Life. — Proclus was of Lycian origin, and was born in Constantinople in 412. He received his first instruction at Xanthus, in Lycia (whence his surname " Lycius"). His philosophic training he enjoyed at Alexandria, where he studied under Arion, Leonaras, Hero, and es- pecially under Olympiodorus, with whom he applied himself chiefly to Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy. Thence he went to Athens, where a certain Plutarch, a philosopher, and his daughter, and later Syrianus, became his instructors. Asclepigieneia, a priestess of Eleusis, instructed him chiefly in theurgic myste- ries. . The vivid imagination and enthusiastic temper- ament which in his childhood had led him to believe in apparitions of Minerva and Apollo, naturally con- vinced him, when all the influences of the Mysteries (q. v.) were brought to bear upon him, still more of his immediate and direct intercommunication with the gods ; and he distinctly believed himself to be one of those through whom divine revelation reaches man- kind. His soul, he thought, had once lived in Nicoma- chus the Pythagorean, and, like him, he had the power to command the elements to a certain extent, to pro- duce rain, to temper the sun's heat, etc. The Orphic poems, the writings of Hermes, and all that strangely mystical literature with which the age abounded, were to him the only source of true philosophy, and he con- sidered them all more or less in the light of divine rev- elations. That same cosmopolitan spirit in religious matters which pervaded Rome towards her end had spread throughout all the civilized "pagan" world of those days, and Proclus distinctly laid it down as an axiom that a true philosopher must also be a hiero- phant of the whole world. Acquainted with all the creeds and rites of the ancient Pantheons of the differ- ent nations, he not only philosophized upon them in an allegorizing and symbolizing spirit, as many of his con- temporaries did, but practiced all the ceremonies, how- ever hard and painful. More especially the practice of fasting in honor of Egyptian deities, while on the one hand it fitted him more and more for his hallucina- tions and dreams of divine intercourse, on the other hand more than once endangered his life. Of an im- pulsive piety, and eager to win disciples from Christi- anity itself, he made himself obnoxious to the Christian
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authorities at Athens, who, in accordance with the spirit of religious intolerance and fanaticism which then be- gan i" animate the new and successful religion against which Proclus waged constant war, banished him from that city. < >n being permitted to return, he acted with somewhat more prudence and circumspection, and only allowed his mosl approved disciples to take part in the nightly assemblies in which he propounded his doc- trines. He died in 485, in his full vigor, and in the entire possession of all his mental powers, for which he was no Kss remarkable than for his personal beauty and strength. As a philosopher he enjoyed the highest ce- lebrity among his contemporaries and successors. Ma-
rinus dors scruple to call Proclus absolutely inspired,
and to affirm that when he uttered his profound dogmas his countenance shone with a preternatural light. Be- sides his other philosophical attainments, he was a dis- tinguished mathematician, astronomer, and grammarian. In style Proclus is much more perspicuous and intelli- gible than his predecessor Plothius; indeed, he is on the whole a good writer, and occasionally is almost el- oquent. But the matter of his works has not much to recommend it: his propensity to allegorize everything, even the plainest, and simplest expressions in the au- thors on whom he comments, must deduct largely from his merits as an expounder of oilier men's thoughts; and but for the interest which attaches to him as the last of a school of philosophy, it is not much to be re- gretted that his works have slumbered so long in the dust of libraries, and have been either wholly neglected or imperfectly edited.
UU Philosophical Sgsti »>.- -In the writings of Proclus there i- collated, arranged, and dialectically elaborated the whole body of transmitted philosophy, augmented by large additions, and the whole combined into a sort of system, to which he succeeded in giving the appear- ance of Btricl logical connection. He professed that bis design was not to bring forward views of his own. but simply to expound Plato, in doing which he pro- ceeded on the idea that everything in Plato must be brought into accordance with the mystical theology of Orpin mis. lie looked upon the Orphic poems and Chal- daean oracles, which he had diligently studied, as divine revelations, and capable ol becoming instrumental to philosophy by means of an allegorical exposition. He therefore wrote a separate work on the coincidence of the doctrines of Orpheus. Pythagoras, and Plato. Ii was in much the same spirit that he attempted to blend together the logical method of Aristotle and the fanciful speculations of Neo-Platonic mysticism, lie called him- self, as we have already had occasion to say, the last link of the llermaic chain, that is. the last of men con- secrated by Hermes, in whom, by perpetual tradition, was preserved the occult knowledge of the .Mysteries. Where reasoning fails him, he takes refuge in the 7n-
arir of PlotinuS, which is superior to knowledge, lie C lucts us to the operations of theurgy, which tran- scends all human wisdom, and comprises within itself all the advantages of divinations, purifications, ini- tiations, and all the activities of divine inspiration. I hrough ii we are united with the primeval unity, in which every motion and energy of our souls comes to ivm. Il is this principle which unites not only men with lokIs. but the gods with each other, ami with the one the good, which is of all things the most credible. Proi Lus " held, in all ils leading features, the doctrine of emanations from one ultimate, primeval principle of all things, the absolute unity, towards union with which again all things Btrive. This union he did not, like Plotinus, conceive to lie effected by means of pure rea- son, as even things destitute of reason and energy par- ticipate in ii. purely as the result of their subsistence (rmm.o-, Theol. Plat. i. 25; ii. 1. 4). In some unac- countable way. therefore, he must have conceived the mans, by which he represents ibis union as being ef fected, as something which did not involve rational or thinking activity. All inferior existences are connected