Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/548

Rh 536 PROCLUS. city. His whole system of emanations seems in fact to be a realization of the logical subordination of ideas. The simplest ideas which are contained in those which are composite being regarded by him as the principles of things. The emanations of Proclus proceeded in a curious triadic manner. That which precedes all power, and emanates immediately from the primal cause of all things, is limit. The power or force which produces existence is infinitude {Theol. Plat. iii. p. 133). From these two principia arises a third, a compound of the two — substance (as a sort of genus of all substances), that which in itself is absolutely an existing thing atid nothing more {l. c. p. 1 35). Everything, according to Proclus, contains in itself being (ovala), life (^wrj), and in- telligence (vovs). The life is the centre of the thing, for it is both an object of thought and exists. The intelligence is the limit of the thing, for the intellect (vovs) is in that which is the object of in- tellect (vo-qTou), and the latter in the former ; but the intellect or thought exists in the thing thought of objectively, and the thing thought of exists in the intellect productively (voepw?). This accord- ingly is the first triad, limit, infinitude, and the compound of the two. Of these the first — the limit — is the deity who advances to the extreme verge of the conceivable from the inconceivable, primal deity, measuring and defining all things, and establishes the paternal, concatenating and immaculate race of gods. The infinite is the in- exhaustible power of this deity. The " mixed " is the first and highest world of gods, which in a concealed manner comprehends everything within itself. Out of this first triad springs the second. As the first of the unities produces the highest exist- ing thing, the intermediate unity produces the intermediate existent thing, in which there is something first — unity, divinity, reality; some- thing intermediate — power ; and something last — the existence in the second grade, conceivable life (voTfTTi f'oiT/) ; for there is in everything which is the object of thought, being (to ehai)^ life (to (iju), and thought (to voety). The third of the unities, the " mixed," produces the third triad, in which the intelligence or thinking power (vovs) attains to its subsistence. This thinking power is the limit and completion of everything which can be the ob- ject of thought. The first triad contains the prin- ciple of union, — the second of multiplicity and increase by means of continuous motion or life, for motion is a species of life, — the third, the principle of the separation of the manifold, and of formation by means of limit. In his treatise on Providence and Fate, Proclus seeks to explain the difference between the two, and to show that the second is subordinate to the first in such a manner that freedom is consistent with it. Both providence and fate are causes, the first the cause of all good, the second the cause of all connection (and connection as cause and effect). There are three sorts of things, some whose opera- tion is as eternal as their substance, others whose substance does not exist, but is perpetually coming into existence, and, between these, things whose substance is eternal, but whose pperation takes place in time. Proclus names these three kinds intellectual, animal and corporeal. The last alone are subjected to fate, which is identical with na- ''**•" aad is itself subject to providence, which is PROCLUS. nothing else than the deity himself. The corpo- real part of man is entirely subject to fate. The soul, as regards its substance, is superior to fate ; as regards its operation, sometimes (referring to those operations which require corporeal organs and motions) beneath, sometimes superior to fate, and so forms the bond of connection between in- tellectual and corporeal existence. The freedom of the soul consists in its living according to virtue, for this alone does not involve servitude. Wicked- ness on the other hand is want of power, and by it the soul is subjected to fate, and is compelled to serve all that ministers to or hinders the gratifi- cation of the desires. Proclus strongly distin- guished the soul from that which is material, pointing out its reflective power as a mark of dif- ference ; the corporeal not being able to turn back in that way upon itself, owing to its consisting of separable parts. He founded on this also an ar- gument for the immortality of the soul. (Inst. Theol. 15.) Some of the topics touched upon in this treatise are carried out still further in the essay On Ten Questions about Providence. In the treatise on the origin of evil (irepi ttjs Tuv KaKcov i/TTOCT-Tao-ews ), Proclus endeavours to show that evil does not originate with God, or with the daemons, or with matter. Evil is the con- sequence of a weakness, the absence of some power. As with the total absence of all power activity would be annihilated, there cannot be any total, unmixed evil. The good has one definite, eternal, universally operating cause, namely God. The causes of evil are manifold, indefinite, and not subject to rule. Evil has not an original, but only a derivative existence. The following works of Proclus are still extant ; — 1. Els rrjv HXdruivos QeoAoyiau, in six books. 2. STotxefoxTiS QeoXoyiKT] (Insiitutio Tlieoloyica). This treatise was first published in the Latin trans- lation of Franciscus Patricius. The Greek text, with the translation of Aem. Portus, is appended to the edition of the last-mentioned work, published at Hamburgh in 1618. 3. A commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato. 4. A commentary on the Timaeus of Plato. Of this commentary on the Timaeus five books remain, but they only treat of about a third of the dialogue. It is appended to the first Basle edition of Plato. 5. Various notes on the notT6ia of Plato, printed in the same edition of Plato as the last-mentioned work. 6. A commentary on the Parmenides of Plato, published in Stallbaum's edition of that dialogue. 7. Portions of a commentary on the Cratylus of Plato, edited by Boissonade, Lips. 1 820. 8. A paraphrase of various difficult passages in the mpdSiSKos avvTa^is of Ptolemaeus: first published, with a preface, by Melanchthon, at Basle, 1554. 9. A treatise on motion (Trepl Kiinjacws), a sort of compendium of the last five books of Aristotle's treatise Trepl (pvcri- KTJs UKpodaeus. 10. 'TnoTvirwais rwv darpovoni- Kwv vTvodfo-euv (Basle, 1520). 11. ':Z<pa7pa, fre- quently appended to the works of the ancient as- tronomers. There are also several separate editions of it. 12. A commentary on the first book of Euclid's elements (attached to various editions of the text of Euclid). 13. A commentary on the "£^70 Kttl Tjfxepai of Hesiod, in a somewhat muti- lated form ('TivSiJ.v'niu.a els rd 'Ho-toSou 6^70 koI Tjfiepas), first published at Venice in 1537. A better edition is that by Heinsius (Leyden, 1603). 14. Xf)7jo"To/id0€ia ypafifMTiKijf or rather some