Tao Te Ching
Proclus Lycaeus Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος
412 – 485 CE
"The most influential Ancient Greek philosopher you've never heard of"
Proclus synthesized Greek philosophy into one system, developed Neoplatonism to its height, and became an important influence on Western medieval philosophy as well as philosophy as a whole. He believed that Plato was divinely inspired and wrote extensive commentaries. He described philosophy as a primary method for raising consciousness above materialism and as a step toward “unification with the One.” With insight into the process of discovering the meaning beneath the sense, he advocated using words to see through the limitation of words and to discover the deeper reality. An inspiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson and the New England Transcendentalists, he taught the Platonic emphasis on “the One,” “Intellect,” and the “Soul.”
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Quotes by Proclus Lycaeus (8 quotes)
“Every being entering into the ineffable sanctuary of its own nature finds there a symbol of the Father of All.”
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“Mathematics reminds you of the invisible form of the soul; she gives life to her own discoveries; she awakens the mind and purifies the intellect; she brings light to our intrinsic ideas; she abolishes oblivion and ignorance which are ours by birth.”
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“This tomb reunites both our bodies. May an identical sojourn be reserved to our both souls!”
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“Those who uncovered and touched this image of life were instantaneously destroyed and shall remain forever exposed to the play of the eternal waves. For the unutterable and the formless must be concealed.”
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“Pythagoras changed philosophy into the form of a liberal doctrine, considered its principles in a more exalted manner; and investigated its theorems immaterially and intellectually, invented a treatise of such things as cannot be explained in geometry, and discovered the constitution of the mundane figures.”
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“All habits come from imitation and similitude: temples imitate the heavens, altars the earth; statues resemble life, and on this account they are similar to animals; prayers imitate that which is intellectual; herbs and stones resemble matter; and animals which are sacrificed, the irrational life of our souls.”
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Quotes about Proclus Lycaeus (3 quotes)
“Procleus approached philosophy through mathematics… gave it a superficially scientific form but he felt the mystic mood of Neoplatonism too; by fasting and purification, he thought, one might enter into into communion with supernatural beings.”
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“Evidently Proclus does not advocate here simply a superstition, but science; for notwithstanding that it is occult, and unknown to our scholars, who deny its possibilities, magic is still a science... a profound and exhaustive knowledge of natural law—this was and is the basis of magic.”
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“[Reading Proclus] I am filled with hilarity and spring, my heart dances, my sight is quickened, I behold shining relations between all beings, and am impelled to write and almost to sing.”
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