Ath.
either we must in all correctness glorify them as actual gods,
984a
or suppose them to be images produced as likenesses of the gods, creations of the gods themselves. For they are the work of no mindless or inconsiderable beings but, as we have said, we must class them as one or other of these things; and, if classed as the latter, we must honor them far above all images: for never will fairer or more generally-known images be found among all mankind, none established in more various places, more pre-eminent in purity, majesty, and
984b
life altogether, than in the way in which their existence is altogether fashioned. Well then, for the present let us attempt so much in treating of the gods, as to try—after observing the two living creatures visible to us, of which we call one immortal, and the other, all earthy, a mortal creation—to tell of the three middle things of the five,
1
which come most evidently, according to the probable opinion, between those two. For let us consider ether as coming next after fire, and let us hold that soul fashions from it live creatures with their faculties, as it does creatures from the other kinds of element,
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each being for the most part of that one nature, but in its lesser parts derived from the other elements for the sake of connection. After ether, there is fashioned by soul another kind of creature from air, and the third kind from water; and by having produced all these it is likely that soul filled the whole heaven with creatures, having made use of all the elements so far as it could, and all the creatures having been made participators in life; but the second, third, fourth, and fifth kinds, which took their first origin from what are manifest gods,
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end finally in us men.
2
Now the gods—Zeus and Hera and all the rest—each man must regard in what light he pleases, though according to the same law, 3 and must take this account as reliable. But as our visible gods, greatest and most honorable and having keenest vision every way, we must count first the order of the stars and all else that we perceive existing with them; and after these, and 984e next below these, the divine spirits, 4 and air-born race, holding the third and middle situation, cause of interpretation, which we must surely honor with prayers for the sake of an auspicious journey across. 5
Now the gods—Zeus and Hera and all the rest—each man must regard in what light he pleases, though according to the same law, 3 and must take this account as reliable. But as our visible gods, greatest and most honorable and having keenest vision every way, we must count first the order of the stars and all else that we perceive existing with them; and after these, and 984e next below these, the divine spirits, 4 and air-born race, holding the third and middle situation, cause of interpretation, which we must surely honor with prayers for the sake of an auspicious journey across. 5
Epinomis. Plato. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1927.
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