The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 1 of 2) : $b translated from the Greek, to which a seventh book is added, in order to supply the deficiency of another book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost, also, a translation from the Greek of Proclus' Elements of theology, to which are added a translation of the treatise of Proclus, On providence and fate, a translation of extracts from his treatise, entitled, Ten doubts concerning — Plato — John Shaqi
The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 1 of 2) : $b translated from the Greek, to which a seventh book is added, in order to supply the deficiency of another book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost, also, a translation from the Greek of Proclus' Elements of theology, to which are added a translation of the treatise of Proclus, On providence and fate, a translation of extracts from his treatise, entitled, Ten doubts concerning
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“So great an apprehension indeed, says Dr. Stillingfleet,[27] had the
Heathens of the necessity of _appropriate acts of divine worship_,
that some of them have chosen to die, rather than to give them to what
they did not believe to be God. We have a remarkable story to this
purpose in Arrian and Curtius[28] concerning Callisthenes. Alexander
arriving at that degree of vanity, as to desire to have divine worship
given him, and the matter being started out of design among the
courtiers, either by Anaxarchus, as Arrian, or Cleo the Sicilian, as
Curtius says; and the way of doing it proposed, viz. by incense and
prostration; Callisthenes vehemently opposed it, _as that which would
confound the difference of human and divine worship, which had been
preserved inviolable among them_. The worship of the Gods had been
kept up in temples, with altars, and images, and sacrifices, and hymns,
and prostrations, and such like; _but it is by no means fitting_,
says he, _for us to confound these things, either by lifting up men
to the honours of the Gods, or depressing the Gods to the honours
of men_. For neither would Alexander suffer any man to usurp his
royal dignity by the votes of men; how much more justly may the Gods
disdain for any man to take their honours to himself. And it appears by
Plutarch,[29] that the Greeks thought it a mean and base thing for any
of them, when sent on an embassy to the kings of Persia, to prostrate
themselves before them, because this was only allowed among them in
divine adoration. Therefore, says he, when Pelopidas and Ismenias were
sent to Artaxerxes, Pelopidas did nothing unworthy, but Ismenias let
fall his ring to the ground, and stooping for that was thought to make
his adoration; which was altogether as good a shift as the Jesuits
advising the crucifix to be held in the Mandarins’ hands while they
made their adorations in the Heathen temples in China.