"To this objection I shall make a just and perspicuous reply. I say then that Plato every where discourses about the gods agreeably to ancient opinions and the nature of things. And sometimes indeed, for the sake of the cause of the things proposed, he reduces them to the principles of the dogmas, and thence, as from an exalted place of survey, contemplates the nature of the thing proposed. But some times he establishes the theological science as the leading end. For in the Phaedrus, his subject respects intelligible beauty, and the participation of beauty pervading thence through all things; and in the Banquet it respects the amatory order.
"But if it be necessary to consider, in one Platonic dialogue, the all-perfect, whole and connected, extending as far as to the complete number of theology, I shall perhaps assert a paradox, and which will alone be apparent to our familiars. We ought however to dare, since we have begun the assertion, and affirm against our opponents, that the Parmenides, and the mystic conceptions of this dialogue, will accomplish all you desire. For in this dialogue, all the divine genera proceed in order from the first cause, and evince their mutual suspension from each other. And those indeed which are highest, connate with the one, and of a primary nature, are allotted a form of subsistence, characterized by unity, occult and simple; but such as are last are multiplied, are distributed into many parts, and excel in number, but are inferior in power to such as are of a higher order; and such as are middle, according to a convenient proportion, are more composite than their causes, but more simple than their proper progeny. And, in short, all the axioms of the theological science appear in perfection in this dialogue; and all the divine orders are exhibited subsisting in connection. So that this is nothing else than the celebrated generation of the gods, and the procession of every kind of being from the ineffable and unknown cause of wholes.[10] The Parmenides therefore, enkindles in the lovers of Plato the whole and perfect light of the theological science. But after this, the aforementioned dialogues distribute parts of the mystic discipline about the gods, and all of them, as I may say, participate of divine wisdom, and excite our spontaneous conceptions respecting a divine nature.