His work on the apostacy of the Academy from Plato (Περὶ τῆς τῶν Ἀκαδημαϊκῶν πρὸς Πλάτωνα διαστάσεως), to judge from its rather numerous fragments (ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. 14.5-9), contained a minute and wearisome account of the outward circumstances of those men, and was full of fabulous tales about their lives, without entering into the nature of their scepticism.
His books Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ seem to have been of a better kind; in them he had minutely explained, mainly in opposition to the Stoics, that existence could neither be found in the elements because they were in a perpetual state of change and transition, nor in matter because it is vague, inconstant, lifeless, and in itself not an object of our knowledge; and that, on the contrary, existence, in order to resist the annihilation and decay of matter, must itself rather be incorporeal and removed from all mutability (Frag. apud Euseb. Praep. Ev. 15.17), in eternal presence, without being subject to the variation of time, simple and imperturbable in its nature by its own will as well as by influence from without. (Ib. 11.10.) True existence, according to him, is identical with the first god existing in and by himself, that is, with good (τὸ ἀγαθόν), and is defined as spirit (νοῦς, ib.. 11.18, 9.22). But as the first (absolute) god existing in himself and being undisturbed in his motion, could not be creative (δημιουργικός), he thought that we must assume a second god, who keeps matter together, directs his energy to it and to intelligible essences, and imparts his spirit to all creatures; his mind is directed to the first god, in whom he beholds the ideas according to which he arranges the world harmoniously, being seized with a desire to create the world. The first god communicates his ideas to the second, without losing them himself, just as we communicate knowledge to one another, without depriving ourselves of it. (Ibid. 11.18.) In regard to the relation existing between the third and second god, and to the manner in which they also are to be conceived as one (probably in opposition to the vague duration of matter), no information can be derived from the fragments which have come down to us. [Ch. A. B.]
William Smith. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. London. John Murray: printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square and Parliament Street. In the article on Soranus, we find: "at this present time (1848)" and this date seems to reflect the dates of works cited. 1873 - probably the printing date.
