Syrianus page.line 120.3-31 · aristotle M.5 1080a2, 1080a4

Ἐν δὲ … κινῆσον. Δεῖ μὲν ἀεὶ τὰς ὅλας ποιήσεις τῶν θείων εἰδῶν ἐνεργείᾳ εἶναι (καὶ διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν οὐδέποτε εἶδος ὅλον ἐκλείπειν τὸν κόσμον δυνήσεται· ἀπειροδυνάμου γὰρ ὄντος τοῦ αἰτίου διὰ τὴν ἁπλότητα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν ἀμέρειαν ἀνάγκη μὴ διαλείπειν τὰ ἀποτελέσματα)· τὸ δὲ μερικὸν οὐκ ἂν μετάσχοι τῆς ἰδέας, εἰ μὴ ὕλην ἔχοι [ἢ] πρὸς τὴν μετάληψιν αὐτῆς ἐπιτηδείαν. ἡ τοίνυν προπαρασκευὴ τῶν ἐν κινήσει φερομένων ὑλικῶν αἰτίων τὸν ὧν οὐκ ἄνευ λόγον ἐπέχει. Καὶ πολλὰ … εἴδη. Εἴδη μὲν δημιουργικὰ τῶν μήτε ὄντων ἐν τῇ φύσει μήτε ὑπὸ τῆς φύσεως δημιουργουμένων οὐκ ἀπελίμπανον οἱ ἄνδρες· καὶ τοῦτό γε ὀρθῶς ἱστορεῖ, ὅτι τῶν τεχνητῶν εἴδη οὐκ ᾤοντο εἶναι νοερὰ καὶ θεῖα· λόγους δὲ παραδειγματικωτέρους τῶν ἀποτελεσμάτων τεχνικοὺς οὐκ ἐκείνοις ἤρεσκε μόνοις ἐνυπάρχειν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ τῶν τεχνιτῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτῷ Ἀριστοτέλει πολλαχοῦ δεδογμένον ἐστίν. ὃ καὶ μάλιστα δίκαιον ἂν εἴη λέγειν τοὺς τῶν εἰδῶν φίλους πρὸς αὐτόν· πῶς γὰρ τὰ τεχνητὰ διὰ παραδειγμάτων ἐπιτελεῖσθαι συγχωρῶν καὶ ἐν τούτοις οὐκ ἀποδοκιμάζων τὴν παραδειγματικὴν αἰτίαν τὰ τῆς φύσεως ἔργα, ἃ δὴ μιμεῖται καὶ ἡ τέχνη, ἀσκόπως ἐπιτελεῖσθαί φησι πρὸς οὐδὲν ὡρισμένον αἴτιον ἀναφερομένης τῆς φυσικῆς ποιήσεως; καίτοι γε ἐνιαχοῦ λέγει καὶ αὐτὸς τὴν φύσιν τοῦ εἴδους ἐφίεσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὸν λόγον οὐ διαρθροῖ· ποίου γὰρ εἴδους; πότερον τοῦ ἐν κινήσει φερομένου καὶ ἐνύλου; ἀλλὰ τοῦτο οὔ πω πεποίηκε καὶ δεύτερόν ἐστι τῆς φύσεως καὶ τῷ ἀνειδέῳ καὶ ἀμόρφῳ συμπλέκεται· καὶ ἄτοπον τὴν φύσιν τοῦ τε μηδέπω ὄντος ἐρᾶν καὶ τοῦ μεθ’ ἑαυτὴν καὶ τοῦ στερήσει συναναφερομένου καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἀκαλλοῦς γιγνομένου καὶ ἀνεράστου. εἰ δὲ τοῦ χωριστοῦ, ἵνα καὶ τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ καὶ τοῦ πρὸ αὐτῆς καὶ θείου κατὰ τὸ ἀληθὲς εἴδους ἔχῃ τὸν ἔρωτα, πᾶσα ἀνάγκη τοῦτο νοερὸν εἶναι καὶ ἄυλον καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχειν, ἵνα καὶ τῆς φύσεως ὅ τε ἔρως ἄσβεστος ᾖ καὶ ἀνέκλειπτος ἡ ποίησις.

'In the Phaedo … to set them moving.' The universal makings of the divine Forms must always be in act — and for this reason no Form can ever wholly fail the cosmos, for since the cause is of unlimited power, through its simplicity and its partlessness, its effects cannot lapse. But the particular could not participate in the Idea unless it had matter fit to receive it. The preparation made by the material causes that are borne along in motion, then, holds the place of the 'that without which not'. 'And many … Forms.' Those men did not posit demiurgic Forms of the things that neither are in nature nor are crafted by nature; and he reports this rightly, that they did not think there were intellectual and divine Forms of things made by art. But that more paradigmatic rational forms of the products, belonging to the arts, are present in the soul of craftsmen was not their view alone; Aristotle himself holds it in many places. And this is what the friends of the Forms would be most justified in saying to him: how can he grant that things made by art are brought to completion through patterns, and not reject the paradigmatic cause in their case, and yet say that the works of nature — which art itself imitates — are brought to completion without aim, as though nature's making were referred to no determinate cause? Yet in some places he himself says that nature aims at form; but he does not articulate the account. At which form? At the form borne along in motion and enmattered? But that form nature has not yet made, and it is secondary to nature and entangled with what is formless and shapeless; and it is absurd that nature should love what does not yet exist, what comes after itself, what is carried along with privation and is for that reason without beauty and unlovable. But if at the separate form — so that nature's love may be for the true form, prior to it and truly divine — then this form must of necessity be intellectual and immaterial and always the same and in the same state, so that nature's love may be unquenched and its making unfailing.

Syrianus comments on Metaphysics M.5, the doublet of A.9 991b3-5; the lemmata are abbreviated as Kroll prints them and quoted in single quotes in the English. The Forms are capitalised where Syrianus means the divine, separate Forms, and lowercase for the form 'borne along in motion and enmattered', which is the distinction his answer turns on. ἐπιτηδεία, 'fit', is matter's fitness to receive the Idea (glossary, ἐπιτηδειότης). 'That without which not' is Plato's phrase for the necessary condition as opposed to the cause (Phaedo 99b). λόγοι are 'rational forms' and ἔρως is 'love' (glossary); ἀμόρφῳ is 'shapeless' (glossary, ἄμορφος).

Greek collated line by line against the Kroll plate (CAG VI.1, p. 120, leaf n141) 2026-09-29.

In the crux Ennead III.8 [30], On Nature and Contemplation and the One, chapter 2