Proclus

The findings are in The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato.

Lee 4 tad rch ile {7 -ὁ THE er ee / COMMENTARIES OF PROCLUS ON THE TIMAZUS OF PLATO, IN FIVE BOOKS 5 CONTAINING A TREASURY OF | 5001 PYTHAGORIC AND PLATONIC PHYSIOLOGY.

OF that golden chain of philosophers, who, having themselves happily penetrated, luminously unfolded to others the profundities of the philosophy of Plato, Proclus ts indisputably the largest and most refulgent link.

The eulogium therefore of Ammonius Hermeas, “ that Proclus possessed the power of unfolding the opinions of the ancients, and a scientific judgment of the nature of things,in the highest perfection posstale tohumanity,”' will be immediately assented to by every one, who is an adept in the writings of this incomparable man.

For these Commentaries scarcely explain a third part of the Timeus ; and from a passage in Olympiodorus On the Meteors of Anstotle,” there is every reason to believe that Proclus left nu part of the * Fa δὲ τι και ἡμεῖς δυνηθειημεν εισένεγκειν περι τὴν τὸν βιβλίον σαφηνειαν, απονημονένσαντες των εζηγησεων row θειον ἡμων διδάσκαλον LpoxXov τον πλατωνίκον διαδοχον, Tov εἰς axpoy τῆς αγθρωπινηε φυσεωε τὴν τε εξηγητικὴν τῶν δοκουντῶν τοῖς παλαιοις δνναμιν, καὶ τὴν ἐπιστημονίκην rns φυσεως τῶν Ὄντων κρισιν ἀσκησαντος, πολλὴν av τῷ λογιῳ Dew χαριν ομολογησαιμεν- Ammon, de luterpret.

Charles Burney, on being once asked by me, whether he had ever read these Commentaries, candidly replied, ‘that they were too much for hin; atthe same time eaclaiming, ‘‘ What a giant was Proclus compared to Longinus!” ‘This confession, as the Doctor had never studied the philosophy of Plato, displayed a degree of good serse, which is seldom to be met with in a grammarian and philologist, om such an occasion; aud his cundour is still more remarkable, when it is considered that he had been a Reviewer.

And this leads me to make some remarks on the iniquitous opinion which, since the revival of letters, has been generally entertained of the writtigs of Proclus and other philosophers, who are distinguished by the appellation of the latter Platonists, and to show the cause from which it origmated, The opinion to which T allude is this, that Plotinus and his followers, or in other words, all the Platonists that existed from his time to the fall of the Roman empire, and the destruction of the schools of the philosophers by Justinian, corrupted the philosophy of Plato, by filling it with jargon and revery, and by ascribing dogmas to him, which are not to be found in his writings, and which are perfectly absurd.

Hence, as Proclus well observes, !

good than the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was never imparted by divinity * This translation forms the last part of the Opuscula of Thomzus, printed at Venice in the year 1525 ; which work is so scarce, that Fabricius in his account of the Life and Writings of Proclus, (Biblioth.

Ιχ NAMES OF THE PHILOSOPHERS QUOTED BY PROCLUS IN THESE COMMENTARIES.

Procius MaLtores, is mentioned by our Proclus as one of the ancient philosophers, Pytnacoras, the father of philosophy, flourished about the Goth Olympiad, Severus, a Platonist, but the time in which be flourished is not known, Socrates, the celebrated preceptor of Plato, was born in the 4th year of the 77th Olympiad.

Synianus, the preceptor of Proclus, See the notes to this work, Tuaces, was bom in the firt year of the 35th Olympiad, and died in the 58th Olympiad.

κι AN EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN TERMS USED BY PROCLUS IN THIS WORK.

4 PROCLUS ON THE [nook & the whole fabrication of the world.

8 PROCLUS ON THE [Rook 1.

10 PROCLUS ON TIE [Book 1.

“TI see] One, two, three, but where, fricnd Timieus,’ is the fourth * In all the editions of the Timzus, ἡμῖν follows after gure Τίμαιε, but is wanting in these Commentaries of Proclus.

12 PROCLUS ON THE- {nook τ.

18 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 1.

24 PROCLUS ON THE [Boom t.

25 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox ft.

28 PROCLUS ON THE [ROOK 1.

30 PROCLUS ON THE {nook t.

Hence of these, a 5 * The words exaory τέχνῃ are omitted in the text of Proclus.

42 PROCLUs ON THE [nook 1.

54 PROCLUS ON THE ο΄ [RooK 1.

48 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 1.

For he wished, according to the intention of * In the text of Proclus, αληθείαν is erroneously printe 1 for anfecay.

In the text of Proclus it is erroneously eofAa μὲν εσθλα eduve, x.

44 PROCLUS ON THE : [Boox 1.

' The text of Proclus haus, erroneously, καὶ rot των row σωμάσι δυκουντῶν ἀνήκειν Kara τὴν ἀγωνίαν αθλενν Tw, instead of καὶ re γὼν τοῖς σωμασι δοκυνντων προσήκειν κατὰ Τὴν αγωγια) αθλονντα.

60 PROCLUS ON THE (soox 1.

See the oth Book of my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.

3 πολλαχὸν is omitted in the text of Proclus.

70 PROCLUS ON THE (Boox 1.

72 PROCLUS ON THE [Rook 1.

74 PROCLUS ON THE {noox 1.

80 PROCLUS ON THE {poo τ.

forth was the sun, is only to be found in these Commentaries of Proclus.

PY PROCLUS ON 'THE [noox » Gods, but receive also a secondary life, and become the sons of Gods and men.

98 PROCLUS ON THE {woox 1, mundane period, are incorruptible and indestructible.

Tu my copy of the original of these Commentaries, a certain annotator observes in the margin, that * Proclus alludes, in what he here says, to the Christian religion,”

106 PROCLUS ON ΗΒ.

110 PROCLUS ON THE [nook τ.

See my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato,

112 PROCLUS ON THE (Boo 5.

114 PROCLUS ON THE [poox τ.

122 PROCLUS ON THE fBooK ft.

126 PROCLUS ON THE (woo 1.

192 PROCLUS ON THE [nook 1.

134 PROCLUS ON THE [Rook τ.

136 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox 1.

140 PROCLUS ON ‘THE {Rook ".

144 PROCLUS ON THE [RooK 1.

146 PROCLUS ON THE faced.

148 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 1, ancient, but difference, motion, irrationality, and matter, are under the other of these principles.

150 PROCLUS ΟΝ THE {Wook 1, and indefinite nature.

159 PROCLUS ON THE [Roon 4, hut Ptolemy also says that the Lunar mountains are immensely high, and Aristotle informs us that Caucasus is illuminated by the sular rays during the third part of the night after the setting, and also forthe third part before the rising, of the sun.

154 PROCLUS ON ΤῊΝ {noox 1, Plato docs not say that there was once sedition among divine natures, or that subordinate subducd more excellent beings.

156 PROCLUS ON THE {(pooxt.

That these particulars however, have reference to the admirable and orderly distribution of the universe, we shall be convinced by recollecting what is said by " The text of Plato in this place is in the Commentaries of Proclus very erroneous, as the Jearned reader will immediately perceive by comparing it with any of the editions of the Timzus.

100 PROCLUS ON: THE [Boox 1, shown and recalled to the memory by us, in what we have before said.

162 PROCLUS ON THE [moox 1, of refreshing my memory, and afterwards revolving them in my mind by night, I nearly acquired a complete recollection of" the affair.” Why did Critias nearly remember?

164 PROCLUS ON THE [poox τ.

166 PROCLUS ON THE {[poox ἣν sacrifice, indeed, we imitate her practical energy, but through the hymn her theoretic energy.

108 PROCLUS ΟΝ THE [Boox 1.

The men however, are introduced by Critias, conformably to the law and conceptions of Solon, because Solon narrates, that the Athenians were once thus governed, and established laws how children ought to be introduced into the polity, and into the tribes, and how they ought τὸ be registered 5 * For pevovras inthis place, it appears to me to be necessary to read ἐθέλων ταν, * Proclus here alludes to the following Chaldaan oracle: ‘ Direct not your attention to the immense measures of the earth; for the plant of truth is not in the earth.

172 PROCLUS ON THE TIM.EUS OF PLATO.

174 PROCLUS ON TUF.

176 PROCLUS ON THE {Boox 13, that we may return to our true parents the Gods.

178 PROCLUS ON THE [BooK IF the divinities.

150 PROCLUS ΟΝ ‘THE [MOOK Ut sions or symbols inserted by the Demiurgus in the essences of souls, in order that they may be excited to a reminiscence of the Gods who produced them, and whatever else exists.

189 PROCLUS ON THE ~ [ROOK 4.

But Timaus, as also addressing his discourse to men, says that he shall enunciate his own dogmas, not at all busying himself with foreign opi- * The original of the words within the brackets belongs to the text, but is not to be found in the commentaries of Proclus, though as the reader may see, he comments on these words.

188 PROCLUS ON THE τς [poox πὶ nions, but pursuing one path of science.

Was it nade as if it were the section of a certain whole inty parts, or as genus is divided into species, or as the division of one word into many significations, or as that of essence Into accidents, Or vice versa, '-This word is not to be found in any edition of the ‘Timus of Plato; but from this comment of Proclus, it appears that it originally belonged to it.

192 PROCLUS ON THE [s0ox It.

194 PROCLUS ON THE [BooKx 41, are more excellent than every psychical essence, as the division in the Republic manifests.

198 PROCLUS ON THE [RmooK 11.

209 PROCLUS ON THE [ποοκ icount of itself, \est it should be imperfect.

412 PROCLUS ON TITE [βοοκ 11.

216 PROCLUS ON THE [Βοοκ as and that which is alone generated, and that he omits the media; such for instance as, that which is at one and the same time deing and a generated nature, or that which is both generated and being ; of which being and gencrated are adapted to the nature of souls, but vice versa that which is generated and being, are allied to the summit of generated natures.

For Proclus is speaking of the τὸ Ἂν».

220 PROCLUS ON ΤῊ [ποοκ 4t.

222 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox 11.

a4 PROCLUS ON THE (Book 11.

226 PROCLUS ON THE [poo 11.

298 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 15, - is such as the intelligible through similitude to it, but is of a more partial nature ; hence Timwus adds the words a certain to a thing of this kind.

240 PROCLUS ON THE [Βοοκ i.

228 PROCLUS ON ΤῊΣ (BOOK 1|.

234 ' PROCLUS ON THE [Rook 11.

440 PROCLUS ON THE [poox i.

246 PROCLUS ON THE (Book It.

248 PROCLUS ON TIE [Book i.

See the 6th Book of my Translation of Proclus on the theology of Plato.

254 PROCLUS ON THE (Boon 11.

* Proclus here alludes to the fabulous wanderings of Ulysses in the Odyssey.

256 PROCLUS ON THE (Boox 1, ever, who asserts these things, in the first place does not nghtly con-numerate the good with these other causes.

458 PROCLUS ON THE [soon 11, but the monad is prior to the triad.

470 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 1}.

272 PROCLUS ON THE [poox a.

474 PROCLUS ON THE fecon τὸ world, must not be said, as Atticus and Plutarch thought it must, to be unbegotten?

280 PROCLUS ON THE [BOOK tr.

504 PROCLUS ON THE [nook τι.

Plato, however, did not intend to signify in what he there says, that there is an idea of each of these in the intellect of the Demiurgus of the universe; or, in short, that there are ideas of things artificial; but he calls by the name of idea, the reason or productive and forming principle which subsists in the dianoctic power of the artificer, This reason also he says, is the offspring of deity, because he conceived, that this very artificial principle itsclf, is imparted to souls from divinity, Proclus, in the Parmenides, well observes, that an argument.

906 PROCLUS ON THE [BOOK It, intellectually perceive them after the above- mentioned manner.

* In the teat of Proclus, Aoyor is erroneously printed for sepor.

300 PROCLUS ON THE [noox 1, Whether therefore, it be requisite to follow the Aristotelian problems, after what the universe is, and what kind of a thing itis, 1015 necessary to investigate on what account itis.

302 PROCLUS ON THE [soon ‘i.

304 -PROCLUS ON THE [wook 11: which is beyond even intelligibles themselves: for it 1s imparticipable " goodness.

310 PROCLUS ON THE baka he generates all things.

418 PROCLUS ON THE [soox 11.

410 “PROCLUS ON UTIL [wooK 11.

ἢ 322 PROCLUS ON THE [BooK It.

* The word θέον is omitted in the original, but ought evidently to be inserted, because Proclus in the Introduction to this work observes that Nature is a Goddess through being deified.

328 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 11, alteration], he produces successive natures by his very being.

330 ΤΠ PROCLUS ON THE [noo τι.

PROCLUS ON 'THTE {[woox ir pable of arranging themselves.

334 PROCLUS ON THE (woe τι.

336 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox 11.

342 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox 1.

450 PROCLUs ON THE [Βοοκ lt, analogous to essence, will to power, and providence to energy ; because the first indeed, establishes all things; the second moves them to progression; and the third recalls them according to the retrogression of all things to that which is prior to intellect.

* Proclus says this, alluding to the Chaldean oracles, in which Saturn is called ence beyond, and Jupiter twice beyond.

554 PROCLUS ON THE acne, animal by vitality.

358 PROCLUs ON THE [BOOK II, For if in that whichis a whole one thing 15 more, but another less excellent, must not the whole become inferior to its more excellent part, by the addition of that which is less excellent?

360 PROCLUS ON THE [rook 1.

404 PROCLUS ON THE [Book 1f.

368 PROCLUS ON THE [oon τι.

372 PROCLUS ON THE [Rook τι, why do some things in it still remain monadic, but others not?

374 PROCLUS ON THE [noox 11.

See the 5th and 6th Books of my Translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, for an account of the deities called fountains and principles.

478 PROCLUS ON TIE [8οοκ τι.

> In the text of Proclus μεθ᾽ erepoy erroneously instead of μεθ᾽ ἐτέρον.

284 PROCLUS ON THE {Boox "1.

380 PROCLUS ON THE TIMZEUS OF PLATO.

Ὁ In otber words fabrication is either Jovian, or Dienysiacal, or Adontical, as was before observed by Proclus.

494 PROCLUS ON THE [Bpoow Itt.

396 PROCLUS ON THE.

Ὁ The two similar plane numbers 18 and 32 here adduced by Proclus, prove that Gaston Pardies was greatly mistaken in asserting in his Elements of Geometry, “ that if two numbers are similer planes, the greater may be divided into as many squares as there are units in the less.” See the Translation of this work by Harris, p.

412 PROCLUS ON THE [BooR 11}.

But Plato * From the most unfortunate loss of the latter part of these commentaries of Proclus, this method likewise of his fiuding two analogous media between two given lives, is lost.

416 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox 111.

418 PROCLUS ON THE Peeve, of them, since fire is most light and tends upward, but earth is most heavy and tends downward?

424 PROCLUS ON THE foun ti, intellectual?

426 PROCLUS ON THE ; [8οοκ lt.

And again it * Proclus means by this, the wisdom of the Chaldeans, as delivered in their Oracles.

See the 4th Book of wy translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.

436 PROCLUS ON THE : [ROOK ae are not passively affected by these elements, since they do not vanquish them in the same manner as divine bodies, it must be said that they would suffer from them, if they consisted of things similar to the elements.

4838 PROCLUS ON THE | [ποοκ int.

440 PROCLUS ON THE [poox 111.

442 PROCLUS ON THE [Βοοκ rit; tude of the elements of which it consists.

of my translation of Proclus on the Theology of Plato.

{ | { \ “48 PROCLUS ON THE [Rook 111.

448 PROCLUS ON THE [Βοοκ ut, After another manner, however, the same thing may be syllogistically inferred, physically in the way in which Aristotle endeavoured to prove it.

450 ; PROCLUS ON THE {Book 411.

452 PROCLUS ON THE {[nooK 111.

Butin Proclus for ava bad \or aibon, read a\a μαλ᾽ αιθρη.

ie, PROCLUS ON THE [βοοκ 111.

456 PROCLUS ON THE [Boox 11}.

458 PROCLUS ON THE [Boom 111.

Hence the celestial bodies remain immutable ; as of the ancients Proclus, Mulotes, and Philonides assert, and of those that are more modern, al!

409 PROCLUS ΟΝ ἘΠΕ {800K 111.

464 PROCLUS ON THE [Book its.

408 PROCLUS ΟΝ 'THE | [βοοκ itt.

470 PROCLUS ON THE {[BooK tit.

472 PROCLUS ON THE {pook if.

B Proclus Liecochus “ἐς ΓΤ.

I read Thomas Taylor's English of Proclus for the claims a later writer can set beside Plato's own telling of the island, the war, and the floods.

The title page reads The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timæus of Plato, in Five Books; containing a Treasury of Pythagoric and Platonic Physiology.

Title: The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timæus of Plato, in Five Books; containing a Treasury of Pythagoric and Platonic Physiology.

Author: Proclus.

Taylor's introduction, in a footnote, sends the reader to his own translation of Proclus on the first book of Euclid for the life.

Proclus, with Iamblichus and Syrianus, keeps the events and still refers them to the scope of the dialogue (p.

Proclus says he knows no one else of that opinion (p.

Plato, Proclus insists, only says the Saite were very friendly to the Athenians and in a certain manner allied to them (p.

Proclus thinks the speaker may have been the priest of Sais (p.

Proclus does not accept that as a reason to dismiss the priest.

Proclus, with Aristotle, says every part of the earth becomes sea in the infinity of time, and the same place is continent at one time and sea at another.

Proclus will not have the Athenians literally sprung from the soil.

Taylor's footnote says the text of Plato in this place, as Proclus gives it, is very erroneous beside the editions of the Timaeus.

An earthquake a little before Proclus's own time shook Egypt and Bithynia.

Proclus also reads the sinking as the Orphic fall into Tartarus.

The Atlanticus as Proclus has it gathers the gods to punish the Atlantics and ends on Jupiter's address.

Proclus ends Book I with them (p.

Taylor's introduction argues that Proclus is the largest link in the chain of Plato's interpreters, that these commentaries have come down mutilated, and that they scarcely explain a third part of the Timaeus.

He thinks Proclus left no part of the dialogue without elucidation.

He names Olympiodorus on the Meteors of Aristotle, and Marinus, who says the commentaries were written in the flower of Proclus's age and preferred by him beyond his other works.

Before page 1 he lists the philosophers Proclus quotes, with a short notice of each, and he explains the words he will use for Proclus's technical language.

Plato was impelled by the Pythagorean Timaeus on nature, and Taylor has prefixed that treatise to the commentaries, though this volume as I have it opens on Proclus himself.

Timaeus of Locri, in a city whose legislator was Zaleucus, is praised for wealth, birth, office, and the summit of philosophy, and Proclus makes him the image of the one Demiurgus.

A tyrannical turn, Proclus says from the fable in the tenth book of the Republic, can belong to a soul that governed with the gods and now chases apparent power.

Proclus stops on the whole narration about the Atlantics before he takes the words one by one.

That is Porphyry, and Proclus would be surprised if Porphyry differed here from Numenius (pp.

Proclus asks that man to be propitious, and then goes on with the analogies anyway (p.

The race, as Proclus gives it, is this.

Proclus thinks the Charmides rules those out, and then says that to a man who attends to things the pedigree is of no consequence (pp.

Proclus takes two things from the apparent sense.

Proclus calls it greatest as an image of all contrariety, and most renowned as contributing to the visible fabrication.

Proclus returns to Plato's own limit.

Aristotle says memory and sense cannot be the makers of science, but Proclus says they contribute to the reminiscence of wholes.

Proclus takes the fable three ways, historically, physically, and philosophically.

Proclus asks where, in the southern places the Nile flows through, there is a collection of snow.

In my copy of the original of these Commentaries, a certain annotator observes in the margin, that "Proclus alludes, in what he here says, to the Christian religion."

Proclus's own next alternative is that Plato here calls climates places, so that every climate has men even without a deluge or a conflagration, at one time more and at another less.

Proclus takes the small seed as the connection of the former period to the one that follows, in the world as in Athens.

Proclus's own sentence is that all these particulars are a history, and also an indication of the mundane contrariety and the whole order of things.

Proclus adds that this is like souls.

Porphyry's other interpretation is rejected by Iamblichus, and Proclus reports it anyway.

Proclus then spells out what would follow if one stayed with Porphyry.

Proclus reads "briefly" as the union of many powers, the laws as images of a divided fabrication united by intellect, and the most beautiful work as the orderly distribution carried to one beautiful end (p.

Syrianus, whom Proclus follows, makes three pairs.

Proclus extends that energy of Minerva from the paradigms downward.

Proclus says we learn from history that the affairs of the Athenians are more ancient than those of the Saitans, that the establishment of their city is prior, and that their laws are more proximate to Minerva.

Proclus notes that, asks the divine man to be propitious, and then interprets anyway.

Proclus draws the moral for the island.

Taylor's footnote on that page says the text of Plato here, in the commentaries of Proclus, is very erroneous, as the reader will see by comparing it with any edition of the Timaeus.

From these words Proclus assumes again that the narration about the Atlantics is not a fiction, as some have supposed, but a history, yet having an affinity to the whole fabrication of the world.

Proclus says Hermocrates is the adjutor of Critias in the words, the deeds being Critias's.

Proclus finishes the book in conformity to Plato, having adopted their order (p.

Proclus will not leave matter as a second principle beside God, ungenerated by any cause.