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
Plato · en
“We ought not, however, to wonder if the Egyptians love such slender
similitudes, since the Greeks also, both in their pictures and statues,
employ many such like resemblances of the Gods. Thus in Crete, there
was a statue of Jupiter without ears. For it is fit that he who is the
ruler and lord of all things, should hear no one.[41] Phidias also
placed a dragon by the statue of Minerva, and a snail by that of Venus
at Elis, to show that virgins require a guard, and that keeping at
home and silence become married women. But the trident of Neptune is
a symbol of the third region of the world, which the sea possesses,
having an arrangement after the heavens and the air. Hence also,
they thus denominated Amphitrite and the Tritons. The Pythagoreans
likewise adored numbers and figures with the appellations of the
Gods. For they called the equilateral triangle Minerva Coryphagenes,
or begotten from the summit, and Tritogeneia, because it is divided
by three perpendiculars drawn from the three angles. But they called
the _one_ Apollo, being persuaded to this by the obvious meaning
of the word Apollo [which signifies a privation of multitude] and by
the simplicity of the monad.[42] The duad they denominated strife and
audacity; and the triad justice. For since injuring and being injured
are two extremes subsisting according to excess and defect, justice
through equality has a situation in the middle. But what is called the
tetractys, being the number 36, was, as is reported, their greatest
oath, and was denominated the world. For this number is formed from the
composition of the four first even, and the four first odd numbers,
collected into one sum.[43] If therefore the most approved of the
philosophers did not think it proper to neglect or despise any occult
signification of a divine nature when they perceived it even in things
which are inanimate and incorporeal, it appears to me, that they in
a still greater degree venerated those peculiarities depending on
manners which they saw in such natures as had sense, and were endued
with soul, with passion, and ethical habits. We must embrace therefore,
not those who honor these kings, but those who reverence divinity
through these, as through most clear mirrors, and which are produced by
nature, in a becoming manner, conceiving them to be the instruments or
the art of the God by whom all things are perpetually adorned. But we
ought to think that no inanimate being can be more excellent than one
that is animated, nor an insensible than a sensitive being, not even
though some one should collect together all the gold and emeralds in
the universe. For the divinity is not ingenerated either in colours,
or figures, or smoothness; but such things as neither ever did, nor
are naturally adapted to participate of life, have an allotment more
ignoble than that of dead bodies. But the nature which lives and sees,
and has the principle of motion from itself, and a knowledge of things