing is, but only the oti, or that it is.

The Eternal, [Greek: To aionion], that which has a never-ending subsistence,
without any connection with time; or, as Plotinus profoundly defines it,
infinite life at once total and full.

That which is generated, [Greek: to geneton]. That which has not the
whole of its essence or energy subsisting at once without temporal
dispersion.

Generation, [Greek: genesis]. An essence composite and multiform, and
conjoined with time. This is the proper signification of the word; but it
is used symbolically by Plato, and also by theologists more ancient than
Plato, for the sake of indication. For as Proclus beautifully observes
(in MS. Comment in Parmenidem), "Fables call the ineffable unfolding into
light through causes, generation." "Hence," he adds in the Orphic
writings, the first cause is denominated time; for where there is
generation, according to its proper signification, there also there
is time."

A Guest, [Greek: Xenos]. This word, in its more ample signification in
the Greek, denotes a stranger, but properly implies one who receives
another, or is himself received at an entertainment. In the following
dialogues, therefore, wherever one of the speakers is introduced as a
Xenos, I have translated this word guest, as being more conformable to
the genius of Plat