The Theology of Plato, in six books — trans. Thomas Taylor

ove us. And these media are the golden chain of powers that have deified summits, or (hat have the ineffable united with the citable.

xllV INTKODUCTION.

of things, and this, as k appears to me id (he greatest perfection possible to mm. For the reasoning ia every where consummately accurate, and deduced from eelf-evident priiiciplei ; and the conclusions are the result of what Plato powerfully call* geometrical neceaaitiei. To the reader of thia work indeed, who haa not been properly disciplined io Eleatic and Academic studies, and who haa not a genius naturally adapted to such abetruae speculations, it will doubtless appear to be perfectly unintelligible, and in the language of critical cant, nothing but jargon and revery. Thia, however, ia what Plato the great bierophant of this theology predicted would be the caae, if ever it was unfolded to the multitude at large. " For a$ it appears to me,^iayi he, there art

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In his seventh epistle also he oWrves a* follows : " Thus much, however, I shall &ay respecting all thoae who either have written or shall write, affirming that they know those thinga which are the objects of my study (whether they have heard them from me or from others, or whether they have discovered them themselves) thnt they have not heard any thing about these things conformable to my opinion : for I never have written nor ever shall write about them.1 For a thing of ibis kind cannot be expressed by words like other discipline*, but by long familiarity, and living in conjunction with the thing itself, a light* as it were leaping from a fire will on a sudden be enkindled in the soul, and there itself nourish itself." And shortly after he adds ; " But if it appeared to me that the particulars of which I am speaking could be sufficiently communicated to the multitude by writing or speech, what could we accomplish more beautiful in life than to impart a mighty benefit to mankind, and lead an intelligible nature into light, ao as to be obvious to all men i I think, however, that an attempt of this kind would only be beneficial to a few, who from some small veatigea previously demonstrated are themselves able to discover these abstruse particulars. But with respect to the rest of manund, some it will fill with a contempt by no means elegant, and others with a lofty and arrogant hope that they shall now learn certain venerable things."4

Km nttvtamtomf*. Epist. 9.

to discover these abstruse particulars. But with respect to the rest of manund, some it will fill with a contempt by no means elegant, and others with a lofty and arrogant hope that they shall now learn certain venerable things."4

Km nttvtamtomf*. Epist. 9.

* Plato means by this, that he has never written perspicuously about imuUigMa or true being; toe proper objects of intellect.

' This light is a thing of a very different kind from that which is produced by the evidence arising from truths perceptible by the multitude, as those who have experienced it well know.

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INTRODUCTION.

The prediction of Plato therefore, has been but too truly fulfilled in the fate which baj attended the writing! of the best of bis disciples, among whom Proclut certainly maintains the most distinguished rank. This indeed, these disciples well knew would be the case ; but perceiving that the hand of Barbaric and despotic power was about to dettroy the school* of the philosophers, and foreseeing that dreadful naht of ifuorancc and folly which succeeded so nefarious an undertaking they benevolently disclosed in as luminous a manner as the subject would permit, toe arcana of their master's doctrines, thereby, as Plato expresses it, giving assistance to Philosophy, and also preserving it as a paternal and immortal inheritance, to the latest posterity. Proclus in the first book of this work has enumerated the requisites which a student of it ought to possess ; and it is most certain that be who does not possess them, will never fathom the depths of this theology, or perceive his mind irradiated with that admirable light, mentioned by Plato in the foregoing extract, and which is only to be seen by that eye of the soul which is better worth saving than tea thousand corporeal eyes.

With respect to the diction of Proclus in this work, its general character is that of purity, clearness, copiousness, and magnificence ; so that even the fastidious critic, who considers every Greek writer as partially barbarous who lived after the fall of the ever unwillingly, be forced to acknowledge that Proclus is a splendid exception.

that of purity, clearness, copiousness, and magnificence ; so that even the fastidious critic, who considers every Greek writer as partially barbarous who lived after the fall of the ever unwillingly, be forced to acknowledge that Proclus is a splendid exception. The i Kepler, whose decision on this subject, outweighs in my opinion, that of a sown of mo critics, after having made a long extract from the commentaries of Proclus on Euclid, gives the following animated encomium of his diction. " O ratio fluit ipsi torrcntis instar, ripas bundans, et gurgitesque occulta ns, dum mci it." i. e. " His language flows like a torrent, i hiding the dark fords and whirlpools of doubts, while his mind full of the majesty of things of such a magnitude, struggles in the straits of language, and the conclusion never satisfying him, exceeds by the copia of words, the simplicity of the propositions." If we omit what Kepler here says about the struggle of the mind of Proclus, and his never being satisfied with the conclusion, the rest of bis eulogy is equally applicable to the style of the present work, so far as it is possible for i to be combined with the rigid accuracy of geometrical i

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INTBODOCT10N.

With respect to the life of Proclus, it his been written with great elegance by his disciple Marions ; and a translation of it by me prefixed to my version of the commentaries of Proclus was published in 1788. From the edition of that life therefore, by Fabricius, the following particulars relative to this very extraordinary man are extracted, for the information of the reader who may not have the translation of it in his possession. According to the accurate chronology then of Fabricius, Proclus was born at Byzantium in the year of Christ 412, on the 6th of the Ides of February, and died in the one hundred and twenty-fourth year after the reign of the emperor Julian, on the seventeenth day of the Attic Munichion, or the April of the Romans, Nicagoran the junior, being at that time the Athenian archon.