Fate. Whatever too is subject to Fate, is also under the dominion of
Providence; having its connection indeed from Fate, but deriving the good
which it possesses from Providence. But again, not all things that are
under the dominion of Providence are indigent of Fate; for intelligibles
are exempt from its sway. Fate therefore is profoundly conversant with
corporeal natures; since connection introduces time and corporeal motion.
Hence Plato, looking to this, says in the Timaeus, that the world is
mingled from intellect and necessity, the former ruling over the latter.
For by necessity here he means the motive cause of bodies, which in other
places he calls Fate. And this with great propriety; since every body is
compelled to do whatever it does, and to suffer whatever it suffers; to
heat or to be heated, to impart or to receive cold. But the elective
power is unknown to a corporeal nature; so that the necessary and the
nonelective may be said to be the peculiarities of bodies.

As there are two genera of things, therefore, the intelligible and the
sensible, so likewise there are two kingdoms of these; that of
Providence, upwards, which reigns over intelligibles and sensibles, and
that of Fate downwards, which reigns over sensibles only. Providence
likewise differs from Fate in the same manner as deity from that which is
divine indeed, but participation, and not primarily. For in other things
we see that which has a primary subsistence, and that which subsists
according to participation. Thus the light which subsists in the orb of
the sun is primary light, and that which is in the air, according to
participation; the latter being derived from the former. And life is
primarily in the soul, but secondarily in the body. Thus also, according
to Plato, Providence is deity, but Fate is something divine, and not a
god: for it depends upon Providence, of which it is as it were the image.
As Providence too is to intelligibles, so is Fate to sensibles. And,
alternately, as Providence is to Fate, so are intelligibles to sensibles.