Liber de causis, proposition 5

prop bardenhewer 5 · pattin prop 5 · bardenhewer page 168-169

Causa prima superior est omni narratione: et non deficiunt linguae a narratione eius nisi propter narrationem esse ipsius, quoniam ipsa est supra omnem causam, et non narratur nisi per causas secundas quae inluminantur a lumine causae primae. quod est quoniam causa prima non cessat inluminare causatum suum, et ipsa non inluminatur a lumine alio, quoniam ipsa est lumen purum supra quod non est lumen. ex illo ergo facta est prima sola cuius deficit narratio, et non est ita nisi quia supra ipsam non est causa per quam cognoscatur, quia omnis quidem res non cognoscitur et narratur nisi ex ipsa causa sua. cum ergo res est causa tantum et non est causatum, non scitur per causam primam neque narratur, quoniam est superior narratione neque consequitur eam loquela. quod est quia narratio non fit nisi per loquelam, et loquela per intelligentiam, et intelligentia per cogitationem, et cogitatio per meditationem, et meditatio per sensum. causa autem prima est supra res omnes quoniam est causa eis: propter illud fit quod ipsa non cadit sub sensu et meditatione et cogitatione et intelligentia et loquela: non est ergo narrabilis. et dico iterum quod res aut est sensibilis, et cadit sub sensu: aut est meditabilis, et cadit sub meditatione: aut est fixa, stans secundum dispositionem unam, et est intelligibilis: aut conuertibilis, destructibilis, cadens sub generatione et corruptione, et est cadens sub cogitatione. et causa prima est supra res intelligibiles, sempiternas et supra res destructibiles, quapropter non cadunt super eam sensus neque meditatio neque cogitatio neque intelligentia. et ipsa quidem non significatur nisi ex causa secunda quae est intelligentia, et non nominatur per nomen causati sui primi nisi per modum altiorem et meliorem: quoniam quod est causatum, est causa iterum, uerumtamen per modum sublimiorem et meliorem et nobiliorem, sicut ostendimus.

The first cause is higher than all description; and tongues fail to describe it only because of the description of its own being, since it is above every cause, and it is described only through the second causes which are illuminated by the light of the first cause. This is because the first cause does not cease to illuminate what it causes, while it is not itself illuminated by another light, since it is pure light above which there is no light. From this, therefore, it came about that the first alone is that of which description fails; and it is so only because above it there is no cause through which it might be known, since indeed no thing is known and described except from its own cause. When, therefore, a thing is a cause only and is not caused, it is not known through a first cause nor described, since it is higher than description and speech does not reach it. This is because description comes about only through speech, and speech through intellect, and intellect through thought, and thought through reflection, and reflection through sense. But the first cause is above all things, since it is a cause to them; and for that reason it comes about that it does not fall under sense, or reflection, or thought, or intellect, or speech. It is not, therefore, describable. And I say again that a thing either is perceptible, and falls under sense; or is an object of reflection, and falls under reflection; or is fixed, standing according to one single disposition, and is intelligible; or is changeable, destructible, falling under generation and corruption, and falls under thought. And the first cause is above intelligible, everlasting things and above destructible things; wherefore neither sense nor reflection nor thought nor intellect falls upon it. And it is signified only from the second cause, which is intellect; and it is not named by the name of what it first causes except in a higher and better way, since what is caused is in turn a cause, yet in a more sublime and better and nobler way, as we have shown.

Plate-verified across the p.168/169 break (leaves n193-n194). No plate/OCR divergence found on this section's core text (the OCR layer reads this stretch cleanly). Apparatus not captured. Phase 3 translation notes — the section that answers El. 123. (a) narratio / narrari are rendered 'description' / 'be described' throughout, and narrabilis 'describable'. El. 123's Greek behind the thought is ἄρρητον καὶ ἄγνωστον, 'ineffable and unknowable'; the English words differ because the Latin words do. (b) The fivefold ladder loquela–intelligentia–cogitatio–meditatio–sensus is rendered speech–intellect–thought–reflection–sense. It answers El. 123's fourfold δόξα / διάνοια / νόησις / αἴσθησις, rendered there opinion, discursive thought, intellection, perception, but the two ladders have different numbers of rungs and the English does not force them into correspondence: 'reflection' for meditatio and 'thought' for cogitatio are this translator's choices, not equivalences to διάνοια and δόξα. (c) 'non deficiunt linguae a narratione eius nisi propter narrationem esse ipsius' is genuinely obscure — 'except because of the description of its own being' is the literal reading and is what is printed; something in the Arabic behind it has not survived the Latin cleanly. Flagged, not smoothed. (d) 'non nominatur per nomen causati sui primi nisi per modum altiorem' likewise: the sense of the last clause, that what is caused is in turn a cause, sits awkwardly with what precedes; translated as printed. (e) sempiternus is 'everlasting' per the glossary.